I wandered lonely in a crowd... (of about 20,000 people)

A baking hot May Day Bank Holiday saw us break out the shorts, packed lunches, Norwegian walking poles, Kendal mint cake and my AA Book of Country Walks, (bought in 1975 and never actually used – until now).

Yes, Team Alfie was off on a scenic yomp – up to the Lake District – the place which bearded mountaineer, Chris Bonnington once described as the most magical landscape in the whole world....

And it certainly is – forget the Norwegian Fjords and their designer Slartibartfast - for true artistic interpretation of what God’s own country looks like, it has to be the Lake District.

But where to go?

Leafing through the book of walks, we hit the Lake District section. Shall we go there? Or there? The choice is so fulsome, so hard – it’s like trying to decide whether to have the chocolate truffle or the caramel cream...... but this being the Lake District, there are no nougat slices or nut cracknels. Every single walk is a piece of choccy heaven.

Not being fell-walkers, mountaineers, ramblers or even fit, we opt for a nice and easy traipse. An amble around Grassmere is our walk of choice. Four miles of landscaped gorgeousness in the seat of Englishness – and the haunt of Wordsworth..... Fantastic.

We arrive. Last time I was here it was raining stair rods, cats, and dogs. Come to think of it, virtually every time I’ve been here I’ve got soaked – but not today. Today it’s wall to wall sunshine.

Of course, with the Sun, comes the crowds – and this being a Bank Holiday means half the population of the country is here – all trying to recite Wordsworth’s ‘Daffodils’ poem; all trying to feel ‘lonely’; all trying to rediscover an England of a bygone time.

We meandered around the Mere and into Grassmere village. It was like a Chinese route march – there were bloody millions of us, all wishing that we too could live here full time..... If only we could win the lottery, Aston Martin Vanquish, pads in New York, St Moritz and Sydney harbour....... and an idyllic waterside choccy box cottage in the Lake District.

This time, we gave Dove Cottage, the home of Double-Dubya for around 10 years, a miss. We’ve been there before – to be honest it’s always been a way to get out of the rain – the place is dank, dark and depressing – somehow, Dickensian..... Well, I suppose it would be....

We had a look around the little parish church of St Oswald’s in the middle of the village. This drab church with its odd finish of grey pebble dash render to the outside wall looked somehow out of place against the majestic backdrop of the natural amphitheatre of the southern lakes. Apparently, it’s a Grade 1 listed building –and that puts it into the same league as Salisbury Cathedral. Whilst the outside looks like the finish on a post war prefab, the inside is totally different. Simple, early medieval – it has retained the rustic honesty of a house of God, built circa 13th century.

In the graveyard, we found the Wordsworth plot. In the centre of a host of leaden headstones was the great man himself. Having scribed for England, Double-Dubbya, sheathed his quill pen for the final time in 1850. Around him, basking in the reflected glory of the great Wordsworthsmith lay his extended family.... They only just fit – the plot is crammed fit to busting with Wordsworths - shoved in so tightly they must all have been on a diet of Victorian gruel and a slice of breeze block bread. A simple iron fence is all that separates the unread masses from the master of the written word – you could reach forward and touch the tombstone – no formality, no queuing management systems, no Jobsworth telling you not to touch the Wordsworth.

We ambled back to the car – and the regulation 2 hour queue to the motorway, but it didn’t matter. It had been a bloody great day spent in a bloody great part of England. We vowed to return, someday to have a go at another Lakeland walk - and next time, we wouldn't leave it another 30 years......

I'm back.

Will be in uploading a-go-go - starting on Thursday.

Alfred has not really been OK for the past few months - he has been more like 'Alfred the Angry Git' lately..... Oh, and have I told you about my off-the-scale high blood pressure?

But calm is now prevailing. I'm feeling better, not quite whistling Dixie yet, but not far off.......

Led Zeppelin.

Well, I've lodged my claim for one of the 20,000 tickets for the O2 'Stair-lift to heaven' gig in London. - me and 24 million other people that is. If my sums are correct, I have a 1 in 1,200 chance of getting one.... But to be honest, even if there was just a 1 in a million chance, I'd still reckon it would be worth the gamble for a chance to see the world's greatest rock band - ever.....

Everything's crossed.....

Separated at birth?....

Rather worryingly, the only other person I know (besides me) who dyes his snow white beard to a comely mid chestnut is Osama Bin Laden....

Vanity can do terrible things to a man's stability....

