All posts in category: Life

The pen is mightier than the sword... so long as it is writing gossip

Why...

Do we allow real news to be eaten up by rumour and gossip? I promised never to write about events of the moment but is pretty clear to me the battle between Hillary and Donald was fought not with facts on policy but rumour and tittle-tattle all dressed up in self righteousness. But let's be honest. The truth is we are all more interested in the activities from inside someone's underpants than what goes on between their ears. What is Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms other than a digital funnel to feed grist into the rumour mill?

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Are you a Masochist? Yes if you watch cable news and then order a Pad Thai

November 3, 2016
Entertainment/Media/Arts Food & Drink Life
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Why...

Living on a small island with a terrible choice of cable channels have I developed a masochistic streak that compels me to watch mind numbingly bad commercials on International news networks like CNN? These travesties to the creative advertising community are throwbacks to the 1950's. But instead of Mom in an A-line skirt trying to persuade me to invest in some Tupperware, an earnest voice asks me to move my entire business to some unstable country or my money into a Bank I have never heard of. I can only assume the rates for the commercials are payable via Groupon as the scripts make a Hallmark Card a Pulitzer contender and the acting is as wooden as Elvis' heart. The real mystery is who on earth do they think are actually watching these? (Apart from knobby-no-mates like me who just howl with laughter.) Does someone really believe a Captain of Industry or a Titan from Wall Street is going to take a break from his next mega-billion deal to watch Focus Africa at 3 in the afternoon about a co-op making sweaters out of Matabele gumbo beads or a mime troupe re-imagining Hamlet out on the Serengeti? Worthy and important as these things may be they are not going to hold the attention of Gordon Gekko or Ritchie Rich. "Quick get me the Financial Director. We need to put all our money in this Bank of Lilliput. This commercial has won me over." Or "Let's move out of Silicon Valley and take a seaview building in Atlantis. Who cares there are land mines scattered around like confetti from the previous civil war, the locals are not even on nodding terms with the English language and the airport safety record is on a par with a Samsung Note 7." Whilst I admit a well-crafted ad might make me think twice about which supermarket to visit or perhaps try a new shampoo, major corporate decisions are not made because of these pitches.

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Love thy neighbour... but only after you have moved

Why...

Are neighbours the source of so much pain? I understand that one in five people have disputes with their neighbour. What surprises me is one in five don't murder them! What is it about living in close proximity that brings out character traits that would test a saint! I once had a neighbour who clamped my car while parked on the tarmac strip in front of my own garage! Apart from wanting to recommend him to a vivisectionist, I was at a loss at why a perfectly rational human being could morph into a manic traffic warden with nothing better to do than skulk behind twitching nett curtains on the look out for unwanted visitors. Sill, forgive and remember is my motto. Next he objected to lights on the driveway that came on when I reversed out as the bulbs 'invaded his personal space'. The fact I was trying to avoid turning one of his offspring into a fajita was irrelevant! The feuding and snipping went on until he went bust and had to move. I cried for days... with tears of joy! Once I lived next to a pub with a garden that bordered with my own. I only left the landlord a note of complaint once. Dear Landlord, I wonder if you could ask your customers to smoke their cigarettes down to the butt before flicking them into my garden. The dogs tend to try and smoke half used ones and I am trying to get them to quit. Never had another problem. And got a case of beer as an apology!

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The man who said it's better to give than receive had the clap...

October 6, 2016
Entertainment/Media/Arts Finance/Law Life
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Why...

Does Charity have to go hand in hand with the foghorn of unrelated publicity and self-promotion? John Lennon famously said at a Royal Variety Performance in aid of Charity: "You guys in the cheap seats can clap, while you lot in the dress circle just rattle your jewelry." I am shocked at not only how much tickets for gala dinners now cost but the tiny fraction of the nights' takings that eventually filter down to the charity. The amount of money that disappears into the promotion and overhead of mega Charity Balls is eye watering, sometimes over 90%. Is it really all worth it? Women are shoehorned into impossible dresses and men pretend they look like James Bond when they are just held into their tight fitting dinner jackets by Uni-Bond. The food is a delicate balance between pretentious and uneatable. The vast ballroom is either hot enough to poach an egg in my underpants or cold enough to hear the hair on my legs crackle. As the tables are the size of a skating rink, I cannot speak to anyone but my immediate 'neighbour without a megaphone. Worst is, I invariably end up seated next to some airhead who drones on about how at a previous event she sat next to a loved up A list movie duo or Wall Street killer couple. "It was simply so amusing, dahling, " she gushes. She explains that the (now divorcing) couple competed against each other in the auction for a week in some other zillionaire's hermetically sealed villa. "Between the two they drove the price through the roof......they took a bow of course."

