Mental meanderings of an old man

Not wanted

2007-09-28T15:10:00.000+01:00

Just had a quick look round and after looking on humor-blogs.com was a little surprised to find that after not posting for a while I have been kicked of the list, how strange. My blog was up for review whilst I have been ill and as such I didn’t expect anything glowing as a result of not having any content for a while. But still kicked of the list.

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Back....Just

2007-09-28T14:32:00.000+01:00

When I last posted I had no idea it would such a long time before I even had the energy to sit at a keyboard again. My medical indiscretion whacked me out far more than I imagined it would and even given the energy to type the last thing on my mind has been funny.

I’m feeling lots better now and although not one hundred percent I at least have managed to get into the swing again. Thank you for visiting the blog and showing your concern, it was a nice surprise to see smiley faces waiting when I logged in.

Less than 100%.

2007-09-13T11:28:00.000+01:00

No post for the last two days, I have been laid up with a bad chest infection and not had the energy to do anything. Couple of other things have gone dickey this week to and just after a check up that gave me the all clear. One of the down sides to being ill (apart from fighting for breath in between throwing up and getting hardly any sleep when you need it most) is that you are not allowed to enjoy your misery. Some kind friend who on hearing of your malaise invariably visits you and proceeds to give you a run down on whets wrong with them. They will ask you how you feel but before you get very far into your tail of whoe will stop you saying “You think that’s bad, I was in agony last week with, blah, blah, blah,

You get a blow by blow account of how they suffered for days, even weeks sometimes, after which they give you their recipe for a cure that cant fail, usually handed down to them by their Grandmother who lived till the ripe old age of thirty six. They nearly always involve the use of Olive oil and some old biddies pop sock wrapped round your neck whilst you sit feet immersed in a bowl of Kangaroo shit mixed with armadillo ear wax. What escaped me is if these remedies are so good, why did they suffer for so long.
I’m just getting older and more susceptible. I think I might be entering my falling apart period, I’ll keep you posted on what goes missing and what falls off.

Stripes for men.

2007-09-10T11:16:00.000+01:00

Yesterday the sun was shining, and as it hadn’t rained for a few days I couldn’t put off mowing the lawn any longer. I call it lawn but its little more than a vast expanse of Australian bush land around sixty foot long and thirty wide and that’s just to the right of the path. On the other side in front of where I park my car is a strip fifteen foot wide and thirty-foot long. So unless I keep on top of it (And I don’t) making it tidy is a daunting task.

I have to have a run at these things so coffee was the order of the day followed by toast and then more coffee. I placed my safety chair near the front door, in case I needed to sit down, I have a great wheeze, if I am forced to exert myself in pointless exercise like cutting grass, then the safety chair is a must. It works like this; several of my son’s friends pass my humble pile on the way to the pub for the Sunday afternoon piss up. If I see one coming, I stagger around hand on brow as though about to collapse with a suitably pained expression on my face, and more often than not they will suggest I sit down and rest. They then unselfishly grab the mower and fire up and down the garden, grass flying everywhere until its done.

I use the old “You’re a good boy, how’s your Mum” ploy and get them to put the mower away for me. Fair is fair though I take the chair in myself, I do need to get some exercise, then I plonk myself in the back garden with the radio and a book and enjoy a lazy day. Perhaps later I have a drink as the old yellow ball nears its zenith and watch my ornate sundial rust away for lack of a lick of paint. (I don’t like painting either).

Quick story: When I first bought the sundial my youngest son and vivacious Katie picked it up from the garden centre for me. As I was placing it in the centre of the back garden and adjusting it to the sun, Katie asked me how it worked. “Its digital” I said “Works of solar power” She looked at me a little cagily (She has been caught out before by my nonsense) “What you mean the sun charges it up sort of thing?” I grabbed the opportunity “Yes the sun charges it up during the day, and that way it works at night too”. Her eyes narrowed, she sensed I was taking the piss, “Ok then if its that good how come it was so cheap” I had her “It was knock down price because the alarm doesn’t work on it”. This seamed reasonable to her, so smiling and saying “Oh right got ya” she went inside to make a cup of tea. Later she told her Mum and some of her friends about the digital sundial and one or two asked if there were any left at the store.

I had everything ready, mower, safety chair; cup of coffee, all I needed to do was mow. As I mentally psyched myself up for this monumental task, Keith from next door but one sauntered over wearing his I’ve just got back from Spain look, slight tan, loud shirt, shorts and sandals. Keith is a nice bloke but a master of the obvious, “Your cutting the grass then” I nodded “Did mine yesterday, one or two sprigs have sprung up though, might have to go over it with the scissors”. Keith is a perfectionist when it comes to his garden, he has a place for everything and you can be sure everything is in its place. Plants are co-ordinated by season and colour and where ever you look in his mini Q gardens there is a theme. Me! I can’t be arsed, everything is where it’s always been and it can bleeding stay there.

He made himself comfortable on the gate and settled down to watch a cack handed amateur make a balls up of a simple task like cutting the grass, I wasn’t about to disappoint him. I fired the beast up and began the long walk down to the front of my house where I would turn around one hundred and eighty degrees and walk all the way back, only to do the same add infinitum. On my second trip back up the garden I paused near the gate. Keith pointed to my efforts and said, “Your not doing stripes then? You should do stripes, I did stripes on mine, stripes look better, more professional stripes are”.

I was about to suggest he shove his stripes up his arse when the do-it-yourselfer with the Tefal head from across the road joined us, “Your cutting the grass then” he said leaning on the gate next to Keith, “He isn’t doing stripes though” volunteered Keith. Tefal man looked shocked “Not doing stripes, what’s the point of doing it at all if your not doing stripes, everyone does stripes round here”. I was tempted to remind him he had only been round here five minutes so how would he know who did and didn’t do bloody stripes, but I bit my lip. I looked at them both leaning on my gate complaining about the way I was cutting my grass, when a piece of advice my Father gave me many years ago popped into my head.
“”Flatter the vanity of men and watch them Move Mountains to validate your claims.”” (He was always coming out with gems like that)

I adorned a forlorn expression and wistfully informed them that “I’m nowhere near as good a gardener as you two lads are. You know what you’re doing; well you only have to look at your gardens to see that. I couldn’t do stripes to save my life, I wish I could, perhaps next time your doing stripes Keith I will come over and watch how you do it.”

Keith and Tefal head sprung into action, “Theirs no time like the present, watch and learn chummy, watch and learn”. So watch I did from the comfort of my chair as Keith lovingly squared up my earlier attempt and whizzed up and down my lawn alternately cutting low and high, whilst Tefal head bagged the cut grass and explained that the secret was “Not to mow over old grass”.

When they had finished I made a point of admiring my stripy new lawn, thanked them for the gardening lesson and offered them a drink. “Thanks but no thanks” said Keith “Have to pick the grandkids up soon, so I’m off to get ready” he disappeared leaving me with Tefal head who accepted my offer. As he drank my coffee he cast a do-it-yourselfers eye over my place and pointed out one or two things that needed doing. I agreed with him but admitted that I wasn’t very good at home improvements and wondered at how some guys could turn their hand to anything.

He puffed his chest out proudly and said “Well I’ve always been a dab hand at DIY, if you ever need any advice, I’m the man to ask”. I escorted him through to the back garden to have a quick look at my rusting sundial, “What kind of paint would I use on this sundial I asked innocently” He put his glasses on his enormous head and began to inspect the dial. “Hmmm it depends on whether its cast iron or cast steel, you cant just slop any old paint on metal you know, it’s a science”. Inspection finished he announced that Hammeright paint (Whatever that is) was the right paint for the job. It just so happened that he had some and that if I wanted he would drag the sundial over to his place and do a proper job of it in his shed out of the sun and the dust.

I thanked him once again for being all knowledgeable and helpful as he struggled with the heavy sundial over the road to his shed. “Ill bring it back tomorrow,” he said as he closed his shed door. “No rush” I said “No rush”.

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The copper top tart.

2007-09-08T16:46:00.000+01:00

It amazes me how people who abuse and torture their bodies with drugs, booze and raucous living can outlast seasoned fitness freaks who do all the right things health wise. One such person is Nora, or as she was known locally “The copper top tart”.

Nora has always been a tart; she learnt her trade during the black out of the Second World War. It was then that she discovered American soldiers would pay handsomely for a few hurried moments of sex with a then pretty girl who didn’t much care what they did to her as long as she got her few bob for the job. British Tommie's were among her patrons too, but she preferred the yanks because they treated her well, and gave her presents.

I’m not being unkind by calling her a tart, this was how she referred to herself, and was I think proud of her profession. Once when in the dock for attempting to solicit whilst being drunk and disorderly, or was it being drunk and disorderly whilst soliciting? Whatever the charge was it left the magistrate in some confusion. Wishing to clarify the matter for legal reasons he asked her what she was doing staggering round Albert Square at three in the morning with her skirt tucked in her knickers calling a copper a knob head and telling him to get his hand in his pocket and pay up.

Her reply was typical of how she spoke about herself. “I was out earning your worship, just had one toddy too many”. “I see,” said the Magistrate “your saying you are a lady of the night?” “I’m a tart your honour, day or night”. The Magistrate was lenient with her that day and she was only fined a fiver, whether it was for being drunk and disorderly or for soliciting I can’t say, but it was one of many appearances she made in court over the years for plying her trade.

Nora had bright orange hair that shone like copper wire, and green eyes that in later years turned more of a muddy yellow specked with red. But those that remember her in her heyday say that she was a stunning looking girl, if just a little common, with a mouth to rival that of a sailor. She spoke with a broad Manchester accent punctuated by swear words that would shock hardened Dockers. Her tone changed though when ever she was brought up before the beak, not wishing to offend her judge’s she would affect a posh accent using lots of H’s which apparently helped her not to blaspheme.

She could drink like a fish, and spent a good deal of her time in Yates’s wine lodge in Piccadilly, or The Queens hotel just across the road knocking back hot toddies (Australian white wine with hot water, sugar and lemon). In those days the floor of Yates’s was bare wood scrubbed clean every morning. But by closing time it would be soaked in spilt wine, covered in dog ends and the odd farmer blow from visiting dignitaries. Many times after drinking one too many Nora would keel over and crack her face on the floorboards, which over the years fashioned her nose into a bugle any boxer would be proud of.

In the course of servicing the lonely and forgotten men in the district, she met and married a Totter named Norris. He had the second floor of an old run down warehouse in Ancoats where he dealt in the recycling of rags and old oil. I can’t imagine what he did with the old oil, but his efforts more than covered the living allowance, allowed him to put a few bob away each week and still left a little over for entertainment. So it was surprising that Nora carried on trading flesh for pennies when she really didn’t have to. Norris apparently turned a blind eye to Nora’s indiscretions saying, “Everybody needs a hobby”.

The older Nora got, the more she came to rely on the contents of her make-up box, which by the time she was in her forties was the size of a walk in wardrobe. Time, and the ravages of handbag swinging under the railway arches meant she had to get up earlier in the morning to erect the scaffolding that enabled her to reconstruct the look she had found so easy to achieve with just a splash of cold water and a little lippy when she was a young girl.

My brother and I were sampling the light ale in a pub in Ashton one night when in walked Nora dressed in a Salvation Army uniform shaking a collection box. Considering that she was a representative of that worthy association she looked out of place with her bright orange hair, devil red lipstick and skirt half way up her arse.

She recognised us, came over and sat down. Giving a secretive wink she told us that she had rescued the uniform from one of Norris’s rag boxes and doing the pubs and clubs a couple of nights over the weekend was a nice little earner for her now that customers were a bit thin on the ground. She didn’t get away with this little scam of hers for long, whether God grassed her up, or she just crossed the path of real Salvationist's who stripped her of her uniform I don’t know, but she was soon up to her old tricks outside Belle Vue Dogs.

That was in the eighties, Norris died from Emphysema in ninety-one the result of breathing in rag dust for years. Before his death the rag business had been in decline and was closed down shortly after the funeral. Nora who had no real interest in totting and who had looked at the rag business as just a cheap way of supplementing her wardrobe, continued despite her failing looks to try to interest men in what she had to offer.

Sadly it wasn’t a lot. Towards the end of her career as a streetwalker she had begun to plaster her face in white powder, draw unequal and bizarre eyebrows near her hairline, and apply deep red lipstick with a trowel. This plus her bright orange (Copper coloured wig) hair had the effect of scaring rather than attracting men.

I met this singular woman again this morning when in Martins Bakers buying my lunch. Nora was stood at the counter eyeing up the cream cakes. She turned to look at me her bizarre appearance was made even more bizarre when her lips cracked into a smile to display huge yellow teeth and a tongue that darted from one cracked tombstone to another as though she were counting them.

Its hard to imagine that she was (despite always being promiscuous) the darling of American GIs in the forties and a much sought after drinking companion for lots of men after those heady days of fun when she was known as “The copper top tart”.

Glossary (For my American pals)

Copper: Policeman
Beak: Judge
Docker: Dockworker
Knob head: Idiot
Farmer blow: The act of ejaculating snot from the nose one nostril at a time.
Totter: Rag and bone man who collects old rags from houses
Bugle: Nose

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Rupert the tramp.

2007-09-07T15:03:00.000+01:00

Rupert the tramp was a familiar figure in Gorton during the late seventies, early eighties. He was tall, gaunt and easily recognised by his shabby greasy clothes and wild hair that gave him a Ben Gun appearance. Most days he could be seen walking the empty streets of terraced houses awaiting demolition. This was where he earned his living; this was where he lived. During the day he would comb the old houses for scrap copper and lead piping that he would weigh in for a few pennies and at night he would find a house that still had windows and a door and there he would sleep.

People didn’t pay much attention to Rupert really, they didn’t bother him and he certainly didn’t bother them. It was a good arrangement; sometimes people swapped rumours about why he became a tramp. Nobody came near the truth, he walked amongst them for years and they never knew who he was. Had they done so they may have been a little more sympathetic to his plight. He had in fact touched a great many of their lives in one way or another. Like the wife whose husband left them penniless after gambling the housekeeping money on the horses, or a poor family whose children through the efforts of a charity people like Rupert supported were taken to the seaside for a few days holiday.

Walking home late one night after a few drinks with some friends I called in the public toilets near the Lake Hotel, there standing very still and looking in the mirror was this tall thin man, in a long overcoat with wild matted hair and a unkempt beard. I decided against washing my hands and made to leave, “She wont come back, she said she wouldn’t come back” For such a scruffy looking individual he was well spoken and his voice was surprisingly cultured. He turned to look at me, his eyes were sad “You can’t trust them, they just, you can’t trust them”. I smiled and left, as guilty as anyone for ignoring this lonely man.

I met Rupert again some years later during a stay in hospital at the beginning of my Gall bladder period. He looked decidedly different, clean, well groomed and happier, though his years spent living rough had taken their toll. In the few days that we spent together in ward M6 we talked a lot, and he told me a good deal about his life.

Rupert had been a polish immigrant from war torn Europe, he had worked hard at various jobs until eventually he became the propriarter of a Bookmakers and although not wealthy he was certainly comfortable and could easily have retired on his savings and the sale of his business. He met a woman a good deal younger than him, at first everything was good but despite warnings from friends that she was a gold digger who was after his money they married.

To some he was a pariah because of his business, to others he was a saint because of his charity work and the money he spent helping people. To his new wife he was an unfortunate but necessary encumbrance to her new lifestyle. It wasn’t long before she began taking lovers in double figures, and almost everybody knew including Rupert. When she took his best friend to her bed it did something to him that changed his life. He went on a destructive drinking spree that lasted weeks, and then he just disappeared.

In fact he had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where he spent some time before discharging himself, taking to the streets and living rough. Although he lived for years in squalor and dirt, the money he earned from scrap metal was carefully saved. He told me he managed to put aside about a hundred-pound a week. His wants were few, his overheads minimal. He had found himself in hospital after a fall from the roof of a derelict building where he had been collecting lead guttering. The hospital had managed to inform his next of kin, who just happened to be the loveless wife who betrayed him with his friend.

She hadn’t seen him for years but she managed to convince him that they should make a new start and that she would look after him. She had run the bookmakers into the ground, spent all the money and now she was back for another bite of the cherry, and he fell for it. I tried unsuccessfully to talk him into taking more time to think about it, but he was determined that this time everything would be ok. She had changed, she was sorry; she was ready to start again. There wasn’t much I could do really, I hadn’t known him long and it was to be honest none of my business.

He was discharged a couple of days before me, we shook hands and wished each other luck, then he left with his wife to begin what he thought would be a better life. I don’t know all the details of how it fell apart, but I can guess. She finished up once again sat at the bar in the snug drinking brandies and dripping gold, whilst Rupert went looking for scrap lead again, this time to fill his pockets and go for a swim.

“You can’t trust them, they just, you can’t trust them”

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Asda's Own brand.

2007-09-06T15:14:00.000+01:00

Despite my recent beefs about Asda I found myself there again yesterday, not for the weekly shop but to browse the CD Isle, they have quite a good selection and how wrong can you get with things like pre-packed, made somewhere else type goods? In the car-park I overheard two battle worn vets of power bargain shopping talking about Asda’s own brand goods that were just as good as, if not better than the real thing.

I should have known better, but I’m a bloke, I’m supposed to fall for this shit. Anyway the thought of huge savings that could count in pounds rather than pennies had me filling a basket once more. I started the ball rolling by visiting the less than hygienic café for a cold coffee. Complaining about the lack of heat in this beverage seems to draw nothing but Blanc stairs from the staff so I have stopped trying, its wet, it moves, its more or less the right colour. Besides I have another plan for getting something done about that. They have a suggestion box hung on the wall for customers to suggest ways to improve their service. The suggestions I intend to stuff into it will run into a novel, emailing head office seems to have had no effect. The gloves are off.

Fish fingers (Asda’s own brand) Ok I know the nearest that they have come to fish was in the delivery truck on the way into the store, but even devoid of the main ingredient (Fish) they should be at least edible. I gave some to my grandson Mark who expelled them from his mouth almost as soon as they touched his teeth. He looked at me with dismay, more I think because he didn’t want to disappoint me after my frying them to death for him (They wouldn’t change colour) than because they were uneatable. I told him not to worry, just eat the chips and the beans (Asda’s own brand). As he set about the beans, which by the way have a fart factor of nine point eight on the sphincter scale, I tried the fish fingers for myself. The result was the same; they left my mouth like a speeding comet and the re-entry into earth’s atmosphere probably cooked them more than when they were in the frying pan.

This morning I made some sandwiches to take into work. Time to get out Asda’s own brand cling film and cooking foil to wrap them in. The cling film stubbornly refused to cling to anything other than the roll that it was packaged in. I fought with it for over ten minutes before consigning it to the bin and reverting to the cooking foil. Again Asda’s own brand. The instructions on how to remove it from the box were a little more than ambiguous, which resulted in my slicing my thumb and forefinger quite badly on the serrated edge, covering the work surface and my sandwiches in copious amounts of blood rendering them in turn inedible. I really did try with the cooking foil, but of so bad a quality was it, and so thick, that only a car panel beater could have fashioned it into anything like a package fit to carry my lunch in. That I gave up and it too went into the bin.

I have a cupboard and fridge full of white packaged, bland looking Asda’s own brand food waiting to do battle with me. I get the feeling I am going to need a bigger bin.

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Triumphs and disasters part 3

2007-09-05T15:23:00.000+01:00

After I left theYarmouth track in the capable hands of Rob the new Manager, things became quieter on the social side for me partly because I wasn’t in the mood for the complications of courtship, but mainly because I was so busy with work. I was to travel to Ibiza to reconnoitre a rundown outdoor go kart track that was part of a hotel complex with a view to buying and turning around the fortunes of what could have been a very good money spinner.

The companies business plan was to set up five or six tracks as a group and make it a buyable commodity. We had given ourselves five years to do this, not a lot of time but it was (in theory) a workable plan. The Ibiza complex was to be our venture into the European market. Unfortunately the reason the Spanish track was in such dire straits was because even though several attempts had been made by other people to make a success of the business, the intrusion of the local villains wanting their cut of the profits effectively brought to a halt any hope of success.

We did toy with the idea of taking a crew of our own over to maintain security, but there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the police to this idea. Quite apart from the logistics and expense involved in flying people backwards and forwards. There was also the matter of tribute to the police who needed their palms greasing for that to have worked.

On my return to Manchester I fell into the hands of Carol a buxom blonde whom I had crossed swords with on several occasions over the years at various social functions. She had made it quite clear that my being married made no difference to her intentions towards me and that should I ever feel the need for female company all I had to do was whistle.

We met up again at a mutual friends funeral, the deceased Graham had tried many times in life to get Carol and I together maintaining that we were perfect for each other. His premise for this was that as she was an attractive, curvy, fun loving and sexually gregarious woman, and I was a dirty little bugger we couldn’t miss. I felt somewhat slighted by this assessment of me considering the articulation he used to describe Carol. It was ironic that he managed in death what he couldn’t manage in life. He would have been pleased.

I was in no doubt that she enjoyed sex, but to what extent and under what circumstances I couldn’t have imagined. In fact it overshadowed everything else and was the basis of every date or social occasion that we enjoyed. In short she craved the buzz she derived from making love in situations where there was a possibility of being caught inflagranti.

At first I enjoyed these sometimes impromptu assignations, in the Blackpool tower ballroom during the day, the back of a car in Morrisons car park, a gazebo in a garden centre, all of these were exciting but a tremendous strain on the nerves. I had to call a halt to the relationship after a particularly bad experience on a fairground ride. It was in Blackpool a favourite haunt of hers because of the variety of interesting places that one could perform the deed.

The pleasure beach had just opened up for the morning, in one of the arcades there was a N A S A shuttle ride. It seated about eight people at a time but as Carol and I were the only two waiting to go on it the operator was reluctant to allow it to go through its paces without a full compliment of passengers. She pouted and pleaded and pushed her boobs out at him, and to give him his due he held out for quite a while until she took him to one side and whispered in his ear.

The shuttle was quite large inside with four rows of seats facing a large screen that displayed various images of space whilst speakers gave a commentary. The operator buckled us in, but as soon as the door was shut and the show started Carol was out of her seat, unbuckling my harness and desperately trying to ravish me where I sat. I protested on the grounds that as the damn thing was swinging and bucking like a mad horse it was dangerous. She pulled me out of my seat and as she bent across the back of another she said “Don’t worry, I paid him extra so we could have a longer ride”. My heart sank I was about to protest more but the shuttle tipped forward and I was flung into the breach.

It was the longest and scariest ride of my life (I think). Sexual congress in the vertical position isn’t the most comfortable way to enjoy oneself. But when the floor is swaying from side to side and bumping up and down at the same time, it takes away any kind of control, obliterates technique and introduces an element of surprise that whilst not unpleasant can be disconcerting. It didn’t help my nerves that over the noise of the loudspeakers informing me that I was about to shoot into space, and the mechanics and hydraulics of the shuttle grinding and moaning in the background, Carol was doing her best at drowning it out with a little noise of her own.

Mercifully the ride ended and there was just enough time to make ourselves presentable before the shuttle doors opened. As we stepped out of the door and on to the gantry at the top of the stairs, we were greeted by a sea of smiling faces all stood waiting patiently for their turn on the ride. One or two in the crowd made a point of looking the other way. There was three guys together who were laughing, one of them nodded at me and punched the air silently.

I immersed myself in work after that; it was far safer than the histrionics and gymnastics that being with Carol demanded. Shame really because in every other respect we were compatible.

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Not the Trafford shopping centre.

2007-09-03T11:09:00.000+01:00

One of the interesting things about running a shop in the suburbs was the wide variety of lunatics that frequented the place. The customers were wacky enough and although irritating to deal with were a necessary evil. There was also other shopkeeper's on the same block who felt the need to pop in on a regular basis and pal out with me as it were. There was Doreen who had a Flower shop and punctuated every other word with a sneeze (She was allergic to flowers) and dripped snot into roses and carnations as she lovingly fashioned floral tributes. Many a young girl presented with one of Doreen bouquets must have sniffed enthusiastically at it thinking “How sweet they smell, and so fresh too, they still have dew on them”. She was a homely looking girl but what an artist. .

Next door was the Lucky Hoe Chinese chippy ran by Mr Hee Hoe who unfailingly made gravy with the consistency of wood glue, he eventually hung himself after laying siege with a vicious looking chopper to a battalion of police officers hold up in his stockroom. The rumour was that his Cantonese lover had left him for a Scots gay rights activist with one leg who insisted on wearing spandex tops with a kilt. That episode hit him hard, but I think it was his fear of reprisals from disgruntled customers who had been sold meat and potato pie’s Hee Hoe had chucked in the fryer straight from the freezer.

One guy had threatened to return with his crew and launch him and his half-cooked pies through the window and that’s what tipped him over the edge I think. He phoned the Samaritans and threatened to batter himself, they tried to talk reason with him but when he screamed down the phone that he had his chopper out and was ready to use it, they had no alternative but to bring the law in. When the police arrived Hee Hoe answered the door to them naked except for a chief’s utility belt adorned with chip shop condiments that barely covered his modesty. The siege didn’t last long but before back up could get there Mr Hoe had joined the Chinese lanterns swinging in the window of the Lucky Hoe chippy.

There was fabulous Gloria the blonde secretary come assistant to the funeral director three shops further along the block who liked to spend her dinner hour in my shop several times a week. She complained that it was impossible to eat Mr Hoe’s gravy at the best of times but having to contend with the smell of formaldehyde and embalming fluid whilst eating a tray full of chips laced with wood glue was more than she could handle. I suggested she tell Hoe to hold the gravy but she said he splashed the stuff around with gay abandon and became very annoyed if you refused it. She could have used another chippy, but I think it was just an excuse to get into my shop and press her suit. However Gloria and the tale of "Does my bum look big in this skirt" will be the subject of another post.

Next door to the funeral directors was the bulb shop, a mysterious emporium that as far as I could gather sold every type of electric bulb ever made in the history of electric bulb making? How he survived I will never know he had no window display to speak of, just a sign that said BULBS in large red letters over the door, it didn't even light up. No one was ever seen going in or out of the place apart from the owner whose name nobody knew. He was simply known as the Bulb man and could be seen opening up in the morning and closing up at night. But the door to the shop was always locked and you had to press a buzzer to gain entrance. As far as I could tell nobody ever did he kept his bulbs to himself, until he eventually sold out to an international bulb consortium and relocated to the south of somewhere very expensive, obviously there is money in bulbs.