One of the World’s great questions answered….

I found the answer to one of the great unanswered questions of civilisation the other day – right in the middle of the A59, one of the busiest days in the country.

Is it "How did they build the pyramids"? No it is not.

Is it "Can I really turn base metals into gold"? No it is not.

Is it "Do they actually get any viewers to watch ‘Dance X’ on Saturday night TV?" No it is not.

No, no, the great question that can now be struck off the WGQ list is "Can you really get hold of a hedgehog with your bare hands without running the risk of a fistful of puncture wounds?

And the answer is – yes …. and no….

So I’m tootling along the A59, minding my own business when I see the little prickly fella wandering along the centre line.

One thing’s for certain – it will get run over, it will not see another prickly sunrise, it will die within the next minute unless I do the right thing.

I bumped the car up onto the pavement and got out. There was a lull in the traffic – and the guy behind me had sort of decided to straddle the highway in an attempt to block the route while I did my lifesaving best. I tippy-toed up behind the hedgehog, put my fingers underneath and lifted him up. He curled around my fingers with his soft underbelly. I reached the safety of the pavement and waved a wave of thanks to the bloke in the car behind me with my brand new prickly muffler

So what to do with the little fella then? I had to get him off my hands pretty quick. A likely spot was found, a nice woody hedge bordering the pavement – and a Victorian garden beyond. I wound myself up sort of like Fred Flintstone about to deliver one of his stone bowling balls. I bowled. There was a steep incline just beyond the hedge, he rolled all the way to the top, and then rolled all the way back again, straight past me and almost back into the road.

A deft bit of footwork saved the day – I thought about a bit of keepy-uppy but decided against it. I would have to lift him again - but this time without the luxury of getting my fingers into his soft underbelly.

I picked him up. Every single little pointy point stabbed into my hands – it was like handling a red hot bag of nails, without the bag.. I started to shift him from hand to hand – like he was a mega-hot giant jacket spud or something.

Where to put him? Anywhere, just somewhere quick….

I ran up the drive of the Victorian garden, full to the brim with 100 year-old trees. I reckoned this was where he came from. A startled lady, resplendent in a big flowery hat and a trowel in her gardening gloved hand looked up from her work in the flower-beds.

"This is yours, I think"

I gently placed ‘Hedgy’ under a bush and left.

And my hands? On the throb-o-meter around regulo 184 – and in my wildest dreams, who’d have thought that me, Mr Hetrosexual 1973 would be writing about having a load of hot pricks in my hot sweaty hands?….

Another money making scheme.....

My wife and I were having one of our ‘let’s try and think of something so damn brilliant – it’s bound to be a sure fire money-spinner’ sessions the other day.

We were sort of inspired by the latest success of JK Rowling. The final Harry Potter book went on sale last Friday, she was shifting around 15 books per second for the first couple of days, which isn’t too bad, I suppose.

Obviously, wanting the glory and the money, without the graft, toil & trouble it takes to think of another plot as original as Harry Potter we thought we might sort of piggy back the worldwide phenomena that is the Hogwarts experience. Step forward ‘Barry Rotter’ the baddest wizard since Adolf Abracadabra…..

Read how evil boy genius wizard, Barry Rotter battles to the death with goody-two-shoes Harry Potter to decide the fate of a billion dollar book market……

Maybe not.

No. We need to think of something that doesn’t involve any actual work from ourselves. Something so brilliant that a company will give us a load of cash – just so they can buy the idea from us.

You occasionally read in the papers about how the corporate boot boys from Virgin or EasyJet are trying to buy out a little company because they have dared to use the words ‘Virgin’ or ‘Easy’ in their company name. ‘The EasyKebab Eating Emporium’ and the ‘Virgin on the Ridiculous’ novelty shop wouldn’t, I’d have thought, been much of a threat to those two huge conglomerates….

But they are a bit touchy about it, aren’t they?

With this in mind, Alfreda has come up with a whizz of an idea. She’s about to incorporate a brand spanking new company into the OK stable of corporate high finance.

‘EasyVirgin Limited’….

We haven’t yet decided what activities the new company will be engaged in, but I’m sure it will be a great success….

Sir Richard and Sir Stelios, you’d better start opening your cheque books boys…… and don’t forget your pens.

A trip to the dentist

I went to see my new lady dentist this week (the old one, the one I’ve been with for 30 years dropped dead 2 weeks ago).

