Let The Teachers Teach!

In case you don’t know, I’m a writer.  Whether I’m a good or bad one is subjective; it’s up to you to decide, when you read the things that I write.

I, of course, get criticised for some of my books, but for me that’s good, as they have incited a reaction.

I’m also a comedian, and believe me, I can really upset people when I’m in full flow! But there are people who wake up on a morning and look in the papers or on TV just to see what is going to offend their moral high ground today; this is the nature of people.

If you have sat in the back of a London cab, or sat in a barber's chair, you will also be aware that there are lots of people who can tell you just how bad others are at their jobs, whether it be politicians, performers, football managers or teachers.

The first three, I don’t give a toss about; in fact, I think the cabbies and barbers could possibly do a better job, especially the politicians' job. But when it comes to teaching, they don’t know what they’re talking about. I do!

I write books for both adults and for children; the latter enables me to visit schools all over Britain and the world. I come into contact with more teachers than teachers themselves, just by the volume of schools that I visit.

It’s fair to say that teachers seem to fall into three categories; ‘can’t be arsed, and waiting for my pension’, ‘climbing the greasy pole of management’, and ’totally committed to the job and students’.

The first of these should be honest with themselves and admit that they are doing the students they teach no favours by hanging on. By all means stay in education for the pension, but move aside and let someone who wants to make a difference do just that.

I’m fine with the second group, every profession needs good managers and most of these people do want to make a difference, and they are best suited by doing this from the top.

The third group is the biggest group by far; men and women who more or less hand over their own life to alter the lives of others. These people, on a daily basis, take as much flak as soldiers, are confronted with as much violence as the police and mop up as many tears as nurses, but are never given the praise or the respect they deserve.

These people are among some of the most selfless people I have ever met. They regularly get blamed for the failings of lazy-arsed parents; are constantly used and abused by various governments, and not appreciated by the very people whose lives they so wish to change.

They work overtime for no pay, take home the worries of countless children, and have their pensions snatched from them at the end of it all.

I am a co founder of ‘Relight-ED’; we are a co-operative of people with various talents that organises one-off events for schools to help show young people the reason behind education, and that education can be fun.

The students involved with our projects get a lot from them. My colleagues and I put a lot of work into these events, but also do the teachers involved.

Sometimes with these projects the teachers have to deal with in house politics, parents and the students. I often wonder why they want to work with us, but then they see the response of the students and they are fired up again. Would you take all that crap for no recognition?

I have just had the pleasure of working with one of the most dedicated teachers it has ever been my privilege to work with, in a school in Leeds, West Yorkshire. I won't mention the school, for various reasons, but there are lots of dedicated teachers working there. I won't even mention the teacher by name, as, to be honest, I don’t think she would be comfortable with it. So we shall just call her Miss ’T’ (or even ET!)

No one will ever know just how much work she put into the project, which to be honest went far above the call of duty, even driving around to the students' houses to get permission slips signed, so the kids didn’t miss out.

This lady had to take all sorts of flak from all angles and she did so with grace and charm. I never once heard her complain, as long as the students were going to benefit, she was happy to do what was needed.

We hear lots about just how wonderful other professions are, and I wouldn’t argue with most of these, but teachers don’t ever get the respect they deserve.  So, to all hard working teachers the world over, and especially to Miss ET,  the little dynamo from Liverpool, please accept my gratitude for the work that you do to help change the lives of those that others have given up on!   

From Smith to Schmidt, Kowalski to Kuznetsov

While sitting in a café, having a coffee and chatting about anything and nothing with an old friend of mine the other day, we happened upon the subject of names.

It seems that some Scandinavian countries want to have a list of official names the parents can only use! This has to be a gross infringement of people's civil rights.

But while having this chat I mentioned that my surname, Walsh, was Irish meaning “Breton” or Welshman. My friends name, Ward, it seems means ‘Guard’ or ’Watchman’, from the Normans.

I’m amazed how names are held as some form of sacred mantra to families. I own up to being a little bit like this myself. I’m proud of my name and my ancestry, yet I know little about my ancestors of more than a few generations ago.

