Lent is just a reminder that you have already failed at your New Year’s resolutions
Why...
Do I think I can fool myself into giving things up when not one of my close friends believes I can sustain privations for more than a few days?
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All posts in category: Life
Happy New Year - one more, one less
Why...
Are we always so glad to see the end of one year? Yes, there have occasionally been a pretty putrid last 12 months, but on balance the good times have always outweighed the hideous. Often it feels like waving a tearful farewell to a good year; rather like a well-worn pair of cowboy boots that took time to wear in but now are very comfortable. Instead, we are being asked to swap them for a new pair that might not be as good.
🎶Clang, clang, clang went the trolley Ding, ding, ding went the bell….🎶 But the traffic didn’t budge.
Why...
Would anyone go Christmas shopping in town anymore? Crowds of people, traffic moving slower than treacle, and endless Christmas songs. I understand Mariah Carey has made nearly $100m in royalties on ‘All I Want for Christmas is you.’ That’s enough to turn me into the Grinch.
I talk to machinery - sometimes it answers back
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.”
Wham Bam … Thank you, Mam
Why...
Do people see speed as the answer to all our problems? Whether it’s streaming data, messaging a mate or having a pizza delivered barely seconds after placing an order. Whatever happened to the delight of anticipation? Don’t get me wrong. Obviously, some things naturally improve with waiting time, like sex, or improve with ageing like cheese, wine and teenagers. Other things such as fashion, sixties sitcoms, and taxes don’t. This plea is not a request to return to listening to a computer’s rendition of Greensleeves for a decade, while trying to get through to your mobile provider. I just think a little wait enhances the prize. I’d far prefer to sit and smell someone preparing food in a kitchen than wait for the putt-putt-putting of a scooter with a meal the temperature of an hour-long dead corpse.
Remember to play safe, but where’s the fun in that?
Why...
Is there so little thrill and danger? By far and away the moments of my life that sparkle in my memory are those of danger, wonder or excitement. Often all three. (These of course include marriage ceremonies). If, as they say, life’s key moments will flash in front of my eyes just before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I am damn sure mine will not include any snippets from work, religious services, group sessions of any description, let alone earnest social or political discussion. I suspect those fleeting last moments will feature marriages, my beloved wife, kids and grandkids… yet interspersed with: Screaming in fear bulleting solo down the Cresta toboggan run in St. Moritz Jumping off Annapurna on a hang-glider in Nepal (following my wife) Hand feeding a Tiger shark (admittedly wearing a butchers chain mail glove) scuba diving in the Pacific near Tahiti Sideways out of control in an eyewateringly expensive classic Ferrari around the UK’s famous Goodwood race track Avoiding a stampede of screaming girls at a Beatles concert at the Hammersmith Odeon Jumping out of a plane at 14,000 feet over Nelson, New Zealand (again following my wife) Accidentally getting airborne solo in a glider whilst still a schoolboy. Munching fugu (deadly poisonous puffer fish) in Tokyo Working with lions the size of Buicks on a movie shoot in Africa, certain I smelled like a tasty chicken Discreetly exiting the boudoir of a lady who failed to mention she was still married until her husband returned early from a business trip. As I look at current generations it would appear most of their thrills are vicarious, living through an Avatar in some video game or fantasising about men in Spandex in f/x laden movies. For real spice a few dawb paint at some middle class location like a museum, Wimbledon Tennis, Ryder Cup Golf, or Test cricket beseeching me to Stop Oil. Safe sensible places where the public might tut-tut displeasure. To me, that’s about as exiting as watching toast get cold. Danger and risk of injury is what makes you feel alive. If protestors want to raise their heart beat and get real press, try that kind of malarkey as an MMA event or NSCAR race and see what the crowd think of you.
Oh Joy! A new travel torture
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.
Are the hosting of the Olympics becoming the next ‘black spot’ no one really wants to receive?
Why...
