ATM WTF

I have a real problem with ATMs

Not just the fundamental issue of having to rely on a machine to present me with my own money in order to buy food to ensure my on-going survival – it’s something a little more prosaic than that.

It’s the beeps. The nagging beeps that harass you to remove your card or remove the money once it’s been squeezed out through the machine’s mealy-mouthed pinch rollers.

I get that the beeps are there as some kind of auditory spur, to prompt you into physically interacting with the machine at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner. I get that they are an aid to informing people with visual impairments that a step in the process they have undertaken has just been completed.

But I hear the beeps as an impatient nag. An antisocial klaxon that announces to the world that I haven’t removed my card or my cash quick enough for the machine’s liking. It’s like beeping a car horn at someone because they aren’t moving fast enough or are in your way.

I find myself constantly in a race against the machine’s sensors; trying to whip out my card before the machine can get in that first beep; cursing when I inevitably fail to do it. Because let’s face it most ATM’s have a grip like a pornstar sucking… er… an ice lolly (for example).

The beeps are just too abrasive. Too impersonal. Too open to negative interpretation.

Surely a recorded voice would be better? Somebody like Kate Winslet softly intoning things like, “Thank you for using me to fulfil your transactional needs – you may now remove your huge wad from my slot.” I wouldn’t mind if the world and his daughter heard that emanating from the ATM I was using.

Of course, these messages would need to be carefully regulated and recorded solely off-site. Giving the local cashiers access to recording their own messages would only lead to trouble. Messages like “You can now remove your penis from my portal” or “You have been too late with your withdrawal and there is a chance I am now pregnant” would undoubtedly turn many a head in your local branch of HSBC and not in a good way.

But all things considered they would be an improvement on the beeps and might even be good for business. I’m sure I can’t be the only person who would rather the world saw me as a pervert with a cashpoint fetish rather than just another slightly OCD nerd.

Can I?

The BARFTAs

You won’t have heard my name mentioned at last night’s BAFTA awards but you may have heard one of my jokes.

At least I think it was one of mine. It was a pretty damned weird coincidence if it wasn’t.

Some of you may have heard of this “Twitter” thing. A few of you may even use it on occasion. I know I tend to use it very occasionally. And like a lot of people on Twitter sometimes I get sucked into “Following” various celebs just to feel idiotically closer to them. The whole thing is very shallow and needy and more than a little shameful.

On occasion, when temptation gets the better of me, I may even try and send a Tweet to one of my favourite celebs, just in passing, nothing heavy meant by it and the whole exercise in no way affects my emotional or mental state to have you ignore me yet again, thank you very much, that is the last time I EVER EVER watch one of your shows, do you hear me you arrogant stuck up arsehole?

Because, of course, these people are bombarded with Tweets from needy idiots all the time wanting the instant gratification of a response from someone famous just to they can write a blog post about it. So many Tweets in fact that you have more chance of seeing Romola Garai’s stiches than having your Tweet actually seen by the intended recipient let alone having it replied to (and you will have to have watched last night’s BAFTAs to get the stitches reference).

I know this. So I have Tweeted a celeb on no more than 3 occasions in all my years using Twitter. Most of the time I am sane enough to keep away from such shenanigans. But sometimes, just sometimes, I get drawn in.

As I did yesterday morning. I just happened to see a Tweet from buoyant Northern comedy lass, Sarah Millican. She was on her way to the BAFTAs, was plainly nervous and so had done “a little sick in her mouth”.

To which yours truly, unsung comedy genius and master of quick wit and repartee that I am, replied, “Shouldn’t it be the BARFTAs then?”

The awkward Twitter silence that followed that gag made me feel pretty sick I can tell you. But I shrugged it off – *sigh* I never learn – and felt no negative feelings towards Sarah Millican; she's lovely. I rationalized it. It was my neediness that was at fault not the fact that she was too busy. C’est la vie.

And then at the BAFTA’s, lo and behold, whilst presenting an award Sarah makes a reference to the difference in Northern and Southern pronunciation and that now she was down South she ought to pronounce BAFTA “BARFTA”…

So a different spin put on it but the punch-line was essentially mine.

Right?

Or am I reading too much into it?

Was it just a coincidence?

To be honest, I don’t want any credit. Just the opposite. I want to assuage some guilt. The joke fell flat and I feel responsible.

Sarah, I’m sorry, pet. I feel like I really let you down.

Tweet me soon and we’ll talk about it. Kay?

Large Print

Even those who view eBooks and Kindles with suspicion, hostility and derision will, one day, come to see them as having an invaluable saving grace. Though this brave proclamation does very much depend on the vanity of the Kindle-hater in order for it to come to pass.

See, time was, many moons ago I worked in a nursing home for the elderly. It was without doubt or the word of a lie the happiest time of my life career-wise. Even the many sad departures of the inmates did little to dent my blind, arrogant comfort in my own youth and immortality. I was young and untouchable (sadly a rare condition in this day and age).

But one thing did give me a little wobble at the cellular spiritual level.

Large print books.

The home had its own collection which was augmented by a travelling library. Awful abridged Catherine Cookson-esque tomes with print the size of the shop sign outside Specsavers. Stories of days gone by, stories of balls, horses, steam boats, emigration to the Americas and the redemption of cross-class love during the futility of war. And Wooster-ish men with nicknames like Chippy or Tiddler.

One day, that little voice in my head used to say, you’ll be reading books like that. You won’t want to but you’ll have no choice but to ‘cos there’s no way they’ll have large print sci-fi or large print fantasy. All you’ll have is ladies in ball gowns and men in tweed jackets with shrapnel in their left leg called Rupert. The men are called Rupert, by the way, not the shrapnel.

And you won’t die of old age but of shame. There’ll be no way to hide it. The books are so big and the print so large everybody will know. Everybody will know that you are reading large print OAP “period” romance and quite probably re-reading the same sentence over and over again due to the onset of dementia. And that will be worse because it means the shame will be forever fresh and you’ll never ever get acclimatized to it, instead you will discover it anew each time you re-read that single sentence. Over and over again. God, this print is a bit big. And who the hell is Tiddler? Oh God. Please tell me I’m not... oh God, I am... I am... I... ooh this looks an interesting book. I may as well give it a go to relieve the boredom. Here we go, chapter one, page one. Tiddler? That’s a funny name for a hero... Is it a kid’s book?

And so on.

Enter Kindle and its ilk stage right.

You can now set the text size to positively cinematic and only you need to know. You can read whatever you want, however you want. Pot boilers, Pentecostal treaties or porn. Nobody can tell what the hell you’re reading and you look cool. You’re own little private reading world. And best of all Kindle always knows which page you’re on so even if you don’t know that you’ve already read page 43 Kindle does which gives you some hope of eventually getting to the end before you, er, get to the end.

