All posts in category: Friends

Whatever time I wake up, I always feel everyone else should be awake

June 7, 2021
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Why...

Do Hospitals insist on waking patients up at 0:Dark Thirty?

Recently, due to a prolonged hospital stay where I was actually woken up each morning at 05:00, I now luxuriate in home visits from a nurse every morning at 07:00. So, my wife and I have been getting up at a time which in my younger nightclubbing days I would have just about been going to bed.

Before you all send me messages about how much earlier you get up, that is not the point. For me, I usually wake around 08:30 and down a heart-starting double macchiato by 09:00. Remember the commute to my office is a flight of stairs. So, for me I expect all my friends in the same time zone to be bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to talk within an hour and a half of my waking up, i.e 10:00.

Right now though,10:00 seems an eternity away from when I greet the dawn. 3 1/2 hours for European time and 4 1/2 for UK. I mean there is only so much shit, shower and shave, breakfast news, morning papers and Facebook abuse a man can take. I need human contact outside of my beloved wife!

I start to wonder who will equally be up early because of kids or gym. At least I can call friends in LA when I get up. It’s early evening for them.

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As lockdown is over we wondered if we could come visit and have a dip in your pool?

April 18, 2021
Friends Kids/Family/Relations Technology Travel/Nature
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Why...

Do I suspect our home is about to be invaded by numbers that make the Mongol hordes look like a tea party?

Over the next four months my wife and I are bracing ourselves not only for requests to visit from dear and close friends, but everyone I have ever met; from the STD doctor I once spilt coffee over and gave my gentleman’s sausage third degree burns, to a Fulham traffic warden who gave me so many tickets he knew my name. He’d even stop me in the street to tell me he’d just given me another ticket or worse what he called a curbie grip (clamp).

The pent up desire from people in Northern climes to ‘come and unwind’ for a few days now they are released from Covid’s lockdown embrace, could eventually transform me from a gracious host into Basil Fawlty.

As some readers know, the problem is people think because you live by the sea in a warm environment that you are de facto permanently on holiday. No, it’s home! I work from here! It’s like assuming because you choose to live in Des Moines you are as bland as sliced bread... well actually that’s true, bad example... but you know what I mean. No matter where you live, in a Palace in Pacific Palisades to a bivouac in Hackensack. It’s home. Not a holiday.

Some people are shocked when you cannot drive them to see the worlds largest bunion (or whatever your locale has made famous) or that the fridge is getting low on beer.

“Yeah the red burns on my arm are not caused by the sun but permanently working on the bar-b-q”, I add dryly to a enquiry as to my health.

Please note... actually it’s barbe a queue, literally beard to tail when you spit roast a chicken or even a pig on an open fire. So now we not only have to thank the French for their Letters (think about it, it’s a subtle joke) but also allowing Australians to think they can cook.

I digress...

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2021 Summer Holidays... Club 18-30 will be empty. It’s going to be all oldies

March 7, 2021
Friends Kids/Family/Relations Sex Travel/Nature
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Why...

Will all the nightclubs this summer be full of Old Age Pensioners?

Amid all this rushing to get anyone in touching distance of being old injected against Covid, we will have left the younger generation alone.

“They’re not at risk. They can wait.”

Maybe...

I have to assume that this summer no one is going to be able to venture overseas without proof of inoculation. Come forward most people over 55. What about the sex mad twenty somethings, a significant percentage of whom enjoy rumpy-pumpy 24 hours after landing on foreign shores! They are going nowhere. No inoculation, no overseas travel.

An entire generation will sit at home watching their parents and grandparents all dressed up in sombreros and sandals, off to the Continent to drown in Sangria, Mai Tai’s and Ambre Solaire.

On the Costa del Sol a backpacker is going to be as rare as a redneck with a full set off teeth. The whole vibe of this summer in Europe will change.

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2021... about bloody time!

December 29, 2020
Entertainment/Media/Arts Finance/Law Friends Kids/Family/Relations Uncategorised
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Why...

I shall stay up till midnight this New Year’s Eve?

Like guests who have overstayed their welcome and I shed crocodile tears as I wave a relieved good bye, I shall bid an un-fond farewell to 2020. Indeed, I shall stay up to make sure we do go into January 1st 2021 rather than have Groundhog Day and get stuck on 31 December 2020.

