Freshly Spilled Thoughts

You know on the generation game how people can’t remember more than 6 things.

You can if you do it in blocks.

If you do that you can remember 36 digit numbers.

Cuddly Toy
Electric Toaster
Model Sprawled Over A Speedboat
Lovely Set Of Earmuffs
Day Trip to the Spa
Crack Pipe

Timothy Treadwell believed he had an affinity with Grizzly bears. So much so in fact, he spent months of his life with them in the wilderness. He even gave them cute names like ‘Chocolate’. Then, one day, a grizzly bear ate him and his girlfriend.

Moral of the Story: Don’t befriend apex predators

They recently played George Formby, “When I’m Cleaning Windows” on the radio. When the song finished, the DJ said “I am so sorry. I just listened to this & I’ve suddenly realised this song is about a pervert who looks in through windows at women undressing”

Ooh you are awful.

I sometimes miss the innocence and Wild West feeling of the early internet. It was like a gold rush for the people. It was a place where nerds could arrive and brag about owning a computer. It felt like a club filled with potential, mystery and anonymity.

Apparently she’s also on Tinder…

Jerry Lewis didn’t speak to or see Dean Martin for 20 years until they were no longer estranged, yet even after Martin died, Lewis called him his very best friend. That’s the thing about love. It isn’t diminished by absence or time. It just endures.

There’s actually a village in England called Upperthong. That’s a name for the ages…

I wonder if estate agents hesitate before saying,
‘We’ve got a lovely semi in Upperthong.‘

“I once spent the day Upperthong.”

“…In it, I mean.”

“How the other half live. I went to Grimsby and all I got was fish and chips.” 

I’m not anti or pro rom-coms. Some of them are good and some of them are terrible.

Even though Office Space was about getting out of the hellhole that was Initech, there was an undercurrent of romance between Aniston (Joanna) and Peter Gibbons.

Peter Gibbons: I wanna take you out to dinner, and then I wanna go back to my apartment and watch ‘Kung Fu’. Do you ever watch ‘Kung Fu’?
Joanna: I love ‘Kung Fu’.
Peter Gibbons: Channel 39.
Joanna: Totally.
Peter Gibbons: You should come over and watch ‘Kung Fu’ tonight.
Joanna: Okay.

And that’s okay. I’m good with that…

If  you put me on the spot and asked me to recommend one, I’d struggle, but Vince Vaughn is always a safe pair of hands.

I seem to recall thinking ‘Along Came Polly’ was okay and there was one with James Gandolfini in that was a bit better than average.

Someone told me to watch “The Wrong Missy” the other week.

“Is it a rom-com?”

“Yes.”

“Ewww.”

“It’s hilarious. You have to watch it.”

The seed was planted and you can guess the rest.

The film is basically about a corporate middle-aged man (a bit nerdy with it, but cool enough to buy a cucumber) that has a brief encounter with what he deems to be something of a dream woman. Nothing actually happens, other than a bunch of pheromones prancing about, but the promise was there of more to come.

So he invites her on a luxury holiday with him.

She accepts…

…or at least, he thinks she does.

Who actually accepts, turns out to be some prior dating disaster who ends up on the plane with him thinking he’s head over heels about her because she got the invite.

And there’s no going back.

So they end up on holiday together and she’s the best version of her authentic self.

Was it a great film?

No not particularly, although it does have its funny moments, but it got me thinking about what people find attractive.

You know, outside of superficial ‘conditioned by society’ things like height and how well a potential suitor can extract the Sword of Excalibur from a stone.

Just call me King Arthur.

Side Note: ‘King Arthur and His Magical Sword’ must be up there with ‘Jamie and His Magic Torch’ eh? Yes? No?

Let’s continue…

On paper this woman was potentially a nightmare, but in practice you couldn’t replace her.

She was too busy living her best life to give a shit either way (lol).

And that’s the thing.

Some people are so unique, you just can’t walk into a shop and pick up a new one.

You can do that with bread.