Marvellous.

And sales of Catherine Cookson may even very well go up as the younger generation decides to bite the bullet early without fear of discovery and ridicule...

It’s a win-win situation.

Sorry. I said: it’s a win-win situation!

When You Have A Pussy You Never Pee Alone

A sure-fire way to overcome shy bladder syndrome is to have a very young boy in the household who needs to be taught correct man pee etiquette.

But there is only so much that can be taught via words alone, especially when your shared vocabulary reference points centre around Raa-Raa The Noisy Lion or The Cat In The Hat.

You have to give practical demonstrations which cover stance, distance from the bowl, water pressure and the inevitable final shake-off.

These are life skills that take a number of months for any pre-schooler to master sufficiently well enough that they can choreograph the perfect pee without getting their water on the floor, on their feet or, indeed, the gusset of their pants.

By the end of it though you should have a boy who can shoot the bum hairs off a gnat and a dad who finds he can now relax so well that he could pee live on stage at the London Palladium in front of Her Majesty the Queen and (unlike Prince Philip) manage a constant and smooth flow with no kangaroo-hopping at all.

And indeed that was the case with me.

Until the introduction of a couple of inquisitive kittens into the family dynamic a few months ago.

Curiosity might not always kill the cat but it is guaranteed to get its head wet...

Our kittens are much taken with our toilet.

They run from the sound of the flush but then return immediately to have a good nose around the bowl. At first, this was restricted to the lowering of tentative whiskers into the opening. It soon progressed, however, to walking on all fours around the rim.

Our attempts to discourage this behaviour have singularly failed.

And it has led to a disturbing new development.

I now find I cannot “water the trouser snake” without having a pair of pointy kitten ears and the back of a kitten head protruding from between my legs at about knee height.

Even more disconcerting though, on occasion, I now find a pair of glowing kitten eyes looking straight up at me and making insistent and hungry eye contact from somewhere deep beneath my trigger finger.

I’m finding that my flow is not as strong as it once was...

Buzz

Lord knows I have racked my brain for her name but it is long gone. Which is a damned shame because, of all my secondary school teachers, hers is the name I’d most like to recall.

She taught Chemistry and, most importantly of all for us burgeoningly pubescent boys, she taught the girls netball.

She was young. She was fit. She was pretty.

And in the words of The Streets, my God didn’t she know it.

Most of my teachers at secondary school had had all of their emotion and sensitivity long scoured out of them by year upon year of having to teach the magic of knowledge to a zoo full of barbaric ingrates who were driven purely by the dictates of their hormones and the desire to be first in the lunch queue for chips. They looked upon us young scholars as mere animals, subhuman at best, with little chance of redemption by the examination board. We were Neanderthals in school ties.

Miss Chemistry (as I shall call her) was different.

She gave us boys knowing looks. Secret smirks. The raised eyebrow that suggested she knew exactly what we were thinking most of the time (every 8 seconds apparently) and felt a little frisson because of it. She was playing with fire to be sure. Possibly though I am reading far too much into it. Possibly I am merely tapping into the murky adolescent communal fantasy that flourished during her employ at Manor Hall Secondary School.

Whatever, she was different. She was human. And she seemed to look upon us as human or variants thereof too.

There was Chemistry indeed.

One of my most enduring memories of her is watching her referee a netball match between the 5th form girls one Wednesday lunch time. The match was held in the “tennis courts” – little more than a concrete yard fenced round with that weird plasti-coated green wire fencing. Word got around fast and within minutes the perimeter of the fence was populated by a hundred, silently slathering boys who gripped tightly onto the fence with their fingers and drank in every bounce, jump and wobble. It was like being at a dog pound – only with the desperate pups being on the outside looking in.

She played up to us for a good 20 minutes before the comments got a little too bawdy and she blew her whistle – ah those lips! – and moved us all on. I remember her looking highly amused as Mr Evans the “gardening” teacher shooed us all away before lingering himself. Just to make sure we didn’t return, I’m sure.

The story that went round the school just before she left for pastures new was that during one Chemistry lesson she’d been fishing round in her handbag for a tissue when something long, smooth and intimately cylindrical rolled out onto the laboratory desk.

It wasn’t a Bunsen burner I can tell you. It had a compartment for batteries.

By the end of the day she’d earned the nickname “Buzz”.

By the end of the week the 5th form boys were shouting “buzzzzzz!” at her every time she walked by them in the corridor.

Her position had become untenable.

She was gallingly replaced by a weird moustachioed guy in a tweed jacket who looked like Michael Fish. He thought himself a right comedian but jokes – even good ones – could never replace what we’d lost.

I often think of Miss Chemistry now and wonder where she is. What she’s doing. What happened was a tragedy. But the tragedy was on us boys.

We just were not man enough.

That’s what all those knowing looks and smirks were about. She wasn’t laughing with us.

We just weren’t man enough...

Moob Season

25 degrees C and here in the UK the moob flowers are already a-blooming.

Everywhere you look, every vista is positively throbbing with field upon field of rubbery man teats. Everywhere you look. Little pasty ones. Sagging brown ones. Spotty breasty ones. Scary hairy ones. There are even moobs around whose owners have plainly seen Once Were Warriors and have impregnated their guy-jugs with ink in various manly designs. Once Were Warriors? Once Did Woodwork more like.

What is it about the British psyche that produces this almost Pavlovian display of undisplayable flesh? Why do our blokes think that the world wants to see their sweat smeared flesh every time the sun comes out? It’s like there is no shame. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just  a few blokes who actually worked out every now and then. I mean it would still be annoying and unnecessary but you’d think, OK, they’re ripped, they’ve got a reason to show off. But no. The human toasting-racks do it too. The tin-ribs. And also the manmoths. The guys with guts so big and chest hair so black and glistening it looks like a miniature slagheap is avalanching down their naval.

The sun comes out and suddenly every guy thinks he is an Adonis. Plainly the need to get a tan outweighs the need to be buff and trim.

And I know I’m a hypocrite. I’m not complaining about the skirts on women getting shorter or the tops getting skimpier. I know there is a double standard here. But skirts the width of triage tags aside, women still tend to keep a sense of decorum. They still cover up more than they show. In a weird kind of way I wonder if these men view their own bodies as less sexually potent as that of women and therefore there is less of a public indecency issue if they flounce their boy-nips about? As long as a guy keeps his gristle missile stashed safely away in its silo everything else is fair game.

