Christmas Shopping

I can't believe I am writing this. I went shopping this morning at 5:00am. Yes at 5 o bloody clock this morning I was pushing a trolly around my local Tesco's in the folorn hope that they would have some mince pies. There seems to be a serious mince pie shortage in Plymouth. I am expecting the Prime Minister to make a statement later.

And no this wasn't last minute buying, we went out last night to do the shopping like normal people, but like in Honduras before the hurricane hit or like the GUM shop in Soviet Moscow, the shelves where bare, not only of Mince Pies but of every thing else ebible or christmas themed.

Not a sprout, not a satsuma, not a pack of pink sausage meat to be seen! And this wasn't just the local shop this was a stay open 24hours mega store on the outskirts of town. So we hardly did any shopping and we have guests for supper tonight and nothing to feed them. Hence the 5am trip to the shops. But surprise suprise the shelves were still empty.

So I have had to revert to the hunter gatherer mode of my brain. I have to provide for my family if it kills me or it means killing others who get in my way. I have searched my desk for suitable weapons and shortly I will be hitting the Jungle we call town on a mission. I have my stapler fully locked and loaded and strapped to my ankle I have the hole punch for emergencies. For close combat I have sharpened that thing you use to take staples out of the pages.

I'm like Arnie in Predator I'm going to get those mince pies and the makings of the meal tonight if its the last thing I do.

I may be gone sometime......

The Perfect Sandwich - USA I take it all back!

Well I admit it I was tempted by American Culture today and finally succumbed. Yes friends I went into Subway and bought a sandwich. And I might say it wasn’t half bad.

Now as a veggie there’s not much can go wrong with a sandwich is there? Ha, you’re wrong. Buy any veggie (can only vouch for these) sandwich at a motorway services or any garage up and down the country (in the UK) and that will prove you wrong. These things are generally over powered with mayonnaise or some other chemical concoction purporting to be mayo and are 99% cheese based, well they call it cheese but it usually tastes like some bland effluent from a cow rendering plant that’s gone hard in the sun. The bread, well the limpid white hardened scum scrapings they call bread is enough to make you constipated for a week such is its relationship to that squirty foam that fills cavities in your house.

But at Subway they seem to have got that art of sandwich making right! All hail the American Dream, life, liberty and the pursuit of the perfect sandwich! It all starts with a choice of bread. I had the Veggie delite and chose a Parmesan and herb roll. Then onto the production line of foodstuffs – Fordism finally harnessed for the benefit of mankind! First cheese (tasted alright to me) then the layers of crisp fresh looking salad (probably an over kill of chlorine but I couldn’t taste it)then tomato, cucumber, various pickles and wait for it – chillies! What a sandwich, cut in half and bagged for the trot to the office. Perfect.

I can’t praise the ingenuity of the Yanks too highly here. I know I’ve been down on them in the past, but its Christmas and I’ve just had a good sandwich and my belly is full. The only problem I can see are the crumbs in the keyboard but I can’t blame them for that – can I?

10 New Years Resolutions I will NOT be making this year

10 New Years Resolutions I will NOT be making this year

This next year I will not be:

1. Invading the USA and overthrowing the legally elected Government (subject to change of mind)

2. Writing a best selling novel and then selling the blockbuster film rights – too busy blogging

3. Climbing Mount Everest without Oxygen

4. Mailing Mike Tyson with the threat ‘if he wants it one more time, I’ll be waiting…’

5. Sending my daughter for a weeks holiday at Michael Jackson’s Never Never Land

6. Spending my holidays doing charitable work in Iraq

7. Suggesting David Beckham for an Honorary Degree at this University – Luton can have him

8. Snogging Kylie and then turning over to snog Beyonce and then… (I promised the wife not to do it again)

9. Audition for the X Factor with a great song and dance routine I’ve been perfecting in the shower

10. Applying to go on ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ as I don’t want to show up all the other contestants and I can just as easily answer all the questions at home in the comfort of my chair with a beer or two


Happy Christmas one and all

I hope all your New Years Resolutions all come true.


Peace, Love and Happiness.

Rose Coloured Spectacles - yes that's Spectacles Thank you

I don’t know if it’s just me getting older but don’t the kids today look a state! There are loads of them about at the moment now that the teachers have given up the ghost for Christmas and are even now shacked up somewhere warm with a large bottle of duty free Bacardi and Mary from the 4th form. Yes the City is full of Chavs shoplifting to their hearts content and staring with wistful eyes at the cheap Jewellery in Argos.

What worries me though is how on earth the nylon track suit became the fashion icon it is. Top this off with the ubiquitous baseball cap and knock off Burberry scarf and it becomes a ludicrous statement of unfulfilled potential. For example, these kids all wear sports gear yet I bet I could probably beat most of them in the 100 metre dash. I bet even the fat bastards that are employed as security could catch them at a pinch. I mean these kids are never going to fulfil the promise of the tracksuit and become Olympic champions.

They are never going to go to New York City so why wear the baseball cap with NYC on the front, why wear the baseball cap at all is possibly a more apt question? I know it’s a fashion thing and as a sociologist I could go on all day about anomic youth and the intrinsic power of youth sub cultures, inclusion, exclusion and the influence and glamour of rap music but that’s boring.

Now when I was young we were much sharper. No baggy, nylon for us. It was the late 1960’s and me and my mates were skinheads. Now let’s get this straight before we even start. When the first skinhead fashion started in Britain it was about music, usually ska and reggae, especially the Trojan Label, dressing in a suave manner and not being racist or fascist in fact many skinheads were Jamaicans or 1st or 2nd generation because of the music. In fact despite being part of the skinhead ‘gang’ my mate and I had long hair and never had it cropped.

The clothes we wore were most important. If it was casual day wear for example I might wear a checked Ben Sherman or Brutus shirt. Levi jeans (turned up at the bottom) but not skin tight like the fashion is now (No braces for me) ox blood red Doc Martin Boots and a black Harrington Jacket. For the evening at the club/disco I might wear a two tone suit made to measure at Burton’s the tailors. Another Ben Sherman shirt (my favourite was an apple green colour which I see they are still using now) with button down collars, Black Brogue shoes (no steel caps) and a Crombie overcoat bought again at Burtons Tailors. This was topped off with a dress handkerchief in the top breast pocket.

Now I might be biased but doesn’t that sound a lot smarter than a scruffy baggy nylon track suit bought cheap off the market or even cheaper at JJB Sports? And as you might well guess this sort of clothing involved quite an investment from what was then a very light pay packet. I was an apprentice in a factory at the time so if I remember my pay packet at that time was something like £6 a week.

I still had my Lambretta scooter too and drove that around town with verve. How cool was that better than some souped up GTI I’m sure (although not when I fell off, which happened a few times)

I know, I know, rose coloured spectacles and all that. I know it’s in the sociological literature that all generations look back to times gone by and think they were better than what’s going on today. But come on you’ve got to agree with me. What are the chavs of today going to look back on with fond memories? I know it’s a bit sad but I still do wear Ben Sherman shirts and do have a Black Crombie overcoat (this time from M&S), I’ve forgone the two tone suits but I do get a flash of pleasure when I see one. I’ve even got some black brogues and if my jeans are a little too long I will turn them up and think, hey that looks good! And you still can’t beat a bit of Trojan Label Reggae.

I know the kids of today must do their own thing and I wouldn’t want to stop them, but this chav fashion just seems to be so soulless and joyless maybe it IS some statement about the life these kids are forced to live. Maybe it IS about unfulfilled potential when they have the TV and Media screaming at them 24/7 - have this life style - be like posh and becks, get some bling into your life, be someone, be a popstar, be like Wayne Rooney, come on its easy.

Cosmopolitan Hell

Now that I’m living the cosmopolitan life style I find its not so much fun. Clearly the wife and I are not fashionable enough to be living in such an environment – we look out of place set against the stark minimalist lines of our birch effect furniture. We need to have the angular body lines and good breeding of someone like Tara Palmer Tomkinson and Hugh Grant. It’s a sad fact but I’m afraid we clash with our furniture.


But that’s just not us is it. We made a mistake, sucked in by the Swedish design wizards who make all this stuff so available, so cheap, so life changingly, magnetically, headturningly full of wantability. I’m in marketing so I should have known the traps that lay ahead. I should have seen through the hype, I should have known! I may have to send my degrees back to my almer mater before I get court martialed by the sociology police.

The other thing about living in this minimalist hell is one needs to be really tidy. Anally tidy, not just your normal,’ O I’ll pick it up in a minute, tomorrow, sometimes this week (maybe the weekend if I feel up to it) tidy’. Tidy enough for a Freudian analyst to question you seriously about how your parent’s potty trained you.

I spent hours on Saturday and parts of Sunday using my furniture making skills assembling the flat packed jigsaw puzzles the Swedes call furniture. Amazingly it all went to plan without any major hiccups. We were lulled. The bookcases were attached to the wall, the seating assembled; the table took pride of place in the ‘eating area’; the fashionable knick knacks had been arrayed. We stepped back and gazed adoringly at our new lifestyle - soon we would be rich and famous.

