Saturday 31 December 2011

Happy Blogmany

Ah, New Year's Eve. I was at Leeds railway station this evening and honestly, the short skirts, the stiletto heels, the bosoms on show - I really shouldn't have worn those clothes, not with my figure.

I'm joking, of course, although I have worn some bizarre things on New Year's Eve in the past. When I was 16 I remember failing to get into Torquay's Piazza pub wearing a black and white checked shirt with a bow tie. Quite why I thought the 'harlequin waiter' look was going to help me appear over 18, I don't know. I was also brandishing very badly faked ID, so much so I might as well just handed over a piece of paper with 'I be 18' written on it in crayon, and it would have been more convincing. In the end myself and my chum Dave Baker went to KFC and ended up back at my house drinking the contents of my mum's sideboard. Happy New Year Mr Baker, I trust you will end up doing something just as exciting tonight.

The year after KFC-night, my girlfriend of the time told me she wanted an 'open relationship' so she could snog other blokes in front of me all night. Amusingly, she was diagnosed with glandular fever a few days later and I was the only one who hadn't caught it. Strange girl she was, I was told a few years ago that she is now a 'lesbian bookshop'. Not an owner of a bookshop, the actual bookshop itself.

Subsequent New Year's Evenings have always been a bit, well, different. 1997/98 I slept through, after having been so utterly bored of Torquay's 'Crazy Horse Saloon' (it was neither crazy, nor equine based)that I just went home at 9pm.

For the Millenium I ended up in a warehouse in Liverpool with various chums watching The Lightning Seeds, Stereophonics, Orbital and Pete Tong. But my abiding memory was attempting to sleep in a friend's car in the car park, having thought I could do without a sleeping bag and just put a coat over myself. It was -2C outside and I spent most of the night begging my friend to 'make the car hot'. I believe I actually passed out from the cold rather than fell asleep that night.

Then there was an evening of indie-rock in Wolverhampton which involved so much headbanding that me and chum Rusty ended up with whiplash for a week.

One lovely night saw my mum produce copious amounts of food from nowhere, and I shall always cherish the look of delight on my wife's face as mum pulled a massive trifle out of the fridge at 1am.

Ultimately, as time has gone by, I've wanted less noise, insane drinking and dancing like I've got rickets. Instead, it's just nice to spend time with the people you care about.

Anyway, whatever you end up doing tonight, be safe and enjoy yourself. And if you're planning on sleeping in a car, bring a duvet.

Thanks for reading my 2011 nonsense, I'll try harder next year.

Monday 5 December 2011

Suitably alarmed

I’m pleased to say that we’ve got a brand new burglar alarm at our house. Not that I believe any of you reading this are committed thieves (well, there’s one or two of you I’m suspicious of) but it’s more just a sense of relief at getting the darned thing in place. Reason being, I’ve not had a great relationship with alarms and house security in the past.

When I rented a room in Wolverhampton many years ago I wasn’t given the code to the alarm, so when I returned from a long weekend and my landlady was out, I couldn’t shut the stupid thing off. Add to that a large hold-all over my shoulder and my generally shabby demeanour (it had been a long weekend of drinking, eating and 8 hours travel) and I couldn’t have looked more suspicious unless I had a small mask on, a stripy jumper and the word ‘swag’ emblazoned on a sack. Brilliantly I just stood on the doorstep telling passers-by “I do live here you know” which worked. But then that’s the reaction people get when they hear an alarm these days, not ‘my word, someone is being robbed’ more ‘there’s a bloody alarm going off, that’s so annoying.’

Another house I lived at had no alarm and I came home one day to find that my housemate had not only left the back door unlocked, but the door was wide open all day. I had no key to lock it, and he was away for the night, so I spent 40 minutes shuffling the fridge-freezer across the kitchen to block the door and slept with a kitchen knife under my bed. Me? Paranoid? Not at all, although I know you all think I am...

Then there was the alarm at our last house where the code to activate the thing worked a treat, no complaints there, but upon entering the code for a second time the unit had clearly decided I was now a murdering thief and went off with gay abandon. Still, I managed to shut the thing off by ringing the man who had installed it 4 years previous and saying “Can you tell me how to turn the alarm off, I’m not a burglar by the way.” His brilliant solution was simply “See those wires? Pull them all out.” Comforting to know that hi-tech security could be defeated by random violence.

