Freshly Spilled Thoughts

This week I went on the bus for the first time in years, to the Queen Elizabeth hospital.

Because of Kersal Massive I can’t say anything about day-savers without thinking about their viral YouTube video.

Nonetheless, I had to buy a day-saver and it was hard not to think of  the ukulele acoustic version of this impromptu rap as the ticket duly printed.

What a mish mash of characters you get on buses these days…

From stoners to salt of the earth types, you’ll find them all aboard the wheels on the bus as they go round and around.

Last time I got on one, a bloke unleashed the Lords Prayer upon me.

I don’t mind people being quietly religious, but I don’t want a picnic hamper worth of it 🙂

For some reason this reminds me of the time I went to town and this guy thrust a book into my hands about ‘Vegetables Having Feelings Too’.

The title of this book did momentarily intrigue me and it’s one you never forget.

It also raises more questions than answers. Are certain vegetables more emotional than others? I’ll never know.

This man with a buddhist vibe going on, angrily confiscated the book back off me when no money was forthcoming, which made me burst out laughing at how absurd it was.

It’s hardly a punishment is it? Taking back a book about vegetables that have feelings.

I never forgot it though and as a result I do try not to upset spring onions in particular (let’s be honest, whyever would you).

However, it has to be said that it does get hard when you have to chop one up for the greater good so that it can go into a stir fry.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

One ‘not so great’ thing about the internet is you get to hear about every Tom, Dick and Harry that rips off the mortal coil.

Sometimes, I’d honestly rather not know.

The media machine preys upon it and you even get news articles on people that once got to number 97 in the charts, 30 years ago.

Or rappers that once got more than 200 views on TikTok

Not even Z Listers.

However, I was sorry to hear about James Van Der Beek, who played Dawson in Dawson’s Creek.

I wasn’t a fan of the show, I can’t say I ever really watched it, but I remember it being on whenever I went to my mates house because his wife literally swooned over Dawson.

So did most of her friends.

“He has hair… and teeth… and he lives in Dawson’s Creek. A place of mystery, where teeth are kept white with Tippex and hair is never out of place”.

I didn’t know much about him until yesterday.

Sounds like he was a decent family man… and back in the Dawson days I can see how he caused fainting whenever the show came on.

48… what can you say other than life isn’t always fair?

In fact it’s an absolute bastard sometimes, so you have to remain thankful for every day we get to spin around on this big blue ball.

Temporary afflictions… you know, like:

Stubbing your toe on a chair.

Dropping a block of cheese on your foot.

Biting your tongue unexpectedly

Walking into a door you believed was open until proven wrong

Toothache

Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door.

Most of these things have happened to all of us at one time or another.

The one I dread the most?

Headaches. By a country mile.

My left leg could be hanging off and I wouldn’t touch a painkiller.

Give me a headache though, and it’s a different story.

When it comes to paracetamols I’m a cheap date.

It’s the only time I look for salvation in a bottle 🙂

Because I take them so infrequently, all I need is one.

Just think, until the mid 1800’s, people did all manner of bizarre things to treat a headache.

In South America, they placed an electric eel on their heads.

How does that work? “Sandy, fetch me the electric eel. I’ve got a headache and shit just got real”

I love how intense the solutions were to a relatively mild problem.

“Give King Kong a call, I’ve twisted my ankle”

How did it work in the 18th century?

“Not tonight, I’ve got a headache”

“Don’t worry. I’ve just bought an electric eel, we’ll soon have you feeling back to normal. Do you want it on your head or would you like to chew some willow bark to see if that works first?”

“FFS. I wish you’d stop reading ‘The Headache Cure Almanac’.”

If you think electric eels were a bad idea for headache resolution, they also had vibration therapy which involved striking the patient over the head with a mallet whilst they were wearing a metal helmet.

They used to think this would vibrate the pain away. God love ’em.

About as much use as being prescribed Viagra whilst stuck in a lift on your own, I’d say.

Finally, we had trepanation which involved drilling a hole in the skull to release evil spirits.

WTAF.

