When will we ever learn...

July 13, 2017
Animals/Pets Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
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Why...

Is it a surprise if, four hours after ending the evening with Vodka shots and jelly babies, I have a hangover you could land a Jumbo Jet on? The one saving grace about over indulgence on holiday is you can skulk about in a dark room till midday… when even hangovers that make your hair hurt begins to subside. But it seems there is a moment on every vacation when even perfectly sane people have some sort of synapse malfunction and revert to being teenagers. My saintly in-laws last year suddenly realised they had never jumped fully clothed into a pool and to their immediate left stood such an inviting one.... splash!

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Just pack it in...

Why...

Do I take clothes on holiday I never wear? When my wife proof reads this article there is a high chance I shall be sleeping in the bath tonight at our next hotel destination... except of course I couldn't fit in as it will be full of cosmetics, dirty clothes, new shoes, etc, etc. My gorgeous wife would look wonderful in a sack (assuming it had a Prada logo on it) but to please me she likes to pack a different outfit for each evening. She argues logically that I too need to take a suitable variety of clothes. So I end up with enough costume changes to keep Madonna happy on a World Tour. I should be grateful my wife makes such an effort instead of complaining about suitcases the size of the Hindenberg. What I am really grateful for is neither of us like winter sports as at least flimsy summer stuff takes up less room than the Mr. Bibendum (Michelin tyre man) outfits needed for apres-ski.

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Holiday reading... nah this is not far-fetched enough

June 16, 2017
Friends Kids/Family/Relations Life Politics
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Why...

Can I not find a decent fiction for my holiday read? Their plots are so boring compared to reality. In the last 12 months true events would have been roundly rejected in Hollywood as too far-fetched. Uncle Donald's mental pirouettes with regards to Russia, Korea and the CIA, make House of Cards shenanigans seem rather tame. The TV show Veep has stopped being a comedy and is simply a reality show. Then there is Melania Trump who looks as comfortable in her role of First Lady as a Nun in a Trojan factory. I think she is very cool but a plot line suggesting a First Lady having posed in the nude would have been rejected by even Mills and Boon. It's not as if there is not Volume 2 still to play out with second generation Trump... Ivanka and Jarred are names that come from bit players of Star Wars. And Tiffany??? In a recent poll of the most popular name for strippers the name Tiffany came second. What was Trump thinking (or thinking about) when he chose it?

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Listen to Einstein. May I present the all in one shredder, vacuum cleaner and sprinkler system...

Why...

Do we do not listen to Uncle Albert. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and to expect different results". Why do I think every puppy will be different? We have a new French bulldog (Clouseau). His capacity to munch his way through anything made from rubber to industrial grade titanium is remarkable. Today he managed to eat a handful of coffee beans, a mobile phone, a tax return and then chew up an entire ream of paper (500 pages). Obviously he did not consume the lot, but rather like a fox in a henhouse, managed to damage each page enough so it could no longer go in the printer, whilst actually only ingesting two sheets. He has developed a taste for the left ear of one of his elder brother pugs and my right leg is sexier than Beyoncé with a bark. He has an uncanny knack of knowing when I have just fallen asleep so his nip to a big toe wakes me up. I get mad, he looks at me with those big cow eyes.....then pees in a slipper. I have no doubt he would relish anthrax on toast and he still cannot understand why I stopped him chewing on a snail as if it was a gobstopper........ Groundhog Day. It happens every time we get a puppy. It should be no surprise....

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Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow you will want to strangle the relatives

Why...

