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!

Gis A Job, Garn, Gis It...

I’ve finally found the job for me.

A job that I not only want to do but am pretty sure that I could do.

The only fly in the ointment is that the post is already taken. By Oz Clarke and James May.

I’ve greatly enjoyed watching the last two series of their “Big Wine Adventure”. Series one saw them clodhopping their way across Europe, supping wine from every vineyard north of the Equator – and even dipping an inebriated toe into the wines of California. Series two they concentrated more on Great Britain and beer. Plainly more of the budget went on intoxicants than on air miles in series two but you can hardly knock the lads for wanting to reduce their carbon footprint.

They are an oddball pairing but one which seems to work. Oz yearns to educate the palate and mind of all around him while James' sole purpose in life is to pull the rug out from every wine-tasting oik that he encounters. The friction between the two is in the nature of friendly fire and is bizarrely entertaining.

Man banter I believe it’s called. And it works because the mentally adroit Oz Clarke is a secret lad at heart and the charmingly boorish James May is a secret Brainiac. They kind of fulfil both the best and the worst of each other in a boozy bezzy-mate man-on-man type marriage thing – only thankfully without any of the hanky-panky and sweaty-hairy stuff. Phew. I really don’t think their beer guts would allow such shenanigans anyway.

Basically the show is like a lad’s night out compressed into a half hour slot, with the bad language sanitized, the peeing over your own shoes glossed over and the embarrassing chat-up lines deleted... with the extra advantage that our heroes sup the poisonous brews on our behalf and suffer our hangovers by proxy.

Quite frankly it’s the best night out I’ve had in a long while and it didn’t cost me a penny. They even threw in a curry one week and you can’t say fairer than that.

Best of all each week I was home on time and wasn’t sick over the carpet / wife / cat / lava lamp.

But I digress.

Mr Clarke and Mr May were no doubt paid vast sums of licence payer’s money to “live the dream” for a couple of months while a temperate and Methodist film crew doggedly filmed their every move and ne’er touched a drop between them for the duration.

And let’s face it, the crew didn’t need to. May and Clarke must have consumed enough quaffables to completely submerge a south sea archipelago or three.

And I bet the BBC paid for all that booze. And the curry. And the petrol and the caravan they supposedly lived in. I bet May and Clarke didn’t have to dip into their own pockets for anything. Not even to spend a penny.

I mean bloody hell, how the hell do you get a gig like that? What qualifications do you need (aside from being already famous)?

I mean, I can drink beer. I can drink wine. And as for eating curry, well, I can do that with my eyes closed and my mouth open. Easy peasy lemon Brinjal.

And I bet I could sleep in a caravan with either James May or Oz Clarke without compromising my lad-hood to boot. I’m as qualified as the next man.

But I bet I’m a darn sight cheaper.

Come on, BBC. Give me a chance! I’ll even wear a ridiculously flowery shirt if you pay me nicely.

Abilities

Knickers have been a little twisted in the UK this week over an issue which, quite frankly, has not merited the amount of column space given over to it.

And here I am adding to the word count when other bloggers have written about it at least half as well as I am about to (ha ha ha)...!

To clarify for my international readers: we have a kids channel here in the UK called CBeebies and they have employed a lovely blonde presenter called Cerrie Burnell to do the fill-in slots between the various kid’s programmes.

She’s warm voiced, gentle, enthusiastic, obviously a mum herself (you can just tell) and she was born with only one hand. Her other arms finishes just below the elbow.

And neither of my boys – Ben who is 7 and Tom who is 16 months – care a damned fig about it.

Sadly a very small minority of “well meaning parents” (i.e. sentimental bigots) have written in to the BBC’s various online forums to complain that Cerrie’s physical differences could “scare” their young children.

Oh please.

My first reaction was to shake my head with pity that such small minded people not only exist in the world but are also polluting their own children with their xenophobic and ridiculously neurotic points of view.

But as the newsworthiness of this debate has grown with more and more press coverage and Cerrie herself being called in to take part in worthy “spread the message” interviews my pity has turned to exasperation and annoyance.

Poor girl.

She’s a presenter and an actress doing a job like everybody else. Her physicality in this day and age should just not be an issue for anybody.

