Music what I like...

Its Saturday so its "Music What I Like" again...

Don't ask me why I like Iris DeMent, I just do, maybe its her unique voice, maybe her exceptional storytelling songwriting skills, maybe its the crossover between folk and country keeping one foot firmly in both camps, I just don't know - I bought the album "My Life" in '94 after reading a review and have been hooked ever since.

My wife and offspring think that she is truly awful, dreadful, a wailer who's voice grates inside them like the two raw ends of a broken tibia rubbing together - "mum, he's playing THAT woman again" is the cry in the house whenever I put on any of her recordings so I have to now listen via headphones, a secret tryst exists now between me and my Iris DeMent recordings - "What are you listening to ?" they ask and I have to lie and say something acceptable to them, "Elvis" I usually reply.

John Prine is another one, a truly exceptional storytelling songwriter with another unique voice in a world where record executives seek the bland and usually manage to find it - Prines voice is the perfect foil to DeMents and its no coincidence that they have recorded together often.

One day I will educate this family in the art of appreciating great music rather than accepting the platter of mundane, safe and totally bland crap that the mainstream record companies are lazy enough to consder fit for their consumption, until then I'll keep it in my headphones...

The day I did my back in...

Jeff from View from a Cloud has been whineing like a bloke over his injured back so I reckon its my turn to complain about "the day I did my back in".

Every male has a story about "the day I did my back in" because the truth is that the females on this planet flog us to death for much of our life until we eventually "do our backs in" and then die much younger than they do.

The day I did my back in wasn't really a day as such, it was an accumulation of days - let this be a warning to those new dads out there - an accumulation of carrying our newborn infants around instead of using one of those nancyboy slings, backpacks, or just making the little buggers walk.

The lower back pains built and built until one day I suddenly couldn't bend down any longer, and later on that day I couldn't stand up any longer either, neither could I lie down, the pain was like no pain that any man should bear, far worse than childbirth just in case any woman feels like entering that into the debate, far worse, women just don't get back pain like men do.

Off to the doctor for one of only a handful of visits in my life, "who are you" she asked, "a patient" I replied, "lie on the couch" she instructed, "thats why I'm here" I said, "I cant lie down and anyway your couch is too high, I can't lift my leg up that high either, not now, not with my back I can't" I further moaned to her, "who are you anyway" she enquired.

She confirmed that I'd done my back in, which I knew anyway, she told me to go home and lie on the floor and eat painkillers, "here" she said, handing me enough painkillers to enable me to amputate all my limbs without even noticing (apart from the arm doing the ampuating of course).

I did as I was told, I lay on the floor in front of the gas fire and in front of the TV, hey there was no need to be uncomfortable was there, and I ate painkillers for several days - at night my children, who lets not forget had caused my back problem, came and kissed me good night while I growled and shook my fist at them and my wife came and threw a quilt over me and I lay there on the living room floor in the dark, munching painkillers, our huge German Shepherd dog trying to drag the quilt off me and claiming the pillow too.

I lay there for a couple of weeks and the back got no better.

The doctor came to see me and she sat there on the settee with my wife drinking my coffee and eating my chocolate biscuits and they both laughed at me, then she told me I'd crushed a disc and it was pressing against my spinal cord, hence the pain and lack of feeling in my left leg - she gave me an appointment card to see a physiotherapist at our local hospital.

I screamed in pain all the way there as I drove myself to the hospital for my appointment and after she had finished laughing at me the physio, Mrs Goering, strapped me to a hospital bed, a large leather strap across my chest and another across my feet, then laughing like a crazy Dr Frankenstein she told me of the medievil torture machine to which she had just tethered me - she pressed a button and the bed started to part, the top half seperating from the bottom half.

She closed the curtains and left telling me not to scream too loud as she was going for a coffee down the hallway, it was then that I realised as the bed seperated in the middle that my legs were tied to the bottom half and the rest of me tied to the top, something had to give and it wasn't going to be the machinery, it was going to be my poorly back.

She left me on that Nazi instrument of hell for half an hour and when she came back I was eight feet tall, but I still wouldn't tell her my bank PIN number and she had to reluctantly let me go, making another appointment for next week which I never kept.

My doctor, when contacted, suggested that a chiropractor might be of use, warning that they were all charlatans and that the NHS wouldn't employ not one of them and I'd have to pay to see one, "but still" she said, "its worth a try isn't it", the subtext being "because theres fookall else I can do for you".

I went to see the chiropractor, another woman, Mrs Menegele, who made me take all my clothes off and then stand at her front window where all the passers by could see me, and laugh.

"Stand up straight" she instructed, "I am standing up straight" I informed her, "No you're not" she said, "your backs all twisted", "Thats why I'm here" I informed her, patiently.

She told me to climb on the couch, I told her I couldn't, she shouted at me, so I climbed on the couch, then she told me that she was going to "crunch" my spine which I thought was a strange turn of phrase seeing as I'd already done a pretty good job of crunching my spine and it was surely her job to uncrunch it.

She massaged the base of my spine for a short while and then without warning jumped on it, I mean literally jumped on my spine, I reckon she'd climbed on the couch without me seeing, it felt like she'd used a sledgehammer to hit my spine with, which is actually another option that she might have used, whatever it was I felt my spine crunch, she wasn't joking when she said she was going to crunch my spine, she fooking crunched it good.

I crawled out of her consulting room half dressed and with an appointment card for next week which I didn't keep and she charged me an extortionate amount of money for making my back worse than it was before.

To be continued....maybe

Why I don't save anymore...

Yesterday I hinted at my distrust and the inadequacies of the banking system, to be more precise my doubt that any money that I pay in there is not wrapped up in a rubber band with my name tag on and placed on a particular shelf inside their safe ready for when I need it back - I don't think that it works like that at all.

In fact I know it doesn't work like that at all for I have secretly written secret codes on several bank notes when depositing them and guess what - on every occasion I've been given different notes back when I withdrew the same amount, in other words they have given me someone else's money, which I don't mind of course, but who is getting my money ?

This deep mistrust of anything with the word "bank" in it started when I was young, when I was very young in fact...

Its 1961 and the young Jerrychicken is five years old and in his second year at school, yes due to the vaguries of the Leeds City Council school starting age policy I had to attend school when I was four and not five like everyone else, I like to think its because I was special, and I think the Council thought that too for the word "special" arose at several points during my schooling.

For some weird council inspired planning reasons we had to attend two infants schools in the inner city slum that was Burley, the first one for the first two years of your school life and then another much bigger infants school later, maybe they were just trying to use up all the possible combinations of classrooms that they had a surfeit of, maybe they were just deliberately arsing about with our young lives.

Suffice to say that in 1961 I was in the second of two years at the first infant school when Miss Trenholme, an imposing matronly headmistress with a remarkable resemblence to Hattie Jacques walked into our small classroom and announced that it was about time that us poor slum clearance children were taught the value of saving money and she instructed us to tell our parents to send us to school the next day with a sixpence clutched in each childs sweaty palm.

She further informed us that each child would recieve a savings book from her and if we brought sixpence each week then by the end of the school year when we moved to "the big school" then we'd have the grand sum of ten shillings saved up - wouldn't that be good - and of course they all nodded "yes Miss Trenholme".

All except me, I saw through her little scheme straight away, even at six years of age I saw exactly what her conniving was all about - she had negotiated a good deal on a loan or a mortgage with her local building society on the strength that she would sign up thirty kids and get them to pay in sixpence a week - the scamming old cow could not pull the wool over my young eyes, oh no.

But I paid in my sixpence every week and she signed my little savings book and totted up the savings every week until right at the end of the year we all had the grand sum of ten shillings in each of our accounts - and then she introduced the sting in the tail.

On the last day of term she gave us all a long talk on how us six year olds were the future of this once great country of ours, and how we needed to be financially astute in order to make our way through life, and how our once great country actually needed our sixpences in order to rebuild our empire after the battering that we had taken fifteen years earlier in the war (she unfurled a union flag at this juncture in her speech and saluted it ), and that the thing that she sincerley hoped that we would all do now is to allow her to pass all of our savings accounts onto her building society manager where he would ensure that we could continue saving sixpence a week at "the big school".

She was lying and I saw straight through her scam.

She walked around the classroom collecting the savings books from each child, each child aqueiscing to her demand, except me, I kept a tight hold of my pass book as she took a hold of one corner and tried to tug it from my grasp, she told me to let go, I told her that I'd like to keep it please.