Do relatives take priority over anyone else at Christmas? Don't misunderstand me, I adore every branch, root and twig of my family. However I also love my dogs, a couple of classic cars, a Lalique mask, a nicely worn leather jacket, a teddy bear and some very dear friends. Yes all in different ways but it seems at Christmas family is often to the exclusion of all else. Now as a kid I used to find it fairly amusing to meet up with Uncle Tuppy (yup, swear that was his name), Great Aunt Alice, Aunty Sheila and others who now are long gone and no doubt pulling crackers and swilling port in heaven. However as we really only came together once a year the novelty value soon wore off and I thought they were all bonkers and I am sure they felt I was some snot nosed brat (none of the aforementioned had kids). A brief lunch maybe but to stay manacled together for three or four days is a recipe for Lizzie Borden-like hungering for an axe! Distant relatives are like fish. After three days they go off. Christmas is a time of good will towards all men but to achieve that maybe put a time limit on each person? My American cousins are lucky as they have a Christmas doppelgänger a month earlier in Thanksgiving. That is the big family get together, always on a Thursday (see why Click Here). They get that out of the way and have the choice at Christmas to go away, be with friends or again link up the family tree.

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Ear ye, ear ye....

August 4, 2016
Animals/Pets Entertainment/Media/Arts Kids/Family/Relations Sex
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Why...

Does the humble ear only get credited as being one of the six senses. It is so much more... Sex. No, I'm not talking sound here. Please watch the delightful French movie The Untouchables about the millionaire paraplegic Philippe and his driver/manservant, Driss. It's a wonderful movie despite its backdrop of the ashes of living after such a disabling accident. It is in fact an utter affirmation of the joys of life. In it, the fondling and rubbing of Philippe's earlobes is his only sensory pleasure and to him on a par with sex! So the ear is also a sexual organ.

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It's an AMENDMENT dummy. It's already been altered....

July 21, 2016
Finance/Law Kids/Family/Relations Politics
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Why...

Do I have to see my dear transatlantic cousins twist and turn in the wind of argument over gun control? I know this is a subject that has undone many a Brit scribbler but I am deeply perplexed at the argument that it's practically divine a right to bare arms.... or arm bears.... and then quote the second amendment. Isn't that the point? It was an AMENDMENT. The original needed altering. It wasn't right first time. Perhaps in this day and age it ain't right now? The constitution was changed to allow you Colonials to bear arms to form a militia against perfidious Albion....but we ain't coming after you anymore. And if you think even a battle-bus full of patriotic armed citizens was going to prevent a modern attack such as 911 or the Boston bombers, that's wildly optimistic? A hand gun revolver if you must, and a bolt action rifle for hunting, but Yogi and Boo-Boo don't wear Kevlar nor run at 70 miles an hour so you don't need armor piercing bullets that pop out at a zillion rounds a second to stop them. Clearly if you have a country with a gabillion guns sloshing around in it, it's a trifle tricky to ask everyone to hand them back. And I suspect the least likely to then hand them back are those that you would most like to. It's therefore tough beyond belief but you have to start somewhere. How about the manufacturing bullets for certain weapons becomes an imprisonable offence unless supplied at a shooting range? I accept there are some countries who's citizens are armed to the teeth and live a relatively peaceful existence; Switzerland for instance (I claim a little bias here as I have a Swiss passport). Every citizen is issued with a rifle to defend against invasion. It's actually pretty pointless because if Uncle Putin wanted to get in, all the passes are mined and blowing those up is far more effective than a bunch of yodeling bankers trying to take pot shots at the Russian Army. Still no one has gone on a murdering rampage as far as I know. However maybe it's because gunfire exchange is less evident in Swiss culture. Heidi was not packin' an Uzi as she wandered around the Alps, and even William Tell could only fire one arrow at a time...even if it was at his son's head! The peaceful locals are renowned for whipping up cuckoo clocks not 3D printed handguns, chocolates not 1, 000 round magazines.

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Beware! Hair... It is not Darwinian but it's certainly Machiavellian...

July 7, 2016
Fasion Health & Beauty Kids/Family/Relations Technology
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Why...

Is hair growth so inconsistent? Falling out. What exactly is Nature's point in letting some men go bald? Obvious answer, I suppose, is because she's a woman and it screws with men's egos! I mean baldness is not exactly Darwinian Evolution of the Species material. As someone who is lucky enough to still have a thick mop on my head, I do sympathise with my mates who now have a shiny dome where once stood a mighty forest. Can someone explain to me why? Not the medical reason but what is the evolutionary point of baldness?