That’s when we noticed it - the general untidiness of our lives. Where do you put all your stuff? Where does the ephemera of day to day living go? The bills, the tat picked up on holiday, the bits and pieces that you drag out of your pockets day after day after day, all the stuff you’ve nicked from work for example? You can put it on the table but then its untidy and immediately you’re living the life of a chav. Because one bit of stuff draws to it other bits of stuff. I bet Einstein had a theory about it, or it’s what he based his own theories on. That theory about equal and opposite attractions for example. Untidy stuff always attracts other untidy stuff – I bet they’ll find that in his long lost writings, stuffed in a book somewhere in Cambridge. Perhaps that’s why its lost, someone, probably his mum, had a tidy up. Come on admit it how much useful stuff has been lost after a tidy up?

Now we might have to move. It’s like living in one of Lawrence Llewellyn Bowens worst nightmares. We need to find somewhere more comfy, not the soulless birch desert we now inhabit having to move through the room like a herd of browsing cattle picking up each bit of litter, socks, coffee cups, pens, children etc as they make the place look untidy. Plus our three piece suite totally does not go. I’m sure the guys at DFS have already heard on the grapevine.

‘Calling all salesmen Calling all salesmen’

‘10/4 come back good buddy’

‘Fashion faux pas warning at No 25’
‘What’s that ducky?’

‘Brown Velour suite is clashing with new Ikea inspired minimalism’

‘O MY GOD!, I’ll send the leaflets immediately and contact Linda Barker – those poor poor people it must be hell!’


At least our bedroom is a haven of normality. I say normality, but after moving in at the end of November we are still living out of boxes and suitcases. Tonight the mirror fronted wardrobes are going up. Then it’ll be like living in a Fred Astaire movie in the 30’s all that glass (although methinks more like a Swedish Fred Astaire Movie, if you catch my drift). Then I’ll not be able to find my pants or socks. These things have so many storage options, I’ll have a senior moment and I’ll forget what I’m looking for. It’ll probably take me longer to get dressed in the morning, and then I’ll be late for work, get the sack and not be able to pay the mortgage and be homeless.

I blame it all on Ikea! Bastards!

Ikea 2 - Into the Pit

Ikea 2. Into the Pit

Far Far away in another Galaxy Ikea does not exist – what need of Bonj Seating in zero gravity? I ponder this as I pilot the Ford Transit out of the rental forecourt. It’s a bit beaten and it’s been around the Universe a few times, it’s no Millennium Falcon but its mine – at least for the next 24 hours.

My crew mutters to me in a strange language, I ignore it; after all it’s my wife who got me into this mess. Her with her post communist ways, I didn’t bring her here just to embrace capitalism with so much verve. She mutters to me again, this time in English, reminding me that this sector of Plymouth is peppered with speed cameras. I reassure her that I have no speed on me. Indeed I have never done any class A drug.

As we hit the M5 I push the old ship to warp factor 6 and boy does she go. I tap a few keys and confirm with my office that today I am ‘working from home’. I’ll assume that they know that I live in a tin cave that is nosier than an Apollo launch on a quiet Sunday in Florida.

Two hours is all it takes for us to reach the old haunt of my personal nemesis. We dock the smoking old ship and approach the grey haunting cliffs of Ikea on foot. As we reach the bottom of the cliff the great maws of the beast slide open with a deathless hiss. I am transfixed. My life flashes before me. I try to remember the moves from my old training manual. ‘The Captain Kirk Method of Restraining more Powerful and Bigger Aliens while only being a Mere Mortal with a tri-corder’. Damn, I’d also forgotten to wear my Girdle (guaranteed to make me more manly and irresistible to strange women just like Kirk)

We were drawn inside my crew and I, we were powerless, transfixed by the bright lights, the discounted products and the promise of strange alien meatballs.

‘Chekhov status report please’ I barked. I staggered as a huge force hit me. It was my wife reminding me her name was Tonya and not Chekhov. We made for the wardrobe sector.

Three hours later found us still wandering around the beasts cave for the third time, slightly hysterical and with no hope of escape. I had to admit it I had been beaten despite being braver than Han Solo. My wife however had gained the strength of a super being and seemed to be drugged - such was the strange frenzy of shopping madness that she found herself in.

Every strangely named item had to be caressed, investigated and logged just like a biologist on the Beagle investigating the New World but I am sure that the Captain of that ship (Robert Fitzroy) didn’t have to put up with the pleading, the moaning, the puppy dog eyes and the threats of contacting the Ukrainian Mafia if I didn’t comply when the requests were refused.

I couldn’t contain her the beast had consumed her mind and replaced it with that of a shopping robot. I knew I was safe ( re Asimov’s 1st Robot Law - A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm).

But what of Laws two and three?
Law 2 tells us a robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Clearly this wasn’t happening.

‘No don’t put it in the trolley’ I’d say

She’d look at me with blank eyes, mutter something about it’s ‘only 2 pounds’ and completely disregard my orders.

I couldn’t stop her or 'it' as my wife had now become. The third law had come into force
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law and as long as the shops are open.

I’m now worrying that she may be pregnant and in the throws of nest building such was the fury of her shopping. I knew I had to do something before this monster destroyed us.
First I distracted her by mentioning food and then God was on our side, she needed the toilet and they are ON THE OTHER SIDE of the checkouts.

We made it unscathed. Soon our holds were loaded with the plunder and my bank was lighter by about 30 million roubles! We left that hell hole behind us chomping down on the strange alien food purveyed at the exit. Strange finger like objects that purported to be Veggie hotdogs and pinkish rubbery Swedish hotdogs that looked like the meat had dropped in from Outer Space. But it was sustenance.

The old machine was soon cruising at warp speed and we sat back and reminisced about the old times. Ha! - how we laughed about forgetting to pay for the picture hangers that had slipped into a box by mistake. How disappointed we were that they were out of Rommsackee footstools and hell we didn’t need a Blaargh kitchen tool holder anyway.

We were just happy to have escaped with our lives and sanity intact (although I can’t vouch for my wife at this time).

O how I look forward to the weekend. Of putting my advanced furniture making skills to the test and then settling back into our new contemporary lifestyle. O how our friends well envy us.

Live Long and Prosper!

Ikea - The dark pit of hell

Today I will mainly be in Ikea.

As many of you know I have recently moved house to live in that great metropolis that is Plymouth. My wife is ecstatic because now instead of sheep there is Marks and Spencer, all manner of shoe shops, coffee bars, cinemas indeed all the money pits one might expect in this urban jungle.

Yes, we are now living the cosmopolitan life and to do this properly apparently we need furniture from Ikea. Admittedly one does get a little tired of living out of cardboard boxes and suitcases after a few weeks but like anything one can get used to it. My wife however, is not having any of it – maybe its because she’s a Ukrainian?

So I have booked the Transit Van, yes my friends this is serious. So serious in fact that I am considering ‘losing’ my chequebook and getting flu. But I know that this will be in vain, even the guy who rented me the van was sympathetic.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

‘Bristol’ I answered.

‘Ikea’?

I nodded.

He shook his head. ‘Most of the rentals for Bristol are for Ikea’ he muttered looking at me with sympathy.

I grunted and looked embarrassed.

We only visited Ikea about 2 weeks ago for a recce, as, if you remember, I had to go to Cardiff. So I took the wife with me planning to have a quick whiz around the shop looking at the prices and stuff. It cost me 300 quid JUST LOOKING. (3 hours!) What did we buy? I DON’T KNOW!

That’s the beauty of this business. You have to trail through the shop past all this stuff and its all just so cheap and yes you just have to have the Smalk light and Tosvig pen holder and the Beork plastic tray etc etc and then at the till its 300 quid! (Ok I did buy a bed for Matilda as well)

This time though its serious – we need wardrobes, a ‘fitment’ (silently screaming inside) for the lounge, table, chairs and other stuff I’m too scared to write it down because the calculator in my head is working overtime (come on now I’m a sociologist, I don’t do maths!) and I’m scared that the total will make my head explode (and yes I do remember it’s a week before Christmas)

The thing that worries me though is none of this furniture is an investment like it was in the olden days. I mean back when furniture was furniture one would buy a Chippendale chair in Oak or Mahogany or a Rosewood whatnot or a Georgian chiffonier and now years later its being featured on Antiques Roadshow on TV with some guy from Eton salivating all over it and caressing it with more sensuality than he has ever done with his girlfriend. I can’t see any one doing that to our Bvalk wardrobes.

Indeed this furniture only has any value while on display in the shop. Once you walk it through the checkout it is basically worthless. Once you have struggled to put it all together and its there in your living room/bedroom, wherever - it is less than worthless because if it ever comes apart it'll never look the same. I mean no one in their right mind is going to buy it off you are they? Unless its to turn the chipboard into toilet paper.

And then due to the wonders of built in obsolescence which seems to be a feature of so many modern designs in a few years it’ll all look so old fashioned the wife will be unhappy and demand another trip to Ikea. It’s a bit like being brainwashed. I didn’t think the Swedes were so clever having being brought up in a time where the only Swedes I knew were the Swedish chef on the Muppets and some tennis player, o yes and ABBA.

So think of me today as I meander around the huge warehouse trying to direct the wife away from more things we don’t need, I can’t even look forward to the meatballs being a vegetarian and all. But on the positive side my house will soon be a palace of contemporary living what with me chipboard fitments and plastic trays that all have names.

Whiz Waz splish splash

I’ve just come across this website which is selling a product which allows women to pee standing up. It’s all well and good, I think, if you want to do that but to tell you the truth I hate having to have a pee standing up, especially in public it’s a minefield of unwritten protocols and laws.

You women may think that being able to pee standing up is some sort of sign of our advanced evolutionary development or something. That it is a power sign that we can sign our names in the snow and have competitions to see who can piss the highest up the wall. I can see the attraction but you might want to think again about the so called benefits of wanting to stand up to pee.

