What I Go To School For

I have always been wary about writing about my kids ever since my oldest, Annalie was born. She arrived half way through a stint I was doing as stand in host on a Radio Two show and my natural shiny, new enthusiasm for the world was slightly tarnished by a comment sent to the studio which said, “Tell Coia to shut up. People have had babies before. It’s no big deal.”

I can still remember the deflation I felt as my spirit of joy gave way to a feeling of wanting to hunt this listener down and bombard him with cake and flowers in an effort to make him see the world in the same warm, fuzzy tones that I did. Had Google maps existed then he would have been bullied by niceness. If that hadn’t worked I would have fallen back on sharing dirty nappies through his letter box.

Anyway, eighteen years on, that same baby has just started university, and I’m hoping that the grumpy listener has learned about the happy things in life and has now joined The Samaritans to spread peace and joy - or suffers from halitosis and huge haemorrhoids. I’m not bothered which.

University is about learning, and our trip there certainly was an education for me. The journey with a car full of girlie stuff was eye opening. As I packed the car I wondered who needs THREE embroidered pillows and why does the mattress need a feather duvet covering, as well as another proper duvet on top of my sleeping daughter? Does she really need a coffee maker or a corkscrew? Why the fairy lights? And what of the many boxes of lotions and potions, skin cleansers and makeup? My suggestion that if she gave up wearing cosmetics then she wouldn’t need cleansers and we could fit three more people in the car, met with hostility. I’ve no idea why.

I’m not sure my daughter will adapt well to student life for two, major reasons. Firstly she now has to share a toilet with four others, and for someone who wants to start earning just so she can pay someone to follow her with an ermine lined, heated, toilet seat wherever she goes, this may be a problem. Secondly she doesn’t like curry. The words student and curry go together like bread and wine, food and nourishment, fresh air and health, and me and chocolate. The vouchers waiting in her dorm offering discounts on Korma and Tikka Massala might just get used to clean the toilet seat, but that’s about all.

Through the wonders of Skype we speak to her most days and, not to be too much of a worried parent here, she seems to be losing weight. This may have something to do with the fact she puts food in the oven at her digs but forgets to switch the thing on. For this reason she was eating cold pizza the other night at eleven p.m. before heading out to a club. Midnight used to be sleepy time in her world, now it’s time to get the party started.

So where does her studies figure in all this? Er, not too sure. She seems to have a couple of lectures a day, Friday off, as well as weekends, and she hasn’t managed a full lecture yet. Her first session found her sitting in the wrong lecture theatre. When she realised, she left and wandered in to a meeting of the Islamic Student Council, before arriving at her proper lecture soaking wet from running through rain showers, just in time to hear her tutor say “Thank you for coming, see you next week.”

At home my fiercely independent daughter would refuse help and insist she could do anything I could do. She was going to prove in life that girlies are every bit as hands on and useful as boys. Since arriving at Uni she’s joined the cheerleading squad and told me not to worry about the new printer I sent as she’d get one of the boys to plug it up for her.

Perhaps further education really is teaching her something after all. Forget the lectures. Learning how to use her feminine wiles is a lesson that her mum graduated in with first class honours and I think history may be repeating itself.

Who's Sorry Now?

Remember Arthur Fonzarelli a.k.a. The Fonz?

There’s a great scene in the American comedy series Happy Days where Fonzy, a cool, much admired lady killer in a leather jacket, tight jeans and a quiff the size of the Statue Of Liberty, has to admit to the loser Ralph Malph that he made a mistake when advising him to join the Marines.

“I was Wrngggggg”, he says as the word ‘wrong’ sticks in his throat. He tries again. “I was wrrrrrrgggg” he mumbles, pained and incapable of admitting he’s less than perfect. “You mean you were wrong?” asks an incredulous Malph with a huge smile. The Fonz looks away hurt as if hit across the face with days old fish wrapped in wet underpants.

I now know how The Fonz felt as it’s difficult to say that you were wrong when you think you’re always right, but I’m going to have step up here and proclaim very loudly, “I was wrong”. There, it’s not that difficult is it? So what am I admitting to?

I wrote a blog at the beginning of summer saying I didn’t want the Olympics here in the UK and that it would be an enormous waste of money and an embarrassing failure. I criticised the whole scheme and said no one was interested. Since I wrote, not only was it considered the most successful summer Olympics since Zeus drove his chariot from the clouds to open the first Games and Aphrodite won gold for synchronised swimming, the follow up Paralympics has now taken on legendary global status with record crowds and TV audiences. Apart, of course, from America where NBC deemed it about as important as cheese wrapping and consigned it to one, short, broadcast.

In the end our London roads didn’t grind to a halt, our underground trains continued to move, and everyone had a smile on their face as thousands of kind volunteers kept the thing running smoothly and historically. I sat in the Olympic stadium for the Paralympics’ athletics, joining eighty thousand others in awe of athletes running on blades instead of legs, being guided round the track in races for the blind by sighted helpers who train every bit as hard as they do, throwing heavy shot putts from wheelchairs further than I could throw a tennis ball, and all of us teary as the anthems played to hail another success.

I will always, and I mean always, remember the fifteen hundred metres heat, four laps of the track with every athlete home and dry apart from one obviously pained runner who still had two laps to go. A one armed, limping man named Houssein Omar Hussan, the only athlete sent by his country Djibouti, hobbled round for eight hundred metres on his own. As I noticed him getting lapped, initially I felt sorry for him but this turned to total admiration. He refused to bow out. He wanted to finish for pride. I have tears in my eyes as I write this, remembering as I stood with the rest of the stadium and applauded him all the way round those lonely hundreds of metres.

That’s what you missed NBC, you idiots. A spirit that speaks to generations, an endeavour that feeds souls and encourages the triumph of hope. In this light your network branding stands for No Bloody Clue.

So, I and NBC were wrong, wrong, wrong. The Olympics and Paralympics were a one off. A bit like me admitting I made a mistake.

It will take more than four years for me to do that again.

Gimme Shelter

I do think it’s unfair that the name Assange doesn’t rhyme with Strange and Derange. The Wikileaks founder Julian Assange may pronounce his surname to rhyme with Duck a l’Orange but he has turned out to be a uniquely bonkers fowl indeed. Currently, he’s completely ducked.

His original pledge, that he was going to share rare secrets we really needed to know through Wikileaks by dispersing government papers, promised we would all sit up and realise what a freedom loving, marvellous human being he was. I think the idea was that the Pope would canonise him, he would ascend to Heaven, then come back while The National Lottery gave all charitable monies to him as the only “good cause” worth preserving. He would probably also take over presenting duties on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire and marry Jennifer Aniston while finding a cure for verrucas, cancer and Jeremy Clarkson.

In the end, of course, there was little new in his paper catharsis and this self proclaimed trailblazer of righteousness and freedom of information now finds himself fighting to avoid extradition to Sweden where he faces rape charges. The Australian activist, who looks like a debauched incarnation of Captain Scarlet’s buddy Blue, has claimed asylum from the Ecuador government, a country with a national anthem that sounds like “Here Comes The Bride” and a system that imprisons journalists who don’t agree with it.

Last July three directors and one writer from the El Universo newspaper were jailed for three years and told to give forty million dollars to the President for questioning his decisions in print. No hypocrisy there then, eh? Mr Strange may want to save us all, but he wants to save himself even more.

Anyway, I bring this up because Assange walked in to the South American country’s embassy in London and has been living there for weeks, unable to leave without being arrested. An internet campaign to raise money for someone to set off the fire alarm and get him on to the street has so far raised £6,500, while the UK could engineer a sewage problem, perhaps feed George Galloway in to the water and block up their toilets, and that might get him out.

But meantime he’s confined to the inside of the embassy, not allowed to leave.

This may sound OK, almost as if he’s having a bit of a holiday, but I doubt it. Once you’ve counted the number of Galapagos tortoises on the dining room wallpaper and had a pee in every single one of the embassy's many bathrooms, what’s left to do?

I can imagine it makes for a very poor diary. “Woke up, had breakfast, tried not to molest the embassy secretary, looked out of the window at those nasty police people, had lunch, then afternoon nap followed by a bit of internet porn, then sent out for a curry and up to bed.” Not much of a life is it? It must be like working from home but without the distraction of a quick trip to Starbucks.

Perhaps I’m too cynical and the guy is actually well intentioned rather than self obsessed. Perhaps he didn’t carry out the sexual assaults, but he’s got to show his own belief in humanity by allowing twelve good men and true to decide his guilt or innocence in a court room. The longer he stays holed up, as welcome as a bad smell in Coco Chanel’s bathroom, the more sympathy he loses.

If all he’s guilty of is believing in his own puffed up importance then that’s not a crime. Self delusion is easily fixed by getting out and joining the real world.

Walking On Sunshine

The capital of Portugal is Dublin, the Portuguese drink nothing but Guinness, and from Lisbon to Faro you’ll see people looking out for leprechauns and singing traditional Iberian folk songs like The Wild Rover.

That’s the only conclusion I can come to after spending a few weeks of summer on the Portuguese coast where every person I met sounded like they were auditioning for Boyzone or Westlife. There can’t be many people left in Ireland right now, as the number of Algarve karaoke bars resonating to ‘Danny Boy’ will testify.