You can even do it with furniture.

But you can’t do it with someone who is their own walking USP.

People do need a USP because most of us have two arms and two legs. There isn’t much to differentiate the human race at that level.

“Great news. I met someone bipedal”

“Way to go.”

And don’t get me wrong, everyone has elements about them that are unique.

It’s just some people are more unique than others and if you find something about that attractive, then it’s probably worth something.

I haven’t got in me to recommend a rom com, unless you include Office Space, but I do like things that make me think a bit.

And it did that.

So I’m going to give it 3 drinking horns out of 5.

It won’t make you want to do a cartwheel into IKEA, but it may make you do a handstand when nobody is watching.

Actually it won’t. Just ignore that bit.

3 out of 5. Woo.

I’ve never bought a pint of mead.

It’s on my bucket list as a thing to do.

If I’d been around in medieval times the mead would have flowed freely.

During honeymoons, people used to give newlyweds enough of the stuff to last a full lunar cycle.

Nobody does that these days.

“Congratulations, I would like to present you with a plentiful supply of mead. Enough to last you a full lunar cycle.”

“Why, thank you.”

It was supposed to ensure fertility and happiness but I think really it was just an excuse for a good piss-up.

Medieval times do sort of fascinate me. Not only did they get mead, but they also got jousting, rough ball games and taverns.

If you have those four things, there would be no room left for boredom.

“I’m bored.”

“Participate in a rough ball game and break a leg. You’ll make new friends and the pain will replace everything mundane you’re enduring.”

“Splendid.”

“Whilst you are recovering, you can hobble over to a tavern and drink a pint of mead. You may even meet a wench or maiden. Which of the two depends on how discerning you are. If you choose a maiden and end up marrying her, the townsfolk will give you enough mead for a full lunar cycle, so choose wisely.”

“Wow. Being a medieval person is awesome. I can’t wait to break my leg now.”

“I know. Right… anyway, I can’t stop because I’m off to a jousting tournament and I’m a participant.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“No, but maidens swoon when I win.”

“And if you lose?”

“I’ll see you in the tavern.”

I once had the cutest rabbit called ‘Bubbles’.

He was a black netherland dwarf rabbit and he was super sociable.

On Saturdays I’d get up early to watch TV and let him run around the living room doing massive bunny hops before everyone else got up.

Whilst I was eating my cornflakes he would jump up and sit on my shoulder.

He was my pal.

When I was 6 I had a best friend who lived around the corner from me. We’d actually been friends since the age of 3 and I can still remember sitting cross-legged on the floor with him at whatever it is we went to before we even got as far as infant school.

I’m not going to use his real name, so for the sake of argument I’m going to call him Choolimambra.

Of course, that’s not his real name. It was something simple like Mike, but he is now Choolimambra.

Absurd, I know.

I went to his and played board/computer games.

I kicked a football around in his garden and we’d try to score penalties against each other.

I even collected and swapped stickers with him during the World Cup.

Up until the age of 11 I never failed at anything in my life.

I was a natural in exams. I never revised or did anything outside of school at an education level.

I was too busy in my own world, playing out with my mates (etc).

When we reached the age we were both leaving junior school, we both did the 11 plus exam to get into grammar school.

He passed.

I failed.

On the way home from school one day he shouted hopefully out of the window, “Dean, did you pass?”

“No.”

I wasn’t used to failing. I never failed. It was never in the script.

But this time I did and that was hard for me to take.

It shouldn’t have been the end of our friendship, but somehow it was.

He went to grammar school and I went to a normal secondary one.

I used to be very nostalgic and sentimental about old school friends I’d lost touch with, but I decided to let the memories lie where they were supposed to.

Then I found out recently that someone I knew reconnected with my old school friend and went to a football game with him

So I guess nothing is ever written in stone.

There are no rules.

But I don’t chase after anyone or anything anymore.

I believe that fate and destiny are a real thing.

I trust in the universe and if it wants something from me, it will find a way of letting me know.