There is no need to dwell on the all the obvious reasons of why I shall be ecstatic to say Adieu to 2020; US elections, riots, Brexit and COVID.

Here are a few less known things that have expired and I am saying goodbye to in 2021.

My Tabasco sauce of five years,

My Lea & Perrins of ten years ago and

Any Twinkie cakes buried in the cupboard and bought when my Kindergarten teacher was born must also now go the the giant dustbin in the sky.

I know that within a month of every electrical guarantee expiring, the gadgets will all go phut... unless I paid money for an extension on the guarantee. The equipment will duly give up the ghost the next day after expiry of the longer warranty.

Unbelievably, beer only lasts four months from bottling. Whoever has kept beer that long anyway?

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Bruce Springsteen was right... 🎶 57 Channels and nothing on🎵

December 20, 2020
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Technology
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Why...

Can’t I find something to watch? The most common question I get nowadays is not about COVID measures, UK versus EU or how Donald Trump combs his hair. It is... “Have you seen a good series recently?” There are two things we all have in common during lockdown. One is continually opening the fridge and expecting to see different content despite not having been to the shops to feed it. The other is binge watching TV series, despite earlier stated noble ideas of learning via the Internet fluent Swahili or being able to perform open heart surgery armed only with a Swiss Army knife. This is where Springsteen was prophetic in his song from 1992. You would think with more drama being produced than ever before this would be easy. There is no doubt that the best of television now is the best ever created. The most talented writers, stars and directors are forming orderly queues outside the offices of Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, HBO and Amazon Prime. Unlike us at the cinema. However, I have a problem. Everyone wants to create a Fargo, The Bridge, Breaking Bad or other cutting edge shows. Sadly many fall as flat as one of my soufflés. Can we not have a sprinkling of less edgy but more accessible shows? Not every lead has to be damaged, not every scene shot at night or every plot about the evils of drugs, dysfunctional families, child abuse, serial killers or big Pharma. (PS this last group along with another baddie, single use plastic, have just saved our asses so back off a bit maybe?) I am not asking for wall to wall Murder She Wrote or Midsomer Murders. I have sleeping pills that have the same effect. However, there are numerous thrillers, drama stories and even comedy books out there that are a little more mainstream and would make great TV. Or do I need to be put down as I am obviously getting old and crinkly?

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This is not a full stop . It’s a lethal weapon

November 9, 2020
Entertainment/Media/Arts Friends Kids/Family/Relations Life
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Why...

Be woke? I understand the woke generation are now bleating that a full stop/period is offensive and could be taken as a sign of aggression. Therefore, it must no longer be used in punctuation. Aggression is when Hitler invaded Poland. Or hijacker Leila Khaled who was convicted as a terrorist took over a TWA jumbo jet in 1969. But recently she was invited to San Fransisco State University to address a forum on Gender Justice and Resistance. Did I miss reading about this exchange? “Right. We are taking over this plane. Men to the left aisle, women to the right. Those among you who are gender neutral, we will be letting you disembark.” I don’t think so.

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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!

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Exactly what is the definition of survival of the fittest?

Why...

Is it always portrayed in the media that only ‘Tarzans’ can survive in the post apocalyptical jungle? What exactly do people mean by survival of the fittest anyway? I am prepared to admit most of the contestants on Gladiator could run circles around me (or trapeze above me waiving a giant Q-tip trying to knock over another contestant) but how much use would they be in a post apocalyptic Armageddon? Without whitening toothpaste and an endless supply of spandex, not much. In fact the gap between dumb as dog-slobber and super smart seems to double every 5 years. Technology has made dimwits of 99% of us. I mean how many reading this actually knows how a smart phone works, yet I suspect 200 years ago, 99% of us understood how to make smoke signals. And what skills would we need to survive? I suppose that depends on the environment of survival. If it’s all 1984 or even Terminator, being a geek looks a good bet. Q rather than 007. Planet of the Apes apocalypse and I suspect being able to run fast is critical, as is having an endless supply of nuts. A post nuclear disaster, I’d suggest being a welder who can whip up a lead suit to keep radiation out is a plus or a decent cook if you have to spend eternity in a bunker.

