All posts in category: Entertainment/Media/Arts

It’s called a light switch, Detective

Why...

Do so many cop shows feature earnest looking detectives flashing a torch as they enter a building looking for someone, when there is a perfectly good light switch nearby?

Flashlights are quickly joining forces with other cop cliches

1) How bad the coffee is in a police station,

2) There’s always a parking spot right where it’s needed

3) A cop with a troubled home life or estranged spouse, leading to personal phone interruptions mid-case.

4) The mismatched partners forced to work together, often a “family man” paired with a “loner” or eccentric cop

5) The cantankerous police boss who constantly chews out the main cop and threatens to take their badge.

6) The cell phone signal dropping or battery expiring at a vital moment And finally

7) Police and FBI fighting over jurisdiction with “This is OUR case!” arguments.

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

I talk to machinery - sometimes it answers back

September 14, 2025
Entertainment/Media/Arts Life Technology Work
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Why...

Do I give inanimate objects a personality? When Basil Fawlty from sitcom Fawlty Towers scolds his car and warns it if it does not start he would give it ‘a damn good thrashing’ then proceeds to attack it with a tree trunk, I can’t help but laugh. Not because of Fawlty but I believe the car didn’t start out of its own sheer bloody-mindedness. As a petrolhead, I have owned a wide variety of cars over the years. Some I used to talk to on long drives, discussing everything from sex to politics. Others I barely grunted at, certain they had a perverse desire to tip me into the nearest hedgerow and get a different owner. Only very few did I not communicate with at all. Those lasted the shortest time in my ownership. The attribution of emotion to inanimate objects might seem daft, but in fact it covers up a multitude of sins. Lawnmower won’t start? It’s because it’s pissed about being dirty; not the reality of you buying a duff brand. By giving ‘things’ a soul, you give them an ‘excuse’ for not always working for other reasons than just being not a good choice. It’s a backstop for my ego. “Darling, the oven switched off halfway through cooking the turkey, not because I set the timer wrong but because it didn’t like the oven cleaner you used last time. Christmas lunch will now be Christmas dinner.”

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

Ancient persians debated laws twice - drunk and sober. They only enacted them if they came to the same decision

July 27, 2025
Entertainment/Media/Arts Finance/Law Friends Kids/Family/Relations
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Why...

Did our forebears not only display deep wisdom but also a sense of humour dealing with the law? I am not advocating chopping a baby in half, as suggested by King Solomon, as an optimal solution to a disagreement. However, the slap of common sense across the face of the ‘litigators’ was what worked.

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

Oh Joy! A new travel torture

March 17, 2025
Entertainment/Media/Arts Life Travel/Nature
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Why...

Do airport managers spend so much time thinking of ways to make a journey through their fiefdom so unpleasant? I dislike intensely zigzag queuing but understand that it’s an efficient way to stack a lot of people in a confined space. However, when there are no queues, zigzagging like some demented pinball to achieve going forward twenty feet by a walk that would be an Olympic long distance event, is completely daft.

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

Michelin stars need to shine a light on their black holes of Calcutta

September 21, 2024
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Sex
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Why...

Do fancy restaurants insist on the loos being as dark as a coal hole? My wife complains she can never find anything in her handbag, let alone have enough light to touch up her war paint. As for me, after a few glasses of Bordeaux, these black holes are an obstacle course. More than once I have returned from turning wine into water with a bruised leg or burgeoning black-eye.

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

It is completely unimportant who will vote… But what is extraordinarily important is the people who count the votes and how - Joe Stalin

Why...

When we can create such marvel’s as the Hadron Collider, the Millau Viaduct, eye transplants and microwave popcorn, can we not create tamper proof voting systems? My American niece’s partner is in the election business and has a brain the size of a planet, so I only understand about ten percent of what he says. But if I grasp the basic gist you could make things 100% foolproof… but no one agrees unanimously to the system yet! As you all know I steer away from any personal political stance on these missives, but I would have thought life in the US, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, China and India might have been less bumpy if there was 100% confidence in the X cast for a vote. But of course outside of the first example I presume the people in power in the other countries listed don’t really want a foolproof system. They want one they can manipulate. There are those who say the same for the US… but that’s a dangerous path I don’t want to go down. Rather like playing hopscotch on a mine field.

