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If you want to sell me something, don’t steal my time

October 1, 2023
Entertainment/Media/Arts Politics Sex Technology
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Why...

Do companies blather on for eternity trying to convince me to buy the latest wonder; be it a drug to change me into a rampant teenage sex God, an electrical thingummybob to turn my stomach into ab heaven or gel that could grow hair on a billiard ball.

In each case the purveyors of this snake oil somehow believe that teasing out, in a thirty minute commercial, what we really want to know (ie price and what the miracle is made from) will be a help to their pitch.

It’s like they are performing a verbal striptease, teasing us with removing one piece of information only to reveal another layer rather than the ultimate goal!

Who on earth thinks this works? I would love to know the percentage of those people who click and start to watch these video versions of a shaggy dog story to who actually get to the end. 5%?

I’m about as likely to watch this endless drivel as I am to pay Elon Musk to be on TwiX or whatever he calls it.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

The Betamax of the Car Industry

Why...

Do we allow people who know so little about engines and power make policy to regulate them?

Please don’t take this blog as a peon to the internal combustion engine. I am as aware as anyone who either has a window or a TV of climate change. It’s just the hysteria don’t always match the facts!

I seem to remember the Blair Government in the UK going all lovey- dovey about diesel a few years ago. The fact that taxes were jacked up to make the fuel the same price as petrol and create a windfall of revenue to the Chancellor surely had nothing to do with it!

And now diesel is the ‘sperm of Satan’ after the fall out following the dodgy VW claims. It is banned forever from anyone’s list of power… despite the fact new diesel engines are remarkably clean. “No. Diesel was a bad mistake. It must be banished,” Politicians cry sincerely. Knee jerk reaction by populist short term thinkers.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

🎵 Well it’s one for the money, Two for the show, Three to get ready, Now throw, cat, throw 🎵

August 20, 2023
Animals/Pets Entertainment/Media/Arts Finance/Law Food & Drink
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Why...

Have people started flinging things at stage performers? Adele recently at her Las Vegas concert dared anyone to throw anything at her and see what happened! Well, it’s not exactly a new phenomenon. Originally performers were paid by money thrown at them on stage. I assume the more that was thrown the more grateful they were. Tom Jones has had enough knickers thrown at him to supply a decent sized Marks and Spencer store and no doubt Ozzy Osbourne has enough headless bats to build a wall. Recently the objects have ranged from a lemon at Arianne Grande (is that a subtle comment), a dildo at Lil Nas X, a mobile phone lobbed at Drake, a teddy at Lady Gaga and weirdest of all, the urn of a fan’s dead mother’s ashes tossed at Pink! (Before that someone tossed her a Brie de Meaux cheese)! There are three issues here that worry me. Firstly, who goes to a concert with a massive roundel of cheese or even a funeral urn as something suitable to toss at a performer. Secondly, with supposed security at these events how on earth do they get in? Thirdly, don’t the people sitting next to them think this is a tad unusual?

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Madam, what do you keep in your drawers

July 30, 2023
Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Life Love
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Why...

Are our drawers filled so randomly?

When I need a suitable coffee cup for a cappuccino it’s right top shelf above the fridge. A small cup for an espresso is top left above sink. I mean, isn’t everyone the same?

Random draw pulling in other people’s homes searching for something is an occupational hazard when cooking for friends.

I used to think the way we fill our cupboards and drawers is 100% random. When you move house your ultimate goal apart from not strangling builders or recommending the electrician to a good vivisectionist is unpack, unpack, unpack.

Who cares which drawers contain toothpaste, soup bowls or neckwear? You just stuff it in relieved that another cardboard box has bitten the dust. However, having recently gone through the experience (more like trauma) of moving, my wife and I have found our subconscious has been in overdrive.

Because I unloaded kitchen apparatus and my back creaks bending down or stretching up, weight was the driving factor where things got stored. No more mixing bowls on bottom shelf or air fryer on a top one. Now heavy things are all on middle drawers… but being chief unpacker also had other advantages. Things my wife enjoys but I dislike, such as pulses, peanut butter and gherkin’s miraculously now appear at the end of cupboards whereas things I enjoy are right at eye level dead centre; Marmite, Branflakes dark chocolate and cheese biscuits.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

I am still scared of the dentist - My dog should be too!

