Dogging

Apologies for those of you expecting an exposé on spontaneous group-based car parking activities but this post is about dogging of the canine variety.

The house two doors up from us has a rottweiler. It’s a beautiful animal. Sadly it’s not being well looked after and hasn’t to my knowledge been properly trained. It’s left outside most days and most nights, is fed irregularly and is dangerously neglected. It frequently escapes over the fence and then rampages through as many gardens as it can gain access to... which given its size and brute strength is most of them along our street.

Wednesday evening and again yesterday morning the animal ended up in our garden.

Now I’m not afraid of dogs. I’d even go as far as to say they are my favoured pet of choice. I’d happily approach most dogs and feel confident about doing so.

Not this dog. It roamed around our garden spoiling for a confrontation. Tail between its legs, it was agitated and clearly highly strung. I was glad to be inside with the kids safely in bed. After a few minutes of pacing up and down it forced its way through the hedge at the top of our garden and disappeared into someone else’s garden.

Obviously Karen and I are terrified for our children. Tom especially loves playing in the garden and at 18 months old loves nothing better than toddling about and investigating the world around him. Our immediate neighbours have two older boys and a 9 month old baby who they like to sit with in their garden. They too are just as scared.

Because this is not the first time this has happened. It’s happened numerous times before.

The dog has caused damage to fences in its passion to escape and has trashed the garden toys belonging to our neighbours. It is only a matter of time before it encounters a child playing in a garden.

I’m determined not to let that happen.

I rang the dog warden and as soon as I gave the address of the dog owner they admitted this address was already known to them. People have complained in the past. This is both comforting and worrying. Comforting because we are plainly not alone in our concern but worrying that this has been going on for some time and yet nothing concrete has been done to prevent it reoccurring.

The dog warden paid the household in question a visit yesterday and was fobbed off – the owner’s had split up; the husband was “somewhere unknown” and the wife was in Coventry for the week and would be returning Friday. In the meantime the dog was being cared for by a family friend.

This is utter rubbish. The wife has been seen in the house every day this week.

The dog warden spoke to me and though he said he’d do all he could to help he gave the impression that he wasn’t very hopeful. The owners have received warning letters in the past but have ignored them. And the local authority (for which we both work) was, in his opinion, reluctant to take stronger action.

Until something major happens.

He didn’t actually say this but the inference was simple to make.

Again I’m determined not to let that happen. It’s a beautiful dog but I have a beautiful 18 month old son and I’d prefer to keep him that way.

Karen and I are planning to have a new fence put around our garden – it’s something we’ve been planning to do for months now, mostly for privacy but now the onus is on security – but right now we just can’t afford to do it. The money isn’t there. It’s galling to think our children’s safety is dependent on our financial elasticity but that’s the reality.

The warden was sympathetic. It’s not up to us to keep the dog out. It’s up to the dog owner to keep the dog in.

Legally that’s fine and dandy but it’s painfully obvious to me that the dog’s owners just don’t give a mad Chihuahua’s arse for the law and my beloved local authority is content to lie like a sleeping dog...

So. No real resolution. The warden is returning to the house today and is going to let me know the outcome. I expect it’ll be nothing more than a slapped wrist but he may yet prove me wrong. In the meantime Karen and I have to either deny our kids the right to play in their own garden or watch them like a hawk ready to intervene should an unpredictable animal more than twice their size come rampaging through the garden fence...

First Hurt

Tom burnt his hand on Saturday. Thankfully not badly but enough to raise some nasty blisters on his fingertips.

I suppose like a lot of toddlers he has an innate fascination with the kitchen – that strange, mostly adult place where food magically appears and noisy white machines go about their daily business.

We’ve tried to instill some safety awareness in him by showing him things and telling him “Ow! Hot!” and by and large this has worked a treat. He gives cups of tea wide berths and no longer attempts to conceal toys in the washing machine.

The oven however has long been a sticking point and Tom is now at that age (18 months) when being steered / chased away from certain objects seems a fun game of defiance. So it was only a matter of time before, adult eyes turned away literally for a split second, he’d sneak up on the damned thing and press his palms to the hot grill door.

The poor thing didn’t half cry and I had to remove his hand from the oven for him. Not because it was stuck – thankfully the oven wasn’t that hot – but because I don’t think he’d quite connected the pain with where he’d placed his hand. It didn’t occur to him to pull it away.

Of course Karen and I feel awful. Me especially as he’d snuck under my radar while my attention was elsewhere. But as parents you feel worst most of all because all the hugs and kisses in the world can’t make that kind of pain go away.

He howled for a good hour. He was obviously deeply shocked. Certainly by the degree of pain but also, I suspect, by the realization that the world can hurt him. Something that I don’t think had occurred to him before. It’s like a loss of innocence I suppose. The world isn’t just full of fun and wonder. It also harbours bad things.

Within a short space of time the blisters came up. A large one on his thumb and a couple of his fingertips. He doesn’t seem to be too bothered by them. I guess they’re doing their job and helping to protect / heal his skin. There won’t be any permanent scarring.

But Sunday, rather than try and play a game of tig with the oven he went of his own volition and sat in his chair in the living room and waited for his dinner to be served well out of harm’s way...

Another one of life’s lessons, I guess: all injuries come with steep learning curves.

Hawk!

No, I didn't spend Friday battling the evil forces of Voltan (aka The Dark One) alongside an elf and a giant bearing an uncanny resemblance to Bernard Bresslaw (on account of it really being Bernard Bresslaw) but instead spent it at Batsford, a little village just outside Moreton-in-the-Marsh, which features an arboretum and a falconry centre.

I've long had a passing interest in birds (cut the jokes please, I can see them coming a mile off), particularly raptors and after a visit there with the family last July my interest was duly noted by my wonderful wife, Karen. And later, while my back was turned (buying chocolate no doubt from the falconry shop), she secretly enrolled me on an "introduction to falconry" course for my birthday.

That glorious birthday occurred in August and it's taken us this long to finally confirm a date and actually get to grips with the raptors. We endured a couple of aborted attempts in the intervening months when we had to pull out at the eleventh hour due to the kids being ill (How do they know? How is their timing so spot on?) but it was a case of third time lucky.

The weather dawned dry and fair and the kids weren't at all consumptive... so off to school and nursery they went and Karen and I scooted off to Batsford to finally cash in my falconry voucher.

It was marvellous. As you will see from the photos below I got up close and personal with a number of birds - a kestrel, a falcon, a hawk, an owl and an eagle of foreign extraction who's exact geographical name I can't remember because I was so blown away by the whole experience.

There's something very calming about being so close to a bird - especially such large ones. I think on some level you calm yourself so as not to agitate the bird and then benefit yourself from the resultant avian zen-like state. I'm almost considering starting a new religion. The Birdies or something. Or possibly The Great Tits. Leave it with me. I need to mull this one over. Choose the wrong name and I'll be a laughing stock in spiritual circles...

But back to the falconry: after having numerous birds on my glove I ended up flying a beautiful falcon named Ben - oddly the same name as my eldest boy but a darn sight more obedient and easier to please: given a raw chicken foot to eat he was as happy as Larry...

If only all of life was this simple...

The Pinch

Lord knows the times are hard for everyone at the moment (though the local pawn broker seems to be doing a roaring trade) but for the Blake household the shit has finally hit the fan, disintegrated at speed and then ricocheted around at a full 4D 360 degrees and coated absolutely everything.

I’m not going to reveal the harrowing state of my finances in detail but as some of you know I was already scouting around for a 3rd job (on top of my full time local authority post and my part time web design business) to help cover the shortfall we were experiencing.

We seem to be one of those families that has fallen in-between the cracks of social welfare. We can’t afford to have Karen not working but neither can we afford to put Tom into full time child care if Karen works full time. Therefore Karen works part-time and Tom goes into childcare part time. Which we still can’t afford. But as we can’t afford the full time child care even more we’ve no choice... It’s not even a vicious circle. It’s just a vicious hole.