So when we got to our new home I was delighted to find a brand new system with a state of the art control panel the size of Barnsley on the wall of the hall and sensors in every room. What could be simpler. Then it transpired it had been installed by the previous home owner who had the technical skills of a radish. The genius had managed to set it up so that you activated the box in the hall and then had a grand total of ‘no seconds’ to get out, so you immediately triggered it by moving towards the door. Perhaps he was made of gas or had the ability to teleport, like a member of the x-men, and was able to use it. Oh, and he’d left the master code as 1111, try working that one out eh? To be honest, we’d have been more protected just putting up an a4 sign on the door saying ‘please don’t burgle us’.

So now we have an uber-safe system that is pet-friendly too. By that I mean the sensors are tolerant to the cats, not that the burglar alarm chats to them while we are out.

Although, that would be ace.

Friday 18 November 2011

Timolsky in need

No, you aren't dreaming. It's a new blog.

You're right, I've got a lot of explaining to do. What sort of time do I call this etc? Well, I'm sorry. I'll get round to writing about those missing two months of blogs at some point. Anyway, can't we just let the past be the past, especially when it's in the name of charity.

Tonight is Children in Need. A very worthy event, and a time when all of us should stick our hands in our pockets. I mean, to donate.

Over the years I've been at the forefront of fundraising. No, they didn't send me to Africa with Lenny Henry or anything like that, just that I've always been in jobs where promoting charities is super important.

Hence the picture on the right. Yep, that's me dressed as 'Arty Beat' to help launch the British Heart Foundation fundraising at a previous job. It wasn't supposed to be me. The bloke in question got stuck in traffic so, with 5 minutes notice I was asked if I would step into Arty's shoes. His enormous shoes that make every step feel like you've got children hanging off your ankles. Obese children at that.

As I was bundled into the shoes, red leggings and finally the actual heart bit, the woman from the charity told me "Remember, you can't say anything.". To which I replied "OK." and she immediately got angry and said "NO! You can't reply". To which I found my only way of communicating was to simply wave my hands around, my hands which were now giant foam gloves that felt like I had a turkey on each fist.

Anyway, I spent the next 10 minutes standing next to the CEO of the company I worked for, whilst he made a speech and I had to stand next to him and look interested. Quite hard to emote from inside a giant muscle on legs. I found shifting from foot to foot and occasionally putting my hands over my mouth did the job. In fact, that was pretty much all I could do - cover my massive mouth up. I then spent 10 minutes whilst people came up to me and tried to talk to me. No-one knew who I was, so under the cloak of anonymity I got mischevious. Following people around the office, doing basic admin tasks like photocopying, going in the women's toilets - that sort of thing.

Eventually the real mascot man arrived and I was taken into a room to be 'de-hearted'. When they took the costume off I was sweating like never before, feeling that I was actually having a coronary - ah, the irony.

Anyway, that was the most extreme thing. The same year, I made up my own face to look like Pudsey bear for a photoshoot. I daren't show you the picture as I can't draw, let alone apply stage make-up, so I looked less like Pudsey and more a clown who'd been involved in a massive industrial fire. Still, it got in the paper.

As did the final thing I arranged. And this is something I really am NOT proud of.

One year I saw a date in an online charity calendar called 'World Food Day', so I decided we'd support it and do a photoshoot. So I arranged for three people to dress up - an Englishman in a bowler hat with a sausage on a fork, a girl in a stripy jumper with a french baguette and a chap in a sombrero with some mexican food. Lovely, great picture, celebrating world food, fancy dress, bit of fun.

Except, it turned, out, World Food Day was actually a day about raising awareness of starvation in the world, and how we shouldn't waste it. So a photo of three national stereotypes laughing with food probably wasn't the best thing to send to the local paper was it?

Tuesday 23 August 2011

50% off this blog, this week only, oh and free garlic bread for the first 50 visitors.

Remember email? Remember that eh? Excited when it arrived weren’t you? Old friend getting in touch? Amusing picture of cat on motorbike? Details of your online order for a replica medieval broadsword? Oh the innocence.

That was email when it started wasn’t it? All lovely and exciting. Nowadays it’s become a different story.