It’s certainly not an issue for my boys. I think Ben commented with vague interest once about Cerrie’s arm but didn’t really seem that bothered. As for Tom. He’s pretty much accepting of all that goes on around him and doesn’t see anything at all as “abnormal” or out of the ordinary. It is all new. All part of the adventure. And all entertaining.

If only our species could retain the mindset of a 16 month old baby... how much happier the world would be.

The only positive to come out of all this is, I suppose, the debate it has sparked and the huge wave of support that Cerrie has received from the majority of the population who are well balanced, intelligent, cogent and capable of coherent thought processes. As she says, if kids ask questions about her hand then just tell them the truth – she was born with it like many other people in the world and it doesn’t stop her from doing anything at all. It’s a good opportunity to try and educate them gently about such issues and nurture them into well balanced, emotionally sound adults.

I doubt that a single one of them will have nightmares about it... unless the parent completely mishandles the situation, of course... and that responsibility is hardly Cerrie’s or the BBC’s...

But it is a shame to have such a sweet, innocent children’s programme marred with such heavy-duty adult issues. But then again I suspect it is only us adults who are picking up on that anyway. The kids just want to get on to the cartoons and the fluffy puppets.

Well, don’t we all?

To my mind then, Cerrie’s only (to use an old 70’s word) handicap is her co-presenter, Alex Winters, who is so wet, bland and lifeless he looks like he spends his free-time taking part in Agatha Christie Murder Weekends playing the corpse. I’ve never seen a man on TV so damned dreary. It’s as if he’s constantly holding back, afraid to commit himself to the nursery rhymes or the baby talk in case his RADA mates see him and rip the pee out of him later in the pub.

If anyone is physically unable to do the job it is him.

As for Cerrie, she can read me a bedtime story and stroke my furry teddy any night of the week...

Haunted

My usual Friday blog post last week was dropped as, quite rightly, I was busy elsewhere ensuring that my wife, Karen, had as lovely a birthday as possible...

Part of this extravaganza of generosity and celebration entailed lunch at one of Warwick’s finest eating establishments – The Saxon Mill. If ever you’re around these parts I can recommend it. I won’t wax lyrical about the menu as, really, with the best will in the world, mere adjectives and metaphor can hardly replace the reality of eating food. Suffice it to say, you had to be there. And, no offence intended, I’m rather glad that you weren’t as it would have cramped my style and ruined the atmos somewhat...

But talking of atmos...

The Saxon Mill – being (surprise, surprise) a converted mill – is built over the River Leam. On the opposite bank stands what at one time would have been a very grand old house indeed: Guy’s Cliffe House.

The legends surrounding this building are numerous. And as varied and embellished as Chinese whispers. The one strand that runs through them all, however, is that the place is haunted. Haunted by a woman who – through being jilted / abandoned / widowed / whatever – threw herself into the River Leam far below and drowned. Quite when this occurred nobody really seems to know. 500 years ago... maybe more... medieval period some even say.

Then layered on top of this legend is another one. A newer one. The building was purportedly used at one time – again in some unspecified period of history – as the HQ for a local coven of witches and Satanists. They are supposed to have used the cellars and caves that the house is built upon to carry out their perverse rites – orgies, blood sacrifices, the lot. The Butlins of their day.

Nowadays the Mason’s own the property. Nothing unusual in this except why buy a building that nobody does anything with? About 20 years ago a major fire further gutted what was already a ruin and thus the building has (barely) stood... closed off to the public, free access granted only to the crows and pigeons that roost in it’s shambolic gables. Nobody “straight and true” has been seen there for years. Certainly not by daylight anyway. All very strange.

Anyway, after our meal Karen and I took a slow saunter along the river and viewed the house from the safety of the opposite bank. I say safety because Guy’s Cliffe House gives me the freaking willies.

Partly because of the legends and the hearsay and partly because of personal experience.

When I was 18 me and my good friend, Tris, being full of youthful bravado and foolhardiness decided to put the legends to the test. Mostly though I think we just wanted to cock a snook at the Masons and so climbed over the boundary wall and took a wonder through the grounds. As it was, even then (before the fire), the house was visibly unsafe and so we wisely steered clear of venturing within the crumbling walls but we did skirt the perimeter and work our way round to the cellars / caves at the back. To do this we followed what I assume hundred of years ago would have been the old river bed.

