Dave Howard (Popular singer of popular songs)

When he was a child my Father earned the nickname “The singing cowboy” quite where the cowboy part came from I never did find out, but sing he did at every opportunity. Travelling to and from school. Playing out with his pals, in the church choir of course, almost anywhere it didn’t matter to him who was or wasn’t listening, he would sing because he loved to sing.

As a young man he dreamed of attending the royal collage of music and he did for a time until family commitments dictated that he find work to support his family. Things were different then, priorities were down to basics and his grand ideas of becoming a classical singer ended when he met and married my Mother. Then I was born and any hopes he might still have had of returning to collage slipped quietly and without fuss from his mind.
In the early fifties he auditioned for the male singer part with the Robinson Kershaw Big band, at that time dance bands had two singers, a female singer and a male singer who would take turns to step up to the mike and croon to the audience. He got the part, he couldn’t not have, he was good, in fact he was very good. Many a girl swooned to the sound of his velvet voice, and he had a presence on stage that was unique.

How do I know? Well several times I was present in the audience at his shows. One of which was an outside concert in Heaton Park. My mother, brother and I arrived after the show had started and as all the seats were taken, we stood some way away in a crowd of what then were called bobbysoxers, young girls who danced their feet of as the band played. At one point my Father came down and brought us to the front of the stage where he had arranged seats for us.

He recorded several songs one of which was “Hey There, you with the stars in your eyes” made nationally famous by Edmond Hockeridge, of course I always thought my Dads version was better, but then I would. However I wasn’t the only one because he was invited by Joe Loss a famous bandleader of the day to guest sing with his orchestra at a special anniversary show for the BBC.

He was billed alongside many famous acts of the fifties including Ken Dodd and Dave King at the Blackpool ballroom. He also sang with the Jack Payne orchestra in summer shows up and down the country. The top picture was taken at the Buxton town hall annual dance; the second picture was taken during a night entertaining the troops at the American air force base in Burtonwood.

I grew up listening to dance band music and singers like Frank Sinatra, Al Martino and Mel Torme, but the biggest musical influence has always been my Father, and like him as a child I would sing my head of and try to be him. In the early sixties some friends and I formed a group, but I wanted to sing ballads, and for a time I sang on the Northern circuit in clubs and pubs and I wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t my dad either.

Whenever the family went out together to the local club for a drink and a dance, people who knew him always asked him to get up on stage and sing. Most of the time he didn’t really want to, but he did rather than disappoint anyone. He would sing a couple of songs then return to his seat to thunderous applause.

One night toward the end of his life after being asked to get up and sing he whispered in my ear as he passed “This is the last time I am going to do this”. Instead of singing a ballad as expected he stood in the middle of the dance floor and sang unaccompanied Pagliacci. Those at first embarrassed by what was happening suddenly where enthralled by this wonderful tenor voice coming from a man who normally had their feet tapping.

His voice soared high and its rich timbre sent shivers down my back, tears filled my eyes and I just didn’t know where to look. When he had finished the song and the last heartbroken laugh of the clown echoed in the completely silent room, there was a pause then as my Dad walked back to his seat my ears were deafened by the sound of clapping that seamed to go on forever.

As he walked toward where we were sat he looked at me with just a hint of a smile on his face and winked. That was the proudest moment of my life and the last time my Father ever sang in public.

Bird shit.

I came out of the house this morning to discover that a bird had shat on my car, huge great dollops of white, green and black bird crap adorned my beloved Rover 800 sports vittesse. This is not the first time this has happened, in fact it happens about twice a week on average. At the risk of sounding paranoid I know for a fact that it isn’t a case of my car being in the wrong place at the wrong time. On every occasion investigation proves by the fact that there is no crap either side of the car or anywhere around it for that mater that this was a deliberate act of terrorism by the crapee.

I remember one summer whilst working at our track in Great Yarmouth watching the guy that had recently arrived to take over from me, washing and polishing his brand new silver sports car just outside the main office. I warned him not to park there especially as it was an open top car, but he gave me a knowing look as if to say don’t worry old chap, I know what I’m doing and carried on sprucing up his new toy.