Most of us, it has to be said, have no idea or wish to know just what our names mean, they were given to us by our forefathers, and that’s good enough. But if you don’t know where your name derives from, I do urge you to look it up, you might even be very surprised to find out where your family originated.

I once met someone whose surname was Flynn. When I asked him what part of Ireland his family were from he denied any connection with Ireland.  But even stranger than that was an old friend of mine whose name is David Jacobs; he claimed that I was a total idiot for maintaining that he must have Jewish ancestry, even though there’s a broadcaster by the same name who is Jewish!

Names, of course, change over the years until they are neither spelt or sound like the original name. Take my name, "Walsh", for example, Welsh, Welch, Walshe, Breathnach, Branagh are all the same name.

One of the most popular surnames in the world has to be the names in the above title of this blog: they are all, believe it or not, the same name! Smith obviously derives from the old word for tradesman, Blacksmith, Silversmith, Arrowsmith etc.

The name Smith is in the top ten surnames in nearly all European countries and in North America. I was quite taken aback to find out that eight out of the top ten surnames in America are of British origin, and the remaining two are Spanish. I thought there would have been lots more Germanic, French, and Spanish names up there.

Of course, we then lead on to the names that mean different things in different countries. I have spoken before in these blogs that my Father had a friend in Düsseldorf who went by the name of Billy Shiite, which for some reason sounds like a Geordie comedian to me. "Shiite" by the way is not a good name to go by in Britain unless you want people to either gasp or fall about laughing every time your name is mentioned.

I’m not sure just how far the fame of those tiny little creatures,The Wombles has spread across the globe? They live on Wimbledon Common and collect rubbish most Brits of a certain age will tell you all about them. Well they also live in Huddersfield: honest, there’s a family called the ‘Wombles’

I have also met a few people whose surname was ’Cock’. One of these changed his name to ’Cox’ as he could no longer take the sniggering and the lewd jokes. I also know a ’Deadman’, but he’s alive and well. One of the best names I know is held by a young man who hopes to make his way in the world of show business and I can guarantee he won’t have to change his name to get an Equity card, so look out for the wonderfully-named Chad Bunny in the future.

So, think before you name your children, as their given name may clash with their surname like ‘Dick Head’ (Honest, it’s a real person).

But if you want to know the two most common names in the world, the agreed wisdoms that be claim they are ‘Mohammed’ as the given name and ‘Chang’ as the surname.

Not an Orinoco Womble in sight!

I think I've caught "stupid"!

There are so many a horrible diseases that humans can catch it’s a wonder we manage to survive as a species!

Some, like the common cold, are unpleasant but are more of an inconvenience than a serious illness. Others can cause bits of the body to stop working and bits to fall off and of course the ultimate thing that illness can cause is the subject we don’t ever want to think about… erectile dysfunction!

But even though we as a species have more than enough ailments to deal with, I think I’ve caught a new and yet undiscovered disease, ‘Stupid’

Sorry, I wasn’t passing comment on you, that’s the new illness that I seem to have contracted, let me explain.

I have, in the past been of reasonable intellect. I know there will be lots of people who would like to take issue with this statement. so we shall just move on.

I have, in the past, had my own successful businesses, had jobs where qualifications were required, held debates on many subjects and won a pub quiz in a bar in Crete. 

I now write about many subjects on many levels, I read constantly about many different subjects So how come I can’t work out how to use the catch on my grand-daughters car seat?!

I can’t work a video camera which has the misleading claim of "FOOL PROOF!" emblazoned across the box. My computer has taken advantage of my new illness, and plays with my head by altering what I type. I can’t get the top off the new "CHILD PROOF" bottle we recently bought.

The radio in my car has a traffic alert warning on it; I know that there’s a button that turns this off, but can I find it?!..

I woke up this morning and sprung from my bed… sorry, crawled from my bed. I couldn’t work out why my wife was shouting at me or why walking was more difficult than usual. Believe it or not I had some how manage to get my foot tangled up inside the duvet cover and dragged the duvet from the bed, walking into the bathroom with it around my ankle. But it gets worse, because I hadn’t noticed that I had a king-sized duvet wrapped around my leg!