First and I am sure you women know this - male urinals are not the most savoury places in the world. In most cases they do not require signs as you can smell them a mile off. One you have found it you are usually required to wade through about a centimetre of stale piss to get to the actual urinal. The urinals are usually filled with a mixture of phlegm, pubic hair, cigarette butts, chewing gum and those blue things which try to mask the smell but just add another nauseating chemical whiff to the already sordid aroma.

The other thing about standing up to have a piss is that people will come and stand next to you to do the same.

There is generally a protocol in gent’s toilets that is well known. If the urinal has the porcelain ‘individual’ piss pots then the done thing is to choose one that is at least one away from any occupied pot. If it is the older gulley type where everyone just pisses into the half pipe the protocol is to stand as far a way as possible.

If the place is busy then often one is forced to stand next to someone already busy relieving themselves.

This opens up a nightmare of horrors. The worst horror is the guy busting for a piss with the two gallon bladder who pisses like a horse. This is a problem because of the splash back, there is nothing worse that being splashed by someone else’s piss (ok water sports fans I know you do but not me OK and this is not in the context of a loving relationship!)

Then there are the glancers and lookers. One of the key protocols of being in a male urinal, simply to take a leak, is to stand there facing the white tiles two inches away from your nose, not looking at the other guys cocks. But it’s not enough for some guys, no they come and stand next to you shower you with piss and cop a look at your cock. Then on top of it all that they might want to start a conversation! Now come on that’s a complete faux pas. I do not go to point percy at the porcelain to have a conversation with some guy covering me in piss, checking out percy and chatting about the price of fish!

This leads to the second horror of wanting to take a whiz but not being able to because we are now being psychologically terrorised by the guy stood next to us who can waz at will. This means having to stand there for two or three times longer than usual, which for the lurkers in the bog marks you out as someone who might be up for a trip into the cubicles for a bit of fun and games or a blow job at the least.

Then as you start to panic about the lurkers, the glancers and lookers your bladder will start to feel like and resemble the Kalahari Desert in the middle of August, dry dry dry. Not one drip will drop from the end of your knob! (poetic huh?) . This leads to the ultimate humiliation of having to zip up and saunter off like you have done the business back to your table or drink and then five minutes later have to go again and suffer the same horrors like a recurring nightmare or groundhog day.

Then there is the insufferable humiliation of the rogue drips and even unexpected spray back from your own member. This usually happens when you have on light coloured trousers and are at some gala evening or meeting with your girlfriend for the first time. What does one do? Hopefully the place will be empty and they have a multidirectional hand drier that’s not too high up on the wall, so you can dry it off. Another tip is to spray your groin area with water from the tap and blame the high power taps and laugh it off, or stay in the cubicles fending off the lurkers until you have dried out claiming on return a dodgy tummy.

Girls, I know standing up to have a pee is tough and manly and I guess even the peeing etiquette in the ladies toilets gets a little off sometime, but with you it’s much easier to aim, just sit and you hit the target 100% of the times. I guess it’s the hoverers that spray the seats or the transvestite males who use the ladies and still stand spraying the seats. But be warned peeing standing up will not be as much fun as you think it might be.

Old Old Old!!!

I think I’m getting old.

While I have been away from my office and thus unable to blog I have been planning two great blogs. Blogs which would have had you all roaring with laughter, and leaving multiple comments congratulating me on my wit and writing skills. The trouble is I have completely forgotten what I was going to write about. I fear to mention this but I think I have had what Terry Wogan calls a ‘senior moment’!

A ‘senior moment’ is, for example, one of those times when you enter a room with purpose, but the moment you are in the room you find you have forgotten why you came into the room in the first place – a senior moment!

Now I have passed fifty I guess I must get used to these things happening to me and come to terms with it. Like for example, the other day I went into town with 20 Euros in my pocket with the express purpose of exchanging them for real money. Now I know I didn’t change them and I know they were in the little change pocket of a pair of jeans I was wearing, but for the life of me I can’t find those jeans let alone the Euros.

My body seems to be in cahoots with my brain to let me down too. I have a none specific ache in my left foot, which seems to creak alarmingly when I flex it. This never happened when I was 20 or 30 and my legs seem to ache a lot and I am starting to crave Werthers Originals. Of course I have to have a different pair of glasses for every activity. Last time I went to the opticians he suggested bi-focals. I refused as they would be the first step on the slippery slope to old agedness and a sign to one and all that I was no longer at the peak of my powers.

Another thing that worries me is the fact that I can now get Car Insurance from SAGA. I know it would be cheaper but I know that if I were to buy it I could see myself 5 years in the future on a SAGA holiday, wearing my bi-focals, in a nice comfy beige crimpline ‘activity’ suit bought for 5 quid at Oxfam, wearing those plastic shoes you can buy in the newspapers, listening to some git who’s just won the X factor, drooling ice cream down my front as I power my electric scooter (watch this video for some cool scooters -click on Guns Don't Kill people) along the pavement.

It’s not a pretty thought I mean with me being a Doc and a Rev you would have thought that my powers of recollection would be as sharp as a knife. (Although I do buy into the American system where everybody has to wear a name badge as I can never remember names).

The sad thing is that in the UK we don’t even have the comfort of a pension to look forward to. As far as the Government is concerned we all have to work until we drop dead rather than they provide for us in our old age. I have a cunning plan though. I will work like a good boy building up my credit rating and then when I reach a time when I want to retire I’ll apply for as many credit cards and loans as I can hit them all for the limit and then scarper to the Costa del sol or South America or somewhere to live on my ill gotten gains. I mean why not, if they catch you it would only mean prison and really at that age it means you’ll get three meals a day, a bed and lots of time to read and watch TV. Better that than some old stinky home for the aged somewhere getting roughed up by the nurses.

I hope that somewhere in my decaying grey matter something will spark and I’ll remember my original blogs because they were just so good.

O well time for a spot of tea and a nice piece of cake….where’s me slippers?

Dearly Beloved We are Gathered here Today

Now we are fast approaching the season of good will, that, if we remember, has some religious significance, it has occurred to me that not only am I Doc Rob but I am also the Rev Rob. I have been an ordained Minister of the Universal Life Church, Modesto, California since the 2nd April 2003. If you too wish to be ordained you can just by going to http://www.ulc.net/ or click here – it’s free.

No I think its time for me to take my ministry seriously. I mean look where the Reverend Ian Paisley has got to in world politics, simply through being ordained into a similar Church. I too, one day, could become a great leader to my flock.

This type of job has its bonuses too. Only work one day a week - on a Sunday. That’s not too onerous is it? And even then it’s not all day. Just Morning Service, and Even Song. Time to get down the pub midday and be invited back for lunch by one of my parishioners.

Then there are the perks, like weddings, christenings and funerals. Not only would I get paid for doing these things I even get invited back for the party afterwards. So it’d be on with the party cassock and lead me to the finger buffet and whiskey. (I think I’m sort of modeling myself on the typical job description of an Irish priest here – they seem to have much more fun that your typical Protestant priests – although the celibacy no sex except with choirboy’s rule seems a bit harsh! Perhaps I can mix n match.)

I’d probably get upgrades when I go on airlines what with being a Doc and a Rev and of course be first in the queue when it comes to the pearly gates. I mean, just being a Rev guarantees being first in line and VIP entry doesn’t it? My theology is not so good in this area so I’m not sure which side of God I’ll be sitting, the right or left-hand side. Perhaps I can seek advice from my readers in this, which is the best side of God to be on, I think its something I need to know. I’d defiantly have a cloud to myself I guess with some foxy angel strumming my harp! I don’t need the thirteen virgin’s thanks very much; the Muslim martyrs can have them. No just one foxy angelic angel’ll do for me.

And of course there’s the TV work. I will probably have a show of my own, on cable or satellite where I’d have to do a few shouty bits of course. Mention fire and brimstone. Have some mates in the audience who can leap up and down a bit and then fall on the floor writhing about a bit making strange sounds like speaking in tongues or klingon or something. One or two could leap up and throw away their crutches, burn their wheelchair or see again. Of course I’d have to have a full gospel choir full of foxy chicks like Beyonce and Aretha and a big haired blonde sidekick like Tammy Faye Bakker (although I promise not to invest all of my money into the arms industry – unless there’s a good return of course)

I guess the workload is rising a bit here isn’t it. But hey didn’t Bobby Dylan once say Gods On My Side? He will Provide.

I suppose once you get into this career the sky’s the limit. I know the Rev Paisley has stalled a bit and has left it a bit late in Northern Ireland, but the Pope’s still going strong. Look at the career path here. If I worked at it I could become a bishop, then Archbishop of Canterbury and then Pope. Why Not? It can’t be that hard. I mean the Pope has been a sick man for the last 20 years and yet he only has to make it to that balcony in Rome mumble a few intelligible words, wave his hands around and the crowd love it.

Although when I become Pope I’d probably not want to live in Rome. I’d probably move. I’ve heard Rome’s not so nice, a bit fuggy, full of nuns, Italians, Japanese photographers and stuff. Can’t be that much fun. I guess as I’m ordained into an American Church I could be Pope in Vegas, I’m sure we have a branch there. And didn’t Jesus hang out with moneylenders and money changers? Yes he went to Jerusalem to the Court of the Gentiles and he had it out with those bad guys. And lo when Jesus arrived with the mass of pilgrims, He overturned the tables and called it a den of thieves and a house of merchandise. Just like Argos or Woolworth’s or Macy's.