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You have a vocation...? My arse!

Why...

Am I most jealous of people who know from the get-go what they are going to do in life? The kid who instinctively knows he or she wants to be a vet, concert pianist, architect or pilot and seemingly glides into his or her chosen life path. The rest of us stumble across jobs both weird and wonderful but as far from youthful aspirations as you can get. Do kids fantasise about being an arbitrageur, systems analyst, account manager, VAT inspector or Border Control/Customs Official as opposed to firemen, nurses and astronauts? Proctologists really worry me. I cannot believe that among the fresh faced interns at Med school there's a clutch of them burning with desire to spend their working day with their digit stuck up a strangers butt. Indeed if there were such people, counselling is what they need rather than medical training. Nope I suspect many proctologists flunked their first choice. "Sorry, grades not good enough for brain, cosmetic or heart surgery but there is an opening (in more than one sense) in the proctology department". Shock, horror, forlorn look on student. "It's not so bad...though no one wants to shake your hand. The pay is stratospheric and you don't take your work home with you." Job sold!

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My Underpants intimidate me…

September 8, 2016
Fasion Health & Beauty Food & Drink Life
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Why...

Do I allow marketing and fashion to seep into the crease of my subconscious? I can’t buy a pair of boxers without David Beckham’s tattoed physique reminding me what I should look like (or years ago a grinning Marky Mark before he turned into Mark Wahlberg)? So obsessed are we with visions of perfection in advertising that there are casting calls for pets and ‘make up artists’ when you shoot a plain old Hamburger

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It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to..... You would cry too if it happened to you...

Why...

In all that's logical, has the world's most powerful democracy and its two parties come up with such unappealing candidates? What is remarkable is that both Trump and Clinton can engender such visceral dislike! Ex pluribus unum is the motto of finding the President of the United States but Good Golly Miss Molly how can it have filtered down to Shrillery or The Hairstyle? I suspect the real reason is the battle is about the perceived status quo vs something new. I'm no fan of the current status quo but I'm not sure any alternative is the right one. But oh woe, the fault for the candidates must fall to the respective parties.

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Bye bye TV channels....meet the new lords of TV

August 11, 2016
Entertainment/Media/Arts Finance/Law Life Technology
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Why...

For an industry marked out for its pursuit of the new, can traditional broadcast and channel TV fail to see it's no longer at the crossroads....it's waaaaaaay past them. Netflix and others like Amazon have clearly demonstrated we like to consume our content at our own speed, not spoon fed episodes once a week. Does anyone have a show that's an appointment to view anymore? No, you just record it on your PVR and when you have half a dozen or so you sit down with a drink and a bucket of ice cream and off you go.

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Ryan Air, Easy Jet and Sky Blue are deep in the luxury section of travel...

Why...

Do we accept outdated travel standards? I am writing today's blog with the door handle to the bathroom in my cabin on an overnight ferry in one hand and the recently dropped out spindle lying on the orange nylon carpet on the other side of the locked door. The 'boom-boom-boom' of the nightclub nearby is partly blocked out by the insistent knocking on the cabin door by my wife. She is banging on it asking me to let her in. Her problem is that instead of plastic keys to insert into the electronic reader in the lock, to save money this shipping line uses cardboard ones. It's creased so the door won't open...... A children's nursery rhyme pops into my head. "Oh dear what can the matter be, Mark Grenside is stuck in the lavatory, He was alone from Monday to Saturday, Nobody knew he was there....." Welcome to the European ferry service that is taking my wife and our car from Spain to Malta via Italy. It's a 70's time warp where everything including the make-up and uniforms of the crew and even the carpets are super tacky....with most things on board simply not working (just like some of the crew). The TV (personally signed by John Logie Baird it's so old) is frozen on an Italian shiny floor game show. The concept of service in the restaurant is even funnier than Chris Rock on an impromptu stand-up comedy schtick and the wifi service is as intermittent as my windshield wipers in a drizzle. In fact the code to log on to the wifi is FIFTEEN digits long yet it's feeble capacity means I can only download written content, (so no Skype or image downloads)......and I can only buy for one hour at a time. No more. "You want more than an hour? Why?" asked the reception desk. "For work, " I tried to explain. But that was perhaps an alien concept. "After an hour on the Internet you have to come back for another code. Or call me." She smiles showing me the numbers written longhand on a piece of paper torn from an exercise book and hands it to me like a laundry ticket. One hour one minute later I discover I cannot call the Reception desk from the phone in the bedroom to ask for the new codes, as the phone spits out numbers completely unrelated to the digits I type in....very much like an Enigma machine from World War II. Reception is 72000 but so far the phone twice dialled 63799 and once the engine room! In a way I'm happy to be locked in the bathroom, away from vomiting Russians out on a stag week-end and young kids who are allowed to scream and run riot in the playroom at 1.30 AM....which is conveniently situated next to the dining room whose doors cannot close to block out the din. Other quaint customs include pre-paying for anything you want from the cafe at the till situated at the opposite end of the room. It therefore kills impulse purchases. After paying for my coffee and walking to the bar I discover they have some fancy cakes I'd like to buy. But that would mean returning to the queue at the payment desk so I don't bother. The crew all shake their heads when you suggest that possibly things might be better and point to the complaint box. It's stuffed with more letters than Santa's in tray on Christmas Eve...... Perhaps Brexit was not such a calamity! The exception to the C.E.F rule (Crappy European Ferry), is the Ferry from Sicily to Malta. It's so sleek it makes the Queen Mary look like the wreck of the Mary Deare.