All kinds of seagulls and other see birds nested on the roof of our building causing all manner of damage to the roof and surrounding property. The worst time was when they had young in the nest, at the sound of an approaching car they would scramble like world war one fighter pilots and deliberately formation bomb anything on four wheels.

Despite my imparting this knowledge to our intrepid new manager, he completely ignored me and set about masturbating his new car with shammy leather and duster. I armed myself with a cold coke and a large ice cream, sat on the low wall surrounding the track and lazily consumed both whilst basking in the hot summer sun and waited.

He laughed, “You worry too much pal,” he said applying more polish and rubbing the paintwork as eagerly as though it was a magic lamp. I sucked the last melting blobs of ice cream from my cornet and pointed to the roof “They are waiting for you to finish” I told him. There along the full length of the front side of the building sat thirty or forty huge black ugly looking seagulls, hopping from one leg to another quite obviously fit to burst full of crap and waiting for the idiot below to complete his valeting.

He stood back and admired his work, the car glinted in the bright sun, he gave the bonnet one last wipe and satisfied started to put his cleaning stuff in a small bag. The seagulls had been fairly quiet whilst all this was going on but as he was clearing his stuff away they began to screech and flap their wings.

Suddenly as one they took flight, circled once then in tight formation began their run lined up perfectly with the side of the building. The idiot had seen all this but instead of getting out of the way he panicked and stood in front of his car arms outstretched in a vain attempt at protecting it from the squadron of birds bearing down on him.

Like a well-oiled machine the bombers let lose their load and without exception all were direct hits. The sparkling new car was peppered with slimy bird shit, from the front bumper across the soft black leather interior, to the shiny silver grills on the back panel there was a mass of green and white snotty bird crap.

Their bombing run finished the birds went back to the roof from whence they came and looked down on their handiwork with great satisfaction. I felt sorry for him despite his foolishness, but he had been warned. Now if that isn’t convincing evidence for vicious intent I don’t know what is.

Any way I cleaned my car this morning, you have to right away. That stuff eats away at the paintwork and can in seconds ruin it. Its murder to get off too even when fresh, wet and warm. When I had finished I looked around the rooftops daring the bastards to do it again, silence, nothing moved. Satisfied I got into my car and crawled slowly out of my drive much like they did in the end sequence of Hitchcocks the birds.

On my way in I drove to the papershop just a few hundred yards from my house, I couldn’t have been in the shop more than a few minutes, but waiting for me when I came out was a car full of bird shit.

Now do you think I’m paranoid?.

Mumble Grumble.

The TV has been saturated last week with all things Roman. We were treated to films about roman emperors, the rise and fall of Rome, a series about the debauchery and politics of a once great empire and one of my favourite films Gladiator. Russell Crow was good in this epic, but I think some of the best performances were given by the supporting cast.

Education hasn’t been ignored either there have been excellent well made documentaries about some of the lesser known Ceasers all of whom it seems like to keep it in the family. Much as I enjoyed my trip through history I feel I have been short changed. Not one of the characters in any of the programs spoke with an Italian accent. I heard Yorkshire, American, Cockney, Scouse and of course the ubiquitous R.A.D.A. accent but no Italian.

I wonder why, usually in films about the Second World War the actors playing German soldiers talk with a German accent, some badly some quite well but at least an accent is used. Lets face it no one is going to put their hands up for a German soldier who shouts “Thall haf fot put thee gun down owd chap or al bi forced fot shoot thee” I wouldn’t.

It dilutes realism, it fly’s in the face of accuracy and to some extent spoils, I would much rather the actors speak Italian, not that I speak the language myself but I can put up with sub titles for the sake of art. I’m being picky here I know the logistics are huge not to mention the expense but surely Italian accents be they good or bad is more acceptable than the mish mash of dialects I had to listen to this week.

Any way the weeks entertainment about a civilisation that once ruled the known world got me thinking, I know that the roman legions were populated by superbly trained paid soldiers who were well supplied and for the most part well led. They conquered everything that moved and if “Gladiator” is to be believed were awesome in their ferocity on the battlefield.

So my question is this, given that all this happened around two thousand years ago and in the grand scheme of evolution two thousand years is but a second of eternity. Why is it that nearly everybody has an uncle who during the African campaign captured three hundred Italian prisoners single-handed?
As a nation they can’t have changed that much surely, and if they haven’t does that mean that one limey soldier is equal to one legion of Roman infantry.