But is it? Am I the only one who shakes his head and tuts at this ill advised exhibition of drab flesh? I mean, this isn’t corn-fed chicken we’re talking here. It’s beer-and-fag fed cock. We’re talking the kind of form normally only seen on Embarrassing Bodies. Do other countries share this phenomenon? I’m aware that you can usually spot an Englishman abroad in a hot country because he will be the only guy running around topless and red as a lobster whilst complaining that no matter where he goes he can’t shift the smell of undercooked hamburger and BO.

Maybe there’s some kind of macho thing that I’m missing out on here? Some kind of mating ritual akin to peacocks shaking their tales and Lyre Birds mimicking the sounds of chainsaws cutting through IKEA tables? Maybe these guys garner so much female interest as their lad-baps dandle in the breeze that it’s worth the inevitable sunburn and melanoma infestations later in life? I mean, a legover is still a legover, right? And what woman doesn’t want to have the outer skin of her lover left imprinted upon her after he has finished his love administrations? Everybody loves a peeler. They never quite leave you.

So. In case you are wondering. It is hot outside today. Finally. It is hot in the UK. But I’m keeping covered up. I’m wearing my (to quote Rigby from Rising Damp) ‘harvest festivals’ (all is safely gathered in).  My bod is for my wife alone. I mean to stay pale and interesting.

Moob season it might be... but for my perfectly formed nips it is definitely forever Autumn.

(Though I may issue photographs on request.)

Caught In Amber

A nice diversion from all the strife that has currently been assailing Bloggertropolis Towers has been the discovery of how easy it is these days to convert old C90 cassettes into a digital format that I can play, modify and edit on the ol’ PC.

Back in 1989 when I was a somewhat awkward, repressed, geeky, closet-extrovert teen, me and a good mate of mine spent every Saturday evening for a month or two adlibbing comedy, songs and general testosterone fuelled mayhem onto C90 cassettes. I had at the time purchased one of Alan Sugar’s finest creations: a home studio 4-track recording unit replete with turntable and twin cassettes and input jacks for just about everything.

If I remember rightly it cost about £499 and looked like a Borg spaceship (hello Star Trek fans). I had visions of... I don’t know. Certainly not making it onto the music scene. Possibly not even making it onto the comedy scene. I think all I really wanted to do was alleviate the dreary scene in my head of being stuck at British Telecom for the rest of my life being ungainfully employed as a telephone operator.

In many respects they were dark days. The job was awful. Sheer anathema to an obsessively creative type like me. I was spotty and painfully shy around girls. And not much better around blokes I didn’t know (which, let’s face it, was most of them). I lived with the ever-abiding fear that I would die a lonely old social outcast and would never ever have a girlfriend. My best mate at the time, Dave, was probably not much better off socially – though he wasn’t bad looking, could sing and seemed to have a natural flair for learning to play the guitar.

And yet I remember those days very fondly. We were relatively carefree and our troubles at the time – in retrospect – were minor and bound to come good just by having a little patience and waiting for life to take its course. Whilst I couldn’t sing or instantly play the guitar like Hendrix I did have a frighteningly egotistical sense of humour which seemed to burst into life as soon as any recording device was placed in front of me and switched on.

Somehow a double act was born and over the space of 3 months Dave and I must have amassed nearly 12 hours of the most inane, embarrassingly juvenile recordings ever committed to magnetic tape. We did impressions, told jokes, made up songs and murdered existing ones by recording our own lyrics over the tops of the originals. I can lay personal claim to having murdered Bono and lyrically shitting on his grave on at least five separate occasions.

And then the recordings stopped. Dave got a job as a postman and got himself a woman. For some reason that diverted his attentions elsewhere. I’m not bitter but I do blame Dave unreservedly for ruining our chances of getting onto the telly or the radio. Because, to be honest, Rik Mayal’s and Ade Edmondson’s “Bottom” wasn’t that far removed from the type of material that Dave and I were coming up with off the top of our head’s week after week.

Well. So we thought at the time.

The tapes were mixed and then stored away. I even made covers for them. They lay forgotten for years gathering dust.

And then finally in 2011 the cost of technology had dropped so much that a simple tape to mp3 converting device set me back no more than £25. It was something I’ve always meant to do. Future proof all those Derek and Clive moments.

It doesn’t matter that the jokes are bad. That the ethics and sensibilities behind them are as blunt and callous as any teenager’s – we knew little of the world though thought we knew it all. It matters not that some of the verbal outpourings that came out of my mouth now make me cringe and want to tell myself to shut up...

They are little time machines. Moments in time – whole evenings – captured and held in amber. Exactly as we used to be. Without edits or cuts or a single layer of varnish to make any of it any more or less palatable.

I love them dearly, those recordings. They make me smile and frequently make me laugh.

We had something special, Dave and I . We really did.

A friendship. And it’s nice to know that it’s still there (if you’re reading this, Dave).

And no. I will not be posting excerpts of any of the recordings on this ‘ere blog.

I have something now that I didn’t have back then.

A reputation.

(Though do feel free to tell me I’m wrong.)

The Stripper

I think I’d be less amazed if it was more rare. Because then it would make more sense to me. But the fact that it happens with such mundane regularity is what disturbs me the most.

I mean, who loses an item of clothing? Who leaves the house, goes about their business in town and then gets home again and says, “Oh buggerations! I seem to have mislaid my coat / jacket / trousers / left shoe in the street?”

Because I’m not talking about leaving things on the bus or in the office or in the library or in the car park at the back of Sainsbury’s late on a Saturday night.

I’m talking about mislaying things in the street. On the pavement.

And it doesn’t just happen in Leamington Spa; it happens all over the place. Certain types of people – people whose genetic make-up and IQ are as yet unknown to me – manage to lose the clothing from off their bodies and not actually notice that anything is missing.

How? How is that even possible?

I mean, I was walking home yesterday and I came across a discarded jumper on the pavement. It wasn’t there the day before and looked reasonably clean. This in itself had me shaking my head and wondering how someone could lose that from about their person and not notice. But there was more. Ten yards further along there was a jacket. A decent looking jacket. Also discarded. I realize I am making a connection here that I cannot prove but I bet the two items of clothing had one common denominator: the same owner.

In the past I have also come across lone shoes – trainers, boots, high heels. All singular in their singularity. How can someone lose one shoe and not notice?

Two I can understand. You’re in high heels and being chased by the police (you are a transvestite thief, OK?) and it’s just easier to run without your gait being compromised by 6 inch stilettos... so you discard them to aid your getaway. But why get rid of one and keep the other?

It doesn’t make sense.

