ready ... steady ...??

Well, there seems to be a plentiful supply of fireworks for this years Commonwealth Games in Dehli. Unfortunately they're not of the pyrotechnical / Guy Fawkes variety. With only days to go to the big opening, stadiums, accommodation and transport networks are still unfinished [according to the media]. I suppose you do have to bear in mind they've only had 7 years to get ready.lol. Rome wasn't built in a day you know.

serious head on for a moment!

These CWG's have been dogged by problems right from the start. Corruption, bribery, politicians taking back-handers [that would never happen in the U.K], workers living in sub-standard conditions and many deaths due to poor health & safety. I guess you have to wonder for who's benefit these games are being held. It almost seems like a repeating of the fiasco for the World Cup in South Africa. Billions of £'s splashed out on fancy venues for a 'knee's up' lasting a couple of weeks, but just a few streets away people are living in poverty with no jobs, no food or even clean drinking water. Yes, i'm sure a 80,000 seater stadium will come in very handy for a homeless child whose only source of income comes from picking up bits of recyclable plastic from the local rubbish dump. I guess someone, somewhere, is making a nicer little earner out of it.    

Normal service now resumed..

Top athlete's are now pulling out of the games due to safety fears over terrorist attacks, unfinished accommodation and not being able to source a decent cup of tea. And it's got so bad the officials are now starting to alter various events to cater to the conditions.

1. Pole vaulters will now be using scaffolding poles in their events.
2. Discus throwers will now be using roofing tiles, with medals being awarded to those who can get their tile closest to the 12 year old boy who's perched on the stadium roof with his hammer and nails.
3. Swimmers can't start a race by diving off the blocks because of a leak there's only 3 feet of water in the pool.
4. Instead of the weightlifters pressing barbells above their heads they'll be expected to hold up the ceiling instead.

In fact the only event that's guaranteed to go without a hitch is the long jump, mainly because supplies of building sand are endless.

And now access for pedestrians has become a big nightmare due to the footbridge linking the main car-park and the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium collapsing !! Apparently there's was too much rain last week!? Experts have been brought in to try and sort out the accessability problems...

... so far they've come up with a giant trampolene, unlimited use of Billy Smart's Human Cannonball and Evel Knievels stunt bike!!

Proper music....

... doesn't get much better than this!

Life's a beach

As a highly regarded member of the 'intelligensia' i like to spend my time pondering some of the more meaningful issues and unanswered questions in life. Such as the inner workings of the Large Hadron Collider, Proffessor Hawkins Big Bang Theory, the studying of black-holes and trying to work out how the hell people get them model ships inside the little glass bottles!!

Now, whilst the ship in a bottle mystery may never be solved, there are plenty of others that can. Anyway.... just the other day i was deliberating the pro's and con's of reincarnation and what would be the best thing to come back as. [when you get to my age you start to think of this type of stuff]. A veritable plethora of options sprung to mind. Perhaps come back as Nora Batty's wrinkled stockings or maybe even Gloria Hunniford's personal douche [now there's a thought].

I've now decided that a seagull is easily the best option. They have the best life. You get spend all day hanging out with friends down at the beach, free lodgings, harrass people you don't like the look of and get to eat fish & chips everyday. Sounds like a veritable nirvana to me. Although i do realise you don't have to be reincarnated to do most of the things i've just mentioned. On a recent brisk stroll along Skegness Promenade clearly highlighted all that's really needed for the life of a seagull is a dubious immigration status and free taxpayer hand-outs!!

The end.

It's been a bumpy ride at times, a bit of a love-hate relationship you might say. But yes, last night was the final Big Brother... EVER !!! [or was it?].

10 years worth of social re-jects,dossers, fantacists and the odd transexual all battling it out on national telly to be crowned the UK's biggest 'shite hawk.' No-one can deny that over the years there have been some classic moments and classic characters. Nasty Nick, sexy Shilpa, Makosi in the jaccuzi, Jackie Stallone & Bez. Unfortunately like most things in life they soon get hijacked by the politically correct brigade who aim to sterilise and water down anything on telly that might be popular. Without doubt this was it's achilles heel and eventually would seal it's fate.

From a personal perspective i was disillusioned with the show right up until the very end. No, not because the extremely loveable Chantelle didn't win outright [or pleasure herself with a wine bottle... ahem] but the fact that nobody came close to being killed in the house. Surely that would of been the ultimate accolade for any BB contestant and would surely of been a ratings bonanza!

So that's it. Or is it? Some are already saying it could come back again. Would that be a good thing? Maybe we should all remember BB with anxious, but fond memories. A bit like me thinking back to having that really bad case of hemorrhoid's.... before they got tied back and strangled! Bless..

Memories of the blitz

                                        Coventry, circa 1940               


I've noticed recently there's a lot of hoo-haa regarding the 70th anniversary of the blitz. Ahh yes, them were the good old days i'll have you know. Constant food rationing, Vera Duckworth songs, over-sexed yanks, power cuts, blackouts, wearing gas masks [mainly due to poor diet] and 'Geronimo' the re-usable condom! .....ahem ... happy days. Those damn gerries have got a lot to answer for. And not just for destroying vast swathes of our fine cities but also for trying to make goose stepping and silly moustache's fashionable. As far as i'm concerned, that's unforgivable...


A report on the telly said that damage was so vast it took until the late 1960's for all the ruined buildings to be rebuilt. From personal experience i know this to be untrue, as on a recent [and unfortunate] drive through Coventry city centre clearly showed that reconstruction work on their bombed out city hadn't even bloody started !!

Coventry, circa 2009

Snooker loopy

As someone with an extremely high IQ i find little of interest on the television nowadays. Viewing is limited to just the odd stimulating programme here and there, such as; Newsnight, Hard Talk, Question Time, The Sky at Night and err .... Total Wipeout!

Anyway..... the other night i sat down in my favourite armchair with a nice mug of tea plus a few bourbons and watched that Alex 'whirlwind' Higgins tribute thingy. I wasn't expecting it to be up to much as those ''Oh wasn't he great'' ....'' they broke the mould'' .... '' he was a one off'' ... type shows always seem to fall short of the mark. But this one didn't....

Most people who were alive in the early eighties are probably all dead by now [those that aren't, i'll out-live you all, even if it kills me] but this programme brought back lots of fond memories for myself. The late, late night snooker matches with the whole family squeezed into the kitchen to keep warm [no fancy central heating in them days i tell you]. All of us straining our mince-pies looking at our Phillips 18'' colour portable with .... wait for it.... a remote control. We even had one of those brown sofa's with the chrome tubular frames. Yep, it would seem that style and good fashion sense have stayed with me even into old age.




Snooker was a big deal back then, in some ways bigger than football. Snooker players such as; Alex, Dennis Taylor, Bill Werbeirnuick... [you know who i mean] Jimmy ''Hurricane'' White were always in the papers or on the telly as mega millions of viewers would switch on to see the action. My favourite player was, and still is, Steve Davis. Okay, so he might have a certain gingerness about him but when someone is that good you can almost overlook it.

Needless to say, i've played a few frames in my time. You may find this hard to believe but i'm nothing special, honest. My highest break is about 35 so i'm definately no expert. Although in the past several people have passed comment on my smooth wrist action. Unfortunately i don't think those remarks had anything to do with my snooker abilities!