

# Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger

David W Robinson

Copyright © 2015 David Robinson

Published by David Robinson at Smashwords

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This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Discover other Smashwords titles by David W Robinson

The Midthorpe Novels

Fiagara Nights

(And coming soon, **Bumped Off in Benidorm** )

Flatcap

Flatcap on Sex

Flatcap's Guide to UK Holidays

Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger

The Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries

(Published and managed by Crooked Cat)

The Filey Connection

The I-Spy Murders

A Halloween Homicide

A Murder for Christmas

Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend

My Deadly Valentine

The Chocolate Egg Murders

The Summer Wedding Murder

Costa del Murder

Christmas Crackers

Death in Distribution

A Killing in the Family

A Theatrical Murder

Trial by Fire

# Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger
Shopping

I've just got back from our local supermarket where they've taken the usual scandalous amount off me for luxuries like food and drink and washing up liquid, leaving nothing for life's essentials like beer and fags and those magazines they keep on the top shelf. It's always been a mystery to me why titles like _Practical Train Spotting_ are kept on the top shelf. Do they carry pictures of trains showing an indecent amount of undercarriage, or do they assume that all anoraks are 6'4"?

I won't name the store because a) they never carry my novels and b) they'd probably sue me.

I've been hundreds of times before and I know where everything is and, unlike the missus, I never get distracted. If it's not on the shopping list, I don't buy it. Like custard, which was not on this morning's list and was not, therefore, bought. We are doomed to a custardless weekend, which can be a bit of a bugger if apple crumble and custard are on the menu.

Ambling round the place, I turned into the canned veg aisle and found the usual tins of beans, peas, carrots, sweet corn, tomatoes _(which I always thought were fruit)_ and right next to them, a huge display of... DVD movies.

Is it me? Her Indoors is a fairly good cook _(unlike me)_ but I've never figured she could rustle up egg, chips, baked beans and _Dr Who Series 2_. Maybe it is me, maybe I'm too old fashioned. Maybe we should try _Terminator 3_ and Yorkshire pudding, or _Independence Day_ with sweet corn, butter beans and broccoli.

I can imagine my granddaughter when her mum serves up _X-Men_ with chips. Vicky will sulk and say, "I wanted _Twilight_."

And what will we find next in the shops? Waterstone's giving away a free can of peas with every copy of Stephen King's _Duma Key_? HMV stacking jars of sliced beetroot next to Madonna's latest album?

A Parliamentary Statement by the Right Honourable Berk for Idiotic Ideas.

Following our anticipated success in simplifying the NHS, the Cabinet has decided that this process should be applied to other areas, hence our changes to basic geometry.

In taking this step, we had to ask ourselves, who decided that there would be 360 degrees in a circle? Why such a complex and costly number? Do we know of any other examples where 360 is the baseline?

Having come to negative conclusions, we therefore decided that as from April 6th, coinciding with the start of the new fiscal year, there will be only 200 degrees in a circle, thereby saving the country 160 degrees on every circle.

Pilot studies carried out throughout the entire country indicated positive results, albeit with a few minor problems.

Satnav systems have proved difficult to remodel. We are aware of the gentleman who left his home in Bolton to visit the Trafford Centre 10 miles away and ended up on the front at Morecambe, 60 miles away, and we're also aware of the Scunthorpe resident who went out for a newspaper and didn't come back for a week. His satnav should have told him to turn left in 300 yards, but told him to turn right in 555 miles, and instead of the Humberside Observer, he ended up with the Bordeaux Bugle.

We have also been made aware that the chap on the front at Morecambe reprogrammed his satnav for the way home, and instead of coming back to Bolton finished up somewhere north of Dumbarton. In addition we have been advised of the 20-something bimbo who boarded a flight to Ibiza and got off the plane in Baku.

It's also true that The Royal Artillery, practising their skills on Salisbury Plain, decimated Basingstoke, but according to Zoosk, there are so many young women from Basingstoke without men in their lives that we don't believe the place will be missed.

Difficulties like the 80,000-ton Caribbean cruise liner currently blocking the Manchester Ship Canal should be ironed out by the time the system is fully implemented a week next Tuesday.

The latest updates indicate that the chap north of Dumbarton is trying to work out how he'll get across the North Sea from John o'Groats to Stockholm, which his satnav assures him is the correct route to Bolton, the bimbo can't understand why her pidgin Spanish is useless in Azerbaijan and the Captain of the Caribbean cruise liner hasn't yet worked out where reverse gear is on his ship.

It's important to bear in mind that there is no gain without pain. We weighed the advantages against the disadvantages and there were a couple of pluses. Although the changes may be difficult for us to handle, the generations of numpties to follow will gain for the simple reason that 200 is the score of each alien they zap on Alien Zapsters.

In addition, although replacing every protractor and compass in the country will be costly, the plastics sweatshops of Southeast Asia, in which most cabinet members have large shareholdings, will be on overtime, and British retailers will enjoy sales like they've never seen when school kids of all ages rush to buy their new geometry sets.

Shakespeare revisited

On the something hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's birth I thought it was time some of his better-known quotes were brought into the 21st century.

It's something I've brooded on for 45 years or more. In a school production of Julius Caesar, I played Cassius and I never once got to say, "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." _(For the benefit of those who don't understand that gag, Mohammed Ali's real name was Cassius Clay.)_

So here we go with a range of Shakespearean quotes, given the Flatcap treatment.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose is probably a carnation but would Her Indoors know the difference?

Methinks the lady doth protest too much. She's never been a size 10.

If music be the food of love, make me a saxophone sandwich and get your knickers off.

All the world's a stage and I'm a highwayman. Hand over your wallet.

To be or not to be, that is the question... er... can I phone a friend?

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than a pint of lager and the next episode of Eastenders.

What light through yonder window breaks? It's that damned daughter of yours, watching Twilight on DVD again instead of doing her homework.

A horse, a horse. My kingdom for a horse... Two quid each way, Richard's Charger, three thirty at Kempton.

Be not afraid of greatness. Get thee into the Big Brother house and come away with the hundred thousand sovs.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day... hot, heavy and sweaty.

Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Wherever thou art, switcheth on thy mobile phone, we need a loaf of bread on your way home from work.

The Southend Chip Butty

This is an old tale, but perfectly true.

For many a long and happy year I was a trucker, and there aren't many corners of this island I haven't been to. Back in the early 80s, I worked for a print company in Oldham, and on one three-day excursion, having dealt with deliveries in London and the Home Counties, I headed out for my final call in Southend-on-sea.

Tootling along the A127, I felt peckish, so called into a caff on the outskirts of Billericay, where I ordered a chip butty.

The girl behind the counter, a striking young thing of about 25, looked blank at me. "Woss oner them, then?"

"A chip sandwich," I said.

She shook her head. "Nah, mayt, not wiv you at all."

"You know what a sandwich is?"

"Well a course I know what bleed'n sandwich is."

"Right, so this is a sandwich with chips in it."

The best description I could think of to match her expression was vapid. "Rahn that by me again, squire."

"Look, you know how to make a roast beef sandwich?"

"This is a caff, mayt, acourse I knows how t'make a roast bleed'n beef sandwich."

"So do me a roast beef sandwich, without the beef."

The look of horror on her face told me I had just committed blasphemy.

"How can you have a roast beef bleed'n sarney, wivout the roast bleed'n beef?"

"You put chips there instead, and it becomes a chip sandwich or, as we know it up north, a chip butty."

She gawped. I was torn between two possible comments, but considering my state of malnutrition, I shelved, "you know when you left school, did you leave your brain behind," and instead opted for, "close your mouth, luv, you look like a fish."

She went into a huddled conference with her colleagues and I only caught the odd whisper, like, "awkward git," and "bleed'n northerner", before they reached a unanimous decision.

She put a slice of bread on a plate, buried it under two scoops of chips, and then put another slice of bread on top and charged me a pound.

Mathematically challenged

I'm not the best in the world when it comes to maths. I wouldn't know a square root from pi, even if you gave me some of the pie with gravy. But put a pound sign in front of the numbers and I can hold my own with the best of them.

So there I was in a supermarket and I needed some razor blades for my Gillette razor. I found a pack of four triple-blade cartridges for about £10.00.

A TENNER? For four razor blades? I remember when they were five bob for ten.

"Excuse me," I said to the assistant," but can I mow the lawn with these? Only I'm sure I've bought a hover mower that cost less."

"Well," she admitted, "we don't sell many of them."

"At that price I'm surprised you sell any at all."

But then I learned the real reason they don't sell them. Further along on the same shelf were razors. Let's call them Bloodletters. Like the Gillette, they were triple-blade, and they came with two cartridges. They were £4.00 each. I could buy two brand new Bloodletters with two cartridges each and still save 47 pence on the price of replacement Gillette cartridges.

So they're not Gillette, but do I know that? The same companies that make the "branded" goods also make the "own brand" bits and pieces we find in supermarkets.

I said I'm no mathematician. I'm no economist either. But it doesn't take a degree to work out which is the better deal.

A genuine economist would look at the number of shaves from the Mach 3 blades and compare it to the number of shaves from the Bloodletter. A genuine economist would probably get a PhD out of such a study.

But I would be the exception that proves the rule. Where Gillette claim an average of, say, ten or twenty shaves per cartridge, I work on time. I change the blade every six months. When it's going rusty.

Naked Gnomes & Numpty Neighbours

Here's a tale from Hunnington, near Halesowen in the Midlands.

A local lady has had three gnomes in her garden for about 15 years. Trouble is they're in the altogether: one male, two females.

The report, which I found in the Telegraph online, didn't say how you could tell the difference. The mind can only boggle and when it comes to boggling, my mind is exceptional. I think the male gnome had "M" on his chest and the lady gnomes had an "F" on theirs.

The substance of this tale is that a neighbour complained and Bromsgrove District Council ordered the 64-year-old owner to cover them up because they were "upsetting local children".

According to the _Telegraph_ , the neighbour did not want to be identified and you can see why. _(S)_ he said the gnomes were "pathetic".

Wrong Mr/Mrs neighbour. You're pathetic. What's your next move? Hop over to Florence and demand that they put Y-fronts on Michelangelo's David? And while we're at it, let's get a bra and a pair of M&S knickers on the Venus Di Medici. The Venus di Milo could do with an fcuk top, too. She has no arms to cover up her bits.

What's worse than this narrow-minded whinger is the attitude of the council. Don't they have anything better to do than hassle people over garden gnomes? Why didn't they tell the complainant to get a life? Because they're just as nit-picking as the bloody neighbour, that's why.

Where are these people when it comes to gratuitous nudity, sex and violence on TV? Or does Mr _(s)_ moaner switch it off when there's a bit too much cleavage in Emmerdale for fear of upsetting his/her children?

Having had a rant, I'm now going out to see where I can buy naked garden gnomes. If nothing else, they might scare off the cats.

Phone Affair

From the AOL newsdesk comes the tale of a Canadian woman who is suing her telephone company for invasion of privacy after the itemised bill revealed her lover's telephone number to her husband. The husband didn't know she was having an affair until he spotted the number on the bill and it had been called quite often. So he rang it and got through to the wife's lover. End of marriage and now she's trying to sue the phone company for $600,000.

As I see it, she'll likely get away with it, and it is precisely this frivolous kind of action that makes a farce of the law. Whether she was right or wrong to have an affair is beside the point. That's a moral judgement, but to try passing the buck onto the phone company because her husband found out through them, is nothing short of lunacy, and it makes you wonder where it will end.

Here, then, is the list of court cases I'm about to pursue.

**Pig In The Middle Pork Pies:** My addiction has led to my abdomen growing at a faster rate than my legs can carry the extra weight: £200,000.

**Old Grunge Nut Brown Ale:** Another addiction which has left me with a permanent thirst for the sweetest of all ales: £300,000.

**Brenda the South Leeds Bike:** her sex education lessons in the damp grass behind the Thorpe Hotel all those years ago have rotted my knees and left me in permanent pain: £400,000.

**Ripcord Fitted Strip Club:** The dim lighting in their concert room means my eyesight has all but gone: £500,000.

**My Neighbours in South Leeds:** whose obdurate refusal to divulge their knowledge of my first wife's affair meant the marriage lasted 6 months longer than it should have done: £637.79.

Traditions

Someone asked, "are there no traditions you will not have a go at?" Answer. No. None. Here's a few to tide you over.

Trooping the colour – our telly's black and white.

Last night of the Proms – I was nowhere near Fleetwood Pier when it caught fire.

State Opening of Parliament – if that black rod is made of mild steel, it might have a bit of scrap value.

Halloween – it's an American tradition, now push off with your trick or bleeding treat.

Bonfire Night – tell me why I should pay twenty nicker to watch a few chemicals go up in smoke and light when I can watch next door's for nothing.

Shrove Tuesday – I'd rather have a Yorkshire pudding.

Budget Statement – beer, fags, income tax, car tax, petrol, all up. End of story.

Highland Games – they're chucking away all those tree trunks and I need a new fence.

Edinburgh Tattoo – doesn't look like body art to me.

Glastonbury – we spent thousands of years advancing from caves, mud huts and tents, why should I want to go back to it?

Welly Wanging – I don't see why I should want to chuck my wellies away. There's nothing wrong with 'em.

Cheese rolling – puts me right off my cheese and tomato sandwich.

Farnborough Air Show – I live under the approach for Ringway. I can see all the aircraft I want.

Short prices

Interesting item in the news.

A couple took their two children to a Chinese Restaurant and asked for two adults and two children. They were surprised to be billed for three adults and one child.

Apparently their ten-year-old boy was 4'11" tall and that makes him an adult.

Does it?

I wish I'd known that 40 years ago when I was only 4'10". I could have got out of my first marriage by claiming I was still a child and unable to make her pregnant. I could have been paying half fare on the bus until I was about 19. And how many times did I go to the pictures and pay the full admission price when I could have got away with a half?

On the downside, I wouldn't have been able to see _Psycho_ or _War of The Worlds_ until I was 22 and my dad would have had to take me to see _2001 A Space Odyssey_.

Think positively, however, Her Indoors is 4'9". She already gets a pensioner's discount and if I kick in the child discount, too, I should be able to feed her for free at any participating restaurant.

Oh Dear What Can The Matter Be?

Hear about the old lady who locked herself in the lavatory? But this isn't a bawdy song, there was only one of her, not three, and she wasn't there from Monday til Saturday: she was in there for three weeks.

The lock on the bathroom door of her second floor apartment in Epinay-sous-Senart, Paris, jammed and she couldn't get out. There was no window and no phone, so she took to knocking on the pipes at night to alert her neighbours. And what did they do? The bastards thought she was carrying out DIY work and got up a petition to have her thrown out.

Firefighters eventually freed her after 20 days. She was in weak condition and had survived on warm tap water.

Now this is not funny... laugh? I nearly poured myself glass of Tizer.

The entire situation is bizarre from all angles.

The lady must have lived alone. Unless her husband was a bigger miserable git than me, but even then you'd think he'd have noticed her missing when he wanted his dinner. If she lived alone, why did she lock the frigging door? I like a bit of privacy but even I don't shower with the door locked when I'm alone. _(Her Indoors often complains I don't always shower with the door locked when we have visitors.)_

And what of the neighbours? If I hear odd banging noises in the early hours, I don't automatically assume, "Aye, aye, Larry's rebuilding his kitchen again." It would have made more sense if they'd have assumed it was someone tapping out a message in code. Like Colditz.

Eventually, one or two people realised they hadn't seen the old girl and that's when they called the authorities.

And it took three weeks? What happened in the meantime?

" _Have you seen old Edith lately?"_

" _Judging by the amount of noise she's making plumbing in her new bidet, there's nowt wrong with her."_

Global marketing

I've just watched England stroll to a 4-0 victory against Kazakhstan in the World Cup qualifiers. Fabio's men never really got out of second gear. And while the Kazaks played with plenty of spirit, they were so naïve even my dog could read their tactics.

For once, however, my concentration wasn't on the footy, but the advertising hoardings around the ground. There were the usual ones, Bet365, Nationwide, HSBC, which are obviously aimed at armchair fans like me, back in Blighty, and then there was the advert for Pukka Pies

I'm not knocking Pukka Pies, but you'd be hard pressed to find them in Manchester where Holland's Pies rule, so what price me picking up a Pukka tate and meaty in downtown Almaty? Those ads are aimed at Brit viewers.

It's easy to knock this practice, but I think it's us writers who have it wrong. Just think what JKR could have done if she'd booked one of the hoardings for the qualifier against Croatia? Harry Potter could have been a worldwide phenomenon.

And what about writers like Tolstoy, Dickens, Shakespeare? If they'd had a bit more nous with their advertising, maybe more people would have heard of them.

But I've learned my lesson. I don't take sufficient advantage of globalisation. From now on, I'm going upmarket with my advertising, starting with a flyer for the _STAC Mysteries_ to be handed round during the match between The Red Lion and the Dog & Duck a week on Sunday.

I'm sure it'll be a winner.

Sick & Broke

It seems the NHS is skint ... or it will be by 2015. I know the feeling. I've been living next door to flat broke all my life.

Our government imagine that the best way forward is through private initiatives. It's a simple plan. You get a private company to build you a hospital and then rent it back to you at exorbitant rates, the company makes a humungous profit on the deal and the NHS ... er the NHS actually ends up paying more in the long run.

Maths was never my strong suit, but even I can see the gaping hole in that plan. Imagine I had a flat tyre and I needed to change the wheel. I can do it myself for nothing, and get my hands dirty, or I can pay someone to do it for me and keep my hands clean. They'll charge me £50 but a bar of soap costs less than a pound.

I know exactly how to solve the NHS crisis, and it's so simple I'm surprised no one has thought of it before. I can't claim credit for the idea. I got it from a bus driver. I'd just called him a robbing bastard after he charged me £3.10 for a three-mile journey that took almost 30 minutes, and he replied, "This job would be all right if it wasn't for the passengers."

His argument was so profound, I almost asked for a return.

Apply this logic to the NHS and the problem is solved. Get rid of the patients.

All these whining, whinging people turning up with weak hearts, broken bones, knife wounds, contagious diseases. Send the lazy buggers home and get them back out to work. So what if his leg is hanging off. Bit of Elastoplast and a dollop of Dettol, he'll cope. Who cares if he's got smallpox? Don't waste money treating him, just let his mates send him to shun for a week or two. He'll be all right.

And what of ageing moaners with busted knees? Serves 'em right. If they'd spent more time back in the 60s studying for GCEs instead of giving the girlfriend a good seeing to in the damp grass, they wouldn't have busted knees. Teach 'em a lesson.

So you see, the NHS doesn't really have a problem. It's all these sick people making unreasonable demands on it.

The Thoughts of Chairman Flatcap

There must be a God. How else do you account for the 5/8" AF spanner?

If money is worth earning, it's worth hoarding.

The only safe sex is when you're at least 50 miles away from her husband and your wife.

Marriage is like trying to connect an electric cooker to the water supply. No matter how you do it, the result is lethal.

Heaven = two pork pies, two brown ales, footy on the telly and Her Indoors at the bingo.

Jam Doughnuts

I had to attend a short seminar on manual handling. It came under the heading of health and safety at work. Employers have a duty of care to their staff and part of that duty includes proper training in many areas, including manual handling.

I've known Mike, the trainer, for about 4 years, and my first question was, "Does this session include tips I might pass on to encourage the missus to do some manual handling, only she keeps telling me we're too old for that sort of thing."

Sadly, it did not. It took the form of a video presentation, a lecture from Mike, and then we had to pick up a box put it on the table, then take it off the table and put it back on the floor.

It seemed to me that by the time we were through, the box would be in a state of confusion, not knowing whether it was supposed to be on the table or the floor. The union called an immediate work to rule in support of the box's demand for a proper job description and allocation of workspace. In addition there were health and safety issues concerning the box which could be injured if some clumsy berk _(i.e. me)_ dropped it. On a show of hands the motion was defeated on the grounds that the box had consistently refused to join the union. The box has now been sent to Coventry, which is a bit unfortunate, because it was addressed to Carlisle.

While all this was going on, I pointed out to Mike that if I followed lifting procedures and bent at the knee, keeping my back straight, I would never get up again because my knees would come out in sympathy with the box. My pleas fell on deaf ears. I had to lift the box onto the table, then drop it on the floor.

The best bit of the morning was the video presentation. The company had gone to a lot of trouble producing this half hour video, and as a comedy, it was worth every penny. The guy lifting and demonstrating handling techniques really knew his stuff. For example, when he came across a 49kg (100lb) parcel on the upper shelf of a warehouse rack, he showed us how to pull it towards ourselves, tilt and take the weight naturally, as it slid off the shelf. My only question: which brainless prat put a 49kg parcel on the upper shelf in the first place?

Putting that aside, we saw him working in the back of a van showing us how to put parcels on the conveyor for offloading. His little workspace soon got filled so he started the conveyor to take the parcels away. The only trouble was he started it in the wrong direction and two of the parcels fell off and almost broke his foot.

But the best bit of the video was the animation, which showed us the human spine and how easily it can be damaged by twisting and compressing the discs in directions they were not designed for. It likened the discs to a jam doughnut.

A JAM DOUGHNUT?

Now I know why I have so much trouble with my back. Over the years the cream has clotted and the jam has set solid.

Doggy See, Doggy Do

I found this snippet of scientific silliness where I find most of my stuff: the BBC.

Apparently dogs automatically imitate the body movements of their owners.

My mutt, Joe, is the exception that proves the rule.

True, his breathing matches mine, but he struggles to cope with the central heating whereas my lungs are shot with a condition known as too much Old Holborn, which for those who don't know, is a hand-rolling tobacco.

On average I work a 12-14 hour day. The research fails to explain, therefore, where the dog learned to commandeer the most comfortable cushion and zonk out for the day, waking only when he hears the magic word 'walkies' or the rattle of his dish and a tin of Pedigree Chum coming out of the kitchen cupboard.

And although he may well have heard me telling the salesmen, bailiffs and political canvassers to piss off when they knock on the door, I'm certain he never saw me biting their ankles.

You don't see me snapping at the telly when Skippy the Bush Kangaroo appears, either, even if it is in an advert for _Rolos_ , and I don't waste my time rushing out into the back garden trying to catch the blackbirds, robins and pigeons that feed on the bird table.

Lastly, I can't recall any time when I was on hands and knees with my arse in the air ... well I can, but I wasn't waiting for someone to throw a ball for me.

Where Joe is concerned, I think the jury is still out on doggy see, doggy do.

Moggie Drychin

Scientists have, at long last, established how a cat can lap milk without getting its chin wet.  
Apparently your humble moggie is a mathematical genius. In order to drink the milk the cat pulls it in with only the tip of its tongue and the speed at which the tongue is retracted, forces a column of milk to rise until the inertia in the column is exactly balanced with the force of gravity. The cat then closes its mouth and swallows.

You may consider this kind of research to be a waste of time, effort, energy and money, but I'm sure there must be a practical application somewhere. I meanersay, if Tabby, the ginger tom from next door, is such a mathematical genius, maybe I should get him to sort out my bets.

According to Her Indoors if scientists have established how a cat can drink without getting its chin wet, they should be able to explain why I can't drink anything, milk, tea, coffee, soup, without getting both my chin and shirt wet.

For my money, now that they've solved this mystery, it's time the boffins concentrated on why Tabby chooses to shit on my lawn instead of his own.

Sex on the Move

The Beeb reports that police in the Soendre Buskerud district of Norway noticed a car travelling along the motorway at 20 mph over the limit, and veering erratically from side to side.

They soon discovered that the lady passenger was straddled across the driver's lap and they were having sex.

The police said, "He couldn't see much because she was in his way."

It gives a whole new meaning to the word screwdriver.

Transferred

With the news that drama queen Christiano Ronaldo is to leave Old Trafford for the Bernabeu _(that's where Real Madrid play their home games)_ I began to wonder about transfer fees.

I love footy. You've probably noticed. But 80 million quid is a ridiculous amount of money for any club to pay for the services of a player who, brilliant though he is, can tumble over an ant wearing the opposition colours. Even the President of UEFA, Michel Platini, a mean forward in his day, commented that it is farcical given the state of football finances. _(The transfer fee, I mean, not Ronaldo's diving.)_

But it got me to thinking about transfer fees in general. Why are they only limited to sport? Why not other walks of life? For example, when Jeremiah Noteworthy, MP for an allotment on the outskirts of Swanage, defects from New Labour to the Empire Loyalists, do the ELs have to pay a fee? Knowing our politicians, they'd want a cut of the fee, which would inflate it from its true worth of about five quid, to somewhere in the region of Ronaldo's golden goodbye.

Did the Russians cough up a transfer fee when Blunt, Philby, et al defected back in the... whenever it was? They should have done. Look at what they got: three master spies divulging the plans for Spaghetti Junction.

About a year ago, I was transferred from my cosy sinecure in the yard to driving; did Traffic pay Facilities a sizeable fee. I don't know, but in an effort to find out, I asked the boss. "Would Wincanton's pay eighty million sovs for me to work for them?"

"No," said the gaffer. "We'd have paid them to take you."

Nice to know you're wanted, innit?

Parity

Christiano Ronaldo's move to Real Madrid involves a reported weekly pay packet of £180,000. I'm going to see the boss on Monday demanding parity with Ronaldo, because, according to me, I do for my employer what he does for his.

Dribbling: My hands aren't as solid as they used to be and the cup shakes when I hold it, so I can comfortably dribble soup, tea, coffee, juice, water. Also, nobody drools like me when Susanna Reid is on the telly, and that's at six in the morning, not three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon.

Fast Moving: My truck does 56 mph and my car does 45. Can Ronaldo move that fast?

Scoring: My rate may have gone down a bit with age, but when I was younger, I could score most Friday nights, depending on which pubs I went in and how many spare chicks were propping up the bar.

Terrorising Defences: I've been terrorising councillors, MPs, local authority clerks and civil servants for 45 years or more. What more can I say?

Free Kicks: My weakest area. The only free kicks I can remember taking with any success were on an anti-Vietnam demo in 1968, when I managed to kick a neo-fascist, Nixon-ite where he wouldn't want to show him mum.

Diving: we all know that Ronaldo can trip over his own toenail, but he pales at the side of me. In 2001, I fell off a truck and broke my wrist. In 2002, I fell out of bed and broke my foot. In 2006, I fell off another truck and bust my left knee and in November 2008, I fell down a pothole and broke my right ankle. The differences between my falls and Ronaldo's is mine were all genuine.

Narcissism: I've just checked the mirror and I'm perfect.

The only area where Ronaldo has the edge on me is his ability to jack up the share price of hair gel manufacturers: I have nothing to gel.

Criminal Old Gits

From the Daily Mail comes the news that scores of crumblies are being arrested for offences ranging from shoplifting to sexual assault and arson!!!

Apparently, Sussex police arrested over 1200 pensioners between 2007 and 2009 charging them with crimes like burglary! Arson!! Drug dealing!!! And a 74-year-old charged with sexual assault!!!!

Laugh? I nearly went out and hijacked an armoured car.