I recall it being jungled with massive leaves and vegetation which seemed to have grown elephantine in the August weather. It felt almost prehistoric and I remember feeling quite disconcerted and dwarfed by my surroundings. Maybe this merely added to the burgeoning sense of atmosphere – who knows? All I do know is that as we turned round to the back of the house the air itself seemed to grow black in a split second. We both experienced it and stopped dead in our tracks. I have never felt such an oppressive, furious, outraged atmosphere as I did that evening. The air seemed to increase in mass and waves of anger bore down on us like a nuclear wind. That and the distinct feeling that we were not at all welcome and should get the hell out of there immediately. We both flinched under a snarl of “get out!” mentally screamed at us from a source that appeared to have no shape or form. Neither of us had to discuss it. We turned tail and ran like something out of Scooby-doo, me bringing up the rear praying that nothing was pursuing me... because, let me tell you, at the time it felt like a real possibility.

We laughed about it afterwards and shrugged it off. It was an August evening, the sun was setting; it had merely dropped down behind the house and plunged the ground level into shadow. What jolly japes. Ho ho ho.

I’ve never been back but have often wondered about that evening many times over the intervening years.

I didn’t see anything coalescing out of the air but do remember the impression of something trying to. Maybe if we’d found more courage and stood our ground we would have seen something... an apparition, an orb of light, Derek Acorah in his cheap imitation gold jewellery... who knows.

All I know is the atmosphere was unquestionably real and it produced a very real reaction in us both.

Was it a ghost? Was it our minds playing tricks on us – using the rich food of local legend to fuel a waking dream?

Or is it as someone whose name I can’t remember once wrote: human memory exists in two places – in the hearts and minds of people; and in the buildings, stones and earth that house them?

Maybe a distraught young woman hundreds of years ago, dashing out her unendurable sorrow into a treacherous river, unwittingly impressed herself onto the stones of Guy’s Cliffe House and every now and then treats foolish young visitors to a sensory cinema show where the only tickets required are gullibility?

You’re guess is as good as mine.

Sleep well, people. Sleep well.

Theftbook

My relationship with Facebook has always been fraught to say the least.

I find the site annoyingly clunky, slow loading and just too bloated with useless “apps” and fly-by-night user groups who constantly paw at me wanting my cyber attention when in truth I’m rarely in the mood to give it.

The facility I use most on Facebook is the “ignore” button and I do apologize if you have been on the wrong end of it. It’s nothing personal.

Why be on Facebook in the first place then?

Well. I was curious. It was recommended to me by a friend (a real one). And I thought “why not?”

And once you’re on there it’s damned hard to get yourself off.

Facebook, you see, doesn’t like to let go.

Facebook has ownership issues.

Facebook is something of a smug, grasping, bully that doesn’t like to let anyone of anything out of its mucky clutches.

Want evidence?

Facebook has now decided to grant itself rights to users’ photos, wall posts and just about every conceivable bit of information that people are naïve enough to post on its site. Forever.

Even if you manage to delete your account all your photos and information will be archived somewhere and available for use by the Facebook bigwigs for what has been quoted in the Metro as “public performances”

Public performances?

WTF?

Has Facebook not heard of the data protection act or are they somehow exempt?

Here’s another quote for the Metro (only the best sources for me):

“Yesterday, the site’s founder Mark Zuckerberg attempted to defuse the row, insisting in his blog, ‘In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want.’”

Ri-i-i-i-ght.

In a way I wouldn’t want.

So that’ll be not at all then.

So what’s the point of Facebook hanging onto such information and private (can you read that, Zuckerberg: P – R – I – V – A – T – E ) photos in the first place?

Or is Facebook hoping that at some point in the future I will be quite content to let my personal information be used in some viral advertising campaign or pasted over a Beatles soundtrack to sell an updated version of their shitty little web site to invading Martians? Or even enable Wal-Mart to target me with useless white goods that they think I desperately need and must absolutely buy?

Dream on, Facebook.

Keeping my information without my express permission is theft. Holding my photos – my intellectual property – for a future use that I cannot control or opt out from, no mater how innocuous, is an infringement of my basic human rights.