Discarded baby clothes I can understand too. I know how this works. You’re pushing young Quentin around in his Maclaren buggy and you’re so busy keeping an eye out for rogue cars, rogue pedestrians, rogue rottweilers – any one of whom could be about to make a beeline for little Quentin – that you fail to notice said Quentin hoofing his mitts, his shoes and the cardigan your mother knitted for him out of the pushchair and into the street. By the time you get home you’re too frazzled to go back and look for them and that cardigan was a bloody embarrassment anyway.

But a pair of men’s trousers?

I have genuinely found such an item of clothing discarded around my local town.

Was someone debagged on a stag night? It’s possible. But given the absence of shaving cream and novelty marital aids in the surrounding area (and believe me I looked) it seems unlikely. Was there a sudden and violent heat wave that prompted someone to whip off all their clothes in a delirium of dehydration like that poor Arab fella in Lawrence of Arabia (yes, I know, they were all poor Arab fellas)? In the UK? In summertime? I think not!

So all I can surmise is that in every street, in every town in the UK, there is someone with a genetic imperative to strip off. To strip naked and shake their tassels into the startled faces of the X12 bus queue.

I’d like to think it was someone with the face and body of Keeley Hawes. Sod that. I’d like to think it was Keeley Hawes.

But it isn’t, is it?

No.

It’s Mr Bertram Hardcastle from no. 47 Middleclass Close with his ruptured hernia, his man-boobs, his asthma nebulizer from Boots The Chemist and his cornbeef cankles.

The one man in the country who should remain fully clothed at all times.

People, next time you find some discarded clothes in the street, beware and be very, very afraid.

Mr Hardcastle might be looking for someone to help remove his G-string with their teeth*.

*Apparently this exercise is rendered less onerous by only breathing in and out through one's mouth.

Pharaoh Toot’n’Pootin’

Apologies in advance for the scatological nature of this post but sometimes you just have to deal with the crap as it hits you.

OK. I’ll just come out and say it. I seem to be retaining more wind as I get older. Or generating more wind. One of the two. Maybe even both.

Now I don’t want to give the impression that I am someone who drops their guts at the, er, drop of a hat. Because I am not. I am, in fact, legendary in my house for not farting. My butt is, by and large, a smokeless zone.

Tight as a steel drum. The Royal seal unbroken.

This is great. Because when someone drops a 10lb silent but deadly in my house no one dreams of accusing me of doing it because, well, hell would freeze over first.

There is a downside though.

See, I still produce gas. The methane seams are still there and rich in ore. The pressure has to be released at some point.

My wife, Karen, says I just save it all up for “proper” toilet visits.

And this is true.

Prior to the main performance the orchestra will tune itself up nicely and noisily – wind instruments first – and a great trumpeting clarion call will signify the commencement of the William Tell Overture.

I swear to God I could probably play a trumpet with my butt and hold a single note for a good 10 minutes.

And the older I get the longer the duration of the air exchange seems to get.

This is fine when I am at home. When the kids and the wife are busy downstairs and are deafened by the sounds of life. It is not so fine when I am in the toilets at work. Because at work I prefer to run on silent. It’s like an unspoken rule. Processes of the bum shall be neither seen nor heard. It is a brave man indeed who lets his ack-ack gun blaze away in earshot of his work colleagues and cares not a jot who hears.

I am not that man. Which makes my ability to store up vast quantities of methane gas a distinct disadvantage.

What I need, people, is for someone to invent a bum silencer or a butt muffler. Like the kind of thing assassins attach to their long range rifles so they may do their nefarious deeds without alerting anyone to their presence.

It needs to attach with an air-tight seal but be non-invasive.

It needs to be easy to clean and portable. The kind of thing one could keep in a man-bag (or even a handbag) without arousing smirking curiosity.

It needs to be affordable.

So. All you inventors out there. Consider yourself duly commissioned. Think outside the box. Have some fun.

Even better: have a blast.

So that, unbeknownst to my work colleagues, I can have one too.

2012 Is Gonna Suck

No. Seriously. It is.

As soon as I saw our magic red dancing bus containing David Beckham emerging from the smoke and the glory of the Beijing Olympics I just knew that London 2012 was going to a be a teensy bit wince inducing. I’m sure the racing and the jumping and the yachting and all the other stuff that the athletes do will be fine. It’s sport, goddammit. You just get up and do it.

It’s the ceremonial aspect that worries me. Because, let’s be honest, we as a country are not cool. We had a brief spell in the limelight in the 1960’s and that was it. We lost it again. We are the geeks of the world. Our greatest global export in recent times has been the Beckhams. If they are the best and the most noteworthy that our country can produce then we really are foobarred.

But back to the Olympics.

They’re going to suck. And I now have proof. Probably subconsciously, possibly deliberately, the UK’s official 2012 Olympic logo proves it beyond all doubt. I must point out at this juncture that this visual gag was brought to my attention by the 10 O’clock Live team last week. It’s great television at the best of times (though the interviews and debates are frustratingly brief) but this was an absolute clincher.

Look at the picture above. What do you see? Officially you are supposed to see “2012”. Some nutters claim it spells out “Zion”. Ignore them. They don’t know what they’re talking about. What the image actually shows, ladies and gentlemen, is “Lisa Simpson sucking somebody off”.

You’ve looked again, haven’t you? Just to make sure. And it’s there, isn’t it? It really is there. It’s Lisa Simpson and... er... somebody else.

I now cannot look at this logo without seeing Lisa Simpson not having sex with a Bill Clinton stand-in. Though oddly I can still watch The Simpsons and not make any obvious sexual connection at all.

Funny that.

So. The 2012 Olympics.

They are going to suck. Big time.

And that may be a very hard thing for this country to swallow.

I Follow But Never To Catch

“Following” celebs is not cool. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

But we all do it, right?

I do. I admit that I do. Facebook... Twitter... Some of the people I follow are TV people. Slebs. Stars.

But I feel kind of... bad for doing it. Diminished. Dirty. There’s something sad about it.

But I do draw the line at trying to engage them in conversation. That for me is the ultimate no-no. But plainly other people have a lower shame-threshold than I do. Every day these celebrity Twitter users are bombarded with hundreds of comments and pleas for attention. Please notice me Stephen Fry! Please reply to my comment Kirstie Allsopp about how gorgeous I think you are!

Take Julia Bradbury (and believe me, I’d like to). She regularly posts on Twitter and links out to photos she’s taken while filming. Within ten minutes I can guarantee there’ll be at least 50 comments along the lines of “you look great!”, “You look wonderful, Julia!” and “I love your TV work, Jules!”

Whilst I agree with the sentiments I can feel my scorn-face blowing a biggy. Sad sacks the lot of them! Get a life! These comments smack of the worst kind of desperation and sycophantic fan-dom. Oh please look down and notice me from your vaunted high position in Tellyland! Hey guys! Stephen Fry replied to my comment! I finally have self esteem bestowed upon me! I’m finally a somebody!