July 22, 2023
Animals/Pets Fasion Health & Beauty Technology
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Why...

Does mentioning the dentist to me still bring up images of Lawrence Oliver and Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man?

I suspect my generation are the last of those truly frightened of dentists as we grew up in the white heat of torture during the 1960’s. Back then my dentist thought you were a cissy if you wanted novocaine for a filling, and scrapped tartar of my teeth with a grouting tool. Even now in Malta, with a fabulous dentist who has not inflicted even a tickle during a visit, I still get cold sweats as I go through the doors. I swear he has cloven hoofs and a tail poking out from under his white garment.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

🎶We’re off to see the Wizard, 🎵The wonderful Wizard of ...

Why...

Is looking forward to a holiday nearly as good as going on one?

We have not travelled outside of the U.K. and European time zones since December 2020! I don’t think I have spent two years in the same time zone since I was six!

However, we have taken the plunge and planning to go to Cambodia at the beginning of next year. It’s months away of course, but the mere fact we have an itinerary to exotic sounding places has lightened my footsteps and my spirits.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

I’m back and I’d rather hang myself than another picture

July 2, 2023
Animals/Pets Food & Drink Life Technology
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Why...

Did I persuade my wife to let me help us move? The last 6 weeks I have neither written this blog nor a sentence of my next novel… that I started in April!

My darling wife and indeed our marriage had survived five previous house moves during which for one reason or another I was unable to be there.

I decided this time things would be different but should have heeded the look of foreboding on my wife’s face.

Patience is something I have always interpreted as not doing something now. Well, it isn’t when it comes to moving. Patience is a basic ingredient. Rather than methodically unpack one box at a time if I decide I need something I open twenty looking for it. I then get frustrated and need to lie down… leaving a huge mess.

As you might imagine this can cause industrial scale irritation in my wife. So banished from unpacking duties I become itching to put up every picture everywhere, I set about hanging them.

Here’s what my bruised ego and body have learnt.

1. Molly screws, which expand as if they were pregnant and are meant to allow you to secure things to plasterboard/gypsum or light walls to hang things from… are actually the devils fingers that are more likely to flip you the bird than be of any use.

2. Those white hooks with tiny masonry nails that are meant to make drilling holes a thing of the past, well they don’t work either. They have the durability and dependability of Liz Truss’ previous Tory government. Firstly, the hooks themselves crack at the slightest pressure. Secondly, after a few weeks hanging something up, each hook can suddenly say:

“Nah, had enough of this…” and call time on staying put and instead jump out the wall.

3. Electric screwdrivers are all very well until they shred cheap screw heads and leave you with a half drilled in screw with no way of removing it.

4. White painted walls may look clean but they mark even by just looking at them.

5. Parasols no matter how expensive or how heavy the base always blow over in a mild breeze and never last more than two years.

6. The heaviest furniture always lives in the most difficult part of the house to reach.

7. Super glue is never the answer, but double sided extra strong Gorilla tape is a gift from the Gods.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Whatever happened to bath time?

Why...

Do I nearly always shower? A long soak in the tub comes from an era when things were less hurried. Bath time for me now evokes a period in England that is ‘mid Agatha Christie’. Milk was delivered to your door and fruit flavoured ice lollies contained no actual fruit, only additives. Women wore A line skirts and no one ever swore on TV. Any form of ablution was to be enjoyed, be it a bath full of ducks, battleships or even other playmates! And nearly always at the end of the day so you could take as long as wanted. Morning showers have sort of crept up on me as the only way to clean. I have lived for two years in this house and whose bath is a whirlpool. In that time the only things ever washed in it have been the dogs! As a kid the idea of a whirlpool bath would have offered more fun than an aircraft hanger sized slot car track. Creating bubbles without having to fart would have been nirvana; the idea it was big enough for all your friends to splash about would have been so exciting that I would have performed household chores just to be able to have a bath like that!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Moving house? I am going away!

April 23, 2023
Kids/Family/Relations Technology Travel/Nature
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Why...

Would any sane married couple go through moving together? Let alone reassembling everything in a new location. When we actually move, my wife has banished me in case she decides to strangle me.

I have already been through a clear out of possessions that has been a mixture of surprise and horror. Surprise at the things I thought I had lost forever, and horror that I had paid for them to follow me like the rats and the Pied Piper of Hamlin from the UK to my two previous homes here in Malta.