I’ve written before about the amount of spam my first hotmail account had and how I’m now careful what I sign up for. And, yes, the constant sales pitches for Viagra and free iPods and rocket powered trousers don’t seem to trouble my new email anymore.

But what does make up 90% of my mail these days is offers. Now, that would be a good thing – I like 50% off food (which is what most of them are about) but I’m getting almost daily reminders that I can eat my own weight in chicken at Nandos AND get a free drink. Every other day Pizza Express tell me that if I eat some food then it’ll only cost half the price (although they don’t mention it costs approximately £29 for two drinks to go with it). And I’m fed up hearing that a Debenhams sale has some things at almost 70% off – yes, 70% off very cheap things.

To be honest, I’m getting a bit annoyed.

The annoyance comes because now I can’t make a purchase without first checking if there’s an online code. If I order a pizza over the phone and don’t quote a code I imagine they put down the phone and say “He wants to pay full price!” before falling about laughing in heaps of mozzarella and dough. Same online, “If you have a code, please enter it now” pops up and I’m googling things like ‘discount voucher for underpants purchase’ which leads to 15 mins of fruitless searching and often losing the will to both live and buy pants.

And now, in ‘the real world’, I genuinely worry I’m paying over the odds for everything. It’s like going in a shop and buying something that you know is £5 but giving them a tenner and saying “THIS MUST COST TEN POUNDS” before running out of the place without taking your change.

In short, I feel like an idiot, and there’s seemingly no voucher code that can make that go away.

Saturday 13 August 2011

Lies, lies and a fake videoplayer.

I've never been that good at lying - untruths I mean, not stretching out horizontally on a surface (I'm great at that). There aren't many occasions I'm called upon to do it, and then it's usually to protect someone's feelings through phrases like 'Oh, what a beautiful baby' or 'I definitely think you should cut the green wire'.

So I thought I'd come clean with my deceptions to which you can decide whether I should be forgiven or not:

- I've told boring people who have sat next to me trains that my stop was coming, to which I've got up - gone out the door and walked down a few carriages before getting back on.

- Once or twice I've also pretended to be an answerphone when someone has rung me up - that's quite easy, if you can say 'Hi, I'm not around at the moment, leave a message' and come up with a convicing beat-box style beep. You can get away with it quite well if you can not laugh when people start leaving the message.

- When I was 7, a child boasted to me that he had a video player. Thinking on my 1982 feet I told him that our family had one too, but that it only recorded the programme you were watching at the time, and the TV had to be on. He questioned this and I remember just saying that it was a special one from Japan. Yes, a special one, that was techically useless. I might as well have said it ran on sticklebricks and had a remote control made out of toblerone.

- I also recall claiming, as a child, that I hadn't been playing with my father's razor and cut myself but that 'I was trying to cut excess string off a balloon' and that it was the only sharp thing handy. I got away with that.

-At University I managed to avoid being beaten up by a Coventry thug who wanted to kick the proverbial out of me by adopting a vaguely convincing accent (based on Richard Beckinsale in Porridge) and claiming that I actually ran the music counter at the local Woolworths, rather than being a sponging student. Somehow I got away with it.

As the years have gone by though, I've realised that my lies are nothing compared to the world-class, olympic level liars out that. My favourite was a chap at school claimed he couldn't go swimming with the rest of the boys as 'whenever I smell chlorine I get a nosebleed'. So whilst we were all diving for rubber bricks and being told to tread water by a fascist swim teacher, he sat behind the glass chomping 10p Wham bars and cola bottles. I remember that several of us got suspicious of his 'chlorine allegry' and when we had a vial of the material in chemistry lessons, ran towards him with it to see if it was true.

The same chap went on to claim that he had written a 32 part tv cartoon series, based on the Aliens from the film Aliens that a US TV network was interested. He also said that people got cancer from Skittles (the sweets, not the UK version of 10 pin bowling). I'm not sure any of it was true, what was though - was that he had bad BO and massive sunken eyes. He couldn't decieve us about that.

Anyway, it's people like that who make me realise that my lies are rubbish and that I'll never be a world class liar.

Unless I just made him up of course...

Sunday 7 August 2011

A man of letters

Amongst my tasks at work, apart from being hilarious and handsome all day long of course, is the editing of an internal magazine. By that I mean a magazine for employees, not a magazine created within the human body.