I blame Ryanair, the Irish airline that takes its business plan from Fagin and its charm from Lord Voldemort, forgetting to tell you the add ons such as an actual seat, or toilet paper, or oxygen to breathe, increase the bill enormously. The Irish seem to have fallen for it, and Ryanair’s destination boards may read London, Lisbon, Paris etc, but I suspect that once in the air the pilots are all changing their minds and landing at Portugal’s Faro airport. Maybe it costs extra if you want the pilot to use his GPS.

The big trend on the continent this summer is not designer tops or shorts, but flip flops. If you haven’t got Havaianas you haven’t got anything worthwhile. These fashion must haves look like ordinary rubber shoes from the Pound shop but they have a small flag of Brazil on the strap, so cue everywhere selling rip off footwear with the little blue globe flag proudly stamped. Those photos of you lying flat on your back outside the holiday karaoke bar will make you look like Hollywood royalty if you get your feet in the picture.

Before Portugal we spent a week in Spain and flew in to Gibraltar. If you’ve never been there imaging setting a plane down on Oxford Street in a typhoon and you’ll get the picture. As we landed, passing the huge mountainous rock on our right hand side, we suddenly accelerated and took off again. A very novel way of arriving in a country. Turns out the captain wasn’t sure he’d miss someone’s house and decided to try again. If he only worked for Ryanair he’d never have to worry.

Have you noticed that one downside of our increasingly jaded lives is that a great old holiday tradition seems to have died out? No one claps and applauds the pilot any more when the plane lands. It was always a reassuring sign of being posh by deliberately, and snootily, refusing to join in, but now it seems we’re all sophisticated so I may have to start the tradition again on my next flight.

Our place on The Algarve is near Tavira, a quaint fishing town with 25 churches, 6 chapels and 5 convents. If you think you’re overworked, these are all served by 1 priest. As my daughter said “he must do a church crawl every Sunday”. I think it’s like a pub crawl but with a less varied wine choice.

As usual tattoos were in abundance on the beach, and my prize winners included a Scottish guy who had full size angel wings running the length and breadth of his back and The Mona Lisa wearing a clown nose on his arm. He tied for first place with An Essex bloke who, classily, had the word DEVIANT on his fat belly and a barcode on his back. I’m sure Jeremy Kyle is making the calls now.

We took part in a holiday quiz and actually won it, though I’m not sure how. Daughter number one was writing down the answers, and to the question “which organisation has the motto Per Ardua Ad Astra” I told her to write The RAF, and she then asked how to spell it. Seriously! She also refused to accept a question about the famous song The Londonderry Air as she couldn’t believe anyone had written a song called The London Derriere. Remind me to check how much we’ve spent on her education.

Anyway, it’s good to be home. We flew back from Faro airport and all the wannabe Boyzone people were there again, this time literally! Ronan Keating was waiting for a flight to Dublin with his kids, and even though he probably has a private jet he chose Ryanair. He must have a sense of humour.

Holidays are great, and they’re educational. I now know Ireland decamps to the Algarve for two months every year, everyone on our beach knows now that a tattoo of the Mona Lisa wearing a red clown nose is funny for just ten seconds, and my daughter has now learned how to spell RAF.

Holidays should be compulsory.

Running With The (K)night

I just bought a new dictionary and looked up the word Olympics. I may have remembered it wrongly but I’m almost sure it went something like, “Pain in the ass sports day for show offs. Useful for bankrupting countries, upsetting locals, and leaving wildlife legacy (see White Elephants).”

For those who don’t live in the English capital city let me give you an insight in to the conversations all Londoners seem to be having right now as we get ever closer to the opening of the 2012 Olympics.

People here fall in to one of two camps. The Mayor and his pal, organiser and knight of the realm Lord Coe, say something like “Isn’t it great? It will put us on the world map. It’s worth every penny”. Everyone else says “Bloody waste of time. Traffic will be horrendous and we won’t get to work. We’re paying for some jumping and running with sticks. No wonder the country has no money.”

As far as I’m aware London is already on the world map – left of Paris, right of Dublin – so if this is a glorified advert I want my money back. It all seems so short sighted that it was surely pre ordained that the 2012 Olympics mascot would turn out to be a cuddly toy with one eye. Presumably Mr Magoo turned them down.

Already signs have gone up warning us all not to drive in London from next week as congestion will be apocalyptic, ground to air missiles have been installed on top of apartment blocks, and there’s a no fly zone over the east of London.

Stadium security, we now know, will have to be handled by our army because the original company, G4S, which is headed by the worst mullet haircut this side of 1985, has decided they can’t, after all, provide the right number of properly trained security guards. They’ve left it to the very last minute to let us know, of course, with their P.R. and Communications department stuck in the dark ages - a bit like their boss’s hair style.

Near to us the Wimbledon tennis championship courts have been turned over to the organisers of 2012 so they can change the floral hanging baskets to Olympic colours. A necessary expense I’m sure you’ll agree. Better to throw out the thousands of pounds of arrangements that looked so brilliant last week for the Championship finals so that everyone will leave the Olympics saying “the tennis wasn’t up to much but at least the flower hues replicated that of the running track.” Being colour blind may I say “thanks for nothing”.

As spectators we are paying for this sports day twice – once through taxes and again through ticket prices. My friend has bought two tickets for the swimming races costing just under one thousand pounds, and for this he gets to sit and watch the splashing for two hours and then he’s thrown out and replaced by others. He’s been told he can’t take food or even water in to the stadium as he has to buy from official vendors, and the only credit card he can use is from Visa.

Meanwhile sponsors and their connected clients, with their kids and grannies twice removed, have been battling with great British sportsmen like Will. I. Am and Japanese clients of Samsung to run with the torch through rain soaked streets of Britain spreading the good news.

Personally I’m giving it all a miss. Rightly or wrongly though, I’ll be there in the stadium watching the Paralympics which seems to me to be more about the original Olympic ideal than watching Usain Bolt preen and kiss himself all over. I’ll make sure to set out for the stadium a month ahead to get through the traffic.

So, if you want to annoy this London resident, or any other, right now just start the conversation with “you must be so excited about the Olympics.” Then run away as fast as Lord Coe used to. Or just duck!

Yesterday

I note that the mother of Prince Charles’ maid has put a piece of toast up for auction that she made for the Royal on the day he married Lady Diana. Not exactly a good luck charm then. She’s asking five hundred pounds for it which, coincidentally, is what a piece of toast will cost in most London hotels during the Olympics.

Meantime an African mine worker has been jailed after being caught smuggling precious stones which he’d stolen from his work. This impressive man was arrested at an airport in the Congo with 127 diamonds hidden up his bottom. Now that’s what I call a diamond ring.

I came across these news stories while reading at the airport today, waiting for my daughter and her friend to take off for Spain on a working holiday.

Years ago when I left school, I took a job for the summer working with my mates in a brewery where I spent weeks watching labels stick to bottles, addresses stick to packing cases, and demented lifers stick two fingers up at us “new boys” and make our lives miserable every day from eight a.m. till five p.m.

My daughter on the other hand has used her summer to fly to Spain to work in the sunshine at a kids’ club in Marbella. Her arduous day consists of swimming and playing with children of wealthy parents from ten o’clock before checking off and heading to the beach at twop.m. That’s even fewer hours than an MP works. Can’t be fair can it?

My first day in the brewery involved me smashing bottles against a wall, sweeping up the broken glass, shoving it in a skip and then starting all over again. My daughter’s first day consisted of having coffee with a famous singer whose dad is an equally famous Russian cosmonaut, then playing with the woman’s son and bodyguard at the pool before handing the offspring back to a nanny. Where did I go wrong?

Well, I was obviously born at the wrong time for a start. When I took the bus in to the brewery all those years ago, on wet Glasgow summer days, I had never been in an aeroplane before. Holidays were always taken in Britain and ‘suntan’ was the leader of Brunei. How times have changed.

Now sixteen year old girls arrive at their prom (another story I caught up with in that newspaper) in helicopters and limousines, with two turning up this week in full evening dress in Barbie boxes on the back of a trailer. In my day we wore matching patterned shirts and ties and caught the bus, then we stood at one side of a hall for the whole night avoiding eye contact, or indeed any contact, with girls till it was time to go home.

But there are downsides to being a teenager today, as shown by Britney Marshall in that same paper. The poor girl is only fourteen but is getting pressurised by her mum and sisters in to getting a boob job. Between them, Britney’s female family have ten breasts, three litres of silicone, thirteen operations, and one brain cell. Britney’s mum says she’s a psychic, so no doubt she can read my mind right now and see what I think of her.

Add to this pressure of looking good the problems of drugs, unemployment, student loans, etc, and I certainly don’t grudge kids their trips to the sun to look after the Russian billionaires’ offspring for a few weeks, but I guess the part of me that’s still back in that Glasgow brewery has a tear in his eye. I’m simply jealous.

I’ll look and see if I might still have a salmon paste sandwich somewhere from my school leavers’ dance. Maybe I’ll cheer myself up and put it on eBay alongside Prince Charles’ toast.

Happy - ish Birthday To You

I take a lot for granted – that daylight will follow nightime, that my kids think I’m clueless and embarrassing, and that British footballers will always play the game as if they have arthritis, their shoe laces tied together, and gold bullion hidden in their boots.

But, if I was in danger of taking good luck for granted I had a wake up call this week all, unfortunately, at my daughter’s expense.

Yesterday was the day before her 18th birthday. (I know, you are about to say I look too young aren’t you? Er, aren’t you? Please, take your time.) So what could go wrong?