The most annoying of my fellow shopkeepers was a diminutive chap called Carl or Carlo, as he liked to be addressed. He was a self-taught hairdresser who had learned his trade on the heads of unsuspecting customers over the years, who had gone under the scissors and comb. They would watch in growing horror as he butchered their hair whilst he cheerfully chatted away behind them oblivious to the carnage he was committing. He had had his windows (and his face) smashed in many times by irate husbands who had dragged their crying wives back to his salon to complain and demand their money back. On these occasions Carlo would play his Italian card which was to speak in what he thought was an Italian accent, but really all he did was put an o on the end of every word.

He would rant on like a misunderstood artist whose every snip; every wave and curl had been dragged from his tortured body. It never did him any good the result was that fist would meet face and he would wind up on the floor clutching a busted hooter. His nose must have changed direction more times than a Tory government over the years. He would disappear for days after one of these episodes, licking his wounds in his home, which like his salon had pretensions of grandeur. He tried to keep the appearance of a high class establishment using the rejected and worn out fixtures bought at auction, or sold for pennies from the sales section of local papers.

I attended a dinner party at his house once, there was flock wallpaper everywhere, everything was plastic and mock. His dining room was a theme on ancient Greece with imitation alabaster busts on pedestals with fake ivy curling around them as though in some forgotten garden. There were gold swan necked lights over every picture that stuck out too far in rooms that didn’t have the space to accommodate them. There were so many in the hallway that one had to zig zag in order not to bang your head. In the living room he had a cheap rocking horse that had obviously been distressed to create the illusion that it was antique, and brass everywhere, far too much brass.

He asked me to install a security system at his home, apparently one irate husband whose wife had an amorous liaison with our hero had threatened to burn him out. Had he done so the place would have burned for days there was that much plastic in it. Carlo thought himself a bit of a Don Juan and to some extent used his business to curry favour with his clientele, it usually got him into trouble but on these occasions he would play the effeminate card to husbands convinced he had invaded their marital space. However this time it hadn’t worked, the threat was real, and one weekend along with a friend I found myself installing a burglar alarm and several cameras.

His bathroom although small and as overcrowded as the other rooms sported a double shower and was decked out in black tiles and tinted mirrors, the fixtures were gold plated and retro, but his bedroom was a revelation. It was furnished Hugh Hefnor style with a large bed and ceiling mirrors, there was pseudo antique bedside cupboards each adorned by an old white and gold bell telephone. But the real revelation came when my pal and I moved the bed aside to install the wiring for his panic button (Pretend gold of course).

Underneath his alter of love we found several books, “How to drive your lover wild in bed”, “Women are from Venus men are from mars”, “Sexual techniques that work”, “How to pick up girls” and “lovemaking for dummies”. There was also a large box containing close to twenty or so dildoes of various sizes and colours. Next to which was a smaller box containing fake phalluses of the strap on kind, some were obviously meant to be used in anger, but there were two that had a strange strap arrangement. My pal gingerly held one aloft between forefinger and thumb turning it one way then the other looking perplexed. Then realisation dawned on him; his eyes lit up as he triumphantly shouted “He wears this in his bloody pants when he’s out”. My pal now aware of Carlo’s secret waved the offending article around like D'Artagnan waving a sword declaring the object of his scorn a charlatan.

I told him to put things back how they were and not to breath a word of what we had seen, he said “Sure, my lips are sealed” but the smile on his face and the look in his eyes told me he couldn’t keep them sealed for very long. I made him promise he was reluctant to do so but he gave me his word. How long he kept it I don’t know.

Carlo still has his shop, he now wears a berry to cover his alapicia and occasionally when I pass I see him through the window working away at some poor buggers head intent on mischief. My shop became an Internet café after I closed down, then a law office of some kind.

One interesting note of my time there was that as a child when asked what I wanted for Christmas or birthdays by my parents, I would always ask for a box of electrical junk from Mazels Radio on London road near Piccadilly station. I loved to mess around with bits of wire and electrical equipment. Once when my Father and I made a trip into Middletown to visit relatives we stopped of at a branch of Mazels on Rochdale road. Inside my eyes lit up as I looked around at all the second hand radios and wireless parts for sale. My Dad put two shillings towards my spends and I bought a box of the crap I loved so much. Clutching my purchase I told the man behind the counter that I was going to have a shop like his one day.

The weird thing is that I did have a shop like his, in fact it was that very shop that I had been in all those years ago, 795 Rochdale road.

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Snake woman.

2007-09-01T11:03:00.000+01:00

Snake woman or Barbara was one of those bohemian types who suddenly appear in your life and behave as though they have always been there. These people always seem to know you by first name despite the fact that you might never have met them before. I remember the day she first entered my shop (Visual Electronics), it was early morning, I had been to party the night before and was feeling a little delicate, which was why I was leaning on the counter and looking at my shoes for inspiration.

She opened the door with a flourish, stepped into the shop and stood there like a sulking film starlet. She had raven black hair that framed a pale face and her eyes were hidden by huge sunglasses, which she slowly removed. She shook her head like a girl in a shampoo advert to allow her hair to fall into its natural style, then placed one arm of her sunglasses into her mouth and narrowed her eyes, one of which was false.

She was wearing tight black pants that left little to the imagination, and a leopard skin patterned top. She advance toward the counter wobbling slightly on high heels, “You must be David” she spoke with a pseudo Russian accent peppered with broad Yorkshire that confused me for a while. After I came to know her the Russian drifted into the Yorkshire more often and eventually disappeared. She presented herself as though she had nobility behind her, when in reality all she had behind her was a long career as an exotic dancer in some of the seedier clubs of the Costa’s in Spain.

Her glamorous but slightly tatty clothes were remnants from a more glorious time in her life, a time when she would thrill crowds, and command men with her erotic gyrations on stages lit by purple and red spotlights, accompanied by frantic drums beating to Eastern music. A time when she was known as “Dalores" the snake woman. You could tell that she had once been a babe, but the years of late nights in smoke filled clubs had taken its toll. Where once she had been a ten, time and the hazards of life had demoted her to an attractive seven and a half.

From about fifteen feet away she could still pass for thirty odd, but the nearer she got, the older she looked. This of course wasn’t good for her act, she became less popular and the bookings became fewer, until one night on stage her partner (Tommy the snake) put paid to her act altogether by taking out her left eye with his tail.

Her return to a dull, grey England after year’s abroad in the sun was a culture shock for this lovely lady. And the indifferent treatment she received from the social security after being the centre of attention for so many dribbling male tourists was a depressing reminder that her life of glamour was over. She still kept a regal bearing though, and it added to her charm.

She requested that I visit her home to repair her television. I told her I would call after the shop closed because I was on my own that day and couldn’t leave until then. When I arrived she opened the door to me dressed in what can only be described as a gypsy outfit, complete with bandanna topped with a chain of coins. She skipped on bare feet into the living room and pointed dramatically to the errant TV in the corner, saying “There it is, do make it work David, shall you have tea or coffee”. I heard myself saying “I shall have coffee, two sugars” and for the first time in a long time I went red with embarrassment. “I shall have coffee”; it sounded like the goof people make when they put H, s where they don’t belong.

I set about the TV and quickly discovered that the plug fuse had given up the ghost, it was replaced and before she came back with my coffee the strains of the intro music to Coronation Street was filling the room. “You marvellous, marvellous man” she beamed “How much will that be” I explained that I couldn’t really charge her for a five pence fuse, but the coffee would be payment enough. She made me sit next to her on the couch to drink my coffee and we chatted away as though we were old friends.

She told me about her act and the life she had led as a dancer, first in the chorus line for some quite famous companies then as an exotic dancer in London before flying to Spain for a season of work that stretched to twenty five years. We chatted for over an hour and before I left she promised to pop in to the shop to say hello. She popped several times a week and we became good friends. On one visit she invited me round for a drink and a chat, this she said was a chance to show me some of her wardrobe and props from the act that had only just arrived in England.

I arrived to find the table prepared with food and a selection of drinks, the sofa had been pushed against the wall, and the lights were low. I had a sneaky suspicion that amore was the point of the evening and lets face it I’m a man of the world, I was ready for this and whilst she was no longer a young girl she was still attractive. What I wasn’t prepared for was what came half way through the evening. She had been showing me her things, photographs, knick-knacks, props she used in her act. Then she disappeared upstairs for a few minutes and when she came down she was dressed in a white Egyptian outfit, decked out in red and gold with a splendid gold head-dress.

She flicked a switch on the hi-fi and the room was filled with music. She began dancing right there in the middle of the room, and I watched open-mouthed as she gyrated and ground her hips to “Midnight at the oasis” by Maria Muldaur. Despite what I said before about her no longer being a young girl, she had a superb body and under the dim lights she looked every bit as delicious as Santanico Pandemonium in “Dawn till dusk ”. It was an exhilarating night and I even learned a few dance steps. We had a great friendship that lasted until she decided to go back to Spain and live with a French piano-playing friend of hers.

England was a great disappointment to her and I could see she was unhappy. I drove her to the airport and we had a last drink and meal in departures before I waved goodbye to her as she wobbled on her high heels back to the sun.

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Tooth & Nail,

2007-08-30T13:46:00.000+01:00

I need to go to the dentist, I’m overdue anyway, but the last few days one of my back teeth has been giving me gyp and like most people I hate dentists. Actually it only hurts when I eat, drink, sit, stand, walk, laugh, sneeze, cough, fart, drive, or sleep so I suppose I could leave it a little longer, until it gets really bad.

My dentist is a woman and although I am proud to say that there isn’t a male chauvinist bone in my body. That I genuinely support a fair across the board gender assignment to lifeboats, and am a firm supporter of equal pay for both sexes doing the same job (As long as I the man gets the same rate for less hours of course). I was a little perturbed when a couple of years ago I arrived for an appointment to discover that my trusty, well scrubbed, knowledgeable, hairy armed stand up male dentist had been replaced by a woman.

The receptionist brought me up to speed with a big cheesy smile on her smart arse face, but her eyes narrow and shifty told a different story, they were, defiant, and confrontational. She treated every patient who walked through the door as an unnecessary inconvenience to her working day. Which mainly consisted of berating the poor, pain ridden buggers for being fifteen seconds late. Bullying them into buying that latest toothbrush and toothpaste on the market, which surprise, surprise they just happened to stock and talking endlessly on the phone to her pal Sonya who worked in the cake shop next door.

I made the mistake of challenging her sarcastic nasty attitude once, when after introducing myself she asked me (Without taking the phone away from her ear or looking at me) “Is your appointment necessary or urgent”. Up until that point I had had a bad day, so I wasn’t in the mood for her bile. I leaned across the counter and replied “Not really, I have a morning free so I thought why not dive into the dentists and subject myself to half an hour excruciating pain”. She didn’t see the funny side of it, and asked me to leave. I ignored her, found myself a magazine and sat down.

There were several people in the waiting area who on hearing this exchange stopped pretending to be interested in the Readers digest and waited mouths open for what would happen next. The receptionist marched out of reception, then a minute later marched back in, arms folded across her chest trailing the dentist with her. She unfolded her arms and pointed menacingly at me barking, “That’s him”. Those sat on either side of me worriedly placed more space between themselves and the accused, not wishing to be associated with, or befall the same fate that awaited him.

The dentist approached me, and said firmly “We have every right to refuse treatment to and eject any patient who is abusive to the staff and disrupts the surgery, could you leave please”. I looked up from my magazine and replied “And I have every right to be treated with civility and respect by your receptionist, and not be subjected to her sarcastic and insulting attitude because my appointment, which incidentally I pay good money for, interferes with her social life”.

From behind the dentist she screamed “You bloody liar, he’s a bleeding liar, I treat them all the same”. I looked the harridan in the eye and said “Yes you do, you treat us all like shit” I turned to the dentist “Ask anyone here, she puts everyone through the third degree”. I turned to the other brow beaten sods for some support, they had been listening intently up to this point, but my request fell on deaf ears, all of them save a little old lady turned back to their magazines and ignored my plea for assistance.

Why the little old lady was there I cannot imagine, she couldn’t have had any teeth at her age, but I am glad she was because she alone had the guts to stand up and be counted. She pointed her bright yellow and red umbrella at the smug faced receptionist and spoke. “She is very nasty and very rude to everyone, there is no need for it. It costs nothing to be nice, she said I was a time waster” the old lady pointed to a woman who had a child with her, “She told this lady to keep her little boy quiet because she was on the phone, and he was just playing”.

The receptionist’s face had turned bright red, the dentist who was no idiot could see that things were at an impasse. He turned to the now fuming receptionist and holding her by the arm as he led her out of the room suggested she go to the staff room, make a cup of tea and calm down. I was ready to leave as asked satisfied that although I had lost my appointment and would probably be struck off their list, had a least derived some satisfaction from bringing another of life’s tosser's to book.

The dentist asked me to follow him into another room, and there to my surprise apologised for his errant member of staff requesting that I wait there and that somebody would attend to me shortly. I sat alone confused and paranoid, thinking this was just a ploy to keep me here whilst he phoned the police to have me arrested. I imagined I would be dragged to a police van desperately trying to put my side of the story saying “If you don’t believe me ask the little old lady” Only to find that my only reliable witness had been spirited away by orthodontic men in black.

I needn’t have worried, before long a pleasant, very pretty and full bosomed young blonde girl opened the door, smiled sweetly and asked me to follow her into the dentist dungeon. I was happy to comply, she had (Apart from the full bosom) a well proportioned and quite wiggley behind that any man would be glad to follow. My dental needs were met as though the earlier altercation had not taken place, and I left without seeing the smart arse receptionist again that day.

And so it was as I stood in front of my former adversary trying to be as pleasant as I could, she informed me that I would henceforth have my mouth serviced by a new dentist, a female dentist, in short a woman for all teeth. Was I worried, Naaahhhh, women are gentler than men, they have more empathy and can relate better to the patients fear of pain. I wasn’t doing a very good job of convincing myself that all would be well, partly because I had had a bad experience with a female dentist when I was about ten years old.

It happened at Manchester dental hospital when I attended to have a simple half crown fitted. She was a student, inexperienced and nervous, I know because she told me. As her shaking hand came nearer to my mouth she looked down to where her foot was controlling the pedal that worked the drill thingy. The next thing I knew I was in hospital having my bottom jaw replaced with a plastic one, and undergoing several skin grafts to cosmetically rebuild my face.

Ok so that last part was a big lie, but the pain she put me through was traumatic. My new dentist turned out to be very capable indeed and is truly professional. One of the good things about opening your mouth for this lady is that she has a habit of leaving the top three buttons of her splendid white tunic open. This allows you an unfettered view of her breasts (Well the top half at least) and is I can assure you every bit as efficient at relieving pain as Novocain.

I think I will ring up for an appointment now.

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Triumphs and disasters part 2

2007-08-29T11:14:00.000+01:00

Some months after Lesley had deserted me for the burger flipper I found myself travelling down to Great Yarmouth to set up and open another track for Karting2000. The place was a mess and needed a great deal of work if it was to be ready for the holiday season. Several of us found ourselves living twenty-four seven at the track. We started work at seven in the morning and didn’t finish until well gone twelve most nights. For a good deal of the time we were there we ate and slept in what was to be the main office. There was really no point in finding a hotel at that time, the track was some way away from civilisation near the harbour mouth and commuting would have cost us precious time.

One night the lads went out to a club on the promenade and I was left to my own devices. I did some paperwork until around eleven, had a last walk around the track to make sure everything was secure, then made my way across the sea road to the beach for some night air. Walking along the beach at night is a little precarious in Great Yarmouth because of the huge amount of dog crap that lies hidden in the sand like land mines waiting for you to step on it. The only thing worse than a shoe full of dog crap is a shoe full of sandy dog crap. Although when the moon is full its delicate light makes the crap sparkle and shine like glitter. It must be the phosphorous or the seashells.

I sat in the sand my back against a large concrete wall that had once been part of a holiday caravan camp that two summers before had blown into the sea during a bad storm; Yarmouth is noted for having some bad tornadoes out at sea that sometimes come inland. That year the camp was decimated by a particularly fearce one and it never recovered. It was quite eerie sitting alone in the dark listening to the wind blowing through the abandoned buildings and the sound of the sea crashing into the shore; they seemed to fight with each other for your attention.

This particular night it was another sound that caught my attention, from behind me on the beach road I heard the sound of two people arguing. A man was shouting abusively at a woman and she kept pushing him off as he persisted in grabbing at her. Thinking to leave them to it I stood up to make my way back to the track. I had only walked a few yards when I heard the woman scream; I turned around in time to see him punch her in the head. She hit the floor heavily, then he stood on her leg so that she couldn’t move and began taunting her. She was crying and obviously in great pain as he put more and more weight on her leg.

I couldn’t avoid interfering now he had gone too far. I shouted at him to stop what he was doing and leave her alone. As I ran over to them he gave me the finger and told me to mind my own f*****g business. Being a Manchester lad and therefore not overly fond of pillocks or bullies I introduced his nose to my forehead at some speed. The result of this exchange apart from the look of surprise that spread across his face was that his nose joined his expression. What a team they made as he slumped to the floor clutching his rapidly expanding conk.

As he lay rolling around on the floor crying and holding his busted hooter (The mard bastard) I helped the woman to her feet and suggested she should get as far away as possible. She asked me if I would walk some way with her, as she was afraid that he would follow. I agreed and as we walked I noticed that she had a nasty looking bruise on her face and an even nastier cut on her leg. She told me she wanted a taxi and asked if there was a phone box nearby. I told her the nearest was a good way along the front, but that she could use the one at the track, it was nearer.

As she sat in the office waiting for her ride I produced the first aid box and helped her tend to her wounds. The cut on her leg was bad though it didn’t look like it needed stitches but the blow to her head had done some damage, her lip was cut and swollen and her eye would definitely change colour before morning. I didn’t ask what had started the altercation with Mr ten men and she didn’t volunteer any information. She lit a cigarette but the taxi arrived before she could finish it. Then she was gone into the night; the whole thing from the scream to the taxi beeping its horn couldn’t have lasted more than twenty minutes. I sat in my office staring at the cigarette she had left burning in the ashtray and wondered if the streak of red on the filter was blood or lipstick.

Two days later she arrived at the track looking for me, one of the lads told her that I was across the road having lunch in the pub. When she walked through the door she looked completely different than she had the night of the altercation on the beach road. She breezed in to the pub dressed in a white thin strapped dress that perfectly showed of her tanned skin and blonde hair. She paused to look round then smiled brightly when she saw me sat at the bar, she walked confidently over and sat on the stool next to me and asked if she could buy me a drink. “It was unforgivable of me not to thank you for coming to my rescue the other night” she said displaying perfectly white teeth “. I was upset and just wanted to go home”. I waved her thanks aside like any hero would and set about enjoying being in the company of a very attractive young woman.

My life is a little like being in combat, long periods of boring bugger all, punctuated by hair-raising moments of excitement. This then was how I came to meet Elaine who I have to admit was far to sophisticated for a shit hole like Great Yarmouth. We spent the rest of the afternoon chatting, and I impressed her with tales of the nightlife in the great metropolis of Manchester (Well she looked impressed). We saw each other for two months and during that time the reason for her being attacked was never brought up. I reasoned that when she wanted me to know she would tell me.

I was having another late night at the track; the lads had gone uptown for a drink and left me alone again. The phone rang, it was Elaine, “Will you wait at the track for me, I need to speak to you”. You just know when bad shit is coming, at least I do. When she arrived she looked beautiful but nervous. She sat down and explained that the bully who had treated her so badly that night on the beach road was her husband. They had broken up several times because of his violence but each time he had begged her to forgive him with promises that it would never happen again and of course each time it did. She was adamant that he loved her really and this time was different, he was going to keep his word.

They were travelling down to London that night, where he had managed to find a flat and a job; things would be different now. She nervously lit a cigarette and asked if I was mad at her. I was thinking the words “That kind of man never changes Elaine” but heard myself wishing her every happiness, and no, I wasn’t mad at her. She got up to leave; he was waiting outside in the car for her, I told her to ring me if she ever needed help. She smiled and once again she was gone into the night, I found myself alone in that bloody office looking at another half-smoked cigarette streaked with red lipstick.

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An open apology to my Daughter

2007-08-29T10:14:00.000+01:00

I come cap in hand to my blog this morning to apologise for trashing my Daughters cooking. The special onions, which contained garlic, lemon and spices, were a superb entrée to the Chilli con carne, which (Not too hot but just right) was served on a bed of fluffy rice, with coconut and potato wedges on the side. As my Grandfather used to say “Eeeeeeeeyyyy I did enjoy that”.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

2007-08-28T17:44:00.000+01:00

My Daughter rang me earlier to invite me for dinner, my heart sank, its not that she is a bad cook, its more a lack of quantity values that she suffers from. She overdoes or under does ingredient amounts, which can have a disastrous effect on both tongue and stomach. Sunday dinners are fine, in fact great, her mixed grill can’t be beaten, and bangers and mash cooked by my little girl are delicious. Even a simple dish like egg and chips can be eaten with the confidence that it will taste good and be cooked perfectly. However the minute she decides to prepare something requiring the accurate measurement and blending of several ingredients her mathematical skills take a nosedive.

I remember once when she was in her first year at high school, she proudly announcing that she was going to make a beef casserole in school cookery class. She was late home so I went to look for her, I found her sat on a wall just up the road from our house head bowed, bag at her feet. She had been crying, apparently some big boys had snatched her bag away from her and began throwing it to each other. She desperately tried to retrieve her bag, horrified that her beef casserole would be ruined. She forgot all about that though when she managed to grab her airborne meal because anger got the better of her and she proceeded to beat the shit out of the boys with it, swinging it round her head like a highland chieftain swings a Claymore.

I told her not to worry, and promised her that I would eat the casserole no matter what state it was in, this was definitely one time I wished I had kept my mouth shut, from both a speaking and eating point of view. When we got home she placed the bag on the table and unzipped it, an aroma akin to burnt wellingtons emanated from the bag. I can hold my nose I thought, I lifted the casserole dish out myself, didn’t want her to cut herself. I needn’t have worried; there was no damage to the glass in fact no damage to anything except perhaps the boy’s heads.

The casserole was intact, in fact it was the casserole that had protected and held the dish together. In all probability the casserole would have been immune to an armour-piercing missile it was that hard, And I had promised my Daughter I would eat it. My brain raced (Well more of a slow stroll really) for a solution, Gravy, that would soften it up (I hoped) about a gallon should be enough. I was living a dream; not even a lake of gravy could have tenderised what in effect was culinary concrete.

So it is with some trepidation that I prepare myself for tonight’s feast. “Chilli con carne with special onions” though you might be thinking what can go wrong, after all its just ground beef, mushrooms, chilli plus whatever the con in Chilli con carne is. It’s the special unions that are worrying me. Why not just regular unions? why make things complicated?, why risk buggering up a fairly simple dish by introducing a wild card?.

I think I will stop of at my house on the way in and bang a couple of toilet rolls in the fridge for later. Call it insurance, call it fear. I will let you know how I get on.

Triumphs and disasters Part 1

2007-08-27T12:01:00.000+01:00

I was reflecting over the weekend on my dating score since my second wife left (For the final time) ten years ago. It doesn’t seem like ten years have passed since she slung her proverbial hook with a Yugoslavian Knife sharpener from Belgrade, but as the saying goes Time fly’s when you are enjoying yourself. True I was gutted at first, nobody likes change but within a couple of hours of the door shutting behind her, I became used to the idea of living without the woman I had always assumed I was going to drag the rest of my life out with.

The last few months we spent together was a bad time for me, she left and returned many times and as the year hurtled toward its end. I knew it would soon be over. Call it intuition, call it a hunch, call it what you will but I knew somehow that things were not right between us. At first it was little things that tipped me off that something was wrong. Things like my watches and rings going missing, having my card snatched at the ATM because there was no money in my account, other men wearing my clothes, my wife calling me Olaf when we made love. Incidents that on their own wouldn’t mean anything but put them all together and they add up to Get a grip you thick bastard, Are you blind man? or who comes home at four in the morning after visiting their Mother wearing a little black number with her tights inside out?..

She walked through the front door for the last time on Christmas day at four in the afternoon as I lay on the bed sleeping off a huge great turkey dinner and two helpings of plum duff with rum sauce. I was awoken by the sound of her creeping around the bedroom on all fours gathering the clothes she was to take with her for this final departure. I didn’t open my eyes but pretended to sleep, as she crawled onto the landing and down the stairs.

As the front door closed quietly behind her I opened my eyes and forced myself to rise and sit on the edge of the bed, It wasn’t easy; it took all my willpower to force my muscles to comply with this simple task. A turkey dinner with all the trimmings and a four and a half pound plum duff pudding is a lot of weight to carry around, but I forced myself up into a sitting position and then on to my feet. Slowly I walked to the landing window and looked out at the woman I had spent twenty three years of my life with walking away from our marriage with her possessions in two black bags and several ammunition cases. I was to spend the rest of what should have been a day of celebration alone, and as I necked several bottles of Baileys I wondered what the future would hold.

I was to find out on New Year’s eve when friends who insisted that I shouldn’t spend the beginning of a New Year alone dragged me to a party. They were adamant that I should start as I meant to go on. Well that new years eve I got as pissed as a carrot and stayed that way for more or less the rest of the year. Through the foggy haze of alcoholic excess I managed to carry on as normal, I ate, I slept, and I worked. I had plenty of female friends I could go out with for a meal, a movie or a couple of drinks. But I was giving myself a year before commiting myself to any kind of sexual relationship. It was only fair to the dwindling memory of what once had been a mediocre marriage.

In the event I only lasted three weeks with the sexual thing; I put that down to my will power being out of whack due to the vodka I had become very fond of. You mustn’t get the idea that I was hopelessly addicted to Vodka, far from it, I had become hopelessly addicted to Gin too, and I wasn’t shy about accepting the odd Rum Dachery when it was offered.