Last week I helped a team member wade through the post for the magazine. We'd had thousands of pieces of correspondence, mainly because we'd run a competition to win a trip to Disneyland Paris and that sort of thing really seems to get the stamps flying.

And within that pile of post lay some wonderful examples of gift-wrapped gags that were better than anything I could write. So I thought I'd steal them anyway and pass off the work as my own:

- Bad spelling. Cataclysmically bad spelling of what should have been 'Disney Colleague Competition'. 'Disknee competition' (I hope that was a joke), Disney College Competition (I wouldn't trust a Disney college, they'd have Mickey Mouse degrees) and one that was just addressed (without anything else) to 'Disney' - we must be like Father Christmas, it just finds us.

- Cheating. We stated 'no multiple entries' and could only spot one bit of cheating. And frankly we couldn't have missed it. 3 entries. All written on the backs of Old Christmas cards. Did they disguise their handwriting? Nope. This woman had her own labels with her name on stuck on the cards (she'd clearly done this before.) Like a deranged serial killer who just can't change their method of killing.

- Postcards...in envelopes. People sending in competition entries on postcards, but putting those postcards into envelopes. Honestly. I think we may need an awareness campaign of what postcards do. My only guess? They didn't want the postman to find out the answers, a bit like covering over your school work with your arm in case that smelly kid tries to copy.

- Postcards...of randomness. Entries on postcards depicited such diverse sights as: (a) A 1947 British Horror Film (b) A greengrocer showing off cabbages and sprouts (c) Myleene Klass being shot out of a cannon into a disused canal(although that may have just been something I photoshopped)

- Erm. The wrong idea. In amongst the post there was one completed wordsearch puzzle with the name and contact details of the person who had done that. Now, we do have a wordsearch puzzle in the magazine, yes. But there's no prize for it. I had to assume that the sender had either been a bit confused or just wanted someone to check his answers and that he hadn't cheated. I think I'm going to send him a prize anyway, possibly a bumper book of wordsearches.

- A photo of 12 people eating charity cheeseburgers that were the size of birthday cakes. Sorry, not a photo, 6 photos. As brilliant as it sounds, I have to find some way of printing this.

Still, whatever turns up in the post these days that isn't a bill or a kebab shop leaflet (we get 4 a week at home now, it's like they've spotted my belly) is something to be thankful for. So, Letter writers/competition enterers of the world, I thank you.

After all, as this blog proves, it isn't easy to write stuff that people will actually read.

Tuesday 14 June 2011

Musings on a sausage factory regulation

Recently, for a whole variety of reasons, I’ve been asked some quite bizarre questions. No, not the police wanting to know if I’ll ever follow through with my threat of shooting Myleene Klass out of a cannon (seriously though, that woman has taken the simple task of reading an autocue to new lows), the questions have been official ones.

Yes, official questions that seem perfectly sensible when written, but when put into my head sound ridiculous.

Recently we moved house and amongst the questions on the form for my mortgage protection policy, about my health one asked: ‘Have you seen any suspicious moles recently?” Of course it meant skin irritations, but all I could think of was some sort of twisted Tim Burton version of Wind in the Willows. A mole with an eyepatch carrying a sword, something like that.

Another question, I swear, asked ‘Have you ever had a terminal disease and then recovered?’. Erm. It wouldn’t have been terminal if I recovered would it?

Sometimes the questions just set my mischievous nature off.

A while back I was helping my missus fill in a job application (for her current job, before you ask) and I offered to complete the final HR questions at the end, the ones like ‘ Are you qualified to work in the UK’ etc. Thankfully she wanted one more proof before pressing send and spotted that on the question “Do you have any criminal convictions?” I wrote “I DONE A MURDER.” She did get the job incidentally.

Today though, I had my favourite question I visited a sausage factory (there’s a line I never thought I would type) and before I could get in the door I had to fill in a brief questionnaire. Question one, was it my name? Nope? Who I was visiting? Nope. The first question was ‘Have you had a bowel related illness, such as dysentery, in the last 2 weeks?”. Health and Safety, of course, but still a hell of an opening gambit. Try that as an openter the next time you’re on a blind date.

