Snow Poo

This is rather a distasteful observation to be making but it’s impinged on my consciousness too much over the last 36 hours to be allowed to pass by without comment.

Now I know there will always be some dog owners who refuse to do the decent thing and scoop up their mutt’s poop from the pavement. Either through laziness, squeamishness, lack of preparation or just plain misanthropy they will decide to leave Fido’s faecal sculpture steaming obesely in full view of the world and fully in the way of every boot sole, brogue and flip-flop that happens to pass down that particular pavement for the next couple of days.

Revolting. But happily in today’s modern age of the acme pooper-scooper and the doggy-do flip-top dustbin anti-social incidents of this kind are becoming fewer and more far between.

Why is it then that whenever there’s snow on the ground incidents of dog-poo abandonment increase tenfold?

I’ve lost count of the number of dog droppings that I’ve literally had to skate past on my way to work this morning. They are absolutely effing everywhere.

Do dog owners suddenly get hit with an absurd desire to leave warm chocolate logs on the roadside in the vain belief that such seasonal decorations will cheer up the rest of us as we go about our business in the freezing conditions?

Or do they just like to prettify the snow further by giving it a slightly piebald appearance – dotting their little poo mounds all over the place like spilt Maltesers?

Or are they motivated by sheer scientific curiosity – an overwhelming yearning to see how long the snow takes to melt when a hot doggy botty lays a burning coil down upon it, creating a little brown island amongst that huge ocean of whiteness?

Or, as I really suspect, do they just think that the little snow faeries will magically clean away their poisonous turds when the snow eventually disappears in a few days time without them having to lift a finger to do anything about it themselves?

It’s disgusting, repulsive and disgraceful.

I’m looking at every snowman and snowball with extreme mistrust...

Here’s mud in your eye? I don’t think so.

Pathetic!

One pitiable fall of snow and everything grinds to a halt.

I don't know what it's like where you are this morning but here we've had no more than an inch of the white stuff fall upon our streets. And yet every school in town has decided to close. Some even announced last night - before a single snow flake had even descended – that they were going to close for the day today. How pathetic.

Scores of bus services are not running. Local radio is full of sage advice for people to "not venture out" or drive anywhere unless it’s "an absolute emergency".

How incredibly wet.

It’s not like we’ve never seen snow in this country before is it? Oh God! What is all this strange, cold white stuff? I can’t possibly go into work today in such cataclysmic conditions! I might get chilblains!

Back in 1981 I can remember having to trudge a mile to school through snow drifts that were a good 7 inches deep. Every single person in the country went to work as normal and just got on with things.

Now we have a light powdering of frozen water on the car roof and everybody takes the day off.

Except me. And my hard cheese has nothing at all do with the fact that my wife and boy are at home right now hitting the PlayStation with gusto while I sit and scrooge behind my desk at work trying to defrost my feet over a two-bar heater.

Madame McKeith

How can such a tiny, decrepit, bag of bones be so humongously scary?

Ok I’m being unfair here; I know that health food dictator, Gillian McKeith, has bounced back to health from a very serious illness to embrace the nuts-and vitamins perfect-poo lifestyle that she so brutally advocates on her TV programme, You Are What You Eat, but for all that she bullies her fat clients with demonic Caledonian energy I can’t help thinking that there is something extremely unhealthy about Gillian’s general pallor and demeanour. Is she really any healthier than the morbidly obese size-0-wannabes that she regularly tortures with her celery and spinach smoothies? She certainly doesn’t look it.

But what really disturbs me about The McKeith is the contemptuous, harsh attitude with which she treats all her "patients". She’s a bully. She’s absolutely vile to people whose self-respect and self-image is already at an all time low. Her dietary techniques seem to centre around unpalatable food combos, daily poo inspections and ritual public humiliation. I am not exaggerating.

Gillian never seems to be satisfied unless each week she has made her clients, both male and female, cry with guilt, heave with disgust at their own bodily produce and gag with horror at their regular weekly food intake.

I realize that this is the traditional shock tactic approach. Gillian is basing her whole modus operandi on old school army training techniques: totally demolish the soldier’s current belief system and then rebuild him/her anew with a whole brand new ethos. And certainly it seems to work.

But does the end ever justify the means?

She made one poor woman climb into a bath of cold processed food sludge in order to illustrate the kind of crap she was subjecting the inside of her body to. Dubious in itself but Gillian made the sobbing woman do it in the front garden of her London home – with curious passersby peering over the wrought iron fence – thus publicising the poor woman’s distress. That is just not on. For all Gillian is undoubtedly motivated by worthy ambitions – a real fire to save people from themselves – she nevertheless doesn’t give a fig (syrup of) for their emotional well-being or their feelings. Gillian seems to have a very machine-like approach to people. I’d go as far to say she’s a nutritional mechanic rather than a healthy lifestyle guru. As long as people are physically fixed what does it matter if Gillian has messed their minds up in the process?

Of course, these people subject themselves to Gillian’s regime willingly so maybe that’s all the justification that Gillian needs? These people are in extremis and I’m sure in some cases it literally is do or die. Such endeavours always make compelling but uncomfortable viewing.

As I watched last night’s show though it struck me that Gillian is much like a high class dominatrix. An endless stream of clients readily shuffle into her home each week to submit themselves to her elegant E. Coli cruelty and her clipped colonic punishments – every one of them doe-eyed and desperate for one word of praise from Gillian’s perennially curled lips as she forces them to produce "the perfect poo" and imbibe tofu and nettle-root miso soup in quantities that wouldn’t fill a gnat’s belly.

Oh Gillian, I’ve been a naughty boy – punish me with the stotty cake iron maiden face mask again!

You are what you eat? Eat the underside of my boots, worm!

Just Get On With It, Man!

I can’t believe how much vacillation I have entered into with regards my novel. I still haven’t begun writing the damn thing. Admittedly over-working and a dose of the seasonal flu bug that’s been going around has horse-whipped any kind of enthusiasm for extra curricula activity clean out of me... but even so, this is hesitancy on a historically humungous scale.

My current dilemma is: third person or not third person? First person has an immediacy that I like – plus all that juicy introspection – but another part of me favours third person to gain that delicious sense of omniscience... even though part of me feels it’s a trifle trad.

This debate of course is just a cover for the dark mire of nail-biting fear that is really lying at the heart of my current delay...

It’s time to put a metaphorical gun to my own head. Do it... or the bunny gets it!

Bug Lust

I’ve just spent the morning checking the pest traps in the Museum where I work... or going on a "bug hunt" as I call it.

It’s one of those odd little components of my job that normal visitors to the Museum wouldn’t even think about as they scuff their Nike’s over the newly mopped floor in search of distraction and edification among the ranks of teeming display cases that make this proud edifice of education exactly what it is. A Museum.

Basically I have to "do the rounds" once a month to make sure that the Museum stores are not being infested with woodworm, death-watch beetle or some such other many-legged nasty creepy-crawly with a penchant for munching on works of art or artefacts of historic importance.

It is not one of my favourite jobs.

1) I don’t particularly like insects at the best of times and the thought of having to get up and close and personal with them after they’ve been left mouldering for a month in the dark corners of the Museum stores just turns my stomach. To quote a line from The Mummy, they get rather "juicy".

2) The traps themselves are coated with a sticky goo impregnated with insect pheromones. It drives the little fellas wild. So much so they fly or crawl straight into the traps without a single thought for their own mortality – just a blind need to get their chitinous ends away – and there they become stuck fast and basically starve to death. Not quite the end they were looking to get, I’m sure you’ll agree. And unfortunately it’s nigh on impossible to examine these pest traps without getting some of this love goo on your fingers.

Despite copious hand washing I will now spend the rest of the day – particularly while I’m eating my sandwiches for lunch – with the discomforting suspicion that my fingers are now vertitable love-beacons for every randy insect within a 20 yard radius.