She seems nice and professional – and best of all she has a rock steady hand, (my old one had a tendency to twitch, but not any more, if you see what I mean). Anyway, she did a filling and then a scale and polish – which I found unbearable. It’s when the little polishing brush catches your gum – it’s so damn tickly, I could hardly control myself...

Anyway, after the torture of the polish she took an x-ray of a tooth in my lower right jaw. "I just want to take an x-ray of this tuth – it doesn’t look right"…

"A ‘tuth’, you’re taking an x-ray of a tuth?"

"Yes, this tuth here"….

With that, she shoved a big sort of picture frame into my mouth, and lowered what looked like Flash Gordon’s flash death-ray gun down from the ceiling.

"Now just relax, there’s nothing to worry about" she said, as she legged it out of the room and pressed the button.

Ten minutes later and I’m looking at a lightbox with a little bit of film on it. My tuth is there in all its gory glory.

"Ahhh, thought so"

"What, what’s up then?"

She got out her special pointy stick.

"This tuth - do you see this, and that, and this"…..

I nodded in all the right places, cracking on I understood what the hell she was talking about. She blah-blahed away until she came to the end of her medical diagnosis, and the only bit of the conversation I understood…… "And to fix your tuth will cost around £600"..

£600! The slap on the floor was the sound of my jaw hitting the deck.

A straw pole at Alfie HQ rendered a fairly sympathetic response from the crew – that was, until I mentioned the cost.

"Six 'kin hundred 'kin quid........ Are you 'kin 'kin mad?" Last time I saw Mrs A, she was rummaging around the toolbox apparently looking for a hammer and a chisel……..

George Melly joins the great jazz band in the sky….

George Melly has died today aged 80. I’ve seen him perform a few times over the years – by far the best gig I went to was when he did the Kirkland’s Wine Bar in Liverpool around 1980.

He was brilliant, floppy fedora, stripey zoot suit, two-tone shoes, John Chilton and his Feetwarmers…. Everyone was drunk, including the band – and George finished the set with a fine rendition of ‘Nuts’. He then issued an appeal amongst the audience – "has anyone got any marrywarna, man for Georgie?"

Someone chucked him a spliff and he disappeared in a haze of smoke…..

I wonder if his tombstone will read - Here lies George Melly, Journalist and Jazzman…… Nice.

Around the world in 365 days
Two weeks ago we waved my Son, John and his friend Jo off at Heathrow on the first leg of their year long, round-the-world trip of a lifetime.

Just about now they are in Zanzibar, the birthplace of Freddie Mercury – last week it was the Serengeti, messing with lions and the like, next week they’ll be in the Masai Mara – having a look at those wildebeests just before they start their epic migration. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about the places they are going to…. I mean, the world can be a dangerous place, right?

And they seem to be going to some right old frontier countries….. I’ve warned them – don’t give a ‘thumbs up’ sign to anyone (in some countries that means the same as the raised middle finger here). The dodgy food, the dodgier water, the guerrilla groups, the routine violence, the muggings, the man-eating animals, the man-eating sharks, the man-eating men, the sly slithering snakes, the big hairy spiders, the burrowing insects that make a meal out of your brain……. And ‘the little fish’.

"What little fish is that then?" I hear you ask.

Well, sometime early next year they should be hitting Peru to do the Inca trail and visit Machu Picchu, lost capital of the Incas…… but before they go there, they will be spending a few days down in that there Amazonian jungle.

I’ve told my Son – at no time should he get into the dark waters of the world’s greatest river for a swim, to cool off or to impress the natives with his front crawl. I’ve told him, if he does happen to fall into the Amazon – or indeed into any of its tributaries he’s got to immediately cover his nether regions with his hands – and get out as soon as possible.

For in those dark, dark waters is a lurking killer, waiting patiently for the next unsuspecting punter to fall in and provide it with his brand new home.

The little Candirú fish is a right little bugger of a fish. It’s the one of legend, the one that really scares the natives and makes British schoolboys laugh their heads off.

So what can this little fish do that is so appalling, so awful, so disgusting as to make the average strapping he-man go weak at the knees….

Yep, you’ve guessed it, the Candirú fish is the one that zeroes in on a man’s dangly bits, locates the ‘opening’, swims up the manhood and sticks its crampon-style fins into the side walls of the Urethra and starts to feed on your blood.