I was hoping, later in the questionnaire, there would be a note saying ‘Please do not touch the bacon slicer…because she doesn’t like it’. Sadly there wasn’t, as this was real life and not a Tom O’Connor joke from 1978. Shame.

Monday 9 May 2011

Hair today

Today marked a milestone in my life. I’m officially in a new age bracket. No, you didn’t miss my birthday (HMV vouchers please), that’s next week - but today, I can hardly bring myself to say it…I had to shave ear hair.

I know. It’s effectively bus passes, tartan shopping bags on wheels and being dressed in a suit at 8.55am outside a post office from here on. And it’s crept up on me, the odd tickling sensation in the lugholes for a while and now this. Ambushed by hair follicles.

It’s nice to note how my hair has defined the ages of my life. My first shave was with a Remington microscreen that my brother won in a fruit machine. Yes, for a while you could choose a jackpot prize of £6 or an electric razor. I didn’t make that up. I remember him saying, in a rather doom laden accent to me ‘if you shave today…then you’ll have to shave every day from now on’.

And so it was, despite the fact that said microscreen was about as effective as rubbing a tortoise over your cheeks (that sounds wrong). It was a good job that my face was nowhere near as hairy as my brother’s belly – I swear he’s part Ewok.

I then took to shaving with a proper blade when I got to university because I felt it made me grown up. That and it made me look like I’d been attacked with a knife. My first forays in to wet shaving were akin to a Saw film and I soon learned that aftershave not only made me smell nicer, but could lay me out unconscious when it hit the various cuts and grazes in my bumpy old face.

Over the years my skin hasn’t really got any better, to the point where the line on my neck where the stubble ends and the neck continues has become so distinct I appear to have had my head stitched on by Dr Frankenstein. And now the hair needs to be removed from the ears and well as the nose (oh, that happened in the late 1990’s) to make me look vaguely human, the humiliation is complete.

Of course, the fact I still have hair is of massive comfort – but I swear as it comes out of more places in my head it’s probably because it’s going to go from the top of the noggin in the first place like some playdough man in reverse.

Monday 2 May 2011

Farewell friends

Goodbye. Sayonara. This is the end. Ta ra. All the best.

No, I'm not dying. Besides which, if I was none of those would be my final words, I'd much rather go with "The treasure is in the...urgh", much more fun.

Recently I've said quite a few goodbyes. I changed jobs. We moved house. I swapped my brain into that of a robot before my body was disintegrated. Hang on, that last one was a film, sorry.

So I decided that the time had also come for the semi-regular facebook cull. You know, where you actually look at the people you are connected to and ask the question "Who the?".

I think I was inspired when I was de-friended by someone who I used to work with. I say someone, more one of the biggest cows I've ever met in my life (ooh, get me). Seriously, enormous cow of a woman. So big I think Cravendale and Nesquik had shares in her. Anyway, we had been 'friends' for 18 months and I have no idea why. Politeness I guess.

I think I have a politeness about us these days that influences our behaviour. No matter who it is, I end up having a conversation in my head like this

"Ah, Hitler has sent me a friend request again. Can I really ignore him again. He'll know that i'm stalling and start thinking bad of me. Oh, maybe I should just accept and then limit his status updates. Besides which, he's been quite quiet since the 40's."

Or sometimes it's the people you've met for less than 2 minutes that you become friends with. If the ticket inspector from the train I went on last week sent me a friend request I think I'd have to accept, again out of politeness.

So no more. I've been brutal. I've culled all over the place.

10% of 'friends' have gone for a variety of reasons. There's the ones who never update their status (i'm pretty sure one of them is dead), there's the one who regularly posts 70's racist style comments, the people I've never actually met, the odd psycho, or the one who beat me up at school when I was 5 (did I really think 30 years ago "I hope I'm still in touch with him in three decades).

So if you're reading this, it's likely that you've followed the facebook link and that you have been saved from the cull. You can consider yourself fortunate or unfortunate, that's up to you.

Of course that might just inspire you to get rid of me. If so, goodbye. Sayonara. This is the end. Ta ra. All the best.

Wednesday 9 March 2011

Is it a turbot? Is it a trout? No!

I don't like answering the door these days.

I'm not paranoid, I don't read the Daily Mail and believe that outside there are a load of knife-wielding illegal immigrants on benefits burning pictures of Princess Diana.

