What's Your Poison?

It seems that we are told more and more just what is bad for us, Drink, food, sex and jumping in front of trains!

The last one I can vouch for. As a ten-year-old, I went with a few friends on a train trip to the nearby metropolis of Dewsbury.

While waiting for the train to arrive, I noticed a five pound note on the train tracks; this, to me when I was young (and now) was a fortune. Without thinking, I jumped on to the line to retrieve my booty, just as the Liverpool train was setting off.

If you are wondering just how I know it was the Liverpool train, it’s because it was the announcement that saved my life. The announcer, with his broad Yorkshire accent announced, “The train now leaving on platform two is the one forty five to Liverpool the train will be calling at, fuck there’s a kid on the track!” He then slipped further into street-speak by adding, “Get off the track, you silly little bastard!”

It was the swearing that made me look up and see hundreds of tons of train moving towards me. I grabbed the five pound note and jumped clear.

I wouldn’t recommend this as a pastime, as I thought my heart was about to stop, I felt sick for a week every time I thought about it, but it did cure my constipation!

For years we have been told just how bad the evil drink is for us, then one lovely little scientist announced that alcohol in moderation is good for you, YIPPEE! I knew it all the time.

It’s just that my idea of moderation and the scientist’s idea of moderation don’t correlate.

I ask you, two glasses of wine? That’s an aperitif!

On a serious note, though, I have had people close to me who have become alcoholics and this has nothing to do with liking a drink. They will drink anything at any time and have no cut off mechanism, they drink to unconsciousness!

Then we have sex, this is not a request, well… no, it’s not!

I think I’m going through the same thought process that my father had. My father was positive that there were no gay people when he was young, honest. He swore blind that homosexuality was a modern invention. I told him that they were there, but because it was illegal, and because of people like his beloved Catholic church, they thought it best to keep quiet about it!

I’m beginning to think the same about STD’s. When I was young we all knew about gonorrhoea and if you were really dirty, syphilis, but that was it. Now there seems to be a disease for every position! Ah, that’s what’s happened, there only used to be two positions, standing up and lying down!

Then finally we come to food.

I’m told often by a good friend of mine that I was lucky to be brought up eating a Mediterranean diet. But as I point out to him, often, there are lots of fat Italians.

British cuisine has come on in leaps and bounds since I was young. But I have to say that the old favourites are hard to beat!

We are told about the evils of fat and sugar and salt in our diets, and with good reason. But I believe a little of what you like does you good.

Here in the north of England we have a dish called pork pie and mushy peas! I know that this blog is read by people in lots of different countries (Thank You!) and I say to you all, come over to Huddersfield. When you get here, give me a call and I shall take you to a café that sells this dish; on a cold winters night it is the finest thing you can eat.

Then we have the British breakfast, this differs slightly from one place to another. Here, where I live, its bacon, eggs, beans or tomatoes, fried bread, mushrooms and black pudding. This, I can assure you, is one of life’s privileges, but it doesn’t work anywhere else but here in Britain. I have seen them advertised and tried them all over Europe, but they are just not the real thing.

I also must warn you that the British full breakfast is the food you need when in training for a heart attack!

Black pudding, by the way, is just a blood pudding which sounds disgusting but try it fried it’s lovely. I once tried a black pudding in Spain; they make it with rice - it was ok, but not the same as ours.

So what ever your poison is remember a little does you good don’t overdo it and you’ll be fine: trust me, I’m not a doctor!

But I would leave the trains alone if I were you! 

What in the Name of God?!

It’s hard to believe now, to look at me, but I was once a young man. I know it must come as a shock to people when they meet me, but, yes, I was once young.

I was the proverbial, `Angry Young Man’; I had long hair and a flagrant disregard for authority. My views were left-wing and there wasn’t anything anyone could possibly tell me, as I knew everything.

I moved through life creating havoc for those who cared about me, or those who tried to get close to me. I not only wanted to save the world but I wanted to be seen saving the world.