I think the answer is that the Brits were just too lazy to get of their bloody arses when the Romans invaded. I can almost hear them saying to each other “Oh bugger another invading hoard”. Grumbles all round. “Sod it let em in, they can sort the plumbing out and tart the roads up while they are here”. More grumbles “They will soon get fed up and piss off” and of course they did. Leaving behind some of the best refurbishment jobs this country has ever seen.

The Romans weren’t a bad lot when you come to think about it, ok they had peculiar ideas about what constituted sports and games and yes they roasted a few Christians when they felt the need. But as interior/exterior decorators you can’t fault them. No melamine or hardboard fascias for them, it was marble or nothing.

To sum up. Hitler modelled his elite troops on the Roman Legions, he stole all his ideas from the Romans, (well not all but you take my point) and although his nonsense only lasted a few years he at least gets German accents in films and documentaries about him and his crew. Whilst the original gang of hard lads (The Romans) get little more than a hotch potch of mismatched cosmopolitan accents.

I rest my case.

I still have the dream.

I still have the dream, not often now, time passes and I forget, then deep in sleep it returns to play out a familiar scene. I’m standing in an open space; arms stretched wide and head tilted to the sky. The ground begins to turn around me and falls away as I spiral upward, slowly at first then faster I speed toward the clouds.

Spinning madly my fingers catch the air and play a symphony as gently as wind chimes on a quiet morning. Soon within the great white rolling hills of mist I am hidden from the world, but upwards I go spinning faster and faster creating patterns in the clouds. Then suddenly I am above a vast landscape of white and grey, and still I spin.

Before me now a deep blue sky that darkens as I rise, here and there a star appears as if to light my way, my mad race upward slows and I look upon the earth and everything I left behind. My spin is now a gentle turn and I can see forever, with just a thought I can direct my path to anywhere I please. I can travel thousands of miles in the blink of an eye. Cross-continents in a second and see all that the world has.

The dream comes to an end as suddenly I begin to fall, all power of flight lost I spin madly to save myself from crashing to the ground, faster and faster I spin desperate to regain control. But its hopeless I tumble toward the earth and my death. Then I wake up, its morning, it’s always morning.

I need to stay off the gin.

Poor Baby.

I behaved extremely childishly this weekend; It started Friday night to be exact. Being childish is not something that I am prone to, but I thought what the hell, I’ll treat myself, I can’t remember the last time I had a good sulk. One of the symptoms of being childish is that despite knowing that you are behaving like a Pratt, you do nothing to stop it.

I had good reason to be angry, The day started badly and went downhill from there, so I wasn’t my usual cordial self but my behaviour on Friday was illogical, and whilst I am not in Spocks league I do try to be logical. I also pride my self on always maintaining control, but for some reason on this occasion out came the bottom lip and I gave as good a performance as any three-year-old. The funny thing is that it got the effect I desired.

I spent the rest of the weekend ignoring phone calls and text until Sunday when I relented and made myself available to the phone callers and texters. Now whilst I had a thoroughly good time feeling sorry for myself the people whom I was ignoring eventually got through and asked if I was ok.
Of course I felt guilty, of course I was ashamed of myself, and of course I apologised, the problem is despite being contrite I know I was right, at least about the original reason for loosing it.

It feels as though I have admitted I was wrong, when my only transgression was behaving like a twit.

I can feel a sulk coming on.

Idiots beget idiots.

My little hamlet was buzzing last night with the news that the decomposing body of a twenty to thirty year old man had been found in some undergrowth at the bottom of Northridge road. He hasn’t as yet been identified, but police are treating the death as suspicious. I think I would too, nothing much happens on Northridge road. Its quite boring as roads go, and certainly not the kind of place one would go to commit suicide, at least not if one wanted to go out in a blaze of glory and certainly not in undergrowth near the M60 motorway.

Elsewhere a man was rescued by fire fighters after getting tangled in a length of razor wire which had been abandoned on a roadway in Greater Manchester. Fire crews from Bolton were called out to St James Street in Farnworth shortly after 0300 BST following reports that a man had become caught up in the wire. The fire fighters had to use bolt cutters to free him. The man was taken to hospital following his release for treatment to cuts.