Well, for starters we had a complete electricity cut for the whole day after a stupid neighbour employed cowboy labourers to erect a post outside his house. They drilled down through a power cable and left the whole street without electricity till night fall. No hot water for showers means, to a teenage birthday girl, the equivalent of no oxygen, light, heat or life. It’s a disaster. Forget the no electric kettle for cups of tea, no TV or lights, no cooking or microwave, a total lack of computer action, silent radio and a perfect excuse not to shave. Actually that last bit was good if I’m honest. It may be a disaster for teenage legs but for dads it’s heaven sent. I suppose even hell might have a corner away from the fire that has an ice cream van.

But, being a paid up snob, I had one extra problem that the other neighbours didn’t experience. The gates to my house are electric so, although I could climb over them with a bit of care and effort, I couldn’t get my car out. This, on the day Debbie had organised to take our daughters and her mum to The Ritz for afternoon tea as a pre birthday celebration. As you do.

Seriously, the Ritz was meant to be a day my daughter would remember forever. I’d promised to drop everyone off then motor on to pick up some special surprise helium balloons before driving to do my radio show. So what to do? Kindly, a neighbour drove them to the station after they scaled our gates with stiletto heels, and I took a taxi for the rest of the day. The birthday surprise was saved in the end but at the cost of a few rips in dresses which appeared after the gate climbing.

I know the stupid neighbour who booked these cheap workers didn’t check if they have insurance, and I also know they won’t even know what insurance is, so do I go to the guy and ask him to pay me back for the cab journeys, the wasted food in our freezers, and the dress repairs? Or am I being mean? Do you think he’s likely to pay up?

With one disaster out of the way the actual birthday today had to go without a hitch, didn’t it? Well almost.

We hired a boat as a surprise, complete with champagne and banners, and the whole family set off up the Thames. Within two minutes the engine broke down and we drifted aimlessly until another boat came to our rescue. Our hour on the river consisted of us being towed up and down with one of our party dangling over the front to keep the rope taught.

Annalie tells me the disasters ensured she won’t forget her 18th in a hurry, which is kind of her. Once I get hold of my neighbour and the boat owner I doubt if they’ll forget either.

The Birdie Song

To Tweet or not to Tweet, that is the question - in less than 140 characters of course.

My God how I’ve come under pressure this week to join the rest of the world and share with Twitter users (Twits?) every useless thing that happens to me. I don’t like it. Do you really want to know my every bowel movement, how many odour eaters I’ve bought and how I make my porridge in the morning?

I’m not a Luddite as I feel I have embraced social media – I blog, I use Facebook, etc - so I think I’m committed to technology. But it’s not good enough for some who think you can be just a little bit pregnant. These technology midwives tell me I have to go the whole way and join Twitter in order to enjoy what today’s technology delivers. It’s not enough to be boring in just a few places, I apparently now have to bore people on every social outlet.

The latest pressure has been caused by my wife starting to Tweet this week. @debgreenwoodqvc started sharing her words of wisdom on Monday, encouraged by her employers at QVC. This now makes me the only member of my household who doesn’t wear a bra, use fake tan, or Tweet. My two daughters have done it for a couple of years, though God knows why. I can’t imagine the world is dying to know about spot cream and the Jonas Brothers.

But now I’ve reached rock bottom. A guy who set up the Twitter name #thefakepaulcoia is following my wife, and I feel I’ve slipped in to a Wes Craven movie with reality just a thing of the past.

What would I share on Twitter, and how often are you supposed to post these things? Today for instance consisted of me buying a table and chairs for the garden, liaising with the Middle East to finalise a price on a job I’m doing, going to Costa for a hot chocolate, and pulling out a few weeds from my garden. Would any of that get me followers? If so, they’re not the kind of people I would want as followers.

Stalkers maybe, but not followers.

On the other hand if I share with you that I flew somewhere exotic, bumped in to a famous showbiz pal or took in a private live performance by an artist, all of which I do regularly, then I sound up myself and boastful. So what do I do?

Facebook seems to me to be about my limit. I posted on that this week that I might start Tweeting, and asked if it was a good idea. Almost all replies said Twitter was rubbish and to avoid it, apart from one lady who encouraged me to join, ending with “....but just ignore the nutters”. Eh?

Facebook seems sociable and friendly. Because you can use lots more words, everyone can communicate better. I also had over five hundred messages on my page on Tuesday wishing me a Happy Birthday. That seems kind of nice and uplifting. Much better than “Hpy bday 2 @paulcoia. Av a gr8 day. Njoy yr cake and prezs.”

So, I don’t really think I have to give this any serious thought at all. I can say I’m modern and embrace social media without Tweeting. Tulisa, X Factor judge, Tweeted yesterday “F*** all the F*****s who diss me. Kiss my a**. #F***em”. I don’t need Twitter to hear that kind of stuff, I can watch the Sopranos which is much more entertaining.

I think I can be just a little bit pregnant, unlike people who are so addicted I am sure they would Tweet during conception. So, I’m going to avoid Twitter, at least until the fake Paul Coia starts getting a serious following. Which, please God, will be never.

Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu

Greetings from my sick bed, and apologies for the untidiness as you look around my bedroom. The carpet of tissues and those dirty socks stuck to the curtains will be removed as soon as I’m back on my feet, which I haven’t seen for days as they’ve been playing hide and seek under the duvet.

It’s been about a month since I wrote my last blog. Actually, that’s not true. It’s a month since I published my last scribblings but I’ve diligently written every week since then yet found myself stuck in places where I couldn’t get on line, so maybe I’ll keep them and slip them in at a later date when no one’s looking.

I was very flattered by the flood of enquiries asking where I’d gone to. Well, not so much a flood as a stream after a particularly long and parching drought. But that email really cheered me up. Thank you mum.

In fact, since we last “spoke” I have flown back and forth to Glasgow, Dubai, Oman and Portugal spending more time in the sky than the ever present rainclouds over the UK. I have hosted charity events, media training sessions, produced and directed a video, done voice overs, and caught pneumonia. I didn’t so much burn the candle at both ends as set it on fire with a flame thrower then threw it in the oven and chucked the whole stove in a furnace just to make sure, so I’m guessing I deserve a bit of illness.

I just wish it could have been acne or athlete’s foot instead.

As far as I know I’ve never had pneumonia before. I think I’d have remembered the coughing and pain, and just how crap daytime TV really is.

Every fibre of my weight depleting body screams that I should “man up” and just get
on with it, but I can’t get my head off the pillow, which will make for an interesting hat when I finally emerge. Maybe I can add some ribbons and a small parasol on top before my holiday. So far I have lost six pounds in six days on the pneumonia diet. It’s like Weight Watchers but with more phlegm.

As a showbiz ham I’m practising multiple roles for the upcoming Christmas season, doing my best impression of Sneezy and the other dwarves who didn’t make the Walt Disney cut including Wheezy, Spluttery and Coughy. If Snow White pops by to cheer me up with her pal Happy, I’m sticking a GPS in her handbag and alerting the woodsman to follow her with his axe.

The problem with illness isn’t the discomfort, it’s the boredom. No one’s invented a pill for that yet. I tried crosswords but couldn’t focus. Sudoko was a failure because I couldn’t count past three, and the book I’m reading about an atrocity during the Balkans war somehow had that “feel good” factor missing. Instead, as I’m trying to get my latest quiz show format commissioned, I lay back and thought up new TV show formats. The only one I think has a chance is “Embarrassing Bodies: The Musical”.

I’ll be back next week, or maybe I’ll be in hospital instead being treated in The Drama Queen Wing for terminal over reaction.

Either way, it’s time for more antibiotics.

Sunshine Superman

So May has arrived with its promise of sunshine and butterflies, and I can almost smell barbecue burgers burning, see the ants in my beer, feel my nose burning from pollen and hear the wasps buzzing over my ice cream already. Now picnic blankets will be getting used as God intended rather than being draped over knees in the TV room through winter.

Perversely, to celebrate the arrival of the season of hope and suntan, the UK is drowning in nonstop rain and the British Olympic Swimming Team is training in the streets. I’m sure I ran over someone doing the backstroke in Kingston High Street a couple of weeks ago, and I’m certain that was Tom Chambers diving off Wimbledon bridge last week.

I don’t do rain. That may sound odd coming from someone born in Scotland, a country where rain is like deep fried pizza -ever present. Here every traffic warden is called Moses, and I believe it was driving through Glasgow’s deluged streets one summer that gave God the idea for parting The Red Sea.

I left the land of my birth because of the crummy weather, so the current climate in London suits me about as much as having piles suits someone with hopes of being a tennis umpire. It’s time for me to escape to the sun.

Last week I travelled to the Algarve in Portugal, scene of many glorious holidays and groggy mornings, looking for weather that was vastly different from the UK. And boy did I get it. The place was colder than a polar bear’s bum and wetter than a goldfish’s steam room. It was awful.

But poor old Portugal is suffering from more than just bad weather. Everyone is pleading poverty. So what do the authorities do to help? They have installed tolls on the main road through the Algarve, which was greeted enthusiastically by people setting fire to the cameras and even firing shots at them. Anywhere else in the world these toll booths would be well thought out and done properly, but not here.

Someone has sat down and thought of every single way to make this as difficult as possible. Like the labour market in Portugal, it just does not work.