I can hardly climb the stepladder to change a light bulb, never mine shinny up a drainpipe to break into some toff's mansion and nick his family silver.

And drug dealing? Was it some old codger cornering the black market in Preparation H? Or maybe he got hold of a hooky load of ointments. "Psst, looking for a bit of relief from your arthritis? Forget the cannabis, get a shufti at this. _Opens duffel bag to reveal a stash of glucosamine and chondroitin._

Perish the thought of what some 74-year-old woman did to warrant a charge of sexual assault. Did she smother his todger in plaster of Paris to make sure it came up to expectations? "I needed to be sure, so I gave the old tosser three Viagra. How did I know he'd have a bleeding coronary?"

Arson is easy to explain. "I was cold and I couldn't afford the gas bill."

So, too, is shoplifting. "Yes, your honour, I took that can of baked beans out of the shop without paying. The lighting in that supermarket is so crappy, I couldn't read the cooking instructions on the label. I was gonna go back and pay for it."

The Sussex police say that all crimes are dealt with accordingly. Pull the other one. For today's target-oriented plod, cornering Madge Higginbotham as she legs it on her zimmer frame is a damn sight easier than catching a gang of armed thugs who've nicked a high-powered car to help them rob the local banks.

Naturally, one of the local MPs had to shove his oar in, telling the oldies they should grow up.

I've often wondered, is talking out of your arse one of the necessary qualifications for politicians? Did it never occur to the Right Honourable Idiot that punitive policies, robbing people of benefits they've paid for all their working lives, might bear some responsibility, if only for the old age thievery?

For my part, I'm looking forward to getting a motorised scooter. Carnage will reign.

Tautological Trivia

Someone mentioned tautology to me the other day. I didn't even know what it was so I looked it up and hey, now I know. It's the kind of thing I've chuckled over for most of my _(alleged)_ writing career. It's overwriting.

For example:

Free gift ... as opposed to one they'll charge me for? My sister-in-law has never yet billed me for the jumper she buys every Christmas.

Forward planning? I prefer backward planning it's more anarchistic, and given our new government, it's probably apposite. Four years in power and we're already back to the 1890s.

Added bonus. Added bonuses tend to be more profitable than those they subtract.

Short summary, thank god it's not a long summary. They're boring.

There are other kinds of tautological twaddle, too, usually coming on the back of acronyms.

HGV vehicle is a common one. A heavy goods vehicle vehicle?

Or how about ATM machine? Automated Teller Machine machine.

And here's a grim one: HIV virus Human Immunodeficiency Virus virus.

My all time favourite was one I saw on the BBC's website a few years back, but is it tautology? I'm not sure.

The report concerned a _fatal_ murder. As murders go, the fatal ones are the worst kind.

Two Tins of Dog Food = £195

It's perfectly true.

Saturday afternoon and we had nothing to do, but Her Indoors had forgotten to add dog food to her shopping list. Obviously, we weren't planning on feeding the mutt this week. Serves the bone idle little sod right for letting next door's cat leave its messages all over the back garden.

Anyway, Her Indoors took pity on him and we went to the megamarket for two tins of dog food, and came out a couple of hours later having spent £195.

You can buy anything and everything at our new store, so while we were there, Her Indoors decided to check out the clothing and picked up a dress for my daughter's 40th. She also bought a swimming costume for Tenerife next January. I don't know why the costume can't be used for Mablethorpe in 4 weeks time, but apparently I saved £75 on the dress. While I was trying to work out how spending £25 was actually a saving of £75 she decimated that saving by buying a new bag, scarf and a case for her glasses all of which set us back another £20.

Sick of the quirky economics, I wandered into the photographic department where a super salesman flogged me a Toshiba digital camcorder that I didn't know I needed for under £100, but it needed a 2Gb mem card and that put the price up to over £100.

After giving my wallet the kiss of life, we ambled into the food hall where we bought sundry items all of which had been forgotten the other day. These included yoghurt, toothpaste, baby wipes _(I think there's something she's not telling me)_. It came to another £11 but she was short of cash and I had to draw £20 from the till.

Note: at no time did two tins of dog food leave the shelves. We were about to leave when she realised she'd forgotten them and had to go back for them.

The all up bill was a few coppers short of £195. When we got home and put the food down for the dog, the ungrateful little git turned his nose up at it. He'd spotted roast beef in the fridge.

The Treadmill

About ten years ago, I was in a sedentary job and my fitness went down as a reciprocal factor of my weight going up. After reading me the riot act on smoking and diet, my doctor gave me a prescription for health. Basically, for the price of a prescription, you could have thirty sessions at a council run gym or swimming pool.

I went to the gym and the instructor filled in a shed load of forms – it was council run, remember – and asked me a lot of questions after which he said, "Your problem is you lack stamina."

"You've wasted half an hour and filled in all these forms just to work that out?" I demanded. "I could have told you, if you'd asked."

"We'll start you on the treadmill," he chortled. "Nothing safer than walking."

"Try wandering down the middle lane of the M62 against the traffic during the rush hour," I suggested.

He set me going on the treadmill at a steady walking pace.

There were four such machines facing a wall of mirrors, and I was confronted with an image of myself as I really was: shorts sagging, midriff bulging, hair waving ... goodbye to my head.

A young woman got on the next treadmill and began running as if she was determined to catch the last bus ten minutes after it had left. This chick was fit. I would have voted Tory for half an hour with her. She would probably have killed me, but the undertaker would never have got the smile off my face.

I was so concerned with eyeing her up that I didn't notice my treadmill was moving a bit faster and I was getting out of breath. I hit the button to slow it down, but pressed the wrong button. I hit "stop" instead. The belt stopped, my legs carried on and I fell off the bleeding thing, spraining my ankle in the process.

I went into that gym overweight and out of breath. I came out overweight and out of breath and walking with a stick.

The Craving For Speed

It appears as how the 1,000 mph British supercar, Bloodhound, will need specialist wheels.

This icon of 21st century, automotive technology, which aims to set the land speed record, needs wheels and tyres that will not be stripped and pitted by grit when its zooming along faster than a bullet.

To me, the solution is simple. Test it on Huddersfield Road. No grit there. At least there wasn't last winter until about a week after the ice and snow hit, by which time it was about as much use as paraffin in a fire extinguisher.

Naturally, you wouldn't be able to get up to speeds of 1,000 mph on Huddersfield Road. The average is about 14 mph in the rush hour, unless you're in the bus lane, where you can hit 25 on a good day. This is because there's nothing in the bus lane. Not even buses. When they run, which is a rarity, they get stuck in the jam caused by a mass of traffic trying to squeeze into the single lane designated for traffic other than buses.

All this begs the question, doesn't it? Why bother designing and building a car that can travel at 1,000 mph? It's not as if you can use it anywhere. The limit on motorways is 70 and during the rush hour on the M60, you're lucky to move at 20. And it's all very well being able to cover the 60 miles from Knutsford to Wallsall in under five minutes, but once you get the other side of Hilton Park services, you'll only grind to a halt with every other vehicle in England.

You'll need some serious brakes, too, especially when you meet two lorries travelling side by side at 55 and some old fool plodding along at 56 in his Morris Minor pulls into lane three ahead of you.

Naturally this thing is not designed for use on the roads. It's designed to set the land speed record, but at a cost of £6.6 million, it's having trouble raising cash.

Taking a cue from Formula 1, they invited sponsors, but the cloud of dust the car will generate will make the logos all but invisible. Even without the dust, this thing will travel so fast, the logos will be near-impossible to read.

Her Indoors: _I forgot my reading glasses. What are they advertising?_

Flatcap: _Syrup of figs._ _The only thing that'll make you go faster than this car._

The team behind it all claim that the project is meant to interest young people in the prospect of engineering as a career.

Laugh? I nearly switched to cheese and onion pies.

The reality of automotive engineering has nothing to do with building cars that travel faster than a Thomas Cook flight to Tenerife. It's all about laying on your back on a cold concrete floor in a filthy garage up to your armpits in oil and grease, trying to change brake pads that have been in place since your 1992 Ford Fiesta came off the production line.

All is not lost on the wheel front, however. They've found the perfect wheels for Bloodhound. They're fitted to the English Electric Lightning, a mach 2 fighter aircraft that was decommissioned in 1988.

All they have to do now is wait until the RAF sentries are looking the other way so they can get in there and nick 'em.

Ballast

Passengers on a flight from Majorca to Newcastle were asked to move seats and act as ballast because one of the baggage hold doors was jammed. Shuffling the passengers around would help keep the plane level.

Surely they could have done that by getting a few out there, wing walking. Or maybe they should have just left all the luggage in Palma. It's what usually happens to mine.

A number of passengers refused to board the plane for fear that the jammed door might open in flight. One passenger who brought this up with the captain said the pilot did not understand.

Well he should. I've seen Airport 80 – Concorde, and I know what happens when luggage doors come open. George Kennedy and Alain Delon had to land Concorde on an Alpine ski run.

The captain of the Palma-Newcastle flight would have had a problem, mind. There are no ski slopes in northern England, but there are alternatives. In an emergency, he could have aimed for the slag heaps in South Yorkshire, or he could have even touched down on the A1M ... but he'd have to watch out for the roadworks near Rainton

Healthy?

Here's a novelty.

The FBI busted an alleged healthcare scam worth $50 million. Apparently, doctors have been paying patients to claim for treatments that were never given.

It's one in the eye for the NHS where patients are forking out for private treatments that should have been given free.

Mistakes.

It seems that MPs have now repaid almost half a million in expenses that should not have been claimed/paid.

The most consistent thing about this business is the excuse: it was a mistake.

A MISTAKE? HALF A MILLION'S WORTH OF ERRORS?

Back in the mid seventies, I made a mistake when diagnosing a problem with a diesel engine. The boss sent a mechanic out and it was something I could have done myself. It cost my employer £40 and led to a stand up shouting match between him and me that could be heard all over Leeds. For forty quid!!!!

We did sort that problem out, mind. He fired me.

Needled

Did you know that during World War Two the allies had secret plans for poisoned needles designed to wipe out enemy troops while leaving buildings intact. It's nice to know that even in war, we had our priorities right. Property is worth much more than trivia like human life, isn't it?

Secret papers just released, reveal that the government asked the Singer Sewing Machine Company to supply the needles, but because of the secrecy surrounding the project, they couldn't tell Singer what they wanted them for.

In one letter, Singer remarked, "It seems that you want these needles for something other than sewing machines."

The government reply isn't quoted. I can imagine it being something like, "We want to stitch the Germans up." Or maybe we could have persuaded Singer that we were trying to induce the German infantry into becoming H addicts.

The plan was dropped because the needles would have killed too few people and the rest would have had some seriously sassy embroidery on their tunics.

Cosmic Conspiracy

The fickle finger of farce has picked me out once more.

This weekend was my daughter's 40th birthday, and the dog needed his annual booster jabs before going in kennels while we're away. While we were at the vet's we learned that he has a growth on his right eye which needs to come off. He's going in when we get back from holiday. All up cost £250, including a biopsy to tell us whether it's benign or malignant.

So the weekend got off to a bad start, but it soon improved when we got to my daughter's and spent a pleasant Saturday afternoon with her, two of my sons, and various other members of the family _._

On Sunday I managed to get the back bumper repaired on the car and we trimmed the grass in the back garden before the thunderstorms arrived, and all up we had a good day.

Then I went to bed.

We'd only had the bed, a steel bedstead, three months, and last night, it collapsed.

Before you get to asking, "Oh yes and what were you doing to make it collapse?" all I was doing was trying to sleep, but even if I had been giving some woman the benefit of my experience, the bleeding bed should still not have fallen apart.

At 10:30 last night, faced with having to get up at 5:30 this morning, I had the bed upended to assess the damage.

It was a display model when we bought it. Constructed of steel it has a centre strut, a single, half inch square bar ... only it isn't a bar it's: a 6-foot by 3/4" box. There are two centre legs attached to it designed to support the centre beam, which in turn houses the wooden slats that form the suspension.

It was not strong enough to withstand the stress of having been put together in the shop, then dismantled, and put together again in our bedroom. The legs had buckled, the centre beam bent downwards, tearing out half a dozen slats and the mattress collapsed.

When I examined the damage to the centre legs, one of them snapped off and the other is hanging on by a thread of steel. On checking all the securing bolts, they're fine.

The only way I could support it to ensure I got some sleep was to put two briefcases and an upturned drawer from an old cabinet under the upper end, and the other two drawers and a copy of "Gardening In A Small Space" under the lower end of the frame. The height of these makeshift supports isn't quite right, so the bed now bumps up slightly in the middle, meaning I tend to roll towards the outer edge and the floor.

As a would-be comedy writer, I couldn't dream this up.

Scientific Snippets

Here's a triumvirate of oddities I came across on the Beeb.

Meteorologists have carried out a study into wind hotspots in the UK. They should have come to our house after all that brown ale and those pork pies.

Did you know that monkeys can recognise bad grammar? Judging from the graffiti on our garage walls, it's more than most young _(and old)_ people in our area can do.

Scientists in Newcastle have produced sperm in a petrie dish. The possibility of creating life in a laboratory comes one step closer. Say what you like but the old-fashioned method is much more fun.

Mablethorpe Or Bust

The cases are packed, the car is washed inside and out, the dog is booked into the kennels, the security timers are set. It's that time of year again. Flatcap and Her Indoors are going on their annual summer holiday.

By this time tomorrow, while you lot are shivering in another washout British summer, Her Indoors and I will be sweltering on the sub-tropical beaches of Mablethorpe, which for those who don't know, is near Theddlethorpe. If you don't know where Theddlethorpe is, it's near Mablethorpe and both of them are not far from Skegness.

We're going to Mablethorpe because Her Indoors found it in a brochure. "I've never been to Mablethorpe," she crowed.

"You're not missing anything," I told her, but it made no difference. We're going to Mablethorpe.

"It's got illuminations," she pointed out.

"Everywhere else they're called traffic lights," was my response.

A young chap I work with has been to Mablethorpe because his sister has a caravan near there.

"It's full of old people," he whispered.

"That's all right then," said Her Indoors, "Flatcap will fit in well."

There are other attractions. Mablethorpe has a seal sanctuary. I would have taken some fish to feed them, but Her Indoors had them for tea. Do you think seals will like fish fingers instead?

I'm taking my trusty DSLR and I should come back with some startling pictures of the sand and sea. There's nothing else to photograph apparently.

Mablethorpe's big claim to fame is that there are no hills. When I read that, I could hear my knees applauding.

I shall be back in harness a week on Saturday with the Theddlethorpe Tales of Terror _(aka holiday shopping with Her Indoors)._

So be good and if you can't be good be careful and if you can't be careful start checking out the price of wallpaper for the nursery.

ET Reverse the Charges

I picked up this little question on the Beeb's website.

If there really are aliens out there, how come they haven't been in touch?

God Botherers will tell you that the aliens don't exist because if they did it would bugger up every theory put forward in every religious text in the world, including the Bible.

The UFO loons will insist that aliens have already been in touch. They've been dropping in on us for yonks. Sceptics will say that the UFO freaks are attention-seeking nutters and anyway, the aliens all work for the CIA.

So we turn to the scientists, who through various complicated and sometimes controversial calculations insist that there is anything up to 50 billion earth-like planets in our galaxy alone, and that there are 10,000 possible civilisations that we could contact.

So why haven't we?

We're not trying hard enough, according to Dr Frank Drake, a radio-astronomer who came up with the original calculation.

What puzzles me is why they didn't stop by the Jolly Carter and ask me. I mean, the answer is so obvious, it's staring them in the face, but they can't see it because they're too busy complicating matters.

It's all about money.

The cost of a call to Australia can be up to 50p a minute. Think how much dearer it would be to ring here from Sirius.

The Fisherman's Friend

I have this garment I call the photographer's friend. It's a thin gilet with multiple pockets in which I can carry everything: compact camera, compact video camera, DSLR lenses, batteries, cigarettes, lighters, and, obviously, my wallet.

I've had it about three or four years now and Her Indoors commented on it when we got to Mablethorpe.

"It looks shabby," she said.

"Well," I replied," you're always saying I look like an old tramp, so it fits the image."

Her Indoors, when she's in that mood, is not to be trifled with, so I stood my ground ... and insisted she buy me a new one, which she did for the princely sum of £5.99. This one was coal grey/black ... ish instead of green ... ish.

Off we tootled to Lincoln, with me wearing a pair of definitive khaki shorts, black trainers and matching socks, a blue/white check shirt and a Hawaiian plant pot to keep the sun off my fod. And I hung the new photographer's friend on my back to complete the picture of a middle aged English berk on holiday in Benidorm ... or Mablethorpe.

About two o'clock-ish, as we boarded the bus to take us up to the Minster, I noticed my left hand was filthy.

"Have you been servicing the car while I had a lie-in?" asked Her Indoors.

"Don't talk soft, woman," I retorted. "I've lost my nineteen mil socket and I can't get the sump plug off."

It turned out it was the dye from the new photographer's friend. It was coming out on my hands and, as I discovered when we got back to our shed, my arm. I looked like I had just come out of the pithead showers ... without having had a shower.

Result: after one day I went back to the photographer's friend V1.0... at least until the new one has been washed.

Mablethorpe Then and Now

Our first port of call – after the lavatory and the bar, obviously – was the Seal Sanctuary where there were some interesting exhibits, including this one, a picture of Mablethorpe as it was 20,000 years ago.

Aside from getting rid of the woolly mammoths which you can see sheltering from the wind by the ice cliffs close to where the novelty rock emporium now stands, the place hasn't changed much.

It's Tuesday, It's Raining, It's Cleethorpes

No week on the Lincolnshire coast would be complete without a visit to Cleethorpes. I last set foot in the town almost 50 years ago. Trust it to rain the day I decided to go back.

Cleethorpes is famous for the distance the tide goes out. A long, _long_ way. It's almost as if the sea is trying to dissociate itself from the town. Talking to a young girl who served us breakfast, I said, "It was 1963 the last time I was here and the tide was out."

"You called at the right time then," she said. "It's just come back in."

While we were having breakfast there were two joiners putting cladding on the walls and they had the door jammed open with a chair. The rain and fresh air took the bite off the smell of glue.

Some old duffer wandered in kicked the chair away and the door slammed shut... right in his disabled wife's face. Then he turned round as if he was looking for her, realised she was locked out and opened the door for her.

"Where've you been?" he asked.

"You shut the door," she replied.

"I didn't," he protested.

"Yes you did. You kicked the chair away."

"What chair?"

She pointed at the offending time now a couple of feet away. "It was holding the door open."

"Well I didn't know."

"I'll remember that when you're testing the strength of the washing line round your neck and I kick the chair away," she said.

It occurred to me that this was Flatcap and Her Indoors mark 2, except that he wasn't wearing a flat cap.

Her Indoors had bought a Cornish pasty the day before and didn't like it, so she fed it to the seagulls. They started scrapping over it, but then they all flew off, leaving most of the pasty behind. They didn't like it either, but they made short work of the stale sausage rolls we threw for them.

Ambling into the town we watched some tart kicking her other half's car door and ranting her head off at full blast at her boyfriend who was busy tuning his radio to a louder station.

"You're making a tit of yourself, lass," I told her.

"Mind your own fucking business," she screamed. "I'll shout at that arsehole as loud as I like."

"It's not that, chicken," I assured her, "it's kicking the car door. That'll cost money to mend whereas if you kicked his empty head in, he probably wouldn't notice the difference."

We got to Cleethorpes at ten and we were wet enough to move on by twelve, so we drifted into Grimsby. There's a sign in the town centre that says _Grimsby is changing_. It is. It's becoming a clone of every town centre in Great Britain. The shops are the self-same shops you'll find anywhere and you have to do a fair bit of walking to find any of the old town but even that concentrates on the fish dock. It would do. What else do you do with a fish dock now that the government have ensured we have no fishing industry?

Are You a _Real_ Man

I've just read on AOL about the five things real men should never say.

Now I need this kind of guidance because I'm a real man. How do I know? I checked the necessary equipment and I am a man. I touched me and I am real. I am, therefore a real man. _(I'll leave you to work out which bits I touched for the necessary calculations.)_

Here are the things that I, as a real man, should never say.

A real man uses the NATO phonetic alphabet, not epithets he's dreamed up himself. Does he? On the phone I give the last letters of my postcode as Queenie Peter, and not Quebec Papa. Why? It's too cold in Quebec and my old man has been dead these last 10 years.

A real man never uses effusive descriptive; words like spectacular, fabulous, breathtaking. Instead he uses 'awesome'. Right. This is where I've been going wrong. When the cold weather aggravates my COPD and takes my breath away, I'm awesome, not breathless.

A real man never uses French words. Bit of a bugger if you want to go to Paris or Marseilles. The Italian 'ciao' is also a no-no. Instead a real man drops in the occasional Spanish with an Austrian accent. So the next time my mate Jim needs a bump start with his car, I'll do my Schwarzenegger impression. No problemo, dickwad.

A real man never attributes second-hand information. Instead he claims it for himself. This is absolutely spot on. I know. A mate of mine told me in the pub the other night.

Finally, a real man doesn't substitute four letter words, except in specific situations like church or when the boss is in earshot. Funny. Those are precisely the time when I use them the most.

Finally finally, although not listed, a real man doesn't read this garbage and take it on board. Instead, he takes the piss out of it.

Mablethorpe Games

I wouldn't want you to think that a week in Mablethorpe is boring, but I passed the time seeing how many anagrams I could get from the town's name. Here are a few:

The lamp robe. Let's keep our lamps decent.

He blame port. Presumably he blamed it for the lamp robe catching fire.

Mob halt peer. A headline from the Mablethorpe Express.

Hope belt ram. This sounds a bit vicious. Why would anyone want to belt the ram?

Heel bop tram. Obviously a hip, 1950s tram ... pretty much like Mablethorpe.

Bore the palm. I found Mablethorpe excelled in boring.

Heat problem. Oddly enough the fire didn't work in the caravan.

Part hem lobe. Figure this one out yourself.

Hole pram bet. I think this was a couple of guys watching a woman pushing a pram and gambling on whether she would break her ankle, a la Flatcap, by falling down a hole.

Marble pot, eh? It wasn't marble, it was a pot pot just like all the others.

Mop her table. Why should I?

Overcharged

From the Beeb comes the tale of a shopper in Jersey overcharged when she was purchasing fruit and veg because the assistant's breasts were resting on the scales.

There's an old adage often applied to large-breasted women: you don't get many of them to the pound. In this case, the axiom appears to be true because the customer was overcharged by a fiver.

There are a number of observations you could make on this tale, but I won't delve into the obvious, except to say that to view such bazookas in a lap-dancing club would probably set you back more than five quid, and that's not counting the inflated cost of ale and pies in such establishments.

Her Indoors was probably right when she said that it was a good job they weren't overcharging me. I'd have wanted a damn sight more than weighing her jugs for my five pound note.

It's also a good job it didn't happen at the poultry counter. Not that I object to paying for decent bit of breast with plenty of meat on it, but taken out of context, it could have put me off chicken for life.

On the other hand, it could be quite a sales gimmick. Shop at Savepennies where all our assistants are topless _(please do not handle the goods on display)._

That wouldn't be particularly attractive to women, though, so maybe they should go the whole hog and opt for Savepennies Nude. _Staff notice: would male employees please take extra care when operating the bacon slicer._

The manager at the supermarket apologised to the customer and said that the assistant's seat was too low. Now that really is personal.

Given the essence of the tale, I also think he could have chosen his words more carefully when he said, "I decided to handle the matter, myself."

Mablethorpe Memories

Now here's a thing. I was on the Mablethorpe seafront early Sunday morning taking a few snaps of the sea. There's little else to photograph at 8:30 on a chilly Sunday morning when you've just been married for 30 Years.

When I got back to our shed, I transferred the pics to the computer and what did I see on the one below but an anorak and a pair of jeans hanging on a fence. Where were the owners? With all the long grass lying about, I'll give you one guess.

All the world (or at least that part of it which reads my blog) knows I'm bad walking. The grass was damp where I spent my Sundays on my knees. The result is I'm hard pressed to walk anywhere these days but I still feel sorry for the poor sods who need a mobility scooter.

Or I did.

Standing outside the Co-op in Mablethorpe, I watched a bloke ride up on his scooter. He parked it outside, hopped off and legged it into the shop like Usain Bolt on a promise. Ten minutes later, I saw a woman coming out of a shop at a speed suggesting she urgently needed the lavatory. She was laden with bags and running like hell as if she'd just robbed the place... then she got on her mobility scooter and slowed down.

Is it me?

They had some kind of festival here over the weekend and as we tootled along the front, I spotted this guy selling name blocks for houses. Carved from real wood, according to the sign. At £35 a wallop, I'd want them carved from real gold. I noticed one that read _SHIMERING SANDS,_ so being the nosy sod that I am, I asked, "What's that mean, then?"

"It's when the sand is all hazy and wobbly," he told me.

"Oh, you mean _shimmering_."

"That's what it says," he insisted.

I shook my head. "It says, shy-mer-ing," I reported. "There are two ems in shimmering."

He looked distraught. "Are you sure?"

"Get hold of a dictionary if you don't believe me, but it should have two ems."

By now he was near to tears. "I hand carve these," he said. "It took me nearly a week."

I gave the matter some thought. "Well, you could get onto the Oxford English Dictionary and ask them to change the spelling of shimmering, but they may bill you for having to let the rest of the English speaking world know about it... or at least that part of it knows how to spell the word. Alternatively, you could sell it as imperfect and tell everyone it was made by your apprentice, who now works for Channel 5 as the subtitles editor for Big Brother."

Coming away from the sea front, we ambled along the main street and found a shop selling cockles, mussels, jellied eels and whelics.

"And what are whelics?" I asked. "Memorabilia of a bygone age as pronounced by that bloke on Fools & Horses who could only sing 'Cwying?'"

They gave me a perplexed stare and for a moment I thought I'd taken to speaking Swahili.

The bizarre thing about this was that whelks was correctly spelled alongside the shop logo across the top of the windows, but misspelled on the sandwich board outside.

If I did that my editor would be weeping into her Cadbury's Dairy Milk.

Mablethorpe Reviewed

I've now recovered sufficiently to recount some of the nightmare that was a week on the Lincolnshire coast. The doctors reckon it should be therapeutic to confront the demons.

The holiday park was one of the biggies. It would be unfair to name it because they haven't received my letter of complaint yet. Easy to find, it catered for families with children, and as you are all aware, I love children ... especially on toast.

I knew the omens were against us when first we had to queue up according to our initials, for caravan key issue and then we had to stop at the quartermaster's store and collect our own bed linen.

"Have you any boot polish and Brasso? I asked.

"No. Why?"

"I wouldn't wanna turn out for a muster parade in scruffy boots and smudged brasses."

It was a large park and true to form our six-berth shed on wheels was as far from reception as was possible. Two more yards and we would have been in Grimsby. I think someone must have warned them about me. "Get that moaning git at the far end of the park. I don't wanna see him all week." Berks. Do they imagine that distance would put me off whining? Especially when they were daft enough to give me a phone number for reception.