Does everyone who has previously won an Olympic bid then say it was never worth it, yet countries queue up to host it? The Moaning Minnie list of previous Olympic hosts is longer than the ribbon gymnasts wave about on their floor exercise. (Quick question here. In an age of equality why are only women allowed this exercise?) The Australian grumble about how the Olympic village outside Sydney was originally a rubbish tip and at least they have returned it to that. The bird’s nest stadium in Beijing might as well be birds nest soup and the Olympic structures in Rio crumble like rocks of cocaine that are sold there. I read today in the London Times that before Paris has even fired a starting gun there is much mooching and shrugging of shoulders of unhappy Parisians. The hoteliers are complaining that the hotels are at only 70% occupancy as so many tourists have taken to Airbnb. Restaurant bookings are down as again those in Airbnb are cooking in. “Pourquoi”, (why) cry our French cousins, the stub of a Gauloise cigarette screwed into the corner of their downturned mouths. GREED is the answer. The simply ridiculous price hikes by the cheese eating surrender monkeys, as Homer Simpson once described the French, are just one step too far. Add to that the by-the-throat greeting by Parisians to foreigners and you have a recipe for attendance disaster that even Escoffier could not have whipped up. Of course as an extra ‘amuse-bouche’ to this PR meal disaster is the fact the French have had an election with change in direction that makes a weather vane in a tornado look stable. With a two part vote the first set swung France to the right. “Quelle horreur” the media all wept as they ran around hands on cheeks like the figure in The Scream by Edvard Munch. So they then get every single other party to co-operate on candidates on tactical voting to beat Marine Le Pen and instead end up with a far left Government who want 90% top rate of tax, retirement dropped from 65 to 60 and unlimited immigration. And who think the Olympics an outrageous waste of money. Do I see conflict of interest raising its head here?
Growing old is mandatory Growing up is optional
Why...
Can’t we see that our views on age are just relative to ourselves. Right now I think of myself around mid-forties until I am reminded I have a son nudging fifty. Yet when I was seventeen I remember being very sad that Clint Eastwood was 40 when he made Dirty Harry and thus was in the twilight years of his career. I sighed that Debbie Harry of Blondie had found stardom so late in life at 33. I am sure President Biden looks at Jagger and Richards prancing around as rock gods on stage and the same age as him, wistfully wishing he would be allowed to do the same thing but the decorum of his office prevents it. I mean, he knows he could do it.
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.
Madam, what do you keep in your drawers
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.
I’m back and I’d rather hang myself than another picture
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.
“Liar Liar Pants on Fire”
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!
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
It’s an ATM not a Nintendo game boy
Why...
Do I seem to always be queueing at an ATM with someone who seems to be playing a game on the console? Just put the card in and take out the money! Maybe people miss the interaction with a bank teller? For all I know they could be typing in ‘Good morning, how are your kids/cats/bunions?’ All I see is cards go in, lots of typing, staring at the screen, then reading slips of paper… only to repeat the whole process all over again with another card. The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Maybe I am the mad one expecting people just to extract money from an ATM rather than a prolonged electronic dialogue.
Hmmmm. A gorgeous hint of bullshit, with on-the-palate flavour of Edward Lear nonsense poems and a strong aftertaste of swallowing a quaalude and The Complete Oxford dictionary. Welcome to tasting notes on wine and spirits
Why...
Are descriptions of taste so pompous and indecipherable? I read recently that a wooden cask tub of Macallans Whisky, which was bought for £5,000 thirty years ago on a whim of I suspect some rich dipso, has just sold for over £1m! To justify this ludicrous bar bill, that works out at around £2,000 a bottle, the descriptions of the taste have reached epic proportions of nonsense. Can anyone really tell me what… “a yellow halo with a mesmerising nose with a scent of salted caramel drizzled chocolate brownie restrained with a background of fresh orange marmalade and neroli with a dying hint of tobacco leaf” really smells like? To me it stinks like an Oreo cookie covered in Robertson finest Golden Shred marmalade, sprinkled with fag ends. And that’s just the smell. The rapturous pretentious waffle goes into overdrive when describing the taste; I dare you to read this and take it seriously. “On the palate waves of sweetness carries and mingles mature oak and library leather bound book dryness. This breaks into a regal spice mix of nutmeg ginger and ground coriander, over a wash of ginger perkin biscuits, soft buttery dates and freshly baked Danish apricot pastries.” (London The Times 27 April 2022) A perkin biscuit? WTF is that? I mean, just line up six whiskies and tell me which one they are referring to. “I say, Cedric, I think it might be this one though I not sure if the spice mix is regal enough and I think sweaty sock juice mingled with old leather football boots more apt than library books.” What makes my jaw hit the floor in admiration at the effusive nonsense is the ingredients of scotch are simply malted barley, water and yeast. And yet it reads here that someone tipped half the content of the unused drawer in the kitchen into the still used to ferment the whisky. The people who write this tripe I assume double as Real Estate novelists. The people who describe bathrooms as bijoux when you have to stand on the loo to shut the door.