I suffer from quite bad migraines when exposed to sunlight, so I wear sunglasses even when it’s overcast in the summer. The other day when we were lucky enough to get one of our rare sunny days, I couldn’t work out why the sun was affecting me so badly and I felt ill, that was until I realised that I was walking around town with my wife’s reading glasses on instead of my sunglasses!

I super-glued a tea towel to my left nostril the other evening, while trying to mend an ornament! Talking of nostrils, I also managed to draw blood from mine while using a harmless nasal hair trimmer.

In the supermarket the other day, I made a woman who I had never met before in my life put half the contents of her shopping basket back on the shelves saying, ’We don’t need all that crap!’ then realised she wasn’t my wife. I spent a good five minutes apologising.

I’m a bit to young for dementia yet. I do still do a bit of boxing, so it could be brain damage, but I doubt it. I might be like Homer Simpson and every time I learn something new, it pushes something else out of my brain.

Or could it just be that I’ve caught stupid?

Happy Fathers' Day, Mum!

Here I go again, Mr Bitter, Mr Cynical, but Mothers' day and Fathers' Day are just myths created by the card industry.

I suppose to lots of parents around the western world these days mean a lot. But for me, it’s all quite meaningless.

My son is working away at the moment he sent me a text saying, ‘Happy Fathers Day!’ which is enough for me. But in truth he texts me every day just to say… stuff really.

This means more to me, as it shows that we have a close relationship and think of each other every day.

He is now a father, and  is away for Harleigh’s first Fathers' Day, but this won't mean a thing to her, as she has just learned to crawl, and is more concerned about what she can find to shove in her mouth to cause her Mother heart problems at the moment. But it does mean a lot to my son Lee and his partner Kim. That just shows what good parents they are; they are making their daughter's life as best they can.

We hear a lot here in Britain about the Fathers for Justice campaigns, where fathers have been refused the rights to see their children. There has to be quite a lot of hate and spite in a person to refuse a child time with their father. That is, of course, unless the fathers are violent or sexual perverts. But dressing up as Spiderman and standing on a building waving a placard doesn’t do anything for your credibility as a reasonable adult, lads.

My father was a good man (see previous blogs) but he was a product of his generation. He worked sometimes eighteen hours a day, and often seven days a week. He had too many kids; he thought having children was the reason for life. By doing this, he denied himself a life. But having said that, he didn’t want for anything, and on the day he died, he died speaking about what a lucky man he had been. So who am I to judge a man's choice of life?

Families are changing all the time, when I was young everyone had a mother and father at home, unless one parent had died prematurely. 

All parents looked unhappy to me, but then it was a day-to-day struggle to keep your heads above water.

Now there are lots of families where three or four children will all have different fathers. But if they are happy, who cares? There is no such thing as a normal family or a normal lifestyle. We all think that our lives are ‘normal’ but we are all so different.

When I see women around the world struggling to raise children in often appalling conditions with little or no help, it chokes me up.

We hear often about the broken society, how feral children run wild on estates which, trust me, is true. I work with a lot of these kids and they have no boundaries. They not only make the lives of others miserable but they also make their own lives miserable. They don’t know a way of breaking the cycle, which is where I try to help.

Having said all this it’s not just because they are from single parent families. It’s because of lazy-arsed parents or parents that have problems themselves.

There are lots of young people brought up by just one parent who are hard working and courteous. They have morals and manners and want to achieve in life. None of this happens by accident, it’s down to the hard work and a hell of a lot of sacrifices by good hard working parents.

I have seen, many times, mothers at football matches with their sons. They obviously don’t like the game but their son does and that’s all that matters to them. Lots of good mothers have had to do the roles that were traditionally done by the fathers. Just bringing a child to adulthood by yourself is hard enough but when you have given them a good loving up bringing as well it is a credit to single parents the world over.

I think that children should have the right to spend time with both their parents where this is possible. And because I’m now ’Babbo’ I think that children also benefit from the relationships they have with Grandparents.

But to all the single Mums out there trying to juggle work, home life and kids' hobbies all by yourself,

Happy Fathers Day, Mum! 