Within ten minutes of arrival and unloading the car – the hover mower was a bit of a bugger to get in the boot, but I haven't been a trucker for all those years without learning something – I was on the phone demanding some gas. "Are you not paying Roman Abramovitch enough to give me hot water for a shower and shave?" I demanded.

Soon after that, the light bulb went in the bathroom, so now I could shower and shave, but only in the dark. Ergo I rang them again. "I haven't trailed 200 miles to spend the week changing light bulbs," I told them.

When the pantechnicon arrived carrying gas bottles and light bulbs, one of them pointed out to me, "We prefer guests not to smoke in the vans."

"And I prefer not to smoke outside where it's raining. Besides, the money I've paid, I'll smoke all I want."

"But you got it half price," he whined.

"Well think yourself lucky. If I'd paid full price I'd be smoking twice as much."

First day, we didn't go far. Only to the on-site bar where the entertainment was in full flow. "New for this season," declared the signs.

I'd seen it in Perranporth last year.

PC Olympic Style

I've just read this piece on AOL's walletpop advising me how to avoid offending tourists during the 2012 Olympics.

I've never been a little Englander. Where a man _(or woman)_ comes from, what language he speaks, the colour of his skin, which god he bows to, makes no difference to me. I can offend family, friends, neighbours, strangers ... anyone from anywhere, in fact. So I'm unlikely to draw the line at the Olympics simply because the guy cutting me up at Mumps Roundabout might be from some remote corner of the globe where ignoring give way signs while driving a smart car is acceptable.

This idiotic piece of advice gives its own game away when it begins, "Britain has the opportunity to make a big chunk of cash ... during the Olympics." So it all boils down to money, precious little of which is likely to drop into my coffers? On that score, they're obviously mistaking me for someone who gives a toss.

Walletpop say this guide to etiquette is put out by Visit Britain. I tried their site and couldn't find it. If it's as politically correct as Walletpop claims, I'm not surprised. It should be classified as a waste of paper ink and money _(as in the salary of the berk who wrote it)_.

Apparently this guide advises you not to be offended by Argentinean humour which may comment upon your weight. The first resident of Buenos Aries who calls me a fat bastard, joke or no joke, will reap the whirlwind for the Hand of God.

It advises you to avoid making physical contact with someone from India. So I need to know where he comes from before I punch him on the nose for criticising my pork pies?

The guide also tells you not to point your finger at someone from Hong Kong because this gesture is reserved for animals. So when I meet someone of oriental appearance who's extortionately priced 2012 baseball cap is on fire, I shall pause and ask, "Excuse me, are you from Hong Kong?" and if he says yes, then I carry on my way leaving him to find out the hard way when his hair goes up in smoke along with his hat.

It's obvious that the author _(s)_ of this guide are politically correct pillocks of the first magnitude. Why doesn't someone give them some real work to do, like checking the tensile strength of a Hoover drive belt, or realigning the bristles on a hairbrush?

What's in a Name?

Plenty, but it depends where you come from.

_Spiegel Online_ reported Franz Meindl's dismay at an EU ruling which is likely to increase the fame of his Austrian village. You may be scratching your head at this until you learn that Herr Meindl is the mayor of Fucking, and the ruling permits a German company to register a beer as Fucking Hell.

We all know what this means in English, but in German "hell" can refer to a light ale. Yes, I've drunk many a light ale like that.

I've also ordered many a pint of Fucking Hell. It usually runs, "I'll have a pint of... fucking hell, where do you get the brass balls to charge that price?"

Herr Meindl's worries stem from the theft of town signs. A dozen or more have gone missing in the past, when visitors took them as souvenirs. It's become such a problem that they've taken to setting the signs in concrete, or welding and riveting them in place.

The article concludes that the Bavarian towns of Kissing and Petting have similar problems and so does the East German town of Pissen, but so far no one has come up with plans to name a beer after them.

Pity. It'd be worth going into the pub and asking for a pint of Pissen just to see the barmaid's face.

Kettles

Do you ever hanker after the simple life?

Back in the dark days of Moon Landings and Woodstock, when I first succumbed to the enslavement that is marriage, we had a kettle.

It was a thin metal affair, dome-shaped, as kettles tended to be, and had an optional whistle, which you put on the spout. It had no electrical connections, just a sheet metal base which you put on a gas ring. That kettle saw sterling service. It lasted the entire nine years from "I do", to "if I ever see you again, it'll be too fucking soon". For all I know my first wife still has it tucked away in a cupboard, insurance against the day when her all-singing, all-dancing, Russell Hobbs kettle-cum-central heating boiler breaks down.

It was, in short, a simple, reliable means of boiling water to make a cuppa. Over the years it took some hammer. I drank tea like it was about to go out of fashion, and when the hot water was on the blink, it doubled up as a supply for washing and shaving. During our frequent rows, it got thrown across the kitchen to such a degree that it looked less like a dome, more like some impossible geometric shape that would have had Euclid crying into his ouzo. And yet it carried on working.

Which is more than can be said for the modern day equivalents.

I still drink tea like it's alcoholic, and over the last three or four years, we've gone through so many kettles they're now being quoted on the futures markets.

They simply cannot stand the wear and tear. I paid £8 for a kettle from Asda and it went the day before the guarantee ran out. Asda were very good about it. They replaced it. That wore out within six months. Element blown. New elements are about the same price as new kettles so we replaced with a top brand. That started leaking after 13 months, so we chucked it away and went back to the cheap and nasty. Some idiot dropped a pan on it and the lid broke. Even Asda wouldn't carry the can for that, so we bought a new one. And it gave up the ghost some time around Easter last year. No rhyme nor reason for it. It just woke up one morning and said, "Bugger it, I've had enough."

And now, its replacement has begun to leak. Not from the spout, but from the base. So it looks like I'll have to buy a new one.

Anyone know where I can get a dome-shaped, sheet metal kettle and a gas ring?

Flatcap & The Toaster

This nonsense was inspired by the true story of a Milwaukee resident who shot his lawnmower when it wouldn't start. The local garden centre commented, "His warranty is gone. The manufacturer doesn't recommend shooting lawnmowers."

On entering the electrical retailers, Flatcap placed a carrier bag on the counter and said, "I've brought this toaster back."

The assistant, bearing a nametag that declared him to be Philip, removed the toaster from the bag and studied its polished outer casing, the metal gleaming and yet pockmarked with holes.

"These, er, look like bullet holes, sir."

"That's right," replied Flatcap. "It burned the toast, so I shot it."

Nonplussed, Philip scratched his head. "You didn't think of altering the timer?"

"Didn't know there was a timer on it," Flatcap replied.

"Or you could have tried thicker bread," Philip persisted. "Thinner bread tends to burn quicker."

"So what am I, some kind of expert on bread density?" Flatcap demanded. "I've only had it a week and I want my money back."

"I'm sorry, sir, but the guarantee won't cover this. The manufacturer doesn't recommend shooting the toaster."

Flatcap dug deep into his coat and came out with a battered, brown leather wallet, from which he retrieved the manufacturer's guarantee. Leaning on the counter, he said, "I've read every bit of the small print. It tells you that you shouldn't dismantle it, and you shouldn't stick knives, screwdrivers or any metal objects in it while it's working, and you shouldn't drop it water while it's connected to the mains, but nowhere does it say you shouldn't shoot it."

Philip took the warranty and read through it. At length, also leaning on the counter, he pointed to a particular paragraph. "You see here, sir. It says any unauthorised repair work will invalidate the manufacturer's guarantee."

"I wasn't trying to repair it," Flatcap protested. "I lost my temper with it." It was obvious from the look on Philip's face that Flatcap was not getting the message across. "Look, the wife's not well and I was doing her a couple of boiled eggs on toast. The eggs boiled over and the toast got burned and I lost my rag."

"And you shot the toaster."

"And the pan," Flatcap said.

"You shot the toaster and the pan?"

"The kettle didn't come out of it too well, either," Flatcap admitted.

Philip seized on the admission. "I notice you haven't brought that back."

"I didn't buy it from you," Flatcap said. "I bought it from Hobson's. That's my next port of call."

Philip shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir, but the guarantee does say that if the appliance was used for any purpose other than that for which it was designed, the warranty is invalidated."

"But I was making toast with it," Flatcap complained, "and making toast is its entire raison d'être."

"Ah but," Philip persisted, "the warranty also states that if the appliance is subject to any kind of abuse, then the deal's off."

Flatcap took instant umbrage. "Abuse? What do you take me for? Some kind of pervert. I was making toast, not interfering with it. The toast got burned, I got mad and shot it. What's complicated about that?" He pointed to a freestanding display advertisement close by. "Anyway, never mind the manufacturer's warranty. Your guarantee says that if I'm not happy with my purchase, all I have to do is bring it back within fourteen days and you'll either exchange it or refund my money. I think shooting it could be interpreted as not being happy with it, don't you?"

Desperate to escape from the corner Flatcap had painted him into, Philip said, "Our shop guarantee also says that you must return the item in its original packaging."

"I haven't got it," Flatcap said. "I used it to set fire to the garden shed I bought from Wallingfords."

Philip's eyebrows rose. "You bought a garden shed from Wallingfords and set fire to it?"

Flatcap nodded. "I spent three days putting it up and the door wouldn't close properly, I got a bit annoyed and torched it. Wallingfords were very good about it. They gave me a credit note." He pushed the toaster across the counter to Philip. "Now what are you gonna do about this?"

With a resigned sigh, Philip picked the appliance up. "Wait there, sir. I'll get you a replacement."

A Flying Con

Several millennia ago, when I used to fly regularly all over Europe, I would pop along to the travel agent, ask for a flight to Tenerife, and they would sell me one. "There you go, boss. £150 sovs. Have a nice time."

Last February, in a desperate effort to keep the missus quiet, we flew off to Amsterdam for the weekend. The travel agent quoted me the price and that was it. No charge for luggage, no charge for checking in, and the meal _(it was quick meal, the flight lasted less than an hour)_ was included in the price. That was with a proper airline _(KLM)_.

Having spent the last 7 days trying to find a holiday in the Canaries for next January, I notice that things have changed. Booking flights has become the biggest con since the power/water sell off.

I go online, I find a nice cheap flight, say £100. But that's one way. I need to come back and I find that it costs me another £90. Over and above that, assuming I won't hang around in the same pair of Y-fronts for a week, I'll need one or two changes of clothing, for which I need luggage and it's going to cost me an extra £20 to shove a suitcase in the hold. Then there is the check-in charge of about £25 Hang on. It's not me who says I have to check in, it's the airport, so why are you billing me for it? Then I may want a bite to eat on the plane, and that's anything from £7.50 to £15. One company were going to bill me for the in-flight magazine.

The all up price shot from £100 to over £250 in a couple of clicks of the mouse. And it's not just the cheap flight wallahs. When checking out package deals, they were just the same.

What really worries me is that other industries will follow this lead.

**The petrol station:** "Right, boss, your fuel is 36p per litre, you've had 50 litres, that's eighteen nicker. Add government tax of 64p per litre, tuppence a litre for my checking the price on the readout, and I noticed you had a quick shufti at the headlines on today's _Daily Mirror_ so that'll be another thruppence per litre, let's call it sixty quid for cash." _(Kerching, opens cash register.)_ "Aye thenkyow. Have a nice day."

**The supermarket:** "Right, chief, your groceries come to seventeen quid, then there's VAT on applicable items, that'll be another three pounds twenty pee, wear and tear on the trolley wheels, forty-six pence, your share of the ink we used producing your bill, tuppence, and your contribution towards our electricity bill, thirty-three pounds and twelve pence. All up bill, £53.80. Thank you for shopping with us."

**The hairdressers:** "Okay, sir. One short back and sides, two pounds fifty. Depreciation on the chair, a pound, sharpening my scissors, fifteen pence, electricity, a pound, you've been listening to the radio, that's entertainment, call it another pound, the benefit of my religious-medical-political-sporting wisdom, thirty-five pence. Regular customer discount, fifty pence, and that comes to four pounds fifty, plus VAT, Council Tax contribution and your share of my cleaner's wages, five pounds fifty pee. Something for the weekend, sir?"

Nobody Told Me

Here's one most newspaper editors missed. Yesterday _(30/7/09)_ was National Orgasm Day. If only I'd known...

A choice

I was sat watching celebrity scrabble on Sky Sports when the wife bounded into the room, wearing nothing but a pair of black stockings and tiny, frilly knickers. There were huge areas of white wobbling around the sheer black.

"Look at me," she challenged. "Superfuck."

I thought about it for a moment and said, "I'll have the soup."

Sexy sweeties

My son pointed me to this tale.

A Pontefract man has spoken of his outrage at sweet wrappers upon which a lemon and lime appear to be having sex. On another wrapper, the lime looks like it's getting it on with a couple of cherries.

Seems to me that the designers have crossed the thin red line. I mean, what will we have next? Bertie Basset legging it across the toffee shop counter so he can mix in with the jelly babies? Starbursts frothing at the mouth at the thought of jumping into a bag with fruit pastilles? Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase Lucky Bag, doesn't it?

You will notice that I have purposely avoided mentioning polo mints and liquorice torpedoes. Damn. I've mentioned them now.

I'm no expert on children _(aside from my aversion to them)_ but my limited experience of them tells me their attitude is "never mind the wrapping, let me get at the goodies."

Confess It with Flowers

Her Indoors has been spending quite a lot of money on me just lately. All I have to do is keep up the payments on the credit cards. This is all in aid of my up and coming birthday in January.

This morning I wandered round Tesco and thought, "The old girl deserves a bit of a treat." I know she likes flowers, so I bought her two bunches. Pride of the display they were: a bunch of blue, yellow and white, the others were just yellow. Bananas or something. I don't know.

So when I got home, I said, "Here's a surprise for you."

Her eyes darkened and the first question was, "Who's the other woman?"

After denying there was any other woman, unless you count my habit of calling the car a "she", she then asked, "So what have you done wrong? Burned the toast? Lost all our money on that England match last night? Flushed your hearing aids down the lavatory?"

Eventually I gave up and admitted that I'd given the woman next door a good seeing to, then nicked her husband's car and drove it to destruction over the moors before selling it for £15 to an itinerant scrap dealer.

Life's simpler that way.

Rendlesham Solved

Hottest news of the week is that the mystery of the Rendlesham Forest UFO has been solved ... for the umpteenth time. For those who don't know, half the American Air Force spent Christmas, 1980 chasing aliens in Rendlesham forest near Felixstowe.

A retired engineer from Ipswich claims that what many people believed was a UFO was actually a truckload of stolen fertiliser which he and his pals had set fire to. The flames were multi-coloured because the truck had an aluminium body.

The Rendlesham event has become known as Britain's Roswell, and there have been as many explanations for it as there have for United's failure since Fergie retired. The difference is the explanations for United's poor show have a ring of truth about them. _(They're over the hill, is the favourite down the Jolly Carter.)_

This latest explanation takes the biscuit. _(Rendlesham not United.)_ Not only did this chap and his buddy drive the truck off the road to burn the evidence, but when the US Forces turned up armed to the dentures, they then towed it back out of the forest and onto the road ... while it was on fire ... notwithstanding the fuel in the tank, which has a tendency to explode when you put a match to it ... or the tyres "popping" as our hero describes it.

So there you have it. What everyone imagined was a spacecraft from the Andromeda Galaxy was nothing more sinister than a truckload of stolen horse shit going up in star-spangled flames.

Well I'm convinced.

Wedded Hell

Tomorrow, it will be 30 years to the day since Her Indoors and I were manacled together.

We've actually been together for 32 years, but for the first two we lived over the brush and everything was great. On September 18, 1981, she changed her name to mine and since then she's been trying to change everything about me to her way of thinking ... and it still hasn't worked.

I remember that Friday as it were only yesterday... and you know what a bloody awful day it was yesterday. _(An old joke, but stick around. With luck they'll get better.)_

The soul of generosity, I even invited my first wife to the wedding _(someone had to look after the kids)_ but she declined. "I've no desire to watch another poor cow hooking up to you," she said.

We married at 11 in the morning and had our first marital row at 11:15 when I wouldn't tip the register office a couple of quid for the flowers.

"For all I know, they could have nicked them from the cemetery," I complained. "I usually do."

We then caught a night flight to Gerona. It should have been a day flight, but the plane broke down. Spark plugs oiled up. I said to the pilot, "I've a mate who runs his own krypton tuning business. Dirt cheap, no call out charge. Want me to give him a bell?"

Back then I was quite good looking with muscles in places that I've forgotten I had. The stewardess only just rejected my offer to join the Mile High Club.

"Is it cos I'm on honeymoon?" I asked.

"No. It's not that. We land in five minutes."

"There's time," I replied.

Five days into that fortnight, when Her Indoors got a touch of Montezuma's Revenge, I spent the rest of our honeymoon propping up the bar alone. I've probably told you about the Scottish widow hitting on me, but as I figured she was just trying to sell me insurance, I turned her down.

Much Newcastle Brown has flowed through my veins since then, and I'm resigned to the situation. As wars go, it's lasted longer than Vietnam, and alongside some of our battles, the current Middle East skirmishes look like a Friday night brawl at the Jolly Carter.

So how are we celebrating a sentence longer than most murderers receive? We're going to Whitby on Saturday. Whitby!!!! There's one in the eye for the Beckhams, huh? Keep your St Tropez, we're going to Whitby. Nassau, Nice, Mustique? Forget it. Whitby is where it's at. Three course trough at the Ritz? No way. Cod & chips on the harbour front for me.

Tadpole Tally

I found an interesting little titbit on AOL's lemondrop this morning.

It was looking at old wives' tales on health. You know the kind of thing I mean. Carrots can help you see in the dark, an apple a day keeps the fruit and veg man in business.

One of the items they brought up was the old story that taking hot baths harms your fertility. Apparently, research has shown that there is some truth in this. Men who switched to taking showers showed a 491% increase in sperm count.

Aren't you glad you came here? Could you have got through the rest of the day without knowing that?

I'll stick to taking hot baths, thanks. My sperm count has been nil since I had the firing pin removed in 1974. It was seen as a necessity. We had been married five years and had four kids. It took most of those five years to work out what was causing them.

I was quite naïve in those days, so when a friend said to me, "You've only got to look at your missus and she's pregnant," I did the logical thing and stopped looking at her. It didn't make a bit of difference. In less than a year she was up the spout again.

"You should take precautions," my father told me.

"I did," I protested. "I made sure both doors were locked before we went to bed and I unplugged the telly from the mains so it couldn't catch fire."

Older and wiser now, I think back to those days and I recall that I was working in a very dirty job at the time, as a consequence of which I took a hot bath every night.

It didn't stop the kids turning up though.

Laugh? I Nearly Rogered the Woman Next Door

I've just read this piece on the web of things you should avoid during sex. I was looking for "the wife" somewhere on the list, but it's not there.

Amongst the obvious ones like farting or comparing the size of your man to the bloke over the street, there are some real howlers: singing, praying and arguing about money amongst them.

What kind of women has this joker slept with? I knew girls who would pray for a crop failure after the guy had sowed the seeds, but that was AFTER, not during. And singing? How many men or women have you been with who have sufficient breath to burst into "Oh what a beautiful morning," while you're having it away? And as for arguing about money, well I've known one or two who would argue for the money up front, but I've never yet asked Her Indoors what she spent last week's housekeeping on while we were at it.

The star piece of advice on this nonsense is, don't move your bowels while having sex.

What???

I'm no prude, but any woman who shit the bed while we were at it, would be shown the door ... after she'd done the laundry.

Manchester & Back with a Busted Ankle

I had to go to Manchester today to see a consultant re my busted ankle.

I live 12 miles North East of the city. To drive it can take anything up to an hour and a half, and the parking charges remind me of the NHS budget, so I chose to take the 8:40 train from Shaw, my nearest station. It gets to Manchester Victoria in about 20 minutes and costs £5 return. It's worth it. I'd probably have used a fiver's worth of go-go juice getting there, not to mention the aforementioned cost of parking.

I've lived this side of the Pennines for 30 years now, and I know the roads from Oldham to Manchester like the back of my hand. But it was a pleasant change to look at the well-known landmarks from a different perspective.

But as usual, this is Flatcap we're talking about and things didn't go smoothly. First off, I showed the conductor the wrong ticket.

"That's for coming back," he said.

"I will be coming back," I retorted.

"You have to pay to get there first."

"I have paid. The ticket's in my wallet."

The miserable git wouldn't go away until I showed him it, either.

At Victoria I asked a station hand where the gents' was and he pointed to a huge sign reading, _Gentlemen_. "Right there," he told me. "Where the sign says it is."

"So what would you do if I was Czechoslovakian?" I demanded. "Point me to the university and tell me to learn English?"

I had decided that I would walk from Victoria to the consultant's prestige offices. I wish I'd checked the map first. It was just over a mile and by the time I got there the blood pressure pills were kicking in and I was desperate for the bogs again.

"If you have something contagious," said the receptionist when she saw me doing St Vitus' dance, "could you wait in the street until we're ready for you?"

The consultant was a pleasant enough chap, but he should be the amount he charged for the consultation. If I was knocking out £300 an hour, I wouldn't be worried about my gas bill.

He had a look at my ankle and then twisted it a bit here and there. "Did that hurt?" he asked.

Through a haze of pain, I gasped, "No. I always scream like that when I'm overwhelmed with pleasure."

He had me walking on tiptoes, on my heels and then asked me to kneel down.

"Are you going to knight me," I asked, "or do you want me to quote you for a new carpet?"

"I want to see you get up again."

I dragged myself back to my feet using his desk and a spare chair and asked, "Does this sadism come naturally or is it a part of your medical training?"

Eventually he sent me home, promising to arrange an X-ray of the offending joints which should be good for another few hundred on his bill and another two grand on my compo.

Car Wash

It never takes long for things to get back to normal. I don't know what it is about me, but I could find an argument in a monastery after a vow of silence. This morning it was the car wash.

I don't know why I have to wash the car. It goes just as fast with the muck on it, but Her Indoors insisted, so I tootled off to the automatic wash. It's one of those where they spray your wheels and wash your windows before a conveyor belt takes you through the wash.

It costs a fiver, but hey, it's better than a bucket of water and a sponge, and it's a one-way process which has saved me a fortune in radio aerials.

I handed over my fiver, shut the windows and allowed the interior to fog up with cigarette smoke while he did the business with the wheels and windows. But he didn't remove the soap from the windscreen so when I drove forward, aiming roughly for the conveyor, which is only just wider than my wheels, I missed. He waved his hands here and there, I put a bit of right hand on and almost demolished the building.

He opened the door. "Left," he said, "left hand, not right. Can't you see where you're going?"

"No, but if you'd swilled the soap of the windscreen, I might have been able to."

"We don't take the soap off. The machine does that."

"So how am I supposed to see where the track is? Radar? Or do I need a satnav to get me in there?"

He shut the door muttering to himself.

Am I the first man in the world to be banned from a car wash?

Keeping Your Pecker Up

Caution: this post is not for those of a nervous disposition, those who have had a sheltered upbringing, or those who don't know the difference between a dipstick and a doughnut.

I had to pop into town this morning on various errands, one of which was a visit to the doctor's again. I go so often I have my own seat in reception.

I came away with a couple of prescriptions: one for antibiotics to fight off yet another chest infection, the other for four Tadalafil pills.

Stand by for some education. Tadalafil is the proper name of Cialis, and as we all know, Cialis is Viagra's big brother. By this, I don't mean it produces a mammoth in the nether regions. I mean it works for 36 hours, whereas Viagra is a one hit wonder.

You're all right reading on. I'm not about to divulge what me and Her Indoors get up to of a night. Suffice to say that without the Cialis not much of anything gets up.

Back to the plot. I nipped into the pharmacy to chip the prescriptions in. I don't pay for NHS prescriptions, but I don't have enough wrong with me to get the Cialis on the NHS, so I have to pay for it. I haven't yet worked out what needs to be wrong with you to get it for free, but according to my calculations you have to be in such an advanced stage of decay that the last thing you wanna think about is your legover.

I handed over the prescriptions; the female assistant read them and smiled. And that irritated me.

I'm a curmudgeonly old sod at the best of times, and unfortunately for her I have a threshold of embarrassment that's so high, you'd have to paint my cheeks red to get a reaction ... either that or feed me the Cialis for a trial run.

"It's quite normal for people my age to need these prescriptions," I said.

"Oh, of course it is," she chortled.

"There's nothing wrong with antibiotics."

That brought the colour to her ears.

I asked how much the Cialis would be.

"Thirty six pounds and coppers," she said.

"I knew a tart in Manchester who worked cheaper," I told her taking out my debit card.

That scored me another hit.

As a coup de grace, I told her, "They're for me dad. He's 85 and he needs a bit of a leg up these days."

Rip Off

We all know that I'm easy going to a fault. I never get irritated or annoyed and I wouldn't say boo to a goose.

But the renewal date for my car insurance is coming up and as usual my broker sent me a reminder. Last year, the insurance for my 1 litre Citroen Saxo was £240. I played hell, I've been driving 35 years and never made a claim. This year I expected it to go up a few coppers, especially considering I've bought a new car with a slightly larger engine. At the same time, the broker has been taken over by a PLC.

I was slightly miffed to find that the price had gone up from an outrageous £240 to £503. Read that again, it is not a typo. FIVE HUNDRED AND THREE POUNDS, an increase of slightly under 110%.

I almost lost the plot. I said, "Tsk," and reached for the phone.

"Why," I demanded after dialling, "when all I want is insurance for my car, am I being quoted for the Space Shuttle?"

Sadly I was talking to an automated response, which told me that my call could not be taken at the moment and I could not leave a message. If they've sent out quotes like this to all their other punters, I'm not surprised they don't want messages left. The answerphone would melt.

I did a little research into the new parent company and learned nothing. Other than their share price is 54. I didn't read through the prospectus, but I'm sure that somewhere in there will be the line, "If we can sucker more berks like Flatcap to poppy up, we'll double that price in under 12 months."

Living in Britain, I'm used to being ripped off on the price of everything from corn plasters to gas and electricity, and I'm used to the usual excuses from politicians – _there's not a lot we can do about it other than help ourselves to a huge pay rise and increased expenses_ – and global greed merchants – _we can't help it if the cost of raw materials has doubled to thruppence a ton, so we're adding a tenner to your daily gas bill_ – but even by their standards this is blatant extortion. And what's worse is I can't give them a piece of my mind about it.

I've been with the same broker for getting on 20 years. I've got news for you guys. I'm not bothering with your renewal. I went online and found a price that was actually a couple of quid cheaper than last year ... for a bigger, newer car. Ergo, you can stick your renewal quote where the sun doesn't shine.

Moonwatcher

My old man taught me the basics of astronomy when I was a kid.

It was a simple enough lesson. I said, "Dad, I can't see too well."

He took me outside and said, "Look up and tell me what you see."

"The Moon," I replied.

"That's a quarter of a million miles away," he said. "How far do you want to see?"