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

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

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

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I'm not sure your nozzle fits my hole.....

Why...

Is there conformity in some things and not in others? It's present in the probable heart attack in-a-sac in mass produced food outlets but not for example in fuel. In a world where a Big Mac tastes the same in Pittsburgh as in Phuket or McNuggets (to my mind) seem always to taste like batter-covered erasers no matter how stoned or drunk I used to be when eating them, gas pump hose size and colours change over a number of countries faster than a floating voter's mind. I recently rented a car in California. I stopped to refill. Because the rental agency decided to remove the manual it took half an hour to find the fuel cap release button (utterly pointless thing). I then noted neither the fuel cap nor flap said what octane of gas was required or whether the car was even diesel. In the UK and Europe (just in case by the time you read this the UK has voted to leave) gas pump hoses are always green and diesel black. Yup, you guessed it… in the US it's the other way round. However I did not know this, so the green pump (which I thought gas) would not fit the fuel hole, whereas the black pump that I thought was diesel would. The car had no sign or indication if it was a diesel model. I would rather put out my hair if on fire with a hammer, than ring a car rental 1-800 line...... but I had no choice. Eventually (now 90 minutes since arriving on the forecourt) a voice down the cell phone said, "We don't never rent diesel. You just put in the hose with gas. That will fit." Then he hung up. I pondered which hose to use. Eventually a fellow tank filler took pity on me. "You Eng-erlish?" A nod. "Black here is gas. Green is diesel." Eureka!

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The electric drill is not the worst noise on the planet, but it does have a point....

Why...

As I sit in the spring sunshine here in Los Angeles, the City that invented the 'please consider your fellow man's position on everything you do', do I have to endure the insanely annoying buzz of a leaf blower? And for hours, not a few moments! No one seems to mind! Yet people have been told to take down wind chimes as they are deemed anti-social! It's not as if a leaf blower is a huge labour saving device. Moving leaves by air is counter intuitive, if not plain stupid. Leaves dance in a gentle breeze and take on the movement of a whirling dervish when moved by these things! Sweeping them with a broom is more effective and sooooo much quieter. But it’s manual labour....We do everything to avoid that now.

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Gun certainly.... Drugs step this way.... a Drink, er... Identity card, please.... You want to place a Bet.....certainly not!

May 19, 2016
Life
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Why...