Medium-Sized Fraud!

Here we go again, the same old same old!

I some times feel like I’m pissing in the wind when I try to point out stupidity. I don’t claim to be the world’s most intelligent person, or the best read. I don’t claim to have studied every subject in great depth, or have answers to life’s great conundrums, but I do know stupid when I see it! Most people would lay claim to this attribute, so why do I find myself having to point it out to people all the time?!

In Turkey as I type, ordinary people are protesting for democratic rights. They are not fundamentalists or radicals; they are just people who want to live a life of free choice. Their government on the other hand is oppressive, and to prove this point they attack their own people, who were peacefully protesting, with tear gas and rubber bullets!

This is typical of Middle Eastern countries where failing governments use abuse to prop up their outdated ideologies! It wouldn’t happen here in Britain, I can tell you! We wouldn’t drag people from their homes for crimes that they haven’t committed. We wouldn’t do this to people who may want to peacefully protest against what they see as the injustices in the world.

We wouldn’t then claim that, because these people chose to live a different type of lifestyle, that they are violent thugs that want to take down our beloved democracy! They did, after all, find sharp pointy objects in their houses. Could these weapons of mass destruction have been found in … the kitchen?

If the police raided my house they may find pointy sharp objects in my kitchen, I’m now staring to panic that my kitchen implements make me a danger to society!

It’s strange that when rich people are involved the police will bend over backwards to save both, them and their property, but as of yet there's been no response about my vandalised garage. I think I’ll name my garage "G8" then they might do something about it.

Why do we accept this? Why do people only hear, ’Squat!’ then focus on the fact that these people live in a derelict house, rather than that they are innocent of any crimes?

I’m a crusty middle-aged guy who lives in a nice semi, and I like the fact that people are different. When different ideologies meet and discuss their ideas man moves forward.

Oppression holds mankind back, it crushes ideas and promotes fear and intolerance, and we have come a long way since the times of serfdom, but maybe some of us just can’t move on?

 

Another one of life’s little irritating itches arose for me again this week.

If you have read some of my previous blogs you will be aware that I have no supernatural belief systems. Whether it be ghosts, gods or Google! They all have a couple of good points but on the whole you are better off keeping away from them in my opinion.

If you’re shouting out that Google is not supernatural, you are of course correct, but people use the same thought process with Google that they use with the other two. Believing all that is written on there without questioning it, and abusers know this and use it as their weapon of choice.

Yesterday a stupid woman tried to convince me that she could speak to the dead! I explained to her that being overweight and wearing lots of jewellery and thick eye make up does not make you a psychic.

Talking to the dead or raising the dead is in every mythology all around the world. From Greek gods performing life-giving skills to Lazarus in Christian mythology and on to Shamanism where Shaman get pissed out of their trees and talk to the ancestors. It’s all good theatre and a little bit of me likes the shaman type rituals, mainly I think it’s because they get pissed.

The spiritualist church started when three sisters from New York, Leah, Margret and Kate Fox burst onto the scene. Margret and Kate told the older sister that they could communicate with the dead and were answered by strange rapping sounds. The older sister seized the opportunity and promoted her siblings creating what was to become the spiritualist church.

Margret later confessed that both she and her sister were making the rapping noises themselves by clicking the bones in their feet. This caused their demise, so Margret later recanted her confession but it was to late they all later died in poverty but unfortunately the same can’t be said of the spiritualist church.

Look, if you’re interested, there are lots of books which will learn you the art of cold reading as a psychological study it’s truly fascinating, but it’s not supernatural, it’s just messing with your mind, trust me.

If there are any so-called mediums out there who wish to take me to task on this please feel free.

I have said it many times before, and because I quite like pissing in the wind, I shall say it again, “If you think that you talk to dead people you need to take tablets, you have a mental health problem! If you don’t have a mental health problem and you are charging people good money to talk to their dead loved ones on their behalf then you are a fraudster, a charlatan, a low-down lying bastard, who preys on people when they are at their lowest point.”

Get it now ?I don’t care what info you were given at what sitting it’s all just clever showmanship, A medium is a modern invention which DOES NOT stand up to any scientific scrutiny!