Threatening Behaviour

Yesterday's Beeb recounts the sorry tale of Lorna Watts, a self-employed dressmaker, visiting Holborn Library, who asked to borrow a pair of scissors. She was refused. "You might stab me with them," said the assistant.

Perplexed at this response, Lorna asked if she could borrow a guillotine instead and again she was refused on the grounds that, "you might hit me with it."

In a response that I can only describe as Flatcap-esque, Lorna said, "It's absurd. There are plenty of heavy books I could hit her over the head with."

Lorna's trials did not end there. She tried another three libraries and received the same response at them all.

Now call me picky _(you can call me a curmudgeonly, beer-swilling, sex obsessed skinflint if you like, I'm impervious to criticism)_ but someone should hit these library people over the head with a guillotine, or even a heavy book, if only to learn whether any of the brain cells are striking sparks.

This kind of thing is getting out of hand and you can see where it will end.

The Restaurant

Customer: hey there are no knives and forks here.

Waiter: sorry chum, they're sharp implements and you might stab me with them.

Customer: how am I supposed to eat my dinner?

Waiter: use your fingers. If it was good enough for Henry VIII then it should be good enough for you.

The Gents Outfitters

Customer: The pants are a bit baggy and some of the seams are frayed.

Tailor: Can't use scissors, boss. Someone might slice the tea lady's throat. Had to fold the cloth, iron a razor sharp crease into it, and then tear it with a ruler. Oh, while I think on, we couldn't sew it owing to the danger that one of our apprentices might make a voodoo doll and stick needles in it, so we've tacked it together with Sellotape.

The Supermarket

Customer: hey this trolley has no wheels.

Assistant: If we put wheels on them, chief, you might run over my toes with them. Just push a bit harder.

The Forecourt

Customer: this pump has just billed me sixty nicker, but it hasn't put any petrol in my car.

Attendant: can't give you petrol. You might use it to burn the place down. Now, either pay up or I bell the filth.

Are You Where You Want To Be?

I was reading this piece on a site, claiming to spell out 30 signs that you're not where you should be in life. I haven't answered them all, but here's a selection of those I did answer.

_You consider_ scotch eggs _a legitimate lunch._

Scotch eggs are a legitimate lunch, provided they're savoured with a pint of mild.

You sleep in a single bed. On your own.

I wish.

You eat more reformed meat than you do normal meat.

I didn't know meat was capable of reforming. What was it guilty of in the first place?

You only own one suit.

I don't own a suit at all.

You consider fairy lights a legitimate form of lamp.

They provide light. What's complicated about that?

You consider owning a shed a pipe dream.

I consider burning my shed to the ground a pipe dream.

You don't know what quinoa is.

Is it some kind of rowing boat?

You see no need to own a cafetiere.

With my record of dealing with people, why would I want a cafeteria?

You've completed more computer games than you've read books.

I've written more books than I've read computer games.

You read Nuts magazine.

I tend not to buy specialist magazines. Who wants to read about the perfect pistachio?

You don't know what's in baba ghanoush.

I write horror stories so I can make up my own creatures.

You don't have a cellar.

If you think I'm going to dig under the foundations at my time of life, then you're dafter than I thought.

Your dirty clothes just appear washed in your drawers.

Of course they do. What's the point in being married if you have to do your own laundry?

At any one time 60% of the light bulbs in your home don't work.

Usually because they're switched off.

Conker Bonkers

Here's the story of a Poulton International Conker Competition to be held near Cirencester on October 2nd.

It seems that in the past contestants have gone to extraordinary lengths to win, including strengthening their conkers _(it doesn't say how)_ and suspending them from elasticated string. This year, however, only conkers supplied by the organising committee will be allowed after being drilled and strung. They will be marked with a fluorescent pen and after the event, they will be strain tested in a vice to make sure they haven't been substituted, and the string will be checked to ensure no elastic has been used.

Cheats will be disqualified!!!!

I should think so too. I mean, we're British, aren't we? Never mind disqualification, I'd have them marched through the village, bearing a notice reading, "I cheated at conkers", then have them executed by firing squad and their bodies left tied to a horse chestnut tree to decompose as a warning to wannabe miscreants.

Extreme? I don't think so. I mean cheating is a bane on our British way of life, isn't it? Whatever next? Politicians telling porkies? Power companies telling us that price hikes are good for the environment? Footballers diving to win free kicks? TV claiming to be entertainment?

I had a mate who used to cheat at Scrabble. He was well over six feet tall and he used to lean over and look at your letters when you were pouring a beer or rolling a cigarette. We were going to keelhaul him with copies of the Oxford English Dictionary strapped to his wedding tackle, but plod stopped us.

"If we let him get away with Scrabble," I said, "where will it end?"

"I know how you feel, lad," agreed the copper, "but the Humber Estuary is polluted enough as it is."

That was thirty years ago, and I was right. Wasn't I?

Jargon

According to _Which_ and The Plain English Campaign, our energy bills are full of jargon making it difficult for customers to understand.

They're dead right. I look at the amount and for the life of me, I can't understand where they get those figures. Wouldn't it be simpler if they just wrote, "you've been stuffed"?

Mad Money

According to a report on the Beeb's website, schools are wasting millions of taxpayers' money.

The report, from former WHSmith Chief Executive, Richard Handover, cites a couple of examples; the installation of three toilets in a primary school costing £50,000 and another school which spent £35,000 buying a £1,000 photocopier.

This is the kind of public spending I like. I'm thinking of offering them 1,000 copies of _Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger_ at the knock down price of £1,000 per copy. It should make good A Level study material.

Mr Handover proceeded to blow his cred' out of the water by suggesting the axing of 40,000 jobs. "Useful, blue-sky thinking," said a spokesman. Blue sky with pink polka dots in my opinion, but on the positive side, it would leave enough money in the kitty for a glut of three-day training courses ... in Bermuda, and think of all the khasis they could install for the money saved. Even at sixteen grand a throw _(our entire bathroom didn't cost that much)_ you'd have enough outside lavatories to keep every kid in the land crapping in luxury until they leave school and sign on the rock and roll.

Curiously enough, no one has thought about cutting back on education's most expensive commodity, which is... education.

Think about it. Half the kids don't want to be in school. They'd rather be out with their mates or surfing Facebook. A good proportion of them come out of 11 years schooling just as illiterate and ignorant as they went into it, so why bother? It would leave a huge surplus of funds to educate the half that do want to be there, and still leave enough money for the politicians to fly off to Bermuda to address the training courses.

Makes sense to me.

I Hate Everything About This _(Alleged)_ Modern World.

A Facebook friend challenged me to write this piece, and it's the kind of generalisation you'd expect from an old curmudgeon like me, but there's more than a grain of truth in it.

I grew up in a world where thieves robbed the gas meter while you were upstairs giving the wife a practical lesson in biology. These days, the robbing bastards pretend to be the finance minister from some banana republic and empty your bank account while you're giving the wife a practical reminder of those biology lessons.

Everything about those days was better. Take bus services, for example. These days you leg it for a bus and the driver can't see you, so he buggers off and leaves you. Back then they had conductors. He could see you. And he'd wait until you got within ten yards, then ring the bell and bugger off and leave you.

Holidays were easier to decide on. The only resorts beginning with B were Blackpool and Bridlington _(Brighton, Bognor and Bournemouth were somewhere the other side of the world from Leeds)_. Nobody had heard of Benidorm or Benalmedena, and "Hiya Napper" was something a Geordie would say to his mate. I remember considering a coach trip to Italy to meet my pen friend, but it was £38. Thirty eight quid!!! I only wanted to visit the place, not buy it.

There's nothing new about state-of-the-art technology. We had a Hotpoint twin tub. A step up from the single tub because it had a SPIN DRYER instead of a wringer. The stove had its own specialist timer, too. When the shilling in the gas meter ran out, your dinner was ready ... even if it wasn't.

The big industries were all nationalised, owned by the taxpayer. So when you put a 10 peseta coin in the gas meter, it wasn't really stealing. You paid your taxes, so the only person you were ripping off was yourself.

There was nothing complicated about healthcare. Elastoplast and Dettol cured most problems and where they didn't, your GP would give you a prescription for penicillin. For anything really serious, like a sprained ankle, he'd send you to the hospital and they did something that's unheard of now. They treated you ... there and then.

Problems like cholesterol were unheard of. I don't think it was invented until Blair got to Downing Street. Worries such as ADD were simple to deal with; you just battered the little bastard until he shut up.

Healthy eating had a different meaning: you ordered mash with your meat pie instead of chips, and if you were allergic to nuts you bought Dairy Milk instead of Fruit and Nut. Eating out was a bag of chips wrapped in last Friday's Yorkshire Evening Post, which was a more interesting read than a plastic tray. If you wanted to go posh, you asked them to wrap the chips in the Financial Times, but it was a bit of a bugger trying to keep track of your investments when they were soaked in vinegar and ketchup.

Under-age drinking wasn't a problem, either. Not for me. I looked 18 when I was fifteen and I was a regular in the Jolly Carter long before I was old enough. And if you got into a rumble at closing time, it was always a fair fight. No gangs, it was one to one. No knives. Brass knuckles and razor blades were enough.

Back in my day, we had real telly with proper programmes, but if you wanted to see live footy, you paid five bob at the turnstiles. These days it's all reality TV and if you want live footy, you have to pay Sky £50 a month, and what's worse, once you've paid it, you get some pain in the arse ringing you every five minutes trying to sell you even more of it. Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles never rang me in the 70s _(although I have to admit, we didn't get a phone until the eighties)_.

Jeremy Kyle would have been redundant back then. We didn't have the bone idle, wife beating, adulterous scum that he screams at; they were all shipped off to build the M1. And if Kyle spoke to anyone at the Jolly Carter, the way he speaks to them on telly, he'd have left through the window on the end of someone's fist.

And talking of phones, which I was in the paragraph before last, when I was a lad, the only mobile phones were those that used to be plugged into the wall before they were nicked by the same thieving scum who did the gas meters. And while they were at it, they usually took your tranny, your Dansette record player with the speaker in the lid, and your best billiard cue.

When it came to leisure, our games were different, too. These days everyone is busy sorting out World War III or re-fighting the battle of Hastings on their X-boxes. We had simpler but more enjoyable games, many of which were educational. You learned geometry at the billiard hall, maths at the bookies and when it came to the _facts of life,_ we had games to deal with that, too: Doctors and nurses, strip poker. I've even played strip scrabble. The times I've lost my underpants for trying to get away with K-A-T.

Some things haven't changed much. The trains didn't run on time then and they still don't. The Sunday papers rabbitted on about Profumo and Christine Keeler the way they prattle about politicians and knicker-dropping personal assistants these days, and those same politicians spouted the same hot air as they do now, putting forward solutions to problems that weren't problems until they shoved their oar in.

If I had to go back to those days, the only thing I would miss would be my word processor and that's only because my typing is so bad I'd have to spend a fortune in paper for the rewrites.

I might miss the internet too, but that's an addiction and even in my day they had a cure for antisocial addictions.

It was called prison.

Radio Cures

According to the fount of all knowledge, aka the BBC, short blasts of radio waves targeting the kidneys can cure high blood pressure.

Really?

I have high blood pressure and I take three pills a day to keep it under control. The pills are a bloody nuisance. One combination makes my COPD riddled lungs cough and cough and cough until Her Indoors insists I clear off out of the bedroom and let her get some sleep.

Another pill makes my ankles swell to the same size as the swelling endured by pregnant women ... er, pregnant women's ankles, that is, not their bellies. My gut needs no help in resembling a ten-month pregnancy, but that was caused by an excess of bacon and sausage butties, not sex, nor blood pressure pills. And any woman trying to claim that her distension is caused by blood pressure medication, needs a lesson in the basic facts of life, especially creating life.

The upshot of this is that anything able to cure high blood pressure would be a welcome change from swallowing these pills.

But radio waves?

I suppose it depends what station they're tuned into? I've fallen out with Classic FM because they play too much of the stuff that's become popular. I'd rather have Mahler, Mussorgsky or even Meatloaf over the modern divas.

Radio Two would have been an option when Wogan was on, but I'm not happy with old bloodnut Evans. Five Live is a waste of time. They can't even put football commentaries on these days without asking permission from Sky or ESPN, and BBC Radio Manchester is tedious. It's all about Manchester.

Radio One is a non-starter. I haven't listened to it since Tony Blackburn taught us how to make beans on toast. The beans dried up, the toast got burned, and I retuned the crystal set to Radio Four.

Nowadays, there are hundreds of stations to choose from, but most of them would be likely to send my blood pressure even higher.

Maybe the medics could go retro, tune into the Light Programme, or the Home Service, give us a bit of Round the Horne, The Navy Lark or The Goon Show.

It's not gonna happen, though, so it looks like my kidneys will just have to carry on dealing with the pills.

You Can't Take it with You but...

I came across another of those absurd surveys

This one asked what would you take with you when you die. Amongst the more idiotic items was the National Flag. Why? Doesn't that arbitrarily assume that God is an Englishman _(or American)_ and since his Son was a Jew, born and raised in what is now Israel, isn't that the surest way to ensure they slam the Pearly Gates in your face?

That aside, there were some equally daft answers such as a packet of fags and a bottle of booze, and an assortment of sentimental trivia like photos of pets and spouses, yet no one _(according to the mindless minions who designed the survey)_ mentioned money.

Again, I have to ask, why?

Too many people have this view of Heaven as a set of pearly gates with St Peter strumming his harp during breaks from checking the yes/no/possibly ledger. Come on. Get real. This is the 21st century. Chances are it's a bloody great hall, similar to the departure hall at Manchester Airport. And the queues will be even longer than the check-in desks at Manchester Airport. You're gonna be waiting a hell of a long time.

Wander in there with a packet of fags and some apparatchik is bound to point out that smoking has been banned since 2007. Amble in carrying bottle of Campari, and another minion will be sure to confiscate it. And while you're waiting in line you can't eat or drink a picture of your missus or your favourite dog, so logic demands that the best thing you can take with you is some money to feed the vending machines.

Over and above that, it's ten to one that the use of mobile phones will be banned, so you'll need coins to feed the payphones to bell the nearest medium and instruct her to let your family know you made it to the other side.

There's no such thing as a free lunch and you can bet the wife's clean knickers that the same will be true on the Other Side, so internet access won't come free. It'll be the bog-standard £2 for half an hour, and I bet you'll have to poppy up to watch United v Chelsea over there.

You'll need newspapers to keep up with what's on where. "Elvis Live _(we use the word in its loosest possible sense)_ at Caesar's Palace _(while Caesar is Holidaying in the Garden of Eden)_ with your resident compère, renowned fiddler, Nero _(strictly no Smoking)._ "

No Chupa-Chup

I'm fairly laid back. In fact there are those times when I get so laid back, I'm horizontal. Before today I always said the only people who could make me break out in a sweat were the dentist and my bank manager. Well today, I met another.

I had to go to physio for my knee troubles. Unkind souls say my knee problems are the result of begging for money. I say they have more to do with early girlfriends and the damp grass behind the Thorpe Hotel in Leeds.

Whatever their cause, they give me humpty these days and I went along to see what could be done about them. X-rays had proven that there was nothing wrong with the bone structure. I have the most photogenic knees imaginable, so perfect that I could model for socks and shorts.

We _(I'm using the royal we as in me and the medical profession)_ have decided that the problem lies with the tissues inside the knee.

"Do you mean I should have been buying Andrex instead Tesco cheapo?" I asked.

"It's not that kind of tissue," said Cheryl, my physiotherapist.

She decided and I concurred because I daren't do otherwise, to try a cortico-steroid injection in my left knee.

"This won't hurt," she said, which called to mind a doctor taking a liver biopsy about 20 years ago. He, too, said, "This won't hurt," whereupon I asked, "then why have you got nurses pinning me down at the feet and shoulders?"

He was lying. It did hurt. So, too, did the injection this morning. I gritted my teeth and bore the agony of all this anaesthetic and steroid gunge pumped into my kneecap and what did I get for my pains. Nothing. When I was a kid, you got a barley sugar or a Chupa-Chup lollipop. Now: bugger all.

I lie. I did get something. A sick note for the next three days.

But I wanted a Chupa-Chup.

Caution Radiation Hazard

Here's another bunch of bananas from Asylum. Common household items that emit radiation.

Luminous watch dials, I knew about, but cat litter and ceramics?

Reading closer it's not particularly the cat litter that is radioactive, but the cat crap that ends up on it. Apparently there can be trace elements in cat food. Gives a whole new meaning to glow-in-the-dark-pussy, doesn't it?

As for ceramics, well it seems that as recently as the 1970s uranium was used as a pigment in pottery. And what colour did it generate? Well the article doesn't say, but again, my money is on green.

Smoke detectors emit alpha particles. Now there's a choice. You either burn to death, or suffer slow radiation poisoning, which is it gonna be?

Then there are bananas. Yep, the good old fashioned banana is a source of radiation. Her Indoors eats them by the crate load. Don't I see enough of her without her glowing in the dark?

The Ig Nobel Awards

This piece is from the Beeb _(I don't know why I refer so many people to them, they don't publicise my books)._

The Ig Nobel awards have just been announced and there are some interesting recipients.

A couple from Newcastle University demonstrated that cows with names give more milk. The only problem I can foresee with that is when you have a herd of 100 prize Friesians, you'll run out of names like Daisy, Ermintrude and Buttercup in no time, and you'll need a hell of a memory to remember them all.

The Ig Nobel peace prize went to a team from the University of Bern, Switzerland who researched the question of whether it's better to be hit over the head with a full beer bottle or an empty one. Where did they get the volunteers?

The best one of all was the Public Health Award, going to a couple from Chicago who developed a bra which in an emergency, can double up as a gas mask _(double up pun intentional)_. The only thing I can say is I hope she keeps herself clean.

Eye for Eye

Regular readers, by whom I mean those with a life as sad as mine, those who have nothing better to do than follow my drivel, will know that I invested in new glasses back in May.

This week I noticed a slight blurring of my vision. The one thing you don't want is drivers of 40 tonne trucks ploughing into hordes of kids when they're coming out of school. Not that there's anything wrong with the principle of doing away with a good number of the little louts, but have you seen the paperwork?

This morning I went back to the opticians and had another eye test. My left eye has deteriorated, but so has the rest of me. The main problem, however, is that the astigmatism axis of my right eye has twisted.

Trying to get a plain English translation of this techno-gobbledygook is like asking for a bacon sandwich at a Weight Watchers convention, but basically it means the curvature of my eye has changed. Nothing new there. The curvature of my abdomen has also changed. Especially after those non-Weight Watchers bacon sandwiches.

An eye is supposed to look like this:

Mine looks like this:

The result is I get a twisted view of the world.

And I needed an optician to tell me that??????

Tuppence More

I carried out the general wander around our megamarket this morning and on the list were crackers.

As I scanned the shelves, I noticed that the low fat variety were tuppence dearer than the ordinary, boring, full fat crackers.

What I know about cream crackers you can write on the back of postage stamp and still leave room for this post, but isn't the fat cut down by using less of it in the baking process?

In that case, why am I being asked to pay tuppence more for less?

This is such an outrage I may very well write to my MP, and once again I'm compelled to wonder what would happen if this practice were applied to other industries.

**The Motor Industry:** For the environmentally aware driver, instead of the standard 4-cylinder, 1400cc engine you can have a 3-cylinder, 954cc, but it costs £1,000 more.

**The Restaurant:** don't worry if you suffer from high blood pressure. All our meals can be prepared with less salt. _(There is a 10% surcharge for this service.)_

**The IVF Clinic:** We specialise in twins. If you only want one baby there is a premium of £4,000 to be paid _(in advance)_.

**Low-Cost Flights:** Our standard charge for hand baggage is £25 and we strongly advise you to take advantage of this because if you travel without hand baggage, we'll charge you £30.

Gag

I don't claim credit for this. A friend sent it to me, but it tickled the funnybone, so here goes.

On a beautiful summer's day, two American tourists were driving through Wales when they came to a village which had the longest place name in the Northern Hemisphere.

They were so taken with it that they stopped for lunch at Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwyllllantysiliogogoch, and one of the tourists asked the waitress, "Before we order, I wonder if you could settle an argument for us. Can you pronounce where we are, very, very, very slowly?"

The girl leaned over and said, "Burrr ... gurrr ... king

Competence

I picked this one up while surfing the Beeb for source material. It comes from February 2008 when it was announced that workers who dig up our roads were to face competence tests every five years. FOR DIGGING HOLES IN THE ROAD?

I couldn't find examples of the actual test, so I had to slide my brain into gear and come up with the most logical approach.

This test is designed to assess your competence in ...... _(insert specific industry/service)_.

The first part of the test is general and applies to your complaints procedure.
Q1: Where is your call centre based?

i) Mumbai

ii) Basildon

iii) Nassau

iv) We don't have a complaints call centre.

Answer i) pass, answer iii) distinction, answers ii) & iv) fail.

Q2: How many calls will your system hold in a queue before passing the first one to an operator?

i) One

ii) Five

iii) More than ten

Answer iii) distinction, answer ii) pass, answer i) fail.

Q3: At any given time, how many operators are manning your call centre lines?

i) None

ii) One

iii) Five

iv) More than ten.

Answer i) distinction, answer ii) pass, answers iii) & iv) fail.

Q4: A caller complains that he has driven past a three mile stretch of carriageway repairs for the last 8 weeks and never seen any work being done. What is your response?

i) We're waiting for the concrete to dry.

ii) We're waiting for a skip.

iii) You're mistaking me for someone who gives a toss.

iv) I'm sorry about that, I'll look into it.

Answers i) ii) iii) pass, answer iv) fail.

Q5: A lorry driver complains that after driving over a temporary road surface a pallet load of vodka fell off the back of his truck. What is your response?

i) I must apologise for that. We'll take full responsibility.

ii) We're waiting for a truckload of orange to come by now.

iii) Next time could you make it Smirnoff?

iv) Wanna buy some vodka, cheap?

Answers ii) iii) iv) pass, answer i) fail.

Q6: A helicopter pilot calls in to tell you that when seen from the air, the arrangement of traffic cones spells out "sod of". What is your response?

i) You'd think they'd have come up with something more original.

ii) I'll get it attended to right away, sir.

iii) Bloody typical of our workers. Don't they known "off" has two effs?

iv) It's taken us two years to get them to use "sod".

Answers i) iii) iv) pass, answer ii) fail.

Halloween

Well, it's that time of year again when all the little pains in the butt come knocking on my door chanting "trick or treat". My response is always the same. "Clear off or I'll treat you to a neat little trick involving my boot and your arse."

Halloween is an American tradition... not quite. The _exploitation_ of Halloween is an American tradition, which is very strange. They claim to be one of the most god-fearing countries in the world so why do they celebrate what is, after all, a pagan ritual? It's only a couple of hundred years since they were hanging witches.

According to my _(admittedly skimpy)_ research, Halloween is a corruption of All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saint Day, but it has its roots in Celtic tradition which sees it as the end of summer. They must have been working from the same calendar as me _(1957)_. According to reality, summer began on June 21st and ended on July 11, the day I went away on the annual holliers to Mablethorpe, the same day the entire country was swamped by globally warmed rain.

Hardline Christians consider Halloween a travesty of religious observance, Wiccans consider Halloween an insult to "real" witches and the guy who runs our paper shop considers Halloween to be that time when he makes humungous profits. _(He has his priorities right.)_

I consider Halloween second only to Christmas in its ability to wind up my temper. So here's a bit of advice for all you little children thinking of knocking on doors while dressed as little monsters _(I don't' know why they bother dressing up. Most of them are little monsters anyway)._ What lies behind my door is hundreds of times more frightening than anything you or tired Hollywood directors can dream up. It's me. So don't bother knocking.

PS: it's become a real nuisance, so we've decided _(and by we I mean Her Indoors)_ to clear off ourselves. We're going to Amsterdam for the weekend, but more of that tomorrow.

Going Dutch

About eighteen months ago, Her Indoors and I spent a romantic weekend in Amsterdam.

Romantic? At our age? What's age got to do with romance? In this case, plenty. Her Indoors' notion of a loving weekend were scotched by my left knee which had swollen to about twice its normal size, and was so painful that it ensured nothing else could swell to gigantic proportions _(make of that what you will)_. In addition, the weather was so cold that I spent the entire two days wrapped up in an old reefer jacket and a pair of scruffy jeans. I was only short the tin cup and I could have made a fortune begging my way up Damrak. The only romance was tuning into BBC1 in our hotel room and watching United thrash Arsenal 4-0. It's the kind of fairy tale ending I like.

In short, the weekend was a disaster. Even visiting the Red Light District was a disappointment _(she couldn't find a pink lampshade for the front room.)_

Her Indoors threatened to make me pay for that catastrophe and she has done. She's making me take her to Amsterdam again... today, and the RLD is high on the agenda. Her Indoors figures that the reason we didn't find the lampshade last time was because I was moaning about my busted knee.

Her friends at work have also advised her to try the special cakes. Her Indoors is hoping they serve them with custard. I'm not saying my wife is naïve but...

So later this afternoon we will hop into the jalopy and scuttle over to Kingston upon Hull where we will board our tramp steamer to Rotterdam and tomorrow, while you begin to feel the chill of November 1st, we will be soaking up the blistering rain in the balmy 10 degrees of the Dutch capital.

Yes, we are going by boat. It was the only way I could get my own back on her. We went to Bilbao by boat last year and Her Indoors was throwing up while we were still in Portsmouth dock.

Late last night we finished the packing. We're going for two days but taking enough gear to last two months. Our suitcase will probably press the _Pride of Rotterdam_ below the Plimsoll line. Anticipating the worst as ever, I have visions of the captain throwing our luggage over the side to avoid launching the lifeboats.

The argument went on for ages. What kind of woman packs tea towels and pillowslips? "Are you not taking the ironing board?" I demanded and promptly wished I'd never opened my mouth because it reminded her that she'd forgotten the travel iron.

I took pictures on our Bilbao jaunt, but for some reason, the Bay of Biscay was listing seriously to port on every picture. Probably global warming sending all the water to the North Pole. I'll take pictures this time, too, but since it's an overnight journey they may be a bit dark. Semi-pro dark, obviously. I'm not using the compact Fuji anymore, not after coughing up a month's wages for the all-singing, all-dancing Sony, DSLR. I'm hoping for a clearer shot of the funnel than this one:

It may not be totally dark, though. The Moon is at 95% _(Full at 7a.m. Monday)_ and with a bit of luck it will light the way. At the very least, the skipper should be able to get across to Holland with his headlights on dipped beam.

I'll be on the lookout for the sights of the North Sea. Like Dogger Bank. If I'm to enjoy my retirement, I'll need a higher rate of interest than the Yorkshire are currently offering, and where better than an offshore account. I've also packed a couple of 5-gallon jerry cans in case we come across an oilrig. Even with Tesco knocking off five pence per litre, I'm paying an extortionate amount for petrol, and I guess it'll be cheaper at source.