I am sure there was a point in my life when a belly button cleaner, singing fish, cassettes, CDs and DVDs seemed essential, but those days are gone. Much as it pains me to see I once paid £17.50 for a CD, they now need to go to the big juke box in the sky. And no, please don’t tell me I can make a fortune on sites like Magpie. Living here in Malta exporting or importing anything is absurdly expensive. We have probably filled a couple of charity shops with enough things to keep them busy for months. Some stuff I could not believe they sold within days! Who goes to a charity shop looking for bongo drums, but a pair we donated were snapped up faster than a lock of Elvis’ hair!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Assault and Battery

Why...

Is something as simple as buying a battery as confusing as the tariff at an airport garage?

Does anyone know which of these batteries from Duracell are the best? Duracell Plus Power +50% more power or Duracell Ultra Power. Let alone Energiser Power Plus or Energiser Extreme. And both of these are before you even get to lithium, rechargeable etc., ya-di-ya-di-ya. All I know is they always seem to run out when you have no spares in the house. And despite all this extra super long blurb, how come there is a battery in Oxford that has been ringing a bell for 180 years or 10 billion tings but my battery corkscrew can barely manage a dozen bottles?

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Attention impoverished authors, here is a surefire bestseller with forever royalties

Why...

Struggle at the typewriter?

It seems to me the woke brigade have won in their determination to extract the humour chromosome from humans along with rejecting any disagreement with their point of view as either racist, right wing or offensive.

Ladies and Gentlemen, where is the woke version of the biggest selling book in the world? No, not Agatha Christie or the terms and conditions of Twitter… but The Bible.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

“Liar Liar Pants on Fire”

March 12, 2023
Entertainment/Media/Arts Life Politics Technology
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Why...

Is watching 24 hour news reminding me of a primary school fight over break-time sticky buns?

If you try and explain to kids today that once we only had a news reader who told us the facts, leaving us to make up our own minds as to the substance, they look at you with utter incredulity.

The trouble all started with CNN and 24 hour news. Someone or something had to fill in the time between bulletins so what could be better or cheaper than an organised debate between opposing views.

Of course that’s about as exciting as watching toast get cold. However, screaming, shouting, abuse and the odd guest even flouncing out of the studio in a strop, is ratings gold. So out went decorum, in came the forum. In fact worse than the forum, more like the Colosseum with the collective audience giving the thumbs up or down as to who can live or die.

Who cares if fact takes second place to drama? Fuel to the fire was added with the relentless advance of digital media, where people’s inability to grasp basic facts is not a valid argument against them!

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

R.I.P. MIDDLE AGE

March 5, 2023
Fasion Health & Beauty Friends Kids/Family/Relations Sex Travel/Nature
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Why...

Am I not dressed in grey leather shoes and polyester trousers?

One of the casualties of every generation since the Silent Generation (1935-1950), has been the demise of Middle Age.

Right now, the only limits to me behaving as I did in my youth are physical.

I do not own a tartan coloured shopping trolley with matching tartan booties. I don’t possess a cardigan, a pipe or a jacket with leather elbow pads. Nor, do I endlessly suck on a Werther's Original caramel or have a glass by my bedside for dentures.

Right now, if you take a photo of a group of a hundred people, they may display their own tribal colours but within that tribe, between the ages of 25-65, are actually pretty alike.

Yet when I look at photos of my salad days and at people now my age, they all appear distinctly different to the youth that’s with them. The women are all dressed in ‘A’ line skirts surrounded by Tupperware containers. The men either have a comb-over or a short back and sides haircut, and are in ties and lace up brogues, even on weekends. Folk barely fifteen years younger are in jeans, with varying lengths of hair and a perpetual grin on their faces.

All the middle aged were so different from the youth. They all respected the speed limit and positions of authority. The men shaved every day but the women never did. Married couples were rarely able to travel beyond home shores and certainly never ate food that was not either frozen or a domestic recipe. There was fear of the foreign rather than curiosity. And nearly all had the same job in the same firm all their lives. Sad.

My generation has actually found the secret to eternal youth. Act like you want, not how you should.