Her face turned to thunder, I remember still the look on that huge face of hers, its the look that is reserved for dog shit when you discover it on the sole of your shoe.

"It would be much better if you gave me the savings book so that I can transfer your account to the big school account" she explained.

"I want the ten shillings" I informed her

"You shouldn't spend your savings" she explained, then turned to our classroom teacher, "do these childrens parents not understand the value of savings" she asked pitifully.

I still wouldn't let go, she left my desk staring over her shoulder at me, memorising my face, I was in big trouble, every other child in the class handed over their savings books and little did they know at the time but that was the last time they would ever see those books and their precious ten shillings.

My mother came to pick me up and was commanded to see the Head, who explained, nicely at first that she would like me to hand over the savings book like all the other children had done so. My mother looked down at me, still clutching my precious maroon savings book, "I want the ten shillings" I told her.

"He wants his ten shillings Miss Trenhome" my mother explained

Miss Trenholme set off on a long discourse on how valuable a lesson saving money was and blah, blah, blah, the flag unfurled and saluted again, blah, blah, blah...

..."He still wants his ten shillings Miss Trenholme" my mother insisted.

There was impasse, both women stared at each other over the desk.

Miss Trenholme slowly reached into a desk drawer and withdrew a locked tin box, fumbled somewhere deep down inside her ample busom and produced a key with which she slowly unlocked the box, all the while continuing to stare out my mother.

"This is most irregular" she said

"He wants his ten shillings" is all that my mother would say

The box was full of sixpences and Miss Trenholme counted out twenty of them and pushed them very slowly across the desk to my mother who counted them again and with a satisfied grin poured them into her purse.

We thanked Miss Trenhome and left the school for the last time.

My fellow six year old pupils never saw their twenty sixpences again, no savings books appeared at "the big school" and as no scandal erupted I assume that no-one complained and for all I know the old cow may still be working the same scam in an old maids nursing home somewhere.

I spent my ten shillings on Lego.

I have never saved since.

Only old people save...

Once again the press have demonstrated just how much hold they have on the populations mind and behaviour - reporting on the fact that the UK bank Northern Rock had applied to the Bank of England last Thursday for the facility to draw on an emergency loan to tide them over a possible future cash shortage has caused panic and hysteria in the legions of old people who use the bank as a savings tool.

For five days now thousands of old people have gathered outside branches of the beleagured bank in order to draw out their savings, within two days up to £2 billion had been withdrawn and presumably stuffed under their old people mattresses or tucked up inside their knicker elastic - and the women probably did something similar too.

All of this despite the Northern Rock chief exec imploring old people to "fook off and leave the money with me" and insisting that his company's £24 billion worth of investments was safe with him at home and he wouldn't let the nations old folks down would he ?

All of this panic despite the fact that even if the directors of the bank did a runner with the £24bill (how many suitcases ?) the old codgers savings were guaranteed to the sum of the first £2000 and then 90% of the next £33000, but no, this was not good enough for the nations saver pensioners who have now queued for five days in their thousands, most branches of the bank only serving ten or so people an hour because when they finally get to the front of the queue most of the customers are unsure of what they were queuing for.

Finally and in order to stop death by malnutrition in the streets of our city, Prime Minister Golden Brown (notice how we still have to prefix his name with "Prime Minister", it'll be a few years before we stop saying "Chancellor" ) had to step in and personally guarantee the assets of Northern Rock, in effect he ironically sold them a mortgage and so he now owns them, where on earth he found the £24 billion I don't know, maybe the Parliamentary Priviledges Commission should have a look at his pay slips sometime soon, he seems to be throwing his brass around a bit too freely for someone who "only" earns £170,000 a year.

The most ironic comment that I have heard came from an old lady who had queueing in the street of an anonymous town somewhere for three days to withdraw (her words) "my life savings", she further went on to say that she knew she shouldn't be doing this because it would only make the situation worse by making panic withdrawals, but, well, look, everyone else is aren't they...

So she stood in line for three days and the interviewer told her that as she was 100th in the queue it was unlikely that she'd be seen that day but she insisted that she'd stay there until her life savings were safely tucked up her knicker elasctic at which point she'd be mugged on the way home as were all of the investors who left the bank clutching wads of old style pound notes and white fivers, these representing their "life savings" for as everyone knows when you pay cash into a bank it goes in their safe wrapped up in rubber bands with your name on until you need to withdraw it again.

I can afford to be smug, for I have no "life savings", I don't comprehend the word "savings" and nor does anyone under the age of 60, when my bank goes bust I will laugh at the statuatory body's who can no longer leach money from my account via the direct debit scheme.

PS - in a final twist of irony the queueing pensioners were never told that a much simpler way exists of withdrawing your money from your bank account - write a cheque payable in cash to you and take it to another non-queueing bank.

Where I wandered...

Yes I know that as a panorama photo its not stiched together very well and you can see all the joins but I only did it for reference for the next painting I am now cracking on with - and the "panorama" module for Photoplus 10 costs £20 that I haven't got at the moment.

But, thats where I wandered yesterday - free to wander anywhere I cared on my birthday day off I chose Saddleworth Moor in preference to Nidderdale.

The reason ?

Saddleworth and Rishworth Moor (Rishworth to the left, Saddleworth to the right) is the area that you cross when at the highest point of the M62, Britains highest motorway (so we're told) and at this time of year I am always amazed by the colours on the moor, especially higher up the hills where the colouration ranges from straw to patches of dark rich ochre, reds, purples, to almost black where the peat breaks through and when the sun hits the hill face then the palette changes again - and on a day like yesterday with white cloud blowing across the sun the colour changes were like a living kaleidoscope in front of your eyes, two minutes after I'd taken those photos the colour scheme had changed again.

The Lancashire moors are not so well known or picturesque as the Yorkshire Dales but are beautiful all the same, the drive off the M62 at the Saddleworth junction takes you straight onto the moor - where that photo was taken is within two hundred yards of the motorway junction which is hidden in a fold of the land just below where I stood - and from there the journey over the top of the hill is one of those where, if you're driving, you watch the landscape at your peril for you'll find yourself wandering all over the carriageway while you gaze in awe at the landscape.

Saddleworth Moor has a sinister name for anyone who has ever heard of the names "Brady" or "Hindley" for it was here, high on the moor that their child victims were buried in the peat bogs, one of whom has never been found, but yesterday the moors were simply open plains of colour with the road winding across pools of every earth colour known to Daler-Rowney then dropping down into villages that have made no concession to tourism but remain still functional three hundred years after they were established, you won't find gift shops and boxes of "Lancashire Fudge" here but instead will notice shops that died off years ago in your own city, places like the village baker, a butcher, and a pub that doesn't belong to a nationwide chain - a rare sight indeed.

On to Delph (to visit John McCoombs gallery), Saddleworth, Diggle then over another moor and back into Yorkshire to stop off in Holmfirth and visit Ashley Jacksons gallery - 'twas indeed a perfect day.

It was 51 years ago today...

51 years ago today the Yorkshire Evening Post announced the arrival of the infant JerryChicken, a momentious occasion for me which was largely overlooked by the rest of the world.

Overlooked by everyone apart from both my parents larger families who instantly started a fight over what my middle name should be, each side of the family requiring that their family name be donated to the cause.

So it is that I bear two middle names, one from each side, no-one else that I know has got four names on their birth certificate apart from Prince Charles, so theres something else that he and I share.

Today I have taken the day off work, for if you read the post below this one you will also note that it is our wedding anniversary, yes I got married on my birthday, "it will save you having to remember a different date" she told me, in reality it means that I have to buy her something on my birthday, an inequality that I have never quite got my head around, there are some very suspicious and ingenious workings in this womans mind and if I live for another 100 years (which is quite likely, don't smoke, don't drink, don't dance, I'm going to live forever) then I will never, ever understand this role that I have in lifes great tapestry.

It was 24 years ago today...

That the current Mrs Jerrychicken lured me down the aisle to a suprise wedding ceremony at Seghill Church, Northumberland.

For years and years whenever any poor sap proposes to someone on a tv soap my children turn to me and ask "how did you propose to mum ?" and the truth is - I can't remember ever doing so.

I can't remember the time that we actually decided to get married, which makes me entirely suspicious about the whole affair, if I can't remember agreeing to do the deed then how can it be legal ?

Its a flimsy defence I know and over the years several solicitors have advised against using it as a get-out clause, but what do they know ?