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DIY classes and Bear Grylls never taught me how to colour my wife’s roots

June 5, 2020
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Friends Travel/Nature
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Why...

Could I never join Tom Hanks on Castaway? Lockdown has demonstrated that I would never survive a week as Robinson Crusoe. The ‘manly’ ability to be able to fend for myself in the wild is limited to knowing how a tin opener works. Don’t laugh, most kids have no idea what it is. To try and light a fire I might as well rub two Boy Scouts together rather than wood. And the idea of building anything, let alone a hut, that did not come in a flat pack, is farcical. Before Covid-19, many men had this belief that in the survival stakes they had things covered. The reality is without electricity, streaming TV and the Internet mankind is as viable as a condom dispenser in the Vatican. All these clowns who ran around pretending to be GI Joe at the weekend but were Account Managers during the week, would quickly become canapés for a hungry bear in the woods. Just as everyone now is a forensic expert after watching a few seasons of CSI, two episodes of survivor and a season of Gilligan’s Island makes us castaway experts.

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Beware, Card Shark

May 30, 2020
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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Please stop interrupting during video lessons and eat more

May 10, 2020
Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Life
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Why...

Is a dear friend and teacher more frustrated than a brain surgeon with hiccups? In this new world, teachers are struggling during on-line lessons because of continuous interruption and comments from parents. It seems that when little Johnny is having a problem with algebra or the date of the Battle of Hastings, know-it-all parents cannot wait to chip in with their answer... which in the case of algebra is nearly always wrong. It’s bad enough having to deal with delusional parents during PTA meetings who believe their offspring is the love child of Einstein and Madonna - see earlier post HERE. But to have parents digitally hanging over the teacher’s shoulder is enough to have anyone mainline Clorox. In addition, in some households there is a queue to use the one decent size computer. Dad for porn, Mum for gambling, elder kids for on-line dating, games or movies. Everyone wants the youngest off the machine as quickly as possible. So instead of the rest of the household being on-line themselves, they are constantly operating the only other thing outside of the Internet they continually use; their teeth. Lockdown has turned everyone into elephants in more than one sense. We have grown huge and munch constantly. Many of the locked down are so fed up with long distance relationships, they are moving the fridge to their bedroom.

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Pay attention ticket touts

Why...

Do I worry about ticket touts? As we emerge blinking from COVID-19 hibernation, there is much speculation that, like Saul on the road to Damascus, we will be inspired with life changing values. Don’t bet on it! What will we want that touts will worm their way into and supply? Clearly concerts, theatre and sporting events are still some way away. So how can all those touts out there manage to make ends meet, poor lambs. For sure there will be a rush for certain things. Vanity trumps everything. Hair Salons will be inundated. The same goes for Brazilian wax, eyebrow plucking, Botox, manicures, and pedicures. So, touts should be booking appointments and offering to sell them for a premium. Other ‘bookings’ in high demand. Restaurants with plenty of space between tables, or mass raves (for people with plenty of space between their ears). Expect secret underground ticket sales from touts for these parties. I suspect certain men will be desperate for their regular ‘Thai Massage’ complete with happy ending whilst others will simply be desperate for an argument about their sports team with a total stranger. In fact I am amazed that no one has started a website www.iarguewithyou.com. Log on and have a row. You cannot do that if you are manacled to people at home as you have nowhere to slink off to be grumpy on your own or time to cool off.

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Duck it; shot happens

Why...

Is Spellcheck watched over by some electronic Mary Poppins? If I search in Google for any number of potentially innocent things such as water sports; adult I am offered an eye-popping smorgasbord of entertainment, many of which have nothing to do with surfboarding, scuba diving or water skiing and are very rude indeed! Yet I am prevented from typing some decent Anglo Saxon swear words in a document without them getting changed or redlined. I can almost hear my iPhone nanny tutting at the vulgarity. The only alternative is to sit with Roger’s Profanisaurus (dictionary of swear words and slang) and insert (ho-ho) every rude word I can think of into to my personal dictionary so I continue to be abusive to my friends…in a language at least they understand!

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If I come to a meeting with clean fingernails and polished shoes, don’t kid yourself, it’s not for you. I have writer’s block

February 3, 2020
Entertainment/Media/Arts Friends Life Technology Uncategorised Work
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Why...