Now that really has got to smart…

Once it’s in, it’s in. Nothing, save a complex operation can get rid of it – and be honest, would you want a surgeon with a scalpel splitting your pride and joy open from stem to stern?. They can have a go at any orifice – but they are more likely to go for the manhood because they’re supposedly attracted to the scent of urine….

Was God Almighty having a bit of an off day when he created the Candirú fish? Or is it simply a result of evolution – did natural selection decide that the world would be a better place if Candirú fish existed?

Who knows? I just thank God they’re not in our rivers….. We just have the odd dead dog, used prophylactics and the deadly germs that Domestos can’t kill lurking in our waterways.

So there you have it. He and Jo are now on their own, They face the perils of the world – and the Candirú fish with just his rucksack and his piece of paper with Alfie’s golden rules for survival scribbled on it.

Never give a thumbs up sign.

Don’t drink the water unless it comes out of a British tap.

Don’t screw your face up when offered a tempting bowl of goat testicle broth by a herder from Nepal.

Don’t volunteer to put the spider out of the tent. (Unless it’s smaller than your hand).

If a big guy with a spear says he likes the look of your hat – give it to him, pronto.

When you get to New Zealand, be sure to tell the locals that their country has bugger all to do with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy – and was actually based in the Midlands of England.

If you ever get in a really tricky situation with the locals, just tell them you’re a scouser – and you’ll burgle their house if they don’t sod off.

If you really must go swimming in the Amazon – be sure to tape up your nob with plenty of gaffer tape before doing so.

Creditsafe.com - a word of warning and a bit of free advice DO NOT USE THEM!!!!!.

If you are minding your own business at your office - and a company called 'Creditsafe' from Caerphilly in Wales rings you - just tell them "no thanks" and put the phone down again. By doing so, it will save you well over a thousand pounds – as well as your sanity.

Creditsafe.com are a company that give out company ratings, assessing company risks etc. I don't have a problem with that - however, after the first year (which cost us around £150) I decided not to renew the subscription.

However, Creditsafe.com have just invoiced us for over £1,100 for another year’s subscription - virtually an 8 FOLD increase from year 1.

This morning, we received a bill for the princely sum of £1,128 - in spite of us telling them by phone 3 times, by letter and email that we longer want the 'service' and didn’t want to renew the subscription. Unfortunately, 'Robert', the guy who rang me a couple of months ago to ask if I wanted to renew failed to tell me that I had to 'opt out' otherwise I would be automatically signed up again. Robert also failed to tell me that the new charge would be 8 times what it cost last year. As I left it, Robert was happy with my decision not to renew – and gave me the impression that was an end of the matter. Don’t you just love people like Robert?

In our opinion, they are in business purely to bully people into giving them money. During my last and somewhat testy conversation with 'Julie’ from their 'retention staff' - she immediately offered to bring the year's bill down from £1,100 to 300 quid..... In my opinion, it was a clear bid to get me to re-sign up on the grounds that I was getting some sort of bargain – and of the relief of not paying over a thousand..

I told her it was all about principles and scruples - at that point she slammed the phone down on me. I guess she had a problem with those 2 words – maybe she didn’t know what they meant?…….

I can only speak from experience - and my experience with Creditsafe of Caerphilly has been a bloody awful one. It is a useful service, BUT there are plenty of others that provide that service as well - if I were you, I would choose anyone but Creditsafe.com of Caerphilly. You’ll keep your money – and your sanity as well.

Understandably, we are not happy - and are about to talk to the various authorities about the appalling business practices of Creditsafe.com from Caerphilly. It's time someone took a stand at this outrageous attempt to extort money out of unsuspecting companies.

Sorry to go on everyone, but I hate these cruddy companies that try every trick in the book to filch cash off you.

So be warned – ‘Creditsafe.com of Caerphilly’ - avoid them at all costs….. I wish we had never heard of them.

The caravans of love….

Today, I mostly spent the day trying to get to Swansea in South Wales. I had an appointment at the monolith that is the DVLA – a horrible vision of Soviet seventies-ness stuffed to the gills with jobsworth civil servants, coffee machines and filling cabinets.

It’s South Wales’ own Lubianka rising out of the miserable dampyness of a soggy June day. Aside from the rain, the spray and the 40 tonners ever-threatening to make me the filling in a trucking butty, a flotilla of crawling caravans towed by boxy Volvos, beige Mercs and driven by Ron and Brenda added to the pile-up potential.

