Women On The Telly Who You’re Not Meant To Fancy But I Do, Sort Of (Part 2)

After the very successful Part 1 of this impromptu series I thought it was time to broaden the playing field somewhat with a well timed Part 2... So here we go...

1) Anna Maxwell Martin

It was Anna’s Little Dorrit that first caught my eye. A little mousy in the early stages, constrained by Dickensian reserve, but then the wallflower became a sunflower and Anna blazed across the screen with a wonderfully plummy red-haired glow. From there on she has staked a major claim in period TV drama and looks as divine in tweed as she does in whale-bone. I think what I like about Anna is her slight, almost imperceptible lisp. It should distract a little from her actorly enunciations but actually it doesn’t. She sounds as polished and as vocally rounded as the head girl from Mallory Towers and as up for a midnight feast as the best of them (with lashings of cream). I don’t know what it is about Anna – she has an “auntie” feel about her even though she’s not particularly old. I feel like she should be an auntie to somebody. Anybody. Preferably me. The kind that waits until you turn 18 and then seduces you in black lingerie and turns you into a man.

We’ve all had that fantasy, right?

No? Just me?

Was that too weird? Oh well, never mind.

Onto number 2) Sarah Millican

I think it’s the accent. Geordie or Mackem, I’m not sure but the way she says “pet” makes me wants to sit up and beg. And I like her glasses. Big, bold, glasses that say proudly, “I am wearing big glasses and I’m proud of it – none of this John Lennon steel-rimmed nonsense that disappear into your face; I’m wearing chunky framed glasses ‘cos I’m as blind as a bat without ‘em. Deal with it. Pet.” And I like her smile (which for some reason I find reminiscent of Morrissey – yes, bit of an oxymoron there: Morrissey and smiling but run with me on this one please). And I like the fact that she’s big. She’s a big girl. A big real girl with an anti-size-zero metabolism. And she’s funny. But never in a nasty way. There’s something unassuming about her and yet she does stand-up comedy. There’s a possible conflict there but it kind of works. And she strikes me as honest and homely. A proper girl next door. The kind that, if you asked her to lend you a cup of sugar (a) it would actually be sugar and none of this Canderel bollocks and (b) she’d throw in a couple of teabags as well and possibly a couple of well sized baps from Greggs. Dinner and a show. Who could ask for more?

And baps lead me nicely onto number 3) Mel Giedroyc

Oh Mel. Mel Mel Mel. In my twenties I worshipped at your student-chic shrine. I loved Light Lunch. I was working part-time and used to be home in time to watch it religiously. Mel & Sue (Perkins) were my ultimate two-girl fantasy. But much as I adore Sue (and I do adore Sue) it was Mel I could see myself setting up home with and having babies with. Now, of course, after disappearing off our screens to set up home and have kids with someone else (Mel – how could you? I was here for you, woman!) she’s back on the telly once again in The Great British Bake Off (were my baking trays sub-standard, Mel? Did I not knead my sour-dough hard enough for you?) accompanied by the gloriously quirky Sue Perky. Look at Mel’s eyes. They are perfect. They are eyes that the phrase “limpid pools” was invented for. So soft and kind and yet sparked through with a naughty sense of humour. And she likes cakes. She loves cakes. What is there not to love? Mel can batten down on my Battenberg any day of the week. Mel, it might be a good decade since I was in my twenties but still I dream of being baked off by you. And I bet you have a gorgeous little AGA to boot...

So there we have it. Three more unlikely but not so unlikely (when you think about it) sirens who I think are some kind of wonderful. This post was brought to you not in a spirit of gratuitous sexual gratification but in the spirit of celebrating real women and real womanhood. I haven’t done it for me. I’ve done it for you. I’ve done it for feminism and women’s lib and equal opportunities.

I’ve done it for...

Oh sod it.

I’ve done it for sexual gratification and equal opportunities.

So Sue me. Sue me good and proper.

(And yes, that means you, Perkins.)

Reasonable Farce

What a difference an A makes.

Not sure where this came from – just playing with words really – but it occurred to me the other day that the working life of us all (possibly even our home lives too) could be much improved by substituting “force” for “farce”.

Take, for example, using reasonable force. The police encourage the use of reasonable force when making a citizen’s arrest. Hell, they even say they themselves use reasonable force when apprehending members of the criminal fraternity (clearly innocent newspaper sellers lie outside this guideline). But what is reasonable force? A Half Nelson? A kick to the tenders? A quick crack across the cranium with a telescopic truncheon?

It’s too woolly. Too hazy. Someone could still get hurt.

But not if you used reasonable farce.

Arresting someone whilst dressed up as a carnival pirate with an eight foot long feather sword whilst singing an old Gilbert O’Sullivan number would ensure that their human rights are not impinged upon in the slightest and no bodily injury is caused to anybody. Even better if you used a batter pudding throwing machine that you just happened to have about your person. You could even change your name by deed poll to something mildly amusing like “Gay Abandon”. I mean, what self-respecting crim would object to going to the nearest police cell with Gay Abandon?

And instead of forcing the issue in difficult and emotional situations why not relieve the tension and expose the elephant in the room by farcing the issue? Don’t want to interrogate your other half about the affair you think they are having and stirring up a real shitstorm? Just dress up as the mistress / lover in question, add a Groucho Marx moustache and cigar to the whole ensemble and then strut around doing deliberately bad impressions of them. Your other half will certainly get the picture but will have their tongue-tying guilt and shame somewhat mediated by the Music Hall values of your impromptu performance. A major row will be instantly averted allowing you to proceed with an adult and meaningful discourse that could save your entire relationship! Hoorah!

And finally, for those times when the doo-doo really is hitting the fan, don’t bother pining for that sci-fi fantasy – a forcefield – what you really need is a farcefield. A sphere of benign travesty that extends a couple of feet outwards from your person and entangles all who fall within its embrace in bizarre pratfalls and extravagant vehicular chases that involve bathtubs on castors, pantomime horses and custard pie flinging trebuchets. Instant invincibility and a jolly good laugh to boot for all involved!

What a hoot!

So remember folks, next time you are being dogged by the Dark Side...

...just use the Farce.

Skin

Nothing says “real person” more than bad habits.

See, I don’t subscribe to the view that people should be perfect or beyond all reproach. Stars and celebrities who project an air of excessive personal hygiene to the point of godliness are damned liars and fakers. I actually think such media projected sterility makes them less lovable. I mean, could you really love someone who never ever hooks a bit of earwax out of their inner ear with a fingernail?

Think carefully before you give that question a kneejerk response.

If we were all to be honest about it, picking one’s nose makes one more human, more fallible, more real and more accessible and, therefore, more deserving of other people’s love and more able to be loved.

To that end then, to court your adoration and earn the love I know that you are all yearning to give me, I have decided to share a few of my bad habits with you.

Nose and ear picking can be assumed as standard. We all do those. Some of us use cotton buds on sticks. Some of us fashion the corner of a hankie into a surgeon’s scoop. Some of us even buy those little mini Henry desktop Hoovers in an attempt to automate the process but we all – all of us – at some point in our lives introduce various hooking devices into the small recesses of our faces to remove redundant matter. I’m not going to bore you with the wherewithal of this or cut and paste data from my mucus log-book to give you an example of my longest bogey or most scallop like clump of earwax... just assume that I do it like the rest of you (though possibly with a little more class).

No, peculiar to me (not necessarily peculiar to you) my worst habit is probably picking my actual face.

Spots, mini scabs, tiny blemishes, dried and dead skin, anything that feels out of odds and disrupts the smooth texture of my skin when caressed with a sensitive fingertip is up for immediate removal in my book. Even better are those tiny scales of dead white skin that become trapped within the follicle forest of my beard or moustache. Because they have to be teased out through the barrier of possessive bristles that tend to want to keep them embedded where they are. I think that it’s this obstacle course of hair that makes the process all the more enjoyable. You can’t just have a quick scratch and flick and be done with it.

You have to dig. You have to wheedle. You have to be subtle and tactical. Especially if you want to get the skin out all in one piece replete with visible follicle holes.

I find I go into an almost meditative state when I engage in this activity. It’s, like, totally Zen. I bliss out. I enter an altered state of consciousness. It is deeply therapeutic. I suspect it is a shamanistic activity though Google doesn’t appear to want to back me up on that one at the moment.