No. You’re not. You’re a sad little star pandering git.

So why do I Follow these people then if I’m so sneering about other people who do the same? Well, as I said, I don’t myself try and engage them in conversation but I do like the insider’s eye it sometimes opens on the TV industry; I like getting tip-offs about new programmes that are in the pipeline and, yes, I love it when an honest opinion is offered on another celeb or TV programme. I guess it’s like a soundbite version of Heat magazine for people who are too snobby to actually buy Heat magazine (like me).

But does that make me any better than Jonathan from Norwich who has promised to buy Julia Bradbury a pint should she ever find herself filming “down his way”? (Yeah, right, as if, Jonathan.)

I mean, in one of my comments on my previous post I was rather smug about revealing that Stephen Fry Follows me back on Twitter. Is my ego really so reliant on celeb approval? I mean let’s be honest. Stephen Fry Following me back says more about Fry’s innate niceness than it does about me being somehow noteworthy.

And just mentioning it in the first place kind of makes me a sad sack too. Doesn’t it?

And yet Twitter is capitalizing on this trend. For some time now it has offered suggestions on stars it thinks we all might like to Follow. Every day more and more celebs are signing up – solely one suspects to get Followed. It’s a free self-publicity machine after all. Ah how Twitter must love Stephen Fry for popularizing this whole star Following thing in the first place.

Should we be colluding in this? Isn’t it all a bit incestuous and self absorbed? Herd instinct given an e-makeover?

For the few of you out there whose Facebook and Twitter friends are purely people that you actually know and interact with in the real world... Respect.

For the rest of you: please stop bombarding Julia Bradbury with your inane, nobby-no-mates, pathetic “I’m a lonely cyber geek” drivel; my overtures to her are being totally ignored as a consequence.

Julia, when you’re ready, please Follow me back (Stephen Fry thinks I’m OK)!

I Was A Teenage Dirtbag (Baby)

I’ve rarely used this blog as a confessional. I’ve rarely dragged skeletons screaming from my closet and paraded them for all to see.

I always assumed, you see, that you, my dear discerning reader(s) wouldn’t want to read scurrilous declarations of wrong doing and sin making.

But I was wrong. I’ve been hit by a meme. Vegemitevix wants me to name and shame 10 secret things that you don’t know about me. She wants me to fess up, unburden my soul, pour out the unwholesome desires that have racked my body in my darkest years in the wilderness before I found the light.

Now that is going to be tough because this is the third time I’ve been hit by such a meme. I’ve fessed up on two previous occasions here and here.

But even by the second time I was duplicating stuff.

And you know why? Because I was trying to keep the real skeletons out of the limelight. I was going for the easy, palatable stuff. The stuff that wouldn’t drive my burgeoning readership away in droves. I was trying to avoid the real, true blue secrets. The truth and nothing but the truth about yours, er, truly.

So. This is the third time someone has demanded that I divulge and disclose. The third time.

So OK people. I get the picture. You’re not going to leave me alone until you’ve got some dirt, are you? Until you’ve got me naked and exposed, squirming beneath your unforgiving gaze.

Well, I’m not sure I can run to 10 because, if I’m honest, I haven’t led that exciting a life. But some of these revelations may shock and disappoint. They may change the way you think of me forever. If you want to keep me up on that pedestal in your mind (and I’m aware that some of you have placed me pretty high) now would be a good time to stop reading. This is your final warning.

Still here? Geez, you guys are salacious. OK. Here goes.

1) During my late teens and twenties – in fact pretty well right up to my thirties – I would honour my best friend in all the world (Dave, if you’re reading this, I hereby apologize) by personally customizing every birthday and Christmas card I bought him with cartoons of a horrifically sexual nature. What started off as little doodles soon became works of obsessive pornography that covered the entire envelope front and back (and even inside the flap) and also the entire card itself. Entire cartoon strips of sexual depravity would slather their way across the best that Hallmark had to offer. If I was feeling particularly mischievous I would post the card to him through the post. You have to understand that Dave is a postman and has a lot of mates in the post office. Those perversely tattooed missives would have gone round like wildfire. I’m pretty sure that after a while Dave began to live in fear of his birthdays and saw Christmas as a good time of year to leave the country. Weirdly, after I got my first girlfriend at the age of 30 my need to produce these Hieronymus Bosch-like paradigms of perversity died away. I simply no longer had the time, energy or inclination. Thankfully for posterity (and for those who wish to blackmail me) I scanned every card and envelope I ever defaced into my PC. This means I can reproduce one here. Or at least a little snippet of one. If you are easily offended do not click on the picture below as this will only cause it to enlarge and you will have to look at it in all its offensive glory. Believe it or not this is the cleanest example I could find. In case you’re wondering it is meant to be a parody of the Spice Girls. Enjoy.

2) God. This is the biggie. Being a somewhat sexually frustrated and yet over libidinous teen (never a great combination) and also having a secret desire to be some kind of comedian – bizarre when I was such a wallflower – I used to amuse myself by making my own homemade albums. These would consist of me “singing” over the top of some of my favourite music into a cheap microphone and recording the lot onto C90 tape. I would ad lib sexual paeans of depravity to whatever starlet happened to take my adolescent fancy at the time. I would then make my own tape covers which greatly resembled the cards I used to send to Dave above. In fact, thinking about it, there’s a bit of a theme here, isn’t there? I still have all the tapes. In fact Dave once got a mate of his to turn some of them into MP3’s and put them onto CD for me. I even made a CD cover for that particular album too. And no. I am not going to post any of them online. EVER. Dave had a theory at the time that these outpourings of teen lust were my equivalent of a “cold shower”. Not sure about that myself but I do think that these musical travesties are possibly the most complete embodiment of teenage hormonal crassness ever produced and I may well leave them to science upon my death.

3) Not content with ad libbing the kind of toilet humour that Rik Mayall himself would have balked at, I even scripted it. I would write little plays parodying various soap operas and, armed with a BBC sound effects tape, would embroil my sisters into acting them out on a Sunday afternoon in my Nan’s garage and recording them onto C90 tape. One memorable series was about the Blake & Blake Detective Agency and would usually be, yes, you’ve guessed it, a sorry tale of sexual misdemeanour and horrendous wrong doing. And yes, I still have the tapes. And yes I made covers for them. And no you’re not getting to hear any of them. EVER. See. There is a theme here.

4) Not on your nelly. You’ve got quite enough to be going on with. And if any of you wish to end our virtual association right now, I fully understand.