There were bloody hundreds of them. And as it happens, this very day is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Caravan Club. A hundred years of getting in the way, pissing people off and generally creating traffic jams stretching through several time zones….. It makes you think doesn’t it? So what I want to know is, if a caravan-towing Volvo man in a flat cap, cravat and with a pipe sticking out of his mouth is so bumblingly slow, how come he is always at the front of the queue?

The 2012 logo….

You couldn’t make it up could you?

Well apparently, someone has - and charged Emperor Seb Coe half a million quid for the privilege.

Design consultants, Wolff Ollins have obviously deployed the ‘new clothes’ strategy in the rolling out of their 2012 logo. to a startled country.

So what’s the new clothes strategy then?

Simple. Someone spends about half an hour producing a right load of old scroat – the graphically crappier the better.. Then they stick it in a nice posh folder for 6 months, ready for the pitch to the client.

Now the really tricky bit – the invoice. This is where the real creative thinking comes into its own. Think of a number, double it, treble it, add several noughts – then round it up to the number of grains of sand you can get in a bucket. Dig out some good words – ‘dynamic’, ‘inspiring’, ‘epoch-making’, etc - and chuck them in the job description. Ask your Mum what she thinks (she’ll always say how fantastic it is, cos she’s your Mum) and stick that on your invoice as well, but call it ‘Market Research’. Once you’re happy with the amount, send it off to the unsuspecting client, or ‘Emperor’ as he’s known in the trade.

Then, before he can ring you back to tell you to ‘Shove your invoice and crap symbol up your jacksy", get one of those posh art experts to wax lyrical about the ‘dynamic form this’ and the ‘modern look that’ of your amazing piece of art. This is where you may have to dig into your pocket to get them ‘on-side’… a couple of Leonard Cohen concert tickets should do it.

The client will be so cowed, so bamboozled – he dare not say anything for fear of appearing to be a complete and utter thicko to the whole world.

The deception is now almost complete. Just the general public to impress….. Nah, on second thoughts, forget them – how gives a toss about what they think?

Kerrrrching!

The world of pain.......

I’ve been thinking lately about pain – and especially what kind of pain is the most painyest pain in the whole world…

Just how much pain can a man – or indeed a woman actually stand? When is pain so ultimately hardcore that your system simply shuts down and you pass out?

A kid at our school got a cricket ball flush in the ‘lower stomach’ while fielding at ‘silly mid-off’ during a tense limited overs cricket match. He didn’t pass out but he did a hell of a lot of writhing around. We gathered round the poleaxed fielder. His eyes were certainly watering – and ‘Sir’ came up and asked him where it hurt…

"Johnson, are you alright? Where are you hurt boy?"

Johnson couldn’t speak. Through gritted teeth he pointed down to his mashed up bread-basket.

"Should we massage the pain away Sir?"

"Errrr, best not, it looks like it is really smarting……. Smith, run to the office and get the Secretary to phone for an Ambulance right away!"

Eventually, the Ambulance crew turned up and our fallen, doubled-up comrade was carted off to the hospital.
A few weeks later he was back at school – as good as new apart from a slight limp and his new nickname… Big Chief Oneball.

Still, looking on the bright side, he stopped a certain four to the boundary..

My wife would say "Giving birth" is fairly painful – and if men got pregnant instead of women, the human race would have died out years ago. I doubt that – but I’m sure we’d have invented a really slick extraction machine to make the whole experience one of pleasure. Oh, and also decided that drinking large quantities of beer was actually of considerable benefit to the growing foetus.

Back to real man-sized pain. Up till last week, I would have plumped for toothache. I had an infected back molar when I was a student, the whole side of my face came up like a balloon. I looked like the Balloony Boy with an acute case of Mumps.

Sweating bricks, I tottered off to the Dental Hospital for help. The abscess in my lower gum throbbed away on regulo 12. It was pumping poison into my system like a wildcat oil well. I was desperate. Unfortunately, as luck would have it, I happened to meet the nazi war criminal psychopathic dentist from the film ‘Marathon Man’ doing a bit of moonlighting.

He plonked me on the chair, tilted me back into arse over elbow position – I never realised just how interesting a magnolia painted ceiling was. The psycho with the interesting instruments circled. The silence, broken only by my whimpered dribbling - and the slap of coin on lino as all my money cascaded onto the floor. He went to work with a big sharp jabby piece of metal.

"Isss it safe?"

"Whhaaaaaaa?"

"Isss it sa"…….. Sorry, wrong scene, does that hurt?"