See a bit of preaching there, not a bad start. And relevant at this time of year, decrying the houses of merchandise for their money grabbing ways.

Yes so its time for me to mend my ways and take my Reverendship seriously.

God Bless You All

I’ll be attaching my PayPal link shortly so you can make your donations to my Ministry!

Hallelujah

10 Christmas No No's

10 Christmas No No’s

1. Angelic choirs or young boys with extremely high voices singing popular hits – the Ace of Spades by Motorhead comes to mind
2. Marzipan – why?
3. Mechanical Santa’s, Snowmen, Bing Crosby’s screeching out some unintelligible carol or song because 1. The batteries are flat/cheap, 2. The whole machine is cheap, 3. They remind me of some horrendous horror film not Christmas
4. Nasty cheese based snacks sold in jumbo tubs (cheesy footballs come to mind). These only appear at Christmas. Do they make them all through out the year? So your box could have been in storage since last January – thank god for preservatives
5. The Office Christmas Party/Lunch (mentioned before)
6. Processed Vegetarian Christmas fayre which is the usual sludge but with cranberries added and put in a festive box to make it Christmassy
7. Compilation CD’s with every crap tune you’ve ever heard from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s finding it’s way into your stocking. Especially grating is Noddy Holder of Slade screaming IIITTTSSS CHRIIIISTTTMASS, and that John Lennon Song.
8. Wife mis-reading the signs and buying you an aquarium because once in a garden centre you admired one (this really happened I took it back and bought some Doc Martens Boots with the proceeds – she was not amused, we separated shortly after!)
9. The sad Christmas outdoor light based competitions going on in many streets. (I blame the Americans for this - but recommend National Lampoons Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase as Christmas viewing). Have you seen the cost of some of these lights, let alone the electricity bill!
10. Processed Turkeys filled with preservative, growth hormones and other chemicals with breasts that put Pamela Anderson or Jordan to shame. But hey it’s traditional. I think I’ll have the salad this year thanks.

Rebel Yell - Teeeeaa Yaaah

While I have be driving around this wonderful country of ours taking in the delightful autumn scenes of the trees showing their glorious colours, the fantastic sunsets, the rurality of it all, one thing has jarred. Can somebody please tell me why the tea caravans and huts on the side of the road fly the Confederate Flag?

Now forgive me if I am wrong but I thought that the Confederate forces in the American Civil War fought in support of slavery and segregation and in these latter days the flag was a symbol used by the Ku Klux Klan and other right wing groups as a symbol of race hate. So why do our purveyors of the cup of tea fly this tainted symbol?

Ok let’s go with the idea that they link it more with the notion of being a rebel. What are these bacon butty and burger fryers rebelling against? The price of Bourbon biscuits (named interestingly after another rebel prince!) or even Garibaldi biscuits (another rebel). Perhaps they are trying to empathise with all the truck drivers here in the UK who seem to all come from deepest Alabama as they too fly the Confederate Flag and probably have air horns that play ‘Dixie’ too.

What is it with this fixation with the American Civil War and especially with the Confederate side? I can just about accept that some Americans may feel that it is suitable to fly the Confederate Flag and whistle Dixie now and again at home, in much the same way as some individuals here in the UK feel the need to go and play at being Roundheads and Cavaliers, but in the main we have got over our Civil War, but then again it was quite a long time ago. But I can’t understand why our tea vendors and our truck drivers feel the need to ally themselves to this shameful flag.

Maybe they are all racists - that could be the simplest answer or they just haven’t got over watching the Dukes of Hazzard. Or maybe it was the sight of Daisy Duke in those tight – o so tight hot pants that really twisted their minds. Maybe that’s it, the flags are a sign that the sad individual selling hot coffee has never got over seeing Daisy Duke in all her glory during his formative years and now as a sign of their undying love and in the off chance that Daisy, on a tour of the UK, should need a bacon butty they fly the Southern Cross.

Maybe they need our pity rather than our scorn. Yeee Haaar!

Moving Day - prologue

I wrote this prior to moving but for some reason Blogspot wouldn't upload it, but now we have broadband... The sky's the limit.


For the last two weeks I have been careering around the countryside working, driving too far and too fast, eating too many garage sandwiches. Today I am moving home. I have got up early and am currently sitting amongst the detrius of my life. The room I'm in looks like an extremely high tide has risen and fallen in the room leaving random items strewn across the floor. I'm knackered already and its not yet 8 o clock in the morning. Of course the rest of the family, wife and two teenage boys are still in bed in denial of the work that looms ahead.

Last night I played my last game of squash with the Hatherleigh Squash Club (sob). This club consists of four of us who play squash every Friday night and then limp off to the pub to discuss how well we have done and other world shattering bits of men's gossip over a Guinness or three. Now of course the membership is reduced and I will sorely miss the comradeship will try to get back, as every other week I have my daughter Matilda for the weekend as she lives locally. I am planning to come up on Friday evening, play squash and pick her up Saturday morning. This seems like a good idea but her mum, in an attempt to put a spanner in the works - she is quite an expert at this, is insisting that I pick Matilda up on the Friday. I am resisting but I think my resolve is fast dissolving, just like the anti acid treatment of the same name. (Breaking News as of this weekend, I have been told since I wrote this that my beloved daughter Matilda will be moving with her mum and brother to Sussex! I am naturally devastated. It is over 6 hours away by car, I'll hardly see my beautiful daughter)

I can't believe that I have so much stuff!

Now first off one can't have too many books! I have loads. I have culled them and sold three boxes to a guy in the village who is opening a coffee shop come book and bric a brac shop. But I still have boxes and boxes. Books I have read three or four times - old friends so I can't get rifd of them. Books I have read once, but are now waiting for that long bout of flu that I am due so I can be snuggled up in bed reading ( How I dream of having some none specific, non life threatening illness that would put me in hospital for about 6 weeks. Lying in bed reading with food being bought to me by sympathetic nurses, a bottle of lucazade and a bag of grapes by the bed - bliss. If not that perhaps a short prison sentence - O the amount of reading one could get done!) And books I haven't even read yet but am planning to in a couple of years or so. So books don't count when moving.

There's stuff I can't remember even buying or acquiring. Perhaps someone just dumped it here when I wasn't looking. Of course my Ukrainian wife is very supportive and has set about throwing away as much of my stuff as she can get away with.

Apparently when we move into the new house she wants a 'fitment' in the lounge. Has it come to this I ask my self? Whereas I was once windswept and interesting (but in a different way to Billy Connelly who seems to have become a rabid, homophobic rightwinger) and slightly dangerous (self assessment) I am now in danger of owning a 'fitment'. She says we must have a place to store our glasses and best china for when we have guests (what's wrong with the kitchen cupboards I ask myself? - silently). I think Ukrainians and Russians in general are very big on 'fitments' all the people I have visited in Ukraine have them. Maybe after the current revolution, after Ikea and Tesco's have taken over the country they might change their minds. I am hopeful. I am sure that the current slogans we see bandied about in Liberation Square in Kiev every night are 'we want freedom, democracy and fitments'. But then I don't speak Ukrainian.

Another bad thing about moving home is the lose of the telephone line and thus the internet connection. BT offered a 30 day wait before they could connect the line at the new address. Telewest offered a week to connect and include broadband. The teenage boys have already got cold turkey and can be seen shivering with twitchy fingers at the thought of not being connected for the next seven days. Why does it take so long? They say an engineer must check the line. Surely in this day and age the line either works or it doesn't, so flick a switch and if it doesn't work I'll call you on my mobile to report it. Or what about a pulse of electricity down the line, wouldn't that work? Why does it take a week to switch a line on when it was only switched off as the old occupier moved out a few hours before? How can I maintain my eBay empire without access?

Yes moving day. At least we have the goodbye party to look forward to tonight. Our friends will be coming around to stand in our empty rooms looking at the empty walls and pointing out the dust and the spiders webs we have missed. But I will reward them with bottles of Stella (two boxes for 20 quid at Tesco's - bargain) and pizzas. I will miss them.

Ah moving day. Can I go back to bed with a book please miss?

Moving House

Birds flyin' high you know how I feel
Sun in the sky you know how I feel
Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel
Its a new dawn, its a new day,
its a new life for me yeah,
its a new dawn its a new day
its a new life for me ooooooooh
AND I'M FEELING KNACKERED


Phew what two weeks can do to a battered old git like me. I've been on the road working and just to make things a little easier have moved house during the weekend in between! So now I live in the great metropolis that is sunny Plymouth instead of the middle of rural Devon. I'll miss the sheep!

Now moving isn't so bad if its all arranged and prepared for. So on the given day the removal firm turn up, pack everything safely into boxes, drive to the new place, whilst we are taking a relaxing lunch somewhere and then they place all the boxes into their correct room ready for unpacking, some companies, I believe, even unpack for you, so you can just walk in and continue living.

Of course we didn't do that. After all we have two strapping teenagers so why should we pay grown men, experts in their field to do our removals? So I ordered the van, the LARGE ford Transit woke them up at the crack of Saturday and away we went, plans? Ha! I laugh in the face of plans.

Now can someone please explain this to me. When I first moved into my flat as a foot loose and fancy free divorcee, I used my Peugeot 205 to move myself in. A couple of trips and that was it. This weekend it took three, yes 3! trips to Plymouth in our large Transit Van. Where did all this stuff come from? Ok I know I got married, but as my family is from Ukraine all they could bring was what they could carry on the plane - 22 kilos each. My wife is amazed at the stuff I have and that's not including what she threw away when she thought I wasn't looking.