I’ve had no real luck with acquiring a third job so far though was offered a post at a school – cleaning – for 17.5 hours a week last week. Unfortunately it would have meant me leaving the house at 8.30am to fulfill my full time employment obligations, finishing at 5.30pm, walking 2 miles to the school and then working through until 9.30 at night 5 days a week.

I was sorely tempted as we need the money so badly.

Karen however put her foot down. Something about loving me and not wanting me in hospital with exhaustion by Christmas and on the mortuary slab with a heart attack by Easter 2010.

Thinking about it, I suppose, she had a point. I’d be half dead within a month and wouldn’t have seen much of my family for the duration – which at the end of the day is who I’m doing all this for.

So I turned it down.

But I’m now wondering whether I’ve looked at a gift horse in the mouth and bitten the hand that was offering me food.

My little web design business has effectively bitten the dust.

I had two regular clients whose commissions each month added about £200 to the family coffers. The first is an amateur photographer and I’d built him a site to showcase his work. The other had various recruitment web sites and supplied me with the bulk of my work. They had bloody good rates from me – a darn sight cheaper than anything a high street internet business would have offered them. And both were making a decent amount of money from their sites – in fact the recruitment people have bought themselves new premises and new sports cars... or so my insider mole has told me.

However it seems Mr Photographer has acquired a new friend who is Flashed up to the gills (I can’t afford to buy a book on Flash at the moment let alone go for retraining) and is happy to work for the fiscal equivalent of peanuts. This is fine. Mr Photographer is not a business, he’s an individual. It’s his prerogative. Though I am hurt that after a long association he hasn’t had the decency to actually tell me that he’s dropped me in favour of another web designer. Instead I’ve had to find out through a mutual friend who is as disappointed in his actions as I am.

What really cheeses me off though is that Mr Photographer has also sold this new cheaper web designer to my other clients who, being chancers of the highest order, have also dropped me – again without any notification or “thank you very much for your services but this is goodbye”. And given their untrustworthy business nature I’m now very doubtful that they’ll pay my last invoice – thankfully they’re only into me for £90 but it’s £90 I desperately need.

My family’s one and only lifeline has effectively been severed just to save someone else a few pounds.

I know. I know.

It’s business. I shouldn’t take it personally. It’s not like we had a binding contract.

But I am very upset by it all and am feeling rather defeated and shat on at the moment. Acquiring new business in the current climate is extremely difficult. Acquiring a client who requires regular work is virtually impossible. It’s a real rarity.

I have no idea what we’re going to do. It’s no longer a case of us having no money.

We have less than no money.

Our only hope now is my aunt’s will and a bunch of solicitors who are content to swim slowly through toffee to get it sorted out.

I only hope we can keep our heads above water until the lifeboats reach us...

With Nobs On

With the BAFTAs out of the way we can at last move onto the REAL award ceremony. The Noblesse Oblige Awards.

(And sadly Jonathon Ross hasn’t won one of these either.)

I was nominated a couple of weeks ago by the superlative EmmaK who’s blog, Mommy Has A Headache, has tickled my fancy almost as many times as its tickled my funny bone. It was a tremendous honour to receive this award though I disappointingly noted that there was no 5 course meal, cabaret or excuse to hire a tux involved. Just the glamour and kudos of acquiring the award. However, in these days of austerity and recession I wouldn’t have been able to afford the coke or the after party hookers anyway so who’s to say it wasn’t a win-win situation after all?

The award works like this:

The recipient of this award is recognised for the following:

1) The Blogger manifests exemplary attitude, respecting the nuances that pervades amongst different cultures and beliefs.
2) The Blog contents inspire; strives to encourage and offers solutions.
3) There is a clear purpose at the Blog; one that fosters a better understanding on Social, Political, Economic, the Arts, Culture and Sciences and Beliefs.
4) The Blog is refreshing and creative.
5) The Blogger promotes friendship and positive thinking.

The Blogger who receives this award will need to perform the following steps:

1) Create a Post with a mention and link to the person who presented the Noblesse Oblige Award.
2) The Award Conditions must be displayed at the Post.
3) Write a short article about what the Blog has thus far achieved – preferably citing one or more older post to support.
4) The Blogger must present the Noblesse Oblige Award in concurrence with the Award conditions.
5) Blogger must display the Award at any location at the Blog.


I’m not going to follow the directions to the letter (it’s just the kind of cavalier guy I am – I’m an extreme blogger after all, dudes) but I am, with great delight, going to pass on the Noblesse Oblige award to showcase the talents of a select few of my favourite bloggers. It’s a tough choice because I love all the blogs that are listed in my sidebar but, to follow EmmaK’s example (and because I’m lazy) I’m only going to pick out and honour 5. Please don’t hold it against me if you are not picked – it is just that my love for your particular blog is beyond all description and defies expression in every language.

And so the winners are:


1) Diary Of An Old Cheeser: He’s been gone for a while but now he’s back. Hopefully for good. School teacher, self-confessed Whovian and cheesy TV aficionado the Old Cheeser is a reading must for those of you who like your TV served up hot, spicy and... well, cheesy. OC has a delightfully humorous touch and a penchant for saucy commentary that would make Graham Norton blush. This blog is guaranteed to brighten anybody’s day. In fact even Gordon Brown has been known to crack one off to OC’s blog. A smile that is.

2) The Reluctant Blogger: What can I say? RB’s blog has long been a safe and comfortable online haven for me, Articulate, sensitive, expressive, thought provoking and always, always warmly humane. RB has a writing style that is welcoming and all inclusive. It’s impossible to visit merely once. You will simply have to keep going back for more. And more.

3) Magic Lantern Show: I only discovered this blog a week or two ago though I think it was more of a case that this blogger stumbled onto me and was good enough to bestow a few intriguing comments my way. My curiosity was piqued and I followed them back to the source. I’m glad I did. I’m still sussing out the blog world of Magic Lantern Show but already I’ve been dazzled by wonderful photography, incredible writing, exciting travelogues and a brilliantly eclectic selection of posts. Go check it out.

4) A Write Blog: another recent addition to my blogging canon. AWB writes posts and leaves comments that are superbly crafted and challenging and push the reader to think a little deeper. No mean feat in this age of instant electronic gratification. AWB engages the reader on so many levels... if you’ve not dropped by before now I suggest you make an appointment in your diary to head over there as soon as possible.

5) Through A Glass, Darkly: one of those blogs that makes you cry out, “where have you been all of my life?” Brother Tobias has trodden the blogging boards for a while now and it is truly an honour to have him stop by and leave a carefully considered comment or three. The man has everything: style, panache and a humble and unpretentious sense of honour and dignity. Brother T’s posts balance gracefully between worldly wise and wide eyed wonder and are never sourly cynical or dismissive. To visit this blog is to breathe the free air. I can’t recommend it highly enough.


Congratulations my friends. ‘Tis an honour to pass this award onto you all. Do with it as you will.

And so, in my closing speech, it only remains for me to say that I only wish I had time and energy enough to showcase all of the blogs on my reading list. For you are all wonderful and deserving of praise and riches and I thank you all for your dedication to the blogging cause.

And now I shall virtually retire and virtually polish my virtual award, stare at my mantelpiece and think how much more attractive it is than one of those awfully kitsch BAFTAs.

And far easier to dust.

Engerland?

So it was St George’s Day yesterday and the whole occasion hit me as a bit of a paradox.

Firstly – unless I went around in a zombiefied state yesterday (perfectly possible) – I seem to have totally missed any notification that it was St George’s day from the news media. This seems to me to be entirely wrong. I think a little bit of national pride can be a good thing and we should justly celebrate our Englishness one day a year just as the Irish quite rightly enjoy a good rave up on St Patrick’s Day. It’s about time the English stopped mooching around in their hoodies and behaving like the cross of St George is some kind of criminal brand.