Love, as they say, is in the air...

Plug

It is totally without shame that I hereby gratuitously plug my latest web site venture...

I have the singular honour of being the web engineer who has but recently built the html glory that is Photovertex on behalf of my good friend, Mr Paul Washer, photographer and social wit extraordinaire.

Ladies and gentlemen, fanfares please.

Things That Make You Go Hmm...

A quick trip to the bank this afternoon as well as enabling me to enjoy the dubious benefits of warm winter sunlight also brought me into close contact with a much uglier side of life...

There I am minding my own business when ahead of me I spy a young buck bodily manoeuvring his girlfriend against the wall of a shop façade and pushing his face very insistently into hers. Now he didn’t throw or push her violently into the wall, he didn’t nut her in the face, he didn’t even raise his voice – the violence was all under the surface and possibly only within my own perceptions but I recognize negative body language when I see it.

For her part it was plain she wasn’t happy. She was craning her head away from his and telling him – albeit very familiarly – no. Plainly a lover’s spat and not really any need to get involved.

So why did I feel guilty for walking on past them? The girl and I briefly made eye contact but I got no sense of her asking for help. In fact all I picked up from her was her embarrassment at the way her twot of a boyfriend was acting in public. Hence I decided not to stop.

But as I walked away I couldn’t help thinking what a bad thing she’s on to with Mr Pushy. He might not be a woman beater (yet) but his behaviour is surely the thin end of the wedge. If I started physically manoeuvring Karen around I think we’d both recognise that things were in a terribly bad way and that one if not both of us were in need of professional help.

She needs to bail out now. Before things turn really ugly. I just hope she sensed that in the pained look I gave her as our eye contact broke...

It’s Getting Hot In Here

It’s interesting to watch the theme of global warming slowly but surely gathering pace and momentum on all the major news channels on TV at the moment – at least on the UK ones anyway – helped I’m sure by the idiotically mild winter that we’re "enjoying" at the moment.

Scientists are both amazed and concerned that all over the country daffodils and hosts of other spring flowers are already appearing months and months ahead of schedule. Bees have also been spotted in various places - looking very confused and sluggish (mind you if you were a bee and you looked like a slug you’d be justified in your confusion). None of this is good.

One good frost could either wipe out the lot or severely stunt future growth.

Such advance flowerings and early insectoid awakenings have other more fundamentally worrying knock-on effect too: they upset the whole balance of the ecosystem which runs itself based on the timings of a million different variables. If those variables are now messed up then the whole system is liable to crash. In today’s computer age it’s an analogy that I’m sure we can all identify with.

The question is no longer: "does global warming exist?" but "what are we going to do about it now that it’s here?"

It’s about time that the politicians of the world realized that we no longer have the time or the leisure to debate the issue. We have to act now. The pendulum is already swinging...

For those of you that are interested, I’ve written more on this topic on my web site at www.pocketropolis.com

Baps And Beyond

After yesterday’s "Lorraine Kelly breast-fest" I feel the need to move this blog away from such bap-titious topics and onto a more sedate and gentlemanly footing.

Hey. I’ve just invented a new word!

Baptitious: adj, of or pertaining to the female mammary glands; resembling breasts; boob-like. Not to be confused with baptism or baptize though baptitiousness is not confined to any one religious or social denomination. Usage: Lorraine Kelly, wearing a plunging neckline, looked exceedingly baptitious on GMTV this morning, said Eamonn Holmes in a recent interview with Cantaloupe Weekly.

Eat your heart out Samuel Johnson. Shove it in your dictionary and spin on it!

Yes. Anyway. About this more sedate and gentlemanly footing...

Kelly’s Heroes

Karen and I ended up debating the allure of GMTV presenter Lorraine Kelly last night - the reason being we’d just watched a repeated episode of Have I Got News For You – the one presented by Lorraine – on UKTV G2. I’d like to point out at this point that debating the merits or otherwise of breakfast TV presenters is not a normal pastime in our house.

Anyway Karen commented on the fact that, like an awful lot of men, I find Lorraine Kelly intriguingly attractive and I had to agree that there is something about her that a lot of guys seem to go for in a big way. But what exactly is it?

Having thought about it over night (oo-er) I think Lorraine’s attractiveness is based on a few key points.

1) First and foremost she IS actually a beautiful woman. Stunningly so. That alone will do it for most guys.

2) She’s giggly and funny – a huge plus in anybody’s book – and tied in with that is the fact that she obviously has an absolutely filthy sense of humour. That is always attractive. Yet she’s never coarse which is a repulsive trait in absolutely anybody (Jade Goodey take note).

3) Sure she’s a bit mumsy but she’s NOT mumsy in a pinafore, feather duster and stench of Mr Sheen kind of way. She’s mumsy in a MILF kind of way (pardon the expression) and that’s a BIG difference.

4) She’s also patently intelligent, quick witted and sensitive. All admirable traits I’m sure you’ll agree – you just cannot be great without them.

5) But the real reason – and I have acknowledged the truth of this to Karen’s face – is that (to quote an exemplary episode of Bottom) she has an absolutely "wazzo pair of jugs".

I’m sorry if this offends people. But it IS true and I suspect most guys tune into breakfast TV every morning for no other reason than to get their fix of Lorraine Kelly’s delectable cleavage swinging pendulously as she fidgets and giggles on the sofa.

Are we hetero guys really so shallow, superficial and so utterly predictable in our stimuli?

It seems that we are.

Even the Lorraine Kelly Appreciation Society uses the following as a tag-line on their site: "She [Lorraine] is on GMTV every morning, where she gives her male fans a glimpse of her shapely legs and her magnificent cleavage!!"

So there you go: Lorraine Kelly, folks... a woman of many talents and virtues which can yet so easily be whittled down to two.

But my God are they good ones.

The Spoils

I have to confess to feeling completely lacklustre this morning... Monday morning syndrome strikes again.

Nevertheless I feel it incumbent on me to comment upon the Celebrity Big Brother final that played out on the TV before the nation’s jaundiced eyes last night.

The only real surprise was Dirk scoring higher than Ian. Personally I really liked Dirk’s irascibility and his grouchiness. Obviously I must empathise in some way and share those same qualities myself (my wife is nodding)... though I’d prefer to think the affinity lies elsewhere, i.e. in my ability to adopt any disguise at whim and to construct tanks with exocet missile launchers out of old mopeds, washing up liquid bottles and dusty boxes of junk that people leave lying about in their garages. That and an Oedipal need to suck on a fat cigar like it was a woman’s teat.

Yeah, me and Dirk... we’re like bro’s.

Anyway, it was no surprise that Shilpa won and though part of me initially felt it was evidence of cynical manoeuvring on Channel 4’s part I nevertheless must admit that Shilpa was a worthy winner. Truly graceful, magnanimous and dignified as well as willing to put aside any hint of sourness and bad feeling. Though I’m sure the latter was out of an understandable desire to put as much distance between herself and the foul memory of Jade Goodey as humanly possible. It may be that once she’s had time to consider the full picture she’ll feel justifiably furious at her treatment by Jade, Jo and Danielle. Certainly it was heart rending to see how upset she got when confronted with a potted account of all that those three witches had done. Too much for the poor girl to take in, I suspect, though she needed to see it.

Cynicism aside, at the end of the day Shilpa’s victory at least gave out all the right signals about what the UK really stands for at its best...

As for its worst, I have to confess I enjoyed Danielle and Jack’s discomfort immensely. Bravo to Channel 4 for confronting them with the full impact of all they’d subjected Shilpa to. How they squirmed. I have to say though that, like Jade, at least Danielle accepted the wrongness of her actions immediately and looked genuinely ashamed. I still can’t get over the fact that Jo refused to accept her part in it during her exit interview on Friday. That will go badly against her, I’m sure.