I do remember the night before when my brother Ned turned up at my small one bed flat to spend some time with the condemned man bringing with him an overnight bag and a large flat box which he placed on the floor.

I asked him what it was and he said nothing but unwrapped its brownpaper wrapping to reveal...

A 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

And I got the joke immediately.

There is an old Laurel and Hardy film where Ollie is marrying a rich heiress and on the morning of the wedding Stan turns up with a similar jigsaw puzzle and the pair become so engrossed in finishing it, as do the assorted callers to the house during the morning, including a policeman who has been sent from the church to find out where they are, that they miss the ceremony completely.

What a magnificent masterplan.

How I wish we'd finished the jigsaw off instead.

So its 24 years ago today and in a similar manner to the previous 23 anniversaries I will be expected to have bought her something while I get nothing, and next year I am even now being informed that I should now be planning some sort of big event for our silver wedding anniversary - quite frankly I give not one flying fook for the whole anniversary thing and if she ever reads this while I am still alive then I am dead, so to speak.

It was 30 years ago today...

...that Marc Bolan died, death by catapultion from a car following engagement of said mini car with large tree.

The crash site has since become a shrine to Bolan especially since his son Rolan (yes, Rolan Bolan, these wacky rock stars eh? ) unveiled a plaque there five years ago and no doubt today a notorious tree in Barnes, South London, will be plastered with pictures, goodbye messages, and teddy bears, there are always teddy bears at times like these.

In a rather sick twist to the story Bolans home was looted within minutes of the news of his death, no doubt if they'd had eBay in 1977 then someone would have made a killing which is a rather inappropriate and unfortunate turn of phrase, but strangely befitting.

I liked Marc Bolan, he and his band T Rex were a part of my teenage-hood and while devotees of the earlier incarnation Tyrannosarus Rex would always condemn his commercial output during the period 1970-73, to me its part of the musical wallpaper of my youth, a mixed up, muddled up wallpaper its true for my musical tastes were then, as always, very eclectic, but still...

The song "Jeepster" has the most evocation for me, when I hear it I am instantly transported to those saturday afternoons that we spent in the underground (literally undergrond for it was in the basement of the Mecca Dance Club) hippie market perusing stalls of bead jewellry, silver bangles, puzzle rings, embroidered patches for your jeans and denim jacket, and exotic strips of shimmering cloth to tie "Country Joe" style around your flowing locks, for yes, in those days I had flowing locks, hard to believe now I know, but its true, my locks flowed down over my shoulders, I wore an ex-RAF great coat, loon pants and platform shoes, I was one of the beautiful people back then and I praise God that no photographic evidence exists for I must have resembled the worst sort of twat.

It still shows occasionally now - ust a few years ago we were invited to a 70's theme fancy dress and whilst everyone in the room who was aged thirty and under paraded self conciously in white suits in a John Travolts stylee, I had gone back to my hippie roots and hired outrageous flares, a womans silky, flouncy blouse, pink "John Lennon" sunglasses, lots of glitter and a wig that was intended by the fancy dress shop owner for a Captain Hook outfit, yes I went as Marc Bolan's long lost twin and I relished every moment, keeping the wig on all weekend, a fleeting two days with hair again I can't tell you how good it felt to brush the curly flowing locks from my eyes and have to tie it all up in a bandana.

So we remember Marc Bolan this weekend and in particular we remember "Jeepster", the soundtrack of the underground hippie market and some glorious saturday afternoon browsing...

Turnstile-phobia

I have recently discovered that my wife is riddled with a rare disease.

Turnstileitis.

Having bought a part season ticket for two seats in the posh new stand at the Leeds Rhinos Headingley ground I have invited her to partake of the rugby league action on three occasions recently - and each time she has buggered up the act of passing freely through a turnstile.

Now I've been doing the Headingley turnstiles since I was ten years old so its sort of incomprehensible to me that someone would not know how to use one, but they have become a complete mystery to her.

The first time I took her I explained how they work - you hold your smart card under the scanner with your left hand, it bleeps and shows a green light, you push turnstile with your right hand and you walk through - job done.

So I went first to show her how its done, worked perfectly for me.

She steps up, holds card under the reader, it bleeps, turns green, she stands and watchs the turnstile, it stops bleeping, it won't work again with her card now because you get just one go at it, I have to go and find a steward to unlock the turnstile and let her in manually.

The next home game I explain the function to her again, very slowly this time, she agrees to go first this time so I can coach her as the action happens, she holds the turnstile with her right hand, she presents the ticket to the reader with her left hand, it bleeps, it turns green, she pushes the turnstile with her right hand, it turns, she stands still.

"You're supposed to walk through the bloody thing when it turns" I explain, kindly, as if talking to a five year old.

We go and find a steward who has to unlock the turnstile and let her in manually.

Last night we attended the last home game of the season, she has extensive coaching outside the gate, we repeat the action of pushing and walking at the same time until she gets it right, she goes first, I stand behind her, she is pushing the turnstile before I present the card, this is a good sign, she says "Now ?" I say "Not yet", I present the card, she says "Now ?" I say "Not yet", it beeps, it turns green, she turns and says "Now?", its still beeping, she's not pushing yet, I give her the biggest thump in the back and shout "Now!!!" and she flies through the turnstile and out the other side like a champagne cork out of a bottle and a steward comes over to see why we are fighting inside a turnstile.

She's a bloody embarrassment.

Songs what I like, episode (whatever)...

Introduced by Pete Murray and Fluff Freeman following at the end on what is obviously the Top of the Pops 1967 christmas or end of year special.

I love this song for so many reasons, not least of which is the use of the Hammond organ, an instrument that is so intrinsically linked with 1960's popular beat combo music until the point at which young long haired "bloody layabouts" (to use my dads vernacular) discovered the Moog Synthasizer.

As soon as I hear the opening bars its the summer of 67 again, its a beach holiday at Cayton Bay, its huge groups of people gathered around a tiny, tinny, portable transistor radio (another new invention) listening to a pirate radio station that may or may not have been moored off the north east coast, its illegal and no-one cares, its 1967, you can do anything in these days and Harold Wilson's government are helpless to stop you, finally caving in to public pressure in September of that year to launch a BBC version of the pirate stations.

But the best memory of this song is the August bank holiday of that year and the Church Fenton air show. I don't know why, for we were no family of geeks, but the Church Fenton air show attracted huge crowds on the bank holiday Monday and our dad took us for several years running - but its the 1967 show that I remember purely for the fact that we had a car full, a Vauxhall Viva car full, and when I hear that song I am crammed against a window in the back of that car queuing for half an hour or so to get into the air show car park, its red hot and "Whiter Shade of Pale" is on the transistor radio that is hanging by its leather strap from the rear view mirror - radios fitted into cars? - whoever heard of such nonsense.

A little bit more like the movies...

In a scene reminiscent of a Dirty Harry or Beverley Hills Cop film police shot dead two would-be bank robbers yesterday as they attempted to hold up a security van outside an HSBC bank in Chandlers Ford (pronounced Ch-aar-ndlersFord).

And it makes the news headlines all over this country for police officers do not shoot people, not even bank robbers, very often at all here and we express mock shock and indignation when it happens.

We also, as a matter of course, suspend the armed officers involved from duty, even the ones who didn't fire a shot, until an independant police investigation team can satisfy itself that no prosecution of the officers involved should take place, no correct that, they prepare a file and the Crown Prosecution Service make the decision.

And of course the point deserves to be made to those not of this country that our "normal" police officers are not armed with anything more lethal than a stick and a gas cannister and that the armed officers involved yesterday would be part of a small and elite squad who have had rigorous and extensive training in the art of shooting bad people - we train them as hard and as long as we can, then repeat every month, and when they have to do the job that we have trained them long and hard for we suspend them under threat of criminal charges and often, even if no charges result, remove them from armed duty and put them back on "normal duties".

A close friend of mine is a serving police officer, in fact two of my brother-in-law's are police officers, the friend (and I think the in-laws too) have served in the armed section, its a sort of prestigious branch of your local bobby shop, and he resigned from it after a year in which he was constantly assessed, both mentally and physically and a year in which, when issued with his firearm each shift, he was expected to stand in front of similarly armed maniacs and ask them nicely to lay down their arms twice before shooting them, preferably in the body (no gung-ho Dirty Harry shoulder shots in real life) and then hope that his single shot would miss any vital body parts and that the villian would survive, indeed the police in yesterdays bank raid spent half an hour trying to resucitate one of the shot bank robbers.