I met Lesley at an AA meeting in the spring of that first year as a bachelor. She was blonde, pretty; bright as a button and twenty years younger than I was, but we hit it off right from the start and she was a refreshing change from some of the pot-boilers my well meaning friends had introduced me to. Her story was much the same as mine, abandoned by an uncaring husband, she had taken to drinking cans of lager with a Tia Maria chaser as she did the housework. Over a short period she become dependant on drink to get her through the day, and by the time she had sought help with the AA was in the habit of knocking back seven or eight pints of lager in an afternoon. She had these amazing stomach muscles and could burp like a man.

We would sit next to each other at meetings and soon became friends, then one night as we left a meeting I offered her a lift home, she accepted and as we drove we talked. The conversation turned to her sadness at breaking with her husband and her hatred for the long nights she spent alone. As we pulled up outside her house, she turned to me and almost crying said, “I don’t want to go home just yet, I don’t, I don’t”. I suggested we go for a drink, she threw her head back and laughed loudly saying "Yeah f**k it, lets get f*****g pissed”. That night we drank, and later made love wildly in the back of a bread van left in the pub car park.

As the dawn broke over our naked bodies covered in bread rolls and the contents of squashed jammy doughnuts, we collected our thoughts and our clothes and made our way (Somewhat stickily) to our respective homes. Later as I stood in the shower allowing the hot water to run over my aching body I relived the passion of the bread van and marvelled at the versatility of bread products.

We were to meet many times after that night, and on every occasion we managed to put foodstuffs to good use during our sexual exploration of each other. We tried it all, the exotic Hot pot supper samba, the Bar-B-Q bang, sex through salad, we even went Vegan but it was a little too fetish for our taste. It wasn’t to last. She met another guy at a weight watchers club for insomniacs and whilst he was completely ok with the idea of sharing her both physically and culinary, I knew it was a recipe for disaster. She had to choose and unfortunately for me she chose fast food over Cordon Bluer.

It was the first of many disappointing relationships, but I will always remember that time with fondness and relish (No pun intended) and it was good fun and great practice for what lay ahead for me in the dating game.

To be continued………….

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The Angel of Manchester.

2007-08-25T12:03:00.000+01:00

Gorton cemetery is situated on a rolling hill where Hyde road and Reddish lane converge. These two remnants of Roman civil engineering are separated by a long stretch of wasteland that was once part of the great inland waterways of Great Britain. The canal has long gone a victim of forward thinking by yet another inept government. Who exchanged what was once a picturesque reed clogged canal walkway populated by wildlife and the fauna of nature, for fly-tippers paradise overrun by muggers, lovers and druggies. Which now boasts more used condoms and empty syringes per square mile than anywhere else in this sceptre'd Isle we love so much.

In the Southwest corner of this quiet resting-place for the long gone, under a canopy of elder trees that hide from view a pile of old broken bikes washing machines and several busted microwave ovens. You will see if you look closely a small dark grey headstone that boasts the name, start and finish date of one, Victoria Dunwelding. The Manchester Angel. Victoria or VD as her friends affectionately knew her suffered greatly at the mercy of this world, but was once a legend in North Manchester. Sadly only a few ageing and decrepit hangers on to life who very soon will join her under the elder trees remember her.

When I was a young boy growing up in west Gorton, I was told the story of the Manchester Angel one hot summer afternoon by a neighbour Lazy Larry as we sat idly watching the bailiffs turn his cosy, comfortable and softly furnished living room into a minimalists dream. They left him with two tea chests. “Its all I need” he cried, “Just give me a couple of tea chests, a hot mug of tea and an arrowroot biscuit and I’m happy”. His words came back to haunt me many years later when at his funeral I could have sworn I saw the words “Produce of India” stencilled on the sides of his coffin.

Victoria was the fifteenth child born to Miriam a honeycomb tripe scrubber from Bolton and Eric a WC engineer and ballcock recycler whose antecedents are unknown. Shortly after Victoria was born her Father left the house with a quantity of copper balls for a customer and was never seen again. This put a great fiscal strain on the family and as a result they were thrown into the infamous Cheatham Hill workhouse which these days goes by the name of North Manchester General Hospital. (No change there then) The children separated from their Mother had to make their own way, and Victoria found it harder than her siblings.

She was an ugly child with a squat face, pug nose, high forehead and a squint that gave her the impression of always being constipated. Weighing in at forty two pound when born, her Mother said after a seventy two hour labour that left her little more than skin and bodily fluids “Never again and I bleeding mean it this time”. It’s this statement some say that prompted her husband to disappear with his balls. We will never know, what we do know is that at the age of three years old she was dumped by a workhouse employee on the steps at the convent of the “Little sisters of the financially embarrassed” in the village of Harpurhey on the outskirts of Manchester city centre. A workhouse diary entry from that day remarks “Its now or never, if we leave it any longer it will be a two man job”. Its thought that this was a reference to her size, workhouse children were weighed every week, and the last entry for Victoria states that she tipped the scales at one hundred and fifty pound. A smidgen over what a three-year-old should weigh.

The sisters treated her no differently than any of the other orphans in their care, she was beaten twice a day (Three times on a Sunday) and was give two square meals of bread and water, breakfast was at three in the morning and supper at midnight. The time in between was filled by work and prayer, work consisted of crawling along carrot furrows on her hands and knees in a large field weeding out the nettles and dandelions with her bare hands, whilst prayer mostly was taken up by beseeching her creator to blow the bleeding carrot field out of existence.

Despite her Spartan life Victoria continued to pile the pounds on and by the time she was fifteen she was a six foot four, (Not counting the stoop) three hundred and sixty pounds mountain of fat and muscle. Records at the time liken her to a cross between a valkrian and an amazon warrior. Time had not tempered her ugliness, rather it had emphasised her faults and her countenance was a site to behold. She still had the squint, exaggerated by the fact that one of her eyes had dropped lower than the other after a particularly bad beating by sister Malicious (I think she was Greek) which also resulted in her sporting cauliflower ears. Her jaw was wide and square; she had no neck to speak of which gave her the appearance of having a tapered head. She wore her hair coconut style, short and spiky, that and the scars from regularly getting her arse kicked by the nuns made her a scary looking person.

So scary in fact that the nuns in fear of reprisals for the beatings they had handed out to her over the years asked her to leave the convent at age sixteen. Out in the world, on her own for the first time in her life she was lost. She left that dreaded place with just the knickers she stood up in and a sack of carrots to keep her going until she could earn enough money to support herself. By hard work and good fortune she was engaged by an engineering firm in Ardwick as an apprentice sheet metal worker. And for the next five years learned her trade under the wing of Harry Stackpole, master tinsmith and panel basher. Harry was an ex merchant seaman with a dubious past, he leaned toward the lavender and was immortalised in the Manchester Guardian headline that ran “I never laid a hand on him, honest” (It was illegal then).

She was happy working at Foundry construction until its closure in the late thirties after it was found liable for the illegal use of low hydrogen welding rods containing arsenic that had been used on ducting installed at a hospital where several patients were poisoned. (No change there either) Out of a job and alone again she eked out a living by collecting coal eggs that had fallen from passing freight trains onto the railway tracks which she then sold from door to door. She was quite successful at this (Well no body was gonna say no was they?).

Doing the coal run during the day and working as a bouncer in the clubs of Manchester by night, over time Victoria managed to save a little nest egg. And together with Busta Jarvis a fellow doorman and boyfriend they rented the basement of a department store next door to the famous Listons bar and opened it as the now infamous Labia lounge. There is confusion about the intended name of the club. Busta suggested they call it “The VD club” but that was vetod. Victoria always maintained that she wanted the club named as homage to the frightful time her Mother had giving birth to her. It’s a matter of record that the signwriter was dyslexic, although the term they used in the sixties for this condition was pillock. In any case the name stuck and the legend of Victoria Dunwelding the Manchester Angel began.

Business was good for a time; the club became a popular haunt for the public, police officers, judges and the odd MP. Some quite famous celebrities were connected to this Manchester hot spot. People such as Johnny ‘Knucklehead’ Bailey the British heavyweight bare knuckle champion, Gloria ‘Those aren’t my drawers’ Gousei the glamour queen from Salford and Barry ‘Pigsick’ Barlow notorious henchman for the Tray quins who terrorised Ashton and Duckinfield for decades. Its rumoured that pigsick who disappeared in the late sixties is now an integral part of the concrete structure fondly known as the Arndale centre (Aka brick shit house) but this has never been substantiated.

The good times were not to last, for on the night of February the fifth less than nine month after its conception the club became a raging inferno. It was never discovered how the fire started, whether it was a carelessly thrown match, a cigarette left to burn or the deliberate act of a sick mind we will never know. Some believe it was a war between the Tray Quins who wanted in on the Labia and the police who always had a finger in Victoria’s Labia club.

One thing is sure, that night Victoria displayed amazing bravery, she fought her way through the inferno time after time to rescue punters trapped by smoke and flames. Carrying people two at a time on her shoulders she would take them to safety and return into the wall of heat to rescue more. She was burned terribly, but with great determination and total disregard for her own safety she saved the lives of over a hundred frightened and thoroughly pissed of, pissed up people that night.

After several weeks in the intensive burns unit at her old workhouse (North Manchester General) she found the courage to look at the damage to her face. What she saw in the mirror frightened even her. Gone were her cauliflower ears, gone was her pug nose, her squat face had ballooned out, her once squinty eyes were now just slits in her plug ugly face. Her coconut hair had been burned clean off leaving an angry patchwork quilt of red and purple scar tissue. But worse of all, Busta the only man who ever made her feel like a real woman and who she had tried to save time and time again before being forced back by the flames was burnt to a crisp in the gents toilet of the club and not enough of him could be scraped off the floor to hold a funeral.

She decided to leave England and her sad memories behind her and travel to Tibet, where in the foothills of the Himalayas she could live as a simple monk in a quiet monastery for what remained of her life. With a heavy heart and a truckload of salmon paste sandwiches she boarded a freight class aeroplane at what then was Ringway airport. And began her long journey to the Mashtup temple in Bangalot Tibet where she lived out the rest of her life in prayer and thought, surviving on handouts from local people friendly to the monastery (Mostly carrots to her dismay)

She died peacefully with Bustas name on her lips (What was left of them) and would have been buried in Tibet but the Head Lama complained that they didn’t have the room for her saying “Tibet’s not that big ya know”. He insisted her body be returned to England. Because of her disfigurement and the fact that she was returned to her native country via a long sea voyage (Cheaper than airmail) it was a closed casket do. A young cub for the Gorton and Openshaw reporter never having laid eyes on her dubbed her the Manchester Angel.

Victoria was laid to rest under the elder trees in Gorton cemetery on the sixth of March 1975. Nobody lined the streets for her funeral cortège; no one came forward to recite a eulogy for the Manchester Angel who saved so many lives that fateful night. Only two people attended her funeral, Sister Rosa Ree and a tall sallow chap with a gaunt face and a peculiar face tick who kept repeating “I didn’t have to come ya know”.

The small grey headstone bears these simple words. “Here lies Victoria Dunwelding spinster and part time door person. 1889-1975. It’s a piss poor tribute to the big woman with an even bigger heart who rests below it.

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I'v got it.

2007-08-24T12:40:00.000+01:00

I went to the Doctors this morning for my regular check up. He seemed surprised to see me which doesn’t really inspire confidence, He always looks tired and run down, so I usually end up asking him how he feels, suggest he gets some rest and eats properly, perhaps lose a few pounds.

The small talk over he takes blood samples, checks my blood pressure all the usual stuff, this time I had to take in a water sample. Nothing to eat or drink from midnight puts a strain on your mind even when usually you don’t eat or drink anything from midnight. It’s the fact that you cant that gets your goat, so without fail at the stroke of twelve the hunger pangs start and your throat dries up and swallowing is almost impossible.

I put the sample in the fridge whilst I shaved and showered. It went in as clear as a bell, but when I took it out it had undergone a drastic change, no longer a light straw colour it resembled an abandoned glass of old scrumpy cider from the night before. Dirty yellow with half an inch of sediment at the bottom, it had everything but leaves floating on the top.

Too late to do another sample, and anyway I was dehydrated and all peed out, so this Florida swamp water would have to suffice. As it happened its quite normal for that to happen I was told, and not being in the habit of carting bottles of pee around I have to assume he wasn’t lying just to make me feel better. The check up over and having passed with if not exactly flying colours, at least gently fluttering colours he asked if I had any concerns about my health.

As it happens I had, just recently I had been suffering from excruciating cramp that projected me at enormous speed from the confines of my warm duvet to a standing position on my bedroom floor. This could happen at any time of the night, and sometimes only walking up and down my landing for long periods would alleviate the pain. No problem he said with a smirk, I will prescribe some zinc pills that will put a stop to that. Its quite common among men of your age, (I hate that expression) nothing to worry about. “Anything else bothering you?”

“As a matter of fact there is” I looked him in the eye and brought my (Fox the Doctor) plan B into action. “Sometimes in the evening and occasionally in the afternoon, but so far never in the morning, I have had jumpy about legs”. His eyes dropped to my legs for an instant as if expecting them to jump about on cue. I had this mental image of a Russian Cossack arms folded across his chest in the squat position back as strait as a ramrod and upper torso not moving whilst his legs flung themselves about wildly in all directions, as I explained my symptoms.

He looked thought full for a moment as though he were wrestling with an enormous scientific problem that could save mankind from any future pain. “You probably have R.L.S.” My heart sank, R.L.S. oh no, not R.L.S. I’m too young, I haven’t lived, theirs a lifetime of experience waiting for me out there.
“What’s R.L.S.” I asked him not really wanting to know the answer. He began to make out my zinc prescription whilst he explained. Restless legs syndrome, “its very common among men your age,” (There was that expression again) “but usually just a change of diet will correct it. I wouldn’t complain too much” he said, your very active from the waist down for a man of your age. He laughed; I didn’t appreciate the joke, but laughed anyway.

I left the surgery a little perturbed that the upper half of my body was out of sync with the lower half of my body, but armed with the knowledge that I was now the proud owner of a Syndrome. I could face the girls at work who were always whinging about swollen feet, pmt, and girlie flatulence and hold my own with a genuine Syndrome. I wondered if I should limp to emphasise my syndrome, perhaps not, they will get the message when they see me making a will out and I ask them to witness it.

Miserable bleeder.

2007-08-22T14:06:00.000+01:00

I went to renew my car insurance yesterday. It's a bit of a pain in the arse because the insurance company I use has nowhere to park. It’s on the main road, which usually means a ticket, so that any money I save on using this company is offset by the parking fine. Stupid really but I still do it.

As I approached the desk a very lovely young blonde in a smart, almost strict two piece suit smiled and asked if she could do anything for me. I managed to smile back and keep what I was thinking to myself. I informed her why I was there and asked about an alternative policy to the one I already had. As I admired her spotless white blouse, which was attempting to escape from and threatening to spoil the cut of her well-tailored jacket, she said “One moment while I bring your account up on the computer”. As she tapped away with blood red manicured nails that exactly matched her lipstick she pushed one of her cheeks out from the inside of her mouth with a pink wet tongue.

She shoved an A4 form in front of me and asked me to fill my details in. As I wrestled with the cheap pen on a chain attached to the counter she walked over to a desk to get something and it was then that I noticed her stocking clad legs, yes guys, stockings with seams. Most guys are, and I know for sure that I am, a sucker for seamed stockings (On the right legs of course). My heart was in my mouth; other bits of my anatomy had rearranged themselves too. I was completely ready for my epiphany, when she came back; she leaned seductively across the counter and launched into her spiel.

At this point she could have sold me anything, and I would gladly have paid up, no questions asked. But she had to spoil it all by opening her mouth. This is what came out (Paraphrasing of course).
“At the moment yeah? you have the basic yeah? policy yeah?, its not upgradable as such yeah? but we can give you yeah? a discount on the time yeah? that you’re old policy yeah? Has left to run yeah?

My attention was diverted from her tits to her face, and the blood-racing round my frail body was diverted from where it had been to my ears. “I’m not sure what it was you said” She rolled her beautiful eyes and once again tried to communicate in what I can only assume is modern speak and an ever growing problem amongst young people these days.
“You’re old policy yeah? Only has a month yeah? To run yeah? So it can’t be upgraded yeah? To a new one yeah? You will have to take out yeah? A completely different yeah? Policy yeah? cos the limit yeah? On upgrading yeah? Is two yeh? Month ok? The ok came as a bit of a surprise in a landscape of yea’s

By using the word yeah every other word she had managed to ask eleven questions to my one, not counting the Ok which is itself, a question. I looked round for help, the place was empty but for her. Had it been a man and not an attractive young woman I would have called him a moron and walked out. As it was, the gentleman in me prevented my lambasting her inarticulation. That and the fact that I am a sucker for seamed stockings (On the right legs of course) and the base animal in me that can’t or won’t give up when my sexual hackles have been raised, stopped me from being rude to her. Instead I just said that I needed air and walked out.

Call me easily offended but it seems to me that inserting the yeah word between every other word when explaining something to someone infers (By the explainer) that the person it is being explained to is as thick as pig shit. And therefor one has to qualify that they understand fragmented sentences of two or more words before proceeding.

The only other explanation is that the misuse of the word yeah gives the user thinking time. Either way I’m not impressed not even when seamed stockings (On the right legs of course) are used.

You know it makes sense., don't you?

2007-08-22T12:37:00.000+01:00

I’m thinking of writing a book entitled “Chat up lines for women” I know there are plenty of books out there written by girls for girls, but think about it, I know what works for me.

Don't listen to me I talk shit.

2007-08-20T14:17:00.000+01:00

It’s always been a mystery to me why it is that people have for most of my adult life asked my advice about anything and everything. People who do the asking really do think that I have no problems whatsoever, I know this because they have told me at the time of asking for the advice. It seems I sail through life without a care. It’s not that I mind helping, but the responsibility lies heavy if they actually take the advice I offer.

Mostly they don’t, thank heaven, I have found that a request for advice is really a search for confirmation of their own ideas about what it is they should do and if what you say differs from what they think, they will look elsewhere for wise words. Usually its women who ask this old sage for a solution to whatever problem is troubling them, and the problem usually is a man. No surprises there, but a couple of weekends ago it wasn’t a teary eyed beauty whom I could have taken advantage of (Just joking) but a pal of mine who is probably the last person I would have thought would have had woman trouble.

He is tall, good looking, well dressed and a confident type of chap, so it was with some surprise that I opened my front door early Sunday evening to a distressed looking, stooped and thoroughly dejected looking, far from confident gibbering idiot. That it was pissing down didn’t help, he stood there soaked through apologising for bothering me on my day off, and as he spoke his voice wavered and hiccuped in that way young kids do when talking and crying at the same time. I just knew this was gonna be juicy.

I invited him in and gave him a towel to dry his hair; he rubbed vigorously for a minute or so, which left his usually neatly couffered locks stuck out in all directions. So eager was he to reveal his tale of woe to me that he left it uncombed and for the rest of the consultation my eyes kept wondering to the birds nest on his head. However as I didn’t want to interrupt his flow, I kept my mouth shut.

“She is ending it Dave, after two years together she is dumping me” I asked why, he tearfully replied “She said I don’t do it for her, never have. She said all these years she has pretended to be happy with our sex life hoping it would get better, but it hasn’t so she has found someone who does do it for her”.
I asked if she had ever tried to talk about it before now and try to work things out. He screwed his face up and said, “Nope, never, I always thought things were ok in that department. She was always verbally demonstrative when we made love”.

Do you know whom this new guy is I asked? Choking back tears he said “Yes, its some muscle bound bastard from the gym she goes to. I tried to placate him, your not exactly thin and weedy yourself old boy. He looked at me through ever more reddening eyes; “Well he has got far more muscle than he needs and besides, she said he had a bigger widji than me. (His words not mine) “What do I do”.

I looked at his sticky out hair and thought for a moment about offering to lend him mine, widji not hair but mercifully I bit my lip. Humour never helps when it’s a case of widji size; men can be very sensitive about this subject. I asked him what he said after she gave him the devastating news, “Nothing, I just walked out of the house and drove around for a few hours, then I came here”.

I asked him if he wanted the truth or just some kind words that would make him feel better, he opted for the truth. I stood up to deliver my monologue. “As hurt as you feel right now, spare a thought for the fact that she has lied to you for the last two years. She lied by pretending to enjoy your lovemaking, and I know that’s true for a lot of women, if only to spare the feelings of the one whom can’t perform to their satisfaction. But at least at some point most women will say enough is enough and bring it to the table for discussion, usually because they love that person and want to make it better. He wrung his hands.

She has also lied to you in that for her to know that Mr Muscles can perform better than you can, she would have to have tested the water so to speak to gain that knowledge. He winced. By allowing you to continue thinking that everything in the garden was rosy she has been underhanded and cruel, it occurs to me that she could possibly have held back on purpose waiting for someone like Mr Muscles to come along who could offer her what she wanted. I was in full stride now. In fact it’s a distinct possibility that Mr Muscles wasn’t the first time she ate out as it were. He winced again and wrung his hands.

Whichever way you look at it my friend she has thought of herself and not you, do you really want to live with a woman who can deceive you without a second thought for your feelings. She didn’t even spare you the humiliation of her thinking you a bad lover. She could have just said she had met someone else, but no she had to twist the knife. He grimaced as though the knife were being twisted as we spoke.

I paused from my verbal whipping of this cruel, woman and saw the very real pain in his eyes. You really love her don’t you? He sobbed. “Yes, what am I going to do”. I’m a sucker for tears, so I poured him a drink and asked again exactly what he had said when she gave him the news. “Nothing, I was so shocked, I just walked out”. Ok I said, that’s good, no need to backtrack. The house belongs to you doesn’t it. He nodded but said she had asked him to find a Hotel for a week or so until she could make arrangements.

Right, you go back, tell her that you are relived that she broke up with you because you have been trying to find a way to do that for months, but couldn’t come up with anything. Then you tell her, not ask her to leave and find herself a hotel, or move in with Mr Muscles who by rights should be prepared to house her as well as sexually entertain her. If she argues, just tell her that you have already informed your new girlfriend of the break up (The reason for your leaving so quickly) and she is even now packing her things ready to move in when you leave. He looked ashen, “But that will make things worse surely, I’m not sure I can do that”. You can and you will my friend, trust me it will work. After another drink and a great deal of trying to convince him that my strategy was faultless, he left hair still pointing in all directions to pursue his destiny.

At this point I have to admit that I thought it wouldn’t work, I know his girlfriend and she isn’t a pleasant type, without doubt he would be better of without her. So playing God and going against my policy of none interference I urged him to have the bollocks to dare it out and play her at her own game. Surprisingly he did have the bollocks, and surprisingly it did work, her bluff was called and she collapsed, after two nights away, she came back asking for his forgiveness and another chance to try again. My plan backfired.

He phoned last week to tell me the good news and I can only assume that she has gone back to her verbal acting in bed and he spends rather more time than he used to in front of the mirror inspecting his widji. Was I wrong? Well was I?.

All is clear.

2007-08-18T10:53:00.000+01:00

One or two people have asked how my Grandson Mark came up with the wombat-shit line in his poem “Death” in the “Little Laureates” post. Well I asked him yesterday and he said that he had been watching a wildlife program in which a vet was treating a wombat, for what I do not know. Anyway the wombat shit on the floor of the vets office and the vet complained saying “Chriky mate” (I assume he was Australian) that smells like a dead horse”. I looked at him “So the Wombat wasn’t dead, the horse was dead”. He nodded and rolled his eyes.

I asked him where he got the word excrement from, he said his teacher wouldn’t let him use the word shit, he changed it to poo, she wouldn’t let him use that either, she said he could use a laxative word. I couldn’t wait for this one; He looked at me as though I were a moron when I asked what a laxative word was. “It’s a language the Romans used in the olden days”. Mark slapped his forehead as if to say “at last the old farts got it”.

Marky finished his explanation, smiled and shook his head; there was obviously no hope for me. The Wombat thing, death by proxy I suppose. He carried on making his Birds instant whip satisfied that he had put me right, I carried on being perplexed.

Sparkle of Manchester.

2007-08-17T15:19:00.000+01:00

Iv been commissioned to build a web site for a new company in Manchester called “Sparkle”, they are a beauty treatment salon where the ladies can get their legs and bikini line waxed and any other area that can’t be got at with a razor (Shades of the last post). They perform manicures and pedicures as well as massage, tanning and teeth whitening. It’s a one stop shop for cleaning up your act as it were and I am having to learn new terminology for lady bits as well as being privy to some of the best kept secrets that women don’t keep.

Its amazing just how much there is to nail care, such things as Bio Sculpture gel, overlays and infills were before this week just scary words that women used when attacking a mans wallet. And who would have thought that the words fibreglass systems could be applied to nails. Sworovski crystal for example could be the plot of a new James Bond film for all I knew, but it seems it’s the now thing for teeth, and not just something you hang round your neck.

The head honcho has told me I can have 10% off anything in his salon, though what I could have done there is debatable. Still they do a rather good line in St Tropez sun tan spray. Yeah sounds good what with my new Goatee and bronze kipper, I will be getting nearer to Sean Connery, that should please “Kaz” and “the British bird”

Spot the difference.

2007-08-16T13:29:00.000+01:00

I normally wake up bright eyed and ready for the day. Well I definitely wake up, however this morning I felt like shit, sat on the edge of the bed for a while and mentally prepared myself for the knee bend that would propel me to a vertical position. I dragged myself to the bathroom, stood motionless for a few minutes doing nothing in particular. I decided to make some coffee that usually gets me going. I make a point of not looking in the mirror until after I have showered (Its not a pretty sight) for some reason after a nights sleep my hair looks like an explosion in a mattress factory, bed head isn’t the word.

The coffee did the trick, but I still couldn’t quite shake of the can’t be arsed feeling. After I shower I shave, I really didn’t want to go through that chore this morning so I decided to try the George Michael look, problem was I looked more like George Melley, so designer stubble was out. I would have to shave. Most men hate shaving, it’s a chore, and it’s boring. I wet shave in the morning and keep an electric razor at work to top up during the day. Weekends if I can get away with it I don’t shave at all.