I really hope that the careers of all three are in tatters. I wish I had the capacity for forgiveness and clemency that Jermaine and Shilpa so admirably exhibit but alas I don’t. So tough.

Am I glad that it’s all over? You bet.

Although it created much meat for many a good blog Karen and I are both of the opinion that it’s nice to have our viewing choices freed up once more. BB is rather a jealous god so it’s always nice when it’s hold on the nation loosens... in fact even last night we were Channel hopping to the Beeb to catch Richard Hammond’s very welcome return to Top Gear after his near fatal car crash late last year. It was good to see and the show was good-humouredly laced with loads of manly emotion and the kind of awkward, stiff-upper-lipped love that only exists between "real men". Ah what joy to behold.

Nice to see you back Richard.

The Über Novel

At long last, after literally years of harping on and on about my desire to write a novel I’m finally in a position to start one.

I have an idea. It’s workable. I’ve lived with it for a while and my intelligent and stylish wife has picked it to pieces, scanned it for logic holes and generally bullied it into tip-top shape like a hard-nosed training officer in the United Stated army (only without the muscular moustache and the baguette sized cigar).

I have the technical ability. Well, at least I think I do. I’ve been scoring quite a few successes with my writing over the last few years – it’s about time I put my skills to a bigger test and made the dream real.

I have the stamina. Yes really I do. I consistently write a thousand words a day – usually for this here blog - and regularly write for my own web site, Pocketropolis. Why not siphon off some of that verbiage into a more lasting project? Go on, my son, you can do it!

I have the motivation. God anything that offers me a possible escape route from my boring, soul destroying job will be grabbed with both hands I can tell you. The Foreign Legion and Al Qaeda were all viable options at one point. I even considered Big Brother for a while... Well. Actually, no. I didn’t. That’s a lie. Things have never been that bad.

I have the power. He-Man stylee. The planets are all correctly aligned. The Death Star plans are on board. I’m perched on the edge of Mount Doom with the One Ring in my hands.

So why instead of starting today – right now – have I again typically distracted myself by composing yet another blog entry?

Television Is Evil (Apparently)

After writing quite an innocuous blog entry last week about wanting to work less and spend more time with my family – All Work And No Play - I’ve found myself inexplicably attacked by Mr Anonymous (the Mr Man that Roger Hargreaves couldn’t be bothered to write about) who, after presumably skimming through a few of my other blog entries, jumped to the huge conclusion that the reason I don’t have enough time with my family is because I watch far too much television. For those of you who are interested, you can read his sanctimonious outpourings by clicking on the Comments link at the bottom of the entry in question.

Now my first reaction was one of immense anger and I still feel hugely offended. You’ll see from my replies that I generally watch no more than 2 hours of television a day. Hardly a massive family-quality-time sapping amount is it? Mr Anonymous however, undoubtedly with his nose in the air, countered with the argument that 2 hours a day soon adds up if you total it up over a year.

I find such statistics deeply irritating. They’re the usual recourse of the unimaginatively smug. Ah yes – you might only pick your nose for 2 minutes day but added up over a lifetime that equals 912 hours! 912 hours when you could be doing something far more worthy and important! So what are you supposed to do? Never pick your nose again and write a Nobel Peace Prize winning novel with the extra time that you’ve gained?

What rubbish. It’s unrealistic as well as being impractical and stupid.

Such statistics are utterly meaningless.

My biggest gripe, however, is the fact that Mr Anonymous has read a handful of my Blog entries and has just assumed that I choose to watch television rather than spend time with my family. That’s deeply offensive: (a) because nobody has the right to make judgements about me, my life and the intimate workings of my family life based upon a few flimsy blog entries and (b) I generally watch television WITH my family. And it’s not a passive viewing pastime either – Karen and I debate and discuss constantly the issues that are presented towards us. The television is far from being an “idiot box” in our house.

But even if it was who the hell has the right to tell me – or indeed you – that you have no right to relax in whatever way you see fit? I work effing hard. So does my wife. If we want to relax by watching TV, taking up Pilates, tying ourselves in knots with yoga or knitting voluminous sweaters out of spaghetti then so be it. Nobody has the right to say we can’t or intimate that our choice of relaxation is harming our relationship!

Mr Anonymous how dare you!

You obviously spend far too much time in front of the computer reading other people’s blogs and making ill-informed judgements about the owners based upon what you read. I could easily argue that such a pastime is bad for you and your own relationships. Why aren’t you spending that time with your family – if indeed you have one? Why don’t you count up how many hours you spend being sanctimonious over a year and try and decide whether it’s a worthy use of your time?

Personally, as far as I’m concerned, you can do what the effing hell you like with your life.

Just kindly butt out of mine.

Related Blog: A Blog On The Spectrum.

Mirror Mirror

I don’t usually read the tabloids – in fact being a BBC News 24 fan I rarely read newspapers at all these days – but yesterday I happened to pick up my granddad’s copy of The Mirror while visiting him and I had a quick flick through.

Aside from being shocked at the total lack of newsworthiness of most of the dross that filled its pages I was mostly irritated by its front page story. Exhibiting the kind of ug-ug primitive irony that is normally found in the ham-fisted mitts of "politically aware" 13 year olds they’d drafted up a letter for the bosses of Big Brother to take to their Channel 4 board meeting this week. It simply said "RESIGN" in big letters.

Oh ho ho ho.

Now, I’ve been as vociferous as everybody else in condemning BB’s handling of the Shilpa-gate scandal (I really must copyright that) but I’m not arrogant enough to think I have the right to demand someone’s resignation.

I certainly don’t think that a newspaper has that right either. Excuse me, Mirror, report the news – don’t try to make it! When it comes to the decisions of other companies and people – butt out and stay out. Who put you in charge?

This whole BB thing has become a repulsive witch hunt. People are reacting now NOT out of a sense of outrage or genuine disgust but out of a sense of glee. Ooh who can we bring down now? Whose life can we thoroughly ruin for our own entertainment? Think of the newspaper and magazine sales!

It comes down to this: scandal sells – but only as long as the scandal lasts. Hence people in the media – the ones who are truly benefiting from this whole debacle – will be doing all they can to perpetuate the racism row until every last drop of blood is sucked out of Channel 4, Big brother, Jade, Danielle and Jo. And Shilpa too for that matter.

Personally I’ve had my fill.

Enough is enough.

Eggs Benedict

Have they learnt nothing from Jade’s eviction?

My God – just how thick can these people be?

It seems that we as a race always need someone to pick upon, victimize and bully. It’s a distasteful need to admit to but if Big Brother truly is a reflection of society then the proof is plainly there to see.

No sooner is Jade ousted from the BB house and the bullying of Shilpa dies down than the housemates choose a new target and a whole new round of bullying begins. This time the victim is Dirk Benedict. Phew – well at least there isn’t a racist angle this time, eh folks?

I’m not even sure quite why it started. Dirk flirted quite harmlessly with Shilpa – all taken in good fun and lasting little more than a couple of minutes – and suddenly Cleo Rocos is dressed up as a tart and is literally hounding Dirk all over the house pretending to leer and paw at him. Poor Dirk was trying to sleep on the sofa when it first started – hassling nobody. Even when Dirk made it plain he’d had enough still Cleo continued, her whole stance quite aggressive. I’m very very disappointed in her. It seems that she has a nasty side too.

As far as Cleo was concerned she was teaching Dirk a lesson – if he can give it out he ought to be able to take it too.

Excuse me?! Who appointed Cleo – or anyone else for that matter – the arbiter of public morals in the BB house? What right has anyone got to “teach” another person “a lesson”? What arrogance!