Ladies and gentlemen. The confessional is over. I’m not going to hand this meme on but I do dare any of you to respond in kind. Go on. It’s cathartic. It might halve your readership but it’s good for the soul. Apparently.

A Harmless Idiocy

I'm probably going to regret this but... well, what the hell, surely I can't be the only one. Yes, it's confession time again folks. Time to 'fess up to some idiocy that I desperately hope I share with other people in a pathetic attempt to normalise it in the first place.

Picture the scene. You're alone in an elevator. The floor you want is approaching. You know the doors are going to shush open any minute. You're all alone. Unobserved. It can't hurt, can it? Just to... you know, wave your hand in front of the door as if you were a Jedi and then have the door magically open before you. I mean, it's not like I pull my hoody up and speak in a weirdly stilted Alec Guinness voice at the same time. I don't have Star Wars posters on my bedroom wall. I don't have my religion recorded at the passport office as "Jedi" as some idiots do.

I just, you know, every now and then, get overtaken with the urge to pretend to open automatic doors purely by mind control.

It's a harmless thing really. I bet everybody does it. Or at least has done it at least once. Haven't you? Come on, admit it.

It's not a sign of illness or anything. I'm perfectly sane. Really. I never take it too far.

Well, not since my attempts to control my boss's thought processes failed miserably and I didn't get the outrageously high payrise I was asking for.

Me: "Steve is an excellent worker and deserves a payrise of monumental proportions..."

My Boss: "Steve, why are you waving you hand at me and speaking in that weird voice?"

Me: "You feel the need to give me monetary remuneration for all the crap I have to deal with at work..."

My Boss: "Do you need to speak to a first aider?"

Me (sighing): "Oh never mind. Forget I said anything."

My Boss (under his breath): "Your pathetic Jedi mind tricks won't work on me, boy..."

Ho hum. Like I said. Harmless.

The Day The Music Died

I’m wondering if I have fallen out of love with music.

Or, to be precise, new music. The discovery of it. The giving a go of new bands. The trying something new. I seem to have become as locked into the music of my formative years as my parents were when I was a kid.

Why does that happen?

When I was a teenager (though I came to record buying late) I was an avid music consumer. I would buy a batch of records every week. Singles, EPs, LPs, picture discs, I couldn’t get enough. I can remember going to a record shop in Birmingham and spending so much money that the shop assistant was kind enough to not ring the amount up on the till to save me from embarrassment. I must have blown an entire week’s wages in one go on rare records and collectibles. That seems so obscenely hedonistic now.

In no time at all I had built up an impressive collection of literally hundreds and hundreds of records (which I still own). They took over my entire bedroom. All of them boxed, alphabetized and inventorized. It was a collection that I lavished love and time on. And each weekend I’d carefully load up my turntable with my latest acquisitions, carefully wiping the dust off them with the special cloth I had bought for this purpose and savouring each hiss and pop of the needle swinging itself into the opening groove.

It was my life.

And then somehow, in the nineties, my expenditure dropped off, my interest waned and was pulled elsewhere. I moved on and got into other things. Books, computers, gadgetry, travel. The fact that the nineties were an awful decade for decent music only hastened me out of the scene.

And now, here in 2009, I’m somehow completely on the outside of it all. On the outside looking in but unsure of where the door is or if I even have enough interest to want to open it and step inside. A few new bands have caught my ear – The Doves, The Editors – but I haven’t gone as fanatically overboard on them as I did when All About Eve arrived on the music scene in 1985 or when Kate Bush released “Hounds Of Love” in the same year.

The passion for new music has left me.

My MP3 player is proof of this. The majority of its contents have been sucked from my CD collection and I’d say that 90% of that is from the eighties. I’ve become trapped in my very own time warp.

I’m no longer “down with the kids”. I’m looking at them and frowning at the infernal noise they listen to and dare to call music – much the same way, I suspect, as when my father just couldn’t appreciate the blisteringly fierce music of The Jam’s “Funeral Pyre” and dismissed it as tuneless rubbish. At the time his music of choice was Buddy Holly and Marty Robbins.

Is this the fate that has now befallen me?

Worryingly, checking my MP3 player this morning, I can’t fail to notice that “El Paso” is already on there...

*Sigh* It’ll be “Rave On” next.

And not in a cool way either.

I’m A Tramp

Yes it’s true.

See these fingerless gloves hovering in front of you? Well, could spare some change for a cup ‘o tea, please? I promise not to spend it all on meth. Honest, guv. Cough cough.

Well OK. So I’m not quite begging on the street just yet, nor selling my body for the price of a burger but I do have a confession to make that may see me part of the way there in the eyes of some of you.

Ahem. I’ve been wearing the same trousers to work for the last... ooh, 4 weeks at least.

I’m sure people must have noticed. I mean, they have a white paint mark on the thigh that is pretty hard to miss and is quite distinctive.

I’d like to point out at this point that they have been and do get washed regularly (but the paint mark on them is permanent).

How has this come to pass? I mean, having one pair of shoes is understandable in a man but only one pair of trousers?

It wasn’t always like this. My wife, God bless her, regularly restocks my wardrobe (er... for “wardrobe” read “drawer”) at Christmas and my birthday with fashionable items that, to be honest, I’d never think about buying for myself because I just don’t think about that sort of thing. Usually these items of apparel last me a good 18 months or so and I have never, until now, found myself short of trouserage.

But somehow, this year, I’ve gone through more trousers than Paris Hilton.

It’s the keys that do it, you see. The keys of responsibility. I have to carry more keys around with me at work than a screw at Strangeways. A great fob of metal that, if ever used in combat, would be as lethally effective as a spike encrusted mace. Open a door or open a hoody’s skull... it’s all the same to me.

But the average pocket of the average pair of trousers just cannot take the sheer volume of iron that is hammocked within them. I’ve tried to alleviate the tonnage by suspending my fob from a leather lanyard that I bought in Wales. But it’s no good. The keys chafe. The keys wear and tear the delicate fabric of my inner lining. They eat it away completely within a matter of mere months until the trousers themselves are beyond repair.

I’ve got through 2 pairs already this year. And now I’m down to my last.

Unfortunately a poor church mouse such as myself cannot just go out willy-nilly and buy a pair of trousers off the shelf without there being a big household budgetary knock-on effect. Trousers or food? Trousers or food? Which would you choose?

Which is why I must thank a fellow blogger for coming to my aid.

The Dotterel over at Bringing Up Charlie recently ran a prize draw. And yours truly was fortunate enough to be one of the winners. I received a £25 voucher for Marks & Spencer as my bounty. It was timely indeed.

Dotterel, thank you. I am going to M&S later today to get myself covered up appropriately.

The trousers, when I get them, will be completely on you.

Er... well, not quite, but you know what I mean...