I shall be back on Monday, about lunchtime, with all the gory details. I'm sure they'll make Halloween look like a Sunday picnic.

We're Back

If I was of a speculative nature I'd wonder why the UN have never signed me on. When it comes to disasters I'm the best there is. I'm just naturally adept at turning things round so that catastrophes become no worse than cataclysmic.

The last time we went to Amsterdam, we flew by KLM and stopped at a 4-star joint near the airport. Apart from my knees, everything went tickety-boo last time. This time we got to Hull in plenty of time, checked in and boarded and five minutes later, everything hit the fan.

We were on Deck 10, somewhere up near the Moon and they gave us bunk beds. Her Indoors had a screaming fit and blamed me as usual. She was in tears and fit to get off the boat when I approached reception.

"I don't have anything available," said the young chap dressed as Dracula.

"What about your coffin?" I suggested. "You're not using it but you may need it when Her Indoors loses the plot... if they can fish you out of the Humber, that is."

"The only thing I have is a suite, but it's expensive. Another £65... each way."

Before I could get into negotiation Her Indoors piped up, "we'll take it."

Therefore, before the boat had cast off, I was £130 lighter in the wallet.

The overnight trip to Rotterdam was comfortable, the food excellent, but when we got there, we had to shift our luggage out of the suite and back into the original shed because Dracula didn't known whether he could let us have the _same_ suite going back. While moving the gear, we also moved the tickets for our bus trip to Amsterdam. They were in the suitcase and I didn't find out until we got off the boat and tried to get on the bus.

Back to the check in desk and explain in English to the Dutch clerk that I'd lost my tickets. I shouted, obviously, because we always shout at foreigners in the vain hope that they will understand us.

"There's no need to shout," she said. "I speak perfect English and I'm not deaf."

"I am," I said, and pointed at my hearing aids. I dunno why. It was almost as if I were excusing myself.

Off we tootled to Amsterdam where the bus driver, after trying to sell us discount tickets for a waterbus tour that I didn't want, dropped us outside Centraal Station. It was nippy, but dry and we were well geared up with warm coats.

The price of the lavatories has gone up to an extortionate 50 cents, and they're automated. You can't get in without putting your money in the turnstile, so it was god help us. We had no eurochange, and my blood pressure pills were kicking in.

"They used to have a statue of a boy weeing in the river," Her Indoors said.

"No. That's Copenhagen, and even with my blood pressure on full turbo, I don't think I could hit Copenhagen from here."

We enjoyed a cup of coffee in C&A just the same as we did last time, and Her Indoors speculated again on what caused them to shut down in Oldham and move to Amsterdam. I didn't bother explaining again that they were a Dutch company. I just let her dream.

After checking out Dam Square, we ambled East and into the RLD.

We still didn't find the lampshade, but I got an ashtray. It came free with every purchase. I won't tell you what I bought, but it did my knees no favours. I'll leave it to your sordid imagination, but by the time I came out of the RLD it was raining. I don't mean drizzle, I mean full, 300 horsepower rain.

Only one place to go on Damrak in the rain, Bijenkorf: Amsterdam's answer to Harrods.

The price tags almost gave me a heart attack. And when Her Indoors asked about Chanel No 19 perfume, I had to grip the escalator banister to keep me from fainting. By the time I came back down from the next floor, Her Indoors was asking whether the girl had anything a bit cheaper, like Eau de Sewage Farm.

"You changed your mind about the Chanel?" I asked as we came out into even heavier rain.

"I thought 250 Euros was a bit over the top," she said.

"That's about two hundred and thirty quid. I've bought cars for less than that."

At four thirty, minus Chanel, we made our way back to the station. My knees were fine. That was because we'd walked so far, I'd worn my legs down to stumps.

We were back in Rotterdam for just turned six, moving to another suite, on the right at the pointed end of the boat this time. The journey back into force 5 winds was a bit rocky. Her Indoors had forgotten her mal-de-mer pills and before we knew it, after pigging out on excellent roast lamb and chocolate pudding, she was throwing up like it was an Olympic sport. I walked the half mile to the back of the boat and spend most of the evening there, on the smoking deck.

We bumped into the dock at Hull just after 7 this morning _(Monday)_ pulled out of the docks at half past eight and ran into something we hadn't seen for 48 hours... a traffic jam. They don't have them in the Netherlands. Apparently they're illegal. Cannabis, fine, sex for sale, okay, but traffic jams... you're nicked lad.

That's a quick overview, details over the next few days. All in all, I'm glad to be home and if she mentions minicruises to Europe again, I shall not be responsible for my actions.

In dreams

Had a bizarre dream the other night in which a woman I worked with over ten years ago telephoned me, telling me she'd really like to see me again.

Before you get the wrong idea, I'm not prone to fooling around with other women. I'm deadly serious with them, _(ho, ho, ho, groan)._ I have enough trouble with the four women already in my life: one daughter, two granddaughters and one wife... especially the wife.

This lady was a pleasant, outgoing woman about ten years my junior, but senior in rank.

Back to the plot. I had this dream about her, and it was one of those vivid dreams which stick with you when you wake up. She wanted to get in touch.

I put it down to those sausages we had for tea on Friday and forgot about it... until this morning.

I was on my way out of Tesco, where they had just relieved me of more money for glasses _(new readers, now)_ , when I bumped into her. I use that phrase in its loosest possible sense. In fact, I was going down the down escalator _(useful since it's a hell of a job trying to get_ **up** _the down escalator)_ and she was coming up on the other side. We nodded and said hello and that was it. She carried on into the store to do her shopping and I climbed into the car to count my small change, which as usual was very small.

So what does it all mean? Is the lady sending me psychic messages? Is my subconscious mind harking back to those days, telling me I should be backtracking on something, or maybe trying to tell me that there is a larger world out there and I should grab some of it before it's too late? Or is it really those sausages we had for tea, and if so, how did they get her to turn up at Tesco this morning?

I've reached no conclusion other than United can still pip Chelsea to the title, but I'd be interested to hear readers' ideas. In the meantime, the missus is going to the market tomorrow for another pound of those sausages to see who shows up next time.

Reputation shot... again

Another fine start to the New Year, with a massive party at Ann's farm. I gave them my usual stirring rendition of _Nessun Dorma_ on the karaoke, until someone told me to put a sock in it, whereupon I switched to _Mack The Knife_ and cut the heckler's throat.

Then a family member got pissed out of her brains and we had to take her home. Her husband slipped on the ice and almost broke his elbow and that was only while we were trying to get his wife into my car.

Once back at their house, we had to get her out and she was asleep by then. Still, we managed and then came the job of getting her into the house. The back door was in darkness. Her husband couldn't find the keyhole, neither could my wife. I was the only one stone cold sober, but I was pressing his wife up by the wall like we were enjoying a knee-trembler. Then my missus came behind me and started rummaging through my pockets looking for a lighter so she could find the keyhole. For a few moments, there I was holding one woman up against the wall with another one coming at me from behind, like a bizarre _ménage a trois_ from a French art house movie.

Is it any wonder my reputation is so bad?

Holiday Preps = High Blood Pressure

We're on the final countdown to Tenerife.

I took an extra day's holiday today. I had to have my blood pressure checked, and I had some Tenerife-type odds and sods I needed to deal with. Above all I didn't fancy going back to work and cranking up those cold engines. I didn't fancy going back to work, full stop.

My blood pressure was normal. Given what followed, it's a good job I went there first, or it would have been through the roof.

Over the past few days we learned that the airline will not allow us to take one suitcase on a shared weight allowance. If we took one, we would have 15kg between us. To get the full allowance, we needed to take two cases. Problem: we only have one case. Solution: "After your blood pressure check, go out and buy a case."

Never one to upset Her Indoors, I did as I was told and after coming out of the doctor's I went looking for a small suitcase.

"I want one suitcase," I told the shop assistant after she tried to sell me one for slightly more than a month's rent. "I didn't ask for shares in the company."

Waiting for more shops to open, I had other duties to attend. Picking up foreign currency and picking our seats on the plane; something I had quite forgotten to do when I booked. Not good enough. Her Indoors insists we must sit together all the way there and back. Even if it does cost an extra £50. I'd have paid them £75 to sit her at the back and me at the front.

After giving me a discount rate _(but they didn't say how much)_ on €500, the travel agent told me it was too late to change the tickets, unless I contacted the airline direct. I dialled the number and spent five minutes listening to adverts for services I did not want. Who goes to Canada at this time of year? Don't we have enough snow of our own? At the end of this promo message, a recorded voice said, "All our operators are busy, please try later," and cut me off. Blood pressure now up five points.

Back I went to the travel agent and asked whether I could do it online.

"Nope. You have to speak to them."

I tried again, same result.

Spitting blood and curses, I returned to the search for a suitcase and found one for a tenner in a shop outside the market hall. Satisfied, I came out, slipped on the cardboard he had put down to prevent customers slipping on the ice and ended up flat on my back. He was full of apologies, which I told him to save for my lawyers before going on my way.

Still minus the seats together, now in pain with my knees, left elbow and neck, which I reckon should be worth about 10k, my blood pressure was on its way through the roof. I picked Her Indoors up from work whereupon she declared the suitcase a rip off at ten quid, and totally unsuitable for a week in Tenerife because it was too small.

The argument went on all the way home where I finally settled it by telling her, "I spent six months in Filey and all I took was a Tesco carrier bag."

"It's got wheels," she said, "and our big case doesn't have wheels."

It was only after I showed her the wheels on the large case that she finally shut up and left me to tend to my injuries.

And the seats together? Remember the travel agent said you couldn't do it online? I did it online at three this afternoon.

Flatcap's Big 6-0

Here I am posting from Tenerife on what is my 60th birthday.

It's a pleasant 22 degrees here, bright and sunny and the day got off to an average start when I opened the pressies Her Indoors bought for me. A new skirt, top and bra from Dorothy Perkins.

There was a card attached to them. It read:

Happy birthday Flatcap. I hope you get as much use out of these gifts as I got from the Bosch hammer drill and 148-piece socket set you bought me for my 60th. Love Her Indoors.

She's promised to make the day extra special tonight when we get to bed. She's gonna shut up yakking and let me sleep in peace.

Sunnier Climes

Well, friends, it's Monday morning. I've been back just over 24 hours and it's time to get back on the horse.

We landed in Manchester at 1:30 Sunday morning. By the time our taxi driver got us home, it was 2:30. Normally, holidays are a nightmare and I'm glad to be back. I can't say that this time. To leave Tenerife in glorious sunshine, temperature +22 and land at Ringway in glorious fog, temperature +2, is not a pleasure.

Overall, the holiday was up to its usual Flatcap standard. Just short of a disaster. It was made doubly difficult by the fact that Her Indoors speaks no Spanish and mine is very basic, most of it learned from Manuel in Fawlty Towers.

The problems began before we even boarded the plane, when the check in clerk asked, "Has anyone asked you to carry anything aboard for them?" to which I replied, "I have enough with the missus treating me like a pack mule, never mind carrying gear on for other buggers."

I don't like flying. It's not that I'm scared. I understand enough about the mechanics of flight and the operation of airlines to know what's happening when we take off, cruise and land. When the engines die off early into the flight I know the plane is not about to fall out of the sky. The pilot has just eased off the gas to give him more efficiency in the thinner air.

My objection to flying, especially on charter flights, is simple. I don't like playing sardines with 180 other passengers in an elongated cigar tube. On the other hand, what are you gonna do? The 83 bus doesn't go to Tenerife _(come to think of it the 83 bus doesn't even get to our estate half the time)._

Crammed into row 4 of our Airbus A320 for 4½ hours, my knees began to react. When I'm still for a long time, the ligaments begin to react, and they did this time. Somewhere over the Brest Peninsula my right knee began to jerk and before long I was doing a passable impression of Jack Douglas' Fred Ippititimus.

Talking to the chap in the adjacent seat, I did manage to plug _The Haunting of Melmerby Manor_ , so it wasn't an entire loss, but I'd bought a copy of Philip K Dick's _"Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep"_ for the journey and I spent so long talking to him and the missus, that I read only a couple of pages.

You all know I'm hard of hearing. Well no one told my ears. Sixty miles out we were still at 33,000 feet. Then the pilot went into a power dive and the pressure in my eardrums would not equalise. This left me in agony and completely deaf. Therefore, when Her Indoors held up a bottle of scent and said, "That was dirt cheap at £100," I thought she said, "Tat ross third sheep ah bun nun read lounge."

It makes no sense, but it's par for the course for Her Indoors, so I ignored her... until I checked my wallet. We were having the first argument as we wandered through passport control.

There were many more to come, but I'll save those for another time.

In the meantime, let me test your powers of observation. Here are two photographs taken at Roques de Garcia. Taken 23 years apart, they comprise The Finger of God, the Balancing Rock and the peak of Mt Teide. Ignoring my Missus, my sister in law and her daughter in the first photograph, can you spot the difference?

That's right. Mt Teide has shifted considerably to the right, much like my politics.

A Hype Too Far

We're all familiar with the limited edition.

I've bought limited edition books, DVDs and I once owned a limited edition Rover Metro. Every time the bleeding thing broke down – on average once a week – it cost me an arm and a leg to have it repaired. I think they called it a limited edition because it limited the amount of mileage I could cover and the amount of money I had to spare every week. Rover made only six hundred of these cars, and they would not run without an alarm and immobiliser fitted and working, which was a bit redundant because no self-respecting car thief would nick it. When I finally traded it in, I got a limited part-ex for it, too. £150. "And I'm doing you favour at that," said the dealer. "I should be charging you for scrapping it."

I thought that was the pinnacle of the limited edition, but it's not so. This morning, Her Indoors sent me to Tesco for the weekly shopping. I'm used to them relieving me of large amounts of money via my limited edition debit card _(it's limited by the amount I don't have in the kitty)_ and I can get round the shop and through the checkout in less than half an hour with only 200-300 gripes at the staff and the prices.

Passing along the frozen food aisle I was looking for fish. Her Indoors couldn't remember the type of fish she liked, and my suggestions didn't go down well: pike, lungfish, piranha, shark, barracuda. In the end she settled for haddock in breadcrumbs. As I dropped them in the trolley, I spotted the ultimate hype.

**LIMITED EDITION FISHCAKES!!!!**

What it is about the fishcakes that makes them a limited edition? Are they really made from piranha, mixed up with Maris Piper spuds? Are the breadcrumbs specially selected from a Warburtons toastie?

And where do you keep them? In the fridge with the Dom Perignon that you're saving for your 70th birthday thrash in 20 years time?

Are you supposed to eat them or save them as an investment?

_Scene: Sotheby's, January, 2110. "Lot Seventeen, a pair of mint condition, Birds Eye Limited Edition fishcakes. Deep frozen over one hundred years ago, they're a bit past their sell-by date (February, 2010) and they're looking a little green around the gills, but for the discerning investor, this is a bargain. Can I start the bidding at one million pounds?"_

Will it end with fishcakes? What's next? Special issue oven chips? Vintage washing up liquid? Rare edition Pedigree Chum with chicken?

Is it me or has this world really gone crackers?

Flatcap's Y-Fronts Ground Air Traffic

This nonsense came about after security guards at a European airport insisted I removed my belt and braces and they took my walking stick off me while I hobbled through the scanner, the result of which was my trousers almost fell down.

Air traffic across Europe was grounded after an alert caused by Flatcap's underpants. While passing through the security scanner at a well-known airport, his jeans slipped from his waist to ground level causing a continent-wide alert.

When asked how a pair of Y-fronts could create such chaos, the airport, which did not want to be identified, retorted, "Have you seen them? They're so old the elastic in them is made from real catgut. They were three sizes too big for him and they didn't leave much to the imagination. Especially from behind. The sight was so frightening that our scanner operator fainted and unfortunately fell forward onto the terror alert button, triggering simultaneous alarms all over Europe."

The alarms automatically grounded every aircraft already on the ground, and caused huge stacks over every major airport in Europe as aircraft already in flight waited to land. Mr C Bugrall from Hayes, Middlesex, witnessed a large number of jumbo jets circling Heathrow. "They were like the Red Arrows," he told our reporter, "only bigger and without the coloured smoke."

On the ground, Flatcap remained unrepentant. "It wasn't my fault," he said. "Those silly buggers told me to take off my belt and my braces. I warned 'em it would lead to trouble, but they insisted. I said to them, I said, 'what kind of damage do you think I'm gonna do with a pair of braces? Turn 'em into a catapult?' They wouldn't listen, so I did as I was told and took 'em off."

When asked whether he had considered wearing clean Y-fronts before flying, he was just as pig-headed.

"When I'm flying off on holiday, I don't expect my shreddies to come into the equation. I don't tell you to put clean knickers on before you interview me, do I? No, well, my underpants are my affair, and I'll wear them for as long as I see fit or until they fall apart. Whichever comes first."

Mrs Flatcap was in no mood to apologise for her husband's behaviour. "He changes his underpants as regular as clockwork. June and December, whether he needs to or not. And you should be quizzing those bloody security guards, not me. Misery guts warned them and I told them they'd regret it, but they're just as bloody stubborn as him. All I can say is it's a good thing he hadn't taken his Viagra before we got to the airport."

The air traffic outage, which lasted for almost three hours, stranded Prime Minister, Hammon Brown, in Magaluf, Majorca, where he was attending a European summit. Speaking from a private room in the Lively Ass Disco, Mr Brown called for a Parliamentary review of current anti-terrorist legislation to include a dress code for air travellers.

"I think this situation demonstrates the urgent need for legislation compelling passengers to change their underwear no later than three hours before takeoff."

When asked if such legislation might be too draconian, the PM replied, "We cannot be too cautious in ensuring the continuity and safety of air travel. The consequences of this old fool's Y-fronts on display on board the actual aircraft in flight are too dreadful to contemplate."

Flatcap's lawyers are confident that no legal action will follow the incident. "We have ample precedents," said Ivan Rippofski, attorney at law. "If you're going to prosecute Flatcap for flashing his arse, you'd have to prosecute every bricklayer, plumber and road digger in the country, and our client cannot be held responsible for the sensitivity of the security officer concerned. She'd have seen a damn sight more if she'd been operating the whole body scanner."

When we put this point of view to the security operator, Ms Ima Shawtsite (62) she fainted on the spot.

"She's never been married," said a colleague, patting Ms Shawtsite's hand to revive her.

Our hero remains unmiffed at the fuss. "At least I was wearing underpants," said Flatcap. "It could have been a lot worse if I'd forgotten to put them on."

"And that happens more than you might imagine," said Mrs Flatcap.

Ticker Trouble

All the world knows I suffered a heart attack, which wasn't one, on January 14th. It wasn't an MI, but they suspected angina and I had to go to the hospital this morning for the initial investigations. The news is not good.

Having forgotten my hearing aids, the doctor asked me a shed load of questions, most of which I didn't hear, so I kept nodding my head like Churchill on the insurance adverts. Notwithstanding the fact that my knackered knees can barely get me to the car, she decided I should undergo a treadmill test.

"You know what a treadmill is?" she asked.

"I should do," I replied. "The boss has had me on one for 45 years and the missus jacked the speed up 30 years ago."

After a little negotiation, which on my part consisted mainly of repeating, "Are you pennies short of the full pound, or what?" we agreed that I should give it a go.

The young feller supervising the test first shaved some areas of my chest and while he was doing so asked what all the scars were on my tummy.

"Some dipstick was shaving my chest 20 years and didn't watch what he was doing," I replied.

He laughed and almost shaved my left nipple off.

After the argument had finished, he wired me up to a computer, to monitor my heart rate and blood pressure. The latter almost blew the main fuse.

The first thing he did before starting it was tilt it upwards. "Hang on," I protested. "We're having a downstairs lavatory fitted because I can't climb."

"You need a serious test of your heart's effort under stress," he said, and started the machine.

This was no gentle stroll round Tesco. This was running uphill for an 83 bus at two minutes past eleven when the last one left at eleven. In no time I was out of breath and my knees were screaming for relief.

"We've only gone fifteen yards," he complained when I told him I'd had enough.

"The car's only ten yards from the door," I explained between wheezing my breath out.

The test continued for hours... well six minutes, at the end of which I really had had enough. "You know this heart attack I was supposed to have had but didn't," I gasped.

"Yeeesss," he said, dragging his eyes away from the naked chick on page whatever it was of The Star.

"If you don't stop this bleeding machine, I'm gonna have it now."

Now we get to the serious bit.

Resting after the test, it took a full five minutes for my heartbeat, respiration and blood pressure to come back to normal.

Back upstairs with the doctor, the news was not encouraging.

"We can't say what, if anything, is wrong with your heart, so I'm going to arrange a coronary angiogram."

She was about to explain what it entailed, but I stopped her. I know exactly what a coronary angiogram is, and I also know the risks. One in 1,000 patients will suffer a heart attack or stroke during the procedure.

"It's the best place to have a heart attack," she chortled.

"If it's all the same to you I'd rather not have one at all," I replied.

The Art of the Insult

Strong language is so commonplace these days, that it's put paid to the highly skilled art of the elliptical insult. So just to remind you of how it should be done, here are a few examples.

I never said you were a lousy lover. I simply said your brother was better.

If ugly was a currency you'd be the richest woman in the world.

All I'm saying is your wife is like a bowling ball. She gets picked up, fingered, rolled in the alley and she still comes back for more.

So tell me, did the chef use a chain saw or a cutting torch to slice up the gravy?

You're not fat. It's just when you turned over, I thought it was a total eclipse.

Stupid? You'd need training to make brainless.

The last time I came across an arsehole as big as you it was on the back of an elephant with diarrhoea.

I'm not saying you're easy, but you're the first girl I've ever met with a ripcord fitted to her knickers.

Nice dress. It's the same material the Egyptians used to wrap up mummies, isn't it?

We know you're built like a ton of dynamite. It's the half inch fuse that makes the girls laugh.

I'm not saying you're a shortarse. Just watch you don't blindfold yourself when you pull your socks up.

Policy Problems

I'm in the thick of it as usual. This time it's _(another)_ argument with an insurance company.

Despite my failing health and falling bank balance, Mrs Flatcap has insisted I take her back to Tenerife, for two weeks this time, in September, to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Why anyone would want to celebrate 30 years of sheer hell is a question I'll leave for another time.

I booked it, stood the deposit with only a passing sob, and as usual I signed up for the insurance, which this time came in at just over a ton.

As part and parcel of the deal, I had to ring the insurers to tell them of my health problems, so they could decide how much more of my money they wanted for putting me on risk. I told the operator about my high blood pressure.

"And how long have you suffered it?" they asked.

"Ever since insurance companies began to ask me idiot questions like these," I replied.

Then I told him I was due to go into hospital for investigations into a pain in the arse. "Sorry," I corrected, "pain in the arm... and chest."

"And what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," I said. "Just a pain in my arm and chest."

"So what do they think it is?

"They think it might be angina."

"In that case, we'll have to up the premium," he said and went on to quote me an amount which could have covered the battleship _Potemkin_ against all risks, including war.

"Isn't that bit steep?" I asked.

"If you've got angina, you could have a heart attack at any time."

"If you don't stop putting the price up, I'm likely to have one now and I don't need angina to bring it on."

"Yes but..."

"Will you listen, you gormless idiot. I haven't got an-bleeding-gina. I haven't got anything. They're just going to prod me about to find out what it is, and five'll get you ten it's a pulled muscle. Or are you going to bill me extra for that, too?"

"I'd have to check."

I uttered several more streams of invective, far too strong for a family volume like this.

"I don't have to take this abuse from you, you know," he said.

"No? Who do you normally take it from?" Having delivered this last, sledgehammer blow, I told him to cancel the policy.

"They won't let you on the plane without insurance," said the clerk.

"Then I'll swim," I said, and rang off.

I won't name the company, other than to say they're one of the biggies and they're the same ones who tried to up my car insurance from £250 to £500+ last autumn. I told them what they could do with that, too.

Twenty minutes later, after a bit of searching, I found a company willing to put me on immediate risk on the understanding that, pending the outcome of the angiogram, the policy will be loaded to an absolute maximum of £60. Even if they do I still come out of the deal £40 up.

Feeding Time

It's been snowing here fairly consistently all night and all day. It's a big problem for our local bird population, so the missus decided to throw a few odds and sods to them. They didn't like the stale pork pie left over from Christmas. Four of them tried lifting it by flying in formation, but it was still too heavy for them, so Her Indoors chucked a few pieces of stale bread and fresh biscuits for them. Stale biscuits are reserved for me as a penance for falling sick again.

Back to the plot.

Never one to miss an opportunity, when the birds came flying in, I got the camera out. I moved discreetly to the window, but they spotted me. To a man, they shouted, "Hey up, he's here. Bugger off," and by the time I'd pressed the shutter all I got was a picture of a few pieces of bread and a McVities Digestive. _(Below)_

Not sure if the biscuit is actually there. I distinctly saw one bird flying off with three quarters of a digestive clutched in its beak, looking like a mini UFO. I wasn't fast enough to get that picture either.

The next thing I knew, the birds had congregated on the roof of the house over the backs _(below)_ like a scene from a Hitchcock horror, and I daren't go out in case they launch an attack.

Unrequited Love

I had an email from Mercy Majer this morning.

Who's Mercy Majer you ask? Well, even if you don't ask I'm going to tell you.

Mercy is a delightful lady whose whereabouts she chooses not to disclose. She is, however, madly in love with me. I know because she told me so.

In her email she says, "Religion, skin colour, age do not matter. Love is all that concerns us."

I can't argue with the sentiments, but I've a feeling the current Mrs Flatcap might present a more problematic obstacle than religion, skin colour and age. And a more dangerous one. Her Indoors has been known to skewer barmaids with a single glance, even when the young women have only been asking whether I wanted ice and lemon with my coca-cola.

Mercy went on to say that in a desperate effort to satisfy her unrequited love for me, she wants to send me a photograph. All I have to do is send her my email address so she knows where to send it.

Since she'd already sent me this message by email, I have to wonder... is it me?

Not So Scared Now

First, a word from our sponsor.

_Buy Sod, the brand new washing powder. If Daz doesn't work and Persil won't get it clean, Sod it._

I had the angiogram today and the results surprised no one, least of all me. There is some narrowing of my coronary arteries, but it's not serious enough to be described as heart disease, and it's only to be expected in a parsimonious old git like me. I keep a tight rein on my money and a tight rein on my blood. I don't want too much of it going through my ticker at any one time in case I run out. It might help if I packed the fags in, too, but I have a busy schedule and it's finding the time.

This news is good news. I am, as I always suspected, in fairly good fettle for a short, fat, balding, arthritic, middle aged smoker.

The procedure itself was uncomfortable, but only while they were messing about with my leg. I don't even know when they put the tube in, or when they injected the dye. I now have a plug in my leg, but they didn't tell me whether it was 3 or 13 amp, so I don't know where to tap into the electricity supply.

The plug takes 90 days to dissolve and I have to carry a card telling everyone that it is there. Will this be to my advantage? Will it get me a discount in B&Q or the Dog & Duck? "Hello, I'm Flatcap, can I have a pint of Tetley bitter and I have a plug in my leg, so I only have to pay Happy Hour prices?" Will it let me jump the queue at Tesco's checkout? "Excuse me, I'm first, I have a plug in my leg."