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Drip drip drip, my patience is going down the drain......

June 30, 2016
Entertainment/Media/Arts Friends Kids/Family/Relations Life Technology
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Why...

Do the smallest actions by some cause such heated reactions from others? OK so watching some guy pick his spots while at the traffic lights is not the best way to start the day, yet for another motorist this morning it actually infuriated her so much she honked her horn. Maybe she was an unemployed beautician who took offence at his do-it-yourself work depriving her of a living? I regularly strike up an argument with traffic lights that I am certain go green only for three nanoseconds the way I want to travel but stay red for at least a decade to allow the other traffic to slide by quite freely. My wife on the other hand takes the view ‘that's life’ and why do I complain?? I then point out she would rather play hopscotch on a mine field than go for a swim in the sea (she doesn't like swimming in deep water) so she has no reason to pick on my own bête noires. Off we go, pointing out things that only drives one of us crazy and is water off a ducks back to the other. People with earphones that leak hiss like maniacal cicadas have the same horrendous effect on me as fingernails scraping down a blackboard for my wife.

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Psycho taught me to fear the shower.......

June 23, 2016
Animals/Pets Friends Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
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Why...

Does the shower hold more horrors than a Michael Moore documentary? The flat where I am currently staying requires the delicacy of a safe cracker to prevent me turning the faucet mixer so either I freeze or boil. Acceptable temperature is a gap of about two millimeters. Equally dangerous is the curtain. It's so close that it continually billows against me trying to wrap me up like a sushi roll. I have already mentioned the lunacy of hotel sized shampoo, conditioner, shower gel and mouthwash; all being in small little bottles that you need to wear glasses in the shower to read, (My Eyebrows are Silky Soft and my Hair Smells of Listerine. Headings Health and beauty. April 16, 2015) but caps and tops in general are a nightmare. May I suggest the following letter to Proctor and Johnson

Dear Mr./Mrs. Shower Gel/ hair treatment manufacturer,

Perhaps one of your researchers/designers/marketing people might like to join me in my next shower?

When I use your product, guess what? My hands are soapy. So a round little top that I need to unscrew (especially if it has a top that is shiny silver) just slithers in my hand like a fish. It's quite possibly the most useless invention since the Parisian taxi driver's manual for good manners.

Actually I don't want anything that even has a top; be it unscrewable, twistable, pop-able .....Any top in a shower is superfluous to my bathing requirements. With nowhere to put it, I end up holding it in my teeth. Then it drops onto the ground. Next I step on it, swear loudly as it breaks as I can never reseal the damn bottle. Flip top only is my strong advice.

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Beware, Card Shark

June 16, 2016
Entertainment/Media/Arts Friends Kids/Family/Relations
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Why...

Do I get roped into imaginary celebration days? Before I start this week's blog......I have a confession. For a few years I was the co-owner of the Hallmark Channel (Internationally) that I bought with a consortium from the eponymous card company still owned and controlled by the Hall family. There were some pretty freaky things that I learned about cards (before the digital universe blew a hole in Hallmark with Blue Mountain, Moo, Jibjab, Moonpig and Funky Pigeon). Firstly, was that the more Catholic or Protestant the country, the more cards it sent. You expect the major European countries, but right up near the top was the Philippines! Now for those of you who have never been there, I beg you, go.... I adore all of Asia (with a special love for Vietnam) but if you want to see a race in self-conflict you cannot beat the Philippines. Nothing on earth trumps Catholic guilt and boy, the Filipinos, with their lust for life and smorgasbord of sin, have a tsunami of things to feel guilty about.....and yet Christmas carols start blaring from the radio in September. They send a shedload of cards, several to the same recipient!!

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I name this child Hildergaard…. Whether she likes it or not.

February 4, 2016
Finance/Law Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Technology
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Why...