"Ang Is A Sket"

This particularly informative piece of graffiti appeared on the road outside my house late last week. Applied with white aerosol paint the letters are about a foot high and each word has been rendered with a wobbly capital.

I have, I admit, been tempted to take a photo of it to publish it here for your delectation but, much as I love you all, being run over by a passing BMW or a souped-up moped doesn’t strike me as a suitable pay-off for my photographic skills so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

I had to Google the word "sket". I’m afraid I’ve long lost touch with street slang and youth speak but there are some bizarre resources available online which can bring one up to speed in no time at all (the Urban Dictionary being invaluable). Sket, for your information, means a loose woman of elastic morals. Or thereabouts. You get the picture I’m sure.

So basically some love-struck teen has discovered that his gal has been spooning some other chap behind his back and it’s soured his brandy somewhat to the point where he feels he must besmirch her good name in the nature of a painterly public broadcast announcement to warn all us other chappies to steer well clear of her unless we’re not averse to taking sloppy seconds.

How sweet.

I can’t help feeling sorry for Ang for all that she may be no angel. I can’t help but think of her every morning as the wife, kids and I pile into our little red Peugeot and inevitably drive over her name as we set off for our various destinations in town.

She’s been condemned without a fair trial. She may be innocent and of unblemished character but the tarmac now accuses her of base harlotry. She may even be guilty, may lie on her back nightly with a whole regiment of thrusting young bucks... but there may be mitigating circumstances. Maybe her "official" boyfriend is something of a sket himself or just plain nasty and she has sought comfort in the arms of someone more worthy and more understanding of her needs.

Whoever she is, I can’t help thinking how upset she must feel to see her name cast so indelibly to the dirt in this way. How awful if she lives in the same street (which presumably she does) and has to pass this graffiti every day with her parents or her siblings. What must they think? The shame must be burning her up inside.

I hoped, when I first saw the lettering, that a good rain shower or two might wash it all away. But no, Mr Paragon Of Virtue Himself saw fit to spray his snide little missive in permanent paint. Nearly a week later it’s still there, as bright and brazen as when it was first applied. Hester Prynne must be turning in her fictional grave.

Whoever you are, sir, I put it to you that there are worse things in life than being a sket.

Being petty and immature are two of them.

Some People And Me

Three items on the bugbear list this morning.

First off – a flagrant disregard for child safety.

I took the boys into school / nursery this morning as Karen is in Birmingham on an accountancy training course. On the way we passed one of Tom’s nursery mates being walked to school by her dad. Well, I’m assuming it was her dad and not her uncle. Whoever he was he obviously wished he was doing something else. There were frequent exhortations to “come on” and “hurry up”.

Bear in mind his ward is a wide-eyed 2 year old.

Now Tom loves walking. He finds it a great delight and no doubt feels very grown up doing it. Unfortunately, at just under 2 he just does not understand how important it is to hold mummy or daddy’s hand when busy roads are nearby. So he gets strapped into the pushchair. He’s fine with this thankfully. It’s still fun to be out and about even without the ability to perambulate freely. But even if he complained I’m afraid he’d still be stuck in the pushchair regardless.

I’d rather have him crying and safe than laughing one minute and forever silent the next.

So it was with horror that I watched this poor girl almost run out into the road when a car was coming and then get hollered back onto the pavement at the last minute.

For God sake man keep a grip of your child!

This would be bad enough in isolation but my wife witnessed a similar incident with the same family a few afternoons ago when she picked Tom up from nursery. Again the kid ran out into the road and was only hauled in at the last moment. The poor motorist who was almost involved looked ashen as they drove away.

It’s an accident just waiting to happen.

What is wrong with some people?

Secondly – cleanliness.

Due to blocked drains I’ve been flush testing all the toilets in the building this morning. As I was doing this someone came into the toilets after me. Now, I don’t know why, but I instinctively stood still and kept quiet and out of sight in the cubicle. I instinctively became furtive. Bizarre when I wasn’t even doing anything that involved the lesser-loved bodily functions. But there you go. Maybe I was a pervert in another life? Please keep your responses to this to yourself.

Now I know for a fact that, due to the location of these toilets, they are mostly used by the catering staff.

So imagine my disgust when I heard the urinal being used and then the “urinee” head straight back out without even a cursory swill under the taps.

This is someone who literally has his fingers in every pie going. Not to mention casseroles and stews. And a whole menagerie of sandwiches. On a daily basis.

How can you do that? How can you “point Percy at porcelain” and then not even wave your dannies under a bit of running water?

Folks, there’s a lot to be said for preparing your own packed lunch every day.

Lastly – my own self deprecation.

The other night I assisted some work colleagues who were having difficulty alarming their department at the end of the working day.

When such difficulties arise and seem to be insurmountable I always recommend that staff ring the local CCTV guys and ask them to keep an especial eye on the building. It’s a little extra security measure that probably acts as nothing more than a mental placebo.

I was asked if I had the number to hand.

I did. It was in my head instantly.

My head is full of useful numbers and codes and passwords. I make no effort to memorize them. They’re just there. They stick. It’s a natural facility. When I used to work at British Telecom I found I could give out a lot of the numbers to people without referring to the computer records at all. I had them off by heart. Only the frequently asked for ones I hasten to add. I’m not one of these people that make a living (or a living death) out of memorizing phone books.

But instead of just giving out the number I made a pretence of thinking hard about it. Pretending to strain as I fired up the old memory engine. Why did I do that?

It’s like I was embarrassed to have the necessary knowledge so ready to hand. Was I afraid of appearing sad and nerdy as opposed to just damned efficient?

Why hide my light under a bushel?

Some people, eh?

The Fame Game

On Monday afternoon Karen and I decided to make the most of the last day of our holiday staycation by following in the footsteps of many and spending a pleasant few hours in the local park with the kids.

And by “the kids” I, of course, mean our kids specifically rather than “the kids” generally. I’m afraid the days when I’d sit on a park bench necking back a bottle of Diamond White with the local yobbery are far behind me. There are, after all, only so many cars that you can nick, joyride and leave burning by the roadside while you hold up the nearby petrol station before it all becomes a tad boring.

Ennui totally killed crime for me. My low boredom threshold made a straight man of me in the end.

So we’re feeding the ducks and some of it is reaching the birds and 33% of it is going into Tom’s mouth as he can’t bear to part with his share and we pass what looks like Russell Howard on a park bench.

For those of you who don’t know Russell Howard is an up-and-coming comedian who appears regularly on the BBC’s Mock The Week programme and is extremely funny – and I apologize to my overseas readers as Russell Howard and Mock The Week will undoubtedly mean absolutely nothing to you but the experience I’m about to recount possibly will so bear with me.