In Britain, America, and anywhere else I have used toll roads there is a machine you chuck money in or someone in a little booth who takes your money from you with a polite smile and a “thank you”, but that’s too normal for this part of the Iberian peninsula. Here, cameras take a photograph of your number plate and you then have to wait two days and go to the post office to pay. Every single time!

Not to labour a point, but when I did eventually take the car back to the airport and asked how I was to pay the tolls for that journey, the car hire man didn’t know. Apparently no one had thought of this and so no one pays. The computer cannot cope.

In The Algarve almost no restaurants will accept credit cards. They want cash so that there isn’t a record of any money that the nasty tax man may want to get his hands on. But the shop owners are clever. In case an official happens to visit the restaurant you will always find a sign up saying “Sorry, our credit card machine is broken today”, or more accurately “Sorry, our machine credit not work. Broked.”

Is it any wonder the Eurozone is in such a mess? I love Portugal but it, and Europe, need someone very clever to sort this mess out. I think it must be a woman, and here’s why.

A single guy living at home with his father found out he was going to inherit a fortune when his sickly dad died. One evening he spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and said, "I may look just ordinary, but in a few weeks my father will die and I will inherit $200 million". Impressed, the woman asked for his business card and three days later - she became his stepmother.

See? Women are so much better at financial planning than men.

The Lullaby Of Broadway

Did you watch the new TV show ‘Smash’ at the weekend? This is a lavish and immaculate musical drama produced by Spielberg and costing more than Bloomberg. It is so coldly calculated that if it was an iceberg, Smash would greet the Titanic with a shout of “no, YOU give way”.

The show suggests it will give you and me an insight in to the catiness of New York musical theatre, and if Harry Warren had been alive to watch ‘Smash’ his lyrics may have changed. “Come on along and listen to the great big lie of Broadway” has a certain ring to it don’t you think?

Until this week I had never experienced the audition process, or ‘casting call’ as they term it on the stage. Dozens of hopefuls are invited to come along and do their thing for the director. They are brought on in groups, they then do a few dance steps or sing a few bars, and some seconds later a voice shouts “numbers two, five and thirty can stay, the rest of you thanks for nothing”. It’s so dispiriting it would sap the confidence of a good looking millionaire life coach fending off supermodels in heat.

So how did I come to experience the dreaded casting call when it’s well known I dance like a statue of Long John Silver and have the singing voice of his parrot? Well, this week I was asked to audition for a corporate video job in which I would be interviewing the CEO of one of the world’s largest insurance companies. Now I grant you it’s not up there in the glamour stakes with Hollywood or Broadway - or even Blackpool pier’s summer revue come to that - but we all have to pay our bills and, actually, I quite like this kind of stuff. Don’t tell anyone.

So off I go to a rather run down building in central London for the camera test. When I say “run down” I mean those words in the sense that water was, literally, running down the walls in the basement where the studio was situated. I carefully negotiated my way past these natural waterfalls, broken bricks and an abandoned, soiled, sofa thinking more and more that I was the victim of a practical joke or was about to stumble on a terrorist squat. I’m sure a zombie movie was shot here.
Certainly the building’s caretaker should have been.

Eventually I found Room 101 (it wasn’t actually called that but it will give you an idea of how George Orwell must have visited here at some point to get inspiration for 1984) and I was asked to fill in a form with my height, my waist, my chest and shoe size, etc. I guess if you do this regularly then you know the answers but, as I hadn’t a clue, I left the sheet blank and was then made to stand holding a piece of paper with my name on it while a photo was taken. Think of those mug shots of arrested suspects and you’ll get the picture – so to speak.

I then sat down beside one of the other guys who was also after the job. Now this was difficult because he was quite pleasant and I had to make polite conversation while really hoping he’d be carted off to A&E with a burst appendix or have an accident in his trousers and faint with embarrassment.

And then my turn came. A very nice guy called Matt told me he would pretend to be the CEO and I simply had to follow the instructions I’d received in an email. Problem was that I’d had no email and so didn’t have a clue what was supposed to happen.

We made a great team. I was dreadful, poor Matt was bad at pretending he understood financial stuff, and the camera operator, who had seen dozens of people like me do this all day, looked like he was praying for an earthquake. Four minutes later I was again out in the corridors, navigating past the discarded sofa and puddles, and back out on the street.

How did I feel? Well, I thought about it and just laughed out loud. They had all been very nice but it confirmed to me that what I do is just not a proper job. Nor is dancing on stage or appearing in a television show. We set ourselves up for humiliation so there’s no point in crying about it. Better to laugh and, when people ask what your job is, say something like “I don’t work, I inherited.” Seems to work for the Royals.

This week then I’m off to the job centre to find something slightly less humiliating. Perhaps a sanitary waste inspector, or maybe a circus clown. Or I could ask if they have any jobs working with Spielberg. I bet the waterfalls on his walls are meant to there.

Beautiful Girl

This week I find myself feeling sorry for someone I’ve never met, someone who has become a very reluctant internet sensation because of an article written simply to make ends meet.

Poor old Rachel Brick is a freelance writer who regularly gives newspaper editors ideas for articles which, if she’s lucky, will make her about five hundred pounds a time. She does this alongside hundreds of other women who have to pay mortgages, school fees and gym memberships and are in the same boat.

If they don’t get published, they don’t eat so, to stand out from the crowd, an idea has to be original or outrageous or likely to cause controversy. Better still it should be all three. Rachel submitted an idea for an article about how she has suffered in life because she’s pretty, her theory being that the sisterhood hate good looking women.

Now let’s put this in some perspective. The ever increasingly desperate Rachel, along with hundreds of other freelancers, has written articles in the past that have been completely ignored or have attracted huge yawns as readers skip to the sports pages. Who remembers when she wrote that she divorced her first husband because a psychic told her to, or that she was locked in a car by her partner because he thought her outfit was too revealing, or that her new husband says he’ll divorce her if she gets fat? The world of the freelancer is a world of silliness, embarrassment, exposition and, usually, exaggeration or downright fabrication. But that’s fine because we all skip over what’s written with a smile or grunt and move on. Rachel’s previous works of art may have paid her grocery bill but they’re now lying in landfill covered in grease from insulating fish and chips.

Knowing how these things work, this article will have been sent back and forward between the Daily Mail and Rachel several times with them constantly asking her to ramp up the misery, show more disdain for the sisterhood and exaggerate her claims.

And she has obliged. In spades.

But once the article about Rachel’s travails as a beauty was published, the newspaper’s tactics came apart. They had ramped this up so much that a blind man in a pitch black cave, wearing sunglasses and a plastic bucket over his head at night, could simply point out the flaw. Rachel just isn’t a looker.

The poor woman then had to face vitriol and nastiness from every country as the piece went viral. Most were from self appointed judges of beauty, with the nicer comments varying between “You are tall and blonde, but then so is Big Bird” and “Get some new mirrors” through to “Brick by name, thick as one by nature.”

The really nasty opinions, which ego filled internet trolls felt were fascinating, original and erudite opinions that the world was waiting to fall down and worship, included “She’s called Brick because she was hit with one”, “Sam, you are old and ugly” and, from one perfect gentleman, “If you and I were the last couple on earth the race would die out. I’d rather be gay.”

I don’t doubt Samantha will make a fortune out of her new media attention, but I also have no doubts that she’s hurting like hell, embarrassed for her family and friends, and wants to crawl away on holiday to Mars for a few years. She has had to defend herself on TV in front of interviewers who know how this all works but have to pretend they’re outraged so that they can earn their wage.

But now, to make matters worse for Rachel, her husband has got in on the act and sold an interview explaining his position on the matter, accompanied by photos of him carrying a rifle and wearing combat fatigues and an unlikely and unforgiveable moustache that the Village People would laugh at while looking for the poor walrus he’d shot to bag it.

But let me stress again. The way this works is that freelancers have to earn a living. With more newspapers laying off staff every week, we can expect this desperation to increase every day.

One person who will be spitting nails is Liz Jones, a vacuous woman who has instinctively embraced the freelance culture writing about her failures with men so often it’s beyond tedious and has earned her epithets such as negative, sneering, empty headed, hypocritical and idiotic, all adjectives she will show to her editors to prove the drivel she writes is working and they’d be silly not to commission more. But now Liz has a rival, and it’s one who’s had more publicity in one week than she has in a very long, anorexic, lifetime. I fully expect Rachel Brick’s next article to be “Why Liz Jones Is An Alien Who Fancies Me”.

People, let’s not take this all too seriously, eh? These women are just like extras in the chorus line of a bad musical. No one is expected to actually pay them any attention for God’s sake.

They’re making a living as best they know how, fully aware of the tat that’s paying their bills, whilst waiting nervously for the public to wise up and close them down.

Fight For The Right To Party

I wanted to express my outrage, my horror, my sense of disappointment at something so outrageous it makes me almost physically sick. An event occurred last week which I think illustrates quite graphically the stupidness and backward nature of the
British people, and I feel like venting my spleen.

By the way, have you seen my spleen? With the warm weather back again my neighbours have been treated to it as I potter round the garden, topless, to shouts of “for God’s sake put it away. It’s big but it’s not smart”. My diet starts again tomorrow.

Anyway, back to the serious bit. What’s got me so angry? George Galloway was elected as a new MP this week and within twenty four hours someone had pelted him with eggs. In a civilised society this is simply outrageous and beyond the pale. What a waste of a perfectly good egg. Couldn’t they have thrown a bad one? A really, really smelly old one? Maybe an ostrich egg the size of Cornwall with cat litter inside it and superglue on the outside? Perhaps an egg omelette while still in the pan?