I marched on anti-Apartheid rallies, nuclear disarmament and the one that was the closest to my heart, the miners' strike.

I would collect food for the striking miners and organise fund-raising events. The loyalty and camaraderie between the miners used to fill me with awe.

I know that it split communities and families; it eventually went on to make towns like Barnsley ghost towns. People lost their lives, but we don’t now remember them - they didn’t receive ten million pound funerals.

The group of people that I hung around with had, of course, the same ideologies as me. There were always older men in the group, which, at the time, didn’t seem strange to me.

We were in our late teens, early twenties; these men were in their forties. They would make fine speeches in the pub and fire all us young guns up. These men seemed to me to be so clever with the things they said and the way that they said them.

We would go on rallies, and they would turn up, but we would always lose them in the melee and when we reconvened later in the pub, they would regale us with anecdotes of their clashes with the police and how it took four policemen to hold them down and arrest them.

It took me only a short while before I noticed something… it was all bullshit!

Why didn’t these men have a job? Why were we paying for their nights out? I started to read more, and soon found out that all the fine speeches and words that they spoke were not theirs but belonged to others much more eloquent and intelligent than these morons.

They had never been in trouble with the police because they were off as soon as there was any sign of trouble.

They were just puppeteers, and we were their puppets!

As long as we have young people, we shall have protests, and long may this last. The young have a right to tell us old giffers what a shambles we are making of the world that we have to pass on to them.

But even though I would get into fights and scrapes because of my passionate beliefs, I never once considered trying to decapitate an innocent man in broad daylight.

Young people now are open to the same type of puppeteers that I encountered. But these puppeteers have the internet and access to their victims twenty-four hours a day. The lonely and the disenfranchised youths are the most venerable.

The puppeteers will give them a common bond, and use carefully-chosen words to fire up the victim.

Religion and gods is the new anti-Apartheid and nuclear disarmament, and are now the new rallying cry of the disenfranchised, one people under one banner for the good of… It’s still the same old bullshit!

As I have said before, you don’t ever see a middle aged beardy-weirdy guy with a suicide bomb strapped to him. Or the right-wing Christian preachers, who preach hate and fear, being on the front lines of shootings and burnings, they get the angry young men to do it for them.

The atrocity that has just happened in London is a prime example of young men who don’t really understand the politics or the religion.

99% of people who believe in a God believe their God to be a benign loving being. To them God is a manifestation of true love and understanding.

Even though I don’t believe in any gods, I can understand how people can get some comfort from believing that loved ones have died and gone to a better life where they will be loved as much as they were loved here on earth.

But because Gods and religion evoke such emotive and passionately held beliefs, it’s easy for the puppet masters to use it for their own political purposes.

The beliefs these stupid, manipulated idiots hold are just the puppeteers' political aims.

And rather than doing something for the good of ’Their People’, they have done far more damage to the tolerance and harmony for different beliefs!

           

Because all who saw a young man with the blood of an innocent fresh on his hands will recoil with disgust, regardless of their belief system.

His people are not the millions of hard working, devoted and loving Muslims around the world. His people are political puppeteers and stupid manipulated individuals.

I now realise just how I was manipulated when I was young. So thank your God that I didn’t have access to such puppeteers!

 

Babbo and me!

I have, for the last six months or so, become a grandfather for the first time.

If you could take the essence of true beauty, innocence and joy, then wrap it up into a small bundle, you would have to call it Harleigh Walsh.

This little bundle of joy has melted the heart of one of life’s most hardened cynics, me!

She smiles from the moment she awakes, and, unlike most babies, is not constantly demanding attention.

This is probably because she doesn’t need to, she gets it whether she wants it or not.

My son and his partner dote on her, Kim, her mother is the typical over-protective mother.

If Harleigh drops her dummy (pacifier) Kim is just one step away from declaring it a crime scene.

We all have to stand back in case of contamination; if she could, she would have us all wear white protective crime scene suits.