"Uggggghhhhhaaaagggghhhh!!!"

"It’ll have to come out right now. It’s too swollen to give you an injection – we’ll have to go commando on this one… Do you mind if one of my students does it?"

"Anythinnnn, jusht shtop the pain"

He introduced me to Miss Small and Dainty. She was about 5 foot tall and had arms like knotted string. The pair of pliers in her dainty little hand held my full and undivided attention.

She pulled. She pushed. She twisted. She wrenched. Nothing moved.

I couldn’t stand it any more.

"Aaaaagggghhhhhhh-gashhhhhhhh gehhtt offfffff"…..

Sensing my misery, the pyscho grabbed hold of the pliers, shoved his knee on my chest and the pliers into my mouth and had that pesky molar out faster than you could say ‘Agony’..

All I can remember was the tremendous suction generated as the tooth was pulled from my infected gum. Proudly, he waved it in front of me. It was huge, at least 3 foot long……

I no longer cared, amazing pain gave way to repetitive throb. It was a good trade. I was drenched in sweat and my mouth had filled with a blood and pus. I declined the offer of the tooth ‘to put around my neck on a bit of leather’ and tottered into the street.

Like I said, up until last week, I would have plumped for toothache – but not anymore. Oh no, Alfie has actually discovered the painyest pain ever, ever, ever…

For sheer eye-watering agony, nothing, put nothing beats walking into the door jamb and smacking my oh-so-tender in-growing toenail fully square on…

Ouchie!

Drinking from the Entente Cordial….

Did I really say that.

Did I?

I think I did.

I met a nice French lady yesterday for a business meeting. I had to get to where she was sharpish-like as she could only see me for an hour before catching a flight back to Paris. Her English was immaculate, her dress-sense sophisticated - all in all, she was just so cool, calm and professional. The business done I stood up, thanked her and shook her hand….

Just then, I thought how nice it would be if I could say something in French to her. My mind trolled back to all the Cointreau adverts I’d seen, back to my best CSE French reference books, back to those black and white Jean-Paul Belmondo movies of the sixties…. What could I say to her?

Of course, brilliant…

"Mademoiselle, zank you verhee much for zeeing me. Ah would lake to wish you a very ‘appy bon voyage back to la belle Fransay"

She looked at me like I was a weirdo who had just oh-deed on extra strong weirdo pills.

Maybe she didn’t understand my accent?… Funny, but I thought everyone in France talked like Inspector Clouseau…

Man nicks boat….

This is a weird story . A man hires a canal boat out for a 2 week holiday then does the slowest runner in history – at 4 miles per hour. The police were duly called – and put out a nationwide ‘APB’ on the felon and his hot set of sedentary boatyness….

The last time anyone saw this guy was in March – since then it is known that he has repainted the boat from its original livery of green and red to a rather indiscreet bright blue.

Bad move. Even allowing for the incompetence of ‘Plod of the Yard’, if he really wanted to hide away forever, I suggest a big tin of camouflage paint would be more effective – as can be seen in this photograph.

Fleet of boats on the Kennet and Avon canal cunningly concealed with silk finish camouflage paint....

Now that's gotta hurt

I see a vet has had his arm ripped off by a crocodile at a zoo in Taiwan. Apparently, the croc has been a bit poorly, feeling a bit ill and a bit off his food – so the vet was called to see exactly why he hadn’t eaten anything for weeks – with predictable results….

I don’t know whether there is any truth to the rumour that the vet, now happily reunited with his croc-crocked arm has refused point blank to go and visit the 8 foot tall silverback mountain gorilla who has been totally off sex for several years…..

Divas, Divers and Drogbas need not apply…
Amazing isn’t it? Today’s footballers seem to have the balancing properties of a lump of lard on a tightrope. The merest brush by an opposition shirt can cause the victim to drop like a stone as if shot by Dirty Harry and his Magnum 45.

They twist, they triple salko with pike, they writhe in agony, victims of a gentle graze from a harsh bit of man-made fibre, that could, if you’re not careful take someone’s eye out.

So, what is the problem? Why can’t the average 100 grand a week footy player stay on his finely honed pins for more than 2 minutes without eating grass? Have they all been infected by a vindictive wobbly-bob gene? Has someone, somehow nobbled them via a drop of horse nobbling draft in the half time cup o’ tea?

Or are they just cheating?