Are parents so shortsighted in the naming of their kids? My father just managed to stop his Godchild being christened Helen Angela Parry. He pointed out she would forever be known as being accident prone as her initials would read Miss.HAP (She is happily in her sixties now and was christened Angela Helen). I know we are not allowed to say anything negative about St. David Bowie, but I see his film Director son did ditch the name his dad gave him, Zowie Bowie, to use instead the less dramatic Duncan Jones. Had the lad been born in Denmark, he would not have been allowed to have that name. An extraordinary by law in Denmark, states that the local authority has the right to name a child if the parent’s choice does not meet with their approval! “Nope, you cannot call him Apple. His name is… Adolf. Next please.” This near Orwellian control is not what you expect from a country that gave us Lego bricks (and leg-over with beautiful blond au pairs - nannies to you yanks). Although the Danes did of course cause a furor over the Mohammed cartoons controversy, I suspect they did not fear an economic backlash of a boycott of famous Danish goods…. Well at least Danish bacon and Carlsberg beer might not have been too worried.

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It's called Christmas, dummy!

Why...

Do a number of people apologise for the name Christmas? Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings, Compliments of the Season, etc. are all wishy washy phrases meaning 'I’m embarrassed or made to feel guilty if I say Merry Christmas’. I don't expect Diwali, Hannukah, Eid, Kwanzaa, Parinirvana to change their name, so why does Christmas have to? What possible offense does the celebration of the birth of a leader of one type of organised religion cause? The birth of a religious leader is a common celebration in many other religions and they cause me no offense. I am not a deeply religious person but that does not mean I don't enjoy the Christmas holidays. However I at least acknowledge the derivation and honour it by giving the holiday its real name. I am equally happy if lots of people from other creeds choose this moment to celebrate Peace on Earth and exchange presents, give to charity and the homeless; just let’s be honest about it.

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When did you last read The Dark Nag?

November 26, 2015
Entertainment/Media/Arts Kids/Family/Relations
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Why...

Are we bullied and scared of calling things by their actual name? I understand that for the new feature film of Enid Blighton’s ‘Noddy’ being undertaken by the normally clear headed Steven Spielberg, he has been forced to change the name of Noddy's best friend Big Ears! The reason? It is thought potentially offensive to call someone by his physical appearance. Really??? So what happens to other literary favourites such as Black Beauty, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Hop-along Cassidy, Blind Pugh, Iron Man, Richie Rich or Big Bird? Do they now become The Dark Nag, Melanin impoverished Young Lady and her Vertically Challenged Friends, Mr. Cassidy and his Moderate Walking Disability, Poorly Sighted Pugh, The man with Ferrite Extensions, Economically Maximised Richard and Altidudinally Endowed Bird? This is just wrong. Stop it. We must take things in context not apply our current views. Yes ‘Mammy Two Shoes’ in Tom and Jerry is a stereotype that is unattractive in many ways now, but at the time of writing and production Fred Quimby and his team were not meaning to cause anything other than affection and laughter. Obviously there exists unpleasant and hateful writings since the beginning of time but being able to see them as written is a far better deterrent than whitewashing over it all now. I don’t want a sanitised ‘Mein Kampf’ nor rantings from revolutionaries with their misguided thoughts toned down for better digestion. I am a grown up and can make my own decisions if presented with the facts.

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The Pre-nag. Conversation’s elegant skewer

Why...

Do we all leave ourselves so wide open to that most deadly of conversation assaults; the pre-nag? The pre-nag is a seemingly innocent question that no matter how you answer, the follow-up will get you. Let me demonstrate. When my wife asks innocently, “Brr, it’s a little chilly. Are you cold?” Whatever I reply, ‘yes’, ‘no’, or ‘a little bit’, I am screwed as the next line is “Did you leave the garden door open again after taking the dogs out?” This sin of course is something she has clearly already noted. Checkmate. Of course we both know I left the door open. But to prolong the ticking off, it is much more satisfying for my beloved to make me squirm a little first, knowing the initial question is a set up for the killer blow. My life is littered with pre-nags. “Have you heard from Bette-Anne?” When I have forgotten to give her the message that her friend has rung and has clearly rung again, spoken to my wife and told her I had failed to pass on the message. “Have you got your glasses?” when we are in the taxi, she having already picked them up from the table at the restaurant we were eating at: “Have you been recently been on Facebook?” when an old flame has contacted me.