Its ok for women they don’t shave unless you count running a little pink thing over the fluffy down on their legs whilst they are in the bath as shaving. And the other bits they attend to, well it’s just an excuse to practice one of their favourite pastimes, talking about, shopping for and using toiletries. It’s a girl thing and I get it I really do, but unless you are a male model farting about like that is not for real men. They just want to scrape the shit of their face and get down to a hard day of herding cattle, or fixing pipes or flying fighter planes and shit.

Some men have quite a light beard; mine is heavy and a bugger to get rid of. It can grow to uncomfortable levels even a couple of hours after shaving, which is fine for weekends when your fixing the car or just chilling out. But it is always a bugger when you are out on the pull. Invariably if you get lucky enough to spend the night, or even a short evening with a young lady, once you get close enough to see up her nose she will without doubt ask you to shave, complaining that your face is to rough. I understand, a beard can do untold damage to the fair skin of a woman, but some of them have sent me back several times to re-shave and I have complied. One girl asked me to re-shave four times. By the fourth shave I had gone completely of the mood and asked her to leave, politely of course.

There is one woman I would shave a hundred times and more if she asked me to, for just the conversation she would be worth it, but she won’t.

Little Laureates.

2007-08-14T15:26:00.000+01:00

Young Writers is the young people’s publishing imprint of Forward Press - The People’s Publisher.
Established in 1991, Young Writers has promoted poetry and creative writing within schools for the past 15 years by running annual nationwide competitions. Each competition results in the publication of a collection of regional anthologies showcasing the work of today’s schoolchildren. The British Library has over a decade of Young Writers collections in its national archive!

And my Grandson Mark has a poem in this latest publication “Little Laureates”. It’s a poem about death, morbid I know but they were given a list of subjects they could write about and Markey chose death as the best in the list. I’m not quite sure what the other subjects were about, but rest assured, if he chose death then they must have been boring.

This is the poem:

Death feels like dark beetles and caterpillars and spiders.
Death is like burning, blazing pieces of flames eating up your life.
Death tastes like dark pools of blood.
Death feels like fire burning your heart.
Death looks like a blazing fire burning down a forest.
Death smells like a dead wombat that’s left its excrement.

Mark aged 9.

Hmmm makes a change from Angels, harps and fluffy white clouds doesn’t it? Now if you are as alarmed after reading this as I was, then don’t be. Apparently according to a psychiatrist friend of mine (Well he said he was my friend) Male children almost always turn to the dark side of things to explain the strange and abstract. Where as the female child will for the most part look to the light for inspiration.

I have read the book and found similar types of poems by boys and lovely fluffy poems by girls, so the content bears this out. What I want to know is at what point during his young life did he come across some dead Wombat shit.

Well done Mark.

Who ate all the pie's.

2007-08-13T16:35:00.000+01:00

The weekend turned out ok although the fireworks promised by the annual Perseids meteor shower failed to impress me. It was cloudy on and off so not great weather for shooting star watching. I was going to cut the grass to but rain prevented that thank god, besides had I done so I have no doubt that my new neighbour with the baldy Tefal head would have been out again trying to bond with me. He is one of the despised sleeveless coat brigade. The day after he moved in I saw him replacing a single screw in his garden shed door. He had one of those buff coloured leather toolbelts that the Americans are so fond of. He must have had a hundredweight of hardware hanging from that belt and all for just one screw that took him three minutes to replace.

God knows why he has picked on me I must be the least likely looking do it yourselfer on the planet. I would rather let someone else do it. On the occasions that I have tried to do it myself I always come unstuck. Like the time I decided to do it myself armed with a huge crowbar to pull the front off a four by four at work. The bar slipped, smacked me in the face, loosening teeth and causing several cuts to lips and conk, and this just two days before flying to Canada to meet a gorgeous young lady. It’s not easy trying to charm someone when your face looks like a baboon’s arse.

Being lazy has its drawbacks, like today I shot myself in the foot because I couldn’t be arsed going to the shop for something to eat. I’ll explain, last Friday week there was no kitchen staff on, so the girls went to the butty shop on two occasions and didn’t ask me if I wanted anything. I was a little upset that they didn’t think of me and admonished them whilst they stuffed their fat faces. I was pretty good, I even convinced myself that what they had done was unforgettably hurtful. Then Saturday they did it again, they hung their heads in shame afterwards. So to rub it in further this afternoon I popped my head into their office to ask if they wanted anything from the butty shop, only to find them tucking into pies and sandwiches.

I did a Victor Meldrew and said “I don’t believe it” they looked sheepish and said sorry, but I dismissed them saying I have to go out, Back later. I drove to the butty shop, ordered two bloody great meat and potatoe pies and sat in my car to eat them. This way I could make them feel worse than they did by letting them think I had nothing to eat. Rotten aren’t I? Well it backfired, shortly after I returned to the office Helen went to the kitchen and made me a meal, a quite big meal. I had to eat it or she would have been offended, eventually I got it all down and she smiled at the clean plate I had left.

Happy that she had redeemed herself she went over to the education unit to relieve Christine (We are short staffed due to holidays) who on leaving the education unit went to the butty shop to get me something to eat. She returned with a meat and potato pie and a steak and kidney pie, plus a jam doughnut the size of a dustbin lid. She plonked them down on my desk saying, “There you go, you must be starving poor boy”. I looked at the food and felt a familiar shift in my stomach region. She sat herself down at my desk and told me she would keep me company whilst I ate, I had no choice but force down, and look like I was enjoying this latest pile of grub that was threatening to burst my guts apart with every mouthful.

My skin was stretched like a kettle drum across my abdomen and I feared I was going to lose the lot, but I managed to keep it down although I’m not moving to far away from a toilet until I’m sure its not gonna blow like a volcano.

Well that’s what happens when you are deceitful and lie, have I learnt my lesson? Have I buggery.

Jackson Pollock.

2007-08-11T16:07:00.000+01:00

Jackson Pollock the biggest piss take of modern times,if not of all time, talk about the kings new clothes.

Just another day.

2007-08-10T13:05:00.000+01:00

Its Friday again, last working day of the week for some. Remember the days when the only thing that kept you sane was the thought of that big fat wage packet that was shoved into your hand on a late Friday afternoon. And the thought that later on after a hurried tea and a bath you would be taking part in the age old custom of leaning on a bar trying to look cool, or displaying your latest moves on a sticky dance floor?

Those were the day’s ehh? You could keep track of your money then; you knew to within a penny where you stood. These days it’s in the bank. Out of the bank, other people have control and all behind your back. For all we know whilst we sleep there could be hoards of people utilising our money to make yet more money and sunning themselves in the south of France on the profit they make, after putting our pittance back of course. On reflection I think that is what happens, oh well easy come easy go.

No, Fridays are not the same anymore; there is no run up to the weekend for me. Just the same old drudge that makes one day run into another. My life is bereft of fiscal landmarks. I mourn not only the Friday wage packet, but also the dreadful feeling on waking up Saturday morning after a night’s shenanigans and rummaging through my pockets to find I only have four pence left, that and a lump of chewing gum wrapped in an unused condom.

Going out isn’t the same anymore, where once you could strut your stuff and play the mating game, now the best that you can hope for is a booty call from a female friend as desperate as you are. I paint a glum picture I know but its not really that bad I suppose. Trouble is though the years take their toll on the body, the mind is as agile and as gutter based as it was when bursting through puberty and ready and willing to accept any sexual challenge thrown its way.

Oh well youth is for the young, it’s a bleeding waste though they have no more idea what to do with it than I did when I was young. Life is a separation of the two most important components that make up the ideal sexual gig. On one track you have, youth, energy and strength. On the other track you have knowledge, technique and experience. Both are travelling in different directions, for a brief moment they cross each other’s path and it all comes together brilliantly. But before you know it one is behind the other and getting further away with every passing day.

Friday’s motto: Don’t waste your time looking back, because you have missed the bleeding train.

Gobble,gobble,gobble.

2007-08-09T16:34:00.000+01:00

I drove over to Huddersfield last night to take my Grandson to stay with my ex-wife for a week, it’s a treat my daughters children look forward to in the school holidays. They take it in turns to drive the old bat round the twist for a few days. In return she buys them sweets and drags them round charity shops where they buy yet more junk for my Daughter to trip over when they take it home.

I’m not fond of going to see the wrinkly one. She insists on making me mounds of turkey sandwiches, I think she buys it in cheap just after Christmas and freezes it. What I don’t eat during the visit she will wrap in foil with another mound she made for the journey back (Just in case I get hungry) or to eat the day after for my dinner. She is fond of cats, which I am not and has several, plus there is always a batch of kittens somewhere waiting for owners.

She has an annoying habit of remembering the great times we had when we were married, I used to tell her that I couldn’t remember any great times, but it was pointless arguing with her, she just rattles on regardless. So I just fill my mouth with turkey now and sit through it for as long as I have to. Another annoying thing she does is try to offload the crap she buys at these charity shops. Now I know you can pick some bargains up at these places for quite reasonable prices, one or two people have told me about the great deals they have acquired. But my ex seems to be on a mission to get as many bad deals as possible.

Last night she smiled brightly and said “Oh wait, I have something for you, your going to love this, you always said you wanted one of these” she disappeared into her crap cupboard and emerged with a scruffy looking bacon slicer. She held it aloft proudly “Well, didn’t I say I would get you one and it was only ninety pence”. I had a gob full of turkey which I nearly choked on trying to get down because I was going to piss my sides, It took a while to swallow during which time her smile grew wider and she waved the bacon slicer around like a magicians assistant.

During the short interval that I was choking the turkey down everything I wanted to say went through my mind. Like: I have never asked you to get me a bacon slicer, the words bacon slicer have never passed my lips before today. And: it wont slice bacon because it doesn’t have a handle to turn, and even if it did it still wouldn’t slice bacon because it has no blade. And who needs to slice bacon these days, it comes already sliced.

So wide was the triumphant smile on her face that I couldn’t bring myself to deflate her obvious joy at having at last got a small foothold into my life again. It was difficult not to laugh; it was even more difficult to subdue my sarcastic side. But without doubt this latest purchase had made her happy, so I thanked her and put it into the bag with the other crap and the hundredweight of turkey sandwiches she had made for my journey home.

I found it difficult to sleep last night, I tossed and turned for hours, eventually I gave up trying and went downstairs for a drink and a turkey sandwich.

The Boggart and the one legged pigeon.

2007-08-08T15:41:00.000+01:00

I worked late last night trying to catch up on things and as a result spent some time with Paula a young lady who worked here several years ago and has come back to answer the phone for a few hours in the evening. I had forgotten how fast she could talk, I got bugger all done of course but I was brought up to date on the last three years of her life and all in two and a half hours.

It was a balmy evening and the sun still shone as I pulled out of the car park to start my journey home. There was little traffic at that time of the day and for once a quite relaxing drive. Being of good mood despite my encounter with the sleeveless one earlier in the day, I decided to take a detour and go the scenic rout. This took me past fields and parks and I realised that I hadn’t sat on a park bench and enjoyed nature’s ambience for years.

I was only five minutes from home as I passed Booth Hall Hospital, which is just across from Bogart Hole Clough, I decided, as this was my last chance of greenery I would stop and enjoy this oasis of nature in a flat and grimy Manchester. I parked my car in the hospital grounds and walked across the road to the clough. In its day this area of Blackley was a Mecca for the posh and well heeled residents who lived in large Victorian houses sat atop the hill overlooking the park.

The clough is so named because of the Boggart – a mischievous imp who is thought to plague with mischief any person who stays in the Clough at night. This legend has never deterred the drug dealers or joy riders who find it an attractive haven for their nefarious activities and can be seen promenading at various times of the day, but mostly at night. I walked the long path that ran parallel with Charlstown road. Eventually I found a bench overlooking a large ravine that boasted a burnt out car and a large park information sign whose message was all but obliterated, apart from the words “Bonga MJ rip is wickid take it out man” scrawled in red paint.

I sat down and wondered what this place must have been like in its hey day. Sadly those times are long gone and what once was picturesque walks, sweeping hills and dells enclosing a placid lake have been replaced by sports areas, cycle paths, tennis courts and of course the famous oil drum collection considered by many to be a form of art. It was quiet and only the sound of a bird coughing every now and again and the odd scream from the hospital across the road broke the silence.

The sun was low over the trees and cast long shadows over a wardrobe and a fridge missing its door, which had been dumped. But the bright orange rays augmented the warm teak of the wood and made bright the shiny bits of the fridge so that they shone like jewels. As I marvelled at this marriage of nature and man a pigeon with a missing leg hobbled past and looked at me accusingly. It stabbed its beak at the ground pointlessly. I had nothing to offer apart from some digestion tablets that were minty with just a hint of fruit; I rummaged in my pocket but before I could get them out the bird had half hopped, half jumped over to the bushes. It’s not easy taking off with only one leg, but it managed it only to flutter to the ground some way away.

It was not my sudden movements that had frightened the bird but the sound of a power saw coming from the old people’s home on Charlestown road. I looked behind me through the trees at the dark gothic building that loomed large on the hill and housed blackley's ancients. The darkening sky was lit with bright orange and red sparks from the power saw which silhouetted the rooftop, every now and again a light as bright as magnesium would illuminate the sky making the chimney pots look like grotesque horses heads. It was rumoured that the inhabitants of this home for the slack bladdered were ringing cars to supplement their meagre pensions. But I couldn’t see it myself, although word on the street was that many a joy rider that dumped a car on the Clough would find it gone if he went back for another spin.

The wind blew gently through the Clough separating blades of grass and worrying fallen leaves into a gentle dance, I decided it was time to go before the cruisers and fallen women arrived to start their nightly business. I walked slowly up the long path that led to the hospital entrance and as I climbed the trunk of a fallen tree that barred my way, I noticed out of the corner of my eye movement in the bushes to my left. I sat on the trunk and waited, there was a glint of something in the undergrowth. I could just make out a pair of eyes watching me. Neither of us moved, it was a battle of wills, my arse had just about gone numb when the eyes flashed and from the bushes emerged a scruffy looking cat with my friend the pigeon in its mouth.

As I crossed the road to return to my car I was almost knocked down by a wild haired lunatic riding one of those mini bikes with the annoying whine who had careered round the corner in a reckless attempt at evading the police car following him. He jumped the pavement and disappeared through the gap in the trees I had used earlier to enter the park. I can only hope that the Boggart got him.

Everything but the sleeves.

2007-08-07T16:02:00.000+01:00

Have you noticed how those friends of the earth type old farts who wear sleeveless jackets covered in pockets and zips, are know it all buggers, why do they need so many pockets, and why do they invariably wear a turf trilby with them. One such person accosted me in Asda this morning as I was reading the back of a packet of instant dumpling mix. “Rubbish, I say its rubbish that stuff, cant beat dumplings made the old fashioned way”. I looked at him and sighed, “Really, well these da……”, he cut me off. “Huge great dumplings my Mother used to make, huge they were, she could hardly get em in the pan they were that big”. I smiled and muttered something about the good old days as I walked away. He caught me up, “Your wasting your time with that stuff, get some suit and flour, make yer own. You will probably only get a couple of piddling little dumplings out of that”. He poked my packet as if to emphasise how insignificant its contents were.

At that point my Daughter came up to me and asked me to help her with the milk, she buys great quantities of milk every week and it weighs a ton, I was glad for the chance to get away. My relief was short lived however when the sleeveless guy caught up to me in what passes for the auto section of Asda. I have been meaning to change my wiper blades for months now but always found something else to do instead. As I read the back of the packet of wiper blades to make sure they were correct for my car, the sleeveless one intervened. This time he actually snatched them from my hand, “Waste of money pal, they ought to be crucified for charging that price. Absolute robbery, get yerself down to the nearest Amoco garage, they got them there for three quid, fit any car they will”.

I didn’t want to lose it this morning. I usually do when shopping at Asda that’s why I hadn’t gone in the café for my usual cold coffee and underdone toast, Its also why I drove there quietly and well within the speed limit ignoring the manic antics of other road users. I didn’t want to lose it, and so far I had done quite well. But the guy in the sleeveless jacket was threatening my good intentions. I looked at him and said, “I think I will thank you” and walked away resigned to going through another couple of months peering through my windscreen when there is a downpour.

I sighed with relief as we neared the toiletries section, the last part of a fortnightly trip I am beginning to hate, I pottered around whilst my Daughter went of looking at clothes. I enquired at the counter as to weather they sold replacement heads for my electric razor. They did but at the moment had none in stock. I turned to walk away and found myself looking into the sleeveless ones face. His eyes inches away from mine, screwed up with eyeballs darting left then right, He said in a secretive whisper “Don’t buy em from here mate, the ones they sell are copies, not the real thing, you will be cutting your own throat”. He laughed; I caught the reek of half-digested food and un-brushed teeth. “That sounds like an attractive idea” I said through clenched teeth.

The last stop was the photography thingy place where you can get snaps from your digital camera printed, then we made our way to the checkout. The place was heaving and all the checkouts had a queue as long as your arm. A young girl opened up another station and my Daughter and I made a beeline for it, we were quick, but not as quick as the sleeveless one who came from nowhere and just gazumped us. Too late now, it was put up with him or wait in longer queues. I should have killed him in the dumpling isle and spared myself the frustration of having to wait twenty minutes whilst he argued that the price he had been charged for sixteen boxes of chocolate lollies was wrong. “Four for a fiver” he kept saying “Four for a fiver”. The checkout girl checked and rechecked his bill, explaining that the till was right, but he wouldn’t have it, various members of staff arrived to try and sort it out, and all the while we waited.

Even faced with this farce I kept my cool, but my Daughter lost it, loudly pronounced him a F**king idiot, she dragged all her provisions from the conveyer put them back into her trolley and marched off to another checkout point. I was beginning to shift from one foot to another, the telltale signs were there, sweating palms, hot around the neck, fists clenching and unclenching. I could stand it no more, I butted in, “How much is the difference, I’ll pay it for gods sake”. The check out girl looked at me and said in a tiny voice “One pound ninety eight”. I opened my mouth to roar at him but the checkout supervisor who had come to sort things out wisely controlled the situation and told the young girl to charge in the idiot’s favour.

The flustered checkout girl handed the idiot his receipt and change, he took the receipt, but refused the money saying “I’m not bothered about the one pound ninety eight. But it’s the principle of the thing”.
The supervisor, the checkout girl and myself stood with open mouths as he cheerfully made his way out of the store. I started to laugh, I couldn’t help myself, it was reminiscent of that scene in Stir crazy where Gene Wilder looses it on first entering prison. I could have killed the sleeveless bastard but he had skidaddled.

I need a break from Asda, I know its only once a fortnight, but it seems impossible to negotiate that place without something going wrong, I might give Morrisons a chance next time. At least I will meet a better class of idiot.

The Gratuitous pic at the begining is merely a vehicle to keep male surfers interested if they come here by accident.

A spot of corporal.

2007-08-06T09:33:00.000+01:00

School days can be heaven or hell, depending on your outlook and the people whose charge you were in from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. We used to have an hour and a half for dinner in those days, more than enough time to fart about on the old army camp next to the school, or find out if the rumours about Miriam Hardcore were true.

I was a bit of a rebel, not a troublemaker, I had respect for teachers, but I did like to question them given the opportunity. When I was at school your future was very much in the hands of the teachers; they could make or break you. I don’t doubt that the majority of them became teachers because they wanted to influence and guide young minds and equip them with the basic tools to forge a good and happy life for themselves. The reality though was that too many of them had these good intentions worn out of them over time and the burning need to impart knowledge to inquisitive minds was replaced by the overwhelming desire to strangle the little bastards.

I found very early on that the more cynical teachers made snap judgements about the kind of kid you were simply by looking at you. Mrs Greenhalsh the English teacher for instance took one look at my half-mast pants, unpolished shoes and unruly hair and decided I was an imbecile with no worth. On our first meeting she decided that I was unteachable and therefor I was to be tolerated and no more. It took only a few lessons with this woman for me to realise that I had a better command of the English language than she did, her grammar was atrocious and her spelling was at best suspicious.

Things came to a head one-day during a lesson in pronunciation, despite hailing from Bolton she would insist on speaking with a very bad BBC announcer’s voice. She would often break of from whatever subject she was teaching to applaud the way people spoke down south. One young chap who had stood up to recite his essay to the class was viciously berated by this harridan for pronouncing the word “Bath” hard. “Down south we say Baaaarth, not bath you cretin. The chaps eyes grew smaller, his head dropped and he stood there beaten.

I knew I was going to get into trouble, but I couldn’t help myself. I stood up and said “I’m sorry Mrs Greenhalsh but if you ever do go down South, you will find that the word is pronounced Baaaaarf”, I sat back down to stunned silence, everyone looked at me. Some of the kids started to giggle, but they stopped when a red faced and fuming Mrs Greenhalsh pushed her way through the desks to get at me.
I found myself being dragged by my ear to the classroom door and shoved outside, most of what she said to me was unintelligible, the only thing I took away from that exchange was a great deal of spit and a date with the headmaster after the lesson.

The headmaster was a man you either hated or loved; he could be calm and pleasant or volatile and nasty depending on what your business with him entailed. He had an air about him of a man constantly under pressure trying desperately to maintain his cool. He called the girls ladies and the boys gentlemen, in private he called us the little bastards The fact that he resembled Hitler put a lot of people of him, but he and I got on quite well despite the odd occasion when he administered corporal to me. He would stride around the school, hands behind his back inspecting everything and everyone he passed. Often he would snap out general knowledge questions to keep you on your toes, and would be visible disappointed if they were answered correctly. I remember having to make one last visit to the school after I had left for good to return some library books and to pick up my leaving certificate.

He invited me into his office for a chat and we spent a good half-hour discussing my future and sucking Bon Bons. He informed me that as far as he could remember I was the only pupil who had answered all his questions correctly, and that it had become something of a challenge to him to catch me out. He shook my hand warmly and wished me luck in the future, as I was about to close the door he fired one last question at me. “Oh by the way can you tell me who wrote Black Beauty” I made a pretence of thinking very hard, scratched my chin and said “Anna Sewell Sir” He shook his head and smiled.

Break time found me on the carpet in front of the headmaster’s desk listening to Mrs Greenhalsh telling him what a hateful and disrespectful boy I was. She embellished her tale of the incident with lies, and threw in some unnecessary insults for good measure. While she ranted the headmaster looked at me with an expression that said “Are you sure you have the right boy?” Her assault went on and on until eventually the head put his hand up and told her that he would deal with me and she should retire to the staff room for a cup of tea.

She glared at me with hate in her eyes, turned to the headmaster and said, “The strap will knock that chip of his shoulder”. Again I couldn’t help myself, looking straight ahead I replied “There may be gravy down the front of my shirt, but my uniform is otherwise bereft of foodstuffs”. Up until that point I may well have got away with it, or at least just have to suffer a couple of hundred lines. But my calm and dignified response to this woman’s venom was proof positive that I had indeed transgressed earlier and my fate was cast.

I had given the head no alternative but to administer corporal punishment, six of the best on the hands and my solemn promise that I would in future keep my smart arse remarks to myself. I didn’t of course there were other episodes when I crossed teachers and was made to pay for it. The good teachers, (and there were many) made up for the ones who for one reason or another failed to engage children in a way that encouraged the learning process. I take my hat of to Teachers likes Mr Walmsley (Chemistry and Physics) Mrs Sidebottom (Biology) Mr Hanley (Arts and craft) and others who enjoyed imparting their knowledge to us over the years.

For those that are interested, the rumours about Miriam Hardcore were true.

No news is good news.

2007-08-03T10:16:00.000+01:00

When I left the house yesterday morning I was bathed in glorious sunshine, I made a mental note to finish early and get some serious sunbathing done in the back garden. I like to relax now and again, drink a tin or two and just spend time thinking. I hadn’t gone far when I saw a bloody great black cloud the size of the Home Counties slowly making its way toward Manchester like the mother ship in “Independence Day”.

Typical, oh well scrub mental note and don work mindset instead, not easy to do when you hate work, well not hate it but it gets so boring. Hardly anything happens at Karting2000 which is why I wasn’t looking forward to updating the newsletter. I sat in the office staring at the walls desperately trying to come up with something that was mildly interesting. I thought about making something up, but you always get found out, unless of course you’re a tabloid newspaper then you can lie through your eye teeth and get away with it.

I decided to join the smokers outside in the sun, which had made an appearance again, I sat on the grassy knoll outside in the car park listening to them moan about being second class citizens because of the smoking ban. The sun was glorious again, it was warm, and bees were buzzing around the flowers under the trees. Time slipped by but try as I might I couldn’t think of anything even remotely newsworthy.

I called a mini meeting with Christine and Helen in the office who are supposed to have their fingers on the pulse so to speak and begged them to come up with something, anything even remotely interesting that I could perhaps pad out a little. They promised to get down to it and said they would get back to me ASAP. Well they didn’t, so I came up with something myself, gave them both a copy, asked them to check it for factual mistakes and left them to it.

An hour or so later I went to back to collect my copy and asked them what they thought, “Mmmmm very good, well done” said Christine whilst stuffing a bacon sarni in her mouth. “Yes, like it, knew you would think of something,” said Helen not even looking up, too busy with her MP3 player. “You think its ok then, not too far-fetched”, I looked her right in the eyes. “No, no its great, straight to the point, informative good news letter material” she lied.

This is what I had written:

Booking clerk Helen Moor disclosed today that she will never dance again after a horrendous accident involving a fork lift truck, a low loader with spectacle lift and a fully dressed Christmas tree. Speaking through tears after a double big toe amputation she said. “It was my own fault”. I was dazzled by the bright lights and as I stepped back to admire my work I tripped on the spectacle lift the guy had dropped to get a better look and before I knew it I had been forked from behind”. A spokesman for the hospital said that “the toes had been sheared off at the knee, Helen underwent several hours of micro surgery on both toes which were successfully re attached, but to the wrong legs”. When he was asked how that had happened the spokesman replied “Hey, it was a Friday, a busy day for us, unfortunately we only had one hit at this so we cant swap em back”.
Helen is currently on sick leave recuperating at home and spends most of her time looking through shoe catalogues. We wish her luck.