The pressure of the job was perpetual and intense and he left that squad to be a police dog handler where if your dog attacks a villian everyone sings your praises and no-one from the Police Complaints Commission comes to interview you and advise that you should have a solicitor present.

*********************************************************************

And in other news, and by way of a complete contrast to bad guys, today is the funeral of Jane Tomlinson, good guy hero of this city, and befitting her status the funeral is to be held in the city's catholic cathedral, closing most of the roads in that area, and quite remarkably such is the expected crowd that the big screens in Leeds' Millenium Square and Bradford's Centenary Square will be relaying the funeral service - 'tis a sad day.

That would do it then...

A quick postscript to the aerial photographs and Leeds Bradford Airport in general...

The Air Accident Investigation Branch today issued their findings on an incident at the airport back in January when a British Midland Airbus burst four tyres on landing, blocking the runway for several hours.

The conclusion of the enquiry was that the pilot, having previously experienced tricky landing conditions at one of the UK's highest altitude airports, applied the parking brakes before the aircraft landed.

That would do it then...

We've lived all over this place...

Dan at All that comes with it started the idea fermenting - post an aerial picture of your house on t'interweb - I've got the boiling oil on the roof ready to repel stalkers Dan...

So instead of zooming right in and showing you the exact house I thought we'd stay up here at 2000 feet so that we could see the last four houses that we've lived in - yes thats right, since 1990 we've lived in all four houses that you can see ringed in yellow, and yes that right, we moved one street at a time.

We're currently at the one at the bottom of the picture, its the smallest house out of those four but I like it the best, don't ask me why, I just do, its just, well its just got a feelgood thing about it.

Moving up the photo and to the left we have the house that we moved into in 1990 and the truth is that we would still be there and we would be nearly mortgage free by now if it wasn't for the fact that a river ran right underneath the house - remember the Meryll Streep film "A River Runs Through It", well they got the title from our house.

What you can't see from the Google Earth image is the hill that we are all perched on, the highest point being the bottom of the page where our current house is - this whole area was one huge big wood until 50 years ago complete with streams and other good stuff like that - the builder who built that first house decided to ignore the fact that the whole of that street stood on top of a water course and so all of the houses down that side of the road had running water under the ground floor floorboards, running water that could be up to three feet deep during heavy rain spells.

We sold that and moved to the one thats further up, almost in the middle of the page - that was a big house, I mean a very big house, the sort of house that people walk into and declare "oh what a lovely big house" while you stand there thinking "you should see the heating bills". Ultimately thats what made us sell that house at a profit of £120,000 in three years - it had cost us nearly that much just to heat the fekking place, the new heating system which Birtish Gas promised us would be far more efficient cost £9000 to install and the next quarters heating bill actually increased, the bastards.

It was a beautiful, big, prestigious house, built in the 1930's with oak panelled walls and a huge kitchen conservatory that looked wonderful but which never rose above freezing point during the winter - all of the heat from the four radiators in that room went straight out of the conservatory roof, but if I earned eight times more than I do then we'd still be living there, I loved that house, Suzanne hated it though, she hated it on the day we moved in, which was strange as she had picked it from the shortlist of three we had.

Finally the house that we moved to after the big house and before this house is right at the top of the picture and those are my cars in the driveway and judging by those cars then that image is about four years old. It was an ok house, still quite big but I never really liked it, never really did anything to it apart from fit three new bathrooms to it (it only had one bathroom but I did it three times - fooking women eh). I also hated the garden as it always seemed to be dirty, yes thats a stupid thing to say but thats how it felt, just fekkin grubby all the time, eeek, I hated that garden.

So there you have it - to all American visitors, yes, we really do cram our houses that close together, you should see the inner city housing, but then again land around these parts isn't ten cents an acre.

My old golf club is top right, thats the 17th green and 18th tee, bottom-right is the shittest pub in West Yorkshire and top left with the green roof is the church where our two kinder were christened and attended until the vicar would sign a piece of paper saying that they could go to the church owned Primary and Secondary schools - thats the church that I have attended the grand total of three times in my life, yes I'm a hypocrite for sending my children to a church school but I'm relying on that bit in the bible that says its never too late to repent, or something like that, I'll repent with my last living breath and jump the queue on all you sad bas'tads who've been going to church every sunday for the whole of your lives.

I don't know where we'll move to next, we've done all of these streets now.


And for another slightly different aerial view of Leeds in general and our house in particular, keep watching the video until you get to 1min 30 secs, and there we are, just near the top of the screen, I may even be waving.

The biggest, worst poo ever...

I've been reading too much of the scaryduck offerings, that much is true for today my thoughts turn to a subject dear to the British male's heart - poo.

For some unearthly reason your average British male cannot allow more than ten minutes worth of a conversation to elapse without mentioning the bottom bodily function, how big, how long, how much it smelled, and as its been several weeks since this blog had a damn good poo then its about time we raised the subject again.

Look away now if you are at all squimish.

Or eating.

Sometime around 1980 it was, my personal best, the best, worst poo I have ever had, and yes, mention this to most British males and they'll remember their's too.

I was working between our Newcastle, Leeds and Birmingham offices and Monday morning was always an early start to get to Brum (well Wolverhampton actually) for 9am, 40 minutes across the M62 and then just under two hours down the M6, I had it timed to the nearest half minute, knew the checkpoints in the motorway when I could tell if I was early or late, Keele services was one such checkpoint.

I approached it on this fine autumnal morning approximately an hour into my journey, I was early, had made up five or so minutes from somewhere, everything was going so well when the overwhelming urge to start pushing came upon me somewhere just north of Keele.

I know now what females feel like when in the final stages of labour, where in all the tv programmes they are shouting "I want to push" and the midwife is telling them not to just yet or they'll tear their arses another hole, I know that feeling for inside of me had built a huge backlog of part digested foodstuff that until then I had been completely unaware of.

With five minutes to spare on the journey I decided to stop off at the service station which even at this early hour was quite busy, fortunately there was a toilet cubicle free and as I removed my lower graments and took up the seat there commenced what is still recognised as the biggest, most prolonged, and worst smelling poo I have ever partaken of.

It wouldn't stop.

Normally you get a breather during the maximum poo sessions, normally you can nip a big one off and rest for a while, wipe your brow and then recommence, maybe even have time to flush the starter course away so that you don't block your u-bend, but this one was having none of it.

On and on it came, endless like a coil of ice cream from a Mr Whippy machine, it made no splash for it did not fall anywhere but simply uncoiled itself out of me and then recoiled itself back up under the water, like a long lazy python it emerged, steaming slightly, paralysing my anal valve making a short break impossible so that I could only sit there and wait, and wait...

And then the end of the first phase came and I could draw breath again and relax, wipe my fevered brow and let out a long and heartfelt "Jesus Christ" a refrain that was echoed by the men outside stood at the urinals, for following the giant poo came a gas pocket, a foul evil smelling cloud that gagged those who stood under its fallout, like a pit of decomposing death suddenly uncapped and released to an unsuspecting world, Beelzebub had put this one aside for me, for me, for meeeeee...

Rough tough truckers who had only stopped for a leak fled in terror, the cleaning crew from Keele services resigned en masse, and a chemical warfare rapid response vehicle was called from a nearby garrison, but there was no time for any of this nonsense in my cubicle for the stomach cramps had started again as the second phase hit me - a stream of thick gooey fluid that erupted forth in a series of parp, parp, parps, hot sticky fluid that bubbled from my anus with a force that could drive a power station generator.

And the smell just intensified - your own poo often does not carry any sort of smell at all for its is the smell of you, you cannot smell your own bad breath nor can you smell your own poo, but this was not made of me, this was the work of the devil himself, my bowels were possesed and producing the foulest creation in Lucifers kingdom, and I had absolutely no control over any of it.

Just as I was fast approaching the point of fainting the liquid ceased as quickly as it had begun, the anal valve closed again, hot and thobbing now, I sat there terrified wondering what next was in store and whether or not it was worth a trial flush.

A knock at the door and a muffled worried voice, "are you alright in there ?", a good samaritan holding a scarf to his nose and mouth, come to rescue me ...

"Save yourself, flee while you can" I shouted, "leave me for I am done for, save yourself, think of the children..."

"Don't strike a match though" I added as an afterthought.


Two whole rolls of toilet paper and seven flushes it took to rid Keele of that monster, 32 minutes from trousers down to emerging sheepishly from the cubicle to find the manager standing with arms crossed and an angry look on his face, behind whom sheltered two mop ladies who obviously would rather have been anywhere else in the world but here today.