My own theory is that Cleo fancies Dirk and is feeling rejected by his attention to Shilpa. After all, it was Dirk’s flirting with Shilpa which seemed to kick all this off. Shilpa however was fine about it – no one needed to teach Dirk a lesson on her behalf. If anything Shilpa was rallying around to support Dirk – trying desperately to deflect Cleo’s attention away from him and later sitting with Dirk in the garden to make sure he was ok.

Hmm. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, eh, Cleo?

Worse was to come though – the giggling, school girl bullies, Jo and Danielle, proving that they’ve learnt absolutely nothing from Jade’s eviction, were back guffawing into their pillows and making snidey comments with Cleo in the bedroom while Dirk tried to sleep later that night. Here we go all over a-bloody-gain.

I don’t know about anyone else – but this constant bullying (it happens EVERY BB series) is starting to leave a permanently nasty taste in my mouth. Are we really that malicious and spiteful as a species?

BB and my own life experience suggests that maybe we are. I’ve even witnessed similar bullying occur in the office where I work. Seemingly it’s commonplace.

Sigh. But it ain’t right.

A Mite Jaded

So the “BB racism row” (as it is currently known in tabloid land) reached a climax of sorts last Friday with Jade Goodey being evicted from the house in disgrace. Hurrah!

I must admit, seeing Jade emerge to a muted and silent reception and then face quite an uncomfortable and unforgiving interview by Davina McCall (well, unforgiving by Davina’s standards) gave me quite a bit of satisfaction... at the time.

Now though, having lived with it for a few days, read the news articles about it, watched the news storm run itself ragged on the TV, my overall feeling is one of deep dissatisfaction and frustration.

My main feeling is that Jade’s biggest crime is stupidity. She is the victim of a thoroughly rough and ropey upbringing by Jackiey which has left her completely ill-equipped to deal with ordinary people in the ordinary world let alone “celebrities” and the celebrity world. You want evidence? Her comments about Shilpa were indisputably racist yet even after having them played back to her she was still just too stupid – genuinely so – to see that they were racist; her argument running along the lines of: look, when I was stabbing Shilpa with the knife I didn’t actually mean it in a stabbing kind of way I was just being nasty... Oh. Well that makes it alright then. Dopey effing cow.

Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t about to turn into a defence of Jade. Far from it. She, Jo and Danielle are nasty, vicious, vacuous bullies. Certainly they are all guilty of exhibiting offensive, racist behaviour towards Shilpa but I can’t help feeling that they have in some way been unfairly hung out to dry by Big Brother. Isn’t the racist guilt of the nation being unjustly dumped on their doorsteps? They’ve become scapegoats just to make the rest of us feel righteous and that just isn’t right. All three certainly deserve a good telling off but do they really deserve the full mass of global derision and hatred that is currently pouring in against them (and God knows I’ve been guilty of producing some of it)?

Jade plainly can’t cope with it given the floods of tears she’s doused various interviewers with since her eviction. But while she certainly deserves to feel bad and cry some real tears of shame I don’t think she deserves to be spat at in the street or lynched or made public enemy number one. Her crime was ignorance. That can be resolved given time. The same with Jo and Danielle. I don’t like either of them but I don’t want to see them both run into the ground by baying mobs of thugs who are “enjoying the kill” a little too much for it to be healthy. It won’t solve the racism problems of this country. It’ll just make half the nation feel superior for about five minutes and then everything will just carry on as normal.

Look at it this way: does Shilpa want the lives of Jade, Jo and Danielle to be permanently ruined? Definitely not. And as she is the injured party I think the rest of us should take our lead from her.

That doesn’t mean ignoring the problems of racism and bullying that this incident has highlighted. Far from it. Let’s stop burning effigies in the street and get some positive, fruitful dialogue going please.

Lastly, I can’t help feeling that for all they didn’t put those words into the mouths of Jade, Jo and Danielle, Big brother is ultimately culpable for this whole debacle. It could have been and should have been nipped in the bud long before things got this serious. If BB is happy to step in and intervene when its own petty game rules are broken then it should have taken a more responsible attitude to the housemates generally – people who are effectively in their care – and stopped all this nastiness before it went a step too far. That would have sent out hugely positive signals to all who were watching that bullying and bigotry will not be tolerated by this society.

Instead, they did too little too late and it now appears that racism and all its ensuing fall-out is merely a branch of the entertainment industry.

That is not good.

Just Because It Amused Me...

Click on the image to get better quality...

All Work And No Play

I’m a victim of my own success (well, ain’t we all, luvie?) –

I’ve got so much web work coming in at the moment on top of my day job that I’m practically working 10 hour days... the consequence being that I’m either tired, grouchy, hyper-actively detached or, as is often the case, all three.

Karen very tactfully pointed out to me last night that it’s got to stop before I run myself into the ground. And she’s right too. I feel like I’ve hardly seen her or Ben over the last three weeks and I can’t recall the last time I didn’t feel like I was carrying a two tonne weight on my shoulders.

I need to get into the habit of better time management – placing R & R time a lot higher up the list than it currently is. After all, look at it this way: why should work get the best I have to offer when it leaves me with nothing for those I love?

I’m turning into a fat, balding workaholic. Accept I’m neither fat nor balding thankfully. And being a workaholic is the last thing I thought I’d ever be. I’m supposed to be a languorous Leo for heaven sake!

It’s time to kick back and have some fun!

Wild Ray

As a precursor to our Big Brother viewing last night Karen and I rather appropriately watched Ray Mears’ Wild Food on BBC2. We love Ray in our house. He seems to engender all that is warm and friendly and knobbly-kneed about Great British eccentrics. There is also the sneaking suspicion that as the world continues to go tits up with global warming and runaway pollution Ray’s teachings could one day become the basis for Western humanity’s survival on this beleaguered planet.

However despite Ray’s cheery smile and easy laughter I can’t help sensing an isolation about him. I guess it comes with the territory. Ray is “out there” some how. Detached. Separate. Mostly by choice I’d imagine given his penchant for going walkabout in the wilds with only his haversack for company. So is he a wandering mystic or just a weird anorak? You tell me?

One telling fact emerged on last night’s show however. Describing how to make string from the stem of a nettle plant Ray said he’d made the discovery whilst playing with nettles as a small boy.

Hmm. Despite his enviable survival knowledge, one can’t help thinking that perhaps Ray was a bit of a strange child with no friends and distant parents... such an upbringing would certainly have made me want to fashion harpoons out of deer antlers and willow branches, I can tell you.

Big Bother

Big Brother update:

I was thoroughly repulsed by Jade’s vile temper last night. But what really sickened me was watching Danielle and Jo stifling idiotic giggles behind the sofa cushions like immature school girls whilst Jade subjected Shilpa to a tirade driven purely by her own xenophobic misconceptions and class insecurities. What an absolutely horrible coven of witches. For the entire duration of Jade’s baboon-like rant I found myself willing someone – anyone – to fill a bowl up with water and tip it all over Jade’s orang-utan shaped head, anything to shut her up.

Shilpa impresses me more every day with the strength and dignity she is showing by putting up with this kind of behaviour and not letting it grind her down. The Force is strong in this one. Unfortunately the three evil witches are making me ashamed to be British. The only consolation I have is knowing that they’re going to get a right royal kicking from the public once they’re ejected from the house. That and the knowledge that their respective careers are in tatters.

Mind you, what careers? Jo’s done eff all since S-Club 7 (thank God). Danielle is a shamed beauty queen and footballer’s wife wannabe and Jade... well, Shilpa was right. Jade IS only famous for being on BB. That and being as thick as the proverbial whale omelette. The truth hurts doesn’t it, Jade? They are the three sorriest excuses for celebrity status I have ever come across since... well, since Leo Sayer really. And that’s saying something.