Ha! What does Google know? Does Google have a face to pick?

No.

Sod Google.

So.

There we go.

I pick my face. I am totally deserving of your love and adoration and devotion. And if anybody doubts the veracity of that claim you can now prove it beyond all reason.

Now pucker up and kiss me like a good 'un.

The Ayes Have It

We think we’re so great, us humans. So darn clever.

We measure our evolutionary advancement solely in terms of technological progress.

It began with machines that would do our work for us. Tools. Bows and arrows. Mills. Looms. Then progressed to huge engines and rudimentary robotics that could standardize the material produced which in turn led to even greater scope for the work we could get our machines to do. Wars and the need to kill more people than our enemies drove us even further forward. Computers came on the scene. Electronic beasts that could out-perform hundreds of men in a single second, with the flash of a single diode.

And then evolution took a new turn. We began to build machines that would take care of our leisure time too. Gaming, Streaming media. Music, film, art. Ironically we probably now employ more people in the leisure industry than we ever did in the industrial revolution. Leisure has become work. Has become an industry.

iPads. iPods. iDocks.

They are the status symbol of modern man. If NASA were to send a new Voyager probe off into the outer reaches of the solar system now it would feature a line drawing of a naked man, a naked woman and the latest incarnation of the iPad.

But in our arrogance we have forgotten that Nature got there first with this so called new-fangled iTechnology.

You only have to check out old naval films to realise that the iAye – a device for acknowledging (usually ridiculous) orders on naval galleons – has been around for hundreds of years. The iAye can usually be slotted into an Aaaar!Dock for those that prefer their pleasures to be pirated.

But even before this advance, millions of years ago in an example of true evolutionary development Nature came up with the iBall. Without this fascinating and incredible complex device mankind wouldn’t have invented the wheel let alone wafer thin electronic notepads. For the majority of us who are fortunate, the iBall comes fitted with iSight as standard. It is an app that most of us take for granted but were it at risk of being taken away would be the one we’d probably realize we valued the most.

And if I could be bothered to pursue this lame conceit any further I could happily hold court on the following examples of pre-Jobian iTechnology: the iLash, the iCandy, the iPatch, the iClaudius, the iCaramba, the iWitness and, finally, that curiously Welsh development, the iDai.

But to be honest, I’m beginning to feel that post is beginning to become something of an iSore and the mood of my dear readership is starting to turn iCy.

iApologize to those of you who thought that this was going to be a serious post... but you were plainly plugged into your iGnoramus app.

How To Win The Lottery

Have you ever had one of those occasions where you’ve told a white lie and then the lie has kind of come true?

It’s like you made it happen. Like saying it out loud to another person made it real. Birthed it into the reality of the material universe. I spoke therefore it was.

Well, that happened a couple of times last week. I’m not saying I fib all the time but, you know, needs must. I white lie all the time while I’m at work. It starts with that sunny smile I paint on my face every morning and continues throughout every word and deed as the day progresses. We all do that, right? To get the bucks?

So it got me thinking. And thinking got me a desperately lame epiphany.

Maybe I could use this universal mechanism to win the jackpot on the lottery. I mean, for £1 a go, it’s worth a shot, right?

So I told my wife and kids that I was going to win the lottery jackpot this Saturday. No ifs or buts. I was buying the winning ticket. I told myself the same when I went into the newsagents and handed over my smirking pound coin. I am buying the winning ticket. I looked at the other customers in the queue ahead of me buying their own tickets. Poor sods, I thought. They’re wasting their money. Losers. The result has already been preordained by the verbalization of my positive thoughts. The winning lottery ticket is coming to me.

I then went home and confirmed to my wife that the winning ticket was now in our possession.

I would brook no doubting or poopoohing. No tish-toshing or balderdashing.

This was real. It was happening. It was going down.

Saturday came. The Lottery balls dropped (cough).

I got one measly number.

And a broken finger from scrunching up my lottery ticket so furiously.

Screw you, universe!

But then it hit me.

What the magic ingredient was.

It’s not positive thinking or “verbalizing with intent” that makes white lies come true.

It’s the guilt.

That little stab of guilt and suspicion; that little thought of “oh God, I hope I haven’t just cursed myself; I bet it’ll all come true now”.

It’s the guilt that does it.

So I’ve got me another pound coin for this week. I’m going to buy another lottery ticket. And I’m going to say to everybody I meet that I’m going to win the lottery jackpot and leave all you grovelling poor people behind. I’m going to cast you all off like the dust from my shoe.

But it’s only because I want to feel really guilty.

Honest.

Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

Or rather where have all the bloggers gone?

I’m not talking about those that have gone down the line of “product placement over something to say” (not that I blame anybody for taking this tack in the current financial climate, Lord knows I’d sell my own creative soul for a buck or two). I’m talking about the real bloggers. The proper bloggers. People who write. Who write stuff. Interesting stuff. Non-interesting stuff. Bizarre stuff. People who write and read just for the hell of writing.

I’ve noticed a real disappearance of regular bloggers lately. It’s like they’ve have been snatched away by those weird walking turd-shaped aliens in Cowboys And Aliens. Body snatched. Blog-napped. Hijacked. Gone off on an life sabbatical.

One or two I can understand. People lose their creative mojo and fall by the wayside all the time. But of my blog list in the ol’ sidebar there barely 50% are still functional. Actually, don't bother checking - I've just culled the ones that are no longer producing (I'm a cold hearted gardener when I get down to brass tacks).

I’m not having a go at people, I’m really not. I’m coming from a nice place, here. I miss you guys. Well, if I’m honest I certainly miss your comments and your feedback. And I know that life at the moment is becoming harder for us all. Sometimes blogging – a truly idle pastime if ever there was one – has to take second, third and sometimes fourth place.

But if feels almost endemic at the moment.

Like the lack of blogging is a barometer for the creative state of the nation. Nobody has the time. Nobody has the energy. Nobody has the will. More and more blogs are converting themselves into advertising billboards. Lord knows I’ve tossed a few ads on the ol' blogging mantelpiece myself and accepted a greasy bung or three for my trouble... but there is something uncomfortably sad about all of this product placement on a forum that I always figured was a medium for the little person to voice their opinion and exercise their freedom of speech.

Maybe I’m just not getting myself out there in the blogosphere enough? Your readership and the list of blogs you read has to be continually reviewed and renewed. As bloggers drop away you have to plug the gap with somebody new. Maybe I haven’t been doing that enough.

Have I become a stay at home blogger? While other bloggers are out having wild blogging parties on a Saturday night have I been staying in with my pipe and slippers and writing about the virtues of Horlicks and the problems with my false teeth. Am I missing a wild party somewhere?

Or have I just lost the plot? Has my own blog lost its sense of relevance? Indeed, did it ever have any? Have I unwittingly driven readers away and become a blogging island? A blogging cul-de-sac? A barren branch on the tree of blogging evolutionary development?

Hey, guys, I’m just sounding off here. Voicing ideas and a few stray threads of dubious insight.

But is anybody else having similar thoughts or is it just me?

Is there anybody else on the range or am I just driving a load of bullocks home on my own?

Wingnuts

One of the most bizarre events of my life took place yesterday afternoon (possibly an indication of how dull my existence really is).

I was accosted in the street by a kung-fu scouser.

I’m telling you, all she needed was her voice dubbed by Jack Black. I really thought I was about to be taken out Panda-style. Thankfully it wasn’t a physical mugging but an ideological one.

She was kung-fu proselytizing. She was fast as lightning. In fact it was a little bit frightening...

She barred my way and suggested very strongly that I might benefit from a little bit of Wing Tsun. Before I could tell her that I preferred Sweet & Sour Chicken she launched into her hard-sell routine of first lesson free, all the health and spiritual benefits, the possibility of taking out knife-wielding scum with the flick of an inscrutable wrist and the fact they’d opened a brand new studio at the bottom of town and were plainly desperate to fill it.

I wasn’t interested. It was obvious that Wing Tsun represented an investment of money, time and energy that I can ill afford to make at present. But I could tell she wasn’t going to take my first no lying down. I was in for a fight. A fight to the death. Like two warring dragons of kung-fu creation. And that put me in mind of my childhood hero, Bruce Lee and his martial arts teaching. One must become like water. People think water is weak but it can flow around and, given time, through all obstacles. It can wear down mountains and wash away entire cities.