The strapping teenagers worked well but had to be whipped to keep moving, their stamina for moving seemed to last for about an hour. They were constantly hiding, thinking that in the frenzy of moving I would forget them and move all the heavy things on my own. They had to stop and have rests, coke and pizza at regular intervals, I, of course, had to keep going as the Van had to be back Sunday evening.

I say I laugh at plans but I know well enough to label the boxes, unfortunately no one took any notice, and the boxes my wife labeled were in Ukrainian so that was useful! So all the boxes were placed willy-nilly into the new house and yes one week later boxes are still strewn around the place awaiting unpacking.

We had to buy a new fridge freezer. So on the Sunday I took my wife around the large barns they call shops on the outskirts of Plymouth. Fortunately both Comet and Curry's are right next to each other so it was easy to do the price comparisons! We found the fridge freezer that would fit into the hole in the wall in the kitchen and resolved to come back on Monday after we had moved some more boxes.

The next day we returned to said barn and searched for the sales person. Its a bit like hunting dinosaurs - they're extinct. Eventually we found someone who thought they might like to serve us. So I pointed out the said fridge freezer to the salesperson and he boredly (this was 9:30 in the morning) tapped a few numbers into the computer. 'Sorry sir, we don't have that model! Now this really gets me mad. I walk into a store, with cash in my pocket, cash which I really do want to spend, look at all they have on display, spend time choosing said article and then they say they don't have any! 'Why is it on display then'? Is the question I posed to the salesman. Of course he didn't know. He didn't know when they would have more, he knew nothing! He even told me they didn't have any in their smaller store in town. LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE! Because even as I speak the freezer is icing up nicely. But even that purchase wasn't without its drama.

So we go to the store in town and yes they had the same model and even a better one which was frost free and BONUS it had 40 pounds off making it the same price as the one which presumably gets frosty. So yes please we tell the aged salesperson we'll have that one with 40 pounds off. 'Ahh have you got an old fridge we can pick up then he asks'. 'No, I say, because as responsible citizens we took both the old fridge and freezer to the responsible allocated fridge and freezer tipping place rather than dumping it in the local ditch where eventually all the gases would leak out and kill us all, we are more responsible than that'. 'Ahh he says then you cannot have the 40 quid off as you need to give us your old fridge or freezer' NOBODY TOLD ME! Damn. Ok we'll still have the frost free option for 40 quid more, plus 18 quid delivery he says WHAT! Then he has the temerity to try to sell me a fridge thermometer I tried to get one for free as I was paying cash but not in this day and age! I warned him against trying to sell me an extended warranty!

Anyway we have our fridge freezer, have been to Ikea, bought nothing which seemed to have cost us 300 quid, that's a great business to be in isn't it. And today, which is Monday, I am trying to have a quiet day, not going into work by cashing in my lieu hours and trying not to look into the boxes!

More soon.

Same Old Same Old

Sorry folks, on the road once again, following in last weeks footsteps and visiting the exact same schools doing follow ups, Hopefully ill be back blogging soon, as I have missed it! Plus I have forgotten the 2 million great ideas I had whilst driving last week, must be something to do with the lose of brain cells while listening to Radio 2!

ipod playing 'On the Road again'

Hurrah more motorway sandwiches or will I be good this week?

Animal Magic

It was of some interest that while I was watching the Remembrance Day parade last Sunday that they mentioned that there was a memorial for the ‘Animals of War’. This, it seems, is a memorial for all the animals, dogs, horses and pigeons and so on that served human kind during their darkest hours and suffered the greatest penalty.

Intrigued by this passing reference I decided to do a little more research into the subject and in this blog I will pass on my findings about these courageous animals.

It turns out that a wide variety of animals served including: elephants, camels, cats, canaries and of course glow worms.

However, it seems that a number of animal hero’s have been forgotten and lost to the records. I will attempt to put this wrong right


For instance little is known about the battalions of hedgehogs that were specially trained to work undercover in enemy territory.

Each hedgehog, once dropped into enemy territory would make their way to where the Hun were camped up. Once there the hedgehogs would create a LUP (SAS slang for ‘lying up position’) and wait for night to fall. Ever watchful the hedgehogs would wait under banks of leaves and bonfires waiting to be lit until the German soldiers had had their fill of schnapps and sauerkraut and had staggered off to bed. When all was quiet these brave hedgehogs would snuffle up close to the tents and await their moment, quills a quiver. An hour or two later the unsuspecting soldier would stagger out of the tent bursting for a piss and then the hedgehog would strike, placing them selves selflessly under the feet of the soldiers causing massive trauma to the soles and stopping them marching the next day. Many hedgehogs never survived these encounters and there are countless more lost in the forests of France not knowing that the war has been over for the last 60 years.

In a further futile effort many of these hedgehogs attempted to stop the movement of the Tiger Tanks towards the French Coast and ultimately England by throwing themselves under the tank tracks all a-bristle but to little avail.

Also unknown to us were the vast armies of lice that were trained to live in the clothes of the enemy soldier slowly sucking their blood until said soldier was too weak to even abuse the local French Peasantry. Unfortunately it was not known until more later that these lice had no patriotism or pride in the flag at all as they soon deserted in their millions as the new fresh and clean (somewhat cleaner than the continentals) bodies of the British Soldier clambered up the sandy beaches of France as the invasion started. These traitors, when found, were summarily executed by either vast amounts of DDT or simply crushing between fingernails and burning all ones clothes.


More successful were the VD bacteria let lose on the foreign armies. This has been a traditional way of attacking the enemy since the days of Wellington. During the Second World War a single regular solider, Reg Smith, was chosen to be the carrier. Reg comes from a long line of infected soldiers. Once across the Channel as part of the invasion force Reg had his wicked way with as many unsuspecting French Girls as he could. Once the bacteria was in place it was able then to attack the unsuspecting German soldiers as they raped their way across Europe. This was so successful that it is believed it is this selfless action by the bacteria that finally got the Higher Command, infecting Hitler, Gobbels and all rotting their minds.

Unfortunately, once again, this action was let down by the soldiers of France who, also fancied a bit after a prolonged action and bedded the infected French agents. To this day the boys and girls of England are warned off bedding the French! Mothers say it’s because they don’t wash and smell of Garlic, but we now know the truth!

So friends, lets not forget those selfless creatures that serve on our behalf. At this moment in the war torn areas of the world there are countless animals serving. Our cats are digging up gardens and pooping in Israel. Battalions of pigs are on stand by for Iraq, and of course the friendly butterfly – the A bomb of our time, is awaiting Tony Blair’s word to be shipped out to the far east where it will flap its wings in China and create Chaos across the world!

We will remember them!

Research Report

Aim of Research
To get out of my office and travel the highways and byways of SW England earning my salary, visiting schools, eating motorway sandwiches and driving too quickly in rental car while thinking about future blogs.


Executive summary

An interesting by product of this research is that I now seem to be suffering from DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) from sitting in my car for the last four days. Also my arse has probably grown an inch along with my stomach due to the intake of crap Service Station Sandwiches. (and chocolate!)

I have driven about 1500 miles in the last 4 days this is equivalent to driving to my wife’s house in Vinnitsa, Ukraine (which I did in the summer)

I was about to rant about the bad driving behaviour of all the other drivers on the road this week, but realised that probably somewhere in the blog world somebody else is ranting about my bad driving behaviour so all is equal.

I am only worried about one possible speeding fine

Methodology
Drive rented Car (Ford Focus) at extreme speeds through the highways and byways of South West England visiting Schools and talking to 17/18 yr old students (mainly young women!) trying not to get flashed (by speed cameras of course, what else!) trying to generate interesting insights into the cynical marketing ploys of this great University. This amounts to 40 minutes talking and usually about 8 hours driving to get there and back.

And yes in this case I have to do it all again next week! And go to Cardiff as well! (This is a bonus because I am moving house next week!)


Research Findings

The main findings of the research are as follows:

A. It is winter so all the teenage schoolgirls are wearing thick sweaters and jackets which of course impacts directly upon my work enjoyment and satisfaction levels
B. There seems to be a direct correlation and inverse relationship between the urgency of needing a toilet and the availability of ‘comfort stops’
C. Sandwich choice for vegetarians in service stations are limited to Cheese Ploughmans and Cheese and Onion (egg don’t count)
D. I have heard the Band Aid record 15 times on the radio which is 14 times too many.
E. 4 hours of chewing gum results in a locked jaw
F. Drivers with hats equals slow drivers - why?

Conclusions
Get off fat arse and do more exercise to counteract the sandwiches and crisps diet favoured by travelling salesmen

Try to stop at roadside supermarkets and buy fresh fruit and healthy things for lunch

Think about summer and the unveiling of the belly buttons again

Buy one of those radar things which clocks the speed traps ahead or drive more slowly

Play soothing music on cd player rather than inane radio FM – I favour Motorhead

Beautiful women in fast cars will not stop for anonymous sex in a lay-by despite one’s fantasies when bored in traffic jams

Out of Office Reply

Sorry Folks I am out of the Office doing what they pay me for, for a change. Out on the open road researching. Visiting schools in Cornwall, Dorset and Cardiff, so watch out Wales. May be in the office for a brief spell on Monday and then probably not till Friday. So its a week of Motorway coffee and sandwiches YUM! My heart is fluttering just thinking about it. The upside is, is that I will be able to swan around in a new Mondeo or something pretending it's mine, the downside is, I tend to drive too fast in them and then worry for weeks that I have been flashed, or that'll I'll do something stupid like kerb the thing, (I did it to my last car, it had alloy wheels but I don't think they noticed and there was only 65 miles on the clock when I got it!)