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The Vacation Car Rental Experience…only Satan tries harder

Why...

Do we never learn? Einstein told us, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Clearly the great man never rented a car twice. Millions of people are now on holiday, not quite believing the rental car experience will again be torture like the time before…but BINGO! It is. You could be hiring a car in the South of France and waiting outside under the blazing sun in a two hour queue. Your shoes are melting on the pavement and your children gently poaching, whilst inside the air-conditioned offices that only seems to hold four customers, the two counter staff seem to swap shifts every ten minutes. In sunny Miami you fall asleep upright with jet lag in the car rental line, as the couple ahead of you spend an hour looking for their driving license and telling the assistant they definitely had it when they put their teeth in and slipped on their incontinence pants that morning.

As predictable as a guilty politician’s ‘no comment’, the model of the car you hired months ago is no longer available. However the rental car company can offer you a replacement within the same category…a former communist country run about, the Trabant, with no aircon, manual gearbox and the reliability of a cheesecloth condom. And then, when you are frustrated and ready to commit murder; salvation! A surreptitious wink and you are offered an upgrade for only a few dollars more a day. You sign on the dotted line and wham!, the nominal day rate increase for your luxobarge pales against the extra cost of insurance, collision excess insurance, content insurance, medical and personal injury cover etc. You half expect an additional fee because you might have orange hair, walk with a limp or are an alien. Suddenly the bargain $250 rate for a week break that you grabbed after searching for hours on cheapocarrentaldeals.com balloons to $1, 250.

Your kids are visibly shorter as they have wilted so much and your wife has used the Wi-Fi to file for divorce (perhaps they should sell ‘Divorce While-in-a-Queue’ insurance)? The desk jockey whips your credit card through the machine gouging out a deposit large enough for a down payment on a small yacht that also blows your card limit before you’ve even started your holiday. Another bonus is if you are caught speeding by the cops or on camera, the rental company immediately take the fine off your card. And the cherry on the top is you pay so much per day for a sat-nav that in no time you could have bought it; only you would never actually do that as the previous user had locked the language to Swahili and you can’t understand a word. All this before you leave the airport.

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Fill her up please with Starbucks latte and can you check the oil is sun factor 50?

May 14, 2015
Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Life Travel/Nature
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Why...

Can I no longer find signs at motorway service stations that say Fuel Only This Way→? They have disappeared over the past few years. Now, before I find the pumps, I am led like a piggy with a ring through my nose past the retail equivalent of a children’s honey trap; an entire village of tat. I feel so sorry for families with kids in the back, who, on seeing these places bounce around like squash balls on heat wanting to get out and empty their parents’ wallet. On entering these cluster of shops I am simply blown away at the kind of stuff you can now buy, as well as what you can’t (i.e. indicator bulbs for your car). Quite apart from just about every franchise that sells you a ‘heart-attack in-a-sack’, there are video games rooms, playpens for toddlers, make-up bars, CD’s, DVDs, clothing and numerous toys….some so large I’d need an articulated truck to take them home. Let’s not forget the wide selection of abandoned puppies. Kids are running around the place screaming and yelling from a massive overdose of sugar yet there is always a solitary Janitor sharing my ablutions in the bathroom along with the triangle warning sign of a slippery floor. Sadly at my age a full tank of fuel lasts much longer than I do so rest stops are quite frequent, but the only time I have ever fallen over in the bathroom was due to alcohol not an attendant’s mop.

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It’s not Dr. Doolittle who talks to the animals…..

April 2, 2015
Animals/Pets Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Love
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Why...