Yes. I could hear a huge gong being sounded in my head and reverberating over the paddy fields of my imagination. I must become like water. I could do that. It was in my power. People often tell me I am the biggest drip that they have ever met.

I politely but resolutely explained to her that I was simply too busy; work commitments, on call 24/7, etc.

She kicked back with an offer to take my phone number down right here and now and to call me once I’d had time to reconsider my position. She narrowed her eyes at me. Was there an implicit threat in that statement? I wasn’t sure. I barely saw her hands move but suddenly there was a flier in my hand. Her pen was poised to strike. Crouching ballpoint, hidden signature.

No. I had to be strong. Remember Bruce Lee. Remember to look at the moon and all that heavenly glory and not the pointing forefinger.

I didn’t give her my phone number. I crisply folded up the flier and resisted the urge to glance at the nearby rubbish bin. I would go home and think about it and contact them when I was ready. I nodded once sagely. Take that, evil kung-fu sorceress!

She seemed momentarily winded by the exchange. She grimaced but I could see acceptance of her inevitable defeat in her eyes. She bowed her head, said she looked forward to hearing from me and then quickly retreated without once turning her back.

Very, very wise of her.

For I am a dragon when I am riled and there is no saying what I might have done.

Ah so. Listen well, my students. You all have permission to call me ‘Master’.

Nick Bloody Knowles!

That’s right. Nick Knowles. Not even Nick Nolte which would have been slightly better given that he’s a big Hollywood star and all and doesn’t, to my knowledge, revamp people’s houses in the space of 2 days because they’ve been designated as a national charity case.

Unceasingly, for the last 2 months, Nick flaming Knowles has been the most popular search term that has brought people to my blog. Him. Him off the BBC. Him with the stubble and slightly bouffant hair and nasally bloke-next-door voice. Him.

Why?

I only wrote about him once. Once! One post out of 839 (and counting)! And even then it was just a joke about not being able to trust your average Mr Builder these days.

I’ve written about Dr Alice Roberts countless times. Worshipped at the shrines of both Keeley Hawes and Katie McGrath. And though these worthy beauties feature in my blog stats regularly they are completely unable to remove Mr Knowles – the average Midland dinner ladies’ choice of beefcake – from the number one spot.

Now I realize I may be doing Mr Knowles’s fan-base a huge disservice here. They may come from areas other than the Midlands. They may not all be dinner ladies. Indeed some of them may be retired. But I do find it difficult – nay impossible – to visualize anyone else avidly searching every day for news and piccies of Mr Knowles on Google.

Supermodels? Yeah, right. Like they can even spell ‘Nick’.

Checkout girls? Why would they bother when they have ex-crim store detectives to ogle all day?

Power dressing cut-throat business women working in the City? Surely Nick Hewer is all the Nick they’ll ever need?

So am I missing a trick here? Does Nick Knowles have a massive gay following that I don’t know about? (Hell, why would I know about that? Don’t look at me like that; I think you’ll find that everyone rates ABBA these days.)

Is my Blog unwittingly providing a service for gender and sexual equality?

Hmm. Now I could actually live with that.

I may even get into the ol’ DIY business myself if it drives a few more hits my way.

But I draw the line at singing Gloria Gaynor’s greatest hits wearing nothing but dungarees and holding a dripping paintbrush, OK?

Don’t get any ideas.

And that includes you too, Mr Knowles.

Who Is The Fairest Of Them All?

When I write, I am – it has to be said – an egotist.

It’s all about me. Me. Me. Me me me.

You don’t get a look in. Not really.

And if you do it’s only as a mental aside, a construct that I formulate to pander to my already inflated ego. I imagine you being entertained by my witterings. Rolling on the floor, guffawing out loud – ROLFing. Wiping an amused tear from your envious, admiring eye.

Occasionally, of course, I may write about other people, refer to the existence of others and how their existence has impinged on my own. As you know, I have to be careful about such subject matter now. Loose lips has created blips on the ol’ work ethic. Data protection. People’s right to privacy over my right to express a personal opinion. Etc. Etc.

And it has chafed.

It has constrained.

And I’ve felt a little muzzled.

But that’s OK. I can sneak a tooth or two around the leathery confines now and then. I can still savage an ankle or three when the mood takes me.

But the thought occurred to me this morning that this conflict arose from a basic difference in perception. See, I’m writing this ‘ere blog thinking that it’s all about me and my life and my ego but actually...

Actually... there are some people out there who perceive the written and spoken word as a mirror.

They hold it up to their eyes and see themselves applying their make-up, titivating their hair and squeezing a few of their blackheads.

Suddenly, I’ve been elbowed out of the way! Never mind that I’m trying to shave and wax my pits... no, suddenly I‘ve got some other person’s mush and ego jostling mine for the exfoliating cream!

Some other person thinking that all this is about them them them!

Well, excuse me for breathing!

Now shut up and pass the toothpaste – you need it a lot more than I do.

But joking aside, it’s interesting isn’t it? I mean, I lay claim to creative copyright where this blog is concerned.

But do I have a right to that? Do I really? Is it really all mine? Or is it yours too, you who read here and insert yourself emotionally into the body of my work (oo-er)?

And if you choose to read my blog and stand right in front of me as I do my blogging thing, isn’t some of the stuff here your fault too?

Is this some kind of weird partnership?

Are we married?

Do I even know you?

What the hell are you doing in my bathroom anyway?!

Just who is that looking back at me from the depths of the mirror?

Sniping The Snipe

The Snipe is clever.

The Snipe is patient.

It waits by the kettle, by the radiator, by the computer monitor occasionally ticking its eye like an ancient lizard. It is in for the long haul. It plays the long game. It plays to win.

It waits for its prey with a lipstick smile and the bat of an eyelash. It lures its victim in with a sticky tongue of kind words, of sweetness, of sugary betrayal. It offers the sharpened claws of fake friendship. The piercing tooth of confidence.

Once you are in its cooing clutches it sucks out every intimacy, every near silent secret.

It doesn’t digest. It doesn’t consume.

It stores them away. It stockpiles them. Hardens them into little balls of armour shattering ammunition. While the world sleeps the Snipe is up all night making bullets.

Being a coward, afraid of its own dirty work, it offers these to a greater power. With instructions of where lies its victims palpitating heart.

It has no mercy. But it will offer a shoulder to cry on so that it may take suck again. Its appetite is insatiable.

But some of us are prepared. Some of us have been bitten before and have learned from the bites.

Some of us also wait.

Cleverly.

Patiently.

Waiting for the Snipe to look up and smile and catch our eye. Waiting for the Snipe to gulp in fear as it realizes we are blinking at it like smarter lizards through the steady lens of a telescopic rifle.

It will not hear the shot ring out.

It will not feel the impact.

It will not understand the cheers of jubilation.

But it will recognize the bullet.

Cresting The Brow Of The Hill

It is with a sense of low level panic that I write this post. A slow sense of dread has been creeping up on me of late. I’m not sure why it’s slow or even creeping because I can’t run that fast anymore and I’m sure my hearing is going.

Mortality is starting to fart its stale odour into my face.

I’m starting to feel old and, worse, see the traditional effects of old age start to work on me. I feel like a chalk cliff who knows that the waves pounding at its base aren’t going to go anywhere and are going to stay there for the long haul and keep grinding away until all that is left of me is a little tiny nub that not even my totally utilitarian Maths teacher would use to write out a quadratic equation.

Let’s look at the evidence.

My sleep pattern has completely changed in a matter of years. Gone are the halcyon nights when I’d put my head down and be out for the count for a good 8 hours+, all the way through, not a peep out of me until morning. Now I wake several times a night, more often than not with a bladder that is not exactly bursting but nonetheless refuses to hold onto its minute charge.

My back twinges when I do physical activity and twinges when I don’t. I’m terrified my spine is going to do a 911 – only without the unwanted intervention of a couple of passenger jets.

Food. Food is becoming a problem. Should I be faced with an all-you-can-eat buffet now I’d probably turn my nose up at half of it. Bacon gives me painful wind. Certain beans appear to want to pummel my duodenum as they pass through it. Mixing 2 types of meat within 24 hours seems to recreate the Clash of the Titans in my gut and onions (which I love) guarantee that any waste material will soon be motoring out of my sphincter like money out of my bank account. Yes. That fast.