I fled the service station, bottom as raw as a baboon's, bowels completely bereft of anything, several pounds lighter and a new notch on the tightened belt.

By god I needed that.

The Baby Patrol...

With the McCanns of Leicestershire sinking deeper and deeper into the mire every time the Portuguese Police have a discussion at the water cooler over the case of the missing Madelaine - {Lang=Portuguese} "Oh yes, I never thought of that {/Portuguese}, we perhaps need to revisit our past to remind ourselves of how we used to deal with the perenial problem of what to do with your children of an evening when on holiday and in need of a blathering down the pub.

You call for The Baby Patrol Man.

Come with me now to 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is the first man in space closely followed by American Alan Shepherd so that was alright then, Kennedy's American troops make a right arse of invading Cuba in The Bay of Pigs incident, and Earnest Hemingway dies of self-inflicted gunshot wounds which is a nice way of saying that he committed suicide.

And the family of little JerryChicken go off on their annual holidays to Cayton Bay, that fine and dandy caravan park that sits atop the clifftops just south of Scarborough - what finer place for a holiday ?

OK, yes, I can think of loads of finer places, but in 1961 Cayton Bay was the finer place of choice.

And of course the parents of the little five year old JerryChicken and his even littler three year old brother Ned could rest assured every night that as they boozed themselves silly in the camp site clubhouse, dressing up a-fine in silly hats, the air thick with party streamers and everyone singing "community songs" as per the tradition of the day whilst getting well and truly blathered - for let us not forget dear reader that 1961 was slap bang in the middle of the era when everyone was convinced that we would all soon die in one big flash and a bang, the British Isles being located exactly in the middle of two governments who really, really, really wished to launch their new nuclear toys at each other, just give us an excuse Boris, just one excuse, Kennedy had warned, and then turned to his citizens and told them that "all prudent American families should have their own bomb shelter".

So sitting on the North East coast with presidential fingers poised over the match and blue touchpaper, our parents did what all Britons do in times of crisis - they put party hats on, got drunk and sang silly songs to each other all night long, its not the worst way to die.

I never finished that paragraph about how our parents could rest assured - anyway they could rest assured that while they were out merry-making, us small children were safely tucked up in bed in our caravans, doors locked to strangers, sleeping tightly and peacefully in a crazy mad adult world.

How did they know ?
Because they had the Baby Patrol Man and his magic walkie-talky.

The rules were that when you left your kids locked up in your caravan of an evening you left one of the curtains open so that the Baby Patrol Man could peer in through the window during his rounds, shine a torch through the glass even, and check that your children were still tucked up in bed snoring away and dreaming of Noddy, Big Ears and other good racist Enid Blyton novels, or Lego in my case and its miriad uses in constructing things that needed to have square edges, and be red - it was my dream when a child to build my first adult size house out of red Lego bricks, a dream as yet unfulfilled, but its still on the back burner, oh yes.

And woe betide any youngster who was awake when the Baby Patrol Man called, for he would take from his haversack the ex-army second world war walkie-talky set that encumbered his every move all night, it being two foot long with a three foot aerial and weighing a hundred pounds or more, and radio back to The Rendevous Club that a baby was crying in caravan E45.

From here a lacky would speed to the large blackboards at each side of the stage and chalk the number "E45" underneath the heading "Baby crying in caravan..." and amid whispers and much gazing and pointing around the room some poor bastard would rise shamefaced from his chair, midway thorugh only his eigth pint of the night, pick up his coat and his wife and storm out of the clubhouse, entertainment ruined for the night by their screaming kids who would scream all the louder when the parents finally found their caravan amid the thousands of similar ones - not an easy job even when only half blathered - and leathered them finally to sleep just in time to return for last orders.

Indeed the parental warning of choice every night as they locked the caravan door on you was on the lines of "Good night, sleep tight, and you'd bloody well better do, woe betide you if I get called out of that club..." and to our everlasting pride in all our childhood years, me and our Ned never caused either of our parents to break off their blathered song filled evenings.

If only they'd put aside the "paedophile" tag that has since been inextricably linked with the Baby Patrol provision then parents all across this country, including a pair now residing in Leicestershire, could booze the night away safe in the knowledge that their kinder were being peered upon at regular intervals by a man with a walkie-talky.

Meeting Elvis in Morrisons

Elvis was doing his shopping in Morrisons Guiseley store on Saturday.

I have to say that the years have not been kind on the King of Rock n' Roll, he now looks all of his 72 years, seems to have lost all of his teeth and not bothered replacing them, and I'm sorry to say that at 11am in the morning he was sozzled, a lush, obviously fond of the drink is our Elvis, he was staggering, confused and chewing on his gums - and he stank of beer

He was however very nicely attired in one of his Vegas stage suits, in fact it was one identical to the joke Elvis in the photo, but the real Guiseley Elvis wore a gold spangly cape too as he staggered down the aisles with his shopping trolley and dog on a string.

I'd loved to have stopped and chatted to him, asked him how he was finding life in Guiseley, if he resided here for anonimity's sake, perhaps avoiding punitive tax regimes in the deep south of America, asked him if he still sang, maybe in pubs of a Friday night, and of course remind him that our lives have crossed paths once before...

...way back in 1974 it was, February of 1974, when the 17 year old me found myself on a family holiday in Las Vegas at a time when most folk in the UK thought that a fortnight in Cornwall was the absolute limit of navigation capability for your average Briton.

We were there by a fluke, coincidence, chance and being in the right place at the right time, ten days in Las Vegas for £7 each, staying at the Flamingo motel (a slightly down market Bates Motel stylee building in the car park of the famous Flamingo) where Mama Cass was heading the bill just a few short months before she would hockle herself to death on a sandwich in London.

Diana Ross was over the road at Caesers Palace and Elvis was performing daily at The Hilton.

All of these once famous acts of the 1960's had one thing in common - in 1974 no-one wanted to know them, their chart careers were washed up (although Diana Ross made a comeback in 76) and Vegas offered a wage and another opportunity to bask in the spotlight that had now moved on to glam rock.

The most suprising thing about every act at every hotel in Vegas was that they were by and large ignored by the punters, entry to the auditoriums was free, provided that you walked through the casinos first, and people would drift in and out whilst the "turns" were performing - gambling was the big attraction, has-been singers were a definite second choice for entertainment value.

So it was that my dad and uncle Ralph found themselves in the Hilton one night and had a free ticket to see Elvis in the main auditorium thrust into their hands, with nothing better to do they wandered in, watched Elvis for a couple of songs and wandered out again, my dad remarking that "he wasn't bad but I've seen better at Harehills Working Mens Club" - the most important event of the evening was not seeing Elvis in the flesh but Ralph finding a $50 bill outside the hotel on the taxi rank and being quicker to pick it up than the taxi rank marshall who wasn't to realise that he was dealing with a true Yorkshireman in my Uncle Ralph, no-one would have got to that curency faster than Ralph, no-one.

I wanted to remind our Morrisons Elvis about his Vegas years but he was having trouble hearing what the lady on the cooked meats counter was saying to him, he's deaf now as well as drunk, toothless, unshaven and smelly.

Such a shame, but his stage outfit was spotless.

Spoiled by the Poundstretcher trainers, but still

The Tomato Dip...

.........Bob goes to the scullery seeking something to keep Foxy quiet for five minutes while he explains his plans for the business but because he's been away for a week there is very little food in the larder apart from an old cake tin that his mother gave him several months ago, Bob prises it open with a knife and finds a wedge of fruit cake wrapped in greaseproof paper in there, Bob thinks that it may be from his mothers christmas cake eight months ago, it will have to do, he unwraps it and slaps it on a plate then takes it to Foxy who sits there waiting for him,

"Stick that in your gob and shutup for five minutes now"

"ooh christmas cake, smashing, have you got any cheese ?"

"No the mice had it away, now will you shut up and listen ?"

"Go on..."

"Thank christ for that, right, I won't be in on Monday ok ?"

"mmm" Foxy spits a few crumbs out of the corner of his mouth, "its a bit dry is this cake Bob, sure you haven't got any cheese ?"

"Drink your tea, I won't be in on Monday because I've got something to sort out, and I might not be in on Tuesday either"

Foxy just stares at him, "Come on then, out with it, what are you sorting out ?"