OK. Soapbox dispensed with.

And then on the way home from work last night I came across a huge bunch of people obviously doing the above with unrestrained gusto outside a town centre pub. And I promptly went back to wishing my fellow countrymen would spend the entire day mooching around in their hoodies and trying not to be picked up on the local CCTV cameras.

It was ugly. It was bullish. And it made me feel ashamed.

Can we English not exhibit national pride without making it look xenophobic, aggressive and something akin to football thuggery?

And what or where is this “Eng-er-land” of which they so raucously chant?

I don’t want to live in Eng-er-land!

It sounds, well to be honest, unappetizingly Neanderthal. A bit backwards and inbred. A land of beer gutted, ruddy faced pie eating brutes who discordantly sing “God Save The Queen” while at the same time giving anyone with a home counties accent a good kicking for being “a bit of a sneering toff”.

I know, I know. I’m being a snob.

Why shouldn’t the common people (of which I am one) celebrate St George’s Day the common way (10 pints of ale and a gristle pie)? After all England isn’t just about Ascot, the Boat Race and Vaughan Williams, is it? It’s also about football and darts and fish & chips. And chavs. And underage pregnancy. And Big Brother. And men who walk around shirtless at the first sign of sunshine in April in a desperate attempt to get a fast-track tan only to succeed in making themselves look like pigeon-toed irradiated sides of beef.

But for Lord’s sake, where is the sense of pride in our pride? Where is the sense of self respect? Where is the noble aspect, the aspiration? The inspiration?

Surely celebrating our national identity should be a chance to hold our heads up high – not merely to lift our beer bellies up out of the gutter while we spew several cans of Special Brew and a hastily masticated kebab down the drain?

When on earth did St George become synonymous with Bacchus? Or worse still, the BNP?

Fun To Funky

The BBC managed to divide my loyalties last night.

Was it to be Heroes – now already half way through the much improved fourth series? Or was it to be the first episode of the brand new series of Ashes To Ashes?

In the end it was no contest. The twin allure of Keeley Hawes and “Gene Hunt” (possibly the finest fictional cop creation of the last 20 years) managed to knock Hayden Patisserie (or whatever her name is) and Silage into a cocked hat.

The Quattro beats the Petrellis as sure as rock beats scissors.

Apologies for those of you who don’t get this show but your loss enables the rest of us to feel smug. Thank you for your sacrifice.

Yes. My life is complete. The Gene Genie is back not only with a vengeance but also with a cracking soundtrack that featured The Human League, Duran Duran and The Thompson Twins (I used to love The Thompson Twins – it was so nice to hear them again).

Hawes’ “Alex Drake” character has been given something of a makeover – the New Wave makeup has been toned down, the perm has disappeared in favour of a flicky bob and her hot pants are now tighter than Hunt’s shoulder holster. In fact whereas a bullet from Hunt stands only a 99% chance of flooring you the arsenal Keeley is packing in those hot pants is guaranteed to a put a red blooded male on his back without fail 100% of the time and without leaving an unsightly exit wound. A definite plus for those of you who can’t afford dry cleaning bills. She can fire a few rounds in my direction any time.

Last night’s episode tipped us straight into the heart of Soho and endemic police corruption and featured a script that could cut diamonds. In turns both funny and moving it was virtually impossible to keep tabs on all the references that peppered the dialogue. But why bother even trying? Just sit back and enjoy the ride in the knowledge that the cops aren’t going to pull you over for not wearing a seatbelt and won’t bang you up for sporting a mullet. Folks, good times are here again.

It’s time to roll those jacket sleeves up, loosen that leather pencil tie and whack some Dire Straits onto the tape deck.

Welcome back to the Eighties.

Home at last!

Psychic Jam

Sauntering along to the local shops the other day I was struck by the sheer number of satellite dishes that adorn the houses – my own included though we are not connected (it came with the house and we haven’t as yet motivated ourselves sufficiently to have it removed).

And not for the first time – after all this is hardly an earth shatteringly original thought – I found myself musing on the terrifyingly large volume of radio waves that we must all spend our lives totally immersed within. TV, radio, satellite, citizen’s band, police radios, MI5 ops (they’re always hanging around outside my house) not to mention various pirate radio stations and various terrorist groups constructing vast microwave machines to fry our pituitary glands while we’re sleeping.

It can’t be good for us, surely, all that static and electronic caterwauling constantly beaming its way through our genetic building blocks? I’m not sure I want my DNA modified by Chris Moyles though Jo Whiley is very welcome to run her fingers through my scintillating chromosomes.

It’s only a transient worry, I admit. I hold it only for a few seconds and then it’s gone (possibly fried out of my brain cells by Jihadi microwaves) but it does keep recurring.

How do we know that all these radio waves aren’t having an adverse effect on our emotional make-up? That we’re not being psychologically damaged?

I’d love to be able to breathe some clean, unadulterated air one day just to be able to find out. To do this I need to find somewhere that’s in a technological blind spot – literally off the radar.

Anyone got any suggestions?

(Royston Vasey doesn’t count.)

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!

Meanwhile...

...over at The Eds...





For Clippy Mat... try adding this code to create a link to me. Right click the link below and choose "Save target as". Then download it / open it and copy and paste the code to your blog list. Hope it works!

Code.doc

Burglary With Style

Robin Hood had it. The Great Train Robbers had it. Bonnie and Clyde had it in spades. Prometheus. The Artful Dodger… the list could go on.

Great thieves, ladies and gentlemen. Robbers with style. Bandits with a bit of class.

You can’t help admiring them. The guts. The arrogance. The sheer chutzpah of their endeavours.

They have now been joined by an as yet unnamed fellow from India who managed to hypnotize (yes, you read that right – HYPNOTIZE) a Mumbai jewellery store worker out of £160,000 dollars worth of loot.

Yahoo news reports it thus:

“Indian police are hunting a conman who hypnotised a Mumbai jewellery store worker before stealing 160,000 dollars worth of diamond necklaces and bracelets.

Katrina Sunil Purswami, who works at the Seres store in the upmarket Bandra West suburb, was told by the man on Saturday that he wanted to give the gems as a present and persuaded her to bring them to a nearby hotel.

"When the employee went to the hotel, the accused acted like he was the owner," senior police inspector Prakash George was quoted as saying by the Daily News and Analysis newspaper on Monday.

"As Purswami was showing him the sets, he asked her to write the details of the sets for him. He then hypnotised her and decamped with the ornaments. Purswami was left confused and could not understand what was going on."

The officer said the jeweller's store was newly opened and the owner allowed the employee to visit the hotel with the diamonds because he thought he was in line for a large sale.

Police are studying CCTV from the hotel to try to identify the conman but cameras at the shop were not working, George said.”

I think this is marvellous.

I know theft is wrong but there is just something so brilliant about this story. Nobody got hurt. I’m sure the jeweller had insurance. Property and person were not injured. I’m not advocating what has happened but, by God, I’d like to shake the thief by the hand (whilst avoiding his mesmeric gaze lest my cheap wristwatch find itself inveigled into his back pocket while I perform chicken impressions to the bemusement of all on-lookers).

I just wonder how he did it.

Did he swing a pocket watch in front of the hapless shop assistant? “I’m sorry miss, but I think my watch is skipping a second or two… could you keep a close eye on it for a minute and see what you think?”

Did he stare intensely into her eyes, soul locked to soul, and speak in a voice lower than Barry White’s gonads and impel her helplessly to do as he said?