Alfie the Corinthian, brought up in the age of fair play, Alf Tupper, Steve Zodiac and Melchester Rovers noble captain, Roy Race simply refuses to believe today’s professionals would stoop so low (without falling over in agony, obviously). And after much research I reckon I have solved the problem as to why they keep dropping like flies.

It’s all to do with ‘shapes’.

Sure, the modern day footy player has wads of cash falling out of every pocket – but does he still smoke 20 fags, drink 8 pints of brown over bitter and finish off with a fish supper every day? The answer is ‘no’.

Tuna bake with pasta will not give the average superstar the same profile as a diet of steak pudding and chips would. The mullet headed footy players from yesteryear – for example, Tommie ‘crunch’ Smith, Norman ‘bite yer legs’ Hunter and Ron ‘chopper’ Harris all had 3 things in common. Sure they had the dangerously psychotic nature, but more importantly they all possessed, a big fat arse and a burgeoning beer gut. Thus, when they ran, their suet pudding counter balances kept their ample frames in bulky equilibrium – and upright, even when they’d just had their heads taken off by a flying two footed challenge.

In short, footy players of yesteryear were just more ‘manly’ Not for them playing week in and week out of a green sward so smooth you could play snooker on it. For Tommy, Norm and Ron regularly played on ploughed fields - which had more in common with the Somme and Paschendale than a footy pitch. They played with footballs made from purest granite, wore boots fashioned from lead clogs – and were paid around 10 quid a week plus all the pies they could eat …. Now that’s what I call a proper man.

Didier Drogba and co simply couldn’t cope in that environment – in short, they just don’t have that manly profile. No pies and no Guinness equals no balance. And to be honest, I think I would trust a pork pie man more than a green salad with a side dish of grass man. With that in mind, Alfie is launching his brand spanking new campaign to make football more manly. Bring back beer guts and big bums – bring back balance, spend less on washing powder….

Let’s make the beautiful game lardy again….

Wanted – a Condominium for the UK.

Apparently, Durex has launched its first UK recruitment drive for thousands of British ‘condom testers’…

They want a panel of 5,000 people to report their experiences of using its condoms and lubricants in the bedroom. A spokesperson said they were looking for a "massive panel of testers"…. (Or possibly a panel of ‘massive’ testers?)

Durex haven’t yet confirmed whether they want the condoms back once they have been tested.

Heavenly bodies...
Walking to a country pub with one of my Sons the other night, I decided to try to elevate the casual conversation above the inane schoolboy chatter and 'nob-jokes' genre we usually engage in. Looking over to the west, in an inky black clear sky was the majestic heavenly presence of Venus. At this time of the year it is the brightest thing in the night sky (apart from the moon, obviously)….. I thought this could be the time to cram a little more knowledge into my Son’s noggin – I mean, Venus is such a weird place. For instance, it’s the hottest planet in the Solar System – and it’s the only planet that spins in a clockwise direction. It spins incredibly slowly – once every 243 Earth days – which is actually longer than it takes the planet to orbit the Sun. So amazingly, a Venusian day is longer than a Venusian year.

"So what’s that up there then?" I said pointing up to the great twinkler in the sky.

"I don’t know. I don’t know what that is up there in the sky. It’s some sort of star isn’t it?"

"No,no,no – it’s the planet, ‘Venus’ and it's dead weird!…. So what’s so weird about Venus then?…… I’ll help you if you like. Venus is really special. It’s the only planet that……. "

My Son thought a bit - "Venus is the only planet that rhymes with ‘Penis’…."

So much for elevating the conversation. I’m just glad we couldn’t see Uranus.

You know you’re getting old when…..

You know you’re getting old when you give a lift to an old bloke you’ve just met. He’s balding, breathless and overweight in a near-death-experience kind of way. His clothes are straight out of the same shop that Prince Phillip gets his gear from. He’s wearing light slacks, brown and cream stripey tie with coffee coloured shirt and brown blazer with gold effect buttons and brown slip on shoes…..

We chat.

I find out Mr Squaresville is 64 years and 11 months old – and that next month he is retiring.

With not much in common with my new travelling companion – the pregnant silence interrupted only by the dull whine of the engine and the gentle wheezing of my passenger, I decide to play a CD…..

"Sorry, but I’ve only got Zepp – so it’ll have to be King Jimmy Page and his trusty Gibson SG I’m afraid"….

"What, Led Zepp? They’re only my most favourite band ever"… With that, he leant over and turned the volume full-on to ‘bleeding ears’ level.

Rock and roll….