As for the hoo-ha that their bullying has since engendered. The BB production team is obviously lapping it up. It could all have been nipped in the bud long before it erupted into this huge global melee (protests in India? my God!) but I did like the fact they got Danielle into the Diary Room and asked her to explain what she meant when she said that Shilpa ought to "eff off back home". Her pained expression was joyous to behold. You could practically see the penny dropping.

Yep. That’s right, girl. You’re in the do-do. Big Time.

One final point: I find the sudden interest from politicians in all the issues currently thrown up by BB blatantly transparent. Talk about commandeering the bandwagon! I find it truly amazing that it took the UK Government days and days to formerly condemn the way Saddam Hussein was executed yet they can comment on BB with an immediacy that must have popped their stomach ulcers with the speed of Leo Sayer whipping his underpants into and out of a laundrette. I guess slagging of the inherent racism of white trash scum is politically far safer than daring to suggest that Saddam’s execution was handled badly and has got the West’s hands even dirtier...

X-Ray Vision

Despite still being laid low with an awful dose of this year’s variant of the flu virus Karen very kindly gave me a lift to the local hospital yesterday afternoon so I could keep my appointment with the highly esteemed foot specialist... regular readers of this blog will know of my recent foot problems; irregular readers can bone up here.

Cue half an hour of being sent one way and then the other due to an IT breakdown which meant the receptionists were reduced to using paper and high-lighter pen to impose some sort of order on the hordes of injured and diseased that were clamouring for palliative attention in front of their desks.

Cue half an hour of sitting in a waiting room that positively howled with the décor of an Eastern Block abattoir...

...until I was finally called into a radiation proof room to have my sorry-looking feet X-rayed from a multitude of various angles and uncomfortable positions.

Then we had another half an hour wait while the specialist looked at the resultant images before I was eventually called in to see him.

And the final diagnosis?

Well, certainly I have hallux valgus but the condition (at the moment) doesn’t warrant an operation of any kind or intervention aside from decent shoes and insoles. The pain I was in, dear people, was actually caused by the fact I’d had two broken bones in my foot! Bones that now – thankfully and miraculously given that I’ve been walking on them for the last 2 months – have healed quite nicely and knitted together very healthily.

Amazing. Especially as I also underwent 4 weeks of fairly rigorous physiotherapy not long after the foot injury first occurred.

No wonder it bloody hurt so much!

Anyway Karen’s being really sweet and says she feels bad that I didn’t get all the sympathy that I deserved at the time so is now intent on giving it to me belatedly.

Me? I’m gonna put my feet up and milk it for all it’s worth!

Pant Friction

News just in.

Apparently Quentin Tarantino is desperate to sign up Leo Sayer for his new movie: Pant Friction.

Early reports suggest that Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta have already agreed to play Leo’s turds...

Big Brother Quotes Of The Day 2

Jack: (after BB explained that all human embryos are female for the first few weeks of their existence) “What’s an envryo?” [sic]

Jade: after BB invited the housemates to submit a question that they’d always wanted to know the answer to, Jade came up with this corker - “How comes Eskimos don’t turn into human icey-cubes?” Even after being supplied with the answer Jade, like Jack, was still no wiser and requested that any Eskimos watching the show get in touch with her to explain things in more detail.

Jade, if you ever encountered an Eskimo he’d launch 5 harpoons into your back and be living off the blubber for the next 6 months. He’d also make a kayak out of your lips (and I am not referring to your kebab).


On another BB-centric note: I am not at all liking the bullying that Jo, Danielle and Jade are subjecting Shilpa to at the moment. This type of thing seems to occur every year... horrible little cliques striving to re-enact the Lord Of The Flies. Jo and Danielle are offensive in the extreme and have even been dipping their evil little toes into the rancid waters of racism. Meanwhile Jade is careering all over Shilpa's feelings like a tank being driven by a lobotomized chimpanzee... I’d like to see all three of them hoofed out of the house as soon as possible please.

Bloggertropolis Challenge

Courtesy of new Blog buddy, Old Cheeser, I have an interesting challenge for you all (should you choose to take it up, of course).

All you need to do is comment on this post and:

1. I'll respond with a random thought I have about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick a flavour of jelly in which we can wrestle.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me (or so we think).
5. I'll tell you my first memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what intoxicant you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your blog.

Give it a go! It's loadsa fun!

Russell Brand

Why do so many people rave about Russell Brand?

Personally I just can’t see it. Is it the moo-cow eyes? The pouty Barbie doll lips? The very carefully manufactured, teased and contrived bed-head hairdo? What?

The trouble with Russell is that it IS all so contrived. At one time, back in the early days, then yes, maybe the “just got out of bed hungovor” ineptitude was genuine. And maybe even charming because it was different – a little bit real, a little bit truly anarchic. A little bit “whoa”. A little bit “whoosh”.

But now it is just OTT and fake. Russell has become his own caricature and his stream-of-unconsciousness burblings just grate on my nellies like Leo Sayer in my bathtub with a loofah. Urgh. And just as nightmarish. I can’t believe Russell gets paid vast amounts of money for his poorly articulated enunciations and slack-jawed observations. If I want to listen to a pisshead then I’ll go down to my nearest boozer thank you very much and get wasted myself. I don’t want to see him on my telly being paid huge amounts of money for flapping his tongue about in a cocaine fuelled daze and running about with legs like 2 broken mop handles.

But hey. Maybe I’m missing the joke?

Maybe I ought to style my blog after Russell Brand’s style of sub-literary delivery?

“Yeah so this is my blog right and it’s great and all that so why don’t you log on and read some stuff if you want to – you don’t have to read all of it even though it’s all probably really good, no it is – yeah so you do have to read all of it actually cos that’s why I’m plugging it ain’t I and I talk about lots of things that are interesting and topical and oh yeah I’ve shagged 2000 women though not all at once obviously cos that would be like really amazing wouldn’t it and I’d be dead or something...”

Russell you must have shares in rohypnol cos you surely didn’t get them into bed by chatting them up…

Pants

Can’t deny it. I feel absolutely pants today. I’m suffering from a raging head cold and all its many accoutrements. All of which seem to be disgustingly snot based.

However, I bet I’m feeling a lot better than dopey dwarf, Leo Sayer, who comically slit the throat of his own already poorly career yesterday (surely a case of euthanasia?) by evacuating himself, little poo stylee, from the Big Brother house in high dudgeon all because BB refused to supply him with a clean pair of underpants.

Leo it seems refused to wash his own underpants on camera because it was “degrading”.

Hmm. It’s only degrading, Leo, if your grundies are horrifically spattered with turd-stains, haemorrhoid cream or spunk.

Or all three, of course.

Hmm. Is there anything you wish to come clean about, Mr Sayer?

Apparently not.

Not on camera anyway…

Bug

The January lurgy is upon us.

I left Karen ill in bed when I dragged myself valiantly into work this morning. Valiantly because I too am slowly succumbing to the virus that is currently decimating my office. The place is littered with empty seats draped with gooey tissues and drying snot. Supplies of paracetamol are running dangerously low.

Everywhere about me I can hear the barking of inflamed throats and congested lungs, the perpetual sniffle of running noses.

In my mind’s eye I imagine the lurgy bacteria floating about the office like a horde of evil faeries. Every one of them has Leo Sayer’s face.

That is how I know I am sick.

Citizen 1000

No, not some grotesque Orwellian identity tagging system but the latest scheme being run by BBC Coventry & Warwickshire. The new in-thing is User Generated Content and the BBC are leading the way (or at least catching up quite nicely) by launching the Citizen 1000 project and recruiting Citizen Journalists from across the local area to provide material and stories to be broadcast in one form or another on their radio stations, their TV programmes and their web site.

In other words, for some opinionated little oik like me – an absolute gold rush!

I went along to the induction evening yesterday and was gratified to see that, despite my visions of thousands turning up (thus ruining my elitist pretensions), there were only 12 of us at this evening’s event – and quite a nice bunch of people too.