Bob takes a deep breath, "I'm buying a new car"

Foxy bursts out laughing spraying cake crumbs and dried fruit all over the hearth rug, "yer daft bugger, I thought you were going to say you were packing it in"

"I am"

Foxy stops laughing, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, stares disbelieving at Bob, slurps from his chipped mug of tea, wipes his mouth again, "go on..." he urges

"I'm going to buy a car and then I'm going into property"

Foxy stares long and hard at Bob, "You're serious about this aren't you ?"

"Yes"

"Not got anything to do with this Brenda then ?"

"No"

"Well where's your money coming from then ?"

"I've been saving"

"Fuck off"

"No I have, I've got some put by, its time to spend it, time to try something different"

"Fuck off"

"No really Foxy, I've got a bit put by, out of the cafe you know, like I've been saying, its a goldmine is that place" so far Bob hasn't lied to his current business partner, after all the money did come out of the cafe.

"You bastard"

"You could have had some of it, I asked you when I bought the place"

"I know you did, but that cow had bled me dry, fucking hell I didn't know you were making that much out the place"

"Well, I keep saying..."

"I know, I know, I didn't believe you thats all"

"Well..." Bob shrugs his shoulders

"So what car are you buying, one of Powneys ?" Pete Powney is a mate of theirs who owns a small taxi and second hand car business under the dark arches railway viaducts in the centre of Leeds.

"No, I'm getting a new one"

"Fuck off"

"Yep" Bob is grinning now, he can't wait to see Foxys face, "I'm going down to Appleyards on Monday"

"Fuck me, you're getting a Vauxhall, what, a Viva or a Victor ?"

"No, Appleyards Jaguar"

"No"

"Yes"

"No"

"Yes"

"A Jag ?"

"Yes"

"Fuck off"

"No really"

"You bastard"

"I know"

Foxy stands and walks around the back of the settee, removes the grimy old flat cap that is a permanent fixture on his head and scratches his bald pate, something he only does when he is at his most perplexed.

"How much have you got put by then ?"

"Enough"

"Enough for a new Jag, thats a lot Bob, how much are they ?"

"Two grand"

"Fuck me" and Foxy sits back down again, pulls the flat cap down hard on his head, "you took two grand out of the till ?"

"Sort of"

"Don't get caught pal, you know what happened to me"

"I won't get caught, no-one apart from you knows about this brass"

"Bloody hell, eh - I get first go in it mind"

"Oh aye, I won't let you drive the pickup you're a bloody madhead you are, what makes you think you'll get to drive the Jag ?"

"Aye, I wouldn't let me drive me own Jag if I had one" Foxy shakes his head, "Bloody hell, I could have had some of that cafe and all, that bitch bled me dry she did"

"Well I did offer didn't I ?"

"I know, I know, bastard" Foxy removes his cap again, "what else was it that you said ?"

"What ?"

"You said something about property"

"Oh yes, I'm buying some property"

This time Foxy is suspicious, "You're selling this place ?"

"No, I'm keeping this place, I'll rent it out, you can rent it if you want" and Foxy nods and looks around the small living room appreciating it for the first time, its certainly better than his grubby little bedsit and he wonders how much rent Bob will charge.

"How much rent will you charge then ?"

"I'll do a deal for you"

"I bet you will, that Jag'll cost a fortune to run, I'm not paying your petrol bills with me rent money"

"I'll do you a deal Foxy, if you're interested"

"We'll see, where are you going to live then ?"

"Horsforth"

"Bloody hell"

"One of those new bungalows that we worked on last year"

"Get stuffed"

"Yeah, theres one up for sale, you know the one that we had to redo the central heating in, the one at the top of the hill, five-seven-fifty they want for it"

"You might get it cheaper if you tell them the heating's fucked again"

They both laugh out loud at Foxys joke, then sit quietly staring at the empty fireplace

"It'll be nice will that Bob, I hope you get a mortgage, they can be right bastards with self employed you know"

"I won't need a mortgage"

Bob turns to look at Foxy's face and wishes he hadn't, Foxy is sat with his mouth wide open displaying a gob full of half eaten fruitcake and a dribble of spit running down his chin

"You're paying cash for a house ?"

"Yep, thats what I said"

"Youre paying cash for a house and a Jag ?"

"Yes"

"How much fucking cash have you taken out of that till ?"

"Its a goldmine Foxy, a goldmine"

"It fucking must be, you bastard"

"And theres something else Foxy..."

"You're getting married"

"No I'm not getting married"

"Well who's going to look after that bungalow in Horsforth then, you can't do it"

"OK, Brenda might move in"

"I knew it, you lucky bastard, you can't keep owt from me you know, I know these things me"

"Thats not it Foxy, its, its, I might not be doing much plumbing in future"

Foxy once again stops chewing on his dry christmas cake and stares at Bob, "Go on..." he urges

"I want to buy some houses, do flat conversions, rent them out, that sort of thing"




The Tomato Dip
The story continues...

Another evocative song

You see, we'd never really taken holidays, I was always to busy to take holidays.

Sure, a few times when the kids were very young we took them to Benidorm to see their grandfather, but that doesn't count because it was during the winter and it pissed it down every time we went there,if you think Benidorm is bad in the summer then you should see it when its dull and wet.

It wasn't until '99 that I decided that we should start to take at least one annual family holiday by default and so we discovered Menorca, possibly the quietest of the three Balearic islands and not encumbered by high rise apart-hotels, it was perfect for our first real family holiday and we loved it.

We returned every year and then in 2002 when the kids were 14 and 10 years old we went again with friends and their children of the same age, it was probably the best holiday that we have ever had together as a family group. We stayed in a small block of 10 apartments which shared a large swimming pool and all of the other apartments had children of a similar age, it was Walt Disney perfect and we had a ball.

We'd hired a car and as always the Menorcan radio stations were utter dross but unfortunately having made the switch to mini-disc we hadn't brought any cd's with us, and then I remembered the music magazine that I'd bought at the airport that contained a free compilation cd on the cover - it was retrieved from the dustbin and we stuck it in the car cd player.

Out came the refrain of The Flaming Lips and "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots" and for once in all our lives we all agreed that we loved a music track.

The rest of the cd was rubbish so that one track was played on repeat over and over again where ever we drove on the island, and on Menorca you drive nowhere fast, trundling along at 30mph on a scorching hot day with aircon up full and all the windows open (yes I know), and "Yoshima" belting out on the cd player, again, and again, both girls singing along from the back seat, a moment frozen in time whenever I hear this song, a perfect moment in time that is forever encapsulated in resin and stored safely in a corner of my memory, I hope I never lose it.

Zero Tolorance

This week the dismissal of a court case against a young girl student who was prosecuted for putting her feet up on a chair whist travelling on a Mersey Ral train has brought the usual trumpeting of indignation from certain media quarters.

And whilst it might sound petty, and a waste of court resources, its a direct result of the pressure applied in the same media outlets in recent years that we should apply "zero tolorance" to examples of anti social behaviour.

These same media outlets always point to Rudy Giuliani when mayor of New York his famous "zero tolorance" policy and its effect on that city's reputation for being impossible to walk in after dark, we're told constantly that that is the way to go, that "ordinary people" should reject anti-social behaviour, report it and lets have the scrotes clapped in irons, stamp out littering, grafitti, and other heinous acts that blight our society.

Well, the resultant 240 prosecutions by Mersey Rail for "feet on seats", and the awaiting 400 more prosecutions for the same crime are part of the "zero tolorance", sitting with your feet up on the seat opposite is mindless disrespect for your fellow passengers, especially the one who has to sit there after your feet have been removed, its petty, but it strikes at the heart of the issue of "respect", a word that is often bandied around as an excuse for bad behaviour by those who ironically have no respect for anyone else.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that while in Edinburgh I was most impressed by their bus network and the presentation of the service by staff and equipment - drivers were without fail helpful, made eye contact, smiled at you, attired in clean white shirts, wearing the company tie (tied properly), and the buses were new and clean and better still cheap to use.

More impressive were the posters on the buses that informed the passengers that they were being observed by no less than eight cctv cameras on each bus which broadcast their pictures back to a central office where any signs of anti-social behaviour would be reported to the driver and the police informed.

And even better a poster that read something like "you hate the gays, the blacks, foreigners...but would you sit underneath this poster - respect your fellow passengers" and do you know - it worked.

You can't have zero tolorance and then have a little bit of tolorance, you can't ban litter dropping and then not prosecute for dropping one cigarette butt on the floor or out of the car window (as one of my drivers was last year), you can't abhore racism but not mind a little bit of name calling, and you can't call for zero tolorane in your newspaper and then mock an organisations attempts to enforce your great idea.