Will it get me preferential treatment on the buses?

Flatcap: I have a plug in my leg so I don't have to pay the fare.

Driver: But you've just shown me you senior citizen pass, so you don't pay the fare anyway.

Flatcap: So now I don't pay double the fare. What's complicated about that?

With my knee busted, my broken ankle playing up and my hip getting iffy, the last thing I needed was someone sticking a plug in my leg, and I feel that my chances of taking over for Rio Ferdinand for the rest of the season have gone down the Swannee. But that's nothing when compared to trying to teach the dog to jump on my _left_ leg for the time being.

The day has not been without its trials. I had to get taxis there and back and that set me back the thick end of thirty quid and as if that wasn't bad enough, I left my phone in the cab on the way home, and I'm waiting for the driver to turn up with it. That's gonna cost me even more money. And I still haven't got my computer working. I'm using the netbook right now. I am also in a lot of pain: a leg with a vicious cut in it and the agony of a walletectomy.

The news that I am not suffering any kind of heart trouble is a mixed blessing. I am relieved, naturally. But it begs the question: what's causing the pain in my chest and left arm. It was while thinking about this that I realised the whole thing coincided with Her Indoors buying me a new wallet, and I think that's the answer. I wish this government would do something about the weight of these half crowns.

I visit my doctor next Thursday in search of an answer _(about the chest pains, not the weight of half crowns)._

Fortful

Here's a little tale I picked up from Fortean Times.

Maidstone Council decided to move a wheelie bin to a more appropriate location. The reason? Sited outside a crematorium, the bin read, "no hot ashes."

The Day the Earth Moved

The dog's unwell and I'm still crippled with arthritis and the after effects of Angie's gramophone, the one aggravating the other, and I find it difficult to walk further than 100 yards. Notwithstanding that, we left Max at home and shot into Rochdale for some shopping. This means Her Indoors wanted my credit card to hand so she could see how far the plastic would stretch.

Mumbling and muttering my way round the shopping mall, while she went into Ethel Austin to daydream about getting back into a size 8, I wandered into HMV. _(I was aiming for WHSmith, but turned too early.)_

I'm very hard of hearing. The only time my ears work properly is when someone says, "Hey up, Flatcap, you've dropped a shilling." At all other times, they're shut to the world around me. Even so, I cannot abide the racket that pours from the speakers in HMV, so I don't go into there, but I did yesterday.

Since I'd already wandered into a cacophony of noise _(I find it hard to believe that this racket is based on the same eight notes as used by Mozart, Beethoven, Black Sabbath)_ I thought I might as well look through the DVDs. I was actually looking for a rare BBC comedy entitled _Heartburn Hotel_. For some reason Auntie has chosen not to issue it on DVD yet and it's over 10 years old.

Obviously, I didn't find it, but I did stumble upon a copy of Woody Allen's _Play It Again Sam_. For a one-gag movie it's one of Woody's finest in my book, and it was only four quid.

On my way to the checkout to pay for it, my eyes fell upon another jacket, and I could not believe my luck. For five shiny pound coins, I could possess _The Day The Earth Stood Still._ Not the cheap and nasty remake with Keanu Reeves and a computer generated Gort, but the original with Michael Rennie playing Klaatu, Patricia Neal as the obligatory fancy piece, and 7'7" Lock Martin dressed in a tin suit, playing the robot.

Made in 1951, this thing is not just a classic; it is the epitome of 50's nuclear paranoia. Every sci-fi story and movie dealt with the dangers of nuclear weapons, but this one took it a step further, with aliens popping into Washington to tell us what the rest of the universe would do if we chose to venture out into space with our atomic bombs.

There was no such thing as CGI back then. The movie-makers used black matte to insert their SFX. By those standards the movie is, once again, a classic. The flying saucer, Gort's deadly laser beams and the way everything disappears when they hit, are seamless.

And the dialogue. Who can forget that immortal line; _Klaatu barada nicto_? First uttered by Rennie and repeated by Ms Neal, it has become one of the most famous lines in movie history. Although we never get a translation, it's not difficult to fathom it and we don't need subtitles. Roughly translated it says, "Hey up, Gort, before you atomise me with your laser beams, your boss, Klaatu, has been shot and he's in a police cell in downtown DC, guarded by hundreds of soldiers, and he needs you to get down there and free him before the shit really hits the fan."

Although Rennie's pontificating is a bit OTT at the end, the movie nevertheless remains an all time great. And Klaatu did get it right, didn't he? When he cut the power to the whole world _(except for urgent areas like hospitals, planes in flight, etc.)_ he made sure he was trapped in a lift with Patricia Neal.

Now that's what I call intelligence.

Older Wiser Confused

Just been skimming through AOL's "10 things we hate about getting older." It's a follow up to "10 things we _love_ about getting older."

It's an interesting lot of hot air but it bears little resemblance to reality and in a number of areas the two lists are mutually contradictory.

For instance, we're happier with our appearance, but we hate grey hair. How can we be happy with our appearance, then? And if we hate grey hair how do we feel about no hair?

It seems that we hate not being able to understand the language our kids use. I simply hate kids, never mind their language.

On the hate side, we worry about memory loss, whereas we love all those great memories. Er, what was I arguing about? I forget, but it was probably great.

It seems we hate being so easily shocked in our dotage, yet we enjoy better sex. Isn't that a shocking revelation? It doesn't apply to me: I find the gas bill just as shocking now as it was 40 years ago, and if the sex I'm enjoying now is better than it was in my 30s, then my memory must be failing. How can nothing be better than twice a year? We also hate going to bed early. It depends why you're going to bed early.

We hate all those old, embarrassing pictures of ourselves, but enjoy being eccentric????? Is it me?

We hate failing eyesight, too. Really? My eyesight failed when I was 6. Wow! That's old. It's seems we also hate the aches and pains that go with age. Do we? I've had a trucker's back since I was 25 and even if I hate it, I have to admit it's good for chucking a sickie.

One thing we love about getting older is we can establish our own style, but it had better be one that incorporates a spreading midriff, because that's one of the things we hate.

We also find ourselves repeating those well-worn phrases our parents used and we hate it. "When I was a lad, you go out for the night have a skinful, turn a trick with the local tart, call at the chippy and still have change from a pound." On the other hand we have sufficient wisdom to advise our children. "I'll tell you how to go out for the night have a skinful, turn a trick with the local tart, call at the chippy and still have change from a fiver."

Two of the things on the love list take my eye. We have more time for us and work improves as we get older. WHAT? I'm still working 60+ hours a week and I have to go to bed early to get up in the middle of the night to go to work. I have no time for us.

Finally, the one thing we love about getting older is we don't care what others think.

In that case, why are we worrying about grey hair, middle aged spread, embarrassing old pictures and understanding kids?

And I've got news for them. I've _never_ cared what others may think of me.

One Liners

Here are few one liners to cheer you up on a rainy Monday evening.

I hate sex in the movies. I tried it once. The seat folded up, the drink spilled and that ice really chilled the mood.

They say that the only certainties in life are death and taxes. These days there's also shipping and handling.

A blonde told me, "I was worried that my mechanic might try to rip me off, but he was really okay. All I needed was the indicator fluid level topping up."

Capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse, and helping your uncle jack off a horse.

Definition of a teenager: God's punishment for enjoying sex.

I Don't Believe It

Suspension of disbelief is a wonderful thing. It's vital for getting you through books and movies, until you stop to think about it.

I've just watched all three _Terminator_ movies one after the other, and in all three we see scenes of robot planes and tanks, their searchlights blazing, looking for humans to eradicate. Why? I don't mean why look for humans to eradicate, although it is a valid question. If the machines really were so smart, they would just bide their time, and let humans eradicate themselves.

I mean why do they have the searchlights on? Arnie and his terminating chums don't need light because they're fitted with infra-red vision and can see in the dark. Presumably the robot planes and tanks are built on similar principles, so why do they need searchlights at all?

In the original _Star Wars_ a sinister Peter Cushing waits for the moon where the rebel base is located to appear from behind the planet so he can destroy it. Simpleton. Why didn't he just destroy the planet like he did the one earlier in the movie? It would either blow the moon away, or at the very least expose it so Cushing and his evil cohorts could pot it with a second shot.

Bond is another series _(both books and movies)_ where suspension of disbelief is stretched to the limit. In almost every book and film, _(not just Bond but the whole kit can caboodle of detective and secret agent fiction, including mine)_ the villain takes time out to explain his machinations to our hero. But would he?

_"Aren't you going to tell me what this is all about?"_

_Villain checks his watch. "Love to, old man, but Corrie's on in five minutes. 'Bye." BANG! Exit Bond._

And as secret agents go, he's not the best in the world is he? His scoring rate is better than Wayne Rooney's and wherever he goes, everyone knows him, right down to the hotel barmen who can always mix the perfect vodka and dry martini.

Sometimes we accept the thinnest rationale in order to enjoy our books and movies. Take Superman, for example.

I'm not arguing with his super-strength, his X-ray vision or his ability to fly. I can work with those. It's his civvy disguise that gets me. No one knows that Superman and Clark Kent are one and same, do they? Why don't they? All he does is cover up his ridiculous jump suit with an off-the-peg job from Burtons and puts on a pair of glasses. Having done that there's no way anyone will recognise him as Superman, is there? At least, not until he takes his glasses off to polish them, they won't.

And another thing. We all know that Superman is impervious to blades, bullets and bombs, and even a nuclear explosion in the second movie did nothing but shake him up a bit. He still came back with not a hair out of place. So how come a Gillette Mach 3 can shift his beard? Is the blade polished with a dash of kryptonite?

Getting back to the _Terminator_ crowd, Skynet, the self-aware computer at the heart of the problem, is a complete muppet. Instead of trying to kill Sarah Connor in the first movie, what it should have done was wait until Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn were getting it on then have Arnie knock on the motel door and shout, _"Cleaners, luv, can I do you now?"_

Why not? It always happens to me.

The Nation Hath Spake

It's been an interesting night what with one thing and another. A general election, a council election, a drop of rain, and I had a Tesco dinner of roast beef and Yorkshires... on a Thursday. How's that for pushing the boat out?

It will be a hung parliament. Suits me. I don't approve of the death penalty, but I'm happy to make an exception for politicians. I think most of them should be hung, preferably in public.

Here in Oldham East and Saddleworth, we still don't know who's going to represent us for the next X weeks/months/years. A second recount has been ordered which will start at 10 a.m. Serves our MP right for not sorting out my Council Tax problems in 2003.

I cast my vote early, yesterday. I'd been to the doctors for a blood test, and called into the polling station on my way home. I looked for the _Free Brown Ale And Pork Pies For The Elderly/Disabled_ party, but I couldn't find them, so I voted for the _Ban Chelsea From Taking The Premiership_ mob, although it was a close call between them and the _Stop Flying Saucers From Landing In My Back Garden, They're Flattening My Rose Bushes_ party.

On my way out of the polling station I was accosted by a reporter who asked me what I felt about modern parlour tricks. "Well," I said, "I'm all in favour of pin the tail on the donkey, provided the tail doesn't belong to Gladys Shufflebottom." I climbed into my car and as I put my hearing aids in, I thought it was odd that on a day when everyone was concerned about politics, he was asking about parlour tricks.

And talking of hearing aids, someone on the Beeb has just said that Nick Clegg is now the powerbroker. I thought he said pawnbroker and I was going to see how much he'd give me against my collection of 1950s saucy postcards.

There have been some interesting news items coming out of the election, not least of which is they ran out of ballot papers at one Liverpool polling station. Being Liverpool, someone probably nicked them. Other people were turned away from the polling stations. One returning officer said to the waiting queue, "It's ten o'clock and we just have time for the last pint, so we're shut."

I learned quite a lot during the day, too. Did you know you can vote if you're in fancy dress, but not if you're wearing a rosette? All you Scunthorpe United supporters, forget it. Also your fancy dress must not cover your face. So you're fine as Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia, but Darth Vader and Chewbacca have had it. I just wonder whether C3PO and R2D2 would count as an electronic vote.

Did you know you don't have to put an X on the ballot paper, either. You can write or draw whatever you like _(as long as it's not an obscenity like_ _City 4ever)_. It must, however, spell out your intentions clearly. So if you felt like it you could write, _"I'm voting for this tosspot because he looks less like a mugger than all the others,"_ but you'd have to make sure it all fits into the little box next to the tosspot's name.

You can take your dog with you, but if he's anything like mine, I wouldn't bother. He'd vote for anyone advocating compulsory fillet steak for lunch.

You're also welcome to take children along to the polling station, but they can't vote. They're too easily bribed is why. A free Chupa-Chup, and their vote is yours.

And when it's all over what difference does it make to us, the great unwashed? None. I'll go on whinging and whining and salting away my _mutter mutter_ thousands for another five years and they'll continue to show up on telly offering incomprehensible solutions to problems that only became problems when they shove their brainless oar in.

I'm with Billy Connolly. I think the desire to become a politician should bar you from ever becoming one.

The McPiesty

It's clear that British politicians are just like the rest: arrogant, self-seeking, egocentric money-grabbing bastards of the first magnitude.

It's time for a change.

To be successful, we need to dispense with certain tenets. The first is that politicians are either thick or out of touch. They're not. Thick-skinned, certainly, but out of touch? They're about as out of touch as a banker putting on his zoot suit and spats for a night on the tiles with his annual bonus cheque tucked safely into his wallet. Every move they make is designed to ensure that those moves don't affect them or the wealthy drones who feed them.

It's obvious then, that the ballot box will change nothing. You will simply replace one gang of tossers with another. The only way forward is revolution.

This is 21st century Britain, and we simply do not have the balls that the people of Egypt and Libya have demonstrated. The closest we come to rebellion is going "tsk" and switching over to BBC1 to avoid an excess of cleavage on _Emmerdale_ , then switching back for _Motorways Cops_ when the cleavage appears in _Eastenders_.

We cannot, therefore, rely upon the people. We need more underhand methods. Fortunately, as well as being a world authority on everything from politics to pontificating, sex to surrealism, marriage to marmalade, I am also the foremost expert on genetic engineering. It's true. I engineered the first wife's knickers off long before we were married and constructed no less than four kids in the process _(although we were forcibly manacled together by the time the first arrived)._ Producing a revolutionary genome that would rule the world would be child's play by comparison.

It was another kind of nome that gave me the hint. Gordon the Gnome. Gordon sits on our back windowsill keeping an eye on the geraniums and scaring off the cats. I was walking the dog round the back garden one day, when Gordon said, "You need a new pork pie."

Because we were passing the lupins when he said it, I automatically assumed it was the crocuses that had spoken and I promptly asked, "What do you know about pork pies?"

"They don't know nothing," Gordon said. "They don't even have the brains to get in out of the rain."

Realising it was Gordon talking, I pointed out, "Neither do you."

"That's only cos I'm too small to get off this bleeding windowsill," he retorted. "Now lemme tell you, the only way you will overthrow the democratically elected government of this country is via a genetically engineered pork pie. I know. We did it in Gnomeland long before you were born."

"You were genetically engineering pork pies back in the 40s?" I asked.

"The 1840s," he corrected. "Course, we called it pixie magic, but it comes to the same thing. Change the pork pie, you change the world."

I decided Gordon was right. After all, even the most influential and stinking rich Tory cannot resist the temptation of two pies, even if he does prefer to have his brown sauce served from a gravy boat instead of the HP bottle.

The first experiments were not a success. Crossing a prime growler with an onion bahji was the worst move I'd made since I switched from the Jolly Carter to the Rose & Crown to save tuppence a pint.

Back to the drawing board.

Crossing a Piggeries Prime Pie with a Wensleymead Cheese & Onion met with some success, but the breed would not procreate in captivity. I had to set them free, let them roam the highways and by-ways of Saddleworth Moor where to this day they seek the front window of Bert Bassingthwaite's butcher's shop.

Third time lucky.

It was by cross-fertilising the humble growler with a fresh McDuff's Cornish Pasty from Dumfries that I finally succeeded. The hybrid grew and bred to the point where Her Indoors and me were having a McPiesty for tea every night: sometimes with chips (or fries as Americans and anyone under 40 calls them.)

Best of all, the McPiesty produces an insane euphoria leading to total abandonment and overwhelming feelings of charity. It's a dangerous cocktail. Even I succumbed. I put fifty pee in the chugger's collecting tin outside Tesco and I left a 40 watt bulb burning all night. What's more, I felt good about it.

There are some side-effects. An expanding waistline for one. But Her Indoors and yours truly were already ahead of the game in that department before we began the McPiesty diet.

The McPiesty is also highly addictive. One bite and you're hooked. The only way off the fix is literally cold turkey... without stuffing.

We had a tame politician in captivity and we tested the McPiesty on him. Within a week, he had donated his entire £1.3 million pension fund to The Dog Trust, used his Parliamentary expenses to sponsor a workable solution to the Third World problems, and handed over his £800,000 country mansion as a refuge for the unemployed. And he didn't give a shit.

Proof then, that the way forward for this country lies not in seeking the good in those who are essentially greedy, but by feeding them the McPiesty and changing them forever.

The McPiesty: coming to a politician near you very soon.

A Political Allegory

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is Politics?"

Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I am the head of the family, so call me The Prime Minister. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the Government. We are here to take care of your needs, so we will call you the People. The nanny, we will consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we will call him the Future. Now think about that and see if it makes sense."

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said.

Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him.

He finds that the baby has severely soiled his nappy. So the little boy goes to his parent's room and finds his mother asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father giving the nanny a serious seeing to.

The little boy gives up and goes back to bed.

The next morning, he says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now."

The father says, "Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."

The little boy replies, "The Prime Minister is shagging the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit."

Unhealthy

It's a week or three since I last had a moan about my health and since I'm suffering, I don't see why you shouldn't suffer too.

To recap, I had a suspected heart attack in January, which turned out not to be a heart attack. No one ever found out what it was, but my personal theory is it had summat to do with shovelling snow from under the car day after day, night after night.

In order to eliminate cardiac problems, I had an angiogram, which proved that I have a minor heart complaint which amounts to narrowing of the arteries. They changed my blood pressure pills to cope with it and everything was tickety-boo... but it wasn't and still isn't.

To get to my ticker, they shoved a pipe up my right leg. Now forgive my scepticism but as an old trucker, I know that if you want to get from Manchester to Newcastle upon Tyne, you drive along the M62 and up the A1. You don't head for Bristol first. If you want to fly to New York, you don't go to Liverpool and get a boat to Southampton and then a train to Heathrow.

Be that as it may, they drilled into the femoral artery and made their tortuous way to my heart to prove that it was fine. I was left with a plug in my leg, told it would be a bit grumpy in that area and ordered to rest for a couple of days.

That was 10 weeks ago. I am still in agony. Angie's gramophone triggered something and it wasn't a fresh taste for music of the 60s. Whatever it did, it aggravated my knees _(both of them)_ my right hip, right ankle which is still suffering the hangover of a fracture almost two years ago, and generally left me aching all over south of the equator. I cannot walk further than 50 yards before I have to stop and rest. It doesn't matter whether I stand, sit or lie, I am in pain, so I do what any man would do in these circumstances: I moan and whine about it, particularly to Her Indoors.

As if that is not enough, I'm suffering soft tissue damage to my neck, and after finding the blood tests that go with the new medication extremely painful, my GP suspects the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome. This is a wrist problem, and there can be many causes. I prefer the one which says it's all the manual work I've done over the years as opposed to the other theory which is too naughty for a volume like this, and in any event, not applicable in my case.

And throughout all this, I haven't had a sniff of a Chupa-Chup.

The upshot of all this is that I turn up at my doctor's so often, they're consulting me on the redecoration plans, and I am now officially disabled. How do I know? I've just been told to apply for a blue badge. Thanks to my iffy hearing, I thought they said a Blue Peter Badge, but when I checked the application form, I couldn't find a trace of Christopher Trace nor a single sight of Valerie Singleton.

If I'd known getting old was this bad, I'd have gone out in a blaze of glory before I was 50.

Home

Caution: this post contains more stars then the Good Food Guide, the difference being they're rating restaurants, I'm deleting expletives.

We have returned from Filey with a vow never to go back there again. We met there, we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary there, and we've just been back, so I think Filey has given me enough punishment for one lifetime.

Leaving home at ten on Monday morning, I suffered the usual jam around Leeds, and still got to the coast for 12:30. That was the last bit of good luck we had all week. The caravan was almost brand new and a non-smoker.

Argument Number 1. "I didn't ask for non-fucking-smoker so why was I given one?"

It was also colder than Reykjavik in January. Two days went by before we found out it had central heating. The TV was tuned to Tyne Tees and only had the basic five channels, so not only did I have to listen to news on the construction of a second Tyne tunnel, but I had to listen to it in a Geordie accent. Not that it mattered much. The batteries in my hearing aids died after a day, and I'd forgotten to pack replacements, so I never heard anything after that.

The food on the camp was good... provided you have just spent the last four years building the Burma railway on minimal rations. To a gourmet it was not good enough for the dustbin. Even the missus didn't like it, and she will normally eat anything, including the waiter's hand if he doesn't get out of the way sharpish.

Entertainment was excellent... for children aged 9 and under. For the rest of us, it was non-existent. We ended up watching a shaky England team win 3-1 against a Mexican side who could play brilliant football but couldn't score goals. The following night we watched an even shakier Irish team playing Paraguay, and on the third night, we watched Sky news and endless repeats of the Bradford prostitute murders _(note, I do not use the politically correct, BBC pandering term "sex workers")._ On night four, we set off home.

The prices in this place were outrageous. £2.50 for a box of microchips? Almost as dear as the microchips in my computer. And the cheeky sods wanted over £6 for a packet of fags. The biggest joke of the week was the sign outside the supermarket which read, "see the value". I looked, but I couldn't see it. Maybe they were talking about the value of trailing down to Morrisons in Scarborough. The prices in Tenerife were cheaper than this place, and they import most of their goods.

During the day we visited Scarborough, most of which was shut, Bridlington, most of which was shut, and Whitby, most of which should have been shut. I took countless photographs and had countless rows with Her Indoors, mostly about a bale of genuine Egyptian towels, made in Droylsden, and which cost more than the last service on my car.

As it happens, most of them will end up servicing my car when they've worn out in, say, three months.

Saboteur

I know you always think of me as a grumpy old git, but I'm so much more than that. I'm also a fifth columnist.

When I go to Tesco, I always park underground and usually enjoy a cuppa in the cafe upstairs. From there, I go outside for a smoke, overground, and then I pick up my trolley and do the shopping.

But although I take my trolley from the overground car park, I return it to the underground car park.

One day, they will run out of trolleys on the overground park and the underground will be blocked off with them. I foresee the fabric of society crumbling, riots in the street, PM's question time descending into mayhem, whole editions of the BBC news dedicated to the unknown saboteur of East Manchester.

It could herald the end of civilisation as we know it.

Excuses

Regular readers will know that I'm a sports fanatic and when it comes to footy, it's a religion. While the World Cup is on, don't bother me. I haven't missed a single match since 1966 and the only reason I didn't see the matches before then was that we didn't have satellite TV, and my dad wouldn't let me stay up late enough for the games from Chile in 1962.

So over the years, I've watched a lot of excellent football. And I've also heard a lot of excuses. In 1966 it was a conspiracy to ensure England won the pot. The same was said in Japan/Korea in 2002 which was why we didn't win. In 1970, it was the Mexican heat and altitude and in 1994 it was the sponsors making sure they got their commercials in on prime time US TV – and we weren't even there. The only excuse I ever heard that was barely acceptable was Maradona's hand of God in 1986, but even without it, the game would have been a draw.

This time it's the ball, the jabulani.

According to one pundit on the Beeb, trying to excuse England's performance against Uncle Sam, the players say the ball is too round.

I have a couple of questions regarding this startling observation, the first of which is what shape should it be? If it was oval, they'd be playing rugby and if it was square, Rob Green might have got to it before it rolled over the line.

My second question is equally flippant, but more to the point. Which ball are the other teams playing with? There are a good number of answers _(many of which are unsuitable for a family book like this)_ but the reason I ask is that Germany _(absolute no hopers this time just like they were in 2002 when they only reached the final before losing)_ didn't have a problem with the ball last night when they rattled four past the Socceroos.

Similarly, the insect-like drone of the vuvuzelas is putting the players off. Apparently the noise can reach 130 decibels. Concorde on takeoff only ever managed 110. I thought this would have been an advantage to the players. The ref won't be able to hear their foul language.

Could it be that the real reason we don't do too well at World Cups is because we are distinctly crap? We invented television, swore it would never catch on and let John Logie take it to America. We even invented teletext and computers, but the world leads the way with both these days. We also invented and refined the game of football, but it didn't take long for the rest of the world to turn it into an art form and we just never caught up.

BTW if the vuvuzelas really are putting them off, they should take a leaf from my book. I take my hearing aids out and switch the subtitles on. They don't bother me.

Are My Eyes Really That Bad

I found this piece on AOL. It's all about glow-in-the-dark products.

Amongst the mushrooms designed by Mother Nature and glow in dark furniture for which I could see no earthly use, the items that really caught my eye were glow in the dark underwear for women _(I presume someone, somewhere will churn out luminous Y-fronts, too)_ and glow in the dark condoms.

Granted I'm getting on in life and my eyesight is poor. It's been crap since I was six and as I get older it gets worse. But when I'm pulling off some woman's knickers, even I don't need them to glow in the dark so I can find them.

The situation is even worse with condoms. You don't take those off, you put them on, so logically your stick of rock will be in the dark before you can get it into a raincoat, which in turn means that you have to use the tried and tested _(and much more fun)_ method of feeling round to put it on. Worse than that, the moment you're safely wrapped up, you're going to sink it into her pleasure pit whereupon it disappears.

For a short sighted old scroat like me it would be better to have a glow in the dark tunnel so that I could aim properly.

But I suppose that would be another one for Mother Nature and/or the genetic engineers.

Shoes, Shoes and More Shoes

Well, I've said it for long enough and today's papers have reinforced my opinion.

If you can bear to look beyond the trite trash about England's World Cup exit _(what else has changed?)_ and the Tory/Tory coalition's determined attack on the most needy _(what else has changed?)_ you may spot a little item in the _Daily Mail_ which tells us:

_The average woman forks out over £16,000 on shoes during her life._

Now you know why I have to work eight days a week, twenty-five hours a day, 367 days a year, even if most of that work is done at home.

The problem for me is that this is what Ms Average spends on footwear. My missus is a cut above the average. I know. She told me. It seems logical, therefore, that she must spend more than this, which is something else I already knew.

While she's swanning about town in her Jimmy Choos, I'm wearing a pair of baseball boots which I bought for 10/6d in 1969. I use cardboard inserts to keep them going. They're due for fresh soles and heels again and I'm going into town on Wednesday night to nick a fresh bit of cardboard before the bin men can get hold of them.