No, it's just that unless it's the postman it's someone trying to sell me something.

Today I'm working from home (fully dressed, before any of my work colleagues ask)and I foolishly answerd the door. A man with, I'm pretty sure, half the recommended level of teeth introduced himself.

"Hiya Pal".

Not a good start. 'Pal' is my least favourite term of unfamiliar familiarity. It also reminds me of the dog food. I imagine Cesar used to get annoyed by that too.

"I'm just talking to people on the estate. I'm the fish-man."

Now, at this point you can imagine the scene in my head. I know that by 'fish-man' he means someone who sells fish. of course I do. I'm not mad.

But in my own head I wanted him to be a mutant superhero. Part man, part fish. I started scanning his face for signs of gills, glancing down to see if his legs tapered into a tail - I might have also inhaled quite a lot to see if he smelt funny.

And why was he here? Was he about to thwart crime in a nearby stream or sea (presumably he'd be either sea or freshwater based)? Maybe his lack of teeth were a side effect of him being out of the water for long periods of time? Was his nemesis Lionel Rod (ooh, that's good) on the loose?

But, of course, he wasnt. He was a man trying to sell me fish. I hate fish. So I told him the only possible answer to make him go away quickly.

"Sorry. My wife is allergic to all fish" (she isn't). There. I thought. Get out of that one so-called fish-man. All fish. Yeah. Allergic to all of them. Even Michael Fish brings her out in a rash. Or Fish from Marillion. Checkmate.

"That's ok. I also sell chickens and vegetables" he replied instantly.

So he wasn't really fish-man was he? He was food-man. And that was a much less likely name for a superhero. I wanted to tell him this, but his teeth were concerning me again so I used the 'we're moving' reason, pointing to the For Sale sign and he smile and went on his way.

Thing is. I know that we'll get a knock at the door later, because our windows have been cleaned.

And if he introduces himself as Window-man it'll be the same thing all over again.

Thursday 17 February 2011

Living Joy

As you might recall (you might not, you might have had your memory wiped) we’re in the process of selling our house. And, stone me, if we don’t appear to have sold it. Despite my best attempts to offend the people who have eventually agreed to buy it.

It was a very simple mistake.

The buyers arrived at the door – woman, child and man. As the woman was the person I had been told was buying she came in first and put out her hand to shake – which I did. The 11 year old boy then followed, so in the jovial/borderline psychotic manner I’ve developed with viewers, I thrust out my hand to him and said rather loudly “I’ll shake everyone by the hand”.

So by the time the man had got in the door I already had my right arm extended for a good old manly handshake, a gesture derived from showing one’s hand didn’t contain a weapon, a sign of ‘I’m pleased to meet you sir, this is what men do’.

That’s when I spotted he only had one arm, and it wasn’t the one I was extending my welcoming hand towards.

Thankfully the chap must be used to it and turned his left arm round to shake me as if it was his right. But as far as first impressions of a house go, I might as well have opened the door smeared in marmite with a swastika emblazoned t-shirt speaking only in binary.

Anyway, it all seems to have amounted to nothing as they went and put an offer in a few days later and we’re now well on the way down the process. Honestly, if I’d know this I’d have been more offensive to people from the start.

Whilst we can’t wait to move into a new house, you always end up thinking about some of the great/bizarre times you’ve had in places you’ve lived. Such as these:

2 Winstone Avenue Torquay (1986ish)
We lived there from when I was 6-13 and was woken up by the milkman one morning. By that, I mean we woke up to find a milkfloat upside down on the garden, having crashed through our back fence. It even sat there with a comedy ‘spinning wheel’. It could only have been better if a Rice Krispies plane had crashed landed there too, followed by a light shower of sugar.

41 Park Road Torquay (1996)
My brother went home from a night out early and when I got home, he’d left the key in the lock meaning I couldn’t get in. So, after 4-5 pints, I thought the best thing to do was climb onto a wall in the backgarden, make my way across the flat roof, through the 2ft wide gap with the neighbours house and in through a conservatory window. Yes, I was a lot thinner back then. And spiderman apparently.

10 Reansway Square Wolverhampton (1998)
A rented house with no central heating or shower, which meant you had to have 15 second baths in the morning or you would die of the cold. And in the winter I recall sleeping in full football kit, tracksuit, scarf and hat to avoid death by chilliness. For some reason I wore the shinpads as well.