Evocative music...

Sitting here munching on me breakfast this morning listening to Smooth FM (Isn't DAB radio great) and through the speaker grill comes the unmistakable first bar of "Sunny Afternoon" by The Kinks.

And instantly, through the power of brain association, its august 1966, England rules the world of football having just won the world cup a few weeks earlier, England rules the world of popular music with acts like The Beatles, The Who, The Stones and of course The Kinks virtually guaranteed number one hits on both sides of the Atlantic with every record release.

And the ten year old Jerrychicken rules this particular ten square feet of Cayton Bay beach with its magnificent daily castle constructions, battlements stretching as far as the eye can see and the constant to and fro-ing from the waters edge to fetch more water for the moat due to the lack of invention of a sandcastle moat pumping device, a situation that sadly still means that sandcastles are particularly susceptible to invasion via their dry moats.

Those days on the beach at Cayton Bay were long and hot, in my memory at least, and crowded with dozens and dozens of people that I didn't know, our dad was the most gregarious of people and within hours of arriving at the holiday camp he'd be organising complete strangers into football matches, cricket matches and sandcastle building competitions, in the space of a few days our spot on the beach (always the same spot on the beach) would be a gathering point for everyone and their deckchairs, picnics shared, beer bottles opened, sandy cups of tea passed around and the gabbing, chirping sounds of flocks of women gossiping would be interspersed by guffaws and racous laughter from the menfolk whilst partaking of a bottle of broon.

And kids, there would be hundreds of kids, dozens of footballs, a ton of jumpers to build goalposts from, twenty or thirty a side and a pitch that took up most of the foreshore when the tide was out, and when the dads joined in, slightly inebriated by mid afternoon, then the huge disorganised games of football would be interspersed every few minutes by the need for several kids to swim out to sea and fetch the ball back after a particulalry energetic attempt to kick the ball like Bobby Charlton by a dad who did not play the game from one Cayton Bay holiday to the next.

And in the middle of all of this chaos, this beach rabble, would be a portable radio, volume turned up full in a constant battle with the womens chattering, belting out the chart hits of the month, classics now every one of them, broadcast on a pirate radio station that was moored somewhere out in the North Sea and had Scarborough in its footprint - memory tells me it was Radio Caroline but research makes me doubt this as this vessel was moored off the Essex coast and surely would not have been receieved oop north, maybe it was, whatever, pirate radio was the only radio of choice to the descerning pop music listener in 1966 as the Governments very own BBC poured scorn on anything recorded after 1950.

And as I type this another song from the era is playing on Smoth FM - "Monday, Monday" by The Mamas and Papas - people ask how I remember loads of this stuff, music is the answer, for a young lad who's life was filled with music from dusk to dawn (I have my father to thank for that) then music is the key and every tune unlocks another memory.

Jane Tomlinson 1964-2007

Its all said far more succinctly than I can put it right here so I'll leave the obitury to the BBC and Gordon Brown.

The flag was flying at half mast today on top of the Leeds Civic Hall, centrepiece of local government for this city of ours, as befits a heroine of our region.

I saw her just once last year when she switched on the christmas lights in Leeds and was struck at just how tiny and frail she looked, this was at the time when she had completed her bike ride across the USA and had declared that she would be taking part in no more charity epic rides/runs/swims.

I've done sponsored bike rides, its fooking hard to persuade people to part with money when you're going to flog yourself all day on a bike, they just want to come and laugh at you at the end (and they did for me), so for an individual to raise almost £2million in the seven years since her terminal illness was diagnosed is something so tremendous that I cannot comprehend how I would do the same.

Local radio stations have dedicated their whole output today to obituaries to Jane, her death is felt very sincerely in this city and there will undoubtably be a memorial of some kind to her placed here in the not too distant future.

Jane Tomlinson, 1964-2007 RIP

http://www.janesappeal.com/

A Gridlocked City

Thanks to Michael at View From The Bar I am reminded of todays story of politicians and their hypocritical ways.

Yesterday afternoon a burst water pipe stopped the city of Leeds.

In the manner of Sods Law the burst water pipe just happened to be on a particularly busy part of the city, the Inner Ring Road, the route that takes all traffic through and across the centre, the route that nearly every commuter in the city has to use or cross in order to go home and the route that 90% of the traffic coming into or through the city has to use or cross when exiting the motorway.

And as Sods Law goes the burst didn't just happen on the busiest stretch of the Inner Ring Road, it happened on a stretch where the road dips down a little in order to pass under a railway viaduct - this 100 yard undulation in the road became a very nice two foot deep water feature yesterday afternoon and completely closed the route for the rest of the day.

Because of the interdependance of all routes in and through Leeds on the Inner Ring Road the traffic soon stopped and shortly afterwards was reported to be backing up into all of the surrounding suburbs - stories abound this morning of people taking three hours to make a ten minute journey home last night - I'm lucky, my journey to work takes me all of four minutes on a bad day in the suburb of LS16 and last night was no different.

And as Michael has pointed out, last nights chaos will be eagerly pounced upon by the city's elder statesman Councillor Carter, never a one to pass up an opportunity to criticise the Leeds City Councils ruling majority of Labour and Liberal coalition he will no doubt be available today for rentaquotes to all flavours of local media outlets being that he is a fierce critic of private motor vehicles and never misses an opportunity to insist that we should all be using public transport for city bound journeys.

There are of course a few slight flaws in Councillor Carters theories.

The first and most blindingly obvious is that due to central government spending too much pocket money in Iraq and Afghanistan our prestigious Leeds Supertram scheme was cancelled last year by an embarrassed Dept of Transport after they had spent eight years encouraging us to spend £40 million on planning and compulsory purchase issues - Leeds does not have a co-ordinated public transport system at all, not one that you'd like to use if you need to be anywhere on the same day anyway.

And the second point is the hilarious hypocrisy of Councillor Carter and his hatred of private motor vehicles being used in frivolous ways such as getting to work and back every day.

You see a couple of decades ago the noble Councillor Carter was elected mayor for a year, an office which he proudly accepted and an office which bore certain privileges, one of which was the use of the City of Leeds limousine, a rather nice large black car with official council crest on the front, ride in it and you felt like the Queen, or so I was told by my cousin.

And how did my cousin know ?

Well my cousin, the now famous cousin who is getting married in a showbusiness "Hello!" magazine double spread wedding in November and who has allegedly invited me although I have yet to hear or see of this invite - this cousin of mine just happened to be best friends with Councillor Carters son.

The Leeds City Council had another little perk for their employees and guests - at the time they owned a significant proportion of Leeds United's football ground, significant meaning all of it actually, and the council had a private corporate box at the ground.

So it was that for the season that Councillor Carter was mayor, the city limo would pull up outside my cousins house at every home game to collect him and his friend Carter Jnr to take them to Elland Rd to make use of the corporate box there - and then bring them home afterwards of course.

Frivolous use of a motor vehicle when public transport would have done the job just as well ?

No, just political hypocrisy.

Community Support Officers to get Taser Guns

...well ok, not quite.

But they should, especially the old one who patrols around our Tesco Express, I mean the looks he gets off some of those small hooded children when he asks then to move on and stop clogging the bus shelter up every evening, if looks could kill.

Mind, some of them might be waiting for a bus of course, I mean its not like he ever asks them.

And he told me to move my car once because, and I quote, "its too close to the junction" by about twenty yards it was too close to the junction, but he has a greybeard so he must have been correct and I sheepishly moved it quoting "sorry sir" as mitigation.

Yes news this weekend is that several Police forces in the UK will have Taser weapons issued to non-firearm trained officers, seems ok to me but then I still hold the opinion that police officers are on the whole (apart from our greybeard CSO) reasonable people who are accountable in some way for their actions, I don't suppose for one minute that our greybeard would Taser a whole bunch of 11 year olds just because they are sat in the bus shelter again tonight, then again...

But its upset several rent-a-quote stylee people including Amnesty International who have diverted their attention from freeing political prisoners in China for a while to say "its not fair" or words to that effect.

Electrocuting someone for no better reason than they clutter up a bus shelter is nothing new of course...

...come with me, back to 1975 {screen goes all wavy and we're wearing flares again}...the young Jerrychicken is working in his first job in the office at an electrical contractors and the bit he likes most about his day is when some of the older electricians come into the office to have a coffee and swap electricians tales with Eugene, the estimator to whom he is indentured.