A Windy Dog and a Pink Stethoscope

It's been a bad week or more in the Flatcap household.

Earlier this year, Max, our West Highland white muppet was diagnosed with Westie Lung Disease _(proper name idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis)_. It's a terminal condition and we guess he has, at best, about 18 months to live, by which time he'll be 14 and that's not a bad age for a small dog.

For now, it's management, and we do that by feeding him half a dozen pills a day, including an antibiotic and a ventilator. Aside from the cost _(one of the prescriptions comes in at just over £1 per pill)_ they have another, unfortunate side effect. Wind. And this dog has absolutely no social skills. Every time he breaks wind, it's with a loud raspberry that has him checking to make sure he hasn't blown his arse off. The stench is appalling, but he doesn't seem to care. He wanders happily around the house farting freely regardless of the discomfort he's causing for anyone else.

It's not only the dog who's ill. I'm suffering from a touch of pleurisy. I've suffered it on and off for the last 30 years. I know the symptoms and I know the cure: cut down on the ciggies, a short course of antibiotics and I'm right as a bobbin.

Last night, it wouldn't let me sleep, so I rang the out of hours GP service. All I wanted was a couple of amoxicillin to see me through the night and a prescription for more that I could collect this morning.

The doctor was out on a call, said the receptionist, and promptly rang for an ambulance. Before I knew it, two paramedics turned up, and carted me off to A & E. That was just after midnight. At three o'clock, I saw a doctor in A & E, a pretty young girl whose name I forget, but who used a pink stethoscope.

I've seen glasses, ball point pens, shoes, even tights of various colours, but I've never seen a pink stethoscope. After much prodding and poking around and drawing the inevitable blood _(does the NHS feed vampires, or what?)_ she came back at 5 a.m. and concluded that I had a touch of pleurisy and prescribed a week no smoking supplemented by amoxicillin.

I hate to say I told you so, but...

The upshot of all this is while the dog continues to leave a trail of noxious odours all over the house, I am now on similar prescriptions: antibiotics and a ventilator.

The missus has already warned both of us we could be sleeping in the shed for the next week.

Timing

I don't know what it is about me but everything in my life seems to be dogged with perfect timing. I've been off work six months because of a heart wobble. I'm down on my uppers, no longer suffering time poverty, but genuine poverty, and what happens? The bloody cooker and washing machine both go.

So I have to spend on replacements. And it's money I don't have. Fortunately, those nice people at Visa and Mastercard do have it and all I have to do is fathom out how and when I'm gonna pay it back.

The timing is even more inappropriate because, thanks to two knackered knees, one busted ankle, a dodgy hip and tricky ticker, I am no longer capable of installing the appliances. Not that such restrictions stopped me. I _did_ install them. It took me almost a day. I recall a time when both would have been in and working in under an hour.

I did the washer first because it meant crawling under the kitchen units to set up the feed and drain. That took the thick end of an hour and when I crawled back out, bingo! One washing machine _not_ working.

After wading through the Shanghai English in the instruction book, we suspected the water supply might be on the blink. I disconnected the feeds and began investigating. I had water at the sink. I had water upstairs in the bathroom, but no water coming out of the washer tap. Diagnosis: tap barrel probably collapsed. Solution: buy a new tap. Off we tootle to B+Q and buy a new self-cutting tap, come back home, crawl under units again and hack it into the cold feed. Twenty minutes later, by which time my back, hips, knees and other bits and pieces were screaming at me for some rest, we have an operational washing machine.

I'd had nothing substantial to eat because the cooker had not been installed. Man cannot live on jam butties alone. So after polishing off said jam butties, I squat behind the cooker and prepared to wire it up. This would be no problem. I had left the three wires set to slot straight into their connection bolts. Trouble is, the new cooker connections were laid out different to the old ones. After an hour of fiddling and faffing and bending recalcitrant wires into place, I finally connected the stove. I could almost smell the bacon sandwiches.

So while Her Indoors was test driving the new appliances, I filled in the guarantee forms and learned that I needed the model and serial numbers. Where were they? On the back of both appliances. I had to drag them both out from under the units again.

I would say I was fed up, but at that time _(almost five o'clock)_ I hadn't been fed at all.

Rerouted

You all know me. I'm not one for complaining.

Right, now that we've got the opening gag out of the way, let's get down to the griping, and today's target is that wonderful institution, the Post Office.

I've been on sick for some months, and one of the problems delaying my return to work is the company's request for a doctor's report. My doctor received the request in June. As I write, the company still do not have it because they haven't paid the invoice, and the reason they haven't paid the invoice is because they never received it.

My doctor's surgery is housed in a brand new, purpose built 8-storey block near the town centre bus station.

My company is about 3 miles away, housed on the site of two old mills, one of which still stands. It's four storeys high and blocks out the sun of an afternoon. Right next door to it is our bulk store, which is taller than the mill and also blocks out the sun. There is a constant stream of traffic in and out of the yard all day, most of it juggernauts delivering stock.

On the other side of the site, the side where I work, the buildings are low rise, but the parking of over 300 trailers and 80 tractor units is a bit of a clue to our business. The place employs upwards of 2,000 people and if you walked round the perimeter of the entire site, you would cover about 1mile.

As if that's not enough, there are signs at all gates telling the world who we are and what we do for a living. Even if the name has changed a few times over the years, we are still one of the biggest mail order operations in Great Britain if not Europe.

Having painted this picture, it's tempting to ask why, when asked to deliver an invoice from three miles away, Royal Mail marked the envelope "Addressee gone away" and returned it undelivered.

If this addressee has "gone away" who's driving all those trucks with our name and logo on the side that still rumble in and out of the gates? My mate Jim must be lonely because he's still turning up for work six days a week. And if they've gone away who are all those people I keep speaking to on the phone?

Not only did the Post Office return the invoice undelivered, but they did so via their returns depot... in Belfast. All up timescale: 5 weeks, to make an outward journey of three miles and an inbound trip by road and sea of about 600 miles.

Answer on a postcard, please, routed via Baltimore _(I figure it'll be quicker than Belfast)._

Shut

Here's a tale of woe, again involving the Post office, and it was just made for my cynical mind.

Some time ago I sent my flatscreen monitor back because _(according to the chap in Mumbai)_ the backlight had gone on it. This week I rang them up to ask whether the new light bulb was in stock, but the monitor had been scrapped and a replacement was on its way to me.

They were sending it by Parcel Force. _(Cue theme from The Exorcist.)_

I told them he would need to deliver pm, but apparently Parcel Force don't give a toss what the customer wants. They deliver when they choose. He turned up at 10:15 and there was no one in, so he left us a card.

After spending 20 minutes talking to an automated muppet, I decided it would be simpler if they left it at a nearby post office and I would collect. They gave me a choice of post offices. Let's call them Post Office A and Post Office B. I chose B because it's near where I work. They accepted this.

The following day the PO deliveryman tried again and turned up at 11:55 only to find no one in, so he left us another card telling us he had dropped it at Post Office A, despite my asking him to drop it at B.

After making a few discreet enquiries, most of them taking the form of, "Don't you people understand plain fucking English?" I learned that Post Office B closed down two years ago.

"So why did your robot dipstick offer to leave it there less than 24 hours ago?"

"Oh...."

Embarrassed silence.

Innit

I've just had an hour off to read issue nine of The Pages. It's an e-zine to which I contribute now and then, published by my good friend, Marit Meredith, an excellent writer and editor, and a lady who remains an inspiration to me. I'm arthritic, but I don't suffer ten percent of the pain this lady does, yet she always remains philosophical while I just moan a lot.

In the current issue, I read June Gundlack's piece, Yoof Language, and I identified with it immediately. I have two teenage granddaughters and there are times when I wonder whether we live on the same planet.

Witness the time when Vicky felt she had "majorly failed her Spanish test". Failed I could understand. I'm a specialist in failing... or am I a specialist in failings? I digress. To me, fail is an absolute. You either pass or you don't. There's no degree of failure. So you can't majorly fail, even if the word majorly exists, which I doubt.

Her sister Hannah, one of Facebook's busier correspondents, writes in a kind of shorthand that would have kept Alan Turing and his chums at Bletchley Park busy for years, and one of her friends invited Hannah to "inbox me". An invitation like that is wide open to misinterpretation on several levels from disgusting to violent.

After complimenting another young chap, the son of a friend, on his musical abilities, he modestly described himself as epic. Epic?? I'd only just got used to 'awesome'.

Referring back to June's Article in The Pages, I noticed her confusion in the coffee shop, and it reminded me of an incident from several years back.

I was on my way out of London, starving hungry and I double parked outside a fast food joint on Brompton Road. Rushing into the place I ordered a plain burger on a bun. I suffer from an old trucker's tummy and the burgers alone can drive me up the wall, never mind all the crap they put on them.

"I don't understand," said the kid behind the counter.

"You know what a burger is?"

"Yes."

"You know what a bun is?"

"Yes."

"Put the one inside the other and you have a plain burger on a bun."

He gave this a moment's thought. "What about the mayo, relish, garni?"

My thoughts were on my double-parked van outside. "Mayo is a county in Ireland and I never did like Alf Garnett, so I don't relish either of them. Just gimme the bleeding burger, will you?"

A frown creasing his brow, he asked, "Is that to go?"

"No," I replied, "it's to eat."

It occurred to me that the kid had been programmed like a robot. He was fine when everything went according to plan, but confronted with someone who spoke English, even if it was in a Yorkshire accent, he was totally out of his depth.

I came out from the place, sans burger and drove away before the traffic wardens could pounce.

Why don't parents teach their kids how to speak proper? Innit?

We're Doomed

While pottering through Fortean Times I stumbled on the 2012 prophecies.

For those of you who don't know _(and I didn't until a few minutes ago)_ the world as we know it comes to an end on December 21st 2012. Most life on the planet will be wiped out. This is a bit of a bugger because I don't get my pension until 2015 and I'd planned on being around long enough to collect it. On the plus side, it will save me having to think what I can buy Aunt Jemima for Christmas.

The basis for this prophecy is that the Mayan Long Calendar reaches the end of a 5,000+ year cycle on this date. The doom and gloom merchants homed in on this with the speed of a dung beetle heading for Davyhulme sewage works. When this theory was put to the present day descendants of the Mayan people, they responded, "Are you off your chump, or what? We don't do catastrophes unless you count Mexico's record in the World Cup."

The New Age wallahs, not to be outdone by the doomsayers, claimed that it would herald in a new age of spiritual awareness. Does this mean I'll be switching from Glen Morangie to Smirnoff?

The piece in Fortean Times is by an author _(can't remember his name, the magazine's on the coffee table and I can't be bothered walking that far)_ who thinks there may be something in the prophecy. He believes there is a brown dwarf hovering on the edge of the Solar System. A brown dwarf is not, as you may imagine, a well-tanned short person, but a type of star which is invisible to the naked eye _(or even the naked me)_ because a) it is too small, b) it's brown against the black backdrop of space and c) I can't see that far.

The author claims this brown dwarf is meddling with the Kuiper belt and due to send comets flying in towards us, which will smash us out of existence.

Intrepid detective that I am, I chased up his claims and learned that the Chandra telescope had indeed found a brown dwarf star in our neighbourhood... about 11 light years away, and not near the Kuiper belt. This means that the light we can't see anyway takes 11 years to get to us, which is about the same time it takes a First Manchester Bus to get from Oldham to Manchester.

If I could see the light, it would have left the star sometime just after my 18th wedding anniversary. I've heard of congratulatory telegrams taking time to reach you but...

I'm not criticising this author. His major aim is to sell books. That's what I'm about, too. And I could claim that Voices is a true story. After all, I am hard of hearing, I did break my ankle and I do hear voices in my head. Most of the time, they're saying, "put your wallet away, put your wallet away, put..."

But what do I do if his prophecy is wrong? December 21st is a bit late to go looking for a Christmas present for Aunt Jemima.

Seven Wonders Revisited

A fresh look at some of the great locations in this world and reasons _not_ to go there.

_The Grand Canyon._

I live in the UK. It's a long way to go just to see a hole in the ground, and why should I when the council never get around to mending those caused by the snow in Oldham?

_The Pyramids_

It's all right having a pointed roof like that, but they forgot to put in a chimney. That means you can't have a fire and it gets a bit parky in the desert at night.

_The Coliseum_

I've worked for builders like the ones who slung up this place. No windows, no doors, no roof and look how far you have to walk to the dunny. And what's their excuse? "We're waiting for a skip, guv."

_The Humber Bridge_

The fifth longest suspension bridge in the world and the longest you can cross on foot. It's bad enough leaving Yorkshire to go to Lincolnshire, but who needs a short cut?

_The Hoover Dam_

This is the wrong way round, isn't it? It should be the damned Hoover, especially when she runs it over the carpet while I'm trying to check my football pools.

_Ayres Rock_

Another mistake: spelling this time. I didn't know you could buy rock in Ayr, and anyway I prefer Blackpool.

_Stonehenge._

I read somewhere that it's a calendar. A CALENDAR!!! Can you imagine Mrs MacTavish saying, "What's the date, Jock?" "I'll just nip to Wiltshire to find out, dear. Back in about a month." Why didn't they settle for pictures of kittens hanging on the wall?

Elf Problems

I was at the hospital again yesterday, and it's official. I've been declared a national disaster and the relief fund should be in operation any day now, which will save me having to type out the begging emails.

For the uninitiated, prepare to be bored.

In January I suffered a suspected heart attack that turned out to be a pulled muscle. When they said, "Do you want the good news or the bad news first," I opted for the good news. "It's not a heart attack," they said. "So what's the bad news?" I asked. "You'll have to pay for a taxi home." That particular bill almost gave me the heart attack I hadn't had in the first place.

While they said I hadn't had a proper wobbler, they suspected angina and in March I had a coronary angiogram. They drill a hole in your leg, insert a pipe and work their way through to your heart so they can have a proper look at it. While this is going on, you can watch it on a TV screen. I kept an eye on it in case they found my wallet while they were on their way to my ticker.

The news was good. There was nothing wrong with my heart. On the downside, I would need a fresh place to hide my wallet.

After this little procedure, I developed a large haematoma. _(I love using these medical words. They give the impression that I know what I'm talking about._ ) This huge mass of blood collected in a place where I wouldn't wanna show my mum. That settled in a week but suddenly I was in an awful lot of pain. I couldn't walk properly, my hip hurt, my knees, always a couple of little achers, hurt even more and I felt like I had been kicked where it would hurt most... my wallet.

This has gone on for months and I've spent so much of NHS money that income tax will have to rise tuppence in the pound just to cover the cost. I still cannot walk and as a result, I cannot work.

Yesterday, I had a Doppler scan. This thing monitors the blood flow in your veins and arteries and again you can watch it on telly. It even picks up your pulse from any point on your body and broadcasts it. Like a rap beat. Thumpa... thumpa... thumpa.

The nurse asked, "Oh, what's that big thing there," and the beat accelerated. _Thumpa, thumpa, thumpa_. She'd found my wallet, too.

The surgeon said there was nothing wrong with my blood flow, but my cash flow needed attention, whereupon he helped himself to a couple of fivers.

The upshot of this medical malarkey is a new unified theory of my pain. The haematoma put pressure on the iliac and femoral nerve and screwed them up. So notwithstanding all the pain, I now have a couple of nerves in need of psychoanalysis.

"What can we do about it?" I asked.

"It depends how many more of these you have at your disposal," said the surgeon holding up the fivers he had already claimed.

"None," said I.

"In that case," he said, "it will either get better or you'll be taking stronger painkillers and walking like Long John Silver – minus parrot, natch – for the rest of your natch."

I was determined to consult my GP, but he's off for a couple of weeks. His wife's having a baby. Inconsiderate is what I call it. I mean, it's not my fault she's having a baby, is it? _(Answer: no it isn't.)_

So that's it. I am now officially in pain for the rest of my life. And it's not just pain. I have to limp, too.

All I can say is it's a good job I'm skilled at multi-tasking.

COPD

The latest theory concerning my troubles is that I have an unresolved haematoma pressing on the femoral nerve. I told the doc, I have ways of resolving issues. If negotiation doesn't work, try a big hammer. He said neither would persuade the haematoma to go away. Just what I need at my time of life; a bolshie haematoma.

I have other problems, too, just diagnosed. COPD. To contradict some commentators, this is not an acronym for "Caught Out Pulling..." yes, well never mind. It's Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or Disorder, depending upon how badly your GP wants to scare you. Since I don't scare easily, my GP described it as "Disaster".

The test is known as spirometry, which I thought was a toy you could use to draw fancy, circular patterns. I had to give a few strong breaths into a tube. "You should be good at this, Flatcap," said the nurse. "It's just like breathing down the phone." I'll have to get myself an agent. I have an appalling reputation.

The machinery measures the amount and content of your breath by volume. A bit like assessing the strength of whisky. I failed miserably. I've been expecting it. The signs have been there for long enough. Running out of breath going _down_ the stairs, don't have enough wind to catch the loose women even when they slow down.

They blame smoking, but I can't see it. I've smoked 40 a day for the last 30 years or more, but I've only had breathing problems for the last 10. I think it's all the hot air talked by politicians, salesmen and football commentators.

The doc, said, "You may find it difficult to breathe, but take my advice. Don't stop altogether or you'll be in real trouble."

I replied, "I'll crack the gags on this blog, doc."

He's given me a Ventolin inhaler and an aerochamber. I haven't worked out where you fit the cigarette but don't worry; I'm a dab hand at practical things.

COPD is incurable but manageable and I've planned E-day _(the day I pack in the weed)_ for next Friday, as we take off to Tenerife. I tried in January but failed. This time I'm better armed. I have all the nicotine replacement tackle with me. The downside is I'm going to an area where they sell the cheapest smoke in Europe.

I was worried about flying. I mean, suppose I have breathing difficulties on the plane? Then it dawned on me. I'll just ask the stewardess to open a window.

But I am going back to work on Monday. The company have moved me to a more sedentary job with the Operations Control team. This does not mean I will be scheduling surgical rotas for the NHS. If I were, my belligerent blood clot and lackadaisical lungs would be right up there at the top of the charts. Instead, I will tell drivers where to put their trailers. They say I need training but I don't know why. I've always been good at telling other people where they can stick their opinions of me.

Regardless, at six o'clock Monday morning, while you lot are lounging around in your pit, I shall be getting back on the horse in the real world of work. The missus is so overjoyed, she's already spent my first month's salary on a new handbag... and a dress to match. Why does she need either? It's not as if I ever take her anywhere.

Idiotic Addict

I've never been politically correct. No amount of window dressing and flowery euphemisms will alter the fact that a brain-dead prat is a brain-dead prat, so you may as well be honest about it. In the same vein, back in my younger, trucking days, I was not a transportation technician, goods delivery operative, or a consignment distribution facilitator. I was a lorry driver.

And now I have another complaint against the PC brigade, only this one has been going on since before political correctness was invented.

I suffer from COPD, and the main cause is smoking. You can't do 40 a day for 40+ years without expecting some damage.

Now many of you, particularly those who have never smoked, will say, "smoker ergo idiot." The point is there to be made. It's an absurd habit.

I'm not arguing against the sheet lunacy of smoking, however, but against the verbal discrimination and opprobrium that surrounds your bog-standard puffer.

Research indicates that nicotine is at least as addictive as heroin and there are those studies which insist it's more so.

My question, then: why is a heroin addict an addict, while a smoker is an idiot?

I'm all for equality. I don't care about the colour of a man's skin, which god he prays to, or which football team he supports. If I think he's an idiot, I'll say so. And before the PC wallahs begin to bleat, the term "he" is used in a generic sense to indicate either male or female.

You could argue that no one forced me to smoke. True. But who forced the junkie to take his first fix? You could argue that no one compels me to carry on buying smoke. Again true, but at least I don't go burgling or mugging others to get my tobacco, and if I did, I could hardly claim I was under the influence of Old Holborn when I carried out the deed. You could argue that I should seek help. I did and it didn't work. You could argue that I should pick up alternatives. I did and they didn't work either. What's more, I had to pay for the bastard things while our lovable mainliners get their methadone for nowt ... correction, my taxes pay for their methadone.

As an aside, I did wonder whether sex addicts can get a shag on the NHS to help them with their problem.

I am therefore standing up for equality. I demand to be recognised as an addict. Or if not, I demand that all druggies be recognised as idiots.

Holiday Horror _(not for those of a nervous disposition)_

I can't put it off any longer. I have to bury the ghost of Tenerife and I can only do that by burdening you lot with it. You deserve it.

Most of you will be aware that we went in January for a week. Bad as that was, Her Indoors decided that I needed a further two weeks of purgatory which is why we went back. For reference, I got my tan in Skegness, and I only went to Tenerife to top it up.

We landed at 12 noon in temperatures of 90-100 degrees... and I was dressed for Manchester, complete with vest, shirt, cardigan and a body warmer. The missus has been a diet junkie for years and I found the perfect way of shedding weight. It's called dragging two suitcases, which really needed heavy haulage to move them, half a mile to the bus.

We hit the hotel at two o'clock and within seconds, the clothing was gone replaced by a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Unfortunately, the shorts and shirt were still in the cases and the curtains were open causing a German woman in the hotel opposite to send for the police. By the time they arrived I was dressed and able to deny all knowledge.

As usual, the missus was on their side. "What will people think?" she said.

I replied, "Considering they're thinking it in Spanish and I don't speak a word, I don't really care."

The heat was like that all week. Oppressive. Apparently it's to do with the wind coming in off the Sahara, which is only 100 miles to the east.

"It brings the sand which traps the heat," the hotel receptionist told us.

"All that sand? So when does the cement arrive?" I asked, but she didn't understand.

We took a 'round the island' excursion on the first Thursday. Our guide was a young German named Pieter. Thirty years old, six feet seven without his socks. When we got off the bus to see the 850-year old dragon tree at Icod, he said, "It's a short walk and there's a slight incline.

At his altitude it was a lot shorter walk than the one I took, and what was a slight incline to him was like the north face of Mt Teide to me. The tree is pictured below. Some say it's 3,000 years old, but more scholarly individuals claim that it is a mere stripling of 850 years. It doesn't look a day over 500 years old to me.

The tour then took us to the church of the Black Madonna in Candalaria. They let the wife in, but not me. They must have heard the names I was calling our guide as he dashed off ahead of us.

We had one day of rain, which cooled the air a little... but not much. Every day the temp was up between 90-100 degrees. The only cool spot I could find was in the bar of the Rumpot, where fortunately, Taffy, the manager and one of the most genial and talented guitarists/singers on the island, keeps a cool pint of Tetley bitter. Better still, his wife comes from the same area of Leeds as me, so she understood every word I said.

I did really well with the smoking. I was back up to 40 a day but I was picking them up for 70 cents a packet and I saved a fortune.

An old workmate of mine, Alan, turned up with his wife Janice, after we'd been there a week, and it was great to see him. We had seven nights of old fashioned United vs City banter _(he's a dedicated City fan, but otherwise a sound bloke)._ I don't know what he must have thought seeing the way I have gone downhill. But then again, he's a City man and like the Spanish, he speaks a different language to me.

More Tenerife Tumult

I think you may be ready for the next dose of Canary Island catastrophe.

Because of my inability to walk far, we spent most of our time idling round the pool and people watching. There was one girl, slim and pretty thing she was, but if my chest swelled like that, I'd be on antibiotics.

Not to be outdone, Her Indoors stripped down to her cozzy, but I told her to keep her skirt on.

"You don't mind looking at their backsides," she protested.

"That's true," I agreed, "but then, they don't blot out the sun when they turn over."

I watched a few clowns, playing water polo and I thought, my dog's not daft enough to chase a ball through water. He won't even go out in the rain.

I mean, when I was a teenager and you went on holiday with your mates to Cleethorpes, you didn't frolic in the sea looking for a ball. Back in those days we were looking for girls who might want to play different ball games. Mind, the sea never actually gets anywhere near the front at Cleethorpes. In fact, it's so far out, I'm convinced it's still in Holland.

Three young women were topless sunbathing quite nearby. Buxom girls, all of them. I noticed the nearest one had crooked toes. A gust of wind blew their parasol inside out. I straightened it for them. The youngest one who had the crooked toes thanked me and said she couldn't understand how it had happened. I took a page from my notebook, did a rough diagram and a basic pressure differential calculation to demonstrate the principles of aerodynamics. They were really interested. I could tell by the way they kept checking my maths on the calculators of their mobiles phones.

Her Indoors was eyeing up some muscle-bound poser showing off round the pool. I told her, I said, "What makes you think he'd look twice at a leather-skinned old sow like you?"

After thanking me for the compliment, she said, "It's a pity you don't have a physique like his."

"It's all a matter of perception," I replied. "As it happens I have exactly the same physique as him. It's just arranged differently."

One interesting little gem to come out of our stay was the meaning of the word Tenerife. The original inhabitants were called Guancha. Rife is their word for snow. Tene is Spanish and means "we have". Therefore, Tenerife means, "we have snow." On that basis I live in Tenerife, Manchester every winter.

Bruges and Back with Only One Suitcase

The Flatcaps are on the move again, this time to Belgium. We've done the Netherlands, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, most of the Spanish Costas, the Balearics, Canaries, and travelled as far afield as the USA, and I see no reason why the Belgians should get away with it any longer.

So while you lot are loafing around checking your football pools and settling in for the _X-Craptor_ and _Strictly Come Break Your Neck_ , Flatcap and his long-suffering missus will be on a boat from Hull to Zeebrugge to see if we can upset the dear old sprouts. The deal includes a few hours in Bruges where Her Indoors will no doubt stretch the credit card to breaking point.

As usual, the preparations have been fraught with difficulties. Her Indoors dug out the luggage and proceeded to pack sufficient warm clothing for two weeks in Antarctica, along with a range of sun hats and bikinis. "You never know what the weather's like in these strange countries," she said as she packed her Spanish phrasebook.

Since she can hardly speak English, never mind Spanish and since I'm not sure what language they speak in Belgium, I protested about the excess baggage.

"You need to be well-prepared," she said, flattening the suitcase lid on the ironing board and slapping a _not wanted on voyage_ sticker over the padlock.

Deciding that the tumble-dryer would not fit in any of our cases, she labelled it for delivery to our stateroom, and turned her attention to the trunk, carefully wrapping my Black & Decker sander in bubble pack before placing it in the bottom of said trunk along with the heavy-duty slave batteries.

"What I like about boats," she chortled as she slotted the 37" flatscreen TV and DVD recorder into the trunk, "is there's no weight limit on your luggage."

I mentioned that there was, but it's more abstract. "When the boat settles below the Plimsoll Line, it's overloaded."

Unfortunately, it served only to remind her that she had not packed her plimsolls or the other 17 pairs of shoes she will need for 48 hours on the continent.

While she did this, I packed my suitcase. Two shirts, two pairs of Y-fronts, two pairs of socks. My business suits, shirts, ties, jumpers, three overcoats and Wrangler loafers were already packed in the largest of our eight cases.