Surely no one could tire of pelting any politician, although I do think Galloway is a special case. There’s something about this Scottish, self regarding, hobbit that makes me forget I’m a lovely, soft centred peacenick, and makes me want to morph in to Darth Vader. His posters proclaimed his organisation as the Respect party, presumably an attempt to be down with the kids, but how can anyone respect a politician? Especially one with a moustache for goodness sake.

Anyone in politics now is fair game, of course, and I don’t think any of them can complain. They seem to think Trust and Respect are a sister company of Abercrombie and Fitch, great as a slogan on a T Shirt but mythical creatures who don’t actually exist.

Our current government is a laughing stock because of the petrol debacle, granny taxes, and plans to charge more for pastry. Can you believe it? We have troops dying almost daily, lending in crisis, the Eurozone dragging us down, and we will all be saved by pastry. Of course the Labour party, while refusing to ask their union bosses to call off any hint of petrol delivery shortages, think they can solve the problems of the world by having their photos taken in a bakery eating pasties. I wouldn’t take one of these people off you at a car boot sale if they were free and you threw in a Rolex and a signed original script of Citizen Kane.

So what are we supposed to do? I began asking some friends and was told to stand for parliament and become an MP. I would rather lick rotten egg off Galloway’s bald head.

I accept that we’re better off than countries with dictators, civil wars, famine, despots or Nicolas Sarkozy, but I really, really want someone I can trust and respect. Where are they?

If you fancy going for it, I’ve done some research and it’s not difficult to stand as an independent candidiate. You need to be over 18, a British citizen, and have ten signatures from people who live in the area you wish to represent. Obviously no one wants anyone dodgy and undesirable to try and enter parliament so it is illegal to stand as an MP if you are a convicted criminal, bankrupt, a member of the police force or civil service, or if you are a judge.

If you form a new political party you have to think of a name that’s no longer than six words and, sadly, they expressly forbid you registering the name “None Of The Above” which I think is a brilliant name for a party.

In Britain we’ve had the The Monster Raving Loony Party, The Teddy Bear Alliance, The Death Dungeons and Taxes Party and, my own favourite, The Mongolian Barbecue Great Place To Party, but other countries do even better. Organisations that you instinctively just know will be full of ridiculous, silly people with no brains include, in Australia, ‘The Sun Ripened Warm Tomato Party’, Hungary enjoys the ‘Double Tailed Dog Party’, Sweden has welcomed the ‘Donald Duck Party’, and America has the Republicans.

So, if you’ve ever thought of becoming a politician, please stand up and be counted now. Go for it. Your country needs you like never before. And if you get elected please let me know. I’ll be out buying the ostrich eggs and superglue.

Hurt

Twitter and Facebook have a lot to answer for. They’ve ruined the art of the put down.

My calling for more insults may sound strange in a week when journalist Alison Pearson reported an unknown comedian named Doug Stanhope for abusing her on Twitter, Radio presenter Richard Bacon told police of an internet troll who insulted him, and former footballer Stan Collymore watched Joshua Cryer get sentenced to 240 hours of community work for comments posted.

But I’m talking about the proper insult, one which leaves the recipient admiring his assailant for inventiveness, ingenuity and cleverness. Pearson’s abuser posted that he hoped her kids would get tetraplegia, Bacon’s stalker insulted his wife and infant son while fantasising about Bacon’s death, and Collymore’s opponent simply posted a vomitarium of racial slurs. Hardly clever, ingenious or inventive, and certainly not designed to leave anyone in admiration.

I’m not sure if it’s the fact that people who insult others on digital media tend to have nine fingers more than their total number of brain cells and therefore type nine words for every time they actually engage their thinking gear, or whether they just spend too much time on their own congratulating themselves on their sense of humour.

If digital trolls had any social contact whatsoever, people would instantly tell them that drawing beards on photos of ladies and boobs on pictures of men doesn’t really make you a comedian, no matter what Stanhope’s agent tells him. Guessing what other trolls have had to eat over the past few weeks, by looking at their stained clothes and matted beards, may pass for entertainment at the open source computer code writers’ weekly forum in the church hall but the rest of the world just doesn’t get it. You’re not funny, OK?

None of the people mentioned above will find themselves quoted in years to come as being the source of great new invective. None will be held up as a new Oscar Wilde.

One of my favourite insults was written many years ago when someone who talked a load of rubbish was described as being “an alimentary canal with a sphincter at both ends.” What a fantastic way to say “you talk sh*t”. It’s inventive, snappy and funny. When was the last time you found that level of insult on Facebook? We seem to have lost the art of the funny put down.

When I was younger, much, much younger, I once tried chatting up a girl at Glasgow University’s student disco. I must have been completely hopeless and persistent because I’ve always remembered her reply when I asked if I could drive her home. “No thanks, I’d be scared if you put your head out the window we’d be arrested for mooning.” Now, admit it, that’s clever. It may have been the only put down she had, she may have stolen it and she may have used it hundreds of times, but I smiled at her originality - if not her taste in men.

Churchill was brilliant at inventive put downs. My favourite of his is “He’s a modest little person with much to be modest about.”

Many special put downs have become clichés and old hat but were original once upon a time. “He’s a self made man and worships his creator” may sound dated now but when John Bright first coined it I hope people cheered. Groucho Marx again deserved applause for “I’ve had a great evening, but this wasn’t it.”

But perhaps the best insults come when two original thinkers come together. When George Bernard Shaw insulted Winston Churchill he wrote “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my play. Bring a friend....if you have one”. Churchill wrote back “Can’t attend first night, will attend second....if there is one.”

So, set beside these legends in the art of the insult, today’s internet offence geeks are neither big nor clever. They’re small, very small, and missing something in their make up. Many people are now deserting Twitter and Facebook because of these nasty, weak, emotionally cadaverous zombies who are wordsmiths only in their own imagination.

I think that social media arrived just about a hundred years too late. Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill and the rest would have had a ball.

Dirty Cash

While billionaire Philip Green flies dozens of millionaire celebrities First Class to the Caribbean to celebrate his 60th birthday in style, here in the UK we are just days away from the country’s new financial budget being announced.

I realise this is a blog start guaranteed to turn you off quicker than a hormonal teenage male watching TV’s Embarrassing Bodies only to find it’s a special devoted to the cast of Loose Women. But, as always, it could be worse. A special on Anne Widdecombe anyone?

Perhaps I should have started this blog with an attention grabbing sentence like “This week I thought I’d discuss Aristotle’s conception of metaphysics” or maybe “Here’s Sean Penn with thoughts on his struggle to learn the alphabet”. But I have no confidence in my knowledge of philosophers or indeed Sean Penn’s ability to write .

So, the Budget it is. Money’s important.

For those reading this from outside the UK I should explain that “the Budget” is the Brits’ annual chance to complain together while our Government tells us the new ways it will rip us off over the next few years. Or, as they put it, “help us plan for our future”.

How important is it? Well there’s no need to worry about it costing you money unless you happen to be male or female, alive, and aged between embryo and one hundred and seventy nine. So relax. We’re all in this together, unless you work for Barclays bank or can afford a clever accountant who’s not already in jail.

I cannot object to the tax on cigarettes going up each year as anyone addicted to nicotine deserves all they get. Likewise it’s a bit difficult to object when tax on alcohol or petrol increases as we should be cutting back anyway. But as the search for new government income goes on, the year they introduce a tax on chocolate I’m leaving the country.

Trouble is we’re all so broke we’re looking for cleverer ways of avoiding taxes like never before but, like a one legged farmer, we’re falling in the shit. Our local retired cab driver - let’s keep him anonymous and call him Timmy even though his name is Tony - has been living the life of Reilly after his mum left him the house they lived in along with a substantial trust fund. The problem for Timmy is that his lawyer’s fees have now all but wiped out the fund and he can’t sell the house to move somewhere smaller as his mum’s will states that the proceeds have to go to his kids. He’s stuck in a house he doesn’t want, with no income. Great tax dodge, eh?

Then there’s another friend called Annie, (though her real name is......oh, never mind) whose accountant talked her in to a complicated scheme where she didn’t have to declare income on a property she owns and rents out. Now she wants to sell it, she can’t as, officially, it doesn’t exist. Another pal got a Portuguese holiday home in her divorce, registered to an overseas company to avoid stamp duty. It costs her a fortune in accountants and she can’t sell as she’ll have to pay prohibitive corporation tax.

As soon as someone offers to save us money we seem to jump in, head first and without hesitation, and hand over our life savings. Yet when someone asks us for a small donation to charity we make ourselves self important and ask what it’s for, what percentage is taken off for administration, etc, before handing over our ten pence. It seems the only charity we really want to believe in isn’t UNICEF or the RSPCA, but SCAMB - Saving Cash And My Behind.

This week several celebrities were exposed as having greedily invested with a conman who “guaranteed them” riches. No other person in the world could give them the return that he promised so, instead of asking questions, they simply threw thousands of pounds at him. He gave them back some money every month as “interest” to encourage them to invest more and then disappeared with their millions. This week he started a prison term. Serves him, and the investors, right.