Of that much I am sure.

Gyms have really changed since I first started going.

You see, when I first went it was all about health and actually lifting things.

Women didn’t really go to them because there was too much testosterone on display.

Half the men in there had zits all over their backs from steroids and usually they communicated with grunts.

If you wanted to meet someone who grunted a lot, you were onto a winner.

Then Instagram and GymShark came along and now it’s all about taking photos of your ass and wearing skin tight outfits.

Women in particular have really got carried away with the whole ass thing.

Stair climbers to dumbbell squats, they’re fully signed up.

Basically it’s soft porn with a water bottle.

Meanwhile the men go there to scroll through their phones (probably looking on TikTok) and doing arm curls.

I still go there to lift things and do exercise, whilst navigating past women bending over in front of me and taking photos of their arses.

Only the other week I inadvertently walked into a live TikTok Stream. Yes, that’s right, I’m already out there in the wild on TikTok somewhere.

I’m just waiting for a company to change the branding slightly so gyms become full-on pick-up joints.

We’ve already got Tinder and the gays have Grindr, so maybe there’s some kind of dating/fitness gym fusion on the horizon.

I haven’t come up with a name yet, but you can see where I’m going with this.

I was watching Syd Little (from Little and Large fame) being interviewed the other day.

Growing up, I wasn’t a fan of Syd Little. I liked Eddie Large and always thought he was the funny one.

Syd was always the straight man of the duo. A few years ago I watched Syd Little in a programme where they go off to another country to see if they would like to retire there…

… and I thought he was brilliant on that show.

Just a lovely, genuine man with no ego or side on him. The kind of bloke I’d love to share a beer with.

People like that are rarer than hen’s teeth, and he’s one of them.

He was asked to dispense some wisdom to those of a younger age and he said:

“Just enjoy life. Live each day as it if were your last because one day it will be.”

To me that advice is pretty familiar, but he’s right of course.

And as Bill Hicks once said, “It’s just a ride” (so enjoy it).

People get caught up being so serious about everything but as long as you can laugh at the absurdity of it all and have love in your heart, you will be okay.

And if you can share it with someone who ‘gets you’, then it’s even better.

I think I have now been accepted as one of the swimming regulars.

A man that previously frowned at me now looks at me like his cup of joy has started to brim over. He even smiled last time I was there.

Me holding the door open for him could have had something to do with it.

I wonder if they assume you are a thug to begin with, only to discover I am a quintessential British gent.

And a woman started talking to me today in the deep end while I was adjusting my goggles.

“I’ve just swallowed a fackin’ mouth full of water”, she said. Nothing like an earthy ice-breaker.

A problem shared is a problem halved, that’s what I say.

“I drink. I smoke. Swimming is the only thing keeping me going”, she declared.

“It’s good to have a balance when you dance with the devil and indulge. It’s the yin-yang.”

She pointed at the tattoo on her left shoulder of that very thing.

So we share the same philosophy.

After that she whizzed off like Duncan Goodhew on crack.

“Fair play to her”, I thought to myself.

I’ve now been 12 times in 6 weeks. I don’t know how many calories that is, but I’ve already lost 6lbs since I started doing this, which is 1lb a week lighter. I’m rather chuffed about that and it breaks up the strength training/running.

In 3 or 4 months from now I will once again be a lean, mean, fighting machine.

And I can visualise that. It’s going to happen.

It can be dangerous when you get two people together that drift into an inexplicably surreal conversation.

Like the other day when I was at a barbecue…

Somehow the person I was speaking to said that she lived in the loft at my friends, but nobody was aware of it and that she’d been there for weeks.

So I declared that I also lived in the same loft.

She said, “Do you? I’ve never seen you.”

“That’s because I live in the cupboard. There’s a large hamsters wheel in there that I go around on to pass the time and it also helps keep my weight down.”

Instead of getting weirded out by this, she responded: “Ooh. I wondered what the draught was! It was you all along on that wheel.”