The dummy is then removed and boiled, then sterilised before it allowed near Harleigh again.

If the child so much as coughs, her mother is convinced it’s the first signs of lung cancer!

She has the best of everything and is totally unaware of any of it; like all babies, as long as they are warm, dry, fed and loved nothing else matters much to them.

But I’m glad that my granddaughter has an over-protective mother, and not one who doesn’t care about her health and well being.

The poor child now has to grow up with all the oddities that we parents give to our children.

All year we say don’t go near strangers, but we don’t tell them why. Then, when Christmas comes around, we say, “See that big fat guy dressed in red over there? Yes the one with the obvious false beard who we can’t identify, go and sit on his knee. I know you’re scared, but if you sit on his knee he will climb into your bedroom late one night when we are all asleep, go on, sit on his knee!”

Then we have the ‘tooth fairy’ An unknown entity that flies into a child’s bedroom to harvest body parts!

Then, if they’re not good children, the bogeyman will come and get them. I think I would prefer to take my chances with strangers.

Even though I’m a cynic's cynic, I do love creating a world of fairies for children. I grew up with grandparents that made my world a magical world.

I live in a wood, in a house not a tree. And when my son was small we would write letters to the fairies and leave them in fairy holes in trees. The next day we would go back to where we had left the letter and the fairies would have answered  my son's letter.

Only a few days ago I took Harleigh down into the woods and introduced her to all the fairies. I’m fitting a fairy door this week for when Harleigh comes to stay.

If you are not aware what a fairy door is, they are very small doors that you can buy and fit to your skirting board allowing only fairies to enter your house.. This is where Harleigh will leave her letters to the fairies.

Our fairies, by the way, are gentle fun loving and caring!

But there’s one thing that doesn’t fit right with my new status as old Grandpa, and that’s the title. I’m not a granddad type, I might look like one, but I find it very difficult to behave like one.

So I’m teaching Harleigh to call me ‘Babbo’, which is an affectionate term for a father in Italy. So to Harleigh my son is her Papa and I’m just old Babbo.

 

And may I just add  - I’m a very lucky old Babbo!

Loony Tunes!

We have, just recently. had the yearly camp romp, otherwise known as the Eurovision Song contest.

If you are not from Europe and don’t know what I’m talking about, all I can say is that you’re a very lucky little bunny!

The Eurovision is a camp, kitsch and increasingly political so-called song contest. But I must stress here that if you are a serious music fan, this show has no truck with you. It seems to be a series of more and more tortuous warbles by desperate wannabes!

I know that there are millions of people who love this yearly parade of the mad and the sad, but I would rather snog (kiss) Anne Widdecombe using tongues than watch this.

Now look what you’ve made me do? I feel sick now, having said that! Ok I wouldn’t go as far as snogging (kissing) the ‘Wid‘, but you have to agree, it must be bad if it forced me to even mention such a heinous act! (Google her, if you don’t know what I mean).

But this all does go to show the old saying, ‘One mans meat is another man's poison’, doesn’t it?

The only people of note that have had any success with this festival of mental illness are Abba!

Although they are not really my taste in music, I can appreciate that they did have talent and brilliant production values on their songs. But that’s it - nothing else, zilch has come from this Continental collection of crappy crooners!

Here in Britain, every time the Eurovision is mentioned they wheel out Bucks Fizz, which is a group who I think won the competition back in the eighties. They are famed for ripping the skirts off the female members of the group.

But having said all this it doesn’t really matter, it’s about the event; yes, there are some of the small European countries who take it seriously and vote against the countries that have been supporting them financially for the last ten years, and here in Britain we hope every year that we will win it, but, to be truthful, even if we had Elvis, Frank Sinatra and Michael Jackson representing us (yes, I know they are all American and dead!) we still wouldn’t win - the rest of Europe just doesn’t like us!

So, we shall just have to stick with our proper musicians who lead the way in new music, and, together with America, influence the rest of the world’s music scene.