Anyway it'll give me lots of time to dream up new blogs while I drive.

Crossdressing? Is it Pants?

Today I have been thinking about becoming a cross dresser. Not going the whole hog you understand but just parts of me and no make up. Well perhaps a little eyeliner that was de rigueur for the ‘pretty things’ in the late 1970’s as we trooped off to see Ziggy Stardust, as a bit of a homage.

Why you might ask do I want to cross dress? Well lets get this straight, it’s nothing to do with any deep down perviness I might feel (and to all my CD readers the word perviness is used for humorous reasons only, you’re not pervy honest!) or the need to get in touch with my feminine side but as a result of my sad collection of pants. (For American readers read underwear not trousers)

It came to me this morning as I was hunting in my pant drawers dragging out pair after pair of tired old greying holey stretched trunks that what I really wanted was a much sexier choice. Something that would give my day a bit of a zing. I mean, you always hear women saying:

‘It gives me a real thrill knowing that under my severe grey work suit I have on really sexy undies, it makes me feel sexy all day’.

Well I want to feel sexy all day too! Why not, why can’t we men have a range of undies we can wear as the occasion fits? Sexy when we need to be and a bit more severe but comfortable when doing some rugged manly thing like out hunting bears (fortunately we have no bears in England so I would just be stuck with the sexy ones!), a bit like Bridget Jones’ Big Knickers.

I know people will write back in their thousands and tell me ‘but Dr. Rob you can buy silky satiny pants for men’. Yes I know but they usually have some crass advertising on them like Homer Simpson, or the Union Jack, or Hearts so you can wear them to bed after your missus has bought you them for Christmas and then in the New Year they are lost for ever – accidentally of course. And don’t get me going on posing pouches either.


When one browses around Marks and Spencers for example the women’s undie section is a veritable forest of silk and satin, lace, colour, shiny stuff which takes a good 30 minutes of browsing (more if the wife’s not with you) before the selection is made. Compare this to the men’s pant section, what choice to we have? Briefs, Boxers or Trunks in black, grey and white and god forbid paisley! (Never buy white pants - major faux pas there, and who wears Paisley pattern pants, own up now!) All in tidy boring packages of 3 or 5. There is no time to stop and stare in the men’s pants department; there are only two choices, style and quantity.

I think I would personally draw a line at a thong, there’s something not quite right about having a piece of material up your bum crack all day (it’s not a nice image I know) but maybe some slinky hipsters, or high cut panties made for ‘The Real Man’. I think there is a bit of a niche market here and some one could make a lot of money, so this idea is copyright right!

So actually I’m not taking about cross-dressing at all (phew!) what I am making a plea for is a range of men’s pants that add a bit of a sparkle to our life, that don’t make one grimace as one searches through the pant drawer glancing enviously at the avalanche of silk, satin and lace pouring from the wife’s drawer as she searches for big knickers because, for her it’s not a work day. Something to make us feel sexy in the office, something that as we shift and shuffle around on our office seats sends a little shiver of expectation run up our spines. Plus you girls could then join in with the Thong Snooker games as you walked past building sites and holes in the road, it would give ‘builders bum’ a whole new meaning.

In the mean time, it’s the wife’s pants for me from now on. Don’t tell her hey!

Teenagers- all you need to know

Teenagers – why? That is the focus of today’s blog.

First we need to understand the historical development of this phenomenon. We need to delve into the texts, search out learned papers and the scientific insights into why these creatures roam the world in their never ending search for Pizza, their cries of ‘Get outta my life’, ‘I hate you’ and ‘where is my T-Shirt’ echoing around suburbia.

We have to first accept that the teenager is not one of God’s creations. This is based upon a number of points. The first is God made men and women in his image, not you might notice in the image of a spotty adolescent with BO. He might have thought about it fleetingly because in the bible we find this quote “We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver.” This suggests that maybe God was a bit of a punk rocker on the side but probably gave it up for Lent or Something. Of course if God had created teenagers they would have been around for a lot longer and we would have all become desensitised to them and by now they would be hardly noticeable.

So I think we have to turn to Darwin and evolutionism (I know this will raise the debate once again in the Southern States of the US but it has to be said). It is clear in the history books that ‘teenagers’ suddenly appeared in the 1950’s. Spookily this happened in the UK and the US at about the same time. Clearly in these two countries the climate was ripe for this major change in the evolutionary track of the Homo Sapien. Pizza had been invented, McDonalds came onto the scene (1954), and partially formed teenagers had been sighted in the new moving media (Elvis, Gene Vincent, Cliff Richards). This change in diet and the move from working down t’pit 23 hours a day allowed for such a swift evolutionary change.

It is clear that evolution has, in her time, thrown up some specially designed creatures, one thinks of the Duckbilled Platypus, the Giraffe, the Blue Whale, all of which Darwin claims are the result of Natural Selection. So too is the teenager subject to the forces of natural selection, the forces of evolution forming this being into the malevolent force we find ourselves living with today.

For instance the modern teenager has adapted some of the natural behaviour of the North American Brown Bear. This creature, like the teenager, spends much of its life asleep; when not asleep it is out foraging for food. It lives in a den like cave, living in a sort of half sleep, occasionally getting up and rummaging around. One knows when a teenager is in residence because like the Brown Bear there is a certain stench that emanates from the lair and strange grunting and rumbling noises are heard during the early part of the day.

The teenager has also evolved to the point where it has become incredibly hard to get off their fat arses and walk anywhere. This is despite the interesting evolutionary contradiction that their feet seem to be getting bigger. This is in total contrast to the amount of walking or exercise involving the use of the legs. This is probably where the teenager is in an evolutionary limbo point waiting for the development of jetpacks, or the Star Trek type transporters that they have been promised over the years in programmes like Tomorrows World or films like the Matrix which they believe are documentaries. In the mean time there is always the use of the family taxi that is available 24/7 and just a phone call away.

Teenagers have a natural affinity with the colour black as it saves having to change clothes everyday and time spent on needlessly choosing which outfit to wear today. On the day of their thirteen birthday they evolve, like beautiful butterflies into a Goth. They start to ‘enjoy’ the sound of Marilyn Manson, and bizarrely begin to look like him too; this is in part the effect of the chameleon gene, which allows them to blend in with any situation. This is why when your son/daughter of darkness brings friends home; they are the nicest sweetest kids you have met. Don’t be fooled it’s just the chameleon gene kicking in. Your kid’s gene only works by default in other kids houses. It also kicks in when visiting the grandparents, but that’s only because they know there’s probably a 20 quid gift coming their way later as you leave.

The girls get their periods, breasts and attitude all in one day, while the boys get their first erection and discover the joys of masturbation. This is a bed friendly activity so for many it is the only exercise they will get. This activity goes some way to explaining both the stench and the grunting that comes from a teenage boy’s bedroom.

A few facts that will help the parents understand this:

According to http://strongbad.surrealistic.net/ejaculator.php if said teenager were to masturbate 3 times a day (conservative estimate) from age 13 to 19 he would have:

Made 29.859375 gallons and 249.1885475625 lbs. of Jizz,
If you lined up the ejaculations in 1 inch pools end to end it would stretch the length of 2.1233333333333 football fields!He would have killed approximately 1,375,920,000,000 little swimmers.He would have killed 7644 kittens.

And of course, each masturbation uses about 5 calories; no wonder a guy needs Pizza!

This also, of course, explains the crispy sheets and why the toilet roll only lasts a day at a time.

The modern female teenager also seems to share a common gene with the artic penguin in that they never seem to feel the cold. Consequently the female teenager can wear the smallest, lightest, thinnest, most revealing clothing even on a day when the outside temperature is hitting minus 30 with out a single goose bump. This ability to stand outside without succumbing to the blistering cold is of some interest to scientists, who on many occasions have invited said teenagers back to their labs for ‘further research’ but have been rebuffed in a language that they don’t understand. For example: "Get out of my grill. You a busta!" Why you always cappin' on me? Don't make me open up a can on you, I'm going to cap your booty”

Teenage boys on the other hand have little in common with the teenage girls but seem to be strangely attracted to them. This takes away the males ability to speak and they have to resort to grunts and strange hand and arm gestures which include cupping genitals (maybe sore after all that wanking)
Crossing arms across chest and posing like Tupac, and waving hands around pointing and gesticulating to emphasise each word said, often punctuated with a ‘yo’ sound. This seems to work best when the baseball cap, used to keep brain warm, is placed on head and is facing the other way.

This inability to communicate face to face is of course the evolutionary result of the use of the mobile phone. If one can’t yet get to visit one’s friends through the use of a jetpack or transporter system, the mobile phone is the best solution; further natural selection has also engineered the use of language. So the simplest of messages uses ‘lingo’
Hi wot U doin 2nt Shall we git a <)
(Hello what are you up to tonight, shall we get a pizza?)