250 Renton Road Wolverhampton (2000)
I rented a room in a house with two cats, one with three legs. The best bit, arranging a music festival themed party called T2000 (like V you see) and issuing everyone with laminated passes on a piece of string so they could wear it like a festival pass. I made two mini versions with ‘access all areas’ on and had the cats wear them. They were the talking point of the party – apart from girl crying and being sick on the stairs of course.

10 Albany View Stainland (2004)
Despite sounding like the world’s worst theme park, living in Stainland was brilliant. It was a converted mill and the top flat I lived in was totally open plan with a ladder leading to the upper main bedroom. I had three walk in wardrobes up there that were so big, you could sleep in. And that’s exactly what my mate Daive did. We woke up one morning from a heavy night of indie partying to find him totally absent from the flat, until the door to the wardrobe swung open to reveal him and his sleeping bag. Bless.

There. You wouldn’t have had all that on Through the Keyhole.

Wednesday 19 January 2011

Don't drink and drive if you're a goldfish

I get annoyed about plenty of things. Well, I say annoyed. More I talk things through loudly in my head and have to pour them out on this space - and you then read them, it's like therapy, although I have no intention of paying you.

I think if you look at 50% of the blogs I've written they are filled with annoyance - 80% of them about Myleene Klass (I'll explain my dislike for her one day).

What got to me most yesterday was this poster. Now, I know it's for a good reason. Drink Driving is possibly one of the worst things you can do, after watching BBC3 of course. But this poster makes absolutely no sense.

Firstly - "He drinks all day...". No he doesn't. He's a fish. He uses his gills to extract oxygen from the water in order to breathe. If he was drinking it all day he'd end up massive from water retention and there'd be nothing else in the glass.

Secondly "...but he'd never dream of driving.". No. I imagine he wouldn't. Because he's a fish. Without doing them down, fish aren't the cleverest and even if they were I doubt one would look out of it's bowl, see a car and think "If only I could drive?" because if he did, his next thought would be "How the hell do I have this level of consiousness?" or "How did Two Pints of Lager and Packet of Crisps get so many series?"

In a sense "he'd never dream of driving" is utterly correct. Because we have no idea if fish have the ability to dream really do we? Or have scientists worked that out, and discovered that, yes they can, but they draw the line at imagining themselves behind the wheel of an Austin Allegro.

Honestly, my head hurt so much after seeing this poster I needed a pint or two to recover. And a nice drive home. I'm joking of course. Remember, the only safe limit is none - and not 6, as my brother's mate found out when they took his licence away.

For other great posters like this, I like the one that was on the door of the local Shell Garage. It showed Michael Schumacher in his race car with some Shell Oil next to it and he was saying "I use Shell oil in my car...and so should you."

Yes Michael, but you only drive your car about a dozen times a year and when you do it's at 200mph round and round - it's not the same as popping to Tesco in a Nissan Micra - so I'm not sure the comparison works.

And it's not restricted to posters. There's an Oil of Olay advert at the moment that starts with the words "You don't need to take drastic measures with your skin...use Oil of Olay". OK, I've paraphrased a bit. But if you see the ad, check out the small print where it says "Olay results NOT comparable with drastic measures". Brilliant. A cream isn't the same as a surgeon hacking your face off.

I'm glad we were told.

Anyway, that's the session up now. I'll book in another one with the receptionist on my way out.

Sunday 9 January 2011

How (not) to sell your house

We're currently in the process of selling of our house. I say 'in the process of', by which I mean I seem to have handed over a lot of money to estate agents so far and spent most weekends hoovering.

Whilst we haven't had an offer yet we have had plenty of people round to see the place. This is particularly pleasing as most news reports suggest that you are more likely to build a life size replica of Coventry out of sticklebricks, than sell your house.

When you are selling your house, you also get people offering you bizarre advice. Someone said to us "Oh, you should get Kirsty and Phil to help you move." - yes, because thats what they do isn't it? They sell your house for you. You've got that the wrong way round I think - presumably you think Supernanny gives speed to toddlers and suggests they smear jam on the wall?