Police were called into the track earlier in the week to investigate the disappearance of two cases of black puddings and a case of instant custard from the pit-stop café. There were no signs of a forced entry, but despite inconclusive evidence they arrested Christine the office manager who was the only person with a key and who has a history of black pudding abuse going back to her days as a butcher in the merchant navy. “This has to be an inside job,” said the detective leading the case, we have sent a blouse with suspicious yellow stains to the lab for analysis, along with a black pudding knife discovered in the suspects pencil drawer. Bail has been set at fifty pence; friends are rallying round and hope to come up with the money before the trial date.

The managing director is still trying to get to the bottom of a mystery that has saddened us all. Shaking his head in disbelief at an emergency meeting held today with all employees, he demanded to know who it was that had left a log the size of a small dingy in the gents toilets. This is no accident he remonstrated, this was a wilful act of deficitus terrorism and I mean to root it out. The whole affair stinks of an inside job and my nose tells me the gents were targeted to throw us off the scent. It’s rumoured that the MD and the police are getting their heads together on this one.

Just shows you how much notice they take of me, I have a good mind to post it on the website.

Long live the King.

2007-07-31T15:26:00.000+01:00

Apart from pulling my balls out at work, fixing friends computers and giving advice and comfort to vulnerable women who have reached a watershed in their relationships, I manage Eric Summers. Eric is an Elvis impersonator and tribute artist.

He is good too, actually he is very good, far better I have to say than many of the Elvis tribute artists around these days. Most think that all they have to do to become the king is to don a white jump suit, grow their sideburns and snarl sentences like “Aha, Than yu vary much and whoa moma”. Eric on the other hand has closely studied hours of video and film, listened to hundreds of the Kings recordings and spent more time in front of a mirror than Paris Hilton.

One of the sad things about most Elvis impersonators is that they actually think they are Elvis. It’s not so much an impersonation as a way of life, which is fine if that’s what you want but embarrassing for everybody else. Once at an Elvis convention/competition in Blackpool I was stood with a group of Elvis’s (Very bizarre) and they were trying to outdo each other, good fine healthy competition you might think, but some of these guys were talking in real life like Elvis. It didn’t stop when the competition was over, they spoke to everyone like that, competition organiser, hotel staff, taxi drivers, I even saw one mini king try to chat a girl up at the bar saying “Hi baby, I’m the King ya wanna be my queen”. Her reply? “F**k off tosser”.

Sometimes when people phone me to ask about Eric’s availability they ask, “Is that Elvis” I used to answer “No I’m afraid Elvis is dead, may I help you”. I stopped that though, inevitably they would be incensed that I had mentioned Elvis and death in the same sentence and waffle on for hours about how the king was not dead and never would be whilst he still had millions of enduring fans. Some even believed that he was still alive and resting somewhere free from the bustle of the entertainment industry. They didn’t hesitate to let me know either, but we have all heard of that before, many sightings of him are testament to that fact.

I sort of get it in a way, he was a one off and very unique which is one reason I suppose for his continued popularity, and if you cant have the real thing then why not the next best, an Elvis impersonator. Or as most prefer to be called Tribute artist. The latter gives it an air of authenticity that the former could never have. But at the end of the day whatever you call it, the King is dead and if he lives it’s in the hearts of his many fans world-wide who recognise what a great man he was.

Mostly True Stories: The Power of the Pussy

2007-07-25T16:49:00.000+01:00

Mostly True Stories: The Power of the Pussy

Split infinitive.

2007-07-24T18:29:00.000+01:00

I’ve been informed that I “split infinitives”. Face, bothered. I also “compound split infinitives”. So!

Billy Fish.

2007-07-24T17:28:00.000+01:00

I read with sadness the other day that a member of one of the oldest families in Manchester Billy Fish, was sent down for yet another gaol term, this time he received four years for burglary. Apparently he broke in to a coppers house in the early hours, filled his burglary bag with everything valuable he could find, then discovered a Sony X-box near the TV. He had always wanted a Sony X-box. The smooth, sleek feel of the handset felt good, the graphics were superb, and the loud zapping sounds as he bumped of aliens gave him a feeling of power. He should have waited until his nights work was done and the safety of his home before playing on it though. The pops, bangs, and whooshes coming from the telly plus his excited cries of “Have it you bastard” woke the copper up and he duly read him his rights.

You might have no sympathy for such a villain, but a life of crime was always on the cards for Billy, who incidentally came from a long line of Billy’s stretching back to well before the first war. His dad was called Billy, and his Dad before him, in fact the first Billy of any note was his great grand dad who is reputed to have introduced spring clothes pegs to Lancashire in the early nineteenth century. He was very well thought of in washing circles until it was discovered that he had stolen the idea from a Gypsy woman who he married in order to keep her mouth shut. But she was a strong willed girl and set up on her own selling pegs house to house. She undercut her husband, but then don’t all wives. The result of this unhappy affair was that he had her incarcerated in a lunatic asylum just outside of Salford.

He came to a sad end himself after a very nasty accident demonstrating a turnip peeler he had invented to a group of interested housewives at the Great Exhibition of 1851. There was to be an inquiry but the place burnt to the ground before they could inspect the peeler, rumour was he had nicked that idea too.

His oldest son Billy started work as a delivery boy for the co-op and had great expectations of rising through the ranks. After showing great promise he was promoted to biscuit sorter, then became a butter cutter and was well on his way to becoming manager of his own branch until it was discovered that he had been forging dividend tickets to line his own pocket. After a spell breaking rocks he settled in Glossop and eventually found work at a dye works as a vat stirrer. Though he died fairly young he was described as a colourful character by his workmates and the best dad in the world by his oldest son Billy.

Billy Fish the third was in and out of trouble all his life, but his father wanted him to learn a trade and as soon as he left school Billy was indentured as a trainee rivet thrower at the great Beyer Peacocks engineering factory in Gorton Manchester. He made good progress, learned quickly, by the time he was twenty one had risen to the dizzy ranks of riveter. He made good wages for the day and spent a great deal of his money on sharp suits and shoes, which endeared him to the ladies. Sadly for Billy his dandy days were over when some bright spark invented the electric welding set. Riveting was a thing of the past and nothing turns a girls head like bright lights and welding goggles.

With the outbreak of the Great War Billy saw a chance to redeem the family name; he tried to join one of the pal’s regiments but was turned down because of rickets. He argued with the recruiting sergeant that his bow legs weren’t that bowed, but the sergeant wouldn’t have any of it and told him that he could never make a good soldier with his pins, or a goalie for that matter. Billy turned once more to crime; bitter at his failure to enlist he took to raiding the offal works in Longsight late at night with a local hardnut Jimmy the wig. By day they would hock pigs belly and tripe in the taverns or at the local steelworks where black pudding was a great favourite and always in demand. By night he stalked abattoirs and slaughterhouses stealing the innards of cows and sheep.

Soon these establishments of death got wise to Billy’s late night prowlings. On the day that the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1918, Billy was hung at Strangeways prison for the vicious beating to death (with a sack of pig’s trotters), of a savoury duck roller who had started his shift early.

Billy had never married but had fathered a son to a local harlot called Vinegar Kate. Although Billy would never officially recognise the little boy as his, the family traits were all there, bright red hair, one ear higher than the other and a singular disregard for the results of his actions. When young Billy, (for that surprisingly is what he was called) was warned not to talk to strangers, he immediately went looking for a stranger to talk to. After an all night search he was found shivering and cold tied to a railway line in Trafford Park, by a Badger hunter. Who came across him as he wound his way home after a night of Badger hunting in a neck of the woods that hasn’t seen Badgers since Roman times I believe.

This unfortunate episode scarred Billy for life and was according to psychiatrists the trigger for the anti social, sometimes psychotic behaviour that he displayed throughout his life. He was in and out of institutions after the Badger incident and never spent more than a few months out of gaol. He did at one point look like becoming a model citizen after meeting and falling in love with the delightful Tracy Cumthorp a tyre fitter from Leeds who had settled in Manchester just as the Beatles were wowing the world. They met when Billy took a getaway car that was to be used on a job at the weekend for a tyre to be fitted. He had been given the money for a brand new tyre, but Tracy who was emediately attracted to Billy let him have a part worn for half the price.

He took Tracy to the pictures on the money he had saved and thus began the only good thing in his life. They married and he stayed out of trouble for a while, but the repercussions of buying the part worn tyre came fifteen years after their only child William was born. After returning the getaway car to the gang who were pulling the job, Billy told them he was going straight and wanted nothing more to do with crime. Unfortunately as the gang left the bank they had just robbed and dived into the car the tyre deflated and hampered their getaway. They were all caught, and sent to the big house for twenty years, on the very day that they were released from gaol a special party was held for Billy at the old iron foundry in Beswick. His body was never recovered but it is believed that he suffered unimaginably at the hands of Black Bob a seven foot two iron smelter from Failsworth. Who after shredding Billy's poor body with the tools of his trade, stuck it in a sack and weighted it down with oven dross, before tossing it into the river Medlock.

No one is talking so we will never know, but legend has it that every year at midnight on the anniversary of Billy’s death, his ghost can be seen searching scrap yards for part worn tyres. True or not one thing is sure, the event had a traumatic effect on William the fifth who at the tender age of fifteen on hearing of his fathers disappearance vowed to make society pay for this cruel turn of events.
To this end he committed every crime imaginable at some point or other and although not a very bright lad the fact that he was caught every time made no difference to him at all.

Which is why according to the Manchester evening news he was discovered in the early hours of Saturday morning drinking a can of lager, eating a huge pork pie and playing Alien commander on an X-Box whilst sat in the owner of the house’s favourite chair.

The copper was reported to have said “We don’t go looking for crime, but if it comes our way then God help the bastards”.

Eunice & Roger.

2007-07-23T11:50:00.000+01:00

In the nineties I made several trips to hospital with my gall bladder, not that I could have gone without it but I was rather hoping that I might have left without it. One particular visit was due to the migration of several gallstones, which had blocked my pancreatic duct causing inflammation of the pancreas.

I suffered the embarrassing condition of jaundice which turns you bright yellow, makes you smell of iodine and gives your eyes the distinct look of pickled onions (In malt vinegar of course). I was too ill to have the operation to remove the thing on that occasion so the doctors concentrated on making me fit enough for the operation at a later date. *(See Legless and Bloodied.:December)

Actually I was quite ill, all that day I had been in a fever and hallucinating, at one point I was convinced that the house was shaking free of its foundations in an effort to fling itself into outer space, crazy really but infinitely more entertaining than the telly. My ex wife pleaded with me to let her call the doctor, but I would have none of it. I owned a TV and Video shop at the time and was convinced that the fever would pass allowing me to open for business as usual the next morning. How wrong I was, when it was obvious that I was near collapse she phoned the doctor anyway, whom when she arrived took one look at me and phoned for an ambulance.

I don’t remember much about her visit, but apparently I demanded she hand over her bag of tricks so that I would administer succour to myself. When she quite rightly refused I told her to “bang a needle in me woman or get out”. I remember nothing about the trip to hospital or being admitted my next lucid memory was of waking up the next morning in bed on a mixed ward at Manchester general. Which is how I came to meet Eunice and Roger.

Eunice was in the next bed to me and was the first person I spoke to that first morning, my fever had passed, as had my gallstones, but I was still very weak. As I opened my eyes the high ceiling with its suspended lights came slowly into focus and the familiar hospital odour of stale disinfectant, vomit, rotting fruit and lanced boils filled my nostrils.

“You do look a funny colour, do you know you glow in the dark? Even after they turned the lights out I could still read my book by you” Then she laughed, her laugh was infectious, and despite my pain I laughed too. You just had to with Eunice; it was half giggle half guffaw, but very gentile. She was in her late sixties but still a handsome woman and when she laughed or smiled, which was often, the evidence that she had once been a stunningly beautiful woman could be seen even by a blind man.

I discovered that Eunice had been in and out of hospital many times over the preceding three years undergoing several operations that had taken a heavy toll on her body. Despite this she maintained her sense of humour and could manage a joke even when in great pain. I only saw her cry once, not for herself but because a young chap on the other side of the ward had been told he had inoperable cancer.
He was devastated and inconsolable at the news of course, but he put a brave show on for his wife and kids when they visited. After visiting time was over and the quiet night came he could be heard sobbing softly behind his curtains. Eunice spent many long hours in the darkness sat on his bed comforting him, and even on one occasion made him laugh, she was that kind of person, selfless.

She lived in a cottage in Cheshire with her husband Roger, who had been in the airforce, whilst she had been a teacher and attributed her youthful outlook on life to the diverse nature of the thugs she had endeavoured to enlighten down the years. (She did say this with her tongue in her cheek). Once when we were talking about her years teaching she told me that every now and again she came across a child who actually enjoyed learning for learning sake and not as a means to an end, which made it all worth while. She often spoke about those years and when she did her eyes sparkled, she looked wistful and I could tell she was in another time. It was obvious that she missed teaching.

Roger was a tall still handsome man with a handlebar moustache and a military bearing; he made the trip to the hospital twice a day to visit Eunice and was always the first to arrive and the last to leave. They greeted each other as though it had been years since they met, and when it was time to leave the goodbyes were always long and I could see that parting if only for a few hours was a painful experience for them both. They were after many years together still very much in love. It was obvious even to a cynic like myself. He touched her often, would hold her hand and stroke it, gently tracing its contours with his fingers. He would brush her hair for her whilst they chatted and if she fell asleep during a visit as she often did he would sit in the large chair at the side of the bed and look at her. He would hold her hand and sometimes quietly hum a tune as though he were singing a lullaby to an infant.

Because of the nature of my ailment my diet was less than luxurious. Hospital food isn’t up to much at the best of times but the grey stuff that stuck to the plate and refused to succumb to knife, fork or spoon was vile tasting and shot through my system at the speed of light. So I had the only boiled sweet I ever liked sneaked in by my ex. Foxes glacier mints, good for the digestion, make your breath smell fresh and have the edge over other mints not least because they don’t have a hole in the middle, plus they are individually wrapped so its easy to tell if someone else has been sucking them before you. Call me a snob, but I know what I like and although I am not fond of sharing my favourite mints I made an exception in Eunice's case.

I was repaid a hundred fold some weeks after we had both been released from that happy asylum. Eunice and Roger paid me a visit at the shop and plonked a large confectioners bottle of Foxes glacier mints on the counter announcing that they had finally booked a holiday to the one place that Eunice had always wanted to visit, Venice. “When we come back you must come and stay the weekend with us and I will tell you all about Venice” she said excitedly. I told her I would love to, and stay I did, several times. Visiting these two lovely people was a holiday in itself, I was made to feel very at home and although we had only been friends for a short time, it seemed like I had known them a lot longer.

On my last visit Roger and I sat in the garden on a beautiful summer evening drinking Old toms ale and chatting quietly whilst Eunice had a nap. He told me that she was becoming very ill, the doctors felt that there was nothing more that they could do for her, another operation would finish her off so they had suggested a hospice. Eunice and Roger had discussed it but she decided that she wanted to stay at home, that way all the available time they had left would be spent together.

I left the next morning with a parting joke from her, it was the last time I heard her laugh and the last time I saw her alive. As I drove out of the driveway I waved and took one last look in my rear view mirror, the smile had left her face and she was leaning heavily on Rogers arm as he helped her inside.

I had been due to visit again a month or so later, but I received a phone call from Roger politely asking me to leave it for a while longer as Eunice was very ill and not up to visitors. I told him not to worry about it and concentrate on getting her better. I was a hollow suggestion we both knew she didn’t have long to live, but it seemed the right thing to say.

Three days later the phone rang, it was eleven o clock at night and I had just locked the house up ready to go to bed, I could hear Roger sobbing “She has gone, I don’t know what to do, what do I do?” I tried to calm him, he asked if I could possibly come down to the cottage. The drive down took longer than normal because of the conditions, there was a storm raging and the rain made it all but impossible to see. As I drove I tried to think of what I could possibly say that would console him. In the hour and a half that it took me to get there I came up with nothing.

The funeral was poorly attended; they had no relatives to speak of at least none that were talking to them. When I enquired about this he just shook his head. Back at the cottage we sat in silence for a while, every now and again Roger would relate some tale about Eunice and laugh as he remembered, but it was a thin laugh with no conviction. I could tell he was in great pain. Then he told me an extraordinary story.

We were childhood sweethearts, we lived in the same street, went to the same school, grew up together. We were inseparable and miserable when not together. As we grew up and became young adults we knew that we wanted to marry and spend our lives together. But our parents were dead against it, Eunice was packed of to university and I joined the RAF, but we found ways to see each other. When I had leave I would travel to Manchester and stay in a B&B to be near her and when she could she would travel up to the base to be near me. It was like that for years until we finally got a special dispensation to marry.

I was confused but let him carry on. We decided early on that it would be best not to have children, it was a hard decision to make and sometimes I wish we could have had kids, but we had each other and that was the most important thing. I didn’t matter that our families had disowned us as long as we could be together. I told him that I found it hard to imagine that they couldn’t have forgiven them after all these years. They wanted nothing more than to be together, was that such a crime? I asked him.

He looked at me uncertainly and replied, it is if you are cousins and we were. It split our families in two and caused a great deal of pain for them and us. Times were different then, it cast shame on our families, and people were not as tolerant as they are nowadays. None of them came to the wedding and that’s why there were only friends at the funeral today.

I saw Roger on a weekly basis after the day of the funeral, he returned to Venice to scatter Eunices ashes from a bridge and made several trips to Europe. He was lost without his wife, and went rapidly downhill finally succumbing to pneumonia less than a year after she died. He was buried with his beloved wife. There were rather more people at his funeral than at Eunices, relatives in fact. Its amazing how they come out of the woodwork when there is a sniff of money to be had. But they were to be disappointed, there was no money, the cottage had been sold in a deal that let them carry on living there long before Eunice had died. The money paid for their trip to Venice and days out here and there. There was also the conversion to the cottage that helped to make her last months more comfortable.

There had been no formal will as such, just instructions to their solicitor, in any event nobody who had shunned them in life, benefited from them in death. Nearly two years after Rogers death I received a parcel accompanied by a short letter of apology from their solicitor for the delay in delivering a large confectioners bottle of Foxes glacier mints.

Hears to Eunice and Roger who lived a real love story.

Girl Vs Dog.

2007-07-19T12:07:00.000+01:00

I was reading some of my old posts yesterday and it seams that the most exciting part of my day is usually the drive in to work in the morning. Today was no exception and it made me think about people’s values and priorities.

I had just filled up with petrol at Manjikes garage and was waiting for a gap in the traffic to join the main road and continue my journey. On the opposite side of the road there were two people who were definitely in panic mode. A woman accompanied by three Dalmatian dogs on leads, and a rather rotund chap wearing a white and orange hooped top (Does my belly look big in this) in charge of two vicious looking Alsations and a tiny terrier type animal with a bow on its furry head.

The terrier had made a break for freedom and was excitedly running in and out of the way of traffic as it progressed in the same direction as the man but at rather greater speed. He was huffing and puffing, shouting after the dog “Primrose, Primrose you bad girl” and waiving his free arm around displaying a very wet armpit.

The traffic was of course slowing down; nobody wanted a tiny terrier with a pink bow stuck to his or her wheel. But once out of the way of the dog the cars carried on their way. As I approached the killing field I dutifully slowed down just as the little bleeder ran into the road again. Watching all this was a woman holding the hand of a delightful little girl with fluffy hair decked out in a splendid summer dress.

She was of course entranced and obviously worried about the little furry animal dicing with death, she did what any entranced child would do, before her mother could stop her she wrenched her hand free and darted into the road to grab the dog.

I was going slowly enough to be able to stop, but the lunatic overtaking me at speed obviously wasn’t, nor could he see past my car and therefore was oblivious to the drama unfolding in the middle of the road.

Your heart is in your mouth now isn’t it, what do you mean no, it should be.

The rotund chap in the garish top had handed the dogs leads to his female companion determined to end this dangerous state of affairs. He saw the little girl run into the traffic, he saw the dog laughing its bollocks of, and he saw the maniac driving at speed bearing down on both. To the tune of chariots of fire he sprinted (Well as fast as a fat bastard can sprint) in front of my car pushing the little girl aside and heroically grabbed the dog out of harms way.

He banged on my car bonnet and glared at me through the windscreen. He was only able to do this because my vehicle was stopped, so how he could lay the blame at my feet I cannot imagine. I got out of the car and grabbed him by the head; I turned his pathetic shaved eyebrowless head toward the little girl who was now thankfully back with her Mother. I can’t remember exactly what it was I screamed at him so I will paraphrase.

“You mindless F**king bastard, you made no attempt to grab that little girl, you F**king pushed past her to get to that F**king poof F**king dog. I should shove the F**king yapping little F**ker up your F**king fat arse.

I can be quite colourful when I want, the little girl thought so too, she turned to her mum and declared “That rather good looking chap in the smart fashionable suit who looks not unlike George Clooney is swearing mummy”. Ok so that last bit was a lie, but she had noticed my language and was informing her mum, however mum was already on her way to where fat bastard and I were stood. Not to admonish me for my expletives but to land a hefty slap to the side of fat bastards head.

I cant say I blame her, in his misguided attempt at saving the dog rather than the human being he had knocked said human being over, therefore doing more damage than probably any car could have done.
As she continued to berate him for his arse upward priorities I returned to my car and carried on my journey. It just shows you how pathetic some people can be when it comes to animals. I like animals but if the choice is man or dog, man wins every time.

The producers of this blog would like to inform you than no animals or children were harmed during the writing of this post.

Well. well, well.

2007-07-18T14:50:00.000+01:00

So, spring onions are so called because of the time of the year at which they appear and not for their ability to regain their original shape after being stepped on. You learn something new every day.

Road to hell.

2007-07-17T13:31:00.000+01:00

I was a little fed up last night for no particular reason; sleep evaded me so I decided to go for a drive.
It was around three-o clock in the morning that I found myself on the outskirts of Manchester wondering why I had bothered. Not for me the solitude and tranquillity of that chap in the advert on TV who goes for a night drive whilst Richard Burton charms him with his silken voice banging on about plumbers, hotel porters and various tradesmen sleeping happily whilst he enjoys the pleasure of an uncluttered road.

One thing for sure they didn’t film that in Manchester. Gone are the days when everything stopped at midnight. Time was if you were seen on the streets after this time the police would stop you and enquirers would be made as to what it was you were up to. No, these days go down any street in Manchester at four in the morning and it will be like a Saturday afternoon in the city centre.

Its not just late revellers winding their way home either, I saw a young woman with a baby in a pushchair dragging a toddler along. Further along the same road I narrowly avoided running down a couple of pensioners struggling with a huge potted plant who without looking suddenly decided to cross the road after walking seven or eight yards past a pelican crossing.

During the hour and a half that I was out I saw three hitchhikers, one of whom was a young woman who should have known better than place herself in that situation. There were various groups of youths (I hesitate to say gangs) lolling around, some looking I thought very suspicious. I lost count of the cars driving about with headlights and rear lights extinguished, and there was one very dodgy looking geezer carrying a hold all who kept furtively looking over his shoulder as he stopped at various buildings and shops giving them the once over.

Far from it being a pleasant lonely drive in deserted streets with time to reflect on the meaning of life. It was more reminiscent of the taxi drive that Kurt Russell took with Ernest Borgnine in “Escape from New York”. Still there was one or two quiet moments, notably the time I spent warming the car up before I left the house, and the time I spent allowing the car to settle after I arrived back home (Twin turbo, you have to be gentle with these beasts).

My drive in to work this morning was only marginally more dangerous than last nights adventure. The time I spent waiting behind wheelie bin collecting lorries or crawling along behind those annoying little flea like vehicles that sweep the streets nowadays made me wonder why common sense doesn’t prevail. In most states of the Americas this kind of public function is performed after midnight when there are less people about. But then most people in this country would want a small fortune in unsociable hours pay to even think about it.

Sylvias knickers.

2007-07-13T11:51:00.000+01:00

Sylvia was a girl who sat opposite me in junior school; she was pretty with braided blonde hair and she had a haughtiness about her even at the tender age of eight. Her parents were Scandinavian and were always travelling somewhere or other, at any rate they weren’t seen very often. She endured my school only for as long as it took her parents to find somewhere more academically suited to her higher social class. I suppose all us kids came from the wrong side of the tracks to them, trouble was both sides of the tracks in Gorton was the wrong side.

Be that as it may, we were a happy band of ragamuffins ever ready to help each other for a price. That’s not as mercantile as it sounds, I’m talking sweets, marbles, a ball maybe or a catapult, all the usual junk that you might find in a kids pocket were bartering capital to get what you wanted. Some of us were more adept at this than others. One such chap was Billy Wrexham; he looked like the kid out of the Lassie films, was a great favourite with the girls and could charm the birds from the trees.

I was very fond of looking at girls knickers in those days, I still am only nowadays I don’t lie on the floor pretending to have tripped in order to look up girls skirts. Even as a kid I knew that there was more to girls than skipping and giggling, and that they would play an important part in my future. But for the time being I was content to admire and continue to take the skin of my knees playing my childish game.

For some reason I was besotted with Sylvia, whose aloofness only served to drive me to distraction, she wouldn’t speak to me and barely looked my way. But she was all over Billy bloody Wrexham, who made it obvious that he wanted nothing at all to do with her. So I formed a plan, Billy told me that she kept trying to kiss him, he would brush her aside of course and run away smartish, but she persisted. Now Billy had admired my football boots, and why not? They had been endorsed by Stanley Mathews the greatest footballer of the day.

I offered Billy a deal, all he had to do was kiss Sylvia in exchange for a look at her knickers, I would give him the boots, he would relate the experience to me and everybody would be happy. Sylvia would get her kiss, Billy would get the boots and I would find out (all be it by proxy) what her knickers looked like. This all sounds pervy I know but I was only a kid and second hand information was better than none I reasoned.