Greed isn’t good so, I guess I’m asking the Chancellor to be wise in his budget this week and make us believe we don’t need to be sneakier than a career conman to pay what’s fair. Make it worthwhile for us to work. Get the charlatans at Barclays, Goldman Sachs and other banks to donate several million of their own ill gotten gains to worthwhile projects. Stop making us pay tax on savings. We’ve already been taxed on the money as we earned it. And stop taxing older people on their pensions.

Let me bring it back to earth. If all else fails as you prepare you budget this year Mr Osborne, just keep it simple. No tax on chocolate, and give generous tax breaks to anyone with the initials PC.

I could live with that.

Who's Foolin' Who?

Just a few weeks to go before April Fool’s Day, that time of year when I kind of get away with my visceral stupidity by claiming “I was only joking”. It’s the only day of the year when I don’t look a complete idiot, just a work in progress.

So, have you planned ahead? Got some innovative ideas that will have them falling about with laughter and hiding with embarrassment, or are you going to fall back on the old faithfulls like cling film over the toilet bowl and washing up liquid in the cistern?

Toilets do seem a ripe area for April Fools. While my academic record at University may make my genius less like Michaelangelo and more like Michael Angelis, the voice of Thomas The Tank Engine, I will always be proud of the day I visited an old school pal’s student flat for the first time. I left a twelve inch length of dental floss floating inside his toilet bowl and showed him that he had left a huge tapeworm behind. My cries of April Fool didn’t help in any way, perhaps, on reflection, because it was, and I imagine he’s probably still in therapy. Once you plant an image like that, it stays for life.

I think I’m already ahead of the game this year. I have ordered a box containing a new capsule that has just been launched, and I may end up buying crate loads. It’s called Puck - probably because the reaction you will get may sound a lot like that – and the idea is that you go to someone’s house and ask to use the loo. Once there, slip a capsule in to the cistern and then say nothing. For about a week afterwards, no matter how often they flush, the water will remain the shade of yellow that artists may call ‘lemorange chiffon’ but you and I will know better as ‘three day old wee’.

The best practical jokes take a bit of setting up. Chocolate covered apples with sticks in make lovely treats. Chocolate covered onions, however, look exactly the same and are the present that keeps on giving – every time the recipient gets wind for hours afterwards.

Some April Fool jokes can be cruel. One couple I know were expecting their first baby and had already decorated the nursery and installed a cot. They hired a babysitter and went out for the night, telling her not to disturb their nonexistent child as she had just fallen asleep. After an hour in their favourite restaurant they rang home and asked the sitter to check how the baby was doing. I’m told the hysterical report back that the baby was missing had them in stitches. Me? I thought it was mean.

I also didn’t much appreciate the thinking behind last year’s call to our local large grocery superstore on April 1st when some idiot had obviously ‘phoned in and asked for a call to be put out for his friend. Over the PA system a woman steadily announced “Would Al Kyder please go to customer information. That’s Al Kyder to the front desk please.” You don’t have to be a terrorism specialist to find that a bit stupid. Clever, but stupid just the same.

These April Fool tricks are usually great when done to someone else but, for some reason, I don’t find them hilarious when aimed at me. I still harbour a grudge against the school pal who put those sticky plant seeds in my gym kit many years ago, making me itch for days. I’m not happy either with another pal at my gym who swapped my deodorant for Ralgex heat spray, nor my old school pal Robin who stayed with me just before I got married and hard boiled all the fresh eggs in my fridge one day when I was out, before putting them back in their box.

So, let’s get our thinking caps on this year and come up with something new and different. If you have any ideas please let me know. A lot rests on this, remember. It’s my day to shine and make people forget I’m just a sad idiot every other day of the year.

A Different Beat

“What do you call those Italians that nobody likes?”

That was the question I was asked four times over lunch this week, and I had no idea at all what to reply. Would you know the answer?

I had flown home to attend a funeral in Scotland, God’s favourite holiday destination, where it usually takes me a few minutes to rediscover my roots and embrace the accents, the slang, the weather, and the wonderful sarcasm. Scotland is my kind of big town, obsessed as it is with sweets and cake shops on every corner, and I even ended up wearing a suit made of puff pastry. But more of that later.

What would sound amateurish and twee elsewhere can sound homely and comforting in Scotland, although the jury’s out for me on the serious debate I heard on Radio Scotland about the state of football north of the border which was signed off by someone, who I assume considers himself a journalist, with the words “Toodle oo the noo”. Either he thinks only his granny listens or I have been away far too long.

In Scotland they do things differently. I picked up the Valentine card sent from my mum to my dad and she’d signed it “Lots of love from Jean. Guess who?”. I’m not sure that after almost sixty years of marriage she’s got the hang of this romance thing yet.

The crematorium is situated in a place called Castlemilk, a renowned district given a bit of ironic class by locals who call it Chateau du Lait. Looking at the floral tributes from previous funerals I spotted one bunch of flowers with the message “To Dad. Lang may yer lum reek.” This is a traditional Scottish good luck saying, expressing the hope that you may always have enough money and security wherever you are. It translates best as “long may your chimney have smoke” which, as we were at a crematorium, could be seen as maybe just a wee bit ironic, no?

I’ve mentioned before my mum’s visit to this crematorium where, in a badly timed gap between hymn verses, she sniffed and said loudly “there’s something burning in here”. But in Scotland there’s no such thing as inappropriate, just different.

At the funeral lunch afterwards I sat beside a nice, kind, elderly man of ninety five who regaled me with stories of the war and how he had got himself involved with “those Italians no one likes.” I couldn’t think of what he meant, so the stories simply started over again as I heard about him being blown up and losing his hearing, then being sent to Kenya to recover.

Listening to another generation like this of course makes us think of how lucky we are that we haven’t lived through world wars, but it can also re affirm how kind people are. On returning to Italy after the war he was given a hero’s welcome by the village where he’d been in charge of Italian prisoners of war. They respected him simply because he’d been fair, even though he had been doing business of course with those Italians no one likes.

Unfortunately, before I could work it out, our meal carried on with sausage rolls, the flakiest, messiest foodtuff it is possible to find. And when the person eating it has ill fitting dentures (that’s not me incidentally) and speaks at the same time as munching, unfortunately everywhere within two to three feet gets decorated with pastry. My suit, hair and face ended up covered in the stuff as the stories started all over again.

But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. There is something slower, easier, less fraught about life in Scotland, almost as if everyone bonds and gets on, if for no other reason than to simply survive the weather. It may have been a lightning quick visit, and it may have been for a sad occasion, but I came away with a smile. They even arranged for me to stay a bit longer than expected as I arrived at the airport to find my flight delayed by two hours because the co pilot had called in ill. You would think he could have dragged himself from his sick bed to bid me “toodle oo the noo.” Probably eaten too many cakes.

I’m now back in London and my suit is off to the dry cleaners, but I did in the end “get” which unloved Italians he was talking about after he eventually added the clue that “they are a wee bit naughty”.

He was talking about the mafia.

Fool If You Think It's Over

So that’s another Valentine’s day over. I offered to take Debbie somewhere warm that would remind her of our place on the Portuguese coast but our local fish shop closes at five so, instead, I bought her something black and lacy. Those football boots cost me a fortune.

Not true of course. We actually had a lovely meal out and watched a movie. It did strike me recently that this year we’ve been very lucky in that the quality of movies coming on to our screens has been exceptional. But I think I may have been wrong.

I’ve really enjoyed, The Artist, The Iron Lady, War Horse and The Help, I’ve thought movies like The Descendants, Shame and Moneyball have been OK, and I even believe that Madonna’s W.E. is, like her religion, not as bad as the critics say.

However, just as I was starting to believe that the movie makers had grown up, along come a couple of really awful movies that make me blink with surprise and gasp in astonishment as I search for other glorious clichés to describe something you might step in at a dog show. If you thought movies like Snakes On A Plane and Centipede were the worst things ever committed to celluloid, get ready for the release of ABRAHAM LINCOLN, VAMPIRE HUNTER.

It’s based on a book written two years ago in which John Wilkes Booth, the killer of Lincoln, is revealed to be one of the “undead”. In consequence Lincoln becomes a vampire as well and turns up at Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech a hundred years later . Oh, also, in the book Walt Disney becomes a vampire too. I’m guessing here, but I don’t think this is an accurate historical document.

In the movie President Abraham Lincoln uses his top hat, a bit like Oddjob in Goldfinger, to try and decapitate vampires and, if you think I’m making this up, you can see the trailer here at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPxdjECyPmw&feature=player_embedded

If I put this movie down to a blip and still think there might be a chance that Hollywood has grown up this year then that might fade when I get to see JOYFUL NOISE starring Dolly Parton as a choir mistress. In the film every man who sleeps with a member of the choir seems to drop dead, although Kris Kristofferson comes back to life half way through to sing as a ghost! Maybe Lincoln and Disney appear doing a duet.

Another, soon to be released movie, is THE WICKER TREE, in which two Christians travel to Scotland, on “the border of England” to convert pagans. The trailers look hilariously bad, but not as awful as IRON SKY, in which earth comes under attack from Nazi spacemen who escaped after World War 2 and have lived ever since on the dark side of the moon. It is left to Sarah Palin to save us. Dialogue includes “Invasion? Y’all must be trippin’” and the posters have the strapline “The battle for earth is about to get Nazi”. It’s out in April but you can see a trailer now at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py_IndUbcxc

This movie is billed as a comedy but looks about as humorous as tapeworm.