I’m so glad we have a more eloquent and civilised solution now and it’s available in a convenient blister pack for less than a pound.

Valentine’s Day is almost upon us.

It’s a time of…

Hot dates
Lit Candles
Quality Time
Dining for Two
Embracing Romance
Bargain Hunters shopping for dinner deals in M&S (it’s a thing)

I think that’s the good part of it. It’s nice.

The gifts side of it can be a bit cornier, especially if it’s the usual suspects.

No chocolate or cute teddy bears, thanks.

Surely we are all stuffed with Milk Tray since Xmas anyway, so we don’t need any more of that sort of thing 🙂

Besides, would you give someone you love chocolates these days? Most of them are shite (I’m just saying it how it is).

In fact, I’d give chocolates to people I don’t like, they’re that bad.

“Here, have a horrible chocolate. It’s not my fault, manufacturing standards have really slipped as companies pursue profit over quality”

“Thanks”

“It’s a coffee one. Remember revel roulette? I loved that game” 🙂

Side Note: Anyone remember when chocolates were a thing of wonder? My grandparents would go into deep shock at the confectionary downturn. The other day I walked past a Lindt bar in disgust.

Cards and gifts can be nice. I’m not anti either.

I just don’t like anything that’s forced, made up or invented for commerce (lol)

People should do things because they want to. Because they mean it.

I happen to think that’s a personal thing between two people that society doesn’t get a say in on a calendar…

…other than birthdays and anniversaries (so those aside).

Not if they are motivated by consequences like, “Oh shit, I’d better get a card or I’ll get it in the neck later“.

I mean, if Haddaway gave someone a gift on Valentine’s Day I’d totally believe it was with the right intentions, put it that way  😉

You don’t sing a song about love without thinking about it quite a lot first do you?

I’ll find any old excuse to mention that Haddaway track (lol).

So yes, it’s a lovely thing when it means something… like all these things do.

I’d like to finish this post with a little poem…

Roses are red
Violets are purple
If You Ever Leave Me
I’m Keeping Your Turtle

Thank you so much (takes a bow)

Quite like this Grange Hill version of Stranger Things.

It even includes Gonch, my favourite character of all time on that show…

Gonch: The Man. The Myth. The Legend…

I was talking to this bloke the other day, who offered to give two women a lift home after last orders at the bar.

They were both drunk.

The first woman was Irish and she lived several miles away. He dropped her home first.

The second one lived nearer to the pub, so I’m not sure why he didn’t drop her off first, but … and this bit’s a classic…

… she totally forgot where she lived. She had not got a scooby.

She said to him, “I usually just get on the number 14 bus” (maybe she was just enjoying the ride)

Of course, he didn’t know the 14 bus route… she didn’t even know the name of the road, she was that many sheets to the wind.

Meanwhile, he’s running low on fuel, so he began to lose his patience and advised her that if he was a taxi driver he’d have already kicked her out of the car by now.

After threatening to drop her off down some random road and informing the police there’s a missing person in the vicinity who doesn’t know her arse from her elbow, it seemed to sober her up and she suddenly magically remembered where she lived.

What a fiasco.

In some ways I admire people that are kind, who give lifts to strangers, but personally speaking I’d rather eat gravel than have some stranger I didn’t know from Adam in close proximity to me whilst they were under the influence.

There’s a bloke called Martin in the area who jogs on the spot and asks you for money.

Apparently he’s harmless and I haven’t quite figured out why he jogs on the spot whilst in the middle of panhandling, but I can’t be doing with people jogging next to me for 50p… or any other denomination, come to think of it.

I did give him 50p once though and this fuelled him up for the rest of whatever he was doing. He went jogging off at walking pace. His legs moved quickly, but he moved the same pace as someone would when they are walking.

Curious. You don’t get that way just eating Cornish Pasties do you.

To think, all these people were probably normal at one time. Now they don’t know where they live and jog on the spot until someone gives them a coin they can exchange for low value goods widely available throughout the British empire.

How pants is the weather lately?

Oh sweet joy, another day of rain. I hope it rains again tomorrow just to add to all the excitement of never-ending water landing on my face.