Billy put the proposition to Sylvia who told him that in addition to the kiss she would require some chocolate, she was fond of chocolate. So now I had to find some chocolate, Billy certainly wasn’t going to stump up a bar of five boys (Sylvias favourite chocolate bar) even Stanley Mathews boots weren’t worth that, and a kiss. The exchange was set for the next day after school, I had to think fast and I did; however I didn’t think sensibly.

I paid a visit to my cousins house in the next street, whilst there I knicked her skipping rope and then left to look for someone fool enough to swap them for the price of a bar of chocolate. A fool was soon found (Girlie Pete) and the chocolate along with my precious boots was stored in my school satchel ready for the next day.

Right about now your thinking the plonker is getting in deeper and deeper, and you would be right, this was just a taste of what lay in store for me later in life. Women equals trouble always has for me and I suppose as long as I breathe always will. The next day in school my eyes were never of the clock. It had become something more than just a means to an end. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with the information when I got it, but it was important that I got it.

The school bell went at four-o clock and everyone rushed out of the gates to go home, Billy and I hung back and I gave him the currency to complete his mission. We were to meet later near the church on Gorton lane where he would relate what he had seen. I stood there for some considerable time. He didn’t show. Eventually I dragged myself home. There waiting for me was three sets of irate parents, there had been five sets of irate parents, but Billy and Sylvias Mum and Dad had left earlier after reading the riot act to my parents about what their children had been up to at my behest.

I received the first clip round the earhole from my aunt whose daughter I had stolen the skipping ropes from, my cousin seemed to take great enjoyment from this, I suppose I couldn’t blame her.

The second clip my quickly reddening earhole received was from the mother of Girlie Pete who had given me the money for the chocolate in exchange for the stolen skipping ropes, and who now had to give them back. He smirked as the blow landed. (I made a mental note to beat the shit out of him at the first opportunity)

The third and forth clips were delivered to my beleaguered earhole by my Mother and Father respectively. I was just glad that I had got there after Sylvia and Billy’s parents had gone otherwise I would have been forced to change earholes. I was given the bollocking of a lifetime, sent to bed and threatened with fifty years confinement to the house and no spends.

I lay in bed that night earholes throbbing like mad and thought well at least tomorrow I will get to find out from Billy what Sylvias knickers looked like. I approached Billy during the first playtime break and said in an expectant voice “Well, what was they like”. He carried on nonchalantly probing his conk and said “nufink special”. I growled at him “Waddaya mean nufink special” satisfied that his nose was empty he stopped picking “they were boring, just white and no pockets, cant have anyfink good in em wiv no pockets, so I didn’t look any more”.

I was devastated, incredulous, flabbergasted, you bloody fool I thought, nufink bloody good in em cos they had no bloody pockets. All the frustration and anger at the loss of my boots, the cauliflowering of my ears and my fifty year house arrest burst from me and I launched myself at this nose picking dimwit. It took two teachers to drag me off him, both of whom were shocked and surprised at the behaviour of a normally quiet and respectful boy like me.

I still mourn the loss of my boots and for some considerable time I continued to wonder what exactly it was Billy had seen that day. I was cured of the latter many years later after being stopped at the door of a night-club by a huge female bouncer who enquired as to my name. When I told her she said “Hiya Dave its me, Sylvia, I remember you from school” I nodded politely and entered the club. As I passed she called after me “See yer inside for a drink later” I thought oh God I hope not, she might offer to show me her knickers.

Spinning Bob.

2007-07-11T13:52:00.000+01:00

One hot summer day after finding the park packed to the brim with kids and all the swings and roundabouts occupied with a queue as long as your arm waiting their turn, my little gang decided to do a spot of Mig jumping. When I say gang I don’t mean as in a group of young thugs with ouzies dealing drugs and committing drive byes, we were only around seven or eight years old. No, in those days it was little more than a group of bored kids from the same street whom always pal’d out together. We did have a name though, “The Black Hand Gang” there was a serial on the radio at the time and so we called ourselves after the gang in that. The problem was that every street with a little gang did the same thing, it was a popular program. I’m sure in these days of police intelligence (Now there’s a contradiction in terms) their inside information would lead them to believe we were legion and ready to take over the streets.

Hardly that, we were just looking to have fun in the summer break. The gang consisted of my brother, Turnip, Silly Sid, Spinning Bob, and myself. Turnip was my best pal and was so called because of his very ruddy complexion. Two thirds of his face was the colour of beetroot, and his hair wild at the best of times, frequently formed a tuft on top of his head much like a coconut. Wearing a school cap was impossible for Turnip; any attempt would look like a plate spinning on a stick. Until his Mother came up with the idea of sewing a chin strap onto his cap, Turnip was impressed with this and used to wear the strap just under his bottom lip like policemen did with their pointy helmets. Sometimes we would turn our school caps back to front, especially when playing at fighter pilots; this would of course give us a streamlined look and enhance the pretend factor immensely. This manoeuvre was impossible for Turnip because of the chinstrap, when he did attempt it the strap would have to be positioned behind his ears which pushed them out and made him look like Dopey, one of the seven dwarfs.

Silly Sid was as I have mentioned in another post a collector of nails and screws, what he didn’t know about nails and screws wasn’t worth knowing. He was also our armourer; Sid was good at making guns out of bits of wood, but his forte was bows and arrows. He would sit for hours in his dad’s shed, tongue licking his lips furiously in concentration as he designed yet another super bow or arrow.

Spinning Bob derived his name from the fact that he rarely walked anywhere, at least as you or I would walk. He was incapable of walking in a straight line because of his compulsion to spin. When it started nobody knew, but spin he would, sometimes quite fast. He had that trick that ballet dancers use when pirouetting of keeping his head still until the last second of the spin and then whipping it round ready for the next turn. You mustn’t think that his spin was in any way sissy or arty farty because I used the word pirouette. Bob was a boys boy for sure and his spin was very masculine, the determined look on his face, his clenched fists and the sparks that flew from his hobnailed clogs as he spun about his business, left you in no doubt that Spinning Bob was in no way girlie.

His Mum and Dad despaired of him, going to the shops with a spinning kid wasn’t that much of a problem, nor was his trip to and from school. But family and social occasions could be a bit of a bind, trying to explain to people why your child behaved like a Whirling Dervish must have been irksome for them.

I asked him once why it was he spun, he said he didn’t really know, but whilst he was spinning he felt safe and that everything was correct. When sat down he behaved like any other kid, fidgety, yes, restless, yes, when sat or prone the need to spin disappeared, But the moment his feet were supporting his body he felt the overwhelming compulsion to revolve at sometimes quite alarming speed.

So that day my happy band of little pals decided to go Migging, or Mig jumping. A Mig was a small three-wheel vehicle with a pointy front and one headlight that despite its size could pull some considerable weight. They were used to pull huge trailers that carried sacks of maize and flower from the mill at the top of our street to where I do not know. But for the short journey down the street and up to the main road they travelled very slowly, we would take advantage of this by running alongside and hopping on to the trailer, then hop of just before it reached Gorton baths. Then we would go back and wait for another one to pass and repeat the exercise, much to the consternation of the driver.

Despite being warned by mill owner, Drivers and our parents that this was dangerous, we ignored their advice and thought it great fun. That was until this particular day when the local park was choca block, and we had nothing to do. We had all jumped several migs successfully, all but Spinning Bob who thought spinning more important than our game. However as the last Mig of the day left the mill on its way to who knows where, Bob decided to have a go.
The Mig turned out of the mill and crept slowly down the street, as we prepared to jump it Spinning Bob whizzed past us spinning furiously. He adjusted his speed to that of the Mig and for a second I wondered how he could possibly haul himself onto the trailer whilst in the middle of a major spin. Then suddenly he stopped spinning; his momentum with nowhere to dissipate itself projected his spun wracked little body under the wheels of the trailer. There was a sickening crack as his leg broke in two places. The Mig driver stopped and raced out of his cab, we all went over to Bob to try and help. Bob just sat up and looked at his leg with a strange grin on his very white face.

We were all in trouble of course, all our parents had a meeting to decide what to do, but that didn’t matter really, we were more bothered about our pal who had been taken to hospital. I didn’t sleep much that night, my brother and I had been sent to bed after a stern telling off. I cried for my pal whom I thought was going to die, every time I closed my eyes I could see him spinning towards the Mig, and hear that awful crack of broken bone over and over again.

As he sat grinning at his broken leg that afternoon something strange had happened. The fact that his leg was turned backward on itself and legs that point in different directions are not usually conducive to good spinning was second to the fact that an event deep within his brain had triggered something that completely wiped out his compulsion to spin.

He made a complete recovery but spent the rest of the summer holidays in a wheelchair with a cast on his leg. He told me he didn’t remember the accident, he also told me that he knew he used to spin, but couldn’t remember why he did it. His parents were happy his spinning days were over, I think he was happy he didn’t get any more flack for revolving at speed whenever the fancy took him. But I missed Spinning Bob, it was just another constant in an ever changing world that was cruelly dragged from my comfort zone kicking and screaming and helped hasten my race toward adulthood.

Ahhh Well.

2007-07-11T10:56:00.000+01:00

Why don't good guys ever win.

F**k it why bother.

2007-07-10T16:55:00.000+01:00

The main Asda in Bradford opposite the Manchester stadium is a truly wonderful place; It’s where I do my shopping every two weeks. This morning was shop day, most visits I call at the café for a drink and something to eat, but not any more. Cold coffee, toast only done on one side, dirty cutlery, meals that look nothing like the adverts for their food, indifferent (Fat) staff, small portions (Which is probably why the staff are fat) and an inability to take any constructive criticism.

And how could I not mention Asdas tendency to allow nasally challenged, stuttering Yugoslavian rap artists speaking at the speed of light to make announcements over the tannoy.

There, I think that’s it.

Frustration.

2007-07-09T12:17:00.000+01:00

Kerry came round yesterday for a couple of hours, refusing to join my Daughter and I for Sunday dinner because she is on a health kick at the moment, dieting, using her running machine and going swimming twice a week. She looks good too; slim, curvy and tanned she has taken to wearing quite revealing clothes. Nothing ostentatious of course she has more style than that, but certainly the kind of feminine come hither with a faint promise of something more kind of apparel.

The fact that she kept sticking her arse in my face and shaking it at every available opportunity didn’t help. The woman is a tease and whilst it was just a bit of fun, it was both pleasant and frustrating. She had had her hair done too and it did look very nice, her new colour and hairstyle suited her and normally I would have commented on how nice she looked (I’m like that) but I abstained on principle.

She was flirting and driving me round the bend on purpose knowing full well that I was powerless to do anything about it. Not that I would of course, I am always a gentleman, but there was a great deal of gnashing of teeth and uncomfortable shifting around in my chair. I am trying to think of a good way to get her back, but so far have come up with nothing. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

The day before yesterday I was behind a police car for about a mile, during which time he drove erratically, had to break hard because he was too close to the car in front and made several turns without using his indicators, and he wasn’t chasing anybody! This morning on the way in I was rounding a bend when one of those huge police incident vans came at me from the other direction on my side of the road. The driver was steering with one hand whilst talking on his police radio which he held in his other hand. The policeman in the passenger seat had his feet up on the dash and was smoking a fag. Definitely a case of one rule for us, whatever rules they want for them.

Keep it to yourself.

2007-07-06T13:54:00.000+01:00

A friend called round the other night for a drink and sympathy, she got the drink but very little sympathy. Its not that I don’t care, I do, but we have these conversations at least once a month.
And its beginning to wear a little thin, she will sit there sometimes crying, sometimes just angry and relate yet another tale of woe from her catalogue of sexual adventures that she considers to be genuine relationships.

For some reason she is convinced that granting sexual favour to any bloke she encounters will guarantee her a long and lasting meaningful relationship. Despite my educating her to the ways of men and despite pointing out that she has been disappointed time after time, she insists on doing it her way.
Now this would be fine if she were to realise that a booty call is just that, a booty call. And if she must invite men home after a night out clubbing then expect no more than a kiss on the cheek before he goes through the door in the morning.

“Men are all bastards” she wailed. “I phoned that Kevin up at work and when I told him it was Sandra, he said Sandra who and he had only left that morning, The bastard“ I told her that women could be bastards too, being a bastard is not gender specific. We are all capable of behaving badly given the opportunity and the excuse, and inviting someone home for a night of sex does just that. It couldn’t be plainer, your not saying, “Get to know me, come to like me” and perhaps take the relationship further. Your saying “Lets go to my place for a bonk”.

I don’t think she really listens, her latest escapade involved a night out where she met Kevin and after a few drinks and a totter round the dance floor they made their way post haste to her house. The inevitable of course happened and whilst she was still lighting a post coitial fag he was having it on his toes through the door, “Which he didn’t even shut” she complained.

I do have sympathy for her, I really do, she is a nice person, has a great personality apart from her promiscuity (Who am I to judge) and is a very pretty some might say desirable woman. But when she ignores advise by people to be a little less outgoing shall we say, and allow a relationship to develop before trusting her virtue (What there is left of it) to a man, she still she makes the same mistake over and over again.

She calmed down a bit, wiped her eyes and took a sip from her drink, “I need a hug” she simpered. I moved across and gave her a hug, “Why can’t the guys I meet be more like you?” she said. I freed myself from the hug and returned to my seat, “Perhaps if you were to actually look for someone with the qualities that you find attractive, rather than just going for the nearest bloke, you might have more luck” I said a little desperately. I say desperately because I knew what was coming next, and she didn’t disappoint me.

“I don’t want to go home, can I stay the night” she bit her lip. I hate it when women do that, my resolve melts, but this time I managed to fight it. “Yes you can stay, as long as you don’t mind sleeping on the couch” She wasn’t happy, I could tell, but it would hardly have been right to take advantage of the situation especially after reading the sexual riot act to her.

When I woke up next morning I decided to make us both a hearty breakfast, take the day of and treat her to a ride out into the country. We could have a meal at a country pub and perhaps I could explain things to her in a gentler way than I had the night before. But she was gone and the bitch left the door open.

Changes.

2007-07-02T11:51:00.001+01:00

Little Mark isn’t so little anymore; he plays first flute in the school orchestra. He is something of an artist too he sketches and paints at every opportunity; he has a great eye for form. Scot is also a budding musician, he plays the clarinet in the same orchestra as Mark, and when he isn’t practising you can always find him kicking a football. Sweet little Kelsey loves Fairies, Princesses and all things pink. She has a special drawer where her most precious possessions are kept. This weekend after much crying she was finally persuaded to consign the pink top that Calalin had sent her, to her special drawer; she has grown out of it. All things change little girl.

Brave little soldier.

2007-07-02T11:28:00.000+01:00

When I was a kid I lived in Roseberry Street in the heart of Gorton, life was simple, you ate, you slept, and you played. Winters were spent round a roaring fire in the hearth planing for Christmas, and the summer was a time to play with your friends. Dodging Migs* from the mill at the top of our street, drenching each other with the hosepipe they used to swill out the mill yard, exploring strange new places or just playing like the clappers in the hot sun as kids do.

Making throwing darts from lollypop sticks; nails and black pitch from the roadside was a popular pastime for boys. Girls of course did sissy things like reciting silly rhymes whilst jumping in and out of skipping ropes or playing hopscotch. I would occasionally sit on the kerbside pretending to be interested in what the girls were doing but it was just an excuse really to catch a glimpse of knickers so that I could tell the other boys what colour they were. There was a little song that went with this pastime; I can’t remember it now but if anyone knows how it went please comment.

Making throwing darts was an art; first you had to plead with your mum for the money to buy a penny ice-lolly so that you could use the stick. As I said darts were popular and the sticks were at a premium in and around my street. If you found one abandoned in the gutter you were lucky. For flights the more dextrous of us would use pigeon feathers, the more kack handed used the cardboard from a cigarette packet. A suitable nail, not to big, not too small could be acquired from silly Sid who had a huge collection of nails (Don’t ask me why) he had an equally large collection of screws too, and without missing a beat could reel of information about any screw on the planet. The last and most important item was pitch (Road tar) this ingredient held everything together and was also the means by which the dart was weighted correctly.

The pointy end was pretty simple, just a nail held there by pitch not too much though or it wouldn’t set, later more pitch would be added to balance the dart. The flights were a little trickier; the stick would have to be carefully slit along the length for about and inch. Then a blob of pitch each side was allowed to set so that the stick wouldn’t split any further. The pigeon feathers were cut to size and weaved together at right angles, then carefully slid onto the stick, after which a blob of pitch to seal the end was added and allowed to set.

Flight feathers were trimmed, more pitch was added to balance it and the dart was ready for its maiden flight. The park was our favourite test pilot area because the ground was soft and wouldn’t damage the dart too much. However the parky* who rarely left his little room attached to the summer shed (See storm) would be out like a shot chasing us off at the slightest hint of airborne activity. So most of the time we were relegated to the croft at the back of our house. The ground was well worn and hard there from years of kids using it as a playground.

One Saturday morning found Geoff from across the road, my best pal Turnip and my brother and I gathering all the components to make darts. The best pitch to be had was from Crossly Street so after acquiring a goodly supply (Most of it stuck to our clothes) we all set about the ancient art of dart making. All that is except Geoff, who couldn’t make a dart to save his life, He wouldn’t admit that though, instead he would forage for pieces of slate that he claimed could be thrown further than darts and were more accurate. I offered to make him one, but he told me to shove it, “My slate will beat your darts anyday” we were about to find out.

We erected a target at the end of the croft and took turns trying to hit it, my Brother, Turnip and I with our darts and Geaff with his collection of slates. We were all getting near the target except for Geoff whose slate missiles curved through the air like Frisbees and went in whatever direction they pleased. It was my turn to throw again, my beautifully made dart sailed high into the air then gracefully arced downward on its way to a direct hit on the target. I threw my arms into the air and shouted a triumphant “Yeeeeeeessss” as it hit the target bang in the centre. To the shouts of “easy, easy, easy” I ran to retrieve it and as I bent down to pull it out. I felt a stinging pain above my left eye, everything started to spin and I became dizzy.

Everyone became quiet as I stood there with my hand on my forehead, blood oozing through my fingers and running down my arm. Geoff in exasperation had thrown a slate, which had buried itself in my forehead. I pulled it out and ran home as fast as I could. Meanwhile the others were hastily getting rid of the evidence, whilst Geoff began to scream like a banshee imploring God not to punish him for killing me.

My Dad wrapped a towel round my head and took me to the family doctor a few streets away, he told me that I looked like an Indian wearing a turban. Indians wearing turbans were a bit thin on the ground in those days so I asked him what they were. This gave him the chance to reminisce about his army days spent in Deli in India with the Lancashire Fusiliers, “Six VC’s* before breakfast son” was one of his favourite sayings when he got on to that subject.

The surgery was empty when we arrived so I was soon sat on the doctor’s table having my wound prodded and cleaned, which smarted a great deal. “Hmmm looks pretty nasty that” the doctor prodded my head some more. “It’s going to need a stitch,” he said. “Trouble is, don’t have any anesthetic around at the moment” He prodded my head again, “So you can either take him up to the hospital or I can do it here without, Might hurt a tad”.

I knew what hurt meant, that was scary enough but what the hell did tad mean. My dad looked at me and asked, “What do you think lad, here or the hospital” they both waited silently for me to speak. What should I do? drag my dad all the way to the hospital or brave the pain of one measly little stitch. After listening to my dad extolling the bravery of the Lancashire Fusiliers and their six bleeding VC’s before breakfast there was little choice.

The doctor brought out his bag of spanners and told me to make myself comfortable, I shifted position on the table lining my foot up with the his groin, if I was going down I was going take him with me. I felt a sharp pain as the needle went in and an even sharper pain as it came out the other side. I was just about to make contact with his wedding tackle when the meaning of tad was brought home to me. The needle was nothing compared to the excruciating rhythms of agony I endured whilst he practised tying bloody sailors knots with my forehead. There was a quick flash of scissors as he cut the ends of the stitch and before I could stick the boot in he was at the sink washing his hands.

The doctor sensibly dried his hands well out of range and said “Bring him back in a week and I’ll take it out” My dad looked at me and nodded his head in the direction of the doctor “Well, what do you say”
I begrudgingly thanked him for putting me through hell and slouched out of the surgery. As I neared the door the doctor said “Oh I almost forgot, I have something for brave boys like you” he rummaged around in his drawer and brought out a bag of liquorice allsorts, “There you go son, well done”.

Apparently Geoff told his parents that he had thrown the slate at a bee that was about to attack me, quite why he thought he could hit a bee in flight when he couldn’t even get near a target approximately five million times larger that a bee escapes me. But then he was prone to exaggeration, in any event he was deemed a hero by his doting parents for trying to save my life. I remember thinking at the time that if the shit ever did hit the fan it would be a blessing if that lying little bugger wasn’t around to help.

I was proud of my stitch, for me it was as well earned as any Victoria Cross, for some reason the rest of that week I limped, a limp seemed to go well with a head wound so I used it to good effect. The only down side was the knot the Doctor had tied in it. As I said before he had been a trifle overzealous with this and consequently my eyebrow had been pulled up giving me a quizzical look which the girls seemed to rather like, so much so I have used it ever since.

And I did get a bag of liquorice allsorts for my trouble.

* Migs: Small three wheel vehicles used to carry sacks of flower.
* VC Victoria Cross, highest award given to a soldier for bravery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_Fusiliers

Dave Howard (Popular singer of popular songs)

2007-06-30T12:38:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-29T17:31:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-26T13:19:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-25T10:45:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-25T09:59:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-22T13:10:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-21T12:05:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-16T12:17:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-15T11:42:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-14T13:59:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-07T15:27:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-06-04T11:28:00.000+01:00

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!

2007-06-01T17:54:00.000+01:00

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.

Times Gone

2007-05-31T16:37:00.000+01:00

The weekend saw me taking a drive over the Pennines and the North Yorkshire moors. I stopped at Goathland village better known as Aidensfield in YTV’s Heartbeat and of course had a pint or two in the pub that by the way is quite different than in the series. At least the decor is.

I touched Levisham that has a beautiful Forrest drive and some great walks and managed to take in the old prisoner of war camp at Eden Camp Malton Located off the A64 York to Scarborough road at the junction of the A169 to Pickering. A modern history theme museum set in a 1942 prisoner of war camp, and is I assure you a great day out for the family. There is a theatre show for the kids, some very realistic battle and air raid scenes. And at the end of it all you can enjoy some Churchill pie in the NAFFI

I also stopped at Grosmont, a genuine 1950s railway junction where you can visit the station café, meander around the engine sheds and view the locomotives. I saw a Class A4 Pacific and a BR Standard 4MT; they looked splendid in their shiny new livery of maroon and gold and green and gold.

What I didn’t see was my favourite Steam loco the AD60 Beyer Garratt which for many years was built right here in Gorton Manchester by Beyer Peacock who shipped most of these mighty beasts to far off countries. In fact I had to go to Africa to see my first Garratt. That is not what I went there for but its strange that I lived right on top of the place they were made and several members of my family worked for years in Beyer Peacocks manufacturing these engines. Yet it took a trip half way across the world before I set eyes on one.

Its nice to see them so well cared for, but I remember them as dirty, oily, smelly huge black beasts that took you away to the coast for the annual holiday, or a day away climbing or fishing in Marple or Hayfield. There was a distinctive smell about them that was unique to these powerful engines.

As young lads my pals and I would linger on the Monkey Bridge waiting for a steam train to pass under it. We would be enveloped in dirty grey steam and thick black smoke from the boiler funnel. We would be deafened from the whistle blast that signalled its approach to Belle Vue station.

When I was a very young boy my Father worked for a time as a fireman on steam trains for British rail. Most mornings when my Mother walked me to school when we reached the bridge near Gorton lane, just as in all the best Enid Blyton books she would lift me up to wave at my dad through the steam and smoke as he passed under the bridge, blowing the whistle and waving like mad from the footplate.

Life was slower then, more relaxed, safer.

56 Gladstone Street

2007-05-22T13:14:00.000+01:00

In the summer of 1968 my young wife and I took possession of our first house. We had lived in a flat for just over a year with a young baby, so the vastness of 56 Gladstone Street in old west Gorton was a refreshing change to cramped conditions of one room.

The house had been occupied by an old woman who had died several months before; she had survived her husband by twenty years and had been well into her nineties when she breathed her last. The house had not seen a lick of paint since the last war, so decorating was the first job on the agenda. Out went the old copper boiling kettle and brown sink in the kitchen, out went the cast iron fireplace in the living room and out went the flaking dark green and brown livery of a bygone age.

The transformation pleased my wife and so we settled in for the few years that this house was to remain standing confident that we would be rehoused to a brand new sparkling estate on the outskirts of Manchester when redevelopment of the area took place. But in the meantime this would be our home for seventeen and six a week. (17/6pence That’s just over 87p for the young uns)

When I was cleaning out the house I found an old Sergeant majors pace stick, battle scarred and badly burnt at one end I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. The next door neighbour told me that the old lady who couldn’t walk well had used it to summon her by banging on the wall with it, which might have explained why the plaster was missing from near the fire place. It had also been her poker for stoking up her coal fire during the winter months. It had a history, so I kept it.

We hadn’t been in the house for more than a few weeks when it started. At odd times day and night we would here a loud banging sound, rather like Morse code, the house to the left of us was empty so I assumed it had come from the house to our right where the lady who had helped the old woman lived. I asked her about this and she told me that she hadn’t heard anything, and that it certainly wasn’t her who was banging.

Then other more sinister things started to happen, lights would turn themselves on and off, and we would wake up in the middle of the night to the smell of gas coming from an old gas mantle fixed to the window in the bedroom. The mantle had been painted many times over the years and it was only possible to turn the tap on or off with pliers. But somehow it had managed to turn itself on and in those days there was no such thing as safety gas, we came very close to being overcome several times.

I entered the bedroom one afternoon and the curtains were blowing about furiously, but the window was closed and I don’t think had been opened for years, this made me more angry than frightened and in frustration more than anything else I shouted “For Christ’s sake” the curtains fell quiet.

One day I came home from work and my wife was unusually quiet. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that she had been locked in the house for nearly two hours. She had been unable to open either back or front door even though the locks were off and the bolts had been slid. She said that at one point she became very frightened and started to cry, her crying was met with high pitched laughter that seemed to come from under the floorboards. At this she screamed, which brought the next door neighbour to the door who had no problem opening it at all.