This use of the mobile phone has also given teenagers an unnaturally mobile thumb so that they are able to tap out the longest txt message in seconds. The contrary result of this is the inability to finish any schoolwork on time, especially if it has to be written with a pen in English. Txtese or lingo is so much easier and one doesn’t have to bother to learn to spell (not when there’s spell checker). The comfortable ease and familiarity with technology is another evolutionary sign that the teenager is being naturally selected for modern life. When said teenager has to enter the world of work it will be one that suits the lifestyle. Sat in front of a computer on his/her fat arse, eating pizza communicating in a techno language be it Pascal or txt or lingo, or if really lucky, working from home on the laptop from bed, never having to communicate face to face, having cybersex with some other techno nerd who calls himself Julie and having pizza delivered by some other spotty teenager on a moped.

If your house is being invaded by strange smells and grunts don’t worry it’s not a poltergeist it’s probably a teenager. Here’s a checklist to help you out.


Teenager Alert!!!!
1. He will begin to smell but won't take a bath and can't smell his own odour
1a She will smell like a chemical factory from overuse of cheap deodorant
2. He will want you outta his life, but only after you have driven him to the mall
2a She will too
3. He will eat EVERYTHING in the Fridge
3a She will not want to eat anything so you worry about anorexia but in her bedroom she has 20 bags of crisps and 14 mars bars
4. He will spend hours in his bedroom doing NOTHING right!
4aShe will spend hours doing her makeup so she looks like an extra in frightnite!
5. Sleep will become a major occupation
6. You will lose all access to the internet as he plays games online 24/7
6a She will become obsessed with boys 24/7
7. He will resent you, the family, and the world for being dorky, while he is SO COOL
7a She will resent you too, be nice to her father, and flirt with any other male in a 5 mile vicinity
8. Black will be his favourite colour for the next 7 years
8a Black will be her favourite colour too but you will worry about the lacy black thongs and bras hanging in the bathroom
9. You will start sounding like your mother when you chastise him and her
10. His friends will be the nicest boys you have ever met, why does yours have to be the sulky great hulking sweaty hungry one?
10a You will never meet her friends

Honest Car Mechanic - another oxymoron.

They say the biggest stress comes with moving house. I disagree; it comes with moving house and then having to find a new mechanic for the car. Not all of us can afford new cars and the prices that main dealers charge for servicing and repairs are just too outrageous. Some of us, I know it’s hard to believe, have to run second-hand cars that are a few years old with a few thousand (with mine read 100,000) miles on the clock.

Where I live at the moment Chris is my local mechanic, it’s his own business and it is always choc-a-bloc with customers’ cars. Why? Because Chris is as honest as the day he was born. I’ll just repeat that for the hard of reading and the unbelievers. I said ‘Chris, my mechanic and owner of the garage, is honest’. He will always fit you in. Always does the job he says he will do. Never overcharges and bills you 30 days later with another 30 days to pay! I can leave my car with him and tell him to fix it and go away in the secure knowledge that he will not find that the Scruton flange is not attached to the Foucault sprocket and that it will (sharp intake of breath followed by head shaking) cost me an arm and a leg.

Now I have to move to sunny Plymouth where I have lived before and have experienced mechanics. Now in Hollywood/Gangsta parlance a ‘Mechanic’ is slang for an assassin. This is a good enough analogy because the mechanics I’ve had dealings with in Plymouth have attempted to assassinate the contents of my wallet, do to death my bank account and strangle my cash flow.

Some examples:

My ex wife, when she was the wife, had some problems with the Car (she was in Plymouth studying I was in Bridgwater being househusband and kiddy sitter) She rang me, I said take it to a garage, one of the big chains. She did, she rang me back telling me that the steering rack was broken and the car needed a new one.

‘O’ I said ‘How much’?

‘Lots’ she said

‘Ring the AA and get them to tow it home’ I said

I took it to the local garage over the road (not Chris unfortunately), it was a Renault Dealer and they showed me where one of the engine brackets had lost its rubber.

It cost me about £3 and half an hour to fix!

Another time, I had lost the MOT certificate to my car, I needed to Tax the car. So the quickest way, I thought was to put it through another test as It had only been tested one month before (this was a new car I had bought with 12 months MOT). The FORD garage I took it to rang me with the bad news.

‘Can’t MOT this mate’
‘Why Not’
‘It’s a wreck’
‘What do you mean I just bought it with 12 months MOT’?
‘Nah looks like its been in a smack and the Baudrillard joints are all out’
‘How much to fix it then’?
‘O (swift intake of breath and probably shaking of head) about a 1000 quid’
Given that I’d only just spent about £800 on it (a Fiesta) it seemed a bit unreasonable
‘I’ll come and get it’
‘OK but it’s dangerous we should fix the Hume brackets at least’
‘No Thanks’

So I got the car, took it to a local garage that had done some reasonable work for me, where it flew through the MOT except for a bulb that needed replacing and a little bit of welding underneath. The mechanic there could find no evidence of it being in a crash, the guy I bought it off checked back with the auction house he got it from and no, it hadn’t been listed as crashed.

So they were all a bunch of robbing bastards. (and I have more examples)

So what to do now? I need to find a nice honest mechanic, I would think that was an oxymoron if it wasn’t for Chris, maybe I should just drive the 30 miles every time I need something done. O the stress!

Perhaps I’ll just sell the car and walk.

Home By Christmas- 4 down how many to go?

Yup a festive Hercules transporter plane will soon be delivering another of 'our boys' home for Christmas - in a box! Along with his mates wounded in a roadside bomb. Another 'success for Tony!

Plus I heard an American Officer being interviewed on the radio this morning, he is part of the force attacking Fallujah, he was quite suprised that the Iraqies were, I quote, 'firing back at us'
duh! Perhaps he thought that they would welcome him with arabic charm and mint tea!

America the Brave

I have been thinking some more on my attitude towards America and Americans. You will be aware from my earlier writing that I just don’t have the time to hate all Americans and as Altruistic Dad reminds me ‘It would be far better (and fairer) to say you're anti-Bush, anti-Republican, or anti-American-conservativism’. Well maybe that’ll do for the time being.

What galls me more, I guess, than American fast food culture and all that this entails is the bullying, we’re right you’re wrong and we’ll fight you for it attitude. Where does this attitude come from? Okay America is a big strong country. We know that, they know that, everybody knows that, so why does America have this inclination to throw its weight around? It’s the Mike Tyson of nations. It is probably an urban myth but it seems to me, from watching TV, that a lot of big physical men, fighting men are pussycats. They are content with their strength. They don’t have to prove to all and sundry that they are tough, take Muhhamed Ali for instance, I have never seen a bad headline about Ali beating on people other than those who chose to step in a ring with him, he even refused to fight in Vietnam. Yet Tyson seems unable to control his rage, his anger and strength. He bites peoples ears off, rapes women, he’s a big bad angry man. And so to is the USA a big, bad and angry nation.

Why is this? I think it is simply to do with History. The United States is still an adolescent in the family of Western Nations. It is young, barely out of its teens whereas the rest of the Western Nations are well into middle age, mature, solid, sure of themselves. These Western European Nations have been at it for centuries, we have a history. We’ve had our squabbles, spats, fights and Wars over more than 1000 years. We’ve bloodied noses and bit off ears with the best of them, before even the US was a twinkle in someone’s eye.

Now I think the US is jealous, they want to flex a bit of muscle, they want to do what their older brothers have done. I mean all of us in the family of nations have even had colonies. Why once little Old Britain owned most of the civalised world, we ruled the seas, Emperors and Kings bowed at the knees of our Monarchs (I’m not saying this was a good thing per se but it’s the truth). Even little bitty nations like, Belgium and Austria had colonies. The Big boys, Britain, France and Spain were regularly beating the shit out of each other and anyone else that got in their way.

But now we’re older, mature, content with the status quo. We can look after ourselves without having a hissy fit if someone tries to get funny with us (i.e the IRA). Whilst the US is acting like the new punk on the block. She acts like a punk dancing in the mosh pit at a gig, all elbows and knees not giving a fuck who eyes and groins she mashes her elbows into - thinking ‘look at me look at me, I’m the hardest toughest kid around’. Whilst in the shadows, at the back, the old big guys, the guys who once were tough snort and do their own thing. The Russian Mafia guys sell girls and guns and wonder if they can get a Mac Donalds franchise, the Chinese Tong guys are more worried about where their next chop sui is coming from and all the other big fish are back at home in Europe wondering when the young punk will come and shit in our backyard.

But America is smart enough to know that the West would not put up with it’s hissy fits for too long. So the bullyboys of the USA march into countries where the armies they fight are basically miltia made up of boys and men with old AK47’s. And yet not smart enough to realize that they get beat all the time. (Vietnam - Strategic withdrawal, Korea – lost, WW2 - steal the glory from the Soviet people who died in their millions for victory over the Nazi’s, Battle of Little Big Horn – get the picture!)

The United States is not learning the lessons of history, they lose at this type of war, these wars are unwinnable, like Vietnam, because people are fighting not for political ideologies such as the Nazi’s did but they are fighting for their homes and families, for the right to live how they want to live. Britain and the rest of the West learnt these lessons long ago, why do you think we gave up our empire, because it was a mission impossible to maintain any form of legal authority over the people with out degenerating into an armed struggle that would carry on for year after deadly year with casulty and dead numbers rising and rising.

The United States and it’s people need to grow up, they need to become adults and learn from their mistakes. Don’t think you can force your ideas of liberty, democracy and freedom on whom you so chose. We tried it and failed. Learn the lessons of history. Unfortunatly given the results of the recent election there is still some growing up and hard learning to be done!