The staff at the Beeb were incredibly warm and friendly and first impressions suggest that the Beeb would be a great place to work. Of course, I have no doubt that every other Citizen Journalist is going to be thinking along the same lines as me – “Ok, this might be voluntary work at first but who knows where it might lead...? It could be a foot in the door to BBC stardom!”

I expect the chances of that are in actuality extremely slim and, indeed, the BBC is making no promises along those lines at all. What they did say was that they were exceedingly open to any stories or ideas we may have and provided we followed their basic guidelines for content we’d stand a good chance of seeing our stuff broadcast on one of the Beeb’s many local services. All of which would look most impressive on the old CV.

Hence nothing to lose. Everything to gain.

All I need now is a story.

Hmm. Wonder if Cleo Rocos would be up for an interview...?

Beeb And Boobs

Beeb because I’m off to the BBC HQ in Coventry tonight, there to undergo my induction into the BBC’s highly vaunted Citizen Journalist programme. Yes, yours truly has been selected to be one of the BBC’s on-the-street unpaid reporters... me and 5000 others no doubt. But hey it’s a toe in the door and who knows where such an opportunity might lead?

My own radio show – Blake On The Beeb?
My own TV show – Blake On The Box?

Who knows!

And Boobs just because I’m completely mesmerized by the lovely Cleo Rocos on Big Brother. She’s worn very well, bless her, and still has the va-va-voom that filled my burgeoning pubescent thoughts with bouncy naughtiness. To top it all she’s genuinely a very lovely person too. Definitely still my favourite to win. Bookie’s favourite, Leo Sayer, on the other hand has fast turned into the most grumpy gnome in the garden centre and won’t last the distance in my humble opinion.

Hey maybe I could have my own radio show with the lovely Cleo? – Blake On The Boob?

The TV show title could stay as it is, I guess.

(All meant in the best possible taste...)

Big Brother Quotes Of The Day

Jermaine, referring to Shilpa's courageous attempts to get her relationship with Jackiey Goody onto a more diplomatic footing: "You can't reason with stupidity." - Positively zen, mate.

Jade, in a split second nullifying the last 200 years of scientific advancement: "Nobody knows how high the sky is do they? I mean, does it go on and on forever?" - Geez, you'd think NASA would have taken a slide rule or some sort of measuring device with them on one of their many space missions...

Rough As A Badger’s Arse

Despite staunch attempts not to let Big Brother commandeer my entire blog I find myself compelled yet again to compose another BB related entry.

All my snobby affectations are now thoroughly undercut. It’s official. I’m as hooked on BB as anybody else, admittedly for the sole purpose of sneering at the moral / social / intellectual ineptitude of other people, but hooked nonetheless.

And my God, talking of intellectual ineptitude on a grand scale… we now have the Goody’s in the Big Brother house. Alas not the 1970’s gibbon-esque funky funsters fronted by grumpy old twitcher, Bill Oddie, but Jade Goody and her slack-jawed boyfriend and her cosmetically unslack-boobed mother.

Effing hell and I thought Jade was bad. Jade (a voice that can strip paint at 400 yards and the cranial capacity of a used tissue) is a white trash Carol Vorderman when compared to her gravel-gobbed mother. Ma Goody is as rough as the proverbial badger that’s had a 40lb backpack strapped to its shoulders and been made to slide arse-first down a 250 metre waterslide lined with broken glass. Even poor Jermaine – usually so comatose his fellow housemates are wondering if BB brought in his Madame Tussaud’s waxwork by mistake – was so horrified by the Goody invasion that he considered leaving the BB house. Presumably very quietly and deferentially by the front door as opposed to rebelliously and spontaneously like Donny ‘Dorko’ who basically legged it up a drainpipe and over the roof Prisoner Cell Block H stylee. What a punk. Good man.

And if you thought Jade’s ma was gravelly at the top end that’s nothing to the foghorn-leghorn bugling that erupted from her kebab regions the first night in. I swear to God Jermaine turned white (Michael must have been green with envy). Shilpa must be wondering what scummy planet she’s crash landed on.

Ken Russell, however, seems to be taking it all in his stride. I guess there are benefits to being senile and having one foot in the grave. Bet you any money he’s planning a remake of his 1988 film The Lair Of The White Worm with Ma Goody reprising Amanda Donahoe’s role as Lady Sylvia Marsh…

Just hope they cut all the nude scenes… bleeurgh!

Big Brother? Who’s Bothered?

Very unwisely I tuned in to the launch of the new Celebrity Big Brother last night. Within minutes I wished that I hadn’t... and yet continued watching.

Just what IS the pull of this damned show? It’s like it exudes some form of electronic monosodium glutamate that keeps everyone going back for more no matter how sick of it we all are. That and the fact you can’t join in work conversations the next day unless you have the complete breakdown of the ridiculous BB events that occurred the night before.

Christ but they're a rum bunch of has-beens this year. Ken Russell looks like he’s suffering from dementia. Jermaine Jackson looked bewildered and totally freaked out by his housemates (you’d think he’d feel right at home really). And Danielle Lloyd thought that Winston Churchill was America’s first president. Geez-us!

The only housemate who gets my vote is Cleo Rocos. Mainly because I used to love the Kenny Everett Show as a kid and during its hey-day I developed a huge soft spot for Cleo. Well a huge hard spot actually. There is something about Cleo Rocos that is just made for skimpy French maid outfits. Well, there are two things about her really. Oh! Enough of this prurient banter!

Anyway the thing that has appalled me most is that Leo Sayer has been tipped as the bookies favourite. Leo frigging Sayer?!? Come on! He is the most annoying man on the planet. He has the most annoying hairstyle on the planet. He’s modelled himself on a 1970’s variety show microphone. He’s about as cool as ordering Saddam Hussein eyeball soup at a Sunni Muslim convention. Just check out the cover to one of his God-awful albums above. I mean pleeeeease. The only thing that pleases me about this picture is that I can easily imagine a shotgun wielding maniac off-camera at the bottom of the picture emptying both barrels into Leo’s midgety little guts and blasting him bodily up against the ceiling.

Yeah. Now I feel like dancin’...

Shoe-horn

First day back at work today but thankfully, due to half the staff still being off, it’s been a very laid back affair. Nothing too strenuous has arisen and I’ve been able to ease myself slowly and painlessly back into my civil servant’s role. Ah it fits just like a glove. Or even an old shoe. And I think that’s what disturbs me most of all. The terrifying ease of it. Especially when normally I’d be almost neurotic about proclaiming how I don’t fit this job at all and need to get out of it to do something far more creative.

I guess I shouldn’t worry too much. This current cosiness seems to typify any return to work after a long period of absence for me... it’s akin to that relief one feels when things don’t turn out as bad as you imagined they would. Yes my job is crap but it could be a lot worse and usually is. At least today there’s an atmosphere of kindliness and good humour swirling about the place. I dare say that will quickly dissipate once full normality is resumed and my sense of dissatisfaction will no doubt sharpen and harden itself in direct correlation.

It would be nice if this year is comprised of a few more of the creative successes that apostrophised last year. Certainly I’ve got an intriguing evening lined up in Coventry next week courtesy of the BBC. I’ve been chosen to be one of the Beeb’s Citizen Journalists and I have to attend a 2 hour induction on the 10th where I shall no doubt receive positive instruction on how to find further outlets for the unending stream of codswallop that continually pours from my pen and keyboard.

I bet you can hardly wait.

Happy New Year one and all.

Butchery At Last!

Last night saw the final episode in the first series of the BBC’s new Robin Hood dramatization. A good job really as I’ve now nicked just about every picture of Lucy Griffiths from the BBC Robin Hood web site that was available in order to illustrate my scintillating reviews of the show.