Now, I'd best go and hide the knives and forks in the kitchen before the police call and smash in my back door!

 

I'll Plead The Fifth Amendment!

As a writer, it’s my job to think of things to write about. But what happens if there’s nothing I need/want to say?

This is exactly how I find myself this week, there’s nothing new to talk about.

Lots of our politicians here in the UK are found to be corrupt - wow, what a surprise. I think politicians have a clause in their contracts which states that they will turn to the dark side after so many years. So there’s nothing new to say about politics.

Only that they tried an underhanded way of closing children’s heart surgery centres around the country The health secretary Jeremy Hunt, (it’s rhyming slang) has done a U-turn, saying that the recommendations were unsound! This was another flagrant disregard the Tories have for the people of this country! But not to worry, Labour has got their backs! 

We have a problem with our entertainment industry, which seems to have been staffed by perverts.

Lots of our much-loved entertainers turned out to be paedophiles or rapists, but not to worry, they could belt out a good tune.  It started with Jimmy So-vile, who certainly knew how to fix it for hundreds of kids around the country.

Lots of people knew what was happening but turned a blind eye! For years, whenever I have worked with people from the BBC, if his name was mentioned they would recoil in horror and say he was creepy but wouldn’t say any more. I thought he was an ‘uncle groper’ type that copped a feel when he placed his arm around a woman, never once did I think he was the worst paedophile this country has known!

Then I thought about writing about my old favourite subject, the Catholic Church!

I was going to talk about how the last Pope, when he was a Cardinal, had put out a memo saying that all instances of child abuse reported about a Catholic priest should end up on his desk. But when he became chief of peado’s.. sorry Pope, he said that he knew nothing about the abuse?

But the thing that worried me more was that the church paid out two BILLION pounds in damages and hasn’t suffered financially.

Surely if this society of love and tolerance has that kind of spare cash they could do wonders around the world? Think of all the lives they could save, all the suffering they could alleviate.

But instead they use their wealth to pay people for the harm and suffering they cause them as children.

So there’s nothing to write about there.

There is one thing I can tell you this week, it’s about my beautiful little partner-in-crime, Harleigh.

I know I’m beginning to bore you all with just how beautiful she is, but this week her parents took her for her first passport photo.

I need to point out that Harleigh has lovely tanned skin and dark hair. Her mother, Kim, is mixed race (whatever that means? I thought we were all just called the human race, but if your parents are of different colours this, for some reason, means that you are of two races?)

Sorry I digress.

Harleigh sat in the photographers under the lights and had her photo taken. Can you imagine the shock when the photograph developed and there for all to see was a picture of a beautiful little white blonde-haired girl?!

Honest, there was no mistake; the lights had made her hair look totally blonde and her skin white - she was still beautiful, but just a different tone of beautiful!

But this is not really newsworthy is it?

So I’m afraid I’m going to have to plead the fifth, I have nothing to say!

Twisted Eggs!

Firstly, can I just say, “We were robbed, guv”?

If you have read recent blogs of mine, you may be aware that I have tried to start an artistic movement called ‘Twisted Minds‘.

It’s a not-for-profit, non-political or religious movement, that exists only to promote and help artists of all genres.

My son and his partner are staying with us over the weekend, and last night they watched ‘Britain Needs Talent’, the show that is the very reason that `Twisted Minds' was formed.

I decided to ignore the bland-fest and teach my beautiful little grand daughter, Harleigh the art of irritating adults. But to my surprise, while Harleigh and I were trying to find the perfect pitch of a scream, an act appeared on the bland-fest which was quite breathtaking.

This act was so beautifully choreographed and moving that I was sure that it would win the show!

Can you imagine my surprise and horror on finding that the show didn’t even give this obviously intelligent and talented person a chance to finish her act? Not only did they cut her off in full flow, but then we, the public, were denied the chance to vote for her!

This is a blatant attempt by Cowell to rig the voting in favour of one of his puppet acts!

So please, I urge you to twitter, e mail and facebook your campaign to get the egg woman the vote!