Facebook, it’s time you were de-faced.

Permanently.

What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor?

When a person has very few pleasures in life do you have a right to deny them those few in order to preserve their health?

Years ago I wouldn’t have hesitated with my answer and would have no doubt spouted a load of guff about free will, choices, self autonomy and a load of other textbook slogan-making twaddle.

Now I’m not so sure.

My granddad, God bless ‘im, has a pretty meagre existence in terms of self fulfilment. He’s 70% blind, lonely as hell since my gran died 4 years ago and my aunt (his youngest daughter) died last year. He’s going deaf and is becoming rather unsteady on his feet.

As far as worthwhile activities go there is precious little he can do to fill his days except listen to the radio full blast, talk to his various visitors, eat and drink.

Drinking as a pleasure would be fine if his beverage of choice was a nice cup of Earl Grey. Sadly, being an ex-Navy man, his preferred tipple is rum.

And the stronger the better.

In the past this hasn’t been a problem as he’s always been responsible / careful / respectful. Now, however, with little else to live for, I suspect, and little else to occupy his days he’d been hitting the bottle rather hard.

The family has grumbled but lived with it for the last few years and bar a few tellings off and a flurry of nags when he’s got himself particularly sizzled we’ve let him get on with it with the proviso that he doesn’t overdo it. I mean at his age he hardly needs to worry about drinking himself to death, does he?

However, yesterday he had to activate his emergency helpline button as he’d got himself so drunk he’d slid out of his chair and onto the floor and couldn’t get back up again.

It would be almost comical except that an ambulance man had to attend and spend a great deal of time sorting him out.

Thankfully all was well.

He’s ok. He’s fine. He’s embarrassed and a little chagrined after getting the sharp end of my mother’s tongue but no lasting damage has been done.

Or has it?

The problem is that even without the thought that it could have been so much worse an ambulance man had had to devote time and energy to a “non emergency call out” when he no doubt could have been better employed elsewhere.

Which isn’t to say I don’t think my granddad is worth it because he most definitely is.

But this cannot go on.

And I don’t think getting trollied makes him particularly happy anyway as he tends to get maudlin drunk as opposed to waving-his-pants-in-the-air-happy-as-larry drunk. He might not agree but he’s a lot brighter when he hasn’t got a couple of pints of Captain Morgan sloshing around his central nervous system.

My mother agrees and, being the policeman of the relationship (as indeed all mothers are), she’s going to advise him and the loyal network of family and friends that support him that rum, if it ever appears on his shopping list again, will be dispensed and distributed in much smaller volumes in future.

It is the only thing to do. It is the right thing to do.

But I can’t help feeling a tad uncomfortable and inappropriately authoritarian about it. What right do we have – even to preserve his health – when he has so little else in life that he enjoys?

Back to that old chestnut again.

What shall we do with a drunken sailor?
What shall we do with a drunken sailor?
What shall we do with a drunken sailor?

Early in the morning!

Put him in the hold with the Captain's daughter,
Put him in the hold with the Captain's daughter,
Put him in the hold with the Captain's daughter,

Early in the morning!

Hmm. I tell you now, that he’d bloody love...

The Sheffield Samaritans

Let’s start with the facts:

My parents and youngest sister live in Sheffield.

By Monday morning the Midlands – where I live – was all but thawed of ice and snow, only a few discoloured remnants of obscene snowmen remained.

Sheffield however, like much of the North, was still flinching under a heavy gauntlet of snow. Not great travelling conditions by anybody’s standards.

On her way to work my sister slipped over on some ice in the middle of the main road and came crashing down heavily onto her back and hip.

And then lay there, gasping for breath, in dreadful pain, unable to move while the person walking directly behind her carried on walking as if nothing untoward had happened at all.

No offer of assistance, no polite enquiry as to her well-being, not even a jokey “ooh send us a postcard next time love.”

Just a kiss-my-arse cold shoulder and gone.

Thankfully a passer-by on the other side of the road crossed over and helped my sister up and walked her part of the way to work. She was very upset, very shaken and very much in pain.

5 days later she’s still in a lot of pain but is mostly hurt and confused as to why a fellow human being could just step over her and leave her – sprawled and helpless – in the middle of the High Street.