Mere years ago I could eat anything. Anything at all. I had the constitution of a ox. Give me another couple of years and I’ll be wanting all of my food mashed and will swap a knife and fork for a straw.

And don’t get me started on my eyesight. I know I wear glasses so have problems anyway... but bloody hell. Subtitles need to be big print. Any kind of electronic text on the telly – Ceefax (does that still exist?), digibox menus, etc – seems to blur and morph like the word verification most of you guys use on your blogs. And don’t get me started on the back of DVD boxes. Most of the time all I want to find is the running time before I choose to watch something (‘cos I like to be curled up bed with a large print book by 9.30) but (a) I can never find it and (b) when someone points out its location the print is too small for me to read. Too small! And bringing the box closer to my eyes only makes it worse! I’m supposed to be short-sighted, for Heaven’s sake!

And yet, the one positive through all this is that I don’t look old. I don’t look 42. I look ten years younger. Clean and healthy living, see?

But what good is this if I’m wearing out fast on the inside?

I don’t want to be the best looking bloke in the care home!

There are only so many bed baths a day that a good looking guy can take...

RIP Richard Kip Carpenter

I’m not expecting a lot of comments on this post because most of you will be thinking “who the hell is Richard Carpenter and anyway didn’t Davey Jones from The Monkees die yesterday?”

But to a few of you, Richard Carpenter will mean something special. And I’m not talking about Karen Carpenter’s brother here either. I’m talking about one of the best British television writers that this country has ever produced. Certainly he’s a writer who has influenced and fed my imagination more than any other... even before I was properly aware of who he was or even if I wanted to be a writer myself.

If you were a kid in the 70’s and 80’s you would have been very familiar with Richard Carpenter’s television work. Catweazle, The Ghosts of Motley Hall, Dick Turpin, The Scarlet Pimpernel and, my favourite show of all time, Robin Of Sherwood to name but a few.

The Ghosts of Motley Hall and Dick Turpin were a major feature of my weekends when I was a kid. Both were on a Sunday evening and would be something me and my sisters would watch at my Nan’s house after spending the day there. They bring back cosy memories of a time when life was much simpler than it is now.

Robin Of Sherwood holds a special place in my heart and was just one of the shows that spoke to me on a spiritual level – as crass and hysterical as that might sound. On some level Richard’s writing and the acting of the cast embodied all that was magical and mythical and British about this country of ours. The off-screen chemistry of the cast spilled over onto the screen and for a lonely wallflower like me it was like a beacon of how wonderful life could potentially be. Years later, reading interviews with the cast, their friendships plainly remain and Richard Carpenter himself is quoted as saying that this forging of friendships and the lasting camaraderie of those involved in the show is one of the things he was most proud of. Robin Of Sherwood went on to majorly influence Kevin Costner’s criminal foul-up of a film and the BBC’s recent Robin Hood.

Most of Richard’s television work is now available on DVD. Robin Of Sherwood has recently been reissued on Blu-Ray – remastered for both sound and picture quality. I have treated myself because it is the one show that I know will stay with me for the rest of my life.

I am saddened that Richard’s passing on the 26th February hasn’t been more picked up on in the press and the national media. His death is a huge loss for both television and British writing per se. Back in the days before CGI and computer generated lighting Richard worked wonders with tight budgets, proper location shoots and real flesh and blood people. His writing was heartfelt and emotive and quietly proud.

Richard, Albion salutes you.

The Inevitable Kick In The Teeth

The first time is always the worst. I don’t think you ever get completely hardened to it.

You send all your hopes and dreams off out into the world and expect the world to instantly be dazzled by their worth and startling beauty. To recognize their barely disguised merit – ‘cos if there’s one thing you’re not going to do it’s hide your light under a bushel.

Instead the world flicks you off its tabletop like a ten day old mouse dropping with the smallest of sneers.

If you’re lucky.

Most of the time the world doesn’t even realize you’re there and merely brushes you away accidentally along with all the other crap and detritus that has built up around its privileged higher echelons.

My latest novel, The Great Escapes Of Danny Houdini, received its first rejection slip yesterday.

Polite, polished and perfunctory.

Simply not what the agent was looking for.

This particular agent dealt with writers who guarantee a huge audience and generate a good income. Or so it said between the lines. Well, duh! If I’d known that I’d’ve sent my novel to an agent who was looking for little or no success and hoping to earn just enough to buy a baked potato from the marquee operating in the square outside.

*slaps head in frustration*

So it’s back to the drawing board. Back to the writer’s yearbook to pull another random rabbit out of a bottomless, unknowable pit of a hat. There’s so many to choose from and you never know you’ve chosen the wrong one until you’ve paid for the postage, sent off your novel and they write back to tell you so.

They want this, that and the other – not what you have presented them with. But they’d like you to try somewhere else because another agent might see things differently.

*sigh*

Normally I can cope with the rejection. I’ve become pretty immune to its bloodsucking effects over the years. But sometimes, just sometimes, it sneaks a punch in below the belt. Wallops your tenders like a couple of cathedral bells at a Royal wedding.

It gets you when you’re at your most weakest...

When you’re at your most hopeful.

Going Round The Twist

It’s amazing what you turn to in times of trouble. What crutches present themselves. What wild ports in even wilder storms you find yourself seeking succour in.

Some turn to drink. Others to drugs. Some try lighting up innocuous substances like banana skins or dried hummus because they’re too scared to get sorted for E’s and Whizz. A few turn to hallucinogenic combinations of all these in the hope that the absurd cocktail they have created blows their mind to greener grass and a more comforting mental ambience.

Some, of course, seek solace in the wild abandon that physical pleasure can bring. Gorging themselves on fishnet wrapped flesh and the tangy odours of perfumed armpit and crotch. Excuse me while I pause and take a few deep breaths here.

Yes, a person’s elected path of escape says a lot about their character. It is only in extremis that the world sees us for what we really are.

And Lord knows I have needed to seek comfort of late. The recent troubles with Tom’s nursery have nearly driven me over the edge. It has been brinkmanship of the highest order.

You have to believe me when I say I wouldn’t usually have done this. But... needs must when the devil drives. I was pushed to it. And when the chips were down this proved to be the sauce that saved me.

Round The Twist.

I happened to see the boxed set of all 4 series going for a veritable song on Amazon. Little more than a tenner for all 52 episodes. I bought it instantly and I swear to God that this show has saved me during the last few weeks when things were at their worst.

For those of you who missed Round The Twist first time around, well, I offer you my sympathies. You have been truly deprived. It was originally made in Australia (all the best kids TV shows are made in Australia – excepting The Wiggles) and broadcast on the BBC in the UK back in the early 1990’s. It is just about the funniest, most inventive kid’s TV show ever. Paul Jennings, the show’s writer, is a genius. Each episode is little more than 25 minutes long but is packed with ideas and jokes and (sometimes rather near the knuckle) fun.

I’ve managed to turn Karen and our eldest boy, Ben, into instant Round The Twist converts. For me, it is a real trip down memory lane. Sure the effects are as ropey as all hell and the music dates the show horribly but once that theme tune is stuck in your head it’s stuck in there forever.

After I’ve been laid low with a day’s worth of trial and tribulation, just a quick hit of Round The Twist and I’m right as rain again. I’m reminded that life can be weird and wonderful and fun. You just have to look for it.

And the best thing of all is I don’t have to deviate my septum sniffing coke or wear that damned gimp mask anymore.

(Oops...! Sorry. Too much information?)

If you can’t live in a haunted lighthouse yourself then buying Round The Twist is honestly the next best thing. They just don’t make shows like this anymore. Alas.

Now nick off, you big galah!

Perspective

Life has a reassuring habit of tapping you on the shoulder sometimes and saying, “hey, I know you think you’ve got it bad but it could actually be a lot worse”. Lord knows Karen and I have found the last 4 weeks tough and at the height of it we were living like zombies: staggering to work, staggering home, staggering the problems to try and make them more surmountable and then just collapsing into the comforting oblivion of sleep.

But really. Things could have been worse. A lot worse.

I met my old friend, Dave, yesterday – the guy I wrote about a couple of weeks ago on this here very blog; my partner in late eighties C90 based toilet humour. It was one of those chance, out of the blue meetings that are sadly all too rare but do serve to ground you and remind you that actually the entirety of all existence isn’t circling solely around you and your miserable little band of troubles.