I have questions! When did we stop calling firemen, firemen and start calling them fire-fighters, is this another import from the US of A. I’m not arguing that fire fighting is what they do. I mean whom better to fight a fire than firemen; they have the training, the equipment, in some cases the need to fight fires. But if we are changing names here just for the sake of it or perhaps because it sounds more dramatic. Then why not “cat stuck in tree getter downers”, or “people trapped in car getter outers”, or “kid with head fast in railings unstickers” or even “men entangled in razor wire rescuers”.

I have issue with the word abandoned too, at least in this context, what’s wrong with the good old fashioned word dumped, To abandon one must have had intent to do something other than abandon before the said act. There must have been plans, intentions, ideas to do other than abandon before a change of mind or series of events that subsequently leads one to abandon.

And what idiot upon encountering abandoned razor wire in the middle of the road decides that it would be a good idea to play with it. Thus risking serious harm to himself and possibly the heroic fire-fighters that would inevitably have to be called to free him from the friendless razor wire. I put it to you Me-Lud that the chap entangled in the wire was the person responsible for trying to abandon/dump said wire in the first place. And if that not be the case then the only other explanation for him wearing the wire is that he came upon it by accident and being a thief chose not to inform the appropriate authorities, but to steal the wire for his own use.

If the first case be true, then he is just an inconsiderate idiot. If the second case be true then he is just an inconsiderate, dangerous, fly tipping idiot. If the third case be true then he is an inconsiderate opportunist idiot thief. Whichever way you look at it he is an idiot.

Just another typical day in Manchester. Uncut grass is swaying in the breeze, old trainers are dangling from telephone wires, kids are sitting astride bikes in the middle of the road daring you to run them over, house proud Neighbours are putting new cardboard up at the windows after the weeks rain
And abandoned (I use the word cautiously) and battered housewives are hoping against hope that the body found is that of the man they swore their marriage vows to in a time when they knew no better. .

In the shite again.

Yesterday was the final day for the Key stage 4 group of young people enrolled in our education program. They have all made great progress and enjoyed being with us for several months, and to celebrate they had a last turn around the track in the Karts before the presentation.

I recorded it on video for them and of course they played up for the camera, skidding and screeching tyres as they passed me. It reminded me of a time long ago when as a child in Casson street nursery I did much the same thing for Mrs Sidebottom. She was the nursery head and all the kids loved her, she would often tell us stories before our afternoon nap and was the one all us kids would run to when we were upset or had hurt ourselves.

One week she had us all helping to make cowboy and Indian costumes as a learning project. We all brought in various bits of material and set about making waistcoats and chaps, neckerchiefs and squaw outfits. Of course all the boys were cowboys and all the girls were Indians. It made sense, us boys already had guns and holsters, cowboy hats and such, so it follows that as most boys are lazy little bleeders it was left to the girls to do the lions share of the work and make the outfits. Anyway they were better at sewing than us, even at that tender age.

Mrs Sidebottom was so impressed with our work that she decided to make a show of it by staging a genuine cowboys and Indian fight and inviting parents to watch us ham it up in our costumes. She choreographed the battle, which if I remember rightly had us cowboys grouped in the middle of the floor surrounded by circling Indians yelping and whooping (as Indians do) and brandishing bows and arrows intent on doing us no good.

I remember as we rehearsed one day for her, running round in circles and yelling loudly as we passed her chair, I would drop to the floor and slide by her feet as though mortally wounded clutching an imaginary arrow. Then get up and do it again next time round, I was a budding thespian even then. In any case my obvious talent must have impressed her because she picked me to be the “Lone rider”.

The lone rider’s job was to break out from the hapless band of cowboys and mount the huge Rocking horse near the door. (Well it seemed huge to me, it was probably no more than three feet high but I had to look up at him) Then gallop for help and return with the cavalry. I can’t remember how many times we practised this but we got it right every time.

The afternoon of the big show arrived and as we donned our costumes, our parents waited expectantly in the playground. They filed in to see us cowboys grouped in the middle of the floor all looking scared stiff. Mrs Sidebottom started to narrate a story about brave pioneers conquering the Wild West and as she did so in came the Indians whooping and yelling. They circled us pioneers and I have to say they looked really fierce for girls.