As indeed am I. Though I’m less hurt and confused about it as bloody furious.

How could anybody be this callous and uncaring? What does it cost to give someone a small helping hand – even a stranger?

I suppose I ought to be grateful that this person didn’t stick the boot in while she lay there and help himself to her purse and jewellery. Or just whip out his mobile phone and film her plight so he could shove it onto YouTube later and so boost his online kudos.

I know the chances of Mr Charming reading this are so slim as to be incalculable but if ever “what goes around comes around” needed to be a prayer and a curse it is today in my heart.

Back at yer, Mister. With nobs on.

All That We See Or Seem Is But A Dream Within A Dream

I love dreams and I love dreaming.

Aside from a period during my childhood when I suffered a recurring nightmare for 7 years (which I now realise was caused by carrying the measles bug around with me until such time as it manifested properly – but that’s another story) I don’t as a rule have bad dreams. Ambivalent and ambiguous, yes, but rarely bad.

Which apparently is unusual.

Last night’s episode of Horizon probed the nature of dreams – why we dream, how we dream, the meaning of dreams. It was fascinating stuff. According to research 75% of people’s dreams are negative. The theory is that while we sleep our survival instinct kicks in and attempts to mentor us in the art of coping with bad shit. Hence we have bad dreams as a sort of trial run for real life – a virtual reality shit sandwich if you like that puts us through our paces while we catch some Z’s.

It’s an interesting theory and plainly I’m either already fully prepared or my mind has just decided to give up trying to prepare me for anything.

My dreams are just weird rather than overtly negative, the symbols as yet too obscure even for me to analyse usefully.

I do know that I dream of flying quite regularly – something Karen is quite jealous of as it is something she never dreams of (a fact I find deeply unusual). In my dreams I have flown across oceans – usually to America for some reason – and several times I have even left the gravitational pull of the earth and visited other planets. I’m not sure what this means.

Alien invasion is also a recurring theme but is never shocking or threatening. The skies are usually full of alien ships and I’m swept along with the spectacle but never feel particularly scared.

Most of the time I dream of my childhood home – the place I lived in for a good 30 years (and more) of my life. It was sold a few years ago and plainly I’ve had trouble letting go of it. Usually when i dream of it I know I shouldn’t be there and am nervous of the new rightful owners returning... and yet I can’t stay away from it.

Bizarrely (or perhaps normally) I find that there is a definite, fixed geography about my dream world. Various locations in Leamington Spa are contained within my head and seem to hold their shape and detail in between my somnambulistic visitations. Occasionally I’m even aware of having visited them in dreams before and even more occasionally reach that wonderful state where I know that I’m dreaming. The much sought after “lucid state”.

I’m afraid I don’t use it to solve real world problems, write novels or do anything at all useful with it... I just tend to fly around and enjoy myself. I’m evidently something of a hedonist in my sleep.

What I do find strange is that I rarely dream about people that I see regularly. Karen, the kids... I don’t think I’ve ever dreamt of them while people that I hardly see at all feature quite a lot. I also often dream of dead people (“mom, I see dead people!”) – though usually relatives. Most of the time I seem to have forgotten that they’re dead but very occasionally I am aware of the truth of things in my dream and know that they shouldn’t really be there.

Anyway, there was no real conclusion about any of this dream research for all it got the scientists very excited. Basically we all dream (apart from stroke sufferers who suffer damage to the part of the brain that controls dreaming) but nobody really knows why. And we dream not just in R.E.M. sleep but also in non R.E.M. sleep too. To quote one bod the only difference between the activity of our brain during awake time and sleep time is that during awake time we interact with the reality around us. Other than that there is little difference between the two in terms of brain activity.

Curiously, while our brains remain active during the moments we dream our bodies become effectively paralysed. Our muscles completely relax and we are unable to move. Plainly this is a safety feature provided by dear old Mother Nature herself to stop us acting out our dreams and breaking our necks whilst we sleep. The most memorable part of the programme for me was footage of a cat whose brain had been operated on to prevent this sleep paralysis. The result was a cat, fast asleep, stalking an invisible dream mouse across a work surface...