Is America such an enigma? It is a country with deep seated morals; the trouble is some of the morals themselves are in the wrong seats. Let's not even try and begin to get used to saying, Lincoln, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, JFK, Ronnie......and Trump in the same breath without a trace of irony. I was in the United States for the Kentucky Derby. Their premier Blue Riband racing event takes place at Churchill Downs in Kentucky; a State where they are so horse-mad that the Bridal Suite is spelled Bridle and comes with a saddle and stirrups. As I watched an endless parade of semi-celebs with purse string smiles and IQ’s to match their shoe size on TV, I thought I would at least liven up the festivities with my host at home watching the event with a party of friends, by offering to place a bet for everyone. God, you would have thought I had farted! A room full of people and no one was putting on a bet with actual money! So the least I could do after downing lethal Kentucky Mint Juleps (a bit like gorgeous breasts....one is not enough and three too many) was to offer to place bets as a thank you all round. I went on-line and tried to log on to my UK bookie account at Ladbrokes. Blocked. Puzzled I thought there was a problem on the site and chose another UK betting site Betfair to open an account with. Again, the computer would not let me. I called the number. "Are you trying to bet from the States?" I confirmed I was. "You can't. It's restricted. You have to bet there. Good bye." Yup you got it. "Furnerz cahn't place bets ah-brawd, " drawled a helpful voice from the party from the assembled throng. "Havta' bet on track, in Vegas o-ar owwwn line with ah Yu Ess bookie." In the U.S. you can download porn that would make your teeth itch, but God help you trying to make a bet abroad on a legal gambling web site run by a publicly listed company. Not to be defeated I simply went to the web site of the betting company that had paid a humongous amount to be the sole off track bookie for the biggest horse race on the American calendar. Step forward www.twinspires.com. Well I try to fill in the form but it needs my US zip code and social security number. I rang their help desk. "Excuse me, I'd like to bet on the big race." "Sure sir. What's your account number?" "I don't have one." "Please go on line to set one up." "I can't." "My apologies sir, are you partially sighted? Let me put you through to opening an account by phone." "I can't because I don't live in the USA. I'm visiting. I don't have a zip code nor social security number. I have credit and debit cards, passport visa...." "Well sorry, sir. Non Americans can't bet." That's it! Who is the genius that decided that any visitor from abroad (the Chinese will bet on the number of audible 'snack crackle and pops' in a bowl of cereal) is excluded from betting on their greatest horse race? It must cost the betting industry $100s of millions of dollars over a year.

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The end is NEVER nigh, so why tell me it is.....

Why...

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

Bits of Blighty that drive me batty..... but I'll miss

Why...

As I waive a fond farewell to my friends, I ponder on some of the idiosyncrasies of this green and pleasant land that I shall miss..... Well firstly it's green because it is constantly watered. The global drizzle that has engulfed the UK over the past few years has had me checking my elbows and knees in the mirror to make sure my joints have not gone rusty. Yes I know that in flaming July in Malta when it is hot enough to poach an egg in my underpants I might miss the grey skies. So in case rose tinted spectacles appear on the bridge of my nose, I have kept a photo on my phone as a reminder. It is of my garden in June last summer when an Olympic diver could have performed a pike with a double twist off my roof and landed on the lake that now covered my flooded lawn and barely touch the grass below, even with an elegantly extended arm.

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Hello ♫ I love you ♫ won't you tell me your name......in about two hours

Why...

Are airports so keen to look in my shoes and up my nostrils in the name of security, yet seem blissfully unaware how many customers (please note that word) who all arrive at the same time and are faced with only a couple of immigration officers. On far too many occasions I have stood in a queue of several hundred people as immigration kiosks are as empty as a bookie's stand at the end of a race day. After an hour or so a few turn up, ambling along looking with a mixture or surprise and contempt at this sea of humanity that has been made to wait. Why are plane loads of people arriving all at roughly the same time from Australia, Nigeria, Japan and Canada a surprise to the airport immigration staff? I assume air traffic control were aware they were coming. Likewise, the men who get the gangways ready, or even the drivers of those electric carts who collect the infirm or infamous. Every airline sends a manifest with the list of passengers to the arriving airport so the receiving immigration and custom officials can chose at leisure whose cavity they want to probe. It's an utter farce that after 15 hours on a flight you then have to wait two hours to get through immigration....even worse when you are returning to your own country. If those responsible cannot organise a smooth well-staffed immigration welcome how can airports and government agencies convince me they ensure my safety going out?

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Good-bye-eee, ♫ good-bye-eee, ♫ baby dear wipe a tear from your eye-eee

Why...

Do we keep and attract clutter like so many nuts and bolts to a magnet? Humans and stuff we collect are like goldfish. The bigger the pond (or in human's case house) the bigger the (goldfish) amount of clutter gets. If anyone is still looking for Elvis, Shergar or Dr. Joseph Mengele, there's a very high chance they are in my loft along with a fine collection of roller blades, hula-hoops, a Pet Rock, a vast selection of jeans that are waiting for me to lose weight.......and a trunk full of CDs. My wife and I have been clearing out as we prepare to leave the UK.

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Beep ♫. I am sorry you have passed your sell by date

Why...