It was good to catch up but not good to hear that, like a lot of people I’ve heard from recently (is there some weirdly negative cosmic zeitgeist going around at the moment?) he and his family have been going through the mill lately. I won’t go into detail as the details are not mine to share but let’s just say that persistent illness of a loved one is at the core of it and the situation is not improving. Hence Dave is running around like the proverbial bluearsed fly and not having very much “me” time at all.

Sometimes living life is like trying to nail jelly to a wall with someone on your back charging you extortionate rates for the use of the hammer whilst lubricating the jelly.

I’m sure that image will stay with many of you for a long time. Please don’t thank me; it’s just what I do.

During our chat Dave and I couldn’t help but reminisce back to those relatively carefree days when we used to give our woefully adolescent subconscious minds free reign to express themselves onto Sony C90 tape. We spoke a little wistfully of the dreams we’d had at the time. Dreams not plans. Because there was loads of stuff we knew we wanted to do – travelling around America was one item high on our list, I seem to recall – but we made no definite plans to see any of the dreams realized.

And then before we knew it the opportunity had gone and life had given us a bag of jelly mix and a lump hammer from the local ‘building and plumbing supplies’ hire centre.

In the blink of an eye you’re fast-tracked into the rat-race; nose-dived into the grid. Welcome to the real world. The desert of the real.

And so you grow up. And you mature. And your perspectives change. Your dreams become simpler but in a way far more meaningful.

You want your loved ones to be happy and healthy. You want quality time with them. Sometimes you’d gladly swap a coast-to-coast tour of the US just to sit with your family and watch a decent sitcom on the TV and feel that all is right with your world.

A little bit of homespun wisdom for you all: even when things are at their worst the good things you have are still good.

It really does help to remember that. Trust me.

(Good luck, Dave.)

What The Doctor Said And What The Director Said

Hopefully this will be the last post on this subject for a while... for the last month it feels like all Karen and I have eaten, slept and talked about is nursery.

However, there has been movement if not resolution.

A visit to the GP on Monday secured us the confirmation we needed: there is nothing wrong or abnormal with Tom or his behaviour; it is all within normal bounds. If anything he is very bright, probably bored stiff and ready for school right now. The doctor’s diagnosis matched many of the comments you guys left on my last post: “the problem is environmental not pathological – change the nursery”.

When we reported this to the manager of the nursery she disgusted both Karen and I by actually looking disappointed. Disappointed that there wasn’t something wrong with Tom; that he didn’t have a diagnosable, pathological problem. She announced she’d make moves to refer him to someone herself.

Karen and I let that go as we were booked in to see the director of the nursery yesterday afternoon. Up until just before Christmas the director, J, was running the nursery day-to-day and had everything, including Tom, under control. Her retirement and the installation of a new manager and Tom’s degenerate behaviour are something more than just coincidence.

J is a lovely “old school” type. And totally got what we were saying. She was, I suspect, appalled that such a hysterical flap had been allowed to develop; that Karen and I had been guilt tripped by the manager on a number of occasions (“I was so worried about Tom I crashed my car”, for example); that the boundaries had been allowed to fall away to such an extent that any kind of authority had broken down. I think she was more disappointed that Karen and I hadn’t been listened to in terms of the effective techniques we employ at home to maintain order – the same techniques that she herself employed when running the nursery daily before her retirement. She was sad that we’d been driven to view other nurseries and that moving Tom was now a definite consideration.

She took it all on board and her response was that her nursery, her staff needed to do more. And if they didn’t like it, tough; it was their job to deal with it. Since J started intervening last Monday the daily phone calls to Karen and I from the nursery have stopped. Tom is getting one-on-ones with the staff to intervene at any flashpoint and guide his behaviour back onto the straight and narrow. The improvement and drop in stress for everyone has been palpable. If they’d only done this 4 weeks ago...

J is so honourable we’ve decided to give the nursery another 2 weeks. Giving up and washing her hands of Tom was so beyond J’s thought processes it was truly heartening and plainly moving Tom really has to be the last resort.

So the nursery have got 2 weeks to re-establish our trust in them and to start to turn things around.

Karen and I have viewed 4 other nurseries – 3 of which we’d be happy for Tom to go to – so we feel like we have choices and a plan B should this not work out. We feel like we’re back in control again.

Hopefully with J back to keeping a watchful eye on the helm, nursery are too.

Which is happy news for everyone. Especially Tom.

Normal scurrilous blog service will be resumed shortly.

Crossing Boundaries

I’ve discovered that it doesn’t take very much to jolt me off track. To so unsettle me that I find even writing – my instinctual outlet since I was 9 years old – impossible.

Problems with my family will pretty much do it every time.

If you’re a regular reader you’ll know from a previous post the trouble we’ve been having with our youngest, Tom, at nursery (or, to put it another way, the trouble our youngest has been having with his nursery) and if you’re not, well, this is probably not a great post to be introduced to me (I suggest you read the one preceding it).

I’m not going to go into detail as (a) it’s not fair to Tom and (b) it’s not fair to the nursery... but suffice to say the last 3 weeks have been hell. Stress overload. Karen and I have not been able to relax for a second as the nursery, once they crossed the boundary of ringing us when Tom was having a “rampage” then more or less rang us every single day. We’ve spent the last two weeks on tenterhooks waiting for the next phone call, not being able to relax, and just generally feeling sick.

Karen had been signed off work, ill, since the beginning of the month anyway so with all this going on any chance she’s had of resting and recuperating has been machine gunned down without mercy. Meanwhile, I’ve had my ability to perform my job impaired as I’ve found myself on call to the nursery. I don’t get paid for time away from my job so I’ve found myself hotfooting it to the nursery without pay to do the job that I pay them to do.

Farcical.

I don’t think Karen and I have slept properly for weeks. It’s been too much. And ridiculous to boot.

In short, a change of management at the nursery has led to a subtle change in ethos and method which has lead to Tom pushing boundaries which bowed and then collapsed leading to a downward spiral in behaviour. Behaviour that is not exhibited at home or elsewhere as Karen and I run a tight ship in the old discipline department. But this has just led to further frustration for us: when we can see how little effort and thought it takes to get control of Tom and yet the “experts” are just not doing it for a whole raft of reasons verging from “staffing levels” to “health & safety”.

Over the last 3 weeks Tom has been gossiped about by staff at the school that the nursery is affiliated to. He’s come home and twice has said something along the lines that “something is wrong / not right with him” – something Karen and I have never even thought let alone said; clearly someone else has said this to him or in front of him which is appalling. It’s been implied that he needs one-to-one help as if he were a special needs child. We were told that a pregnant care worker he hit ended up in hospital – we later found out that she had issues with blood clots; nothing at all to do with Tom but it was nice of the nursery to leave us with that guilt and responsibility for the best part of a week. The manager also pranged her car this week and informed us it was “because she was thinking about Tom”. I wonder how much responsibility a 4 year old can take for the world? The final straw came this Monday when the manager told us that “maybe Tom wasn’t ready for full time nursery care”.

He’s been in full time nursery care at this same nursery since he was 11 months old.

Needless to say Karen and I are not happy and have demanded a meeting with the director next week. For the best part of 3 years Tom’s behaviour has been managed adeptly but since New Year the nursery have allowed Tom’s behaviour to slip and fall and have now exacerbated the problem with H&S rubbish rather than nip it in the bud. The poor kid is confused and wondering what the hell is going on.

I’d like to point out that Karen and I are not excusing his bad behaviour at nursery. It needs bringing into line. But it needs doing calmly and wisely and not with all this hysteria that has been built up – it’s all become about the nursery’s lack of control rather than focusing on teaching Tom the right way to interact. It’s no good Karen and I upholding the rules at home if nursery then go and fumble them during the week. Karen and I are followers of the Super Nanny school of education. But get this – the manager implied that our isolating Tom on a naughty step or a naughty room (where he can’t see us but we can see him) is technically “child abuse” and that “she ought to report it to the authorities”.

Sheesh.

Let’s just say the manager did a child abuse course before Christmas and has the zealotry of a new convert.

It has been yet another straw to break our backs.