Bad movies are nothing new of course but it always amazes me that people are given money to make this rubbish. I have a pal who has been trying for over a year to raise money for a good movie (involving Charlie Chaplin and India since you ask) and he’s nowhere near getting enough dollars to start filming.

In a global recession the lesson for him seems to be to come up with an idea that couldn’t possibly succeed and then sit back as people throw money at you, a bit like Mel Brooks’ character did in The Producers by writing a musical about Hitler. Yesterday’s musical is today’s Nazis on the moon.

Next year on Valentine’s, as we’re all reading the Oscar and Bafta nominations, I don’t expect vampires and Nazis to sweep the board but I do expect Abraham Lincoln and Walt Disney to be seated in the audience telling anyone beside them that it was better in their day.

Just steer clear of the garlic at dinner guys.

Doctor, Doctor

I didn’t write a blog last week as my wife and I have been playing doctors and nurses. And before you get carried away with some fantasy involving bed baths and visits to the Anne Summers and Victoria’s Secret outlet stores, I mean that my daughter has had pneumonia and we’ve been mopping her fevered brow and her bedroom floor.

Getting any of our local doctors to come and visit this week has been a nightmare as they only come out for old people, or so they say. In the end, and under protest, a lady doctor came, demanded an X ray, pronounced pneumonia and antibiotics, and then reminded us that she would not come back for my teenage daughter, no matter how sick, but only for an old, infirm, patient. I’m not sure where we’re supposed to find one, or perhaps she was looking at me.

But the thing she fails to understand is that old people aren’t at home waiting for doctors. They’re all at work. News on pensions this week means that we’re all going to have to be employed till we’re old and incontinent with whiskery ears and fluffy bits missed by our razors and eyesight. Pensions look set to be postponed later and later in life as yet another politician said this week that we will all have to wait till we’re in our Seventies before we can retire.

So now that no one can be ageist and get rid of staff because of age, who is going to gently tell us when we’re no longer up to the job?

Am I going to see pensioners playing rugby or football for Scotland? Arguably, of course, results may improve. Will we have someone on a zimmer frame going for the Olympic pole vault gold medal? Will Joan Rivers enter beauty contests and Richard Attenborough play Braveheart 2?

The thing about getting older is that you get odder too. Who doesn’t know loads of people of a certain age who are slightly off centre? They call it “speaking their mind” and I often find myself roaring them on, delighted that they don’t care what people think of them. But, in the work place?

Part of playing the game of Work is biting your tongue. When someone messes up or spills coffee over your desk, for the sake of a calm working environment you bite your tongue and shrug it off, don’t you? It won’t be the same if you tell your colleague that you’ve missed a deadline and he shouts back “you young people don’t know you’re born. Bring back hanging and national service, and by the way you should be wearing a vest in this cold weather”.

And fancy going to see an old dentist whose dentures are looser than a skeleton’s waistband? His hand will be shaking so much that your teeth will rattle. And just imagine the reading material in his waiting room. There are only so many back copies of Gardener’s World and People’s Friend I can cope with.

Although I’m way off retiral age, I found a strange side effect of getting older this week. I discovered that I have become a goody goody. I have always hated people telling me what to do and I have ritually rebelled, often realising within minutes what a stupidly embarrassing thing I’d done. But this week I surprised myself by doing something odd and experiencing a strange feeling that I had to look up in the dictionary. Apparently it’s called “maturity”.

A female friend of mine who is Polish asked me for a favour. She has been offered a job doing security at the Olympics but needs to prove she has been living here for five years. She’s one year short so asked if she could give my name and number, telling the authorities that she cleaned my house for the year in question. Now it’s not that I think she’s a secret terrorist or drug smuggler, but it would be wrong wouldn’t it? It would be a lie, so I said “No”, which for a rebel like me is a big step.

So now I am officially “mature”, which is fine. I’m supposed to be grown up now and leave childish things behind. I guess the next stop is old age.

It may mean I’ll get a doctor to visit me a little bit quicker.

Let The Sideshow Begin

In the current financial climate, when the going gets tough the tough get going on a hunt for cheap entertainment. For instance, it costs nothing to be entertained for hours by Facebook or Twitter where a female friend of mine landed in deep water this week by posting “I just got paid”, only to discover that her fat fingers had typed “paid” with an L instead of a P.

You’ll be pleased to hear this week then that I’ve found a safer and better way to spend a few hours and be royally entertained at the cost of absolutely zero.

Now I do realise that when I say “royally entertained” you may be worried that I’m going to suggest something boring and turgid like the Royal Variety Show where Her Maj almost certainly pays an aide to dig fingernails in to the royal palms to keep her awake. If anyone ever says The Queen doesn’t earn her money just mention the dreadful shows she has to sit through, smiling, as doddery old variety turns, all as topical as a Leo Sayer tribute act, suck up. They’re Old Boring Entertainers, OBEs hoping to get an MBE. I went to one of these shows once and I’ve had a more fun evening scalping dry skin off my feet.

So no, my free day out is not as boring as the Queen’s social calendar. This free day out has entertainment by the barrel load, but I advise you to wear comfy shoes as there will be standing room only.

If you’re one of the lucky ones who says “what credit crunch?” these days and are still coasting along buying Ferraris and Sunseeker yachts to make your holiday home in Portofino look flashier, then good luck to you and the bank you work for.

A quick walk down any high street today tells a gloomy story as one shop after another lies empty, usually with a sad notice in the window thanking customers for past loyalty. Landlords have not woken up to reality and are desperately hiring out their places to charity shops, cheaply, just to avoid paying taxes on empty property. I’m going to open a cafe called Paul and avoid high rent by telling the landlord it stands for Protecting Animals Using Latté. They’ll snap me up.

As a serious aside, I noticed a very large fish and chip restaurant in Wimbledon is closed with notices in the window saying it’s because one of the family has a brain tumour. It’s all the more poignant because the family has arranged all the get well cards from customers on the restaurant floor, and they stretch as far as the eye can see. There’s always someone worse off isn’t there?

Looking at empty high streets just now even the good old post offices have suffered, with two I regularly use closing recently. This is personally sad as I got to know the families who ran them very well. But, if you look very hard, there is a bit of a bonus, and this brings me back to my free day out.

Yesterday I went to one of the few remaining post offices to post a parcel and, because so many have closed, the line of waiting customers was out to the street. I had no option but to wait in the queue feeling annoyed. But once I had resigned myself to fate, it turned out to be the most entertaining day out I had had in a while. Forget the surly people who work there. They’ve been told in training that if they smile they’ll contract malaria, and if they apologise for your waiting time then they’ll get a Fast Lane ticket to the bad fire. It can only be a matter of time before someone re records those post office queueing announcements to say “Cashier Number Four Will Belittle You Now Please.”

Anyway, as I stood there (see why I said standing room only?) I became engrossed as the man behind me took a call from his wife. I only heard half the conversation, of course, but he was so apologetic I think he must have done something really, really bad. He ended it with “ok, I’ll give you five minutes and do my married duty tonight”. I can only guess what that means!

Then I overheard a girl buying Jamaican dollars who couldn’t quite get the hang of the buying and selling prices quoted and thought it was a choice. “I’ll just take that one”, she said as the cashier tried to explain the difference. A baby in front of me started giggling and we bonded. One guy sang out loud unaware, because of his earphones, that he could be heard, another told his mate a funny joke about football, a well dressed woman had a sack full of risque underwear to post as she ran an E Bay site, and so on. By the time I was served I was disappointed the free show was over.

So next time I have to stand in line, instead of being wrapped up in what I’m doing I’ll open my eyes and ears and see that the motley collection of strangers brought together by queueing really do provide great entertainment.

It’s a bit like Twitter and Facebook, but with real people.

I Put A Spell On You

If you want to get through life thinking that the sun shines out of your backside, then here’s a tip. Never have kids.

These little humans grow from thinking you’re the funniest person ever into teenagers who believe that everything that comes out of your mouth is as boring as a pneumatic drill flying through soft cheese. I have just discovered, thanks to my fourteen year old, that I’m more pointless than dust, and that my opinions are like trapped wind – painful, pointless and best kept to myself.

I helped my youngest with her homework last night and was told I was just plain silly because I made her change some wrong spellings. Apparently “ideas and feelings count more than spelling” and I am a real old fuddy duddy pain who knows nothing. Of course it could be true but, at the risk of sounding like a retired schoolteacher, spelling seems to be going down the drain at an alarming rate.

Near where I live is a pub named The Cavern in Raynes Park, and to entice customers they proudly have a sign outside saying “Anyone buying a drink can bring there own food” . I may be a bit sad but, as I drove home today I really had to fight the impulse to stop and deface it by making the spelling correct. Once home I had just about calmed down when I received a Facebook picture from a friend who has a new book coming out soon. She had proudly sent the jacket cover which had an apostrophe missing and the word “unravelling” spelled with only one “L”. It’s endemic.

My local David Lloyd sports club put a flyer through our door last week offering special discount but saying “Free new member package VARYS from club to club”. This is a multi million pound turnover company yet they won’t even pay for a spell check on their computers.

Mind you it pays not to be too snotty. A very nice lady who coaches me in the gym, and who should know a lot about Sigmund Freud as she has a degree in Psychology, apologised the other day to our class for making “a fraudulent slip”. I actually found that quite cute.