Is there no kind of border, post code or demarcation point for where dogs can crap without the owner having to pick it up? At what point do you say to yourself when bending down wearing a cheap smelling pooh bag as a glove “What am I doing this for? I’m nearly a time zone away from the nearest village.” I always clear up in town after my dogs have answered the call of nature (cats seem to get away scot free though). If I see people let their dogs foul a footpath or park, I march up to them and hand them my own dogs pooh in a bag saying, “I think you forgot this.” They usually are quite shocked, then embarrassed, yet accept the bag. A small victory but quite satisfying. The other day I took my two pugs out to the country. They are essentially town dogs, as metrosexual as David Beckham or P.Diddy. They think mud is what you put on your face whilst having a ‘manny/peddy’, the TV remote is for chewing not sharing and strenuous exercise is running in from the garden to eat their lunch in the kitchen. However I convinced them to go for a walk with my brother-in-law’s labrador way out in the wilds last year. As soon as the big dog got into the forest, it answered the age-old question about what a bear does in the woods. The labrador had a sh*t. After a moment he casually carried on with his walk. My two pugs started barking and ran after the labrador, twitching their noses at him. They then shot me a look. “Hey, buddy. Watch this. Each time we have a crap that idiot comes up with a bag and scoops it up.” The lab stopped, a foreleg lifted in mid-air. “You gotta’ be kidding, ” he said, raising his ears and giving me a furtive glance. My two pugs immediately squatted down and in perfect unison like a pair of synchronised swimmers did their business. I calmly walked by leaving their gift to nature in the grass, relieved at one advantage of being way out in the country. The look of shock on my dogs was palpable. “What the f…? He always picks it up, ” they pleaded looking at the lab who had been watching the non-show. “Lying Townies, ” replied the labrador and with a snort ran off. We may not talk to the animals but they sure talk to each other. And they try and talk to us.

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Might Putin lose his marbles?

March 6, 2015
Finance/Law Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Politics Travel/Nature
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Why...

If you obligingly scratch the big Russian Bear’s back, in return he’s apt to claw anyone you ask him to. Greece and the new Syriza Party are now threatening to veto EU sanctions against Russia. Neither country seem to care a fig about convention and opinion except their own domestic popularity. How tempting it must be for Russia to return the Elgin Marbles on loan from the British Museum to Greece. In a mad way it makes sense. It would be an enormously positive result for new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and a neat riposte from the Russian President Putin under siege in the UK over the Litvinenko affair!

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Sorry. Your toddler ain’t Einstein

Why...

I understand no parent is going to say to their friends that “My child is as thick as a whale omelette”………… But when pointing to their offspring gurgling “car” while pointing at the family pet, why do parents always say “Isn’t he lovely? But did you know little Tommy is very advanced for his age…….” Just because your nipper can insert a spoon of apple puree into his mouth instead of an ear, does not necessarily mark him out as a future brain surgeon. There is a long way to go from sitting in your own pooh to sitting in your own Porsche.

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All posts in category: Kids/Family/Relations

When will we ever learn...

Why...

Just pack it in...

Why...

Holiday reading... nah this is not far-fetched enough

Why...

Listen to Einstein. May I present the all in one shredder, vacuum cleaner and sprinkler system...

Why...

Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow you will want to strangle the relatives

Why...

Ear ye, ear ye....

Why...

It's an AMENDMENT dummy. It's already been altered....

Why...

Beware! Hair... It is not Darwinian but it's certainly Machiavellian...

Why...

Drip drip drip, my patience is going down the drain......

Why...

Psycho taught me to fear the shower.......

Why...

Beware, Card Shark

Why...

I name this child Hildergaard…. Whether she likes it or not.

Why...

It's called Christmas, dummy!

Why...

When did you last read The Dark Nag?

Why...

The Pre-nag. Conversation’s elegant skewer

Why...

The Vacation Car Rental Experience…only Satan tries harder

Why...

Fill her up please with Starbucks latte and can you check the oil is sun factor 50?

Why...

It’s not Dr. Doolittle who talks to the animals…..

Why...

Might Putin lose his marbles?

Why...

Sorry. Your toddler ain’t Einstein

Why...