Anyway, Mr H is neither swigging Diamond White nor getting down with the kids but is doing his best to look unobtrusive and unremarkable while he talks to someone rather earnestly on his mobile phone. He is, in effect, blending in.

And indeed he would have got away with it but for an uncanny act of synchronicity... I’d bought Karen Mr H’s comedy DVD for Christmas last year but as we’re working our way through an immense DVD backlog we’d only got round to watching it the day before our visit to the park. The “Extras” package on the DVD features footage of Russell in civilian mode where he looks oddly unrecognizable from the bouncy persona he presents on TV and stage... but having seen it we were able to see through his “blending in” tactics and pick him out immediately.

It was him. On a park bench in Leamington. Him off the telly. A real life famous person. Him. Him there.

It’s funny but I always thought I’d be unfazed by a close encounter with a famous person. That I’d play it cool. Nonchalant. They are, after all, only people. Same as you and me. No big thing. Autograph hunting is for saddoes. Etc.

And yet I cannot deny there was a small part of me wanting to run up to Russell, shake his hand, say hello and act like his best mate in a manner that would have resulted in the rest of my life being spent trying to overcome the subsequent sense of shame and wince-worthy degradation.

The impulse was so strong.

But I was saved by his mobile phone. Fame be damned. There was etiquette to think of! One cannot just interrupt a phone conversation for the sake of self gratification! It’s bad form! It would be un-English Goddamnit!

So we fed the ducks and left Russell Howard in peace and he – no doubt feeling the sniper glare of our distant attention beginning to bear down on his shoulders – soon got up and walked away from us, looking smaller than he does on the telly and disappointingly un-star-like and disappeared into the milling Bank Holiday crowds of Leamington Spa.

When we got home we did a quick Google search... you know, just to see if he was playing any gigs locally which would explain his presence in the park and found this (check out the last question at the bottom of the page).

Yep. Russell it seems lives locally. He’s moved in. He’s become a Leamingtonian.

He and me are practically brothers!

Welcome to Leamington Spa, Russell! Hope you like it here. But next time you’re walking around town, keep your mobile phone handy, eh?

For both our sakes.

Embarrassing Bodies

Believe it or not the photo above has not been Photoshopped by me; it is a genuine publicity shot for Channel 4’s new series of Embarrassing Bodies.

Karen and I caught it by accident on Wednesday night and promptly wish we hadn’t.

Now, I’m not a prude. I’ve seen my fair share of questionable acts and physical performances that would make a professional voyeur gag on his binoculars but let’s not discuss my surfing history here.

This show had Karen and I heaving.

It was grotesque. It was macabre. It was unforgivingly gynaecological. So much so I felt I ought to be wearing a pair of rubber gloves and squeezing a speculum.

The basic premise of the show is simple. Members of the public with a varying assortment of embarrassing conditions (everything from verrucas, lax sphincter muscles and prolapses of every shape, form and orifice) visit one of the show’s three doctors – on camera – to display their poorly dangly bits to all and sundry in an attempt to help the rest of us overcome any embarrassment we may feel about our own spots and blemishes. The fundamental ethos of the programme is good: don’t put up with it – grasp the nettle by the horns (or the scabs) and get it sorted out by your friendly neighbourhood doctor. Don’t let embarrassment ruin your life!

Fine.

But do we really need to see a prolapsed cervix up close and personal in grindingly red HD ready Technicolor?

And the poor man having a catheter inserted down his jap-eye... was the macro lens really essential?

We just didn’t need to see it. It added nothing to the show. It enhanced my viewing pleasure not a jot except to provoke in me the same feeling of revulsion I sometimes get when I pass a butcher’s shop window early in the morning.

It was simply too much.

The programme was more like a training documentary for would-be surgeons than an inoffensive and informative programme that everyone from little Tommy to his granny could happily watch of an evening without retching up their freshly masticated oven ready meal.

Have we become so self-obsessed as a species that we now need to commission reality TV shows about our bottom malfunctions and our toe fungi in our overriding desire to probe every single avenue and biological cul-de-sac of our scatological existence?

And this was on a full hour before the 9 o’clock watershed!

No warning. No cautionary voiceover. Just wham bam here’s my spam.

Geez...

To finish, my final thought is this: surely you can’t be that embarrassed if you’re prepared to let a Channel 4 technician plunge his camera mount so deeply inside you that your pelvic floor effectively doubles as a lens cap?

Embarrassing bodies my arse!

Most Embarrassing Record

In a move that will probably prove to be as unwise as John McCain choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate and simultaneously start the blog world’s most shortest lived meme I hereby pose the challenge:

Name your most embarrassing record / CD ever!

You know the kind of thing.

You were young / old. You were feeling impetuous / temporarily insane. You had the money spare and you just thought, “What the hell, Shakin’ Stevens has never looked so good...” and before you knew what you were doing you’d done the deed; you’d bought IT – the single or album that for a short while was a guilty pleasure and then with the passing of time just became a source of unpleasurable guilt. The record that you store secretly in a separate place from the rest of your collection just in case visiting hands chance upon it in the midst of your other far cooler musical acquisitions.

The record that will lose you friends, family, hairdressers and influence people in a bad way.

Ahem. OK. Deep breath.

Mine is “Wired For Sound” by Cliff Richard.

I know. I know. I feel like upping the challenge a bit more and yelling, “Yeah! Beat that!”

Let’s get one thing straight. I hate Cliff Richard. I loathe the man. And I am at pains to point this out to absolutely everyone that I meet. Every time I see his sanctimonious, tea-stained leather face staring up at me from a magazine or newspaper I just want to vomit. And as for his singing voice... that “Oh I’m so sincere” warble makes me want to gouge a hole in space and time and chuck him into it.

But “Wired For Sound” in my opinion is a great record. What can I say? It’s a really catchy melody. It’s got great hooks littered all over the place. It wasn’t written by Cliff. Maybe this explains it?

And can I just add that liking the record does not mean I enjoy watching the video. The video – Cliff gliding around on sparkly roller-skates like a terrified geriatric tied to a conveyor belt of death is not the stuff that great music videos are made of. I hoot with vicious laughter every time I see it.

But I do have the song on my MP3 player. And I have been known to listen to it whilst pootling my way around town.

OK. It’s done. Hate me if you must. Revile me if you can but the gauntlet is thrown down.

I now challenge Inchy, Rol, Tris, Reluctant Blogger, Brother Tobias and The Sagitarian to name their most embarrassing record of all time. Usual meme rules apply: pass it on, let other victims know they’ve been tagged and then wash your dirty musical laundry in public.

Go on. You know you want to.