Is writing for me sometimes a pleasure and at others a chore? Today I needed to get on with the follow up to my debut thriller Fall Out, called The Bastion. But as is often the case, I am stuck. Of course it’s not directly my fault. My Muse must have deserted me for someone more worthy, or the moon is aligned in such a way that my creative juices are drier than a cinnamon stick. Whatever the cause, anything is better than staring at a blank keyboard. I have just polished all my shoes. Nothing. So polished my belts as well. Still just white noise in my head rather than a new character or plot twist. Cut my nails, tweaked out nose hair, squeezed a few back heads. Zero. I even slung an angry riposte to some fool on Facebook. Still zip. The fool on Facebook made me laugh though. After a fatuous and totally incorrect comment about deer culling that I refuted with an article from the left leaning The Guardian entitled, We must kill Bambi. Why deer culling is a no brainer the response was: “Who asked you for your opinion anyway. Fuck off.” The irony of not understanding when you put your own opinion out into a public forum, by definition invites a response, says a lot about the lack of debate in our social media age. Most bloggers just want their voice heard, not challenged. It’s me me me on a platform that is marketed as us us us! If I actually understood the origami that is ironing, I might even see if I could attack the pile of shirts that need attention. Tonight we are due out to dinner and I will be as well manicured as a teenager trying to take out the preacher man’s daughter. My host will take it as a compliment. But for me it will be as if Samuel Taylor Coleridge himself had hung the albatross around my neck.

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Why...

I saw this the other day and wanted to share it. Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2020, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make the West great. Not to imply that any Western country is necessarily greater than any other country. And without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee. By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

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I will get arrested if I ask a stranger to stuff my pudding in her secret little container

December 20, 2019
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Travel/Nature
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Why...

By a remarkable set of coincidences have I managed to get to 63 and never spent Christmas Day in the snow? On the only two times up to age 24 it snowed in the UK on Christmas Day I was out of the country. Every other year was spent there. No snow. My wonderful parents never got the ski-bug, so I actually never skied till I was 42! Once I started making a few bucks, my love of diving had me spend nearly every Christmas somewhere hot. So that was nearly 25 Christmases doused in Ambre Solaire with the odd one spent again with family and friends in snowless England. Now married to my American wife, we live in Malta where Christmas is usually around 20c/75f. Occasionally we spend it with her family in Old Town Alexandria, just outside Washington D.C. I missed a snowbound Washington Christmas, coz the planes from the UK were grounded due to bad weather or a strike or both and again when it snowed in the UK a few years ago we were in Washington enjoying a heat wave. So, I have given up.

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That’s a wrap

December 13, 2019
Friends Kids/Family/Relations Technology
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Why...

Is the ability to gift wrap beyond my and most men’s skill set? If there is one action, I find hypnotic at this time of the year, it is the origami-like skills of people in the gift-wrapping department... or my wife. They can wrap the most obstinate and obvious of shapes in a trice, disguising the original into something totally different; a starfish into a perfect cube, an umbrella into a triangle. My wife could wrap up Michael Angelo’s David and make it a perfect hexagon, with possibly a bow discreetly tied to his gentleman’s salami. Give me even a simple rectangle like a hardback book to wrap and it’s a disaster. Scissors never cut in a straight line, or snag and leave little waves of scrunched paper along the edge. Immediate ticking off from my scalpel perfect wife. Even if I trim again, the fold at one end will be pointy while the other end will be squared off. The top of the book will be face against the bottom of the join of the gift wrap paper. The finished object will have an excess of paper so large at one end that it will look like something is trying to escape from the book; like that little monster that popped out of John Hurt’s tummy in Alien.

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Where there’s a will, there’s a... relative

November 8, 2019
Friends Kids/Family/Relations Politics Sex Uncategorised
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Why...

Did God invent money? To keep you in touch with your children.

It’s a sad truth that money trumps politics, religion or sexual orientation as the biggest buster-upper of families.

Here I stick my hand up and admit in my own family if mention is made of wills and inheritance it’s like nails down a blackboard.