Home By Christmas Part 2.

With reference to my earlier blog Home by Christmas - I see Tony Blair is keeping his word as 3 Black Watch soldiers are being sent home from Iraq in Boxes and others will be following in ambulances. Well Done Tony! I’m sure their families will be thinking of you this Christmas Day.

The sound of silence - rememberance

I recently went into my local library. A notice on the door proclaimed that at 11am on the 11th Novemeber there would be a 2 minutes silence in the library. How will they know? Perhaps there should be a 2 minutes yelling instead, that would bring it to the readers attention, wouldn't it?

Secret Santa Ho Ho Errr!

Secret Santa

Ho Ho Ho, Its that time of year again, yes we’ve hardly entered November and the buzz around the office is the Secret Santa event. This is where a member of staff is designated to put all the names of our work colleagues into a hat and then we have to troop down and take a pick. The name you choose then becomes the recipient of an anonymous gift from you at the Christmas Lunch.

This means that I have to pick a name and then go and spend, to the maximum of £5, my money on somebody I don’t really know and if the odds are against me somebody I really loathe. Of course this also means that I will be the lucky recipient of a gift somebody has tried to buy me on the basis of what they know about me. For the life of me I cannot remember even one gift that I have received in all the times I have participated in this event.

Oh I know everyone will say stop being a ‘humbug’ and enjoy it, it’s Christmas after all! So? Goodwill to all persons and all that! So? I don’t have much goodwill when it comes to the people I work with. Ok I don’t hate them per se, but they’re not my mates either. I work-therefore I am.

Maybe I should go out with them more on the social events and get to know them. But I live over 30 miles away and their idea of a good time is going to the local bars and getting bladdered. Now I don’t mind having a drink, I am not a stick in the mud or a party pooper, but what fun is it to stand with a group of drunken work colleagues while you sip mineral water and stare around boredly.

So I have to do this Secret Santa thing and think about what gift I can possibly get for someone I don’t know that will raise an uproarious laugh around the table as the recipient is slightly humiliated by the content of the packet. Because that’s what people do isn’t it? Search out the slight flaw in the character that everybody knows about and selects a present that points right at it. The guy who’s the office letch with bad breath gets given something that lets him know everybody knows what he’s up to, like mouth wash, the office slag gets the blow up boob’s because hers are always on display. The Boss some arselicking present that costs way more than £5. Me, something I don’t even remember (perhaps I should worry about that!)

And then of course there is the Office Christmas Dinner. Booked in May into some god awful restaurant offering cheap Xmas lunches to the corporate Christmas Junket seekers.

First problem is we have to pay for it ourselves, that’s because our boss makes Scrooge look like Paul Getty giving his money away. So that’s going to be about £20 for lunch! So everybody gets their Turkey etc with all the trimmings, funny hats and crackers. As a vegetarian I am really not sure what to have, either the festive veggie lasagne, or the Christmassy veggie pastry covered thing I forget what they call it but it’s trendy because it has feta cheese and cranberries in it! Okay I know I’m bitching a bit, and you might say its my fault for being a veggie, but all I am asking is that the chef is a little more thoughtful about what he/she can offer as a festive meal – its not that hard!

So you can tell I am looking forward to this event, which I believe is happening around the 10th December, because May was too late to book anywhere remotely near to the day we finish – December 24th. I can’t even look forward to getting drunk and then necking with one of the office juniors in the photocopy cupboard. 1. Because the photocopy cupboard is now my office (so I suppose technically the option is still open*) 2. Because we have to come back to work after lunch, so there is no opportunity to get drunk (and I still have the long drive home) and 3. I have to buy a stupid Secret Santa gift.

(*but my wife would somehow know psychically and kill me)

Any ideas for the perfect gift which seem fine but is slightly insulting in a humorous way? All gratefully received.

Ho Ho Ho Happy Holidays (to my American readers) and Happy Christmas to the rest of you!

Four More Years of Bush!

Four more years of Bush

I guess it depends on how quickly you say this as to whether it brings a smile to your lips or you break down in tears. I guess it also depends on whether you have the mentality of a thirteen year old boy or you are serious about your politics. (I hope I am in the latter category) – (Well not too serious!)

So Freedom and Democracy is safe for another four years. I don’t really know how afraid I am when I write this. But I send a word of sympathy to all the good thinking people of the US.

An online dictionary from Princeton University in the US tell us that Freedom is:

the power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints.

Is this the ‘freedom’ that Bush jnr. Is imposing on Iraq and Afghanistan? Because is seems to me that this ‘freedom’ Bush talks about comes with a lot of strings and external imposed (by the US) restraints – that’s not Freedom is it?

Another definition is:

Not being under another's control; the power to say or do as one pleases, e.g., freedom of speech or belief or freedom of economic decision making.

None of these, to my mind, is what’s on offer when the United States, through its figurehead Bush, starts to influence the citizens of those countries with displays of military strength and bombing by its Air Force. What about freedom of belief, and freedom of economic decision making? None of these will be part of Bush’s plan (Bush being, I am sure, a part of the ultra-right Christian Evangelical movement for whom Islam would be an anathema)

This leads us to another definition of freedom:

The societal condition that exists when every individual has 100% control over their own property."

That is, if it has not been bombed into dust, along with the rest of your extended family!

Freedom is one of those tricky words that mean different things to different people. For some CCTV is a means to freedom, for others is an abuse of a persons freedom to walk freely without being observed. There is, through the use of CCTV for instance, an implied guilt, that we all have to be observed in some way, like in Orwell’s 1984, and of course its all in the name of the people for the good of the people.

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face… was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime Orwell 1984


It’s like the bringing together the two words Freedom and Terrorism can be used as a sort of a talisman that allows bullies like Bush and his Government (Which it appears over 50% of the US population support – so using guilt by association, the US is a country of bullies – and not just the red necked sort apparently) to enter legal states around the world and to enforce this thing ‘Freedom’.

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." Orwell 1984.

To be honest I do not want America’s ideas Freedom, I do not want the US to even suggest to me that their freedom’s are better than the freedom’s enjoyed by me in my country. I do not support any invasion of another country in the name of Bush’s idea of Freedom. I do not want the American Dream because from this side of the Atlantic it looks much more like an American Nightmare. The pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness seems to be some sort of horrendous joke when it is applied to whats happening in the Middle East.

Remember Bush and co one day you will be bought to account:

"It was curious to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same—everywhere, all over the world, hundreds or thousands of millions of people just like this, people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same—people who had never learned to think but were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world." Orwell 1984


Four More Years
Don’t Dry the Tears
On the mothers sallow cheek

When Soldier Boys
Have Lost their Toys
And return in the Brittle Box

A folded flag
Just a political gag
Placed in the Mothers hands

In Dusty Street
Other Sad Mothers weep
For the children dead in arms

It’s Freedoms stain
Americas Shameful Bloody Pain
Four More Years of Bush

Super Star DJ

Am I getting old or is it that I just do not understand the superstar DJ phenomenon?
Why is it that these guys are so famous, just for playing music? Not that they are actually playing the music, merely putting the CD in the machine or cueing up a track on some vinyl. Some don’t even choose the music, most radio DJ’s have producers who choose the music according to the play list. They just press a few buttons. In America I believe all you have to do to become a DJ is shout loudly and swear.

It seems to me to have all got a little disjointed and out of hand. A bit like Ferrari mechanics becoming more famous than Schumacher! And they all have such stupid names like Flat Boy Dim, DJ Bang, DJ Jazzy Deff, DJ Funkmaster Drunk. Come on, it’s not that hard is it?

Get down to Maplin’s get your ‘DJ in a Box’ kit (160quid) then off to the car boot sales and charity shops for the albums and singles and you’re away on your new career – don’t forget the crazy name!

I did DJ’ing for a bit one summer down in Newquay. It’s not hard. My day went like this.

Wait on Breakfast
Clean Bars
Serve bars
Afternoon off
Wait on Dinner
Serve bar till about 9 ish
Be a superstar DJ till 2 in the morning.

It was easy. My bar mate would ensure a constant surreptitious supply of bottled Pils (on the house of course) and I would be off.

Here are some tips for the likes of Flat Boy that I picked up when DJ’ing to the holiday crowd in Newquay during the summer of 81 – they are probably still relevant today.

Get some red jeans – cos you gotta look the part!
The Nolan Sisters – I’m in the Mood For Dancing will fill the dance floor pronto, especially useful if you have a moody crowd.
Play the Gap Band - Oops Upside Your Head about 5 times in a row, while the dance floor goes mad with everybody doing the ‘rowing’ dance
Save the slow ones for the end, cos every one likes a smooch and it’s a guys last chance to cop a shag after all the nice girls have been picked by the dance floor John Travolta’s.
Remember the context, so in Newquay the Beach Boys always goes down well with the surfer crowd, if you are touring your act for example try not to use a mega mix of the Dam Busters March and the Theme to the Battle of Britain in Berlin, they might prefer David Hasselhof or Kraftwerk better.
Remember Americans can’t dance (apart from aforesaid Travolta, Gene Kelly and Astair) play something they can stamp their feet to like Dueling Banjo’s, it makes them feel at home or a nice polka.

So there you go - all the inside knowledge of what it takes to be a superstar DJ. Follow these tips and you will probably have a number one hit and be a big star by the summer when you can zoom off to Ibiza for fun in the sun.

Mail me your DJ name so I can watch out for you. Good Luck