Having said this, we do have a problem with our music scene here in Britain: it is beginning to suffer from an insidious decease known as Cowell!

The dreaded Mr Cowell runs karaoke show called ‘Britain’s Got Talent' which should surely be prosecuted under the Trades Descriptions Act. ‘Britain needs talent’ would be more apt.

These shows stop the free form of development that creative minds need to flourish. They are asked to sing in a single type of style - the only style that sells.

If people like Bob Dylan or Tom Waits or even David Bowie had auditioned for these shows, they wouldn’t have got through the first round.

That is why I want to get my idea of a group of creative people to get together under the banner of ‘Twisted Minds’, where we can be free to develop ideas and help each other to succeed .

So if you’re a musician, painter, writer, sculptor or any other type of artist, get in touch!

Until then, it’s Grande Bretagne, nul point!

I could be Hetero, Metro, or Homosexual!

It has been brought to my attention, over the last few days, just how much I have changed over the years.

I’m not just talking about the ageing process or weight gain, or the fact that I now like blue cheese! I’m talking about how I react to others and how I feel about life.

It’s no secret that the older you get, the more ponderous you get. I now laugh about things I thought were a matter of life and death when they happened.

There were relationships where we both swore undying love for eternity only to break up a week later, leaving me feeling like I would never find love again. Then I would meet another love of my life a week later and go through the exact same process again! It’s strange that every now and again I bump into some of the girls/women that I had (short) relationships with in the past. Some, it has to be said, show the effects of bad diet, bad relationships and a bad drink problem.

I don’t claim to be an oil painting myself (unless it’s a Picasso) so I’m not having a go at them. But when I bump into them, if I recognise them, which I seldom do, I can see the look in their eyes that says, “I had a lucky escape there!”

When I was younger, I fancied myself as a ladies man, I liked the company of women and it’s fair to say I liked the other benefits that they offered as well. But I was really just a rough and ready bloke! No airs or graces, my humour was puerile (still is) I had no fashion sense and thought my mates were more important than any relationship. I was its fair to say a product of my environment.

The only people that I mixed with were people who had the same thought processes as me. This is the part where I upset lots of people.

I thought women should behave and dress in a certain way. I liked the idea of a women being ladylike. Little did I know that most of the "ladies" of the aristocracy were women that had slept there way to a title! And there wasn’t much sleeping involved.

I held racist views; they shouldn’t be in our country! Why I thought this is very odd, as my family on both sides are immigrants. I didn’t like gay people, which was very strange, as I didn’t know any gay people. Well I say I didn’t know any gay people, but - guess what - quite a few of my old school friends turned out to like to toot the fruit!

I liked to drink beer and fight; I was what a heterosexual man was supposed to be, back in the day.

Then I got married had a child and an education and started to read. I met people from all walks of life, from different cultures, sexualities and beliefs. I travelled and opened my mind.

I discussed my feelings with my wife and would spend long nights drinking wine and putting the world to rights with friends.

I started to take more care of how I looked, and how people saw me. I became less aggressive, but I have never been able to get rid of this stupid arrogant way of standing that I have. When ever I see a photo or a film of me I always look as if I’m about to start a fight, but I’m totally unaware at the time that I’ve stood like that!

But, besides my arrogant posture, I had become what later became known as a Metrosexual man.

I now travel quite a lot, but I’m mostly by myself when I travel. On the whole, I don’t mind it; after all it could be worse - I could be working down a mine, or, even worse, be a member of the Conservative Party.

So I end up in bars, late at night, as hotel rooms become very oppressive after a while.

I’m quite happy to talk to most people about anything they wish to chat about. Because I’m not looking for any other relationship or encounter of any sort other than a drink and a chat, most people are quite open with me I think they feel at ease.

But this is the strange thing; I have noticed of late that certain men, who I to my knowledge have never met, have started to smile and wave to me.

They are not waving and smiling in the way you would greet an old friend either.