I went out in this the other night with an umbrella and turned into Mary Poppins.

Landed in the Lickey Hills and had to walk all the way back.

It’s a hard knock life.

It seemed so simple. 8 milkshakes later…

I’ve been dipping back into Stephen Kings ‘Everything’s Eventual’ and Marshall Smiths ‘More Tomorrow’ lately. I’ve always felt King is actually at his best in short stories rather than 1,000-page epics.

Does anyone else think the short stories have more ‘punch,’ or am I missing out by not reading the fully blown novels you can also use as door stops?

I have a superpower…

Shoulders that people bounce off when they walk into them.

I first discovered this when I was 17, walking through the streets of Birmingham on a busy shopping day.

I could see someone of male persuasion coming towards me who wasn’t going to move, thinking he was going to take me out with his inflated testosterone levels. I decided this was my time in life to be stubborn, so I tensed my right shoulder and sure enough this person walked straight into it. He bounced off me in a brilliant way.

I was very pleased.

Now if I saw someone coming, I would just move out of the way, but at 17 it was worth the risk.

A few weeks ago in the locker room, another guy did the same thing. I am sure he did it deliberately and he nearly went straight into the wall.

I had my headphones on at the time so I pretended I didn’t even notice him bouncing off me like a pinball.

He was the human equivalent of a bug on a windshield.

After all, it was his fault if he wanted to walk into me, wasn’t it?

I’m not going to apologise for someone walking into me… no way.

“Sorry you foolishly walked into me and as a consequence for your folly, almost splatted your face into the adjacent wall”

Later, I noticed him staring at me a bit (why do blokes do that) but psychologically he was already defeated.

The internal narrative must have gone a bit like this:

“His shoulders took me out in one fell swoop. He must be anointed by Zeus or something. All hail the king”

Or that could just be me filling in the gaps 😉

Anyone who thinks female bodybuilders can’t also look hot, obviously have never seen a picture of Rachel McLish or Cory Everson…

There’s a devil on one shoulder and an angel on another…

We’ve all been there.

The devil on one side of my shoulder loves beer, italian wine, chicken balti, chinese takeaways and stolen kisses.

The angel loves exercise, matcha tea, water, vegetables and hugs.

Being an angel all the time is boring and the devil wants to come out and play at night.

That is the hardest time of day for me to stick to the plan (I do sort of have one)

So I have to distract myself or get busy.

Distracting only works for so long, so this is the best time of day to do exercise.

You can’t do naughty things when you’re sweating your conkers off on a treadmill.

While you’re not focused on how good Primitivia tastes or thinking about succulent prawns in sauce, you can stay on track.

Can’t do it every day though…

So Monday-Thursday I’ve decided to be an angel unless I’m being super sociable.

Fridays and Saturdays I’m going to let the devil win.

Haven’t decided on Sundays yet. Flip a coin.

Do I still want Yorkshire pudding with a Sunday Roast? Hell yes.

My favourite time of year in real life is probably Autumn.

But in films, Winter wins by a country mile…

The reason being?

I’m a sucker for SNOW on celluloid.

Who can resist the snow in Fargo, coupled with Canadians walking around with coffee cups, saying “Oh Gee“.

There’s something just so quaint about it.

Charlie Brown with snow in? Sign me up.

Imagine hanging around with Snoopy and Charlie Brown on a snow laden day.

Stop it, I’m getting excited.

Woodstock as well. OMG.

Gremlins + Snow = Yes Please.

If I scroll through films and I find a good one with snow in, it’s better than being offered a Ferrero Rocher by Roger Federer.

I don’t know why that is, but it’s a thing.

Snow is sort of sexy as well. Probably not so much practically, but it just looks so beautiful.

You just have to do the sexy bits before it all turns to sludge and you develop hypothermia.

Even novels are better if they are written looking out of the window at snow.

I’d buy a manual typewriter just to add to the effect.

“Dont mind me, I’m clattering away on a typewriter whilst it’s snowing and it’s wonderful.”