So Karen and I have, with heavy heart, been checking out other nurseries – we don’t really want to move him as our master plan was for him to move to the school affiliated with the nursery in September with friends that he’s built up over the last 4 years. This plan is now in jeopardy. Unless there is a massive turn around at our meeting with the nursery director on Tuesday there is little point in keeping him where he is now – Karen and I have completely lost our confidence in the place. Part of what we pay for is peace of mind and a calm, consistent approach to socially educating our children. We no longer have any of that. The manager who announced she was “in for the long haul” a mere 3 weeks ago was the one saying Tom couldn’t cope with full time nursery on Monday. Read that as she couldn’t cope with it. Hence her minor car crash.

The director we are seeing on Tuesday is a lovely lady – grandmotherly and old school. Up until Christmas she was working at the nursery (but then went into semi retirement) and often sorted Tom out when he’d misbehaved. Karen and I have lost count of the number of times she’d shrugged his latest escapade off with “He’s fine – these young girls flap so much!” We’re sorry to be bringing her out of retirement but if anyone can sort it, she can. We’re sure she’ll be horrified at the thought that her nursery can’t handle a 4 year old!

Because at the end of the day the other nurseries Karen and I have viewed this week as possible alternatives have all but shrugged when told the reason we are considering moving Tom. Nothing new. Nothing special. Not out of the ordinary. Normal. Most figure it can be sorted out within a month.

It’s been good to hear. Good to see people reacting measuredly and sanely and not calling for the local priest. Good to know we have choices. But we will still be sad if we have to move Tom so close to him starting school at the end of the year. We want him unsettled as little as possible until then.

It’s been a dreadful month. We’ve had our parenting called into question, the nature of our little boy called into question and all of our plans for him thrown up into the air whilst having parenting leaflets and behavioural training leaflets waved into our faces by those that most need to read them.

Whatever happens next week we can’t go on as we have been. This level of constant extremis just cannot be maintained by any of us.

Something has got to give.

Liar Liar

First and foremost I’d like to point out that this post is not just a lame excuse to publish a saucy picture of the fulsomely lobed (cerebrally, naturally) Victoria Coren. OK? I would never stoop to such transparent tactics.

Am I lying? Well, just look into my eyes and tell me.

Am I? Am I?

You see, in my continued quest to ramp up my monthly earnings (and thus keep the wolves from my door) I have been reviewing all sorts of options to make a little bit on the side. To earn a little bit more. To acquire a little extra tin.

I’ve followed the normal roads of enquiry: a second job, the “work from home” ads in the Classifieds, selling stuff I don’t want on eBay, selling stuff I do want on eBay, selling stuff I need on eBay (do I really need 2 lungs for example?), the white slave trade and prostitution... but I either don’t have the energy, the time, the legs or the clean bill of health from a trustworthy GP to make these options viable.

So I’ve been looking into the B list. The B list is made up of dodgy, cat in hell’s chance, money making ideas. TV competitions. Pub quizzes. The Lottery. Betting on the horses. And, finally, playing poker.

And it reminded me that some people – some quite high profile people like the blondesome brainiac that is Victoria Coren – make a decentish living playing poker. I used to think the poker playing world was made up of swarthy, cut-throat types who wear sweaty white suits and those weird green visor thingies to try and hide the look of abject constipation in their eyes but Victoria Coren (courtesy of Google Images) and, indeed, the BBC’s Hustle assure me that actually the poker playing fraternity is made up of honest-to-God salt of the earth types who might actually surprise you with their choice of University degree.

Therefore this could plainly be a viable career move. And I reckon I could pull it off. I mean, I can keep my face straight whilst screaming inside with the best of them (I’ve been a local government employee for nearly 14 years).

The only problem is I don’t know how to play poker. I have never learnt. Whenever poker games appear in James Bond movies I shuffle uncomfortably because I just don’t understand all that 3 pairs, royal flush, aces high bollocks. I’m just guessing that the rules are nothing like Snap.

But I think I would be rather good at poker nonetheless. Because when it comes to card games at least (not so good with sneaky Friday nights at the pub) I am a damn good liar. I can remember playing Liar Liar* as a young twenty-something and outfoxing everyone. (Liar Liar is the game where you have to get rid of all your cards by announcing you have, for example, 3 twos – you then put down your 3 twos face down. The trick, of course, is to put down 3 cards (or however many) even if you don’t have enough of the same numerical amount to make a grouping. If people call you – by saying Liar Liar – and you are proven to have lied you have to pick up ALL the cards that have been previously put down.) I was a natural and people would frequently miss when I had lied and mistakenly accuse me of lying when I had in fact told the truth – thus earning the forfeit themselves. God, what a card-sharp, I was.

Those were the days.

Pity we weren’t playing for money. Or playing strip Liar Liar with Victoria Coren... those photos would go down a bundle on eBay.

So anyway... I can lie like a barrister when I have a deck of cards in my hand. I just need to be taught the rules of the game.

Any poker aficionados out there willing to take on an apprentice? I’ll split my winnings 70/30? Come on, that’s got to be a good deal! Money for practically nothing!

Victoria, if you’re reading this, I’ll make it 60/40 but you might have to lose a few items of clothing... (and you know I’m not lying).

Call me?

*Also known as Cheat.

I Know Nothing

One thing life has taught me is that the easiest way to be unhelpful to people you don’t like is to feign ignorance. To shrug your shoulders. To look apologetic and say in a wheedling voice that you’d really like to help but the issue in question is totally beyond your current scope of abilities.

If you want to be particularly passive-aggressive about it you can add: “Ooh, I don’t know a thing about this and I fear I will only make things worse for you should I try to lend a hand.”

Once this tactic has been employed I can quite nastily go about my business watching rather smugly while the mother-of-all-foul-ups occurs as the hapless victim struggles with their task without the miracle-cure knowledge that I have jealously guarded and retained for myself.

For years I thought that such tactics were just merely sneaky, lazy, cowardly and undeniably fun but small victories in a world where little people like you and me get shat upon regularly from great heights by big people who don’t even notice the rank smell they leave behind them as they pass over the surface of the earth.

But it turns out that, according to an episode of QI that I recently watched, such a tactic is actually a prime example of Socratic Irony. Making out that you are dumber(er) than you actually are. Playing the fool. Playing the ignoramus. Apparently Columbo is a classic modern example of Socratic Irony at work. The bumbling, stumbling detective who seems to have a haphazard and dishevelled grip on the facts.

I now feel that my normal modus operandi has been elevated somewhat by its dazzling association with Classic Greek Athenian philosophy. I don’t know whether this makes me feel very proud or fills me with chagrin. Clearly I have been exercising the higher echelons of my intellect rather than just taking the easy way out. Rather than just laziness my nonchalant responses indicate a deep understanding of elenctic method. This does wonders for my self esteem.

But I can’t help but feel I have been casting pearl before swine.

Those around me have been thoroughly ignorant of the cleverness of my tactics. My methods, in short, are too damned smart for them.

So my question is: is that more ironic than the method of elenchus I have been employing? Or less?

Just who is the joke upon?

*sigh*

Suddenly I have a maddening headache in the pupil of my glass eye...

On The Bone

I don’t like meat on the bone.

This thought occurred to me the other day. Or rather I suddenly became properly conscious of it (it’s not like not liking meat on the bone was suddenly a surprise to me).

Does it make me a wuss? That’s the question that immediately followed the thought. Because, you see, in my mind at least – and maybe in your mind too – there is something ideologically macho about eating meat on the bone. Ripping off a hugely greasy chicken leg and tucking into the thigh Henry VIII style. Chowing down manfully on a dripping spare rib. Shoving your gravy encrusted beard into a Desperate Dan style cow-pie replete with horns sticking up out of the pastry.

But I’ve never liked food like that. I really don’t like finding hard inedible stuff in my food. I don’t even like fish bones, for Heaven’s sake. Something else I had in common with the Queen Mum.

As a child the worst meal of the week for me was on Thursday’s. Because we’d have chops.

And there it would be on my plate. A whacking great bone. Or worse still. A sharp little one with splintery bits sewn amongst the fat.

I’d pick at it daintily with my knife and fork, completely eschewing the idea of picking it up in my fingers and bloodthirstily sucking the flesh off it.

Euw!

Give me a chicken Kiev any day. Or a detached pre-packaged breast (steady!).

And that holds true even today. I went for a chicken curry at a friend’s house years ago and was mortified to find bones in the curry – still attached to the meat. I struggled with the cuisine in Egypt too when I went there for the exact same reason: chicken pizza – with bones on it!