Or did he fire lightning bolts into her from his fingertips like The Emperor from Star Wars and cackle evilly as her body, stiffened into a sub-zombie state, staggered around the room and dropped a hundred thousand pounds worth of Tom Foolery into his lap… candy from a baby style.

Most important of all: did he have a long thin moustache which he twirled wickedly before tossing his black silk cape over his shoulder and fleeing from the scene of his crime?

There is surely a great novel in this story and if I wasn’t 180,000 words into one already I’d be musing on the plot and the characters and trying to acquire an agent.

I only hope that when the police find him – as they surely will (a trail of people clucking like chickens is hard to miss) – he isn’t found with a Paul Mckenna self help book sticking out of his back pocket (along with my watch).

That would be so disappointing.

Spokesperson For A Generation

Good old Parky.

Now in his 70’s he’s reached that glorious age where you think, “oh bugger it, I’ll just say whatever the hell I like and the consequences and fall out be-damned”.

I’d almost be envious except that – at just over half his age – I appear to have reached that wonderful state already.

Up until now I’ve steered clear of commenting on Jade Goody’s death because I figured my opinions wouldn’t be particularly helpful or palatable for all they’ve been passionately held. I bit my lip when the news channels gave up the whole of Mothering Sunday to eulogize Jade’s passing. I bit my lip at the comparisons with Princess Diana (WTF?)! And I ripped my tongue out by its root when live footage of Jade’s funeral cortege actually made it live onto CNN.

I mean fer Chrissake!

Her death was sad because she was so young but did she really warrant the ridiculous media circus that fogged / dogged the whole event like a miasmic melodrama?

Parky’s recent outburst encapsulates my sentiments exactly. To quote him:

"Jade Goody has her own place in the history of television and, while it's significant, it's nothing to be proud of. Her death is as sad as the death of any young person, but it's not the passing of a martyr or a saint or, God help us, Princess Di. When we clear the media smoke screen from around her death, what we're left with is a woman who came to represent all that's paltry and wretched about Britain today. She was brought up on a sink estate, as a child came to know drugs and crime, was barely educated, ignorant and puerile. Then she was projected to celebrity by Big Brother and became a media chattel to be exploited until the day she died."

Spot on, Parky. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

I never liked Jade’s media persona and though I would never have wished death upon her I do frown at her status of celebrity. It was not deserved. It was not earnt.

There are many who will no doubt see Jade Goody as a source of inspiration. Proof that even with the worst start in life you can still “make it big”.

Unfortunately I fear the lesson our young people will take from the Jade phenomenon is that you don’t need any kind of talent or hard work to become a celebrity, that somehow being a celebrity wipes the slate clean, forgives every ugly misdemeanor and glosses over every personality defect.

Essentially you can hit the big time without lifting a ruddy finger.

Well that ain’t a lesson I want my kids to learn.

I realize I’m elitist (and proud of it) but I do sincerely believe that celebrity – like any kind of status – should be earnt and earnt by hard work, dedication and a sincere and enduring sense of vocation. I want my celebrities to be famous and lauded for things that I could not possibly do. I want them to be special and amazing.

Not famous for being gobby, uncouth and adhering to the worst of all stereotypes. Or for displaying their “kebab” on live television. Or, worst of all, showcasing their voluminous and depressing ignorance like it was something to be proud of.

I feel heart sorry for Jade’s sons. Heart sorry. That Jade, in the end, mercilessly used the media to extract every last drop of money from the ridiculous furore for the future well-being of those poor little boys is something I can completely understand and even approve of.

But the mawkish deifying of Jade Goody that the press is currently indulging in is unforgivable, shallow, insincere and just plain bad journalism.

It serves nobody. Nobody at all.

Least of all Jade’s children.

Flogging A Dead Horse

I’d like to make it clear before I launch headlong (and wallet light) into this post that the bailiffs are not currently clamouring at my door demanding I hand over my widescreen TV and set of Chippendale antique dining chairs (I sent them round to the Polish family next door).

But money – that dirtiest of words – is tighter than the proverbial gnat’s chuff at the moment.

The pinch is starting to be felt. The long shadow of debt is starting to spread its wings over us and obscure the light of the sun.

The light at the end of the tunnel – my aunt’s legacy / estate – is still, unfortunately at the end of the tunnel. The phrase “in probate” is being mooted by the family solicitor and is obviously a euphemism for “a good 6 months away from being sorted out”.

Karen and I expected this. We’ve had encounters with the phrase “in probate” before so thankfully weren’t relying on this inheritance too much.

However, we’ve got to survive until the pay-out arrives.

Hence I have begun looking and applying for a second job.

Although, technically with my web design work which is already in addition to my full time job, it’s a third job.

And with my novel writing on top [is that a job? It’s certainly bloody hard work!] it could even be considered a fourth job.

Oh and maintaining a decent family life – I mean, that’s not a job but it’s a vocation of sorts and demands time, energy and money...

So. I’m applying for a fifth job to keep the wolf from the door, the bailiff in his kennel and our creditors fat.

I do not fear for I know that a peaceful future awaits me. Wide open spaces. The occasional gunshot breaking the all encompassing silence. And the discomforting smell of glue wafting faintly over the mounds of spent carcasses.

Welcome, dear reader, to the Knacker’s Yard.

Mugged By Kindness

This is probably evidence – not that any is needed – that I am a true curmudgeon.

Picture this: I’m walking home. I need to cross a road. I pause at the kerb as I can see out of the corner of my right eye that as car is waiting to turn left across my field of progress.

Yes. I really do have a “field of progress”.

Now, rather sanely, I decide to halt forward momentum at this point. I don’t want to get into physical intimacy with a metallic object that is travelling at 20mph. Besides which he has a right of way.

The Green Cross Code Man and Tufty the squirrel would both be applauding me at this point. I’ve done the right thing, you see. All those road safety lessons as a child have paid off.

The driver however brings his vehicle to a halt and rather insistently waves me across.

I obey but instinctively feel aggrieved and annoyed. It isn’t right, you see.

The road was completely empty behind him so there was absolutely no reason for him to make a point of stopping on my account. Another two seconds and I could have crossed the road perfectly safely (if not more safely) without his flamboyant display of largesse.

He had the right of way. It’s perfectly clear: the Highway Code dictates that he should not have stopped but continued on his way.

Now, maybe I am just being ungrateful? After all, I would feel a darn sight more aggrieved if he’d mounted the pavement, motored his radiator grill right up my jacksy and then continued merrily on his way without stopping to shout even the briefest of apologies.

But I can’t get over the feeling that his gesture was more about power and superiority than kindness. I didn’t need him to stop. I felt almost bullied into crossing the road in front of him.

The danger with not following the expected codes of conduct of course is that your actions can be misinterpreted. What if his hand signal to cross the road was actually his attempt to dislodge an angry wasp from the breast pocket of his shirt? What if he was merely clearing the air after a particularly foul air biscuit (“fart” to you and me)?

The answer is obvious.

I’d be lying under the bonnet of his car in a non-KwikFit approved position, leaking claret all over the macadam and listening to him shouting at me that he had right of way and what the hell did I think I was doing trying to cross the road in front of him?

*sigh*

Maybe I need to get out more?

Or less?

Jules Theft

This is probably a minority interest post so I apologize in advance but will carry on regardless.

Julia Bradbury.

Not a megastar. Not an A list UK celeb. But kind of always there. Grafting away. And in my opinion delivering some of the Beeb’s higher quality programmes. Lakeland Walks and the more recent Railway Walks spring to mind. If you’re an avid hillwalker – always out and about with your waterproofs and your mountain boots – these programmes are an invaluable source of ideas and inspiration. And if you’re a hillwalker who’s strapped for cash these shows offer the opportunity to enjoy the pastime vicariously from the comfort of your own armchair.

Julia also co-presented the Beeb’s Watchdog, a show that tracks down and grills wrong doers – particularly of the corporate kind – and gives a voice to the little man when he has been wronged.