But back to my rant! As well as bad spelling, the wrongly placed apostrophe is now everywhere, even on an old pal’s album. Graeme Clark is the bass player with Wet Wet Wet but the sleeve notes of his new, solo, album which is out in March, don’t mention choruses and verses but “chorus’ and verse’s”. And the great guitarist and singer Chris Rea has a new box set out called Santo Spirito Blues, but his newspaper adverts say the set contains “2 DVD’s and 3 CD’s”. Why is this so difficult? If there’s more than one then you just add an S. Why also add an apostrophe?

My favourite spelling mistakes are the ones that change a meaning completely. Back in November the Yorkshire newspaper Local Link carried an advert for a fireworks display with “toffee apples, hot dogs and buggers.” An on line biog posted on the LinkedIn page of one of my contacts tells us he’s looking for work whilst “redecorating my horse” - presumably he can’t paint his house as it is running in the Grand National. Dr Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google in California, gave out business cards detailing he was also “Chariman”, Tesco had a batch of loin chops which didn’t sell as they were labelled “Lion Chops”, and a riverside restaurant on the Thames allows boats to berth for a couple of hours with a notice saying “Two Hour Birthing Limit. All Birthing At Owner’s Risk”.

But, fusspot that I am, I may have found my perfect job for life. An advert in The Guardian newspaper last Monday is seeking to offer training to people who find “errers jump out at yew while reading,” leading to “the wright career working full or part thyme. You can urn up to £24 an hour”. The end result, hopefully, is a job as a proof reader working for a publisher and getting paid to point out spelling mistakes before stuff is published. Now that’s the kind of job I want.

To have a pet hate is one thing, to make money out of it seems like bliss. Wouldn’t it be ironic if my daughter ends up doing this for a living?

Scotch Missed?

The big news for the people of Scotland at the moment is the fact they will soon get to vote for or against independence from Great Britain. For those reading this outside the UK, it’s a bit like Texas voting to leave the United States, but with fewer vegetables.

In Scotland the vote is seen either as being ‘long overdue’ or ‘turn the lights out, I’m leaving’. Depending who you speak to in England it’s a chance to eliminate an annoying weed or to encourage a wild plant to bloom and blossom. Things in the UK garden are really hotting up.

It seems that Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, wants his bit of the garden fenced off. He would like to be able to have his own budgets, planting seasons and stock control, and to take care of any pests and bugs himself. But the debate amongst Scots now is whether this will also mean watching the Flower Of Scotland ultimately shrivel from lack of care, leaving more manure than thriving seedlings.

As a Scot living in London I won’t get a vote, which seems to me to be the right thing as, whatever the decision, I won’t have to live with the consequences. I’m not going to turn in to a hectoring old granddad like Sean Connery who tells everyone what’s good for them while sipping cocktails under a parasol in the Tropics and waiting for a passing yacht, rather than downing Bovril under an umbrella in icy Edinburgh while waiting for trams that will probably never come.

The arguments are well rehearsed for and against Scottish independence. To sum up badly, for the pros it’s about history and John Knox, battles, perceived subjugation and tradition, for the antis it’s simply rooted in the worry that the finances just won’t work. If they needed campaign songs one side would have Abba’s ‘I Have A Dream’ whilst the others would opt for ‘S.O.S.’ The chants of ‘Take A Chance On Me’ will compete with ‘Money Money Money’ while cynical folk south of the border will roll their eyes and say it’s the usual case of ‘Gimme Gimme Gimme’ again.

As a media native I wondered this week what would happen with the BBC. They’re the BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation after all and therefore can’t stay in an independent Scotland that’s not part of Britain. They exist in Wales and Ulster but don’t have a presence in Ireland other than through subscription TV or Freeview boxes. So, do they pack up and go, leaving behind a huge building and putting hundreds out of work? I asked some broadcasting friends this on Facebook this week and the answer is...no one knows, although one pal, Julian, who works with the BBC’s lawyers, suggested Scotland will go back to its Calvinist roots with black and white TV pictures and talent shows like Opportunity Knox. Nice one Julian.

And what happens if those who vote against independence want to leave Scotland? As the country will no longer be part of Britain or the European Community (it will have to wait for that) will they need to apply for immigration status to move to England? Will we have customs officers at Gretna Green looking for stowaways hiding under Barrs Irn Bru lorries?

About three months ago I had dinner with a very nice lady who runs her family business from headquarters in Scotland. It so happens that the business bears her surname and is a worldwide, huge, multi million pound success. She told us at the beginning of the meal that if independence goes ahead she will move her headquarters abroad. By the end of dinner, after people had put their varying views, she wasn’t so sure.

So, there will be a lot of uncertainty and heart searching. There are many imponderables and it’s probably a time to sit back and let the politicians convince us one way or the other. The vote is in two years time, and that’s a lot of weeks of smiley politicians smarming us all to convince us they have the right answers.

But we will have to grin and bear it. The decision is too important to get wrong.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. As always I start the year by looking back, tongue in cheek, at the twelve months gone by. Here’s a reminder of what you missed.

January – Ricky Gervais surprised and outraged Hollywood during his Golden Globes hosting duties by doing something he hasn’t done since – making people laugh. Richard Keys and Andy Gray lost their jobs at Sky TV after making sexist remarks. Head of Sky Sports said “I won’t have my staff saying women only work here because of their looks. That’s my job, and I’ve said so to all those blonde, big lipped, busty birds I employ to read the sports news.”

February - Colin Firth won an Oscar for The King’s Speech, the tale of a man who has to overcome a very large handicap to get on in public life. John Bercow, speaker of The House Of Commons, says he knows how that feels after his wife appears naked in a magazine with only a strategically placed sheet. Unfortunately it failed to cover one particularly upsetting part of her anatomy. Her mouth.

March – David Cameron and western allies impose a “no fly” zone over Libya. Millions of flies protest. Charlie Sheen, the highest paid TV actor in Hollywood gets sacked from his show Two And A Half Men after his consistent alcohol and drug taking is deemed too much for producers. On his consequent bender, Sheen gets so high he is shot down over Libya.

April – Prince William and Kate Middleton at last get married and are given the titles Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - as well as a house, a cook, several maids, a valet, a chauffeur, a bodyguard, official photographer, etc. Kate’s sister Pippa is voted Rear Of The Year after her bum gets its own fan club. Prince Harry is disappointed when she turns down the offer to become his BUTTler.

May – Ryan Giggs and Andrew Marr are exposed for having affairs. Suddenly every man wants big ears, and Page Three girls start dating elephants. Cheryl Cole, a singer whose IQ can be counted on one hand of a broken clock, is axed as a judge on The X Factor. When asked what she’ll do next, she says she’s confused but will ask her agent. When asked what day it is she says she’s confused but will ask her mum.

June – Bruce Forsyth is honoured by his knighthood from The Queen, and thanks his fans, his wife, his agent, his producers, Viagra and his embalmer. Labour leader Ed Miliband surprisingly gets hitched at last to Justine Thornton. He said he wanted to reward all his supporters, friends and voters by marrying them. Meantime Hugh Hefner, 85, is jilted at the altar by his 25 year old fiancée Crystal Harris. He set off down the aisle at 6am but by mid day she got fed up waiting.

July – A year for despots and dictators meeting grizzly ends continues with Rebekah Brooks, editor of The News Of The World, stepping down after ‘phone hacking allegations. In a clever PR effort to quickly get her resignation letter out to as many journalists as possible, she leaves the message on boss Rupert Murdoch’s ‘phone.

August – London suffers at the hands of rioters, with David Starkey saying it’s because “whites have become black”. Meantime musicologists blame Michael Jackson’s back catalogue on the fact that “blacks have become white”. Kate Winslet rescues Richard Branson’s mum from a fire. When congratulated afterwards Winslet weeps, says it’s so unexpected, and thanks her mum, her dad, her agent, her co stars and the fire fighters without whom she would not be where she is today.

September – Scottish rugby fans at last have something to cheer and celebrate as England get knocked out of the World Cup after taking part in a dwarf throwing contest. Paul Daniels is said to have recovered. Kweku Adoboli makes history whilst losing £2bn for UBS bank after very bad trading. This beats the world’s previously worst trade when Liverpool bought Andy Carroll.

October – Shane Warne and Elizabeth Hurley do their bit for charity as they save another man and woman from a lifetime of misery by getting engaged to each other. In Libya, much loved Colonel Gaddafi welcomes his worshipping supporters who pull him reverentially from a drain and honour his deity by bestowing gifts of fists and bullets. In Heaven he tells reporters they were just excited to see him.

November – Silvio Berlusconi resigns as prime minister of Italy after stories of his womanising get more and more outrageous. He pledges to devote his new found spare time to good deeds. It eventually transpires that he means Carmella Deeds, Giovanna Deeds, Angelina Deeds and Sophia Deeds, as well as their mother Brigitta Deeds, aunt Nancy Deeds and granny Gina Deeds.

December – Britain heads in to 2012 ready to play host to the world at the London Olympic Games. Mayor Boris Johnson sets expectations by reminding the public that there is a global monetary recession and announces new events such as the 100 Metre Sales Sprint, The Financial Hurdles, The You’re For The High Jump, The Shares Diving and Synchronised Just About Staying Afloat. He asks spectators to bring their enthusiasm and support as well as seats, packed lunches, and a few St Christopher medals for the winners’ ceremonies.

Let’s hope 2012 is a better, and cheerier, one for us all.