We fired our guns at them and of course they pretended to die. Some of them in a quite spectacular manner, it almost made me want to be an Indian, but it was too late for that and anyway I was the “Lone rider” and at the nod from Mrs Sidebottom I fought my way guns blazing toward the huge rocking horse.

Unfortunately this is where it all started to go wrong, for me anyway. I struggled to mount the rocking horse; it was almost as though some one had deliberately greased the thing in order to thwart me. I managed eventually but not before ripping the arse of my splendid purple silk cowboy pants. Once up though I began to rock backwards and forwards like a maniac. I rocked it harder than it had ever been rocked before, so hard was I rocking that its stand was lifting of the floor.

The inevitable happened of course, horse and rider lost sync, the horses arse was coming up as my arse was coming down resulting in my being somersaulted over its head. Luckily my waistcoat caught on one of its ears and I was left dangling with my feet just short of the floor.

Everyone’s eyes were on me, I did the only thing I could, I shit myself. My silk purple cowboy pants ripped open at the arse could do nothing to stem the steady stream of foul smelling semi liquid shite that dripped from my saddle tortured bottom and formed a neat little puddle on the nursery floor.

With kids there is only one word that comes to mind when this kind of thing happens, its pronounced “Eeewwwww” and it rang in my ears for what seemed like an eternity. Suddenly I was grabbed by one of the nurses, unhooked from the horse’s ear and carried at arms length to the toilets to be cleaned up. I didn’t struggle, what was the point, my life was over, and as young as I was I knew my street cred had disappeared forever.

My Mother followed the nurse into the toilets and took over, I think the nurse was extremely grateful for that and she made good her escape. My Mum told me not to worry and said all the right things, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I was just glad that everyone had gone by the time I emerged. Everyone but Mrs Sidebottom, this wonderful lady sat me on her knee and assured me that the rocking horse had been well and truly told off for causing my unfortunate accident. But best of all she told me that I was the best “Lone rider” she had ever seen and that I must do it again next time.

There never was a next time, which is probably just as well. Kids being kids it was soon forgotten about. Later in junior and high school, I performed in many of the yearly plays and loved every minute of it. I was quite good too, good enough to win a scholarship to the Stretford repertory company. I suppose you could say that playing the “Lone rider” was the only shite performance I ever gave.

Thank you Dianne.

I’m normally whinging about one thing or another in this blog, usually its about people and the way they behave, but this morning my faith in humanity was restored by a rather attractive young lady in a green UV. I had travelled but a few mile when as I approached a very large and busy roundabout my car spluttered to a halt. There were of course several impatient drivers behind me gesticulating in a very annoyed way convinced that I had planned the whole thing just to inconvenience them.

I tried to start the car several times, but it was obvious that I had run out of petrol, the gage was on empty and the little orange light was blinking happily away as though mocking me and saying “I told you so”. I attempted the starter motor trick, turning the engine over whilst its in gear to try and drag myself across the roundabout lights to the first exit, without success.

Cars were roaring past me there drivers scowling at me for blocking the way, the green UV driven by the rather attractive young lady passed me on the inside, she looked out of her window at me and smiled. White teeth, doe eyes and dancing hair was about to come to my rescue. She pulled onto the side exit, got out of her car, run over to me and started to push the car. As I reached safety a police car pulled along side and asked if he could be of any assistance. I admitted my embarrassment at running out of petrol, and seeing that nothing exciting was happening went on his way.

Meanwhile my Angel of the road told me to hang on whilst she popped home, she would she insisted be right back to take me to a garage and get petrol. She was as good as her word, within minutes she roared up beckoning me to get in.

We had a pleasant chat about breaking down and running out of petrol, which she told me she had done several times and could still remember the feeling of helplessness until someone offered assistance, and the relief when that assistance was offered by a complete stranger. This she trilled was a way to pay back that kindness all be it by proxy.

At the garage she waited patiently whilst I filled my can up, then sped me back to my car, she also waited until I had got my car running (Just in case) before resuming her business. We waved as we drove off in different directions and for the rest of my journey I had a wide smile on my face, happy and grateful that there are still people as nice and as helpful as Dianne, my heroin.