Alas Julia disappeared from Watchdog a few weeks ago amid reports that a friend of hers in the air industry had been bunging extra air miles onto Julia’s account (either with or without her consent) as a way of doing “an old pal a favour”.

Or so rumour has it.

I don’t know the ins and outs of it and don’t rightly care. Julia immediately withdrew from Watchdog and is staying off the show until she has cleared her name.

Personally I reckon she’s innocent. Anybody who champions Wainwright has got to be a decent honest person in my opinion. Us hillwalkers have got to stick together (unless we’re actually hillwalking in which case a bit of solitude is the unstated prerequisite). She’s also a brunette. A fact sure to win my unswerving loyalty. And she has a great voice. Sort of smoky and chocolaty at the same time. That proves her innocence. No further evidence is needed.

More importantly though she’s a darn sight better looking than her Watchdog co-presenter, Nicky Campbell – a man who has no right to look so damned smug and constantly superior after presenting the God awful Wheel Of Fortune on TV in the previous century.

*Shudders*

But I’m digressing.

My point is this: do we expect our TV presenters to be totally squeaky clean all of the time? Absolutely 100% above board and bangs to rights?

Simple logic dictates that we should but – even though I don’t doubt Julia’s innocence in this case – wouldn’t we all have accepted a few extra air miles from a friend if we had one in the commercial flight industry? Wouldn’t we accept a favour from a friend whatever industry they work in? A discount on a pine dining table? Some hardback books at cost? A few pennies off a burger (hold the mayo)?

I mean a few air miles are hardly on the same par as Angus Deayton’s much publicized coke fuelled liaisons with some of London’s finest scarlet women a decade or so ago. Or Richard Bacon’s scarlet-women-less coke fuelled adventures a year or two before that.

And it’s not like Julia is a politician, wielding power enough to change the lives of every man, woman and child in the country. Does her character need to be as pure as a saint, impervious to all attempts of bribery and corruption?

Like our actual politician’s are that anyway...

It seems to be a lot of fuss over nothing. Or am I just being biased simply because I like Julia? I admit if it was Campbell accepting a “free gratuity” from the Bell’s Whisky company I’d be calling for his head on a pole. But who wouldn’t want to see that period?

Hmm.

So apologies for the nature of this post once again. This post has no point other than to register my demand with the BBC that Julia Bradbury be reinstated immediately to augment my television viewing pleasure.

And to demand that Nicky Campbell’s skull be surmounted on a brass topped spike and displayed over the gatehouse of Warwick Castle (I can’t afford the train fare to see it at the Tower Of London).

To be honest, part of me thinks that this air miles baloney is just a smokescreen created by Campbell and his other Watchdog cronies anyway and Julia is currently being held hostage in the boot of Campbell’s car, her smoky, chocolaty voice brutally muffled by Campbell’s sweat stained sporran.

Scotland Yard should be informed immediately. Interpol should be alerted. A cell should be swept clean (or unclean) at Guantanamo Bay ready for Campbell’s imminent arrival.

I pay my TV license fee for emergencies of this kind and I expect to be obeyed!

Tilling The Good Green Earth

This post is in praise of my gorgeous wifey, Karen, who for the past few weeks has worked her little green wellies off enforcing some kind of ideal middle class order upon the bramble infested jungle that once was our expansive garden.

The thorn bushes at the back of the garden have been brutally slashed and uprooted – uncovering various grotesqueries from within their thorny bowels: dead cats, the skulls of Cro-Magnon man, broken pot shards and ale bottles and a castle straight out of the Brothers Grimm replete with dainty maiden throwing down mile upon mile of golden flowing hair. All this detritus has gone into our green wheelie bin to be recycled whenever the local authority deigns to perform their fortnightly pick-up.

Actually, apart from the shards and the ale bottles all the rest was true rubbish, i.e. a complete fiction.

My wife has balanced this secateur driven frenzy with some choice acts of cultivation.

We now have a magnolia tree.

We now have a herb wheel (with an ‘h’ officer).

We now have a vegetable patch (red onions, potatoes, garlic and chillies being some of the produce that will shortly be available for consumption).

And I believe plum trees are also on their way.

It has been a sterling effort completed (gratefully) without the assistance of either Alan Titchmarsh or Charlie Dimmock. Indeed, in deference to the neighbours and clear notions of public decorum, all Dimmocks have been kept properly covered up.

After all, cultivation and titivation should never be mixed – unless, of course, the beds involved are not herbaceous...

Do You Know Ali Bongo?

As some of you know I’ve been getting more than my fair share of spam emails at the moment. Most of them purporting to originate from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. All of them asking me to claim vast sums of money held in trust by mysterious relatives who have all died in very inconvenient plane crashes.

For the most part I’ve been ignoring / deleting them but I’m now reaching the point where my irritation is seeking another outlet.

Taking my lead from others who have responded "in kind" to these emails I am embarking on a little programme of spurious RSVP myself. This could be a series of many or even just a series of one. But here, for your delectation, is one of the offending emails and below it, my carefully worded reply. Enjoy.

FROM THE OFFICE OF MR ALI DONGO
DIRECTOR AUDITING AND ACCOUNTING UNIT,
BANK OF AFRICA.(BOA)
OUAGADOUGOU -BURKINA FASO

SORRY IF THIS MESSAGE DO NOT MEET YOUR PERSONAL ADVANTAGE,
WE APOLOGIES

Compliment,
Pleasure writing to you at this moment of the day, I am Mr.ALI DONGO.
the director incharge of auditing and accounting Dept. of Bank of Africa OUAGADOUGOU -BURKINA FASO.I deem it fit to contact you regarding an inactive/dormant account fund that will benefit both of us at the end, if parties involved will take restrait and maintain absolute secrecy, honesty and integrity. I got your contact in my search for a reputable and reliable person to particularly assist me to claim the fund in question. During auditing, in our bank at the end of last fiscal year, We discovered the sum of Twenty five millions United States dollars (US$25M) in a dormant account belonging to an international businessman who was involved in the December 25th Benin plane crash. while travelling for his bussiness. I kept this information(secret) confidential within my jurisdiction to enable us submit claims and transfer this fund through trustworthy person whom we shall present to our bank as the bonafide next of kin to the ceased. Visit our investigations so far clearly reveals that there is no immediate survivor or even a relation to the deceased and as such, there is no immediate next of kin for further claims of the deceased fund as we have long been expecting someone to come forward with an applications. Further information's /verifications from reliable sources too have confirmed that the deceased customer supposed next of kin were all in the plane with him died with him.this is where the bank come in to do bussiness with who ever is interested.

Plane Crash Web site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This fund is now ready for transfer into a foreign account, whose owner will be portrayed to our bank as the beneficiary and a next of kin to the deceased customer. The foreign account owner will impost himself appropriately as the next of kin to the deceased and respond positively like a true next of kin who wishes to speed up the release and transfer process of his inherited fund. Kindly be aware too that if the over-due fund if not claimed by the end of next quarter, the National Treasury and Bills of britain will take over the ownership of the fund in line with the National Edict Act of 2000. We do not want this to happen as it will not augur to our best interest, having worked all our lives in the banking sector, that is why I contacted you for us to do the deal together with absolute confidence, so that you will be portrayed as the bonafide beneficiary and an immediate next of kin to the deceased. I will give you further directives, advice and all needed information's required for this transaction as soon as I receive your positive response. Similarly, if you accept to carry out this transaction with us, we have resolved offering to you 30% of the total sum as commission, extra 10% of all proceeds to be generated from subsequent profit-viable. 5% of the total fund will be set aside to re-imburse all expenses incurred in this course of this transaction. This transfer will automatically be affected within 7 working days. Be rest assured that with the underground work i have laid so far, that this transaction carries no risk and no extra burdens on your part, except the above mentioned nominal roles you are required to fulfil and similarly will be required to maintain absolute information secrecy throughout the duration of this transaction, because discussing and exhibiting it with a third party might jeopardise the entire transaction.