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

Champagne to our real friends, Real pain to our sham friends

Why...

The long silence?

Apologies all round.

I have just completed my third book, giving my agent the pitch of two completed books to secure a new publishing deal on top of my published first book Fall Out (by MN Grenside available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle or audio book. Got to be allowed a plug. It’s Christmas)!

This has meant much of the time when I would be tapping out these missives I have been completing the trilogy. Even as I write this on a plane to New York to see a number of producers about film and TV rights, I have spent a few hours noodling over book four.

I thoroughly enjoy my new occupation as a published author, despite some days of staring at a blank screen for hours on end. Even more frustrating is deleting large sections that a few days before I reckoned were ubergripping but I see now are as exciting as watching toast get cold!

Writing is the creative equivalent of three steps forward and two steps back…with a zillion miles to walk.

So, this is my apology for my recent silence and undertaking that normal service will be resumed in 2024.

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

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)

🎵 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)

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)

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

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

What will you do over the holiday season?

November 13, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Kids/Family/Relations Technology
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Why...

Does the impending holiday season now revolve exclusively around my TV? Firstly I should say that while tapping out this blog, the sky here in Malta is blue and the dogs are sunbathing in 22c/72f. Thanksgiving and Christmas are about as far from my mind as next year’s tax bill. However television commercials insist on dragging me away from my balmy reality into the fantasy of snow, turkey, goodwill to all men….and get me to start buying. I really do not understand how these companies who start commercials in November and scatterbomb the schedule for nearly two months with the same message, think this warms viewers to their cause. No matter how brilliant a commercial is, there comes a tipping point when repeated viewing turns into watching it again is worse than nails dragged down a backboard.

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

For ffff fakes sake

October 10, 2022
Animals/Pets Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Technology
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Why...

Care about a fake? I note with interest a puff piece in The London Times about the Hollywood nouveau riche hiring Art Consultants. The need is because these well coiffed beings can shuffle their A list clients to the heads of the queue to get a chance to gobble up a piece of art before anyone else. It also makes A listers feel less insecure having someone there to praise or confirm their good taste or have the expert lend Hollywood Royalty some of their own. Really? I agree if you made a few zillion dollars parading around in Spandex with the superpower to create a hurricane by blowing through your nose, you don’t really have much credibility as a Serious Actor; but in the art world, like any other, money is money. If the Hulk is prepared to pay more than a Titan of Wall Street for a scribble and dots by Cy Twombly, let the richest man win. I would lend more credibility to all these art experts were it not for the unfeasibly large amount of fakes or overbid artwork that has been sold to our brave Hollywood friends! As long ago as 1989 Sylvester Stallone sued his art consultant for $5m.(Brave person. I would have been more worried about a jab and a hook rather than a law suit). Steve Martin bought a fake Heinrich Campendonk (crazy name crazy guy) as have hoards of others. It appears these consultants no more protect you from a painting by Pinocchio rather than Pollock as anyone else

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

Oh, to be CEO of an energy company

September 13, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Kids/Family/Relations
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Why...

Am I feeling the teensiest bit envious today? They used to say the definition of rich was when you could not hear your spoon hit the bottom of the caviar jar. This winter in the UK, rich as Croesus will be if you can live in your home without wearing thermal underwear or not sucking on frozen TV meals like ice lollies. Meanwhile the Czars of energy will be taking a dip in their heated swimming pool followed by a nice sauna and a dinner of roasted lark’s tongues and baked Alaska, the country not the pudding. Well, my imagination is a strange thing but you get the picture. Now don’t get me wrong. If you build up a company from scratch, eat nothing but pot noodle and sleep on a bean bag for years, you deserve all the rewards you reap. But common decency also needs to step in. Do you really have to pay yourself £469m per annum (as is alleged for Bet 365 founder Denise Coates)? Greed seems to have made a comeback, making its first appearance in the 1980’s when it meant missing lunch with Gordon Gekko, look like it was a philanthropist. What is more galling is most of these energy companies are not run by the people who created them. Talented as I am sure they are, these are salaried people, whose risk reward ratio has gone potty. Someone was always going to be head of these companies. Unless I missed a trick, none of them persuaded Putin to duff up Ukraine causing a tenfold hike in what Vlad charges for a therm of gas, so resulting in the energy companies with a bonanza of profits and bonuses. The current situation for the energy companies is really serendipity.