During that period one of our biggest customers was The Star Cinema Group who owned not only cinemas but all of the UK's Hofbrauhous bars and Scamps discoteques, yes they were purveyors of cheesy entertainment - and we did all the electrical work in their outlets all over the UK which was handy for me as I snaffled several flashing disco lights during that time so that my bedroom resembled that scene from Saturday Night Fever with the illuminated floor, but thats another story.

The new Star Cinema complex at Blackpool was coming along fine when one Friday afternoon one of our electricians rolled into our estimating office, took a cup of coffee and sat down chuckling away to himself, a story was forthcoming and we put our pencils down and sat back to listen.

The site foreman, in charge of a workforce of a hundred or so sub-contactors was a bit of a bastard apparently, as most site foremen were, but this one was a bit more of a bit of a bastard than is normally required, and everyone on the site had had enough of him.

The building had got to the stage called "second fixing" where it was almost complete and all of the bits were being fitted to the interior, switches, light fittings, chairs, disco dance floor, all the good stuff, and our electricians were approached with an ingenious plan to show the site foreman exactly what the rest of the workforce thought of him.

It was especially ingenious, and cunning, and painfull

You see the mens toilets in the disco were now connected to the mains sewers and had been fitted out and this was the signal for every contractor on site to use these facilities now instead of pissing on the ground around the back of the site cabins like you had to before the building got to this stage, a tad inconvenient for the population of Blackpool as the back of the site cabins faced onto the promenade, but still.

240v power was now available in the building and the plumbers had just fitted the stainless steel urinal in the gents toilet, and you've probably guessed the rest - a simple flex lead from the nearest socket and a connection to a handy bolt hole at the back of the urinal plate and bingo - a 240 volt heating element/urinal, site foreman for the use of.

The whole site was in on the act and when the foreman went for his morning piss the urinal was plugged in, I won't describe the rest as it will involve every male reading this to clutch his groin instinctively and that might look odd if they are reading this at work, suffice to say that the foreman spent the rest of the morning in casualty trying to explain the blackened tip of his todger to a group of highly amused nurses.

And that was it.

The cable was pulled out, no-one saw what happened, no health and safety officer came to investigate (for they were not invented in 1975), it was just "high jinks", a good laugh, a bit of horseplay on a building site, no harm done, a lesson learned...

The day they Tasered a site foremans willy.

Lazy Sunday Morning

Following on from my disgraceful attack on the 10th anniversary of Saint Diana, Queen of Hearts the other day which clearly upset several people, may I, in the interests of balanced reporting, recommend this web site to redress the issue ?

Today, as my wife does not appear to be speaking to me (for why I know not) I shall be continuing with the thirteenth chapter of "The Tomato Dip", a writing project that is now in its third year, for I am no-ones Barbara Cartland.



"And when Foxy had finished chasing Bob around the neighbourhood they had returned to the van, sat inside and opened their lunchboxes, and whilst Bob had managed to wash his hands in the house earlier Foxy hadn't, and despite stinking of four days worth of human excrement, his hair still tacky and his fingernails stuffed full of the light brown stuff, Foxy had enjoyed his jam sandwiches and even licked his fingers clean at the end, at which point Bob had to leave the van for some fresh air.

Bob reminds Foxy of the tale now and they lean on Mrs Azids new kitchen units laughing out loud until it starts to hurt, each adding his own little tag to the storyline and when Bob reminds Foxy that he never washed his hands afterwards, Foxy is holding his Denby cup of tea close to his mouth and he throws back his head and laughs so loud that he spills half of it down his overalls and onto Mrs Azids new lino floor, so he puts the cup down on the worktop, spilling more of it in the process and makes a wiping motion with his workboots on the lino, which only suceeds in spreading the tea even further as well as making it dirtier.

They're both laughing so hard now that Foxy belches in the middle of a guffaw and nearly brings his sandwiches up again so he walks out of the back door for air and to calm down a bit, Bob stays in the kitchen, fresh chuckles erupting at random intervals, tears running freely down his face and muttering the occasional "oh dear," and "you daft bugger"."

You Can Call Me Al, in Benidorm

1986, Paul Simon, You an Call Me Al.

Chevy Chase makes the video work of course, its a good song but a brilliant video.

And it was all over MTV like a bad rash in the autumn of 1986.

MTV in Europe was in its fledgling years and, hard to believe I know, but music videos weren't exactly commonplace either, now every half crap, and most crap bands too can record a song and release their own home made video within hours of forming in a garage on your neighbourhood somewhere, but in the 1980's video still belonged to the movie and TV industry, and record companies chose their bands very carefully before splashing out mega-bucks on promotional vids.

Which meant the MTV, who only showed music video in those early days instead of the absolute shite that passes for entertainment on there now (it plays in our house 20 hours a day, the remaining 4 hours being devoted to soaps), would repeat the few vids that they had, over and over again, ad nauseum, but no-one seemed to mind.

1986 was also the year of Halleys Comet, stick with me all of this will come together succinctly very soon, a once in 76 year phenominum that shone like a bright star with a tail in the sky for a few weeks and then buggered off for another 75 years.

And 1986 was the year that all of Suzannes family decided to go on holiday to Benidorm.

When I say "all" of them I don't literally mean "all of them" of course, for that would be quite ridiculous, Benidorm doesn't have enough beds for all of her family to visit at the same time, but a representative sample of 20 or so went for two weeks at the Hotel Peublo, and yes, it really was as crap as it looks on that web site, in fact being 21 years ago, it was worse.

Still here ?

Good, for this is where the disparate elements of todays post all pull together.

So there we were halfway through our Benidorm torture, sorry, holiday, and Suzanne has a gastric problem for a few days, not to put too fine a point on it she was confined to our room with the shits - I had to entertain myself for a few days.

So I found myself wandering the streets of homage to concrete monoliths that is Benidorm and sometime around late afternoon I wandered, lonely as a cloud (again), into a new bar in a small shop unit that went under the name of "Halley's Bar".

The bar owner had really gone to town with the Halley's Comet theme by plastering the walls, ceiling, bar front and some of the floor with thick globs of plaster, concrete and artex, you daren't touch anything for fear of ripping flesh from your bones on the sharply protruding render - if there was such a thing as a bar on Halley's Comet then I'm prepared to believe that it would be as hostile as this place was.

I was the only one in there.

I took a stool at the bar and asked the spanish bartender (now theres a novelty, in 1986 the indigenous Spanish still worked the bars on the Costas), for a bottle of beer.

He brought two.
But he only asked me for the money for one.

I thought he was going to join me in a lonesome drink but he disappeared down the other end of the bar again and continued washing glasses.

I had been introduced to the concept of "Happy Hour", two-for-one drinks.

He then flicked a TV remote control and MTV appeared as if by magic from behind a stalactite on the ceiling, this was indeed a weird bar and I sat there on my stool clutching my two bottles of beer not daring to let my knees scrape against the sharpened points of artex on the barfront, a person could lose a serious amount of skin and blood in this place and I bet it sounded like such a good concept when they were sat in the bank managers office trying to borrow enough pesatas to buy most of Benidorms cement, artex and chicken wire.

Having finished off my beer and my freebie I ordered another one, two came, I was still the only customer in the bar and MTV was playing videos on a 30 minute loop, I sat there and watched repeated runs of "Call Me Al" and I had drunk more than a fair share of beer and freebies when a small boy appeared at the door of the bar.

I thought I recognised him but by now the vision wasn't too good, he stepped towards me and spoke something in a tongue that I barely recognised.

Ah yes, it was David, my eight year old brother-in-law, sent out from the hotel to find me by my wife, his older sister, their family is very trusting like that, I can't imagine sending an eight year old onto the streets of Benidorm to find a drunken in-law now, not unless your name is McCann or something, but still...

I invited him to sit on a stool at the bar with me, he accepted, I called the bartender over and ordered two beers, one for me, one for my small companion, he looked at David with suspicion and decided that he might possibly be a dwarf but more importantly another customer - and brought four beers over to us.

By this time I was well blathered and so gave my eight year old drinking buddy one bottle and kept three to myself, and there we sat until around ten pm when eventually, after ordering in rounds of four for several hours, I fell off my stool and we both rolled home back to the hotel where my mother-in-law was not overly impressed to see me and her eight year old son fall into the hotel reception area through the revolving door singing "You Can Call Me Al"

None of her family spoke to me again for the rest of the holiday including Suzanne who made me sleep on a chair on the balcony that night.

My drinking days were such fun...