I told you so.

I met a pal whilst shopping in Asda the other day, as we chatted I noticed that in his basket was a bottle of Grecian 2000. I looked closely at his hair, there was some grey there but nothing I would have thought to worry about. He was banging on about something but I was so occupied with his grey bits that his voice receded into the background, when he stopped talking I didn’t notice, he waved his hand in front of my face and asked if I was ok.

Now every woman knows that men don’t take advice, they may ask for it, but in fact what they want is confirmation that what they think is correct. If they don’t get that then the advice is bad, simple really. Another thing women know is that men are always right, if the outside world differs from their inside world, then the outside world is wrong.

This being the case it follows that almost every man who has tried Grecian 2000 knows that it doesn’t work, and was told so by someone who knew this to be a fact. Well it kind of works but the best you can hope for is that your once distinguished grey bits don’t turn out looking like Brillo pads. It’s a forlorn hope but men being men will hang on with a death like grip to the chance of reversing the years for the price of a packet of fags.

I have grey, not a lot but what I have whilst not looking too bad close up, from a distance makes me look like I am wearing a brimless bowler hat. Not attractive. At least I thought not. And so with the advice of several friends who had tried it and come unstuck ringing in my ears I went ahead and bought a bottle.

Grecian 2000 grooms and conditions hair. Day by day Grecian gradually restores your natural-looking colour. You can stop at any time and leave a little grey, or keep going until all the grey is gone. There's no mixing, no mess. Apply daily for 2-3 weeks and you'll get the exact colour that's perfect for you. Does not stain the skin


That’s what is said on the bottle, however, how does it know what your natural colour is? There may be no mixing. But without doubt there is a lot of shaking involved. As for the mess that depends on how you apply it. Forget applying it with a comb, that doesn’t work, the liquid runs down the back of your hand and turns it black. I used a toothbrush, far more accurate I thought, I thought wrong. I also thought I was using an old toothbrush, I wasn’t.

Basically the stuff gets everywhere; it flicked of the toothbrush and peppered my bathroom wall with black spots. It dripped from my hands and stained my sink. It turned my ears black, later my teeth black (I’d forgotten I had used my current toothbrush) in fact everything it touched turned black. Everything that is except my grey bits, which stubbornly refused to be any colour but grey.

Of course I warned my pal, He just laughed and said “You must have been doing something wrong”. I replied “I was only wrong to buy it in the first place, vanity got the better of me just as it has you and I came unstuck”. He didn’t listen, well he wouldn’t would he, he is a man.

Call me old fashioned.

Whilst out looking for a pair of shoes the other day I was treated to an amazing display of the type of control that children seem to have over their parents these days. The Mother obviously intimidated by her young charge was desperately trying to convince her brat that the Thirty pound trainers were just as nice as the eighty pound ones that he insisted he must have.

I quote: The Mother: “But Taurean, these will last you much longer and anyway I can’t really afford to pay that much for something you will wear out in a couple of weeks”. The brat: “I aint wearin em, no one wears em, there shit ones an I aint f**kin wearin em”. Followed by “You aint makin me luck a f**kin c**t, Ill phone the chile welfare on yer”.

Of course she bought the trainers and they walked happily from the store as though the exchange hadnt happened. Notwithstanding his total lack of respect for his Mother I would gladly have kicked his shaved head in just for his selfishness. It would have been nice to make him (When he had recovered from the kicking) wear pink sandals for the rest of his worthless life, but alas I had no control over him, no more than his Mother did.

As I sat in the café enjoying a cup of lukewarm coffee, I reflected on the type of footwear that as a kid I wore in the fifties. There was of course the sensible, strong, well wearing, black shoes that did for both school and visiting relatives. These were usually bought on the yearly pre Whit week trip to Dawson’s gents outfitters. Where along with the shoes new underwear, a shirt and tie and of course the inevitable badly fitting suit would be purchased on tick.

This lot did for the whole year. By the end of which after numerous bowls of pea and ham soup and countless games of football in the fresh air I had grown so much that it looked like I had gone swimming in my suit and then trekked through the Gobi desert shrinking the suit to my body. The whole thing would be repeated the next year.