And what makes it worse is some are quite a bit younger than me.

Now I meet lots of people with my work, far more people than my tiny brain can remember so they could have met me through work.

But there’s something in the way they greet me that makes me feel a little uncomfortable.

I spoke to a gay friend of mine about this and he says that it’s my stupid arrogant stance that is making me register on ‘Gaydar!’

Seemingly I’m a ‘Butch, aggressive’ in gay terms - no I don’t know what that means either, and I’m as sure as hell I have no intention of finding out!

So as I slip through middle age, I seem to have unwittingly become gay! Which is funny really because lots of people have said that I’m a pain in the arse!

Trim? Yasser, No Problem!

Fashion and I decided to get a divorce over forty years ago. I have been accused of many things in my lifetime, lots of which are true, but never have I been accused of being fashionable. I make Homer Simpson look like an Armani Model.

 But there is one thing I can say about fashion with certainty; old blokes with long grey hair should get it cut! So with this in mind, I decided to pay the barber a visit the other day.

My hair has skipped the going grey bit of aging and gone straight to platinum blonde. So I like to keep it very short.

Another problem that I suffer from is a complete inability to queue, so I don’t do anything at busy periods. This was why I was outside the barbers shop at 9am, waiting for it to open.

It was a typical British spring morning, wet and windy. The barber eventually came to the door and opened it in what has to be one of the loneliest opening ceremonies ever seen.

I immediately rushed from my car into the shop thinking that the rain may have the same effect on me as it did on the Wicked Witch of the West.

Once I was in the shop, the barber, who I had never met before, smiled, then launched into a conversation about the weather.

If you are reading this and are not British or you have never visited Britain you will not be aware that the national pastime for us Brits is talking about the weather. The main reason for this is that we can get the whole four seasons in one day.

The barber then very kindly offered me a cup of coffee. So we sat and drank our coffee and chatted for a short while. He eventually sat me in the ‘Mastermind’ chair to cut my hair.

The barber was a small, slightly-built, balding man. Like me, he wasn’t in the first four flushes of youth, and had such a pleasing smile and demeanour. Barbers seem to be part artisan and part psychologist. People sit in the big black chair and unload all sorts of information that’s really best kept quiet to them. 

He spoke with an accent which I couldn’t quite place. My home town of Huddersfield has quite a good mix of different ethnicities, so I always find it interesting to discover where people have come from and why on earth they settled in a little town in the north of England.

We eventually got on to the subject of holidays and travel and that is when he spoke about where he came from, he was Palestinian.

I could have sat there and listened to him speak all day.He gave me a fantastic insight into where he came from and the problems they faced. He spoke gently and eloquently about the problems in the Middle East.

He spoke about how his family’s land had been taken for the state of Israel, and couldn’t work out why they had been given it. “The Jews could have just come and settled and lived with us” he said.

He then said that he couldn’t understand how a people who had been so oppressed throughout history could become so oppressive themselves in such a short space of time.

Of course this is a one sided view; it would have been fantastic if an Israeli was in the shop having his hair cut at the time.

I once visited Israel with my wife and son, quite a few years ago now. I enjoyed touring around but was surprised to see just how scared the people were. They feel that they are surrounded by enemies, which is probably true.

Jerusalem was a fascinating place, where all the religions meet! This was like making dynamite while smoking a cigar, you know there’s a good chance it’s all going to go bang, but you just don’t know when.

But the most interesting thing he told me about was Yasser Arafat. I had, in my ignorance, always seen him as a radical Islamist who was trying to start a religious war in the Middle East. 

I like to think that I’m reasonably well read and have a sufficient grasp of politics to hold my own in a debate about most things, so how come I knew nothing about Yasser Arafat? Probably because of how he was portrayed on British TV. But it’s still my fault for being so ignorant.

To my new barber friend (I won't say his name because I got the distinct impression that he arrived in Britain via the ‘under the wagon tour group') Yasser was a freedom-fighting hero, while to Israel he was just another terrorist.