Remove that part of my brain and, who knows, you may see me flying past your bedroom window one night.

I promise not to peek.

Much.

Motivation

Progress on the novel (yes I am still writing it) has become tortuously slow of late.

It’s a mite frustrating as I am now into the last phase of the plot. Just a matter of tying everything together. And at 170,000 words (and counting) I don’t think anyone can knock my dedication.

But finding time and energy to devote to it lately has proven to be monumentally difficult. The worst thing about this is that it makes me feel distant from the novel and then it’s doubly hard to get back into it again. It requires a huge effort to pick up all the piece and embrace the myriad strands once more.

And then yet more interruptions and delays... it soon feels too difficult to re-engage.

I’m being lazy and moany, I know.

Part of the problem is that I have an idea for a second novel and, human nature being what it is, I want the first one done and dusted so I can get on with the shiny new one.

Which feels a rather childish reaction.

I suppose I ought to try and see the positive. All these delays are ensuring that I don’t rush the ending – a crime committed by many a writer and of ineffably annoyance to any reader... cos you can always tell when a novel has been rushed. The conclusion is invariably shoddy, unbelievable and way too convenient... altogether very, very dissatisfying.

I guess I’ve just got to tell myself that the tortoise is always better then the hare and just knuckle down... Instead of distracting myself with constant displacement activities.

Like writing this blog...

No Grit

It’s official.

There is a lack of grit in the UK.

It’s all over the news. Local authorities in the Midlands are already completely out of it.

Salt reserves are also dangerously low in at least 8 far flung counties.

So there you have it folks. Clear and undeniable indications that the country has gone to the dogs. Standards have fallen. The Dunkirk Spirit is no more – oooh it’s much to cold and wet, I’m staying right here, girlfriend...

The UK has lost its grit and we’re running low on that hardiest of stand-bys: the salt of the earth.

All that’s left are the whingers, the ne’er-do-wells and the people-with-the-best-of-intentions-but-no-motivation-to-see-it-through.

The nation has been broken by a little bit of snow.

Back when I were a kid in a land that smelled and sounded like a Hovis advert we didn’t let a little bit of the white stuff hold us back, oh no lad. I’ve already reminisced in a previous post how, a mere 25 years ago, even in half metre drifts of snow, people still battled into work and kids still battled into school with no real expectation of scamming a day off.

In fact the only time my school closed in bad weather was when the boilers broke.

Fair enough. Can’t argue with that.

But when the boilers were working the school was able to function as normal and people made an effort to get in despite the snowy conditions – to carry on as normal, to keep the wheels of industry turning. To not be defeated by a little bit of weather.

True grit, folks. True grit.

Not so now alas.

Now, the slightest flurry of the most fairy-like of snow flakes will see people inhale sharply through their teeth, shake their heads in mock sorrow and exasperation and unravel the control leads to their PlayStation / Xbox in preparation for a couple of days at home, “snowed in”, while the country grinds to a comical halt once more (though it’s funny how we expect the gritting crews to still get out there and do their job, isn’t it?).

Yes, we’re all snowed in. We can’t possibly risk our lives getting into work or getting into school. Not in all this snow and ice. Might catch pneumonia. Or frostbite somewhere nasty. Or, like, just really painful chilblains.

Which is why the town yesterday was full of people of all ages, all playing out in the snow, all dressed in their best protective winter gear. Everywhere you looked there were snowball fights, sledging, snowmen and preposterously appendaged snow-women... and people dressed up quite comfortably like Sir Ranulph Fiennes. It was a real winter wonderland blah blah blah.

It seems to me then that the snow doesn’t really stop us doing anything very much at all if we actually set our minds to it... Just the stuff we don’t like doing... like, for example, going to work for a living.

Except this isn’t down to the snow, folks.

This is down to the lax and lazy attitude that has infected this country from the last generation downward. Suddenly it’s ok to be lazy, ok to take the easy way out. People who battle into work regardless of the conditions are seen as idiots and foolish. Why bother? Hard work and dedication are plainly rubbishy attributes for any man or woman these days and you’d best ditch them bloody quick if you want to fit in with the new laid-back modern world.