At this point my friend hears the tail end of the conversation and goes, “What was that Dean. About the loft?“, expecting an adult conversation.

“Oh nothing mate. We just went off on a tangent.”

It then occurred to me that maybe she does live in the loft and didn’t see anything unusual about me residing in the cupboard 🙂

I do love people that give every day normality a poke at the edges.

Throwback Tuesday. Real life shizzle and silliness…

Back in the days when the Egyptians were still carving pyramids by hand on the internet, there was a website called something like “Rather Good”

And it was what it said on the tin.

They had Mick Hucknall holding a giant rabbits ears back, saying, “Holding back the ears” (instead of years)

And a Madonna ‘Erotic’ track that went…

“Bill Oddie.
Bill Oddie.
Put your hands all over my body”

Always used to make me laugh for some reason.

The Goodies was hit and miss at times, but at its best it was mad, anarchic and a quintessential 70’s sketch show that helped shape our generation.

Some very sad news was unexpectedly bestowed upon me this morning.

I was reliably informed that a lovely woman I used to work with, who must have been only a year or two older than me, died of cancer this year.

She was so friendly and bubbly, it’s difficult to process even when you haven’t seen them for a number of years.

You know how, when you think of people, you imagine them out and about, living life.

Even when you’re not in touch with them, it is comforting to think of old acquaintances in this way.

Then one day someone tells you they aren’t around anymore.

That isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

The finality of it is the hardest thing and there’s nothing you can do about it but honour their memory.

When you see someone, you never think that will be the last opportunity you’ll ever have, but unfortunately sometimes it is.

For me it’s when I bumped into her in Solihull one day. I had already left the place I worked, and she had too.

She was looking for a job at the time. Later she met someone and looked the picture of health in relatively recent photos.

Honestly, if I thought about it all too much it would make me cry.

One thing I’ve always been able to do is replay points in time and conversations in my head as if they were only yesterday.

They never go away.

I remember the time I took a day off work and her playfully saying, “Are you feeling better, Dean?”, the next time I was in.

And the time I gave her a bodybuilders version of the ECA stack jotted down on a piece of paper, which she used to get weight off before a holiday abroad.

When I worked downstairs, one guy I worked with referred to her as “Mandy’s tarts upstairs”, which was all just a bit of banter.

Nature can be both fickle and cruel, so if there is a God he/she/it can shove it up its arse because it’s all weighted the wrong way.

Forgive me for writing a post that is bereft of levity, but this has been the most shocking news I have been in receipt of for quite some time.

One of my enduring memories of her is that she was always smiling and interested in the latest bit of office gossip, to make the day go by that little bit faster. My impression of her is that she ‘worked to live’ as oppose to the other way around.

So on that note this post is dedicated to my old work-friend, Mandy. I’ll raise a glass and I won’t forget you. RIP.

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” ~ Charles Bukowski

It’s hard to think of what the last genius sitcom was.

Some might say ‘The Office’.

It would be hard to argue against that, especially with the stapler in the jelly and the impromptu guitar rendition of ‘Hot Love’ on a Freelove Freeway, by David Brent.

Me…. personally I’d say it was probably Black Books.

Bernard: [grabs a book at random] This one’s good, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’ll change your life!

And if you’ve never watched it, you’ll never know about the Little Book of Calm

Manny: You think I should wash my beard?

Bernard: Yes, I think you should wash it. Then you should shave it off, nail it to a frisbee, and fling it over a rainbow.

I also particularly liked the Summer Girl episode…

Bernard: I’ve got to get a girlfriend, just for the summer, until this wears off. She’ll be a summery girl. She’ll have hair. She’ll have summery friends who know how to be outside. She’ll play tennis and wear dresses and have bare feet, and in the autumn, I’ll ditch her, because she’s my summer girl!

[Bernard runs up to his ‘summer girlfriend’ wearing an accordion]

Bernard: Hello! I’ve come to serenade you. I can’t play guitar. I can’t play this either, but I thought it’d be less obvious.

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