The way she threw the eggs at her target, the way they hit the target without any other collateral damage, was a thing of beauty.

We at Twisted Minds DO NOT CONDONE VIOLENCE in any shape or form, but we do like a protest!

This woman is obviously a ‘Twistee’ a member of the free thinking; if she hasn’t joined us yet, please if you know her, urge her to become one of the free.

Speaking about free thinking and free speech, has anyone else noticed that people seem to be less and less bothered about privacy?

They give out phone numbers, e mail addresses, and contact details without any thought about who they are giving them to. They also share their innermost thoughts and fears on social networking sites for the world to see.

I know I’m writing a blog and doing the very same thing, but I only share certain thoughts with you all. And my medical records and sex life are not for human consumption!

While waiting for The Nemesis (my wife, Carol) to buy yet more clothes she neither wants or needs the other day, I found myself sitting next to a young girl who was engrossed in her phone call.

It has to be said that from the way she spoke and acted I don’t think she was an Oxford graduate! The phrases, ’Shut up!’ and, ’Are you joking?’ were used liberally.

At first, I thought that she was on the phone to her friend, but when she started to discuss a lump on her breast that she had found I changed my assumption and thought it might be a medical type being bombarded with her rapier-like wit.

“So what will it look like then?” was her first in-depth question.

She then said, ‘OK’ put her phone down and removed one of her ample breasts from her under-sized bra!

I became terribly British for about ten seconds and looked away pretending that this wasn’t happening. But then the ten year old inside me took over and I turned and watched in amusement.

She then proceeded to examine her mammoth mammary. Then she whacked it back into the frail garment that was designed for something ten pounds lighter and snapped back into the phone, “Nar it’ll be ok. Are you going to the pub tonight?”

Bang went the medical-type theory! All this took place in Wakefield city centre, outside the cathedral, where people walked about their business, her intimate fears shared with all without a glimmer of embarrassment!

Is it just me, or is this not just a little unusual?

Twisted Minds!

I have been called many things in my time; most of them are true, and the ones that are lies I wish that they were true.

One of the things that is levelled at me time and time again is, ‘How do you think these things up? You must have one hell of a twisted mind!’

Just in case you don’t know, I make my living by writing comedy in all forms.

I write children’s books with a twist, plays, films and now adult books.

If you look at the side of this page, you will see my new book for adults, Changes: the story is fast-paced, but like most things I write, in lots of ways it’s odd!

I have been very lucky as I have had quite a lot of success with my work and even have a genre named after me. Gross poems for children are referred to as `in the style of Gez Walsh'. Not bad eh?

But there’s one thing that has always bugged me. When I travel, giving performances around Britain and the world, I meet other writers and artists who are - to be honest - quite brilliant! But these people can’t get a deal with a publisher. This also applies to musicians and artists that I meet.

They have a new refreshing twist to their art, which sets them apart from the mainstream. This, my friends, is where the problem is - THE MAINSTREAM!

Different is good, don’t let any halfwit tell you any different! This also applies to taking chances. I have always written what I want to write about. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t work out as I had hoped. But given the chance, I would write the same again because it’s what I wanted to do!

This blog for example will get me in trouble because no doubt some of my young fans from my children’s books will read it, and it’s not very child-friendly.

But I need to write it to develop ideas for my new books which are aimed at adults.

I spent some time today with a friend of mine who is also an author, Steve Rudd check out his latest book, Like A Rolling Stool, about travelling to the Isle of Arran in a wheelchair.

We spoke about how the mundane seems to be creeping into art everywhere and how new artists don’t get a chance because of the cartels that like to own the creative eunuchs that they feed to us on a daily basis.

They have big-name artists who sell nothing but their name. We have so-called musicians whose voice has been put through a voice enhancer, only so they can mime at live gigs.

We have writers that are told by their publishers what to write, then get pigeon-holed into a type!

Steve and Myself  decided to use the name of my new series of books to come up with a movement where we can try to help each other to develop ideas the ways all artists should.

We want to start a movement called ‘Twisted Minds’ It’s not a political, religious, or money making movement.