I paid my fee for my hair cut, I would have paid him the same amount just for the chat to be quite honest. Then I set off home to do a little homework on Mr Arafat.

Mohammid Yasser Adel Rahman Rouuf Arafat al-Qudda al-Husseini (his Mother wasn’t quite sure what to call him?) was born in Cairo in 1929.

He studied at the University Of King Faud 1 before become involved in the Palestine freedom movement. His political career is so long and varied that I’ll let you look it up if you’re interested.

He won a Nobel Peace Prize, a Times person of the year award, Jawaharal Nehru Award and was an X factor runner up! He married when he was 61 to a 27 year old Palestinian Christian, Suha Tawil.

Before he got married he adopted 50 Palestinian war orphans (I bet his new wife was surprised when she saw how many bridesmaids there were!)

But where I got the idea that he was some sort of Islamic extremist from is beyond me as he made this famous (but I hadn’t heard it) quote.

“Having a war about religion is like having a fight about who has the best imaginary friend!”

Like all leaders that have the tag of "freedom fighter", you have to distinguish between fact and fiction. And no doubt he will have done or had done some quite appalling things in his name, but he seems like a very interesting character to me.

I can’t wait for my next hair cut; I might find out that Stalin was really a drag queen!

Same Old Myth, Same Old Legend!

I love myths and legends. When I was only knee-high to a grasshopper, my Grandfather would tell me wonderful stories about Banshees and Fairies; he was such a powerful story teller that he made me believe in what he told me.

And that, my friends, is where the problem starts, You see, I grew up and started to read and ask questions and not believe things that others told me were true. I made my own mind up, based on evidence.

The evidence is that most myths and legends are the same story in different settings.

Try this one - it’s really the basis of most myths:

He was born on the 25^th of December, in a cave or a manger.

He was born to a virgin mother and his birth was attended by shepherds.

He was known as the saviour of the light’

He had twelve disciples and ate a last supper before his death.

His followers gave each other presents on his birthday and they had their HQ on Vatican Hill. The leader of his followers was known as Papa!

Have you guessed who it is yet? Of course you have, it’s the Roman god, Mithras!

This story is so old and attributed to lots of different people in many cultures.

Now believers of other gods etc., will disagree and write in fine details telling me that the followers of Mithras were secretive and never wrote anything down. And that all we know about Mithras is hearsay and conjuncture, no proof at all. The idea has only come about because of dodgy scholars trying to prove theory. And I will agree with them, one hundred percent! As with all the other stories with the same theme, they are all untrue, that is why we call it ’Mythology’ Just because you have spent a life time studying and believing in a theory, it doesn‘t make it true. That is the problem with beliefs; they rely on blind belief, and fitting square pegs into round holes!

If you want to hear this story again read up on, Hercules, Adonis, Osiris, Baal and Astarte and another guy whose name just escapes me at the moment!

Now, in Britain, we have lots of famous mythological heroes, that lots of people think were real.

One of my favourites was Arthur of Camelot fame. He had a group of disciples or knights as they were known. He fought against the black knight to rid the country of evil.

It is said that he died for his people, but will rise again when the country is in the grip of terror - Is it me, or have you heard this story somewhere else?

Arthur is probably a mixture of people and stories, as all myths and beliefs are. The idea would have probably come from the Roman occupation of Britain. When the Romans started to leave Britain because Rome was being ‘Vandalised’, there would have been quite a lot of vying for power. Because the Romans used lots of mercenaries in their armies it would be difficult to say where Arthur came from but some of these mercenaries would have tried to fill the void.

It was the medieval idea of chivalry that recreated the myth of Arthur and the round table and turned him into a medieval knight.

Some halfwits believe that Churchill was a reincarnation of Arthur and was sent to save Britain in its most dire hour of need, world war two! These people should really buy themselves a book.