For general play we would wear golloshas or plimsolls as Teachers liked to call them, golloshas sounded more exciting to me, the word rolled of the tongue, it had guts, it gave the impression of speed, it smacked of spies and secret agents. Where as the word plimsolls tended to veer toward tottering on ones toes whilst pirouetting or being elegant whilst walking. One thing I was sure of and that was that whether I was a goody or a baddy when playing cowboys and Indians with my pals, I wasn’t going to be either in plimsolls. So golloshas it was and anyway those little black canvas and rubber shoes were great for creeping up on the enemy and surprising them.

Then there was my favourite type of footwear that sadly seems to have dissapered these days. Baseball boots, these things were the coolest shoes of their day. They came up over your ankles, were laced all the way and had neat round rubber patches on both sides, best of all you could get them in different colours, a rare thing in the fifties. They were the secret to winning races, for some reason they gave the power of speed to anyone who wore them. Who donned baseball boots became the flash.

Of course in those days no self-respecting kid would be without a pair of Wellington boots. You could only get black ones then. They left a red ring around your leg just below your knee and smelled to high heaven, were murder to put on and even worse to get of, but the range of things you could be whilst wearing them was huge. You could be a jack booted German soldier, a spaceman exploring Mars, or a scientist fighting monster bugs. They gave you license to splash through puddles on rainy days, and even (if you so wished) to fill them with water and splosh around until you got washerwoman’s feet and gave you a blister.

How things have changed, how kids have changed, how adults have changed, I think the only thing that hasn’t changed is that you can still get Wellington boots. In different colours.

No will power.

Well I have lost quite a bit of weight just recently so a clothes shopping trip is on the cards, I definitely need a new suit, what I have now makes me look a little like David Byrne from Talking heads. I have tons of tops bought at various times over the years when abroad, but I do like buying new shirts and shoes. I don’t think I will be visiting the lady in Middleton with the huge bum this time around as pretty as she is.

I have a friend who has difficulty weight wise, up, down, up, down, she only has to look at a buffet for thirty-six people and she puts a stone on. I called round the other day to drop some CD’s of and she was sat there daintily eating a Ryveta and tomato slice, and telling me she was back on her diet. I wished her well of course and when I told her how much I had lost she promptly got up, went to the fridge and taking out a couple of cans said “Lets celebrate”.

I left her several cans later, very merry and tucking into Smarties, chips and burger, I reminded her that it would interfere with her diet, and she replied “F**k the diet”. Its going to be a long road I think.

Aint life funny.

Another eventful weekend has come and gone, Friday night I went over to a friends house, he was taking advantage of the weather and having a little get to gether in his huge garden. He actually has streetlights of the vintage variety dotted around his Ponderosa of a plot. I cracked open the last case of Bollywood beer from the bouncy castle do, and things went well until the last bottle. I think I mentioned that all who tasted this fine drink found it rather Moorish. Which is probably why a skirmish developed over the last bottle. I’m getting ahead of myself here because this post is about the Finite law and is the reason for the narcissistic pic that accompanies it.

I had taken along my camera not just to record the happy time we were all surely going to have, but also to enlist the help of someone to take a better pic of me for my profile. A photograph taken with the black night sky as a background can be very flattering and is usually far more dramatic than one taken next to the washing line or dustbins. Quite how dramatic this pic turned out to be I could never have guessed. As it is the pic is a perfect example of the Finite law, I will try to explain.

Newton said this "The quantity of matter is the measure of the same, arising from its density and bulk conjointly." However I think he was wrong, the equation misses some important components. Example one: Imagine a chap in an aircraft several miles above the earth. He jumps out intending to open his parachute and descend gently to the ground, his chute fails to open so depending on his height at the time of jumping he will spend anything from three to six minutes plummeting earthward. On his way down he will be in perfect condition, he could while away the time performing air acrobatics, pretending to be superman, or catching up on a little sleep, what he does doesn’t matter, the point is he is ok until he hits the ground.

Example two: A chap is tied to a post and blindfolded, another chap comes along with a gun and discharges the gun at his head, for the time it takes the bullet to reach his head he is in perfect condition. It only when the projectile enters his bonce that he will start to feel uncomfortable, as it were. I have a third example that I will come to shortly, but for now let’s decide on our points of reference.