🎶 Here comes summer … or does it?
Why...
Is the weather schizophrenic? Winter this year has behaved like the house guest who outstays his or her welcome. I have to admit that summer 2021 was hot enough to poach an egg in my underpants, therefore I was relieved for the respite of a winter chill. However, it’s now the beginning of May , yet Nanook of the North would have pulled on extra clothing over Easter here in Malta. Grey skies, a wind that could yank the eyebrows off your face and rain horizontal enough to win a limbo dance competition. Today the sun is shining but according to the forecast, it’s a deception worthy of David Copperfield (the magician, not the Dickens character). In a few days time, the temperature is set to drop low enough to make my pubic hair crackle; so the Ambre Solaire will go back in the cupboard and out will come my hot water bottle.
I never know what to put in each recycle bin
Why...
Do I have so many types of garbage bins when I deeply suspect it all goes into one galopata galopata machine anyway? Don’t get me wrong, I am doing my best to save the planet, whether it means only cleaning my belly button with a Q-tip once a month, or recycling my dogs poop by tossing it over the wall onto my next door neighbours’ geraniums. But bins? I have a battalion of these things standing to attention outside my door. The list is endless. Bins for bottles without screw top collar, sacks for those with them… and then subdivided between clear green and brown. 6 just for glass. Life is all receptacles for spectacles, crates for ash from grates, containers for retainers, hoppers for party poppers and repositories for suppositories. The subdivision for rubbish has gone mad. Surely what burns easily and is non synthetic like paper, real food, clothing and coffee grinds in one and synthetics like plastic, tin and any takeaway food in the other… and maybe one for glass.
Love me, love my dog
Why...
When you come to my house do I suggest you don’t criticise my dogs as I won’t judge your children (at least not out loud).
Now I completely accept some people don’t like dogs... in the same way I accept that some people believe Elvis Presley is alive, well and riding Shergar across Area 51.
The thing about dogs is their love is unconditional. Even Hitler’s pet Alsatian Blondi no doubt thought Adolf a loveable chap who fed him scraps and gave him a splendid kennel complete with a swastika weathervane. That pooch was always pleased to see Mein Fuhrer, even after a hard day’s genocide.
In fact dogs are the ultimate sycophants. They laugh at your jokes, look at you admiringly, even perform tricks on demand... of course in return they expect to get food and shelter.
Dogs have indeed come a long way from their wolf forebears and many are more metrosexual with clipped nails and smart coats than flea infested hunters of old. In fact were man to become extinct in a haze of radioactive mushroom clouds, I’m afraid man’s best friend would follow pretty shortly afterwards.
The idea that Pepe the Chihuahua would survive in a post apocalypse world is farcical unless the radiation allows him to develop thumbs to open any tins of Kanga Chunks that he might uncover in the ruins of the post atomic blast.
Lost & Found… but we keep it anyway
Why...
Is getting back stuff you have lost so difficult? Yes, I understand that my i-Phone and i-Pad should be attached to my wrists with a piece of string, just like a toddler’s gloves. I do have a tendency to lose things… A LOT. However, recently I left my i-Pad on a Turkish Airline flight that had to connect via Ataturk (Istanbul) Airport. I left the i-Pad on the plane that landed in Ataturk from Malta and noticed it missing on the plane to Sofia, my final destination. So far, so stupid. Rang the airline. Hooray they have found it. To confirm it was mine they asked for the access code to turn it on. I gave it to them. “When are you coming to collect it from Lost and Found?” I replied I was not coming back though Ataturk so could I send a courier to collect. “No. Lost and Found is airside (i.e. after customs/immigration control) so you have to collect yourself.” Having a Lost and Found at an airport that you can only physically pick up yourself if travelling is as logical as a chocolate tea-pot. In addition, my insurance company declined to pay out a loss as the item was in fact recovered. Now if I was a cynical chap, I might think this is part of a cunning plan. You lose an item on a plane, you hand over the access code to show it is yours, they know you are unlikely to collect and before you can say Ebay, it’s for sale… but that would be a terrible thing to suggest…….