Why do they call them suitcases? The tiny thing she allocated to me isn't big enough to hold a suit. Chuck a towel and a toothbrush in and it's full.

I noticed that although she's trimmed down to a conservative size 14, she packed several size 18 items. When I asked why, she said, "I'll be visiting the chocolate museum."

The netbook and the DSLR, its battery fully charged, are with me and I shall be back on Monday armed with snaps and horror stories from our sojourn. See you Monday.

Catastrophe

If Her Indoors ever mentions a minicruise again, I shall not be responsible. The entire thing was an unmitigated catastroscope from the minute we got out of the car in Hull to the moment we got back in the car at Hull this morning.

The only respite was the 8-hour stopover in Bruges, and even then we were bored by half past two.

The original cabin was useless _(no electrical points)_ the replacement they gave us _(which cost me more)_ was perishing cold _(heating broken down)_ and we couldn't book that cabin, heating or not, for the return so we had to repack our case and leave it in a locker when we docked in Zeebrugge.

Coming back, the ship was bursting at the seams, so we had to put up with the electrical outlet-less shed, which meant no work on the netbook _(nowhere to put it, no charge in the battery)_.

To add to our woes, when we got back to England, there was an increased terrorism risk, ergo Immigration made a detailed check of all passports. Fine, except that with typical British efficiency they put three people on _(instead of the usual two)_ to cope with 2500 people coming off a North Sea Ferry. It took almost as long to get back into the country as it did to get the passport in the first place.

By the time I came out of the terminal in Hull I was in total agony and in the worst temper since teatime yesterday.

Bruges is a pretty little city, but hell is it expensive? We sat outside a café in Markt and ordered two coffees. Nine Euros. NINE BLOODY EUROS. That's about £8.

"I didn't ask you to get the next flight to Brazil to grind the beans," I said to the waiter.

What impressed me with Bruges _(as it did with Amsterdam)_ is that they've hung on to and augmented their architectural history.

If you go into Manchester or Birmingham, it's all gone, replaced with glass shoeboxes where they make money. We wandered around narrow and delightful cobbled streets off the main square _(Markt)_ and were confronted with what amounts to a piece of history. You can find that in England, but not in major cities.

But the time in Bruges cannot make up for the disaster that was the journey there and back. And just to rub salt in all the wounds, the pianist in the bar was brilliant... but his microphone was shot and I couldn't hear a word he was singing.

In order to ease her distress, the missus spent a fortune on perfume and booze, and although I offered to buy her some Belgian lace she refused. She's not into lace. Instead, she paid a fiver for a tea towel I could have got for ten bob on the front at Blackpool.

Coming back, we passed Grimsby fish dock _(I recognised the tower)_ at six thirty but didn't dock in Hull until 8:15. It's only about 40 miles by sea. I told the captain, "I had a car like that once."

As usual, I took a plethora of photographs, including one of the funnel especially for my editor, Mo. _(Yay: Ed!)_ My favourite is this one.

The ship is half hidden behind bars, which is exactly what a prison ship should look like.

One of Our Planes Is Missing Presumed Nicked

Here's a little tale I picked up on the Beeb. People have been nicking stuff from the MOD to the value of about £700,000 last year. It's pin money at the size of the MOD budget, but what intrigued me was the items the thieves made off with. A bridge? A ship's anchor. A plane's fuselage?

How in the name of hell and 25mm ring spanners do you get a plane's fuselage out from under the noses of the Military Police?

"Hey. Where are you going with that jumbo jet?"

"Er, we're just taking it away for a respray guv."

"Oh. That's all right then. For a minute I thought you were nicking it."

Or maybe they persuaded the gate police that it was a Red Nose Day stunt. "Bloke dahn the pub said he'd give a tenner to Comic Relief if we turned up wiv it."

"As long as it's in aid of a good cause, I'll let it go. But make sure you bring it back on Monday."

And the anchor? "I'm just borrowing it, mate. Brakes are a bit iffy on the car."

And what kind of transport did they use to sneak off with a bridge? Low loaders tend to be 100 feet long and weigh in at anything up to a couple of hundred tons. Didn't anyone notice?

There were smaller items on the list. Like a clarinet _(I got sick of Stanger on the Shore, too)_ night vision goggles _(a must for any peeping tom)_ and a boat rudder. My guess is the rudder was nicked by a ConDem MP hoping he could use it to steer the economy on a more even _(and personally profitable)_ course.

Phone Hacked

I'm appalled. It appears my phone messages have been tapped.

Last Wednesday's _Weekly Liar_ reported an exchange of messages between me and my mate, Jim.

Flatcap: _Jim, has anyone seen my 3/8 AF spanner, only I can't loosen the bolts on my front gate without it._

Jim: _What planet r u living on? Those bolts are 7/16_

Flatcap: _Soz, Jim, ur right. I found a 15/32 which is near enough. It was in the knife drawer. Catch u l8r._

I'm considering legal action. This kind of underhand practice could seriously damage my reputation as a DIY bodger.

Hello playmates

Have you had a good day? Excellent. Would you like to hear about my day?

I was at the doctor's this morning for a blood test. Nursie could not get blood out of my right arm. It's obviously run out. So she tackled the left instead and took several ccs of the Flatcap royal variety, and after a quick chat with my GP I tootled off to work with Elastoplast on both arms.

I got to work at 9:30. At 9:50, I was in the middle of a coughing fit. At 9:55, I was struggling to breathe and at 9:57 I gave a large cough and I was in agony on my left, lower chest. Emergency ambulance and paramedics _(all four of 'em)_ arrived at 10:10 and by 10:40, I was on oxygen and on my way to the local infirmary.

Once there, they switched the oxygen for a nebuliser to help me breathe, and pumped me full of paracetamol and codeine.

They discharged me at 12:40, telling me that my chest was in fairly good fettle, but thanks to the morning's coughing fit I had either:

a) Torn a muscle

b) Broken a rib

c) Both

The boss arranged to get me home and I have been here since about 2 pm, wowing in and out of consciousness thanks to the painkillers.

Needless to say I am thoroughly pissed off, still hurting and getting earache from Her Indoors who reckons I'm setting up some kind of scam designed to get me an invite to A & E's annual Christmas dinner and dance.

Considering I have two busted knees which has put paid to my break-dancing days, and I have to watch my diet because my cholesterol level is too near the mark, the last thing I need is a dinner and dance. And you all know how I feel about Christmas.

Run That By Me Again.

There's this old joke when filling in forms or under interview by the cops. "They want to know everything including the last time I went for a shit."

It's a joke. Right?

Not anymore.

I retired a couple of weeks back due to ill health and disability. I was advised to claim for Disability Living Allowance. I asked for a form and they sent it.

I have read shorter novels. I've _written_ shorter novels. The questions were posed by an idiot and can only be answered by a linguistic genius, and only then after phoning a friend.

For example. Do you need assistance walking around an unfamiliar place? Why just an unfamiliar place? Why not everywhere? I need assistance everywhere. I don't get lost any more now that I'm disabled than I did when I was fully fit. My legs are no more prone to carrying me off into Narnia now than they were when they worked.

Further down this piss-potticle piece of bureaucratic bumph, we came to _the_ question.

How many times a day do you visit the lavatory and how long does it take each time?

What kind of moron asks such a question? I refuse to believe there is anyone out there able to answer it. This is a literal time and motion study. What the hell kind of life do they think I lead now that I'm disabled?

"Right, I need a crap. Better get the stop watch out and move another bead across the abacus."

Do I have to include the amount of time I sit on the throne reading the _Sunday Mirror_? Should I compensate for the additional time I spend in there when I've had too many brown ales?

The form didn't say.

Another (bloody) Christmas Survey

1: The best Christmas present you ever received was?

The 1974 blackout. The electric board cut the power off on December 23rd and I didn't pay the bill until January 10th.

2: Worst gift ever?

1984 and a recording of Margaret Thatcher's rendition of "Money Makes the World Go Around."

3: What's your favourite Christmas song/carol:

It goes something like "O Come all ye ... JUST FUCK OFF AND BOTHER SOMEONE ELSE." The carol singers open and I deliver the finale.

4: Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without...

Christmas?

5: Christmas smells like....

Chanel No 5, Givenchy Pour Homme and vomit.

6: Favourite Christmas film?

Gunfight at The OK Corral. There's not a single mention of Christmas in it.

7: What were you in the school Christmas play?

AWOL.

8: What is 'festive spirit'?

It's the spirit of enterprise as in every bastard on the high street is ready to rip you off for every penny your credit is worth.

9: Who would you kiss under the mistletoe?

If the money's right, anyone.

10: Who would you poison with its berries?

Everyone.

11: What gift would you take to the baby Jesus?

Bugger all. I hate kids more than I hate Christmas.

12: Something likely to make you feel ill over Christmas?

Christmas.

13: Finish this: 'twas the night before Christmas...

And I was stuck in the snow at Heathrow waiting for a flight to anywhere in the world where they've never heard of Christmas.

Flatcap Goes _(Christmas)_ Shopping

I've been retired just two days and already Her Indoors is taking advantage. She sent me out shopping yesterday.

I hate Christmas at the best of times. I see no good reason why I should feel cheerful in temperatures of -5 while walking streets covered in snow, ice and a dirty slush that reminds me of the gravy they served in the Gas Board canteen 40 years ago. I suppose it could be worse. It's not too far removed from the custard they served in the Gas Board canteen 40 years ago.

I also fail to see why I should feel any goodwill to my fellow shoppers. Most of them barge past me like I don't exist. One young woman snapped, "Get out of the way you old fart."

Never one to be backward in coming forward, I grumbled, "If I were thirty years younger, I'd put you over my knee and tan your arse."

She replied, "If you were thirty years younger, I might let you."

It's the age we live in.

I got to Savepennies supermarket about ten o'clock and it was heaving. One look at the decorations, one whisper of the brass band playing Christmas carols and I was nearly heaving, too.

First port of call was the cafeteria, where they were plugging the _Merry Festive Full English Breakfast, only £4.99_.

The only Christmassy thing about it was a sprig of holly in one corner of the banner, so I asked the lad. "What's the difference between the Merry Festive Full English and the one you serve all year round?"

"About £1.30," he replied. He cocked an ear at the sound of _O Come All Ye Faithful_ from the brass band. "Plus you get the atmos."

"I'll just have two rounds of merry festive toast and a pot of merry festive tea," I said, "and there's a merry festive tip in it for you if you can shut that racket up."

He legged it downstairs and the last I saw of him he was negotiating with the band's conductor to get them shifted to the Spindle Inn across the road.

After a merry festive read of the merry festive free newspapers, I wandered round the store, ignoring the merry festive toothpaste and merry festive washing-up liquid, and at the fruit stall, I noticed 'merry festive strawberries _(best before December 10th)_ £2.50/punnet' and 'merry festive potatoes _(ideal for chips)_ 1.20/kg,' but what really caught my eye was the warning on a bag of merry festive table salt. _Caution: this product may contain salt._ Well slap my arse with a wet haddock and charge me fifty quid.

I finally limped through the checkout to a merry festive bill of £87.53.

"I only gave £65 for my first car," I moaned at the girl.

"Well," she said, "it is Christmas."

"In that case, roll on summer."

Signs & Wonders

The omens are with us. It's the winter solstice and there's a lunar eclipse.

The mindlessness of some people, however, irritates me. I've read so many people saying, "Solstice, lunar eclipse, and a full moon. When was the last time these three things happened?"

1638 was the closest, 1703 was next closest, but that's not what annoys me. It's this marvelling at a coincidence between a full moon and a lunar eclipse.

YOU CAN ONLY GET A LUNAR ECLIPSE AT FULL MOON, YOU IDIOTS.

They don't happen at any other time. A solar eclipse can only happen at the new moon because the moon puts itself between the sun and the earth, so the moon can only hide behind the earth for a lunar eclipse when it's directly opposite the sun: in other words, Full Moon.

I Have a Complaint

But the doctor says as long as I keep using the ointment it'll clear up.

Now that we have the obvious joke out of the way, we'll get down to brass tacks.

We're getting near to the end of the Harry Potter movies and I spent the weekend re-reading _Deathly Hallows_. I make no excuses for being a Potterphile. Although the books may be overwritten in places, the style is easy, the flow adequate, and the action well constructed.

If you don't know Potter from patois, the following may be like jogging through treacle, but stick with it because there is a point to this.

In the final volume, we're told that only the Sword of Gryffindor can destroy the horcruxes and kill Nagini, Voldemort's lethal pet snake. When Potter and his gang of friendly teenage thugs rob Gringott's bank, Griphook the goblin buggers off with the sword. They find an alternative method of smashing the horcruxes, but a hundred and something pages later, when they're in the middle of the biggest and deadliest battle since Leeds United met Chelsea in the 1970 FA Cup Final replay, Neville, who is not a goblin, but a wizard, turns up with the sword and kills Nagini.

So where did Neville get his thieving hands on the sword?

I've read this text time and again and it's not explained. I checked up on the Web and learned that JKR says Griphook had it wrong when he said that the sword truly belonged to the goblins, and that it would always turn up when it was needed by a true Gryffindor.

Fair enough. This work is about magic anyway, but shouldn't it have been explained in the text?

It is explained... five books previously. But it's caused some ripples in the Potterphile community. There are 68 posts relating to this on one thread and even stringing together the complex search question "Deathly Hallows book where did Neville get the sword of Gryffindor" produced no less than 92,000 results.

The explanation is quite acceptable within the constructs of the magical world, and I'm not going to argue with it. Harry himself pulled the sword out of the Sorting Hat in Chamber of Secrets, just as Neville does in Deathly Hallows, but some of us have a life beyond Harry Potter, and we need reminding of it. A simple line of explanation would have sufficed, Joanne.

For example:

Griphook: "Some thieving bar steward has nicked my bleeding sword."

Harry: "Talk to the Sorting Hat, mate. It has a habit of doing that."

Or.

Harry: "Great stuff, Nev, but where did you get the sword?"

Neville: "I found it in the Sorting Hat. Honest, guv, it was just lying there."

This question may seem trite and absurd, but as authors it's important to us. When I construct long and complex novels, I am supposed to ensure that every gap is plugged before I send it off. I'm not going to allow a passing reference in STAC book 1 to plug a hole in STAC book 5 without some reinforcement.

Essentially, I'm just having a Monday morning moan, but the lesson is there to be learned. Don't have your sword materialising on page 587, without either a prompt on page 500 or an explanation on page 600.

Other than that, I think JKR is the best thing to hit the world of fiction since Ike Asimov, and I have only one other question for the lady.

How can I get my writing to put me tuppence behind you in the bank?

Missing: One Snowman

The Beeb reports on a woman from Kent who dialled 999 after someone stole her snowman. "It ain't a nice road, but at the end of the day, you don't expect someone to nick your snowman," she is reported as saying.

The Kent coppers were not amused at this idiotic misuse of the emergency phone numbers, but she was adamant that it was an emergency because she'd used pound coins for the snowman's eyes and teaspoons for the arms. She is reported to have said, "I hadn't checked on him for five hours, but I went out for a fag and he was gone."

If you ask me, she's two pound coins short of the full fiver.

Logically, she should be prosecuted for misuse of the emergency operator's time. Some poor sod could have been dying while trying to get through for an ambulance, and she'd have been better pleading, "I was last in the queue when they were handing out brains."

But giving the issue some wider thought, it paints a bizarre picture. How did the thieves get away with it? It's hard to imagine some jerk ambling down the street whistling innocently while concealing a melting snowman under his coat. And what would he tell plod if he was pulled? "I found it."

Maybe he and his mate cased the joint from an ice cream van. "Hey up, Smudger, there's one. I'm having that tonight."

How many self-respecting crooks do you know who go out nicking snowmen? Imagine him in the pub later, nudging one of his fences. "I got the deal of the century here for you, mate. It's in the freezer."

I can understand pervs nicking knickers ... all right so I can't understand them, but Her Indoors' trolleys are not gonna melt the minute he gets them back to his place. On the other hand, Her Indoors' trolleys don't contain two pound coins and two teaspoons _(at least, I don't think they do)._

Naturally, we're assuming that this is a case of theft, but it could be that the snowman thought, "Sod this, it's too cold out here," and walked off to the pub.

Or perhaps we have it all wrong. Maybe aliens landed, said, "Take us to your leader," and when the snowman didn't answer, they zapped him with their ray guns.

It could happen.

Muppet of the Year

It's time to seek out the muppet of the year, and one of the leading contenders has to be Essex County Council who have banned a lollipop man from stepping out into the road to watch schoolchildren safely across.

The logic behind this farce? Ron, the lollipop man in question, may still be in the middle of the road when the lights change back to green, causing some impatient driver to run him over.

So how does he see the kids across the road? He doesn't. He stands on the kerb and advises them on how to cross safely.

"Now listen to me, kiddywinks, you all know I hate you, so here's how you cross the road. You wait until that big truck is bearing down on you and you run like hell."

Leaving aside my personal antipathy for anyone under 20, has it not occurred to the tosspots who made this idiotic decision that Ron has been standing in the middle of the road for years while watching the kids across? Nobody's run him down yet.

All right, so he may not have had a set of traffic lights behind him ready to give the green light to motorists, but even so, most of those motorists will SEE HIM and unless they're in a really humpty mood they're not gonna mow him down. Even assuming one of them does go for him, you can't legislate for nutters.

The school argue that Ron no longer has his stop sign. Why? Did they melt it down and weigh it in for the scrap iron?

One of the parents pointed out the obvious flaw in the council's thinking. If the road is not safe for Ron to cross, why do they imagine it's safe for the kids to do so? Would it be simpler to demolish the school and rebuild it on the other side of the road?

I've said it before, I'll say it again. It's time someone found these nitpicking tits some real work to do like calculating the linear expansion coefficient of high-speed paperclips or testing the kinetic energy involved in flicking through a ream of 80gsm photocopier paper.

New Year's Eve

The last night of the year and many traditions still hold: particularly getting rat-arsed.

I realise that, at our time of life, it's adolescent to come home fighting drunk in the early hours, wakening the neighbours and giving them verbal when they complain. But will Her Indoors pack the booze in...?

There are other traditions we like to maintain, too. First footing, for example. It's said that the first person to cross your threshold after midnight should be a tall, dark haired man carrying coal. In our house it's usually me: a short, fat, bald man carrying a can of lighter fluid, which is as close as you can get to a lump of coal where we live.

A third tradition is a scan of the New Year's Honours List with regular declarations such as, "What did that tosspot do to deserve a gong?"

Naturally, there's the inevitable look back on the last 12 months. This usually takes place on New Year's Eve and involves mind-blowing comments like, "I never did find that tube of Preparation H after we got back from Prestatyn."

It's traditional for us to troop along to my sister-in-law's farm on New Year's Day where we join hundreds of other partygoers, all eager to hear my rendition of Mack the Knife. I did it dressed as Darth Vader one year.

Aside from my one effort on karaoke, I tend to keep out of the way in the kitchen, where I drop into bizarre conversations with people I've never met before.

They stare at my cap and ask, "Why do they call you Flatcap?" My response is usually, "Why do they call you moron?"

Ann, my sister-in-law, runs a riding school on the farm, and many of her guests are pupils, their parents, and others who stable their nags there. Considering most of them are women, the conversation usually centres on horses, pregnancy, horses, hysterectomies, and horses, not necessarily in that order.

"Are you at all horsey, Flatcap?" one bright young thing asked.

"Well, I saddled a few fillies when I was younger," I told her, and she went off complaining about me.

Few people are readers, which is a shame for me.

"You write books?" asked one young feller.

"Yes," I said. "You know what I mean. It's a regular parallelogram made up of printed pages containing words. You read them with your eyes; those things either side of your nose. And if you don't know, your nose is that bulge in the middle of your face that stops your forehead from collapsing over your mouth."

Her Indoors is usually drunk enough to carry home by ten o'clock and I can settle down at last. The festive season is over and done with ... at least until Easter. And that can't be far away. Tesco were selling Easter eggs the day after Boxing Day.

So this is Flatcap signing off. I'll see you next year. In the meantime, have the best of New Years and be good. If you can't be good, you need to perfect your technique.

The Calendar According to Flatcap

I've had to develop a new calendar.

It's not my fault. Ever since I retired a couple of weeks back Her Indoors has had me working seven days a week, and the only way I could see round the problem was to increase the week to eight days.

It's been a mammoth task, fraught with all sorts of complications.

I had to come up with a name for the new day. The current days of the week are named after Roman and Teutonic gods. What I know about those you can write on the back of a beer mat at the Jolly Carter and still leave room for a Savepennies shopping list. I know nowt about Celtic gods or the Greek and Egyptian variety, so in the end, I settled for calling it Odday. I realise that it sounds a bit like Oddie, but if you find it difficult to distinguish between a day of the week and an ex-Goodie turned ecologist, then you deserve to celebrate New Year's Eve in April, which you will do when the calendar officially changes.

Let me explain.

The Earth takes 365 days and a bit to go round the sun. Eight doesn't go into 365. It goes into 360, but leaves five days over. I don't know why we should worry about this because seven doesn't go into 365 either. It leaves a day over. And what in the name of hell and four inch roofing nails does the sun have to do with anything? I mean it's not as if we live there, is it? Tenerife was hot enough, never mind living on the sun.

Anyway, leaving five days over was a bit of a strain, so I divided the year into 46 weeks of eight days. Mathematicians amongst you, or those with calculators will soon realise that this comes to 368 days. Therefore, starting on January 1, 2011 the next New Year's Day will be January 3rd, 2012, and the one after will be January 6th 2013. This could become confusing, so I had to restructure the months, and I eventually planned on 13 months each of 20 days, with an extra day added every three months, to make up the shortfall.

I needed a name for the new month, and after a lot of heart searching, I came up with Oddember, which follows December. Christmas Day is now on Oddember 21st which is seven days prior to New Year's Eve, Oddember 28th. If your birthday is on January 30, hard lines, it's now on February 2nd. The glorious 12th in August, will become the glorious 2nd and the annual May Day parade will now be no earlier than May 7th. I haven't worked out quite when the summer solstice will happen, but the feeling is it will be sometime in or around July 1st. The winter solstice will be round about the same time, but it will be in Oddember, not December. Bonfire night in the UK is November 5th, which will now be, November 25th, and Halloween will now take place on November 20th. And don't get caught out by April Fool's Day. It's now April 5th, not the first, while the new tax year probably begins on April 11th.

There are some advantages to the system. Credit cards are not geared up for a 13-month year, therefore, until they catch up you will not receive a bill for Oddember. The downside is, this gives you two months in which to rack up a bill so large that you'll be bankrupt by St Swithins Day, traditionally July 16th, but under the new calendar, the thirteenth of August.

My wedding anniversary has shifted from September 18th to October 5th, which was the first wife's birthday, so no gain there. But the wife's birthday is now the 4th of Oddember instead of 11th December.

The signs of the zodiac had to change to accommodate the new calendar. I couldn't find a thirteenth constellation, so I invented one. Oddball. It runs from December 21st (formerly November 25th) to Oddember 25th and the significant characteristic of those born under this sign, is their complete lack of brains.

Flatcap's New Year Philosophy

It's January 2nd and ever since New Year's Day became a public holiday _(yes, I do remember a time when it wasn't)_ I've always regarded this as the official start of the New Year. January 1st is always taken up with a party at my sister-in-law's farm, anyway.

So today is the day and what's changed?

To begin with, I've changed... my shirt and underpants. I realise it's not a leap year, but hell, if you can't put clean shreddies on at the start of January, when can you?

The weather's changed, too. It's been quite mild these last few days, but the temperature dipped last night and I had to put another lump of coal on the fire. Time I was ordering another delivery. The last sack that we had delivered in 1974 is almost out.

United won an away game yesterday. Now there's a change.

Aside from that, I can't see anything much by way of change in the world or in our house. Her Indoors is still sleeping it off and she won't see the light of day until one-ish. The dog, overfed on leftover turkey, roast pork etc _._ is with her, and a scan of the Sunday Garbage _(aka newspapers)_ reveals that the world is in its usual filthy mess.

In other words, nowt has changed.

This is a mystery to me. I'm not good with people. Dogs, brown ale and pork pies I understand, but people are an enigma. Why, just because we've ripped December from the calendar and added a digit to the year, do they expect things to change? If that were going to happen, why not on February 10th, April 14th or July 33rd? Why January 1st?

Truth is, of course, it's not the world that needs to change. It's you.

And New Year resolutions are a total waste of time. In 1983 I resolved to give up using her roasting trays for catching old engine oil, but I'm still tasting Duckham's Multigrade with the roast beef and Yorkshires.

So there's Flatcap's New Year philosophy. Stop waiting for change to happen. Change yourself and make it happen.

BTW if I didn't get around to wishing you a Happy New Year, don't take it personally. I couldn't be bothered.

THE END
The Author

David Robinson is a British freelance writer and novelist. Creator of the popular Sanford 3rd Age Club Mysteries, he is known for his huge sense of humour, which often translates to the written page. He is married with four children and several grandchildren, and when he is not writing, he can usually be found fooling around on the web or flying off to Southern Europe for a top up of sun, sand and sangria.

You can find his general blog at <http://www.dwrob.com/blog/> and information on the Midthorpe series at <http://midthorpe.dwrob.co.uk/>

Track his web presence at:

Facebook: <https://www.facebook.com/davidrobinsonwriter>

Twitter: <https://twitter.com/DW96>

Pinterest: <https://www.pinterest.com/dwrob96/>

Goodreads: <https://www.goodreads.com/dwrob>

From the same author

# The Midthorpe Novels

### Fiagara Nights

When successful novelist Raymond Baldock returns to Midthorpe, it is with the intention of lording his wealth and influence over the locals... but he has reckoned without a romance from the past, a dead body and a middle-aged mother who is determined to love and live in the fast lane.

" _It's been a long time since I've read a book that made me laugh out loud." Denise Toten Bates._

And coming soon:

### Bumped Off in Benidorm

Raymond Baldock press-ganged into a weekend in Benidorm, only to find his mother and half of Midthorpe there. And this is before a body turns up in the hotel. Another LOL comedy in the Midthorpe series, coming soon.

# Flatcap

### Flatcap's Guide to UK Holidays

The subversive husband's guide to holidaying in Great Britain. More sledgehammer humour from Flatcap.

Download your copy of Flatcap's Guide to UK Holidays

### Flatcap On Sex

All you need to know about matters carnal... and some you'd rather not know.

Download your copy of Flatcap on Sex

### Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger

Flatcap flexes his blogging arm with hilariously acid results.

Download your copy of Flatcap – Grumpy Old Blogger

### The STAC Mysteries

A series of traditional British whodunits with the sleuths of the Sanford 3rd Age Club, published by Crooked Cat Books.

The Filey Connection

The I-Spy Murders

A Halloween Homicide

A Murder for Christmas

Murder at the Murder Mystery Weekend

My Deadly Valentine

The Chocolate Egg Murders

The Summer Wedding Murder

Costa del Murder

Christmas Crackers

Death in Distribution

A Killing in the Family

A Theatrical Murder

Trial by Fire

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