I must be the only person in the world that was jealous of Angela Lansbury solving murders with a manual typewriter in inclement weather 🙂

I am shocked and saddened today to hear of the sudden passing of the snooker player and commentator, John Virgo.

I know snooker is a boring ‘dry’ sport to a lot of people, because it drags on for hours and that can feel like watching paint dry.

Totally get that perspective and if anyone reading this thinks it’s the most boring sport in the world, I get that too.

Snooker is very much a slow burn, cerebral drama thing, but it was often on when I was a kid and I still remember the end of the 1985 final with Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor.

The day that final was on, as a kid I wasn’t into it really, so I was in the back garden on the swings with a girl who lived over the road. For some reason as a kid you can garner endless entertainment from just seeing how high you can go on a swing.

The thing is though, the final went on for hours and my parents were watching it, so when it was too late to stay outside, rather than go to bed they let me stay up and watch it. At the time, to me it was just better than going to bed early 🙂

I think it must have gone on to just after midnight or something like that. It’s one of those funny things you don’t forget if you watched it at the time.

Everyone wanted Davis to lose and were rooting for Taylor and his strange looking spectacles.

So I’ve never gone to a snooker match or anything, but I did go to 40th anniversary at the CORE theatre in Solihull two weeks ago to listen to a few anecdotes from Davis, Virgo and Taylor.

I never thought 2 weeks later I’d be writing this about John Virgo and that the only snooker related show I’ve ever been to in my life was probably his last.

He was on good form that night and there were a few laughs, so I was glad I went in the end.

Some songs just sound better when you’re in the car…

On the way back tonight, “When Doves Cry” came on and it reminded me how much I like some Prince songs.

Like Raspberry Beret…

Prince wasn’t even on my radar back when my sister used to listen to him.

One day she left an album by a sunbed, so I put it in the CD player to see if I liked any of the tracks.

I skipped a few until I got to Raspberry Beret

That was the song that switched me on to Prince…

Raspberry beret
The kind you find in a second hand store
Raspberry beret
And if it was warm she wouldn’t wear much more

Then there was ‘1999’ before we entered a new millennium.

2000, zero-zero, party over, oops, out of time
So tonight, I’m gonna party like it’s 1999

I was dreamin’ when I wrote this
So sue me if I go too fast
But life is just a party
And parties weren’t meant to last

2000 seemed so far away and futuristic in 1996. Surely we’d all be on hoverboards by the year 2000 😉

Little Red Corvette, Sign O’ The Times and Delirious are 3 more that would get onto my playlist.

A guy in my year at school was mad about Prince. You know back in the day, when someone liked a song so much, they would offer you one half of their headphones for you to listen. You’d put it into your ear and the volume would be so insanely high, it would blow your eardrum to pieces in a millisecond.

We used to call him “Two Cans”, because for some strange reason he always seemed to have two cans of coke. One in each hand, like John Wayne if he’d given up gunslinging and developed an addiction to fizzy drinks, whilst embracing a future with type 2 diabetes.

It was the weirdest thing.

I’m not quite sure why one can wasn’t enough, but he definitely deserved his nickname.

“Oh look, it’s two cans.”

Everyone just knew who we meant, because inevitably as he approached from a distance on a sugar high, you could make out a silhouette of him holding them.

It was like his trademark 🙂

I was checking my email earlier and I got a notification that I won a competition I didn’t know I’d entered.

When I say, I won. I came 19th (LOL)

I know it sounds like I’m making this up, but I’m not.

And you’ve never known me tell a porkie-pie on this blog have you:

“Hi,
Congratulations! You’ve won a prize in our latest contest.
Position: #19
Points Won: 2000
“Effort pays off—and today, it paid you.”

I won 2000 points. Now if that was $2000 the next round of drinks would have been on me.

So then I thought to myself,

“Okay, what does 19th place and 2000 points get me?”

A reasonable thing to think.