The only axe that we have to grind is against the powers that be who stunt creativity in the name of money!

So please join us at in the Twisted Minds facebook group at 

https://www.facebook.com/shacklesofsameness

if you agree that it's time that the boring got the boot, in favour of something more interesting and, well, different!

I have a ‘Twisted Mind!’ Do you? 

[Note: by Steve Rudd]

Gez Walsh has kindly allowed me to put a short guest post here, to demonstrate my support for what he is trying to do. Certainly in the world of book publishing, ever since we lost the net book agreement back in 1990, we've seen much less variety and the chances of getting a big break or a deal available to the aspiring artist have lessened as big bookselling chains concentrate on their "core stock" and largely ignore anything that doesn't "fit in" 

Pretty much the same thing has happened in the music industry, with the stranglehold grip of the TV reality show talent contests limiting the opportunities for anyone who cannot be packaged and presented in bland, bite-sized chunks. Even in my own particular passion, folk music, there has been a big shift away from collaborative, participative, grass-roots music-making in the back room of the pub, and towards having it played at you by someone with a large PA at a festival or concert. 

Even in the visual arts, people such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin are now, to a certain extent, mainstream, and in any case, my own personal view is that even when they were new and fresh, the Young British Artists didn't actually represent a genuinely new breakthrough, in the same way that, for instance, Cubism or Impressionism did. Yes, it was a rebellion, of sorts, but one that (I feel) ducked the challenge of changing what already existed in exchange for a certain amount of gimmickry.

So, yes, I agree with Gez. The internet is changing things, of course, to a certain extent, making it possible for artists young and old to bypass the traditional routes to fulfilment: but when you get to the stage where someone like the band Jethro Tull would almost certainly fail the audition for Britain's Got Talent, if they went on it today, something needs changing!

Summer Breeze, Bad Fashions and Knobbly Knees!

We have had, here in Britain, just a few days of sunshine this year.

The British have a bad allergic reaction to sunlight, it makes us take our clothes off and get drunk. Not to mention the BBQ’s, where the man of the house who has never so much as boiled an egg for the rest of the year, decides that he should feed the whole neighbourhood, using nothing more than e-coli!

But the strangest thing is what the sun does to our dress sense.

Now, I have no right to lampoon people's dress sense, as the sun forces me to think that three quarter trousers and t-shirts are cool. But it has to be said that whenever I’m travelling abroad in a country of warmer climes you can always tell that someone is British, just by the clothes or lack of clothes they are wearing. Only the Germans can give us a run for our money in the fashion stakes.

First we have the skinny man who thinks he will enhance his chances with the opposite sex by wearing no shirt, baggy shorts and the biggest fashion crime known to man… sandals with diamond-patterned socks. Trust me, lads, you would have more chance of pulling a lady if you had a sign saying, ‘I have herpes’ than you would dressed like that!

Then there’s the bald-headed big-bellied beer-monster. They favour football shirts and shorts, or even a track suit. This, they think, gives the impression of athleticism. But what it really says is "Grow up, you knobhead!"

We do, of course, still have the stiff-upper-lip types who, if it’s called for, will take off their Pringle jumper and hang it around their neck if the temperature does exceed 35 degrees C.

But they are always in the shade and do not, if at all possible, mix with the other fashion offenders.

Then we have the females of the species. With the exception of America, no other country does `fat’ quite as well as us Brits.

Our fat girls think shame is for quitters, they try to enhance their fat, by having it coloured in at the tattooist’s parlour. They then think it’s best to share their fat with the rest of the nation, by wearing little or no clothes at all!

The slim athletic type girls wear long dresses that cover up their well-toned bodies.

But we still have the old dears who favour the tried and trusted flowery dress, cardigan, tights and sandals.

It’s a strange phenomenon, because for the rest of the year these people are quite respectable, well some of them are. They don’t wear outlandish costumes in spring autumn or winter. So why does the sun have such a strange effect?

I suppose Noel Coward summed it up with his song title, `Mad Dogs and Englishmen Go Out In the Midday Sun!’

We must all be suffering from sunstroke! 

Peter Walsh

In the early hours of 8^th January