Firstly, Churchill was no hero to anyone ever; again his legacy is just a myth. This statement will get lots of people frothing at the mouth. If you don’t believe me, take your rose-coloured spectacles off and read the facts again. Why do you think he wasn’t voted back into power after the war?

Secondly, although the British are famed for fighting to the bitter end (have you seen our football team?) and the suffering that the people gave to try and save their country cannot be denied (they fought ill-equipped and outnumbered, getting their arses kicked on many occasions, but they still fought on) the real truth is that our tiny little island, although it has always punched well above its weight, was saved by the Americans and the Russians.

Next we have Robin Hood, who if Hollywood is to be believed lived in a wood with his merry men and wore green tights (Hello, Boys!). Robin and his followers robbed from the rich to give to the poor and fought against the tyranny… yadda, yadda

Robin Hood's identity is attributed to Robin of Loxley but again, as with all myths, he's probably a mixture of lots of people. In the Middle Ages, Britain was covered with forest, so he could have been anyone. Although his grave is supposed to be here in Kirklees, where I reside. To be an ‘outlaw’ in those days meant a very harsh existence indeed, because, as it says on the can, ‘out law’ - they had to live outside the law surviving on their own.

Francis Drake was a real person, of that there is no doubt, but he has reached mythical proportions here in Britain. The Spanish called him the dragon, and for good reason, he can be summed up in one word, ‘pirate’! If you really don’t believe me, read up on him. May I recommend a fantastic book about him, Sir Francis Drake, The Queen's Pirate by Harry Kelsey. One hell of a read.

Lots of people, including my father, thought that Sweeny Todd the demon barber was a real person but I’m afraid he is just a work of fiction written for the penny dreadfuls by (I think) Peter Haining? But again, lots of so-called scholars have tried to prove the existence of old Sweeny.

The same goes for Sherlock Holmes, the amount of American tourists that turn up looking for him on Baker Street is unbelievable. It was written by Arthur Conan the Barbarian, if you wondering.

It has been said that lots of our mythological heroes will come back to save us in our time of need, but I think we have slipped into a parallel universe. Robin Hood has come back to our failing economy under the guise of ‘Dave in da hood’, with his bunch of miserable bastards, the cabinet. We have little nick and "fryer" Pickles, but this time they rob from the poor to give to the rich! They are not outlaws but are forcing honest hardworking people to become outlaws to survive; strange old business, this mythology!

So whatever your preferred myth or legend is, enjoy it, read about it but don’t take it too seriously and let it take over your life. Me, I’m sticking to Banshees and fairies!

 

A Childhood Concreted Over!

I’m now at an age where I’m always too busy, and when I’m not too busy, I pretend to be!

If I’m not in my car or other mode of transport travelling to somewhere, I’m either writing or performing.

And when I’m not doing any of the above, I seem to be out shopping for things I neither want or need.

Today, I was buying some last-minute groceries that we didn’t really need from the local supermarket, when out of the blue I was transported back to my childhood.

You see, my local supermarket is built on all my childhood memories; the land on which it stands was my play area. Which was dug up and concreted over in the name of commercialism.

When I was a child, I lived on a council estate which was only a stone's throw from miles of countryside. 

Our summers were spent walking through farmers' fields, climbing trees and fishing and swimming in the river.

We were poor, but not Dickensian poor, we had a house and food, so what more did I need? All my friends were exactly the same as me. There were no fashions to follow, no games or electronics to buy and no money to pay for them if there had been.

Our parents had money and marital problems but they were their problems, not mine. They dealt with them and left us kids to get on with being kids.

There were the dangers, that still lurk today, but people were not as paranoid about them as they are now. We were told to go out to play and not to come back until my Dad had finished work, so we could all eat together.

Most of the time I didn’t even bother to come back for the meal, as I would nick stuff from allotments, etc.  to eat.

The summers then, unlike now, were peaceful, and because I didn’t have the worries of bills and work they were long.

I did lots of stupid things that kids do, but I luckily got away with only broken bones and stitches, nothing too serious.