Before we get personal, let me start with the tax logic... or utter lack of it. If you’ve had your nose to the grindstone, worked hard and paid your taxes, why do you get taxed again gifting it to whomever you please. Now I know in the UK there is a daft provision that if you live for seven years after the bequeath then what you bequeath is tax free. But why? What cockamamie logic is that?

When you are on the last lap of the race of life and you need money to look after yourself and lessen the burden to others... sorry, you must give it all away to lessen the inheritance tax bill. Either you live in poverty in your last years or rely on those you gave your money too will look after you. Either has the potential for disaster.

Next. The taxman's beady little eyes are more shortsighted than a mole. They value an Estate at time of death, not at the grant of probate. Mad. Let me give a simple example. Let’s say you sadly popped your clogs before the crash of 2007 when stocks were high but your wife who achieves probate afterwards when stocks were often more than halved; she would find there was very little left after the taxman had his Jaws like bite.

Then there is probate itself. Legal constipation at its finest. Even simple probate takes a year and more complex ones taking up to five times that.

Once you have got through all this... the legal challenge. A minefield and the explosive device upon which many a family have trodden and blown themselves to smithereens.

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Legs eggs and stupid regs

April 19, 2019
Animals/Pets Food & Drink Friends Life Sex
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Why...

Is Easter so weird? In reality of course it commemorates the trial and death of Jesus Christ. Yet in a deft bit of marketing mixed with heathen tradition it has become all about birth, sex, spring and chocolate eggs. Of course to kick all this off we have all the Mardi Gras parades, the hottest of which is of course the Rio Carnival. I have the utmost respect for the Brazilian Catholic’s. They managed to turn the beginning of 40 days of fasting mixed with sackcloth and ashes into a bacchanalian extravaganza. In fact during the carnival things really do go with a bang. The amount of cocaine consumed is so vast that there are discernible traces in the air! No wonder even your grannie can samba for a week non stop.

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?You can’t always get what you wa-ant ... ?but if you try sometimes, ?you just might find You get what you need?

December 14, 2018
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Friends Kids/Family/Relations Life
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Why...

Do we let the little green-eyed monster ruin our lives?

Jealousy is a one-way emotion which if you can turn into a two way one can become a source of deep satisfaction.

No doubt at Christmas you are a little irked that Aunt Lottie saw fit to give you a pair of socks printed with reindeer’s antlers but gave her other favourite nephew a Rolex.

True, but in exchange for the Rolex would you really want to be cousin Nathaniel? No. So let it go. You can always get your own back in subtle ways; like asking Aunt Lottie for dinner and sitting her next to someone with opposing political views. Then just serve her something she hates, sit back and watch the show.

I was never a great athlete at school and was more than envious of the sporting prowess of some of my peers until time for the annual Crick race, a 19-mile run that only the very fittest were allowed to enter. It was a huge badge of honour to be selected... in my view to run until nearly dead.

My crocodile tears at being told I had not made the cut were soon dried as I watched the runners cross the finishing line with pain and exhaustion etched over their chiseled features. One up for the couch potatoes!

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All posts in category: Friends

Whatever time I wake up, I always feel everyone else should be awake

Why...

As lockdown is over we wondered if we could come visit and have a dip in your pool?

Why...

2021 Summer Holidays... Club 18-30 will be empty. It’s going to be all oldies

Why...

2021... about bloody time!

Why...

Bruce Springsteen was right... 🎶 57 Channels and nothing on🎵

Why...

This is not a full stop . It’s a lethal weapon

Why...

Whatever happened to bath time?

Why...

Exactly what is the definition of survival of the fittest?

Why...

DIY classes and Bear Grylls never taught me how to colour my wife’s roots

Why...

Beware, Card Shark

Why...

Please stop interrupting during video lessons and eat more

Why...

Pay attention ticket touts

Why...

Duck it; shot happens

Why...

If I come to a meeting with clean fingernails and polished shoes, don’t kid yourself, it’s not for you. I have writer’s block

Why...

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Why...

I will get arrested if I ask a stranger to stuff my pudding in her secret little container

Why...

That’s a wrap

Why...

Where there’s a will, there’s a... relative

Why...

Legs eggs and stupid regs

Why...

?You can’t always get what you wa-ant ... ?but if you try sometimes, ?you just might find You get what you need?

Why...