That evening we discussed moving out, even though I hated giving in. it was obvious that my wife couldn’t take much more of this. She went to bed early, I remained downstairs in the kitchen thinking about our options and wondering what to do for the best. Suddenly the room went icy cold, it was like walking out of the sunshine into a freezer, I could hear a low humming sound, and then the kitchen light went out.

I heard my wife shout my name, but I was already half way up the stairs. I reached out and switched the bedroom light on. But nothing happened, I tried the landing light, this came on and shed some light into the bedroom, where I saw my wife sat bolt upright in bed her hair was stuck out in all directions as if some huge electrical force was attracting it. I entered the room and as I did she pointed silently to the corner of the room. There I saw a black shadow low against the wall, it began to rise and get bigger until I could see the shape of an arm snaking across the wall toward the fireplace.

I had seen enough, I picked my wife up and carried her downstairs, we left the house and went up the street to a neighbour’s house. I left her in their care and started back to the house. God knows what I was going to do, but as I made my way I met a couple of coppers a sergeant with a dog and a young copper. It was around one in the morning and they wanted to know what I was doing out and about at that time. Things were different in those days, everything ended at twelve-o clock and it was unusual to see anyone out at that time of the morning.

I explained my predicament and as I did the wise old sergeant hummed and harrd, nodding his head every now and again and stroking his chin much as I imagined Sherlock Holmes would do. When I finished my story he stuck his chest out and said “Right, lets go and take a look at your ghost, we will see how it stands up to Simba”. Simba was the police dog, who I am sure for the best part of his career had displayed undying loyalty and courage to his master. But as we entered the house that was now in pitch darkness, Simba started to whimper.

It might have been the arctic like conditions that by now were present in every room. But I rather think it was Canine sensitivities that reduced this fine dog to a quivering, whimpering, barking wreck. Because when the sarge slipped him of his lead and commanded in a loud voice “Fetch Simba” the poor animal despite his training did an about face and ran out of the house with his tail between his legs.

Undaunted the brave sergeant advanced up the stairs torch in hand, minus I have to say the young copper who had volunteered to keep watch at the bottom of the stairs, for what I don’t know, but for sure he wasn’t going into the bedroom. He kept repeating “What’s happening serge” in a shaky voice and every time he spoke his breath was visible by the little light that the torch cast at the bottom of the stairs.

I heard the old copper say in a forceful voice “This is the police, come out” the young copper did a little dance, from upstairs we heard the old copper say in a not so forceful voice “Oh bloody hell” then what little light there was went out. As rotund as the sergeant was he was remarkably fleet of foot when it came to negotiating the stairs on his way out. The young copper and I were left standing and as we both experienced that cold shiver down the back, the serge was already in the street.

Before going of to look for his dog the sergeant advised me that it was a member of the clergy that I needed, not the police. In due course a lay preacher from some local church attempted to bless every room in the house, in the hope of laying whatever spirit that had the hump with me and my wife to rest.
But he only got as far as the kitchen then remembered he had an important meeting to go to. I doubt it would have done any good even if he had finished.

There was a small write up about the events in the Manchester and Openshaw reporter, but we never went back to the house, and I believe it was never again occupied before its demolition sometime in 1970.

No more Mr nice guy

2007-05-17T12:32:00.000+01:00

I’ve had it with women, be it romantic or platonic, you just cant trust them as far as you can throw them, and believe me I’ve thrown a few in my time. They are just as devious as men are, just more subtle about it. I know that is a sweeping statement and we shouldn’t tar everyone with the same brush, but at the moment I’m in the mood for some serious sweeping and if I could I would do some tarring with a brush the size of the titanic.

Selfish is another word that looms large at the moment, that and deceitful. I have had my share of let downs in the past as regards romantic episodes, but you just don’t expect it when the relationship is based on friendship. It hits all the harder when you have gone out of your way and bent over backwards for the transgressor.

For any men reading this drivel, hear my words, you wont ever get anywhere being Mr nice guy, I know, I have been that for most of my life more or less and its done balls all for me. In fact the only time I have ever got anywhere is when I haven’t been a nice guy. That’s certainly the case in business and the more I look back and reflect, the more I believe it to be true of human relationships.

I don’t like being angry about what probably is just an unimportant fault on somebody else’s part. But I am the kind of person that thinks very carefully about what kind of effect my actions could have on someone else’s life, and when that simple courtesy isn’t returned it cuts deep. Its bad enough when an acquaintance does this, but when a friend is guilty of it, then it cuts deep.

My Father always taught me to do the right thing no matter what the cost to myself, in that you can live and be happy with your actions, and if others are blind to your kindness and loyalty, then it will be they who lose. Well I tried it Dad, now I think its time to be a bastard.

Bouncing down

2007-05-14T16:43:00.000+01:00

Well the weekend party went with a bang; both kids and adults enjoyed themselves. There was some difficulty sorting out the blower thingy for the bouncy castle. That was my fault, I forgot the strap down pegs and the band that goes around the pipe but after several false starts up it went and up it stayed. The weather was finicky one minute sunshine the next rain, which caused a little commotion. I had asked one of the lads at work to clean the bouncy castle, he had used washing up liquid (Not the sharpest knife in the box) consequently every time it rained the air seeping out of the seems blew bubbles, lots of them. Of course the kids loved it plus the adults had a free foam party.

Despite the weather we all managed to get under cover one way or another, there were several umbrellas and a covered swing, and after a couple of bollywoods nobody seemed to care, they just got on with it. Later in the evening after the kids had gone to bed a few of us left the garden for the Eurovision song contest. Its so tacky its funny, we had a sweepstake which I nearly won (I had the Ukraine) then back into the garden where we all sat round drinking and laughing for hours. All in all not a bad day.

Fast food my arse

2007-05-02T12:55:00.000+01:00

I don't often eat fast food but when I do I want it fast, or there would be no point. So why is that that the humble chippy now has longer waiting times for the crap they sell than some of the posh restauraunts. I understand that they have to try and cut down on wastage, if only to bolster their already inflated profits, but to cook chips only when a customer walks in and asks for them is ludicrous.

Its the same with fish, pies, puddings, name it. Now I don't like it but I would put up with it if it wasn't for the fact that if you order a pie or a pudding in the evening more often than not it will be an already warmed pie from the afternoon session, and that microwaved. Where once the mushy peas you bought in a supermarket were a pale imitation of the chippy peas, its now the other way round.

I hate waiting If I wanted to wait I would go to Lounge 10 for a decent meal and enjoy a good wine whilst I waited. A friend of mine has a chippy so I know how hard it can be to make a living cooking chips for ungrateful bastards like me, but you don't have to wait at her establishment, and as cynical as dealing with the public can make you, she has so far managed to avoid going down that road, plus her chips are edible, which is more than I can say for most chippies.

Old timers say that chips don't taste the same these days, and they don't, because the EEC stopped the great British chippy from using lard with just a dash of colts foot oil many years ago. Youngsters don't know any better, they have only ever tasted the tepid, tired, pale, limp excuses for chips that we have had to endure from the seventies onwards.

Chippy Gravy, now what can I say about that, erm let me see, “Its shit”. But all these little peeves aside, I really could put up with the dross that they sell, in exchange for a fast meal however awful it tasted, its a fair swap. But I wont put up with both, I hate waiting, so shove yer chips up yer arse.

By the way, if your a meat and potato pie, or pudding lover don't go to Norfolk, they have never heard of them, and I think the slow food syndrome started there first. Lets face it who with a brain wants to eat cheese and rabbit pie.

If you want a decent portion of chips with fish that tastes like it should, try Stalybridge, there is a chippy there that knows how to cook this type of food, can't remember the name but its in the center and I think is the only chippy open at night. An Italian guy owns it, nuff said.

Bollywood piss up

2007-04-26T13:40:00.000+01:00

Tuesday was my birthday so of course I had the odd Strawberry Dachary after which I downed the best part of a bottle of vodka, not all at once of course I paced myself over several hours. The outcome was the same however, I was wrecked and totally unable to consume the chilli Doretoes and cheese provided for me by my charming host at something like five in the morning. I stayed the night (I don’t drink and drive) got up late of course to find myself alone in the house as my host had gone to work.

After a quick coffee I locked up and left only to find that I had left my phone behind. This turned out to be a good move because obviously work couldn’t get hold of me, and boy did they try (twenty five missed calls) so I spent the rest of the day in the garden enjoying the sun and a hair of the dog, several hairs actually.

There was a time when I could have carried on drinking right through to the next day and beyond, but those days have long gone and with each birthday that passes my ability to tolerate large amounts of alcohol declines. It’s good in one way because it costs less to get drunk these days. Now I don’t want you thinking that I have a drink problem, or maybe I do but just don’t realise it, however I only drink perhaps twice a month, sometimes three times its not regular thing. I know some people who can’t get through the day without a drink and mid week drinking to them is just practise for the weekend booz-up.

The company I work for has just bought another company that buys sells and distributes wines and beer, you wont have heard of it but one of the lines is Bollywood beer, made in Germany, but labelled as though it were made in India. It has a very attractive Indian lady dancing on the label. In the next few weeks it will be finding its way into Indian restaurants all over England. Give it a try, its four and a half proof and doesn’t taste at all bad, it’s a little like a light lager and is very moorish.

I have a party to go to soon and with this in mind I asked my MD how much a couple of cases would cost me. I knew it would be cost price or lower but I was quite surprised to hear him say “Take as much as you want sport” BIG MISTAKE. So the car was loaded up and with my back bumper dragging along the ground I made my way home with the booty.

The party will be an all day affair and the chap hosting it has asked me to provide some entertainment, I think he would have drawn the line at his and hers strippers, so instead I have ordered a bouncy castle. It should be fun bouncing up and down with complete strangers, but even more fun as the day wears on watching the more inebriated ones trying to look cool as the they fall off it.

I’m not sure whether to wear my bunny suit for this bash, I will have to see what the weather is going to be like, it might be a hot day and pound to a pinch of human waste I would end up walking around in my shorts. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Celebrity rip off

2007-04-17T17:14:00.000+01:00

It seems these days that the only things kids will play with need some kind of power source or they are not interested. Not so when I was a lad (I can hear the groans) the only power source we needed was imagination, ah well, things change, or as the Lone Ranger used to say “All things change but truth, and that truth alone lives on forever” handsome words from a handsome hero.

About the time I was seven years old I loved the Lone Ranger, I had a Lone Ranger hat, a Lone Ranger gun and a Lone Ranger mask, you guessed it, I was the Lone Ranger at least in my imagination. So you will understand how thrilled I was to learn that he was coming to Manchester and for a short time would be appearing at Woolworth's store in the city centre.

My Father promised to take me on the proviso that I behaved myself for the run up to this monumental event. I of course swore my dying oath that I would and apparently was as good as my word. The week before the occasion dragged for me, it was all I could think of, I practised the speech I was going to make, I polished my gun and I learned word for word the Lone Rangers creed, well you never know, he might have asked me questions.

The night before was absolute torture, I couldn't sleep, it was worse than Christmas eve and that's bad enough for any kid. But the morning came eventually and I started to get ready to meet my hero. I couldn't eat breakfast and everybody bar myself seemed to be moving very slowly, didn't they understand how important this was? We need to get going. Eventually my Dad was ready, we left the house and boarded the tram to Manchester.

As it rattled along Hyde road I looked out of the window at people going about their business and wondered how they could possibly carry on as normal when you know who was in town, nobody seemed excited at all. As we approached Ardwick round-about the tram jerked to a halt outside the Hippodrome, the trailing arm that connected it to the power line had come off, a common occurrence in those days. “Oh no, we will be late” I looked at my Dad beseeching him to do something. He told me not to worry, it wouldn't take long to put the arm back on the line (They had a long pole with a hook on for this) and we would be in plenty of time to get a good place.

I wasn't quite sure what he meant by a good place, why would we need a good place, the way I saw it was, we went, we met him along with Silver his horse and Tonto his trusty friend, we would chat for a while, he might even invite me back to America to meet all the other cowboys when he found out how big a fan I was. Disappointment was inevitable, and it wasn't long coming, as the tram made its noisy way into Piccadilly I could see there was a huge crowd waiting outside Woolworths, hundreds of little boys like myself all Lone Rangered up with hat, and gun, and mask, and all dying to meet the man himself.

I couldn't see how I was going to meet him with all these people here, I could feel a big sob welling up in my chest and threatening to kill my excitement stone dead when suddenly I felt by Dads big hands grab me from behind and hoist me high into the air as he sat me on his shoulders. Then with me out of the way of any danger he pushed his way through the crowd ignoring any complaints, until we reached the front. There in front of us was a cordoned off area in front of the main doors where the Lone Ranger would emerge no doubt riding Silver and reigning him back on two legs and shouting Hi Ho Silver, Awaaaaaayyy.

Wrong again, and this the biggest disappointment of all. Some of you may know that in the TV series the Lone Ranger was played by Clayton Moor, and despite the mask, his face was unmistakeable, as was his voice. The rotund bloke that emerged horseless from Wollworths doors was by no stretch of even a kids imagination Clayton Moor and the little short, fat guy dressed as an Indian who stood next to him was most definitely not Tonto.

I couldn't understand why everyone was clapping and shouting, couldn't they see we had been duped, they were imposters. I was too angry to cry, I even wished that I had had real bullets in my gun, which by the way was a far superior replica than the one the bogus Lone Ranger was carrying.
Its perhaps as well that they wasn't real because at that moment I would have shown just how bad a little bleeder I could be.

The journey home was for the most part spent in silence, my Dad asked me if I enjoyed myself. Of course I told him that I had, I didn't want to burst his bubble, he had seemed as excited as all the kids when Fat man and Plonko had emerged from Woolworths, so I kept my mouth shut.
And shut it stayed until one night many years later as my Dad, and my Brother and I enjoyed a pint at our local, the subject of the Lone Ranger came up, during a pub quiz. “Remember the time I took you to see him in town when you was a kid?” my Father asked. I spilled the beans, all the pent up emotion and mental scaring from that twisted day of celebrity theft came flooding back to me, Oh yes, I made the most of it, it was Oscar winning acting.

My Father looked at me and said “What a bugger, I didn't think you had noticed, Ah well, it got us out of the house for a few hours” I told him of my murderous thoughts, of how as I sat on his shoulders I could gladly have let off a few rounds at the lump in the blue suit wearing a mask and pretending to be the best cowboy there ever was.

Later he told me that he was glad I hadn't said anything at the time, “It would have made me sad to know that you were” he patted me on the back and together we staggered and sang as we made our way home.

The happy burglar.

2007-04-16T11:18:00.000+01:00

When I was in my late teens I appeared in a sexually explicit art film called “The robbers” it was shot in black and white on sixteen millimeter film, with no sound. Later voices with French accents were dubbed in. It had a budget of about three quid and you could tell. The cast consisted of a friend and myself along with a young lady whose name I cant remember. My pal and I were recruited by a chap called Bob who sold ice cream from a van and was quite well known in the Gorton area of Manchester. I remember he plucked his eyebrows a lot, wore an Alice band to keep his hair back and spoke with a lisp. He was a sort of get you anything man, and he could, for a price be it tickets to a show, half a side of lamb, car radio, or even the full car.

Oh I know what your thinking but I was young, impulsive, ambitious, skint and despite all the talk of a permissive society with free love on every corner, I can assure you the sixties were anything but that, well my sixties anyway. So the chance to have some fun, perhaps even become famous and get paid for it was an offer I couldn't refuse. Beside which the brag factor for appearing in this type of film was off the scale.

In those days the actors (I use the term loosely) always wore something to hide their identity, in the young ladies case it was a ball mask, whilst my friend and I who were burglars wore a black mask and a stripy jersey, (Didn't all burglars?) we looked like two bumble bee's in flat caps. The whole thing was shot in an attic flat in Longsight which had a skylight, it was very dingy and smelled quite badly, but I'm a trooper, a complete professional so I didn't let any of this put me off. Our heroin sat at a dressing table in her boudoir preparing for the ball. My friend and I appeared at the skylight guns in hand and leered at her for a while before jumping through and frightening the poor girl to death.

I managed to make quite a reasonable job of this bit despite spraining my ankle badly, which is why later in this love epic my grimaces and face contortions are down to the pain rather than enthusiastic love making on my part. The guns played an important role in the proceedings, we waved them about menacingly and of course the heroin having no choice submitted grudgingly to our demands. My friend and I didn't know it at the time but the masks had been a last minute thought by the guy making the film. He had cut them from a dog blanket he found in the flat, they were very uncomfortable, itchy and it goes without saying smelled of dog.

I gave the performance of my life, despite having one ankle larger than the other, having to wave a gun around and suffering immense discomfort from a badly fitting dog blanket that I was having an allergic reaction to. On top of which I was sweating profusely (acting can do that to you) the mask eventually slipped down to my neck at one point getting stuck in my mouth. My face for days after had an angry rash in the shape of a burglars mask, I also had a rash on another part of my body which the mask never saw, still trying to work that one out.

It was shot in one take, with a couple of extra pretend bits, like I said it was a small budget, in fact before the camera rolled the director chappy hammered into us the fact that there wasn't a great deal of film and it had to be right first time. The young ladies acting was reminiscent of the silent film era, lots of clasped hands, imploring, and putting her arm to her forehead, you would think we were going to tie her to a railway line and leave her for dead, instead of just robbing her.

I saw the finished article once and I have to say I wasn't impressed, my friend however was and he secured a copy which years later he had transferred to video. I know this because I saw him recently and we talked about the incident over a drink. He seems quite proud of his short film career and intends to get the video transferred to DVD. He asked me if I would like a copy, I declined although I am curious and may change my mind about that. Who knows it might finish up on you tube.

Hot chicken sandwich and Poutine

2007-04-16T10:44:00.000+01:00

Well this is it, my last packet of StHubert Bar-B-Q sauce, I used it this Sunday to treat my daughter and her children to Poutine and a hot chicken sandwich. I was introduced to this culinary delight by a friend of mine some time ago. She used to send me red cross parcels of this sauce because you can't get it in this country. Notice how the writing on the packet is in two languages, French and English, also notice how the French version always comes first and the type set is bigger, sometimes only minutely bigger but always bigger. Its the same with the instructions on the back, this kind of thinking applies to all things in Quebec be they road signs, shop signs any kind of written information really, and who betide you if you transgress, hefty fines are handed out to anyone not conforming to this policy. But thats frogs for you, always trying to force themselves on people, Algeria, French Indo china, all the way across Africa, they are almost as bad as the English for that.

Still they do make a great Bar-B-Q sauce, the best actually, I have tried to find something comparable in this country and I have to say I have failed. There are sauces out there that although not as good as StHubert are very tasty and enjoyable, but so far nothing has come close. And so the last packet along with a really tender chicken was consumed with a very dry hoc and as the weekend was a scorcher we enjoyed all al fresco.

You have to try Poutine, French Canadians eat it like we eat fish and chips, all you need is a plate of chips or wedges, with cheese curd on top (Try to get Frommage Beaucronne) then pour the sauce over all. Its delicious. Hot chicken sandwich is just as mouth watering and although I think I have the recipe wrong, its still close, for this you need roasted chicken, breast is best, between two rounds of very lightly toasted crunchy bread and pour the sauce over it. It seems strange eating a sandwich with a knife and fork but unless you want sticky fingers you have to. Try it, you will want to shake my hand.

Sun & Youth

2007-04-10T12:28:00.000+01:00

This is my favorite time of the year, the winter is behind us and summer is almost here. That dead period between Christmas and easter has past and the rest of the year stretches out before us holding so much promise. Call me an optimist but the run up to summer always gives me the feeling that this year something good will happen. Usually it never does, but every now and again it will and that is why I remain an optimist.

As a boy growing up in Manchester it seemed to me that even the dark back to back terraced houses grimy with the soot of industry couldn't escape the effect of sunlight, I would sit on the pavement outside my house, my back against the wall and feel the warmth from the bricks burning my back through the fair isle jumper that according to my Mother I never wanted to take off.

Through half closed eyes I would watch the shimmering heat rise up from the road and try to guess which pool of tar would be the first to melt and form black bubbles that would get bigger and then pop. I liked to lay face down on the pavement letting my body absorb the heat from the ground. With my eyes that close to the stone slabs, I could see streaks of gold in the sandstone and tiny creatures crawling around busy with who knows what. Years later I would find myself in another country half way across the world, lay full length with my face pressed close to the ground under a much hotter sun but in less happier circumstances and be reminded of these sweltering days outside my house.

I was ten years old when the family moved to a better house in a nicer area, indoor toilet and a bath, hot and cold running water, a bedroom of my own. But best of all a garden, not that I like gardening, I don't, I just like gardens.

That same year I spent the summer with relatives half way up the Pennine mountains, it was a glorious time made more glorious by the presence of Catherine, a girl who lived at the other end of the village, who always seemed to be running errands for people. I would sit on the wall outside the village pub and watch her going to and from the shop. When she walked she danced and skipped and if she wasn't smiling happily she would be singing. As she danced her long blonde hair would flick and bob, sometimes the wind would catch it and blow it around her head and shoulders, but so fine was it that it would fall back perfectly as though it had just been brushed.

Each day I promised myself that I would talk to her, but I didn't want to make a fool of myself and risk not being able to watch her skip through summer, so I said nothing, I just sat on my wall and marveled at her sweetness. Now and again when she passed by she would look across at me and smile. Just the faintest of smiles almost mocking me, but I treasured each one and every night as I lay in bed I would re-run them in my head like an old movie.

One day I decided to explore beyond the village and after a short walk found myself in a large sloping field with thigh high grass and wild flowers. It was early afternoon and the sun was beating down. I lay on my back, hands behind my head in front of a dry stone wall, and did what I do best, day dream. As insects buzzed in the hot summer air I looked up at a clear blue sky and imagined Catherine beside me smiling.

I dozed off and woke a little time later to someone shaking my shoulder, I could feel something brushing against my face, it was soft blonde hair, as my eyes focused I realized it was Catherine who was shaking me awake. "Wake up, Wake up, you will get sunburned" I sat up rubbing my eyes not so much from being asleep but because there she was inches from me, touching me, talking to me. When I had gained my composure I spluttered my thanks and asked her how she had found me.
"I didn't find you, I followed you" she said smiling. I was confused, "but I've been here for hours" I said. "I know, I was just watching you, like you have been watching me"

I was embarrassed and turned as red as I would have had I been burnt by the sun. I struggled to get out of this but came up with nothing. "Don't worry" she said "Your just a boy, thats what boys do" I avoided her eyes feeling guilty. She laughed "Don't be shy, I like you looking at me, you think I'm pretty don't you?" I mumbled that I thought she was beautiful. "Ok then, you can hold my hand" she said, she took hold of my hand as she lay down beside me and locked her fingers in mine.

We lay there in the hot summer sun for hours talking and laughing, I remember how perfect she looked, how when she came close to me I could smell strawberries, I recall how her white summer dress showed off her young budding figure and how she bit her bottom lip when she was thoughtful. I remember the shock when she asked me if I wanted to kiss her, and the relief when she didn't wait for an answer and put her lips on mine. I felt the power that youth has surge through me for as long as the kiss lasted, it seemed like hours but it could only have been seconds.

Most of all I remember how proud I felt that this girl was my friend. She became my friend and stayed my friend throughout that summer, and every warm day we spent in that field, or roaming others, when it rained we walked higher into the hills to watch nature protest and as we watched we made plans for our future that of course never came to be.

Inevitably summer turned to autumn and as the first leaves fell I returned to our new house and my new school. We kept in touch for years after, as time went by the letters became more infrequent and finally stopped altogether when she went to university. I'm glad that I never went back to see her, I think it would have been a disappointment, and the ruin of a wonderful memory.

Some years later I found myself at a dinner dance in a posh hotel in Manchester, the dinner having been eaten I made my way to the bar for a G & T. I was on my second drink when I noticed a very attractive woman in evening dress talking to a man who seemed a little annoyed. He looked across at me several times before downing his drink and leaving. When I looked at the woman again she smiled and raised her glass to me, I looked away decided to finish my drink and go.

Before I could do so the woman had walked over to me and as I turned to leave she said "You have been watching me haven't you" I said that I most certainly hadn't, sure that there was going to be trouble. She threw her head back and laughed, "Don't worry, thats what boys do" I was puzzled, she laughed again "You haven't got a clue who I am have you David" I apologized, "I'm sorry no I haven't" She smiled knowingly and for an instant I thought I did recognize her, "Its Catherine, have I changed that much" and there she was again, more beautiful than I remembered and chiding me again for staring at her.

We spent the rest of the evening dancing and talking over times gone by, and for a short time I felt like that boy again so many years before in a sloping field bedazzled by a perfect girl who smelled of strawberries. But just as that summer ended, so did the evening. As the guests spilled out of the hotel we walked slowly to her car.

I thanked her for a wonderful evening and suggested we do it again sometime, she bit her bottom lip and looked thoughtful, smiling she said "I don't think that would be a good idea" then she kissed me and was gone.

Another cock-up.

2007-04-05T15:18:00.000+01:00

I went to a painting party last night, I assumed when invited that it would be a civilised night of drinking fine wine, eating vol u vonts and perhaps even giving my opinion on the merits of a painting or two. I really should listen when people speak to me, had I done so I would have worn something more appropriate for the event. There I was looking like George Clooney at the Oscars whilst everybody else had donned old jeans and worn tops.

Not a good start, I think my host thought that I had dressed up just to get out of redecorating her daughter’s bedroom on purpose. One or two of the other guests thought that too I think until I started to strip off and turn my clothes inside out. Its not an easy task getting dressed from the outside in and whilst I struggled the man of the house disappeared into another bedroom and eventually came out with some shorts and a very loud shirt for me to wear.

Thus attired I set about creating with paint, my job was to paint the picture rail that ran around the room, probably because I was the tallest. As I skilfully cut in and laid of the paint like a pro being careful not to get paint anywhere but where it should be, The person given the task of painting the skirting board was lashing it on with a trowel.