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

Disco. It still exists. Only in nightmares. Or holidays

July 17, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Sex Travel/Nature
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Why...

To add to the list of things you do on holiday and leave on holiday is dancing to disco music.

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

If an airline can charge you for a seat on a plane that does not exist, why can they also charge you if you don’t appear at the gate?

July 3, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Finance/Law Friends Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
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Why...

Are some airlines hellbent on pi##ing off their passengers, whilst some notable exceptions bend over backwards to be helpful? Let’s face it. Airports in certain cities are in chaos. I recently heard of a passenger checking into First Class on an international carrier asking for his bags to go to Rio as he went to New York. An exasperated check in staff called over the manager who explained this was simply impossible. Baggage had to accompany the passenger. “Well, you managed it last time I flew to New York”, came the response, to a ripple of applause from other passengers.

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

It’s not about the money … honestly

June 19, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Finance/Law Sport
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Why...

Is everyone so coy about admitting ‘I am doing it for the money?’ There is a huge brouhaha going on because a bunch of sportsmen dressed in awful tartan and plaid clothing have decided to whack a few balls around God’s largest bunker, Saudi Arabia. Now, dear reader, have a guess what attracted these already rich men to play golf there? Was it… 1. The quality and diversity of the golf courses bathed in 100 degree heat 2. The range of free alcoholic beverages on offer 3. The chance to dance the night away with local unescorted ladies in some jiving nightclub and the wonderful variety of nightlife and entertainment 4. The opportunity to mingle freely with people of either sex or sexual orientation without fear of segregation or arrest 5. Their support to the regime that chopped up poor journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018, and has a habit of beheading people whose sexual orientation or religion they disagree with, bans free speech and can use torture as a punishment from courts…… or 6. Could it possibly be the multimillion dollar prize money? Whilst trying not to reveal themselves as the money grabbing venal people most of us are, the golfers have tied themselves into a Gordian knot trying to say money was the last reason they agreed to the tour. Such a shame. I would have hugely respected the man who had piped up and said: “The only reason to visit this godforsaken sandpit with stone-age rules about women and gay people is to make vast amounts of money. If people honestly believe my presence here has anything to do with supporting a repressive regime they are either dreaming or drive in Formula I.” Previous F1 events have taken place in such well known beacons of human rights as Russia, Turkey, Bahrain, China, Qatar, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia and AbuDhabi.

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

Why a spring break is like a Pringle

May 29, 2022
Entertainment/Media/Arts Fasion Health & Beauty Friends Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
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Why...

During two years of lockdown and feeling like Papillon on Devil’s Island, locked in and no way out, my wife and I took the sports car to Sicily then on to Calabria and Puglia in the boot of Italy. The problem was we did not want to come home. After being cooped up in Malta, an island so small you could carpet it in an afternoon, the sense of freedom was overwhelming. And just like a single Pringle, a short break is not nearly enough. Had we not had two pooches waiting for us, we would be in Croatia by now on the way to Istanbul!

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

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All posts in category: Entertainment/Media/Arts

It’s called a light switch, Detective

Why...

I talk to machinery - sometimes it answers back

Why...

Ancient persians debated laws twice - drunk and sober. They only enacted them if they came to the same decision

Why...

Oh Joy! A new travel torture

Why...

Michelin stars need to shine a light on their black holes of Calcutta

Why...

It is completely unimportant who will vote… But what is extraordinarily important is the people who count the votes and how - Joe Stalin

Why...

Champagne to our real friends, Real pain to our sham friends

Why...

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

Why...

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

Why...

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

Why...

“Liar Liar Pants on Fire”

Why...

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

Why...

🎶Memories are made of this🎵

Why...

What will you do over the holiday season?

Why...

For ffff fakes sake

Why...

Oh, to be CEO of an energy company

Why...

Disco. It still exists. Only in nightmares. Or holidays

Why...

If an airline can charge you for a seat on a plane that does not exist, why can they also charge you if you don’t appear at the gate?

Why...

It’s not about the money … honestly

Why...

Why a spring break is like a Pringle

Why...