I just don’t like it.

My eldest boy does. Even as a youngling he’d happily gnaw on a bone and tease off every fleck of flesh.

But not me.

I like to think it’s because I’m a little more rarefied. More cultured. But I suspect it’s because I’m a big girl’s blouse. I would never have survived in the Neolithic.

What? Eat that? You mean you’re not going to skin and bone it for me? But it’s still got the face on it! Can’t we just make a stew?

I would starve. I’d be dead within weeks. Man cannot live by wild berries alone.

And the trouble is I’m not particularly keen on berries.

So thank God for pre-prepared food. I am very much a child of the modern age.

The greatest civilizing influence ever was the family butcher.

Which is rather ironic when you think about it.

Anyone care for a chicken nugget?

Caught In Amber

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well. So we thought at the time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A reputation.

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

Wild Horses

You probably didn’t notice but I’ve been gone for a week. I withdrew somewhat from the online world. I didn’t feel much like writing if the truth be known. I’m not even sure if I want to write this but plainly some impetus, lurking deep within me, still holds sway and here I am.

Following on from my previous post things have not been going well for our youngest boy, Tom, at nursery. He has been – in common parlance – resisting arrest for various 4 year old type wrong doings. Tom’s always been a bit of a monkey. He is the Just William of his nursery group. If a window has been broken or a child hit in the eye, Tom will be the one standing with his hand over his mouth trying to stuff the catapult down the back of his trousers.

Tom is the wild horse that refuses to be broken. A couple of the nursery workers managed to get him all but saddle trained last year but they left at Christmas and since then Tom has been kicking down the boundary fences until last week nursery announced he was out of control and they needed help.

I must point out here (ready for when Tom as a teenager reads through my blog and sues me for misrepresentation) that Tom is not uncontrollable. At home he is biddable and lovely. Which is not to say he’s an angel because he’s not. He has his moments but Karen and I can sort it out within ten minutes and bring him back to heel.

So it was initially hard to believe nursery’s reports of gnashing teeth, scratching, biting and kicking, etc. They made him sound like a Tasmanian Devil. In the end Karen and I spent a day at nursery last week to observe and give the staff some pointers on how to corral our wild, young stallion.

Lunchtime saw a flashpoint – I won’t bore you with the details – but, suffice it to say, even mummy and daddy were granted no quarter from the wild thing that fought tooth and nail to not be put on the ‘naughty mat’. It seemed that home based loyalties were meaningless in the nursery environment. As far as Tom was concerned there were no boundaries at nursery. No boundaries at all.

Within 20 minutes though Karen and I had got him calm and biddable again. Proof that it could be done without the aid of tranquilizer darts. But we were both deeply shocked by the experience. And in tears. Was this really our adorable little boy? The same boy who comes home every afternoon and sits and watches Waybuloo so cutely?

Yes, it was. We had to get with the programme.

And so we’ve shed tears, sighed through sleepless nights and moped through stressful days but battle plans have been drawn up between us and the nursery. Tactics are in place. We are working in unison. Reward schemes have been set up to encourage positive social interaction. The importance of the naughty mat in the overall scheme of putting things right again has been explained. And a tent has been erected in the nursery hall to act as Tom’s chill-out room for when colouring-in causes his frayed temper to snap.

We’re not kidding ourselves that this is going to be an overnight fix. It is going to take weeks and weeks of sustained effort and a cohesive approach. Tom, of course, is still resisting – he’s trying diversionary tactics now; he’s not stupid – he is a horse who can feel the reigns being put over his head and (to quote a poet whose name I cannot remember) knows that once they are in place he will never run as freely again. Karen and I are “on call” should the nursery need us or find they cannot manage our bucking bronco. I was called there at lunchtime today but – on a positive note – Tom was calm again before I arrived. Nursery are seeing this as a success. His rampages are already shorter which means a quicker recovery time for everyone involved – including Tom. I daresay we will take two steps forward and one step back for a while yet.

None of us want to break Tom’s spirit. But he needs to learn to gallop safely and to know the edges of his own paddock. And nursery... well they need to re-establish themselves in the saddle and learn to stay there without assistance.

It’s going to be a long season on the range, folks. If anyone knows a good horse whisperer then please do send him my way.

Until then – hi-yo silver away!

Tough But Cautious Love

We had a letter from the nursery last week asking if we would grant permission for their staff to carefully restrain our youngest when he is in the midst of a huge mega-tantrum.

He is a very wilful, determined little boy, our youngest, and a refusal will always offend. But it’s all part of the learning curve and, if you imagine his behaviour as being on a spectrum, then I’d say he’s smack bang in the middle. I’ve seen better behaved boys and I’ve seen a lot worse.

Of course, any kind of bad behaviour, if left unchecked, will result in delinquency of some kind and nobody wants to see a 4 year old joyriding around town in a stolen BMW and selling crack to the local pool club so the rules have got to be laid down and laid down firm.

Karen and I get that. Totally. Needless to say our little ‘un is far more aware of the boundaries at home than he is at nursery and pushes them less. Which isn’t to say that he doesn’t push them at all because he does. Sometimes with the determination of a bulldozer.

But nursery... that’s a different story. Like any kid, if he senses weakness, he’ll go in for the kill.

So I totally get where the nursery is coming from with this consent form thing.

But I couldn’t help wondering if it was really necessary. Couldn’t help feeling that it’s necessity for the nursery owners belies a little of what is wrong with the world.

Years ago a nursery worker / care worker / teacher wouldn’t have thought twice about carefully restraining a flailing child – especially if he/she was in danger of hurting him/herself or even others.

But the world it so litigious these days that even an arm-grab can be considered GBH. Picking a child up and placing them on the naughty step can be considered an infringement of their human rights.

You gotta get permission to even give a child a stiff talking to lest you find yourself added to some government offenders’ register.

So what were they doing before they asked for our permission to handle our kid with kid gloves? Kettling him with cotton wool? Directing him into a safe corner with brightly coloured paddles like some kind of 1940’s aircraft landing officer? Or leaving a trail of Valium injected Smarties to the safe haven of the Wendy House?

I mean, it’s nice they’ve asked permission and everything. We don’t want him harming himself or others and likewise we don’t want others harming him. But have they asked permission of the other parents too? Or do they wait until one of the other kids goes off the rails with a Duplo brick and a quoit? I mean just what is the trigger for this “ramping” up of tough but gentle love? The kids are only 3 and 4 for Heaven’s sake!

Isn’t being hands-on with the kids part of the job description? I don’t remember them asking permission to change his nappy when he was 2.

I know the alternative is worse – kids beaten with rods and brutalized. But surely there must be some sensible middle ground?

Or do we want a generation of humans who shy away from any kind of physical contact at all?

No wait. We already have that...

Black Country Gold

Warwick University would have been too obvious - it's literally just down the road from me (well, a bus ride away), plus I graduated from there myself a mere handful of years ago. The connection would have been too blatant. Too strong. I can see that. She didn't want to give the game away. Flag things up to the media about her true intentions.

So Birmingham was the next logical choice. Close geographically but not too close. The connection is less obvious. She's a canny lass, that Dr Alice. Plainly keeping things close. Playing things sharp.

And I can dig that. I don't, after all, relish the thought of having the press crowding themselves onto my doorstep. Well, not until I find an agent for my novel anyway.

So Dr Alice Roberts has accepted the position of Birmingham University's first Professor of Public Engagement in Science. You can hear what the superlative TV scientist has to say about the appointment here:



You can, I am sure, read between the lines. This isn't about science or even bringing science to the masses. It's not about the grandeur of Birmingham University or even picking up "Birmingum's loveloi ax-sent".

It's about me. About moving closer to me.

You can tell this from everything she doesn't say. The way she doesn't mention that Birmingham is just a simple train journey away from me here in Leamington Spa. That I can be there for coffee and an iced bun in under 45 minutes (unless, of course, I catch a Virgin train in which case I'm looking at about 5 hours provided there isn't a leaf on the track). But you can read it all in her eyes... The barely suppressed excitement at our close proximity. We are like two planets coming into alignment. It's been written in the stars. Even Dr Professor Brian Cox mentioned our coming together in his Stargazing Live programmes for the BBC this week. Don't worry if you missed all the references. You would have had to have been a real science head to have picked them up.