I digress. So far our 'viewers' have fallen into three camps. The disinterested, who are probably thinking at some point about moving in the near future, possibly. Then there's the hopefuls - people who've either sold their house or are first time buyers and know that they could crush our moving dreams - oh, I can see that evil glint in their eyes.

Then there are the insane people. "Ideally I was looking for a 5th bedroom" said one woman. "Might I suggest you don't come to a 4 bedroom house then? Or did I not mention the SECRET INVISIBLE ROOM..." was what I thought of saying at the time, I didn't say of anything course - you're not allowed to be nasty to people who might buy your house. Even if they are clearly mental

Showing people around your house is always strange. As the missus works quite a few weekends, it's mainly me who has done the dozen or so viewings. It's become a bit like a standup routine now.

Everytime I show people the downstairs toilet I say "And here's the downstairs, as they call it. 'cloakroom'. Ideal for those times you have any 18th century nobles around who want to put their cloak somewhere.". As we go up the stairs I say "and these are the stairs" and when I show them one of the spare rooms I say "We call this the mummy's room, because thats where the mother in-law stays - nothing to do with Egyptian kings."

With people who clearly aren't going to buy the house I'm tempted to make things up such as:

"We've renovated the garden somewhat, well, we've moved the headstones."

"We considered converting the garage into a kitchen, the kitchen into a bedroom, the bedroom into the stairs and the stairs into a garage"

"I really like this room because I watched Batman Begins in it, have you seen it? I love it"

"I suppose some people might be put off by a ghost, but we find it a unique selling point."

"Every house has a negative point and ours is the fact that the utility room causes people to age at five times the normal speed. I tend to only pop in there when it's really necessary"

Fingers crossed we sell the place before I end up saying any of these out loud, or before I refer to the bedroom as 'where the magic happens'.

Save me from that and get on rightmove now.

Tuesday 4 January 2011

Timmy and the resolutions


Disappointly that title isn't the name of my new band. Or is it? No. No it isn't. If i ever have a band the name will more than likely be Badgercull (it's a long story).

Anyway. New Year and time for resolutions.

Over the years I've made some pretty ambitious resolutions for the year. That one about learning to fly (not in plane, just physically being able to fly) never worked out. And the one about inventing a machine to destroy Myleene Klass is still very much in the blueprint stage.

So this year here's a few I want to stick to. Perhaps you can try them too. Or perhaps not, what am i? Your mother?

Complain more when it's appropriate
When it comes to complaining, I'm awfully British. In a restaurant I can order a cheese toasted sandwich, they turn up with a lump of plutonium attached to a picture of Richard Littlejohn's backside with a side order of diesel flavoured paper clips...and when they ask "was everything ok with your meal?" I'll mumble something positive. Well no more. From now on I shall say when things are wrong. Conversely, that then means I can praise when things are right. Here's to a year of either discounted meals and apologies, or waiters piddling in my dessert.

Eat more fruit
Sounds tricky, until you realise that last year I ate the equivalent of 3 apples. I can surely do better than this? Ok, I don't like fruit and veg as much as sweets and curries (come on, I'm 35, I'm still young) so if I eat 4 apples I will have succeeded. And tictacs, they're fruit aren't they?

Tell people when they are being rude
Probably similar to my first one, but this is inspired by people who generally are rude and need to be told. Case in point, last year someone turned up late to an event I was at and apologised by saying "Oh, it's my son's carol concert/birthday/first vampire communion etc." They then proceeded to show half a dozen pictures of said event to me on a phone. I tried to be nice and showed some pics of our cats doing amusing things. The response to which was "I don't like cats." And in turn that led me to say "Yes, I don't like other people's children either - but I'm not rude enough to say it to their face." I must do more of this. I consequently look forward to being on the dole by March.

Stop calling people 'squire'
I do this quite a lot. In some cases, as a term of gentlemanly greeting - that's fine. But I also do it a lot when I forget someone's name. Honestly, it's a terrible habit and something I have to not do anymore. Please pull me up on it.

Finally write that book of short stories
Yes, there's a set of horror themed short stories in my head that might/might not involve the following - a set of haunted golf clubs, a dog that turns out to be a robot, the internet in your eyeball, a possessed polaroid photo and an express elevator to Croydon. Yes, some/all/none of that must be written.

I'll report back in a year on my progress. Until then, speak to you later squire.

Bugger.