I will give you directives and all needed information as soon as I receive your positive response. Kindly understand that we could not carry out this fund-transfer on our own, based on the simple facts that we are civil servants and presently bank staffs and this office excludes us from operating foreign accounts, moreover conducting such magnanimous transaction from the same place where we belong to/coming from will raise eyebrows on our side and the truth is that this fund belongs to a foreigner, and as such demands same as next of kin.I am looking forward to receiving your interesting response on this project as this will greatly enrich the both of us at the end. please you are required to reply this message as a matter of necessity.
(ali_dongo26@yahoo.fr)

Best regards,
MR ALI DONGO.

(Account Audithor B.O.A)

And my reply:

Dear Mr Dongo,

Felicitations from your grateful correspondent in England!

Your electronic missive reached me like a shaft of glorious sunshine in a very dark hour and has filled my heart with joy that there are such lovely, trustworthy people in the world who are at great pains to do good things and benefit others.

While I am deeply saddened to learn of the death of your client by plane crash I applaud your efforts to see that his financial estate is properly disposed of and I am willing to do all I can to assist you to this end. In short, Mr Dongo, I would be very willing to accept the money you so graciously offer me though I do, I admit, have a few concerns as to how its transfer to my holdings might be instigated.

You see Mr Dongo, due to a rather extravagant combine harvester accident 10 years ago I have since been closeted away in a nursing home, a broke and lonely man. I am virtually a paraplegic as my encounter with the combine harvester efficiently removed all of my limbs and my left ear making it impossible for me to wear normal glasses. I have had to have a special pair made that utilise the elastic from a pair of swimming goggles. I am told it looks ok but the elastic does tend to chafe my forehead. As I am unable to write in the normal way I must communicate with the world by tapping out words on a keyboard with a stick that I hold in my mouth. This is very time consuming – hence the long delay in my writing back to you. I do hope I am not too late and have not missed the gravy train.

Due to my disabilities all of my financial arrangements are handled by a trustee that I have employed for this purpose. Before my accident I was a famous racing car driver and had accrued a great personal fortune and I have been living off this for the last decade. So you see, I am used to handling great sums of money and would not be intimidated by the amounts involved in your proposed transaction. Unfortunately my accountant and indeed my Swiss bank manager – both rather sober fellows – might question a sudden influx of funds from Burkina Faso. Is there any way we can break up the money into smaller amounts that could be deposited into my account over a period of months? This would arouse far less suspicion. I must be careful not to attract attention from the authorities, you see, after I was accused of funding a diamond smuggling operation in South Africa a number of years ago. These accusations were entirely false I can assure you and my acquisition of gem stones since that time has been purely legal and without personal blemish on my part.

Regarding your proposal that I act as next of kin, I agree that this sounds the most expedite way in which to deal with your monetary problems. But I worry that it would be all too easy for my claim to be proved as false and my links to your diseased client proved as tenuous. To this end I will employ a legal expert with whom I have a long standing personal acquaintance and who, for reasons I do not wish to discuss, is not currently permitted to practice in the UK or Europe but is more than capable of providing me with all the necessary documents that will prove beyond any contestation my claim as next of kin to the diseased.

So much so I wonder if we might not renegotiate the 30% cut that you have so kindly offered me. As the legal next of kin I believe my cousin would rather the majority of his personal fortune stay within our close-knit family. To this end I wonder if 70% might not be a more realistic sum with 30% for your good self, Mr Dongo, to cover all of your administration costs? I am sure we can discuss this further and come to a mutually satisfactory conclusion.

I shall sign off here as my jaw is beginning to ache. My stick is not padded, you see, and keeping my teeth clamped for such a long period of time has a detrimental effect upon my molars. My dentist has warned me never to attempt novel writing or he will run out of enamel.

Before I go though, Mr Dongo, I must ask one more question that is pressing heavily upon my mind. I am sure you have been asked this many times before but I am afraid I must presume on your goodwill and ask it once again: are you in any way related to Ali Bongo, the Great British entertainer and master magician of huge renown? Are you indeed a member of the magic circle? Do you know any decent card tricks? Maybe we could set up a web cam for a future interview and you could show me some sleight of hand during our warm negotiations. This would be sure to bring a smile to my face although I will be unable – through no fault of my own – to applaud your most sterling efforts.

I look forward to your illuminating response.

Yours most sincerely,
Sir Reginald Wormall, MBE, OBE.

Pushchair Paranoia

+++ PARENTING POST ALERT +++

This is my final day nursing Tom through his chickenpox before Karen takes over tomorrow and I have to say, as tiring as it's been, I have loved every minute of it. To spend so much quality time with a child is difficult for any parent these days but especially, I think, for a father. Tom has been great company - very affectionate and always ready for a giggle - and I shall really miss him when I return to work tomorrow.

One thing I have noticed during this period of close, sustained contact is how protective I am of him. I can recall one of my friends telling me years ago that it matters not if you're a shrinking violet - as soon as you have kids you become a lioness (or a lion in my case) on their behalf. And it's bloody true, I can tell you.

But while taking him out for walks in his pushchair over the last few days I've been amazed at the strength of my own reactions. I'm not entirely sure if they've been the result of fiercely proud lion-like protectiveness or just down and out paranoia.

I find myself constantly on the look-out for dangers.

When we pass one of Leamington's many meandering drunks I am instantly at the ready to whip the pushchair out of his reach and hoof his gonads to the other side of the road should he ever attempt to lay a single beer stained finger on my son. In fact just slurring the words "I fugin luv you, I do" would do it.

Idiots riding their bicycles on the pavement make my hackles rise. Especially when they pass so close you can barely fit an empty envelope between us. What if they mis-timed it? Had an accident? Careered into the pushchair? I think I'd kill them or at the very least park their bicycle some place so deep and moist a medical expert would have to be flown in from Europe to remove it.

And just for the sake of equality, people who cut us up with their mobility scooters also earn my wrath. Why are they allowed to travel at 20mph on a pavement when cyclists are quite rightly castigated? Those scooters are built like tanks these days and could do a lot of damage to a small body.

Scaffolding and ladders are other things to be avoided. At all costs. There was a story last year of a chunk of masonry falling off a building in Leamington and narrowly missing a mother and pram. I'm constantly alert to the dangers of falling objects. Can I get NASA on my mobile to warn me of potential meteor threats?

And as for cars... Geez. There's always that fleeting worry of someone fouling up their steering manoeuvre because they're (a) on their mobile phone, (b) on their partner's naughty bits or (c) on their way to hospital with an imminent cardiac arrest. You just can't trust them.

I'm currently mentally drafting a letter to the PM demanding that sirens be sounded 5 minutes before Tom and I leave the house in order that the streets can be cleared of all vehicles and pedestrians and the Star Wars defence system can be directed to monitor meteor incursions from space or rogue missile launches from the East.

If this inconveniences anybody I'm sorry. It's just tough.

Tom needs some chocolate buttons. It's important.

Or do you think I am over-reacting?

Aye, Me Hearties, 'Tis The Pox...

Blogging this week is going to be done in installments I'm afraid, segmented around various babysitting duties as our youngest has fallen foul of the pox.

Thankfully only chickenpox but his condition does require him to be in quarantine for a week to ten days. So no nursery attendance for Tom this week... he's going to be a home bird for the next five days.

I've elected to do the first watch, so to speak, and am home looking after the little chap until Thursday when Karen will take over. Apart from being spotty Tom doesn't seem to be too bothered by his condition - but then we haven't reached the itchy and irritable stage yet...