I hadn’t done more than about three feet of rail when she came barging past me on hands and knees flicking paint everywhere. She had used the biggest brush she could find in order to get it done so that she could go downstairs and begin some serious drinking. She painted in a clockwise direction, whilst I travelled in an anti clockwise direction, the theory being that we couldn’t get in each other’s way. This worked fine until in a frenzy of paint and whirling brushes she triumphantly jumped to her feet shouting, “DONE”

Her head caught the underneath of the paint pot I was holding and it shot like a missile into the air covering the wall, the window, the floor and me with nearly a pint of Dulux’s best. She looked at me as though I were some kind of insect and said “Bloody hell can’t you watch what your doing” “honestly”
She then disappeared downstairs to inform our host that the strange geezer upstairs had made a right mess.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have argued about it, but as my host started to berate me for being sloppy, I saw red and let her have it. She could see by the way the skirting had been painted that perhaps it wasn’t my fault after all, but knowing me as she did she beseeched me not to make any more of it with the offending nasty person, and I of course promised not to say anything.

Painting was abandoned for drinking and after cleaning myself up I joined the others downstairs, by this time quite a few others had arrived and the drinking part of the party was in full swing. Many were outside enjoying the last sun of the day in the garden. I sat down enjoying my drink and a selection of mini food. Two chairs away from me sat the mad painter woman. She glared at me, I glared back, she got up and went into the kitchen to refresh her drink and whilst she was gone I emptied a can of lager, a chicken sandwich and the last of my sausage roll into her handbag.

I made good my escape apologising to my host for leaving so early, but I needed a shower because I felt sticky from the paint bath earlier and I reeked of turps. The next time I am invited to a party I will definitely enquire as to what the celebrations are for.

Shorts

2007-03-30T12:22:00.000+01:00

Men unlike women can get very attached to their shorts, usually because they sweat a lot and don’t launder them to often. I don’t have that excuse, with me it’s just a case of comfort, however I noticed this morning that my wearer friendly boxers were looking a little tired and worn. So I inspected them all and found them to be just a little frayed round the waistband and where once they were black, they have become grey. I have a wardrobe full on spanking new five packs of Kalvin Klein so replacement isn’t a problem, wearing them in, is.

Why am I blogging about knickers you might ask? Well it occurred to me that over the years women have had a better deal where nether region apparel is concerned. I goes without saying that a woman will always look better in underwear than a man will, I can go further than that and say from experience that women even look better in men’s underwear than men do.

At the turn of the last century men were completely covered by long johns, fine if you’re an arctic explorer but laughable otherwise, look in any clothing catalogue, even the good looking young male models look daft, and you can see it on their faces. So if they can’t carry it off what chance have lesser mortals got.

The thirties and forties saw the introduction of the big shorts, And I mean big, what on earth were the people who designed these things thinking of, they were bigger even that the wind traps that professional footballers wore and they looked silly. For a time shorts shrank to a manageable size but along with the vests that came with them as a set, were not what you would call sexually inspiring for women. Lets face it most women aren’t that interested in naked men anyway so we are on a looser from the start. No, the best that we can hope for is that somehow the underwear will fill the void before the lights go out.

The advent of the tightly whities didn’t help either, these things are the female equivalent of the big pants girls seem to hate so much these days. But they did the job as it were, an acceptable alternative to wind traps or thongs. Where they went wrong was in the sixties when that enlightened age gave us the string vest with pants to match. I tried them once, took them off immediately and consigned them to the dustbin. There is nothing remotely attractive about little peepholes of skin with hair protruding out everywhere. Not to mention that nipples had a habit of catching in the holes or poking out and being rubbed raw. They became a favourite of road workers who could still wear them even when they had past their best and were tatty. You couldn’t tell where the holes began and the tatt finished.

Thank god Kalvin klein came to the rescue, his shorts are not the ultimate answer but at least you can feel dignified in them. Its all we have until some brain box can come up with something that gives all men a level playing field.

Addendum

Helen has just breezed into the office and read the above. She has suggested a solution to the problem of looking good in shorts. Spend some time in the gym.

Percy Theodore Shelmerdine.

2007-03-29T10:59:00.000+01:00

I have met many strange people over the years but one of the strangest was a chap called Percy Theodore Shelmerdine, he was a small chap of indeterminate age with a stoop so bad you would swear he had two humps on his back. He was completely bald and despite owning a tea chest full of wigs used to draw hair on his head with a black ballpoint pen.
He had one eye lower than the other that forced you to look at him lopsided, and the longest dirtiest nails I have ever seen on a man. Percy always wore several shirts at the same time none of which he washed, although he did change them daily and a jacket that was almost completely covered in badges of one kind or another.

His house was filled with junk, or as he liked to describe it, props. He insisted that everything had a use and would one day come in handy. I don’t think he ever sold anything although he had some quite valuable antiques whose sale could have allowed him to live comfortably. Instead he eked out a meagre living on what the state gave him spending most of it on essentials like cigarettes and bottles of Old toms ale. What money was left he bought dozens of eggs with, that’s all he ate, hard boiled eggs, most weeks he would buy a loaf and make it last. But his main diet was eggs, breakfast, dinner and tea. As a result of this his body was covered in boils and there was a distinct smell of sulphur about the place that at times could get very overpowering.

He returned home after the war with his passion for eggs. Brought about according to him due to his having hidden from the Germans in a barn on a war blistered French farm where his only companion was a chicken who served as his friend and provider of food for many weeks. His wife unable to tolerate the stink took off with a sheet metal worker from Sheffield and he never saw her again.

Percy loved eggs, not only was it the only thing he ate, but it was also the only thing he talked about, and he talked a lot. He had a very high pitched, falsetto type of voice which was the result of (According to him) his having his testicles removed after being rushed to hospital with an egg overdose. He complained bitterly that he had been left in the corridor for ages without being attended to and when eventually he was, he was scared he had something really serious because the nurses and doctors all wore masks and gowns.
The poor sod was put in an isolation ward (Private room as he called it) and basically left to his own devices, in fact nothing would be done for him until he had disrobed and bathed.

I can’t really blame the hospital staff; Percy did have a rather indiscreet personal cologne which he himself was unaware of, however bending to the will of they that know better, Percy undressed and had a bath, after which the sawbones set about diagnosing his ailments. They had their work cut out for them; years of eating Oeufs mollets had taken its toll on his pitiful body. I went to see him in hospital; he had no relatives and very few friends. I had only been with him for several minutes before being summoned to the nurses office, the doctor who was treating him assumed I was his son and set about reprimanding me for not taking care of the old man. I won’t repeat what he said but you can be sure that the word eggs kept cropping up during his verbal assault.

I didn’t stop him, he looked like he had endured a stressful day and needed this chance to let of steam. When he finished I informed him that I was a friend and had no influence what so ever in Percy’s eating habits but that I would try to persuade him to adopt a more sensible diet. Of course I knew that was an impossible task, you see when I say that Percy loved eggs, I mean he really loved them. He would eat each one as though it was his first meal for days. It’s quite possible that if he could have made love to an egg, Percy would have done it. In the end his love for eggs took his teeth, his hair, his gonads and his reason. He finished up in a home dressed in bright pyjamas eating healthy food and furiously picking his nose.

I visited him several times, but he didn’t recognise me, and to be honest I didn’t recognise him, the smell had disappeared his bald head was bereft of ballpoint pen and when I tried to help him remember, he just looked at me through his lopsided eyes. The Matron in charge like the doctor before her assumed that I was his son. She informed me that he had no visitors other than myself. I told her that he did have relatives but that he hadn’t seen them for years, they only came out of the woodwork when he was forced to abandon his house and come to live in the home. They had probably cleared the place and were even now drinking the profits.

I asked her if he still ate lots of eggs, she told me that he wouldn’t touch an egg, they had tried him with them a couple of times and he had become quite violent and had thrown the eggs at another resident. Poor Percy oblivious in his dementia of the one thing he had loved most in his life.

Las Vegas, hardly

2007-03-27T12:40:00.000+01:00

I am supposed to be going to Blackpool next week with a friend, just an overnight stay and a piss up really. Some friends of mine have a hotel there. Nice lads one of whom used to be in a band called paper lace, or is it black lace, anyway the hotel is their retirement home after spending many years as agents for some of the biggest acts in England. Usually when I stay I have a drink or two in the bar before going out on the town. Or at least that’s the idea, but so entertaining and friendly are these two that I often end up staying in the bar all night. Paul’s rendition of “I’m a little teapot short and stout” has to be seen to be believed.

As much as I love travelling abroad, Blackpool holds an attraction for me that goes back to my youth. I know it’s tacky, expensive and even predictable, but the excitement I feel when approaching from the north or south pier road is the best part of the journey to that tatty Disneyland. I took a Canadian friend of mine there once for a whistle stop tour and she was left almost speechless at what she saw.

We came in from the tower end and drove leisurely down the front, she looked open mouthed at groups of women dressed as schoolgirls or police women, guys dressed in BDSM gear with their arses hanging out of their leather pants calmly having a drink in the afternoon sun. At one point fourteen or so Elvis’s paraded past making completely un Elvis type sounds. As we neared the pier a girl jumped out of a car, slid across the bonnet Starsky and Hutch style and proceeded to beat the shit out of another girl on the pavement.

Further down as we approached the pleasure beach a man and women came tumbling out of a pub scrapping much like Popeye and Bluto used to do in the cartoons. My friend thought this was all hilarious, and to put the cap on it as we pulled into my friends hotel Paul was outside watering the imitation trees outside reception. As he saw us approach of course he did his teapot routine; my companion must have thought the English mad. “We have nothing like this in Quebec” she said, of course not I replied, you cant have this and Baton Rouge.

I remember a few years ago going to Blackpool for a three-day break before going the week after to Spain, I spent six hundred quid in three days there. The trip to Spain was for a week and I only spent three hundred.

Even so I am looking forward to my mini break in the Las Vegas of the north, no doubt we will do the usual places after stuffing ourselves with inedible orange chips in the pleasure beach, and no doubt at the end of it all I will need a beak.

Bored, bored, bored.

2007-03-24T10:52:00.000Z

I don’t know why I bother blogging at the weekend; people blog less during these two days than at any other time. Probably because they have better things to do than waste their free time. I read somewhere that blog reading wastes more man-hours than time of work due to illness, so far from being free it probably costs the taxpayer billions of pounds.

Any way I thought I would come into work, it’s a short hop from the train station where I dropped my friend of this morning. She is going down to London for the week, sort of as family break, she doesn’t see her parents often these days. I was invited to go with her and sample the delights of our capital city, I declined, I hate the place. I suppose I should really be at home cleaning, god knows the place needs it. A friend who came round the other day suggested I run the Hoover over the kitchen carpet. He looked confused when I told him that I had genuine imitation wood flooring not carpet and he kept rubbing the side of his shoe backwards and forwards on the floor until he was rewarded with a small patch of imitation wood flooring. Why don’t people believe you?

The bathroom is a minefield of empty bleach bottles, used toilet roll centres soap boxes and toothpaste tubes. A blue peter presenter could make a small entertainment centre and hotel complex out of that lot.
I will make a start on it Sunday, maybe. Perhaps I should get a maid, It would be nice to have something in a size ten, with blonde hair, big boobs and dumb as a piss stone pottering around the old family pile. I can just see her wobbling across the living room in high heels flicking a duster, pouting and saying “Oh Mr D don’t be silly, I don’t need wages, just sing to me pleeeeeeeeease”. She could wear one of those little short French maid outfits, I think Iv got one somewhere, I think I have a feather duster too that doubles as a whip.

So here I sit in my office surrounded by empty coffee cups and mountains of faxes imploring me to buy or rent; Water vendor, office humidifier, import containers, new car, or even a new fax machine so that I can get yet more of this shit uninvited down the phone line. You can’t stop them either. Phoning the number they provide for doing just that is a waste of time, and money, not to mention a waste of printer toner.

Its times like this that I long for the sun and the Aegean Sea of Greece, oh well, one day.

In memory of Lynn Fox,

2007-03-21T16:10:00.001Z

Up until three months before she died, Lynn had been training in the hope of running the London marathon herself, to celebrate ten years since being given the all clear following her first bout of breast cancer. These guys are determined to finish what she started, and have all been training hard, motivated by the fact that this was something hugely important to Lynn.

Please visit the website or click the title above and give generously.

http://www.justgiving.com/karatointon

The amazing rolling ruler.

2007-03-21T13:18:00.000Z

Norman was the unlikeliest ladies man I have ever met. He was five foot two, had one leg shorter than the other, and had a nose that W C Fields would have been proud of. But the killer was his bright orange wig. It fell far short of where (what was left) his real hair began displaying a large smiley mouth shaped patch of glistening skin between the two.

Wherever he went people stared at this beacon of light plonked on his head, he seamed oblivious to the attention his syrup attracted. His limping gate made him sway from side to side and it was not unknown for people to follow him just to see if it would fall off.

The first time I saw him was at an electronics rally in Oldham, he had pitched his table in one corner of the room and was demonstrating the Amazing-rolling ruler to a large crowd of people. This is what he did for a living, he would buy a product at a knocked down price and much like the shopping channels of today would put the product through its paces demonstrating that whilst you had so far managed without it, your life would be so much the richer should you buy it.

As I stood there watching him draw shapes and lines with the Amazing rolling ruler faster than the eye could keep up with, I looked around at his audience, they looked on impressed and open mouthed, but it wasn’t the product they were looking at. It was Norman’s bright orange wig dancing on his head. He turned to the left, his wig stayed where it was, he turned to the right, his wig refused to comply. It seemed that he wig had a mind of its own, as Norman moved and turned his head the wig pivoted about a central point on his baldpate.

At the end of each demonstration he would hold up the Amazing rolling ruler and inform everyone that they could own this marvellous device, not for a fiver, not for three quid, not even for two unmissable pounds. But for just one pound, yes one pound ladies and gentlemen you could do away with all your writing and drawing implements and do it all with the amazing rolling ruler.

They walked zombie like toward him, pound in hand staring at his self-articulating wig. Then he would start all over again with another crowd of spellbound gawkers; he must have made a fortune. I’m sure he thought his success was down to his powers as a salesman, but it had to be the wig, and I think it might have been that which attracted the ladies. I got talking to him later over lunch in the café, where we were joined by his current girlfriend, tall, long blonde hair, sun-tanned and the longest legs I have ever seen.

They looked an odd couple and I saw him receive many a jealous look from less follicly challenged males that day. They were obviously wondering what it was that he had that they didn’t. But I know what it was, how can any girl resist an Amazing rolling ruler.

Steak & Ale Pie.

2007-03-20T17:39:00.000Z

I think its time to pack it in; it’s all over for me I think. This morning as I was whizzing round Asda three people asked me where things were and the sad thing is, I knew the isle, the shelf and what each item was next to. I’m usually in and out as quickly as possible and today would have been no exception, but I found myself stood in front of the tinned pie’s section staring at Fray Bentos stake & ale pies.

Most people can be jerked back to happier times or treasured memories by the sight, sound even smell of something, It could be the falling of petals from a cherry blossom tree as you walk down a quiet street. It could be the strains of a once shared love song that rekindles feelings you thought you had pushed to the back of your mind. Or perhaps the smell of nature reminds you of a day lying in a field of gold with someone special and making plans for a future that never came to be.

Well for me its bloody steak & ale pie, all the other reminders I mentioned probably happen every Preston Guild with other people, but my torture happens every time I go shopping at Asda. I normally avoid memory catalysts like the plague, but Asda is cheap, convenient and quick. I remember once they had a change round one week and I thought I had got away with it. But as I turned into another Isle expecting to see tins of Tuna and Salmon, there they were in a huge promotional display staring at me.
There was every type of pie that Fray Bentos make in a bleeding great ark around the biggest tin of steak & ale pie I have ever seen.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, that kind of thing is always happening to me, it’s my fate, it’s my destiny, I was born to suffer. I’m probably just too sentimental, as Kaz would say “An incurable romantic” In fact I know I am, it runs in the family. I can remember a long time ago calling at my Sisters hotel when she was over here from Spain visiting. Whilst waiting for her I noticed a house brick on the coffee table, I asked her where it had come from and she explained that she had taken it from the rubble of the house we had grown up in as a reminder from that happy time.

And you think I’m crackers?

This summers must see

2007-03-19T13:53:00.000Z

Dave D aka Donkey D.

2007-03-16T12:01:00.000Z

Things are looking up, I saw an old school chum this morning, Dave D and unlike some of my other school pals he doesn’t have one foot in the grave. In fact he looks a picture of health and no different than I remembered him from years ago. He came up behind me in the shop whilst I was buying a paper pinched my ankle and made a barking sound, thinking I had been bitten I jumped a mile and was about to floor him when he explained who he was. The Indian gentleman serving me began waving his arms around and shouting “Get out, get out no fighting in here” then he came from behind the counter and pushed us both toward the door. I thought he over reacted, but I did jump quite high nearly knocking the chap in front of me over and I think I swore loudly. Dave D was laughing throughout the whole thing and as the door was slammed behind us he shouted “Shove your paper up your arse, can’t you take a joke”.

It all came flooding back to me, can’t you take a joke might have been his catch phrase, he was always saying it to someone, but then he was always playing practical jokes on people who never seemed to see the funny side of his lunatic actions. I reminded him that the last time we had seen each other he had us thrown out of a pub for making lewd suggestions to one of the barmaids who just happened to be the landlord’s daughter.

He didn’t tell me what he had said but I can guess. He was what you call a well-endowed chap and not at all shy about it, In fact he would inform anyone who would listen after he had downed a few drinks. As gross as this might sound most of the time he could get away with it because he was such a likeable type of bloke, always the life and soul of the party. But there would be the odd occasion when his forwardness would get him into trouble.

He seemed to have a death wish when it came to authority and was constantly in trouble at school despite his having above average intelligence and being confidently academic. He couldn’t abide pompousness and wasn’t very fond of lectures when he had transgressed. “Tell me off, punish me, let me go, don’t drag it out just to hear yourself talk”, that was how he looked at it. I remember once several of us had been caught doing something we shouldn’t have been doing and were sent up to the head for a bollocking and a spot of corporal.
We stood in a row heads bowed in front of the headmaster’s desk as he read the riot act to us. It went on and on and on, I could see Dave starting to fidget a sure sign that something would soon go wrong.

Eventually the headmaster finished and asked each in turn if we had anything to say, of course we meekly apologised, insisted that it wouldn’t happen again, the usual bullshit you come out with when your in that situation. When he came to Dave he asked the same question he had asked us all “have you got anything to say” Dave stared him right in the eye and said in a loud and confident voice “Balls all your worship”.

My heart sank, someone giggled, the head sprang from behind his desk and roared “What did you say boy”, Dave looked him in the eye and said again but louder “Balls all, are you deaf”. The heads face was bright crimson; he screamed at the rest of us to wait outside, we filed out quickly, Dave started to follow but was dragged back then the door slammed.

We listened intently, from behind the door we heard the head demand that he hold out his hand, our pal refused, the head demanded again, I heard him say “get it over with then, take it out on me cos yer didn’t get yer conkers last night”. The headmaster roared again “you insolent little bastard”. There was a loud thwack as the strap landed on his outstretched hand, Dave said “didn’t hurt” then another thwack and again “didn’t hurt” I lost count after eight, but each thwack was followed by the words “didn’t hurt”. We all stood shaking and with every thwack we flinched. Eventually there was silence, then the head screamed at him to get out, the door opened and a defiant Dave sauntered past us, he looked back as we stood there open mouthed and winked at us. The headmaster bright red and sweating shouted at us to get out of his sight.

We scattered in all directions, I caught up with Dave in the boy’s toilets, he had his hands under a cold water tap and was shaking. I asked him if he was ok, and why he had done such a stupid thing. He laughed and said “well you cant complain, you lot got off with it” but there were tears in his eyes. After that episode he was a legend in the school, I’m sure that kind of thing happens all the time nowadays, but in my school days insurgence was a rare thing.

He doesn’t seem to have changed at all; he is going to call me to arrange a night out, that should be an interesting Blog.

Footnote: Conkers Sex with the wife.

Patrick Broadhurst 1946-1975 16th March Angola

2007-03-15T20:19:00.000Z

Was it so hard, Achilles,
So very hard to die?
Thou knowest and I know not
So much the happier am I.

I will go back this morning
From Imbros over the sea.
Stand in the trench, Achilles,
Flame capped and shout for me.

A friend in need.

2007-03-15T10:21:00.000Z

I get on rather well with women, and have done since I was a kid. When other kids were screaming to get out of their wheels and go play in the sand, I would opt to stay with the ladies and study the strange and fascinating world of the kind people. That’s how I saw them. My Father once told me that “A woman was the most valuable thing a man could possess, and that that’s how most men thought of women, as possessions. But you can’t own people; you can only keep them close by showing love and respect, and allowing them to be who they are, another person”.

My education and philosophy on life began from the moment I could talk, I didn’t always understand what my Father was teaching me, but it went in and as I grew older I understood more. He imparted knowledge either as fact or opinion, there was always a distinct demarcation of the two and I trusted him on both. He was an enlightened and forward thinking man who had a unique sense of humour, people loved his company and they could be seen to visibly relax when he was around.

My Father and I were in the park one day kicking a football around, when a chap he knew came along and they sat on a bench chatting for a while, the man asked my father for advice about how to deal with his wayward wife. I got the gist of what was being said as I pretended to inspect the laces on my football. For a long time after I was under the impression that this man only had half a wife. I reminded my Father about this event as a young adult and he clarified things for me. He had told the man this “Fifty percent of a mans life is a woman, but if he doesn’t understand her then he can only be half of what he is”. I understood then, but I don’t think the man with the wayward wife did because she had it away on her toes with a German merchant seaman from Lubeck whose ship had docked in Trafford.

Over the years I tried hard to understand what made women tick, an impossible task really as each is an individual and subject to their own personal philosophy. However I have had great fun trying and will continue to do so for as long as I am compos mentis. The other night I found myself round at a friend’s house for a drink and a heart to heart. She had eventually broken with her boyfriend after several years of him quitting jobs for various ailments like whiplash driving a forklift truck, bad back due to turning around, strained wrists as a result of writing too much. The list is endless but I won’t go on and as daft as some of this sounds I kid you not.

It wasn’t just the job thing either; she works as well as looking after a young child but he didn’t do his share around the house which might have helped his case. So when he came home early from work and told her he had had enough of his new job, she gave him the ultimatum, get right back or get right out. He chose the latter without argument and within an hour was on a train destined for Scotland. It wasn’t really a shock to her, she told me she had expected it for a while, I think she just needed someone to let of steam to and get pissed with. So let of steam she did and of course we got well and truly pissed.

Around two in the morning she decided to cook a meal for us, I asked her if it was going to be one of the elaborate concoctions she bangs together when she has had a drink, and if so to leave me out. I was told not to worry and that it would be normal grub. I should have known better, the meal consisted of chips, sausage, and hamburger cooked in the chip pan with a beef bourguignon ready meal thrown on top and covered in chicken and mushroom sauce with a sprinkling of grated cheese. Even she couldn’t eat this mess so it finished up inside the dog.

I attended an Anne Summers type party once after she dared me to come and do a strip. All the girls new each other and I knew most of them, the only person upset with this arrangement was the lady holding the party, but she relented when told that I was appearing as the guest stripper. I knew I was going to have the piss ripped out of me royal but I went anyway. I had a lot of fun, drank a lot of cheap wine, was given a unique insight into girl’s sexual banter, and when pressed to do my strip was allowed to stop at my shorts, much to my relief. Afterwards I called at the local for an aperitif still sporting a large badge that declared me to be a dick head. I think I must be.

I have called round a couple of times just to check that she is ok, and noticed that since her boyfriend has disappeared from the house, so has the subtle aroma of grilled kippers, I prefer Paco Rabanne myself.

Metal man.

2007-03-13T12:20:00.000Z

I was in a rush this morning to get in to work not because I like work, far from it but I was expecting an important phone call. Five minutes from home and I realised that I desperately needed the bathroom. Should I turn back or make a run for it, I made a run for it, and was reminded yet again that when in that situation the nearer you get to the point of relief, the more desperate you become. Of course the traffic was building up and moving as slowly as it possibly could, and I swear that people were looking at me through their car windows, smirking and deliberately getting in my way.

As I turned into the car park I saw that a white van driver had stolen my parking space. I made a mental note to let his tyres down at the earliest opportunity, but eventually found a spot some seventy miles from the main doors and run key in hand to let myself in. By now sweat had broken out on my forehead and my blood had run cold, it’s the same sort of feeling a prisoner in the dock gets when the judge dons his black cap and pronounces sentence. Which is why I completely ignored a face I haven’t seen for some time.

It belonged to a chap who used to work here; his name is also Dave. He came to us strait out of the army which is why whenever he hosted an event, he would have the customers running around or doubling up, marching to and from the spectator gallery and generally behaving like regulars on exercise. He is a likeable lad despite his sergeant major ways and a little odd too which I think is a plus.

Its funny that despite him serving in two campaigns, one of which was quite bloody, he chose to loose the plot whilst working for us, a measure perhaps of the stress levels that exist here at desolation row.
It started after being hauled in front of the MD for making a group of kids enjoying a birthday party hit the deck and give him twenty. Personally I would have done the same, they were running amok and no amount of shouting made them take any notice. The parents thought it great fun to see our hero being run ragged and covered in hamburger and chips, however they didn’t see the funny side of their little tykes having to press twenty with a big hob nail boot on the back of their neck.

He spent his dinner hour working on Bob, a life size metal man he was building out of old car parts. It was a unique piece or work and very cleverly done, the arms and legs articulated the head moved from side to side and it could be placed in any position and locked. It looked a lot like the terminator robot although not as shiny and it weighed a ton. But Bob went everywhere with Dave they were inseparable.
As I flew out of my car this morning blinkered to everything other than performing a basic function, I completely ignored Dave, but did manage to see him driving out as he left. It seems he is coming back to work here after his long rest and recuperation, perfectly well and again able to take up his duties as before.

As he drove out of the car park I noticed someone sat in the passenger seat, I talked with Christine the secretary who had met with Dave about his return and enquired as to why his wife hadn’t come in for a chat and a cup of tea. She informed me that he had been in a hurry and that the passenger was someone called Bob.