You know what? It wasn’t too bad an episode at all. Over recent weeks I’ve quite begun to warm to the show. God knows it still drives me batty with its historical and costume-based inaccuracies, its teeth-grindingly annoying too-modern colloquialisms, its flagrant disregard for the period’s limited technology and its sodding refusal to ever show Lucy Griffiths emerging totally naked from a frothing waterfall, sucking a Cadbury’s Flake with the strength of an industrial Dyson and cracking a jewel encrusted cat-o-nine-tails over a seraglio of Saracen love slaves.

I mean c’mon guys! That’s a killer show ready to go! What’s the matter with you?

Anyway, last night saw Marian unsurprisingly retrieved from out of death’s grubby claws by a miracle reaction to hemlock and then a little while later retrieved from out of the grubby claws of somebody who was even worse than death itself – Guy of Gisbourne - by a far grittier agency. Guy, still wearing a black leather trench coat like an extra from an ABC video and still talkin’ like a Catherine Cookson mill owner by ‘eck, had his troth well and truly unplighted by Marian giving him a right-hook in front of the altar. Poor Guy. 13 episodes mooning after Marian and all he got into her was the blade of his knife. He should have guessed that Marian was secretly pining for the impressive length of Robin’s longbow…

As it was even Robin could hardly be called the Dr Love of Loxley. 13 episodes pretending not to be mooning after Marian and only at the end does he finally have the brains to snog her to within an inch of her heaving virtue. Geez. At this rate it’ll be the end of the next series before he finally gets to bury his weighted tip into the depths of her quivering bullseye. Or some such other archery based euphemism.

At least he was quicker getting his act together regarding the ridiculous pacifism malarkey of the merry men. Last night saw them hacking, stabbing, shooting, and knifing to death as many of the Sheriff’s men as could be squashed into a medium sized people carrier with plenty of gung-ho left over to wipe out a small garrison of CND activists. Should there have been any around. At frigging last. Swash buckling. It’s the whole point of the Robin Hood legend after all.

I have to say that despite my initial dissatisfaction with the show I will miss it. Saturday nights just won’t be the same for a little while. What can I take the P out of now?

A Private Affair

Isn’t it amazing how even the most obsessive blog writer seems to be cured of the normally overwhelming desire to autobiographize every life event over the Christmas period? Surfing through the handful of blogs that I visit on a regular basis, I’ve felt like I’ve been wandering around the remains of a virtual Marie Celeste.

Everybody has gone to ground.

Which is understandable. Here am I, first blog entry after Christmas, and am I going to regale you with accounts of my wonderful Christmas? Make your mouth water with descriptions of the Christmas food that was consumed in vast quantities under my very roof, the army of presents that I received?

No. I am not.

Christmas with family is nigh on impossible to convert into interesting and entertaining literature. Not because it’s in any way boring but because it’s somehow universal and deeply personal at the same time. It’s both a shared and a private experience. I’m sure the vast majority of us all do the same sort of things so what’s the point in recounting in minute detail what everybody else already knows?

And apart from anything else I am simply too knackered after several days of chocolate/DVD/insert-pleasurable-object based hedonistic pleasure to be bothered to write it all down here.

The countdown to the dreaded Return To Work has already begun. I need to make the most of my freedom. The world can wait. I’ve got a homemade chocolate cake to eat… a "Shameless" DVD boxed-set to watch…

Drama At Last!

And so the BBC’s Robin Hood speedily whizzes on it’s way to a (no doubt foregone) conclusion like an arrow shot from Robin’s incomprehensibly Saracen bow…

Last night in the penultimate episode we were treated to an occurrence of something that has sadly only made the odd cameo appearance in recent episodes… drama.

Yes, Dame Drama herself deigned to make an appearance… and what an improving light she cast upon the mock-Tudor mock-medieval mis-en-scene that has continually tripped up what otherwise could have been a decent rendition of the Robin Hood legend.

Marian was stabbed in her womanly belly by the dastardly Guy Of Gisbourne!

Sadly we did not get to see her maidenly belly as Marian stayed firmly wrapped up in her leathers for the remainder of the show having been stabbed whilst carrying out a daring mission as her alter ego, The Night Watchman. Neither did we get to see her quivering Saxon belly when Djaq, the puzzling Saracen woman who has joined the Merry Men for no other reason than modern political expediency, decided to perform acts of Eastern surgery upon her in an attempt to save her life.

I’m very disappointed. I spent the entire episode on the edge of my seat waiting to catch a glimpse of Lucy Griffith’s belly.

Why?

I’m convinced that in keeping with the plethora of painful anachronisms that have plagued the show since episode one, an expose of Marian’s belly would have shown that not only has her belly been tattooed with the words "Maz for da Hood 4eva" but that her belly button has also been pierced with a little silver arrow to show her secret love for Robin Hood…

But alas as this didn’t actually happen we had to make do with some actually quite decent dialogue between Robin and Marian as they finally declared their love for each other. And then Marian died. Cue manly heroic sobs from Robin. Marian remained dead. Cue intense looks of revenge-laden hatred from Robin as the Sheriff’s gloating voice chirrups forth from the background: "Robin! Come out come out come out… wherever you are!" Ah they’ve caught the colloquialisms of the period to a tee.

Final episode next week. Should be a corker. I strongly suspect that Marian will make a full, miraculous recovery and that her gaping wound will need to be sewn up by the powerful needle of love that only Robin Hood himself can provide.

Yes that is an innuendo.

A very Merry Christmas to you all – have a good one.

;-)

Fray Bentos

Actually my previous blog posting has got me thinking up suitably down-at-heel, greasy-cafe, common-as-muck food based phrases that I would love to hear Dervla Kirwan utter with her gorgeously chocolatey Irish voice.

So far I’ve got:

1) "Fray Bentos..."
2) "Hot buttered mash stuffed with cheap, greasy pork sausages..."
3) "Reconstituted beef burger alternative slathered in out of date gherkins and rancid tomato sauce..."
4) "Snotty eggs fried in gristle laden fat with black bits floating on the top..."

and

5) "Bernard Matthews..."

Oooh... I’m shuddering all over!

Dervla Kirwan

The current proliferation of Marks & Spencer adverts on UK TV have somehow seeped into my subconscious and I now find I have an urgent desire to have Dervla Kirwan as my personal menu reader whenever I go out for a meal. Just the thought of her lilting voice crooning “double egg and chips” or “Chicken Royale with extra fries” sends shivers down the spine of my wallet…

Sneaky Santa

Christmas seems to have snuck up on me this year like an absurdly dressed mugger. Not a bad analogy considering how much moolah I’ve been haemorrhaging over the past month. Every year I come up with this ridiculously hopeful budget that I have every intention of sticking to... and then blow it all in the first week. Even if I’d doubled my “Crimbo Budget” for this year I still would have ended up in the red (ho ho ho).

I just hate the thought of scrimping on pressies for Karen and Ben. There is nothing worse than opening your own gifts on Christmas morning and seeing how much money and care your loved ones have lavished upon you and then secretly cursing yourself for not buying that diamante necklace for your partner or that £6000 bucket of Lego for your kid... why oh why did I do my entire Christmas shop at TK-Max?

Thankfully I’ve been a darn sight more upmarket than TK-Max and hopefully Karen and Ben will be chuffed to pieces with what I’ve got them.

Anyway, today has been the first day that I’ve actually felt Christmassy. I’ve felt completely out of kilter with the festive season over the last two weeks – mainly because of the volume of work coming my way through my Brighter Web Design business. I honestly felt like I was drowning at one point... but feel a lot better now for putting my foot down. I’ve informed my clients that as from this Friday I am taking a 10 day break. Almost immediately I could feel my shoulders lifting and the fugue in my brain clearing and a desire to hear sleigh-bells in the bedroom... but hey, let’s leave Christmas themed roll-play out of this for the time being.