Do we insist on putting meaningless sell-by dates on foods? For example, honey does not spoil. Indeed some amphora of honey were discovered in a burial tomb in Egypt and the content was perfectly edible. The golden liquid was put in the jar centuries before the founders of Tesco or Safeway were an itch in their father’s underpants. My supermarket salt has a sell by date on it. Doh! Whether it came from the Red Sea or the Bay of Biscay it has been round for longer than you or I. My wife and mother –in-law are obsessed by sell by dates and won’t have a word said against them. I am sure if I put a bunch of rocks in a bag with a sell by date on them and left them in the fridge, they would be gone on the appointed day! I try to explain that if this time frame argument had any validity we would all be paying more for a 2016 California Zinfandel than a fusty old 1945 bottle of Petrus, let alone US$225, 000 for a 1787 bottle of Margaux.

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Is it true love, or are you being checked up on?

Why...

Are we so naïve when it comes to love in the modern world? The other day I was standing at a tube station as a young couple waited for a train. The two were locked in a passionate embrace with much hoovering of tonsils and wandering hand syndrome. As the tube pulled in the girl broke away with a sob and boarded. Her paramour stood on the platform tearfully waving the train goodbye. It was quite touching. A minute after the love of his life left, another girl popped out of the waiting room. “Has the bitch gone?” she asked as she grabbed the young man’s hand and they ran to the exit and no doubt a waiting bed! Not a tearful farewell then from our lothario but just checking for certain one girl had left and was not coming back for a while. But I’m convinced the pretty girl on the tube will definitely find out. We all leave far too many electronic echoes of what we get up to. The digital age may indeed open up the possibility of flirtations on the side with everything from Grinder to Ashley Madison but I assume those very things also make it nearly impossible to cover those infidelities up. Your Satnav will have an entry to some love bolt hole and your credit card bill will show charges for a restaurant. Have you even tried to pay in cash recently for a meal? They look at you with more suspicion than a customs officer greeting a plane load of students from Colombia. Your partner can easily see phone bills and notice those tell-tale unknown recurring numbers, read your email and see friends’ updates on Facebook (my wife while proofreading this added that last one- enough said). Your partner will flick through your text messages and photos if you leave your phone lying around. Top prize for being a dummy goes to Congressman Weiner for taking pictures on your phone. Now your wife needs to check up on that as well!. Though why any young lady would want a photo of a gentleman’s sausage if he was actually called wiener only demonstrates the clarity of modern phones photography or the sad lure of being a politician in today’s America! Everything you do is traceable and if you lock a partner out of that data alarm bells ring so loud your hearing gets affected.

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Never drive behind someone sporting a wide brimmed hat…. and other vital rules of the road

Why...

Are certain driver types clearly a danger to themselves and others? As I drive along our crowded streets I find I have some consistency at whom I am invariably shouting at. Women or men in wide brimmed hats should be given a very wide berth indeed. They are constantly checking themselves in the rear view mirror without paying any attention to the cars snaking behind them for five miles as they trundle along. Their sole priority is to maintain their well turned out appearance. Any Uber Driver seems oblivious for the need to move at the maximum permitted speed limit but rather they glower and prod at their Satnavs, talk on their mobile to clients they cannot find whilst opening yet another air freshener. Nissan Micra drivers always seem to have a passenger with whom the driver is constantly arguing; hence the car swerves like doing the rhumba. However as the combined ages of the two passengers invariably exceeds a century and a half, the swerving is conducted at speeds a stray tortoise would have no trouble avoiding.

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

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All posts in category: Life

The pen is mightier than the sword... so long as it is writing gossip

Why...

Are you a Masochist? Yes if you watch cable news and then order a Pad Thai

Why...

Love thy neighbour... but only after you have moved

Why...

The man who said it's better to give than receive had the clap...

Why...

You have a vocation...? My arse!

Why...

My Underpants intimidate me…

Why...

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to, cry if I want to..... You would cry too if it happened to you...

Why...

Bye bye TV channels....meet the new lords of TV

Why...

Ryan Air, Easy Jet and Sky Blue are deep in the luxury section of travel...

Why...

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

Why...

I'm not sure your nozzle fits my hole.....

Why...

The electric drill is not the worst noise on the planet, but it does have a point....

Why...

Gun certainly.... Drugs step this way.... a Drink, er... Identity card, please.... You want to place a Bet.....certainly not!

Why...

The end is NEVER nigh, so why tell me it is.....

Why...

Bits of Blighty that drive me batty..... but I'll miss

Why...

Hello ♫ I love you ♫ won't you tell me your name......in about two hours

Why...

Good-bye-eee, ♫ good-bye-eee, ♫ baby dear wipe a tear from your eye-eee

Why...

Beep ♫. I am sorry you have passed your sell by date

Why...

Is it true love, or are you being checked up on?

Why...

Never drive behind someone sporting a wide brimmed hat…. and other vital rules of the road

Why...