As usual the timing of this is awful - I'm out of holiday at work (though ironically will get awarded my next batch in April) so will have to take this time off unpaid just at a time when we can ill afford it. Karen too. But what else are we to do?

Needs must as the devil drives.

So for the next three days I am giving myself over to kid's telly and games of tractors and trucks and tickle tummies (spots permitting).

See, every cloud has a silver lining.

Please Sir, Kindly Take Receipt Of This $9 Million Dollars

As some of you will know, whilst launching a new blogging project recently I had cause to publish an email address of mine online. Only a Yahoo webmail account but still one that I use frequently.

I didn’t think anything of it to tell you the truth. I doubt it was online for more than a day or two.

But by God have I been deluged with spam mail.

Nothing about Viagra or sex techniques to make my woman “cry like a baby with ecstasy as I keep going all night without stopping” – well, I could write a book about that myself, couldn’t I?

Just loads and load of emails from various gentlemen in Burkina Faso who, it seems, wish to enlist my aid in helping them out of a rather sticky financial quandary. They’ve obviously heard that I‘m a financial whizz and regularly move immense sums of money into and out of my bank accounts without rousing any kind of suspicion whatsoever.

Take Dr. Alim Hadi for example. The poor man is the trustee of a monetary estate worth $9 million. He’d like to release the money to me as it seems I am the next of kin to his client who died in a plane crash with all of his family in July 2000. The account has lain dormant since then with nobody coming to claim the money. Nobody at all. The money has just sat there all this time. Unmolested. Wow.

Apparently I am entitled to 40% of the above sum which he will happily see transferred into my account provided I supply him with all of the necessary banking details. Of course I must keep this all top secret. And delete the email if I am not interested. Confidentiality is very important. As a high roller like myself fully understands.

Yeah right.

I think what insults me the most (though of course none of this is particularly personal) is the assumption that I’d be stupid enough to fall for it. I mean please. Next of kin to a previously unknown African branch of the family?

Mind you my granddad did spend time in Durban during the war so it’s quite possible he got up to some naughties with an African beauty of big bosomed persuasion whilst on shore leave...

Hmm. Whatever.

The thing is Dr. Hadi, you’re not even trying. Your attempts to screw me are clichéd and formulaic. At least be a little more inventive. A little more theatrical.

I want to see photographs of the crash site. I want to see mortuary pictures of my long lost relative laid out on the slab (something for the family album). I want a lock of hair or a fingernail – hell, the whole finger if possible (who’s going to notice its absence?) – something I can get DNA tested. And I want paperwork. A letter from my great granny perhaps talking wistfully of her elicit liaison with the late denizen of Ouagadougou and exhorting him to one day get in touch with the UK branch of his family should he ever fall onto hard times but especially should he fall onto good.

And most of all I want a huge, obsessively detailed family tree laid out on parchment and an episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?” reserved for my very public reconciliation with my long lost African brothers – something in the style of Roots would be fine.

Give me all that and you can have my sodding bank account details with absolute pleasure. And, if I really must, I suppose I’ll accept my 40% cut of the $9 million. After all it’s what my cousin, Kunte Kinte, would have wanted.

*Sigh* Global families. Don’t you just love ‘em?

P.S. Can I just say that I am not available for babysitting?

My Dreams Of Academia Are Over

Last week saw the beginning of the end of my life at University.

My final lecture was sat through. My final seminar was participated in.

I also completed my final essay – getting it finished a mere 6 days after the title choices were published (unlike my fellow students – the younglings – who will no doubt complete theirs a mere 6 hours before the final deadline).

I’ve waded through a reading list of 18 books this year and all have been codified and footnoted to within an inch of repetitive strain injury.

All that remains is a couple of revision seminars after Easter and my final exam sometime in May / June and then I’m done.

Although I’ve enjoyed taking this part-time degree, after 10 years of juggling study with full time work and full time life I’ve had enough. I hadn’t realized how exhausted I was feeling until I’d completed the essay and gradually woke up to the fact that I was effectively free. The sense of relief was amazing. The reality of being able to read what I want again for sheer pleasure is not to be underestimated. It’s wonderful and I’ve dived straight into some Philip K. Dick (Ubik) as an antidote to all the University texts that are swimming around in my head.

Don’t get me wrong, I will miss University. For all I’ve moaned about the other students – the non mature ones – it’s been interesting to hear what they have to say and how they view the world. It’s also been interesting to note how I’ve changed in how I interact with them. I started off feeling more like them than the other mature students I originally started with but now, here at the end, I truly feel a generation away from them. I’ve got older. And got older in my thinking. I’m not sure whether that scares me or not.

What I shall miss most of all though are the dreams.

I used to dream about school once in a while as a matter of course anyway. But while I’ve been back in the academic world my dreams about school have increased both in number and regularity.

And they’ve been great. I’ve never had a bad dream about school – even the obligatory “late for exam” dreams which I get but rarely have never been that bad. There’s always something fun about my school dreams (not sure why as I never found school particularly fun when I was actually there). But then there’s an added element to my school dreams... Somehow they have become inseparably fused with the world of Harry Potter.

No matter whether I am at Junior school, Secondary school, college or University, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are regular colleagues. It’s bizarre. Yes I am a fan of the films and I’ve read the novels but it’s weird how and why this crossover has occurred.

Evidently the world of Harry Potter resonates deeply with my subconscious.

Possibly that says that even in curmudgeonly adulthood I still retain a childish need for escapism, and fantasy. I don’t at all see that as a bad thing.

But thank God I grew out of reading the Famous Five and Mallory Towers back when I was 9... at least Harry Potter has some adult themes! I’m not sure I could cope with having regular dreams about "midnight feasts" and friends who say "Golly gosh" all the time.

I much prefer "Expelliarmus" and chocolate frogs...

Comic Relief In Unintentionally Funny Shock

The Comic Relief version of The Apprentice was always going to a sure-fire laugh-a-minute for the sole reason it had Alan Carr mincing his way into SirAl’s boardroom like he was about to impersonate Shirley Bassey on a cruise ship.

But the best laughs of all came – unintentionally – from the mouth of Gerald Ratner, the ex Ratner’s jewellery retail chain director who has made a media career (almost) from verbal gaffs and interview based faux pas.

For those of you who don’t know, Mr Ratner once caused the shares of the Ratner’s jewellery company to plummet after telling a journalist that they were able to sell their products so cheaply because they were “total crap”.

One can’t find fault in his honesty or his accuracy but, really, he’s not the type of man you want on your marketing team if you’re trying to scrape together a living in the retail industry.

Mr Ratner first raised a titter when, discussing the reality of working with the insanely ebullient Jonathan Ross and Alan Carr, he turned deadpan to the camera and announced in a voice like a coffin lid being prised open with a jemmy that “he liked laughing; he liked to laugh”.

The best moment however came at the end of the show when the boys' team were trying to sell their new toy idea to a room full of high powered toy trade execs.

After a slick speech by Mr Ross and a less than slick but very funny advert voiced-over by the chocolaty tones of Mr Carr (I’m talking Fruit & Nut) it seemed the boys' team had the contest totally in the bag. The girls' team surely couldn’t compete.

Step forward Mr Ratner to give a business professional’s spin on the boy’s product...

He had to be honest, he said, their product (a utility belt to which kids could attach various collectable toys – I can still hear Alan Carr screeching “Swap-belt” on the commercial) would only succeed if a company went for broke in terms of marketing.

The selling concept had to be – and I quote – “shit or bust”.

Cue baffled silence from the audience as this sank in and Mr Ratner realised he’d possibly garbled what he’d originally meant to say.

Or had he?

Hmm.

Maybe this was the clear choice Mr Ratner faced back in the early 90’s when the Ratner jewellery designers were laying out ideas for the latest Ratner jewellery range?

Shit or bust?