Just put your feet up. Relax. What’s an education and a work ethic at the end of the day? Look – daytime telly! How often do you get a chance to watch that? Go on. Treat yourself. Nobody else is bothering to turn in today. You’ll be the only nerd in the office if you go. Good lad. Stick the kettle on. The kids’ll enjoy a day off. It’ll teach them a valuable lesson. Or something.

“True grit? Ha! Not much.”

Underclass

Back in the days when I was healthy - before a seasonal virus transformed my previously sparkly-clean lungs into two mildewed tea-bags (i.e. about 5 days ago) - Karen and I enjoyed a rare treat: a night out at the cinema whilst our friendly neighbourhood babysitter did exactly what it said she'd do on her tin.

Nothing too weighty or worthy for us. Oh no. It had been a hard week and we fancied something "light" and "fantastic". We also both fancied some cinematic eye candy. Kate Beckinsale for me and Michael Sheen for Karen. "Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans" then, seemed a rather apposite choice.

The first 2 Underworld films are universally judged as "frustrating". The cinematography is excellent. The casting is good. The use of technology within the age old tale of Vampire vs Werewolf was smart and intelligent. The scripts weren't half bad. And yet...

And yet they both fell short of the mark. And fell short in ways that were extremely annoying to the viewer.

"They could have been so much more..." "They almost made a great vampire movie..." Etc.

The first film was great right up to the final battle sequence with the long awaited vampire / werewolf hybrid. The effects men caused the film to fall down at the last hurdle. The resultant monster was clumsy looking and visually risible.

The second film... well. The second film had a storyline which should have resulted in the death penalty being given to the script writers immediately. It was lazy. No other word for it and a complete waste of the talents of both Kate Beckinsale and Bill Nighy. Gah. Let down again!

So I wasn't expecting a great deal from the third Underworld film...

Except it did feature the startling Michael Sheen reprising his role once more as Lucian the Lycan / human hybrid. Now Sheen, I have to say, had been faultless in his earlier Underworld performances but the role of Lucian was given too little screen time for his character and Sheen's acting skills to impinge much onto the consciousness of the general viewer. He was given far too little to do.

Not so in "Rise Of The Lycans". He carries the entire film. In fact he doesn't just carry the film as hoof it straight out of the chasm of disappointment and into the starry stratosphere of "total film satisfaction".

Mr Sheen (shines all things clean) is already building up a humungous career for himself in Hollywood and I suspect his rise will be (unlike the Lycans) meteoric. On our tellies in the UK he's been fabulous as Nero. A revelation as Kenneth Williams. And at the cinema, if the critics are to be believed, he's totally masterful as Frost in the current Frost/Nixon film.

He's going to be big.

"Rise Of The Lycans" is the best of the Underworld films by far. Sheen brings depth, poignancy, believability, empathy - his full and formidable acting range in fact - to his role as Lucian. Plus (according to Karen) he looks damned hot in leather. He's also surprisingly believable in the brutal fight sequences. It's bizarre to see such a sensitive character actor suddenly tranformed into an action / romantic hero. And yet he accomplishes it all effortlessly and, most importantly, without losing any of his sensitivity. The man has my respect. He has finally brought something much needed to the Underworld franchise: a sense of emotional relevance.

Bill Nighy reprises his role as Viktor and is just joyous to watch as always - totally convincing as the grand vampire patriarch and the bird-blue eyes are a nice touch. He somehow manages to be cold, cruel, callous, delicously English and yet always "warm uncle Bill Nighy" all at the same time.

And as for Kate Beckinsale... well, there is no effing Kate Beckinsale. Apart from a brief appearance at the very end that is - no more than a blinking cameo!

Cue curses and sundry howls of frustration!

I've been robbed!

I've been done!

I've been remiss and probably should have read the film synopsis more closely and realized that this was a prequel not a sequel to the Underworld series! Doh!

So instead of Kate we were served up Rhona Mitra as Viktor's sensually lipped vampire daughter, Sonja, and Lucian's illicit love interest. Yes, she's eye candy. Yes, she's good. But she's just not Kate Beckinsale in tight black leather no matter which way you cut it, so I was a mite grumpy and a little bit sulky for the first third of the film to say the least.

And yet it still managed to completely win me over.

Now from me, folks, that's a recommendation...