So I checked out the prizes for their monthly competition which appear to be cash:

1st $10,000.00 <—- Dance around the living room naked with a party whistle.
2nd $3,000.00 <— Drinks are on me.
3rd $1,500.00 <—- Book the holiday but don’t go crazy.
4th $1,000.00 <—-  Still more than most get on Deal or No Deal these days
5th $500.00 <—- Not bad
6th $400.00 <— Okay
7th $300.00 <—- Better than a kick in the teeth
8th $200.00 <—- Pays for a filling when you’ve been kicked in the teeth
9th $150.00 <—- Come back next week when you can afford the filling
10th $100.00 <—- Meal out
11th $50.00  <— Pizza
12th $50.00 <— Pizza
13th $50.00 <—- Pizza
14th $50.00 <—- Pizza
15th $50.00 <—- Pizza
16th $50.00 <— Yes it’s me writing Pizza
17th $50.00 <—- Pizza again
18th $50.00 <—– Pizza is on the way
19th $50.00 <—- It appears I’m here. Pizza Level Guy. 
20th $50.00 <— Indian takeaway. I only wrote that because I was getting bored of writing pizza. I think I’d prefer an Indian meal. I should have wrote that instead. Or Chinese. I’m not going back to edit it now.

The interesting thing is I’ve just come 19th in a competition I didn’t know I was in and I’ve achieved takeaway Pizza status.

The world is a funny place. If you’re taking it seriously, you’ve got to go for top 5.

Imagine…

“Did you do anything nice today?”

“Yes. I just won $10,000, like the rock star that I am”

“Did you know you’d entered?”

“Yes, but there was this other guy that came 19th and he just ended up with a pizza. The schmuck” 

Just call me the fast food dial-up don.

Can’t say I’m a big fan of Stereophonics. I don’t own any of their albums but one track I wax lyrical about is Dakota.

An intro/hook that sets the stage perfectly, coupled with high energy and timeless lyrics…

Thinkin’ back, thinkin’ of you
Summertime, think it was June
Yeah, think it was June
Laying back, head on the grass
Chewing gum, having some laughs
Yeah, having some laughs

You made me feel like the one
Made me feel like the one
The one
You made me feel like the one
Made me feel like the one
The one

Drinking back, drinking for two
Drinking with you
When drinking was new…

It’s February already. How did that happen?

I’ve only just got the memo 🙂

Last night I watched Saltburn. I liked the Oxford setting and the uni stuff, but WOW how dark is that film.

Dark, even by my standards and I’m at Inside Number 9 level, so I’m a hardened veteran of programme darkness.

Not the prince though. That’s Ozzy Osbourne 😉

Darker than a dark thing in Winter, I’d say.

You have to watch something like Planes, Trains and Automobiles after that as a palette cleanser.

Or an hour of Lee Evans (anyone missing him yet? He came back for a Harold Pinter play and has become a mythical unicorn of comedy ever since).

One of the nicest guys I’ve ever encountered out there in Cyberspace is a podcaster called Andy Godoy.

In this particular podcast he covers Saturday morning cartoons on TV in the 1980’s:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4yWQpKDNKzKygq7F8OLgoz

Back when COVID happened I used to listen to Andy when I was training outside.

All the gyms were closed at the time, so I’d put Andy on and just exercise with what I had available.

One night I trained outside looking at the stars, listening to Amy Winehouse on EP with The Specials.

It was epic in its own little way.

Going back to those Saturday cartoons on TV in the 80’s.

I can’t decide what my favourite cartoon was of that era, but I always liked Dungeons & Dragons.

They were a big deal for me back then as well. I’d get my cornflakes for breakfast and I had a netherland dwarf rabbit called “Bubbles” (he was already called that when I got him, so I carried it on).

He was a black nethie. He had bags of personality with so much character. I had rabbits after that as well, but he was my first and really, will always be my favourite.

I used to let him out running in the living room and he was so happy to be able to run and be around me, he’d do massive bunny hops, jumping for joy. After that he’d run up and sit on my shoulder while I ate my cornflakes, watching those Saturday morning cartoons.

I had him for 10 years until I was 19, all through my secondary school days into college and even as far as my first car which was an MG Metro with a pull-out choke (lol).

He was always there. The Saturday morning cartoons were great and so was he.

Just like Samuel L Jackson said in Pulp Fiction, “Personality goes a long way“.