A real science head like me.

See, Professor of Public Engagement in Science is just a dead giveaway. It is a personal clarion call to me. Une Lettre d'amour addressed to yours truly. I can handle a petre dish. I can caress a test tube. I can get a bunsen burner to glow white hot with just a casual flick of my fingers.

I can do science, me, in every sense.

If I'm not around to blog much next week it's because I have taken the fast train to Birmingham.

I am going to be engaging in science. Deeply, madly, truly. I have the goggles and everything.

Dr Alice, I'll meet you in the university cafeteria (or as they say in Birmingham: the caff). You bring your white coat and I'll bring my pipette.

P.S. Note to Stephen Hawking: don't you be getting any funny ideas, matey - I know how to deactivate the disabled chair lifts.

Sir Richard Branson Giveth And Sir Richard Branson Taketh Away

I had an email from Virgin Media on Friday. One of those “hey we’re your best mates, we are, and to illustrate this we’re going to give you an amazing deal to show how much we love you, bud, pal, matey, mucker, fellamelad”. I read the email with the kind of indifference that only a longstanding Virgin Media customer can muster and it transpired that dear Old Uncle Rich – Sir Richard Branson to you – was about to “more than double” my broadband speed but for less than the price I was currently paying. And he was going to do it because I was such a loyal longstanding customer. Because, let’s face it, me and Rich have been going steady ever since he took over NTL half a decade or so ago and renamed it Virgin Media.

Well, it was a nice start to the weekend if nothing else.

Cue Saturday morning. Another email from Sir Rich arrives. This one less chummy and rather more apologetic in tone. Turns out Friday’s email was a mistake. Mr B apologized profusely, nay cheesily. It was sent out by mistake. They were sorry. He was sorry. But there would be some good news for all loyal Virgin Media customers in the next 2 weeks. Honest. About something else. Something else equally as good. Probably.

Yeah right. Another Virgin mobile phone offer or extra sports channels on Virgin Media TV, I should think. I’m not a big fan of shot-put, Sir Richard, you can stick it.

But this whole debacle got me thinking. The poor sap who pressed Send on all those emails (because surely I wasn’t the only one who received such a missive) must be up to his neck in hot water right now. That’s assuming he still has a job, of course, and that Sir Rich didn’t drop-kick him out of a hot air balloon somewhere over the Atlantic. And someone – some graphics design geek – obviously created the email in the first place. Which says Virgin Media were planning this broadband upgrade thing for some time but then just decided to change their minds.

Was it something I said? Or didn’t say? Was I supposed to have replied to Sir Rich’s original email profusely oozing my thanks and attaching a tasty Polaroid of my freshly oiled up genitalia? Did he consider my lack of response to be a singular act of monstrous ingratitude and consequently cancel the broadband upgrade?

That’s rather petty, Richard.

Or was the whole email a scam? An act of in-house sabotage from a disgruntled employee? Sir Rich has banned his marketing team from downloading stuff from the SKY BSB web site and they’ve hit back with an email to drop Sir Richard in the shite?

Hmm. To be honest, that scenario doesn’t work for me. If you were a disgruntled employee you’d send out a far worse email than “we’re going to double our customer’s broadband speed for half the price”. It would be along the lines of “hey, did you know that Sir Richard Branson molests disabled baboons in his personalized spaceship paid for with your hard earned money?”

Now that’s the kind of email that would have made my weekend a good one.

But no.

So, a double-dip disappointment on the Virgin Media front, then.

*sigh*

Situation normal. Thanks Rich.

Organ For Hire

In these cash strapped times we are all looking for a little extra moolah. Opportunities for additional cash. A bit on the side. The ol’ financial boost.

So I’ve been considering my options:

1) Sell my body. Become a dirty hoo-er.
2) Sell my soul.
3) Sell my writing.

I have to be honest and say that number 1 is a no goer. I’m sure I’d have no shortage of offers but alas most of them would probably be from men and I am just not wired up that way. I know I should view it purely as a business transaction for the sake of my wife and kids but, really, I am just not psychologically / emotionally programmed for such intimate endeavours to take place with the one half of my species that I am just not sexually attracted to. The biggest tragedy is that the other half – the lady kind – would just laugh at the thought of paying me to show them a good time. There’s a sale on in Marks & Spencer and I just can’t compete with that kind of instant gratification.

Number 2 is also a no goer. I don’t consider myself overly religious but the thought of selling my soul sends me cold. I don’t care if it’s not legally binding, there is just something deeply fundamentally disturbing about the thought of selling one’s most essential life essence. I read somewhere that a load of students were surveyed recently to see how many would actually be willing to sell their souls and, surprisingly, even these beered up, coke brained, fashionably cynical young hooligans baulked at the idea of giving up ownership of their immortal soul (whether it actually existed or not).

As for number 3. I’m trying. I really am. Any pointers or snifters of chancy openings would be much appreciated.

One thing I have never considered though is selling my health.

I had an email a while ago from a company called WEGO. I think they’re American. They wanted me to sign up for clinical trials. Clinical trials that could take place in my very own home. More, if I then blogged about the trials that I took part in there’d be additional cash remuneration. And it wasn’t just meds they wanted me to trial either. It was equipment.

My mind boggled. Just what kind of equipment would they want me to test?

An iron lung? A pacemaker? A new Hadron Collider sized kidney dialyses machine? Artificial testicles?

How much money would they pay me to trial some bionic bollocks? I mean, even a one off deal could set me and my family up for life. New car. Cruise in the Med (paid for by meds). And all for the price of a pair of Kevlar kahunas.

It’s got to be worth a gander surely?

But then I reconsidered. I mean, my luck has to be a major factor in this enterprise, right? I’d end up trialling colostomy bags or herpes cream or artificial testicles manufactured cheaply out of the melted down heads of old Action Man dolls. Or they’d be injecting me with weird bacterial concoctions that would just make me feel pants for days on end and not even give me Spidey powers or anything.

And then there’s the exchange rate. Given how things are right now, I’d probably end up compromising my health for a measly £7.54p.

So it’s just not worth it. It really isn’t.

My health is the only saleable commodity I have that I don’t actually want to sell.

That, of course, and my clearly illustrated good sense.

Monitoring My Aggression

It’s not often I write about my computer hardware. I’m not a nerdy twenty-something anymore who obsesses over the size of my motherboard or the speed of my processor. I no longer care about the make, model or speed. I just want things to work. To let me do what I want to do. To surf, to write, to research. Whatever. And no, “whatever” does not equal “dodgy web sites”.

I wrote about my monitor a while ago (a Cibox if you must know). It keep switching itself off. I was close to committing acts of violence against its LCD display. I realized at the time how ridiculous such an act would be.

I’m ashamed to say I’ve now gone beyond seeing the ridiculousness of computer focused brutality. It has become my normal mode of operation.

I snatched 10 minutes of computer time this morning before leaving for work. The bloody monitor switched itself off no less than 8 times. The only remedy is to unplug the power cable and then ram it back home again.

This has now become a dangerous remedy. I can hear electricity buzzing and arcing around the back. I suspect the socket has taken such a beating it now resembles Pete Burns’ lips. I have also punched the monitor in the face more than once too. I mean, actually physically punched it. To the point where it hurt my knuckles.

I’ve searched on-line for a diagnosis (for the monitor problems not my sore knuckles – I’m well aware of what caused that). Some web sites speak of driver issues with Windows 7. They might be right. The sporadic shutting down isn’t as arbitrary as it should be. It feels like my own interactions with the internet are causing it. No, not dodgy web sites again. I click on a link or close down a web page and ping! The monitor dies. The timing it just too spot on. However, my constant stabbing away round the back with the power cable has probably caused additional damage to the monitor. It now can’t be trusted to be sold on safely. It will have to be ditched.

I will take great pleasure in doing this, believe me.

I am seriously considering buying a gun.

Anyway, the upshot is that, despite not being able to afford it, I have ordered a brand new spanking 21.5 inch Samsung monitor from Amazon. It was dispatched this morning. On the one hand it feels like an extravagant waste of money on what is – relatively speaking – a non-essential item.

On the other, it does mean I will save a fortune on no longer having to attend anger management classes.

Because let’s be honest, they weren’t working anyway.

Rather like my old monitor.

*Sigh*

And breathe...