We would camp by a local pond and spend most of the day fishing, and trying to catch poor unfortunate animals that we would kill and eat.

Our parents didn’t know where we were, and didn’t care. It wasn’t because they were bad parents it’s just the way it was - not just for me, but for every kid on the estate.

There were, of course, the local perverts, but we knew who they were, and we were wise enough to keep away from them.

If one was foolish enough to make a move on one of the kids in the neighbourhood, all the kids would descend on to the offender’s house, and shall we just say that he wouldn’t bother any of us again.

Today, while I was filling my car in the petrol station of the supermarket, the sun was shining; I noticed all the buds on the trees surrounding the station. The river that we used to spend so much time on when we were kids still flows down, the back of the petrol station. And the sound of the water flowing and the coolness of its breath as it bubbles and twists its way to the coast, momentarily snatched away the old bitter cynic and replaced him with a young fresh-faced raggy-arsed kid, who had no cares and no idea of the life that lay before him.

I smiled, as a warm blanket of memories flooded my mind; I could hear the voices of my friends shouting and cheering as one or more of us fell in the river.

I could see in my mind's eye the useless rafts that we built and thought that they would take us the seventy miles to the nearest coast. Most lasted seventy yards, and they were the better built ones.

Some of those friends are no longer with us, as life and illness has picked them off, but just for a few seconds today they were there, still young, still happy, and they brought a tear to the eyes of an old bitter cynic.   

Bruce Lee Killed Elvis!

The above heading was told to me with a complete straight face by a twenty-something-year-old.

He had been told by a friend of a friend who knew someone who had spoken to someone who had worked in the Pentagon who knew someone who had worked on a project to recruit assassins for the CIA.

He told me in confidence, and I promised not to tell anyone else, so keep this quiet, that the CIA had a program in the 'seventies to recruit people who they could then use to kill their enemies around the world.

Seemingly bombing and napalming them wasn’t as effective as sending in an overweight singer!

Bruce, I have been informed, was one of many stars whose death was faked by the government of the time. These stars were then trained to be highly effective killers. Bruce Lee was the government's leading killer because (as we all know) of his exceptional martial arts skills.

The government later tried to recruit the then rather portly Elvis to their crack team of assassins, but Elvis refused. Not only did he refuse but he threatened to blow the lid on this deathly enterprise, he was a human and not a machine with a ‘Wooden Heart’.

All though Elvis was ‘All Shook Up’ about this he said he was just a ‘Guitar Man’ and couldn’t live his life with ‘Suspicious Minds’. This made Elvis himself a target for the assassins; they couldn’t let him live, now that he knew their secret.

A few months’ later Bruce Lee snook into Graceland ‘alla Ninja stylie’ and used a poison dart to kill Elvis as he sat on the toilet taking a dump! (If this was true, with hindsight, I don’t think Elvis would have made a good assassin).

So there you have it, think of all the famous people who have died recently, they may be now just undercover agents…. Why don’t people think these conspiracy theories through?!

Firstly Bruce Lee is dead, and I know that his death in itself is open to lots of theories. But if you wanted to have a killer who could walk among us un-noticed why the hell would you chose the most recognisable faces on the planet to do it?

At the time of his death, Elvis was probably the most famous man on the planet. When he died my grandmother thought Frank Sinatra was the new pop sensation, but even she knew who Elvis was.

And we all saw the sad images of an overweight bloating man who was once regarded as the most handsome man in the world. Why the hell would they want a man who was too fat to get off the toilet to be one of their elite team?

I was once on holiday in Malta when an American warship docked. Some of the marines on board took to the shore for a little ‘R &R’. Trust me when I say that  the Americans already had people they could use as killing machines.

And what truly makes all this conspiracy theory a load of nonsense is that I’ve just been shopping down at my local supermarket, and there down the frozen pizza aisle was only Elvis himself! He’s not even dead, he’s alive and well and living in Huddersfield.

So can we now please stop all these stupid conspiracy theories?!