Whether the body is travelling toward the object or the object is travelling toward the body is for our purposes irrelevant, if we shut down the distance between the two and make our first reference point one centimetre distance between the body and the object. Our second reference point has to be velocity, the speed at which the two impact, the third reference point logically has to be time, although time doesn’t actually exist except as a tool invented by man to measure a series of events.

So the equation should sound something like this: 1 Centimetre x Velocity x Time = Finite-time, I think I have that right, If I haven’t I am sure Kaz will put me right.

Back to the party, there I was sat enjoying a drink and taking in the night air; I was talking to a sensible girl who seemed the ideal person to take my pic. Sensible people usually take good snaps. I leaned forward showing my good side and tried to look enigmatic with just a trace of a smile. At the same time several feet away from our table two people were making a grab for the last bottle of Bollywood beer. The person who got it opened the top; the beer spilled out over the top soaking the bottle, the person who had lost the battle made a final grab for the precious liquid. The winner wildly swept the bottle away in a wide arc. The slippery bottle left her hand and had now become a projectile travelling at speed toward my head.

My sensible friend pressed the shutter, a squilly-second after which the bottle hit me on the back of the head and shattered soaking me in beer and leaving a lump the size of a golf ball. So the picture displays my finite time. Using the equation mentioned before we can work out that as the bullet was travelling somewhere in the region of one thousand to fifteen hundred feet a second depending on the weapon used. And the chap with the dud parachute was travelling at 120 mph or 54 m/s. my finite time assuming the bottle was travelling at twenty to thirty miles per hour was incredibly shorter than theirs.

Had the sensible person not been taking my photograph the shattered glass might easily have done serious damage to her eyes, as it was the camera shielded her although she did receive a small cut to her forehead. When I came round I tried to explain my theory of finite time to her but she wasn’t interested, she was more concerned about getting the blood out of her shirt and whether or not she would be scarred.

So what have we learned from this post, two things, one I’m a good looking bastard and two, everybody’s finite time is different.

What to do!

My Barco projector has finally given up the ghost after many years sterling service first in Manchester business centre and then in my studio/home cinema room. Sounds rather grand that, the reality is somewhat different though. The Barco is able to throw a thirty-foot by twenty-foot picture. But as the room is a little smaller than that, the screen was just eight by six which is big enough when you are only sat ten feet away from it.

Still it was quite impressive when the sound was processed through my studio equipment, the kids loved to plug their X-Box into it, kept them happy for hours. That said it was a huge beast weighing in at nearly a hundred pounds and consuming giga watts of power, but it was worth being able to watch great films at a reasonable screen size, almost like being at the movies.

I have been looking at smaller projectors and although they are petit, don’t consume great amounts of power and are easier to use, they just don’t have the same picture quality that the Barco had.
Perhaps I will try to get out more, everything on TV is a repeat from the night before anyway, and of course the curse of Big Brother is upon us again. Reason enough not to turn the telly on.

I would go to my local pub, if I had one, but they have all been pulled down or shut, and apart from the Whacky warehouse there is nowhere to go that is in walking distance. I can’t go to the local Conservative club it s full of Conservatives. So that just leaves me spending the summer sat in the garden getting Gin soaked again.

I would like to travel this summer but I have weigh too much on to make it worth while. I might try one of those theme weekend breaks at one of the Grand group of hotels, I have already done the Grand in Scarborough, and the Grand Metropole in Blackpool and had a whizzing good time at both. The only down side of it was the hoards of old dears trying to get of with me after a couple of drinks. I came to dread the words “You look like you could cut a good rug young man want to dance” the fact that they called me young man gives you some idea of how old they were. Still if ya don’t try, ya don’t get.

Maybe I will spend a couple of days at my friend’s hotel in Blackpool. Its called The New Esplanade and is just in front of the big one, the couple that own it used to be in show business and for many years were agents to some of the biggest acts in the UK. They are a barrel of laughs and have very reasonable rates to. Ok advert over, I have even thought about Butlins but as nice as it is, for what it is, its expensive, plus you have kids climbing all over you for the duration so I might give that a miss.

Ah well it looks like a gin soaked summer staring at grass again, I could make that vodka, it’s a change.