It’s weird. Suddenly it is Christmas. For real. And I feel totally subsumed with the holiday spirit. All of which is bad news for my day-job bosses as I have utterly no intention of doing any real work at all this week.

Ha ha ha!

Fatty Gay

No. Not a reference to Johnny Vegas suddenly announcing a highly unlikely swing to the homo side of the street but instead a play on the French word for fatigue...

Yes, I’ve been burning the candle at both ends so much over the last few days that it now resembles Darth Maul’s light sabre. Only without all the balletic wrist-twirling, jump-kicking and grimacing.

Well actually there’s been lots of grimacing. My face has been pressed to the grindstone so much that if I were a CB radio ham my handle would undoubtedly be The Grindstone Cowboy...

Swamped by crap in my day job, my burgeoning web design business has also been hotting up so much that I’ve effectively been working 12 hour days for most of this week. I’m amazed at how dour “all work and no play” makes me. Christmas seems another world away rather than another week away.

Still things should slack off by the weekend and I can try at last to regain my Christmas spirit and joi de vivre.

After all there’s no point being a humbug at Christmas time if you haven’t got the energy to enjoy it.

Pig Off

After yesterday’s sense of humour by-pass I’m pleased to report that today has been imbued with a much more sanguine atmosphere. I’ve even been known to crack a smile in the last half hour.

The engineers have performed their diagnostics and have confidently laid the blame for yesterday’s indoor deluge at the foot of that singularly familiar blight of modern day living: mechanical failure. Basically the calibration of the humidifier’s sensor was completely awry and the pressure switch which acts as a safety valve to turn the machine off had also failed hence it was producing water vapour on a never ending cycle of Terminator style wanton destruction resulting in dripping condensation on the scale of Wookey Hole caves.

No. That explanation didn’t mean a thing to me either.

But it has allowed me to purchase a T-shirt with the words "See it wasn’t my fault at all ya mean-eyed bunch of gobshites!" emblazoned across the chest.

Vindication – it’s a marvellous thing.

Porker

This has not been a good day.

Woken at 5 am by the boy deciding to get up and watch TV (needless to say he was sent back to bed with a flea in his ear), I found it impossible to get back to sleep despite being desperately dog-tired.

Arrived at work bleary eyed to find one of the humidifier units in our main art store at the gallery where I work had gone haywire over the weekend. Result: massive condensation all over the (idiotically) metal ceiling and water pooling and dripping everywhere. Disaster clue: art work and water do not mix.

Spent the entire day chasing various engineers, “experts” and insurance bods to try and get a mess cleared up which my guilt complex says everybody is blaming me for.

Summary: I feel like I haven’t achieved a damn thing.

It’s been, to coin a phrase, a real pig of a day.

The F Word

I have to confess towards a huge liking for Gordon Ramsay. In fact both Karen and I are avid fans of both The F Word and Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Both shows are compelling viewing. It’s highly amusing to watch the (apparently) super competent Gordon Ramsay rail against the inadequacies and physical dysfunctionality of the mere mortals flapping around him.

Of course I’m sure it’s Gordon’s abrupt and formidable manner which makes people flap and bodge about in the first place... but weirdly no true sense of class / personal superiority ever emanates from Gordon. He doesn’t think of himself as being better than anybody else – he just seems to be driven purely by a desire to do things properly and have others do the same and takes it very personally when someone else’s idea of perfection isn’t on a par with his own.

I think I like Gordon the most though because of his zero tolerance towards crap. He just won’t have it. Not in his kitchen. Not from those around him. Not from anywhere. And when he encounters it he is eloquently contemptuous and doesn’t pull any punches. He tells it like it is and my God don’t I wish I had the balls to do the same. Don’t we all?

Best of all though I like Gordon for his sense of decency and fair play. When he’s gone too far with someone he apologizes and makes amends. He’s a top bloke. And it explains why his staff are so fiercely loyal.

But each time I watch his shows I can’t help but be fixated by the fact his chin looks like it’s been on the receiving end of a malicious pastry crimper. Just what is that mark? A scar? A bizarre wrinkle formed by years of sneering at ham-fisted sous chefs? The join of a false rubber latex chin?

I need to know.

Licked Into Shape

I must confess to feeling a mite churlish after my rant about Lil Chris yesterday. Further research has proven that the kid is only about 16 and apparently was a winning contestant on Gene Simmons' Rock School.

Geez.

Being licked into shape by Gene Simmons' prehensile tongue live on TV is surely punishment enough.

Knowing that an aging rock star’s tongue is bigger than you are is just rubbing salt into the wound...

Get Me To The Church On Time!

Yesterday I had the consummate honour of being the Best Man at the wedding of my good friends Tris and Emily.

Although as it turned out my actual title for the day was "The Almost But Not Quite Nearly Made It On Time But Didn’t" Best Man. Let me explain.

Normally getting from Leamington Spa (bright jewel of the Midlands) to London is an undertaking so easy as not to be worth discussing...

Yesterday, however, fate contrived to elevate this normally nondescript journey into something closely resembling a labour of Hercules.

Now Karen and I – being smart cookies and not unaware of some of the traffic problems that can sometimes befall the unwary traveller to London – factored in a huge 2 hour buffer zone to the timing of our journey and set off confidently at 9.0 am assured in the knowledge that the odd spot of congestion would hardly dent our schedule and be nothing but a minor aggravation.

I mean the wedding wasn’t until 2.0 pm – this gave us a whole 5 hours to make what should have been at most a 3 hour journey. Plenty of time to read the morning papers in the odd traffic jam on the motorway and still arrive in the Capital with enough time to spare to sup a skinny latte or two in a posh Oxford Street Café before heading off cool, calm and collected to Waltham Forest Registry Office.

Fate however had dictated that we were NOT to arrive on time for the wedding. First we were assailed by a 2 hour slow moving tailback on the M40 before the police turfed everybody off at junction 10. Fine, we thought, we’ll try the M1 instead. Unfortunately road works on the M1 created another 40 minute delay as we were funnelled through a contraflow system which had ground almost to a halt due to someone breaking down half way along it. Eventually we arrived on the M25 which thankfully was fine. Great. Moving again. We could still make it on time, we thought. Though we now had utterly no margin for error.

Ah how Fate must rejoice at such words. No margin for error…

Sigh. Heavy congestion along the sole segment of the M11 that we needed to travel along put any remaining hope we had of arriving on time for the ceremony completely beyond our reach. To add insult to injury after we’d painfully crawled to the end of the M11 the slip road we needed to take to bring us into London proper had been completely closed off due to road works and we ended up being diverted in completely the wrong direction!

Gah!!!!

Anyway, let’s dispense with the travelog. Tris and Emily were wonderful about it all. They delayed the ceremony for 10 minutes in the hope we’d still make it in time but in the end one of Tris’s friend’s had to step in at the last minute to do the business with the wedding rings… and the ceremony quite rightly went ahead. Karen, Ben and I finally arrived about 5 minutes before the end of the ceremony looking sweaty, chagrined and dishevelled with not a skinny latte in sight. The best laid plans of mice and men, eh?

For all that it was a wonderful day and Tris and Em, aside from looking fantastic, were fantastic – it was really great to be in London with so many lovely, warm hearted people and to be made to feel so welcome. We really wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I was able to discharge part of my Best Man duty at least by giving a speech at the reception (which hopefully didn’t die too much of an awful death) and it was very moving to see two of my best friend’s so happy together.

The whole occasion made Karen and I come all over all gooey and romantic too and our boy Ben really hit it off with Tris’s eldest kids, Frankie and Mila.

Worth a five hour car journey through hell?

You betcha.

Congratulations Tris and Emily – may you have a long, happy life together.

Next time we come to see you we’ll take the train.