The answer is obvious, isn’t it?

They were in it to make money. They were hardly going to vote for bust.

Like I said. Not a man you’d want on your marketing team. The girl’s won.

Wii Wars

I have a love-hate relationship with computer games / games consoles which roughly translates as 20% love and 80% hate.

I’m not sure why I should feel so ambivalent about them as in every other respect I am a tech-head and dedicated gadget nerd.

And it’s not like I never play computer games.

I have a version of Unreal Tournament 2003 on my PC which I quite happily fire up for a quick session most weekends. Only for 20 minutes mind you. A quick fix and I’m done. The best thing about this particular game is that it allows me to rename all the “bots”. This means I am able to shoot, hack, blow up and disintegrate anyone who has annoyed me during the previous week.

At any one time I can gorily fight my way through an army that comprises work colleagues, Russell Brand, assorted d-list celebrities and the ex-president of the USA.

It’s very cathartic and allows me to maintain my Buddha-like equilibrium for the rest of the week.

But most other games irritate me. Games consoles irritate me.

I see them advertised on TV – Wii, Xbox, PlayStation – and I can feel my face start to twitch like Clint Eastwood in City Heat. When I see the fake advert families bouncing around on their plush leather sofas screeching with joy as they wave their Wii consoles around like they’re tossing off the invisible man I just want to get my plasma rifle from Unreal Tournament and blast them all into little heaps of marrowbone and jelly.

This attitude, I admit, makes life difficult for my eldest boy who is a PlayStation addict. He has rationed access to the console anyway – too much makes him hysterical – but even short bursts of it turn me into Mr Hyde.

Why do these games annoy me so much?

I think a lot of it stems from countless Saturday nights at my best mate Dave’s house – back in the days before I was married (i.e. when I was a sad and lonely git)...

Dave was a true tech-head. The kind of guy who upgraded his computer every month (by hand). The kind of guy who bought every single games console the moment it came out – and as a consequence couldn’t get within 7ft of his TV because of the swamp of joy pads and tangled console cables that were a death trap for any creature unable to fly over them.

Now, when Dave generously allowed me to have a go on these games myself it was, I admit, highly addictive. I can see where my boy is coming from. But most of the time the evening was spent watching Dave play the games. Playing the kinds of games where you have to explore a fathomless computer generated world that has no cyber end. Playing the same bit over and over and over again until it was done properly.

There is nothing more tiresome, more mundane, more teeth shatteringly infuriating than watching someone else play a computer game.

The fact you’re watching it means you are unwittingly involved. Ooh. I wonder what’s in that room? I wonder what that device does? Would a 3 combi double-punch kick move work at this juncture? But you are unable to do a damned thing about it. You can’t make any decisions or moves yourself. Just watch someone else play the game possibly better, possibly worse than you.

It’s like being a disembodied spirit. Or Arnold Judas Rimmer from Red Dwarf. Or Gordon Brown when Tony Blair was still in power.

It winds me up just thinking about it. Gah!

Maybe the answer is just to grab the spare joy pad without permission and pitch in with my plasma rifle? Get involved? Give myself over to the addiction? Surrender to the dark side?

*Sigh*

But I can’t help feeling it would just be far more enjoyable to stamp on the bloody thing until it’s dead dead dead...

Google Gail

More earth shattering news this week from these greenly septred isles...

Oxford's Corpus Christi College, who stormed to victory a few weeks ago on the BBC’s University Challenge, have had their memorable victory wiped from the annals of the immortal, their victor’s trophy rudely snatched back from it’s silk pedestal (leaving a hole like a wound in the college’s trophy cabinet) and their academic street-cred irreversibly soiled.

It seems they fielded a ringer.

One of their team members, Sam Kay (no relation to Peter), was no longer a member of the college when the final was recorded and thus was illegible to take part.

Thus the sacrosanct rules of University Challenge were broken rather like the stone slab in The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe and now all the magic has been overturned.

Manchester University, who put up a good fight but were ultimately trounced have now been awarded a rather specious victory which, I’m sure, tastes just as much like ash in the mouth as their actual defeat.

I think it’s a great shame: (a) because Mr Kay pretty much did bugger all to secure Oxford the victory and (b) the real star and unbeatable information engine on the team was the legendary Gail Trimble whose intellectual superiority cannot be denied.

Her depth of knowledge was so all-encompassing she has now been nicknamed “Google Gail” and her hair flicks so enticing she has been approached by sundry lad’s mags to do “tasteful photo shoots” (which she has sadly – but probably wisely – declined).

A lot of people found Gail pompous and aloof. But I kind of liked her. She was intelligent. She was articulate. She was confident. Role model stuff. And she’d undoubtedly worked hard to get where she was and her team worked damned hard to win.

I actually think it’s wrong to strip them of their title.

I know, I know. Rules have to be adhered to... but really nobody is a winner in this situation. I bet Manchester are just as gutted by the circumstances as Oxford.

Why not just have a rematch? You can’t get fairer than that, surely?

I know it will cost money – film crews, studio time, Paxman to read out a few more brain-bashing questions, etc – but if the BBC can afford to pay Jonathan Ross £6 million they can afford one more episode of University Challenge.

Come on! Let’s give Trimble a chance!

And with more time in the limelight Nuts may yet make her an offer that she can’t refuse...

Oh My God, I’ve Got Legs!

Since Tom’s birth nearly 17 months ago Karen and I started to do our weekly food shopping online.

It wasn’t that we found visiting a supermarket each week particularly onerous – in fact it was quite nice shopping as a family – it was just that it was so damned time consuming.

OK. OK. It was particularly onerous.

Nearly two hours of our precious weekend disappeared every week up the supermarket swanny. Nothing about supermarket shopping is geared up for ease, efficiency or pleasure. You have to use shoddy, ill-kept equipment (the ubiquitous trolley). You have to fight your way through herds of ignorant, selfish, grumpy animals (other people) barging their way passed you in the opposite direction. And then you have to pay for the entire social carbuncle at the tills which are merely a bottleneck of disgruntlement.

All you need is to have a favourite item of food discontinued or sold out to complete the misery.

Quite frankly shopping was a nightmare.

Hence our eagerness to embrace online “virtual” shopping.

And all in all it’s been great.

You still spend an hour or so doing it because the server is so damned slow but you can sit down while you do it. With a cup of tea. In the comfort of your own home. With the telly on.

And then some nice man in a van delivers it all to your door at a time that you specify.

It’s blooming marvellous.

If only I could find someone to put all the goods away in our freezer once they’ve arrived it would be a perfect system.

Anyway, the near perfect system let us down for the first time yesterday.

The fridge on the van broke down so they couldn’t deliver our fridge / freezer stuff. We could have waited another day for it but with a baby in the house you can’t really go without milk for any length of time. So we elected to physically drive to the store and collect our cold items ourselves.

My God, but it’s amazing how quickly shopping online de-skills you for the real world. The supermarket – once so unpleasantly familiar – is now totally alien... Horrid lighting, aisles like blocked arteries and... worst of all, people... living, breathing, moving people absolutely everywhere.

And not a cup of tea in sight!

I felt like a modern 21st Century man hurled back in time to a medieval darkly bygone age. How can people live like this?

The internet has plainly weakened me. It has destroyed my ability to cope with the real world. Reality has suddenly become antimatter. If it ain’t pixelated I can’t cope. I carry my modem around with me like a security blanket.

I’d already noted my recent inability to cope with the alphabetized system used in CD / DVD shops (where’s the effing search box?) but plainly the malaise is worse than I thought.

The rise of the machines has begun. They are prising us away from the real world one pinkie at a time and are wrapping us up warm and snug in little individual technospheres of automation and one-click ordering.

The game is up. Or rather it has just begun. And what can any of us do but be on permanent stand-by...

Gulp!

Oh no!