I may now wake up with a sixty-year old’s body, but my mind and mannerisms are distinctly those of a thirty-five year old. I ignore that old man as I get in my car for a blast down a country road, work out in a gym or cuddle my beloved wife.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Welcome aboard. This is your Captain speaking

Why...

Are people so keen to replace commercial airline pilots with computers?

If I remember correctly the ‘unfailable’ systems of SouthWest airlines failed in June 2021. It was Southwests turn again in December 2022. British Airways and numerous others have also had to severely restrict or halt services due to computer ‘glitches’. Even the rock solid computer system of the Federal Aviation Administration went tits up in January 2023.

So far I don’t recall a single pilot or co-pilot flopping over in the cockpit needing a reboot.

Now that isn’t to say I go all misty eyed about losing usherettes at the Cinema or bus conductors on the Number 72, but frankly I prefer a human being in charge of an aluminium bullet travelling at near 600 mph

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

Twenty goes into sixty a lot more times than sixty goes into twenty

Why...

Do the media nearly always portray the old rich guy who gets the trophy wife, rather than the Merry Widow snagging a twenty year old toy boy? Let’s face it, when it comes to old age women have us men beat. Today’s female grey wolves were lucky enough to have bought property fifty years ago for the current price of a Plasma TV screen. When their other half sadly shuffles off the mortal coil some widows will have amassed considerable fortunes. Male goldmines are still hotwired by nature to their groin, so most gold diggers come in one size fits all sugar daddy model; a trout mouth pneumatic busted blond, often with an IQ rating matching their shoe size. There is nothing wrong with that. I always remember the ecstatic grin on the wheelchair bound J.Howard Marshall who married playmate of the year Anna Nicole Smith. But women have a far more eclectic selection process. Obviously fit and toned but this new age toy boy is going to have work hard for the money.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

2023 ... hero or villain?

December 25, 2022
Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Sex Travel/Nature
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Why...

At the beginning of each year, do we go through this ritual inspection of the chicken entrails to reveal the booby traps or goodies awaiting us in the New Year? If you are a sentient being with an IQ bigger than your shoe size, you already know the answer. In sport there will be a couple of upsets, otherwise the usual suspects clean up at everything. Politics and global warming will get hotter and a couple of natural disasters will blight lives. Mid-summer a silly story about some animal being able to perform open heart surgery, play a Beethoven sonata or predict the outcome of a football match will make worldwide headlines. A big rock star will fall off his perch as well as a past-it-sell-by-date TV show will get the ax. Two certainties are the winner of the Best Actress at the Oscars will cry, and then suggest the category is sexist and should just be for best actor.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

🎶 Rudolf the red nose reindeer, 🎵 Had a very shiny nose … due to alcohol and drug abuse?

December 18, 2022
Fasion Health & Beauty Kids/Family/Relations Sex
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Why...

Are so many nursery rhymes and fairy tales hidden stories of sex drugs and booze? Let’s start with Rudolf. The only way you have a shiny red nose is excessive booze or cocaine; in which case he certainly should not be driving late at night over vast distances and at warp factor speeds. Snow White. So are we really to believe she lives with seven men and no one tries any hanky panky? Then there are the names. Bashful, Sleepy, Happy, Grumpy, Dopey, Doc and Sneezy are all as a result of cocaine. Hence, Snow White. Ah, I see that’s got you all thinking now! We all know Samuel Taylor Coleridge was high as a kite dreaming of Kubla Khan, Xanadu and The Pleasure Dome, when the postman woke him up... only time I suspect he was not happy to have a package delivered. Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass are an absolute drug smorgasbord. Alice is constantly eating magic mushrooms or drinking (laudanum) potions that have a dramatic effect on her. The caterpillar and his (opium) pipe, the white (cocaine) rabbit who is continually and frenetically running about saying he is late, and a cat stoned off his whiskers who simply vanishes.

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I want to be left alone - TV and magazine interviews on exactly why, to follow.

December 12, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Fasion Health & Beauty Friends Sex Technology
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Why...

Do some people who shriek for privacy, remind me of a quote from Hamlet, “The lady doth protest too much, me thinks”. In days gone by, certain people really meant it when they withdrew from the limelight. Every female mimic in the world vamps us as Greta Garbo famously saying “Dahlink, I vant to be left alone”. The difference then was the Swedish icon stuck to it. No frantic interviews as to why she wanted to pull away from the public, an oxymoron of an event if ever there was one. She retreated to Manhattan and her art collection. Manhattan! Can you imagine that? No seeking out the paparazzi and in the one of the most publicity hungry cities on earth. At the height of her fame and beauty she had decided to retreat from the world, possibly due to the negative reviews of The Two Faced Woman. She was 36. The title of that failed movie is pretty ironic when you look at the two-faced women since, who have protested their desire for privacy but who continue seeking the limelight and would attend even the opening of a fridge.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

🎶Memories are made of this🎵

December 4, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Fasion Health & Beauty Finance/Law Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Sex Sport Technology
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Why...

Can nostalgia be dangerous? Brrrm Brrrm! Walking straight onto a plane with no security checks Carrying my speargun as cabin baggage in a plane First and business class transatlantic flights with no beds Airplane tickets made by travel agents only Smoking carriages on the subway/smoking sections on a plane Asking what is the movie on the plane Hovercraft to France Railway carriages with compartments and corridors Going for a Sunday drive 101 Octane Fuel Buses with conductors Driving without a seatbelt Just a radio with a single speaker in the car Spare tyres in cars No speed limits on motorways Electric Milk Floats Parking meters fed with coins

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The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world

Why...

Is Nanny so under appreciated? When I was a nipper, I was lucky enough to have had several people look after me in my early years. My first, Nanny Roberts, was a cross between Margaret Rutherford and a rugby prop forward from Pontypridd in Wales. She was absolutely terrifying complete with white apron and hat like a server from Mickey D. I was always free to question her decisions, but rarely had the temerity to do so. She could probably have made me pee in my pants.But then again I adored her! She foisted upon me manners and life lessons along with traits and hang-ups that still haunt me now. I can still hear her hiss at me “Don’t eat with your mouth open or the tooth fairy might come along one night and pull all your teeth out!” It takes every effort for me not to blurt that out if I see someone munching open mouthed at another table in a restaurant, some sixty years after I last heard her say it. The fact that some expert told Cosmopolitan Magazine ‘that chewing open mouthed may actually help to release more of the volatile organic compounds, contributing to our sense of smell and the overall perception’ would have only confirmed her very dim view of the magazine. But when I was ill or hurt she was the ultimate comforter. And if someone biffed me at school she would make her displeasure known to the offending child’s parents, usually suggesting they get a decent Nanny to pump some manners into their offspring. Having been grilled over my appearance, told to always comb my hair, and forced to wear sensible lace up shoes when going on walks, she at least left me with the ability to tie a bow… let alone a sense of complete shame if my fingernails are dirty. Later on we switched to Au Pair girls, some of whom were breathtakingly beautiful. I remember a blond Danish girl called Bambi who was the spitting image of Julie Christie. I got to spend every evening looking at her with my eyes as wide as an owl’s. She taught me a Danish nursery rhyme that I can still perform at the drop of a Danish bacon sarnie. I cannot repeat with such clarity anything else from that period.

..and another thing (continue to read this post)

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See all posts for

If you want to sell me something, don’t steal my time

Why...

The Betamax of the Car Industry

Why...

🎵 Well it’s one for the money, Two for the show, Three to get ready, Now throw, cat, throw 🎵

Why...

Madam, what do you keep in your drawers

Why...

I am still scared of the dentist - My dog should be too!

Why...

🎶We’re off to see the Wizard, 🎵The wonderful Wizard of ...

Why...

I’m back and I’d rather hang myself than another picture

Why...

Whatever happened to bath time?

Why...

Moving house? I am going away!

Why...

Assault and Battery

Why...

Attention impoverished authors, here is a surefire bestseller with forever royalties

Why...

“Liar Liar Pants on Fire”

Why...

R.I.P. MIDDLE AGE

Why...

Welcome aboard. This is your Captain speaking

Why...

Twenty goes into sixty a lot more times than sixty goes into twenty

Why...

2023 ... hero or villain?

Why...

🎶 Rudolf the red nose reindeer, 🎵 Had a very shiny nose … due to alcohol and drug abuse?

Why...

I want to be left alone - TV and magazine interviews on exactly why, to follow.

Why...

🎶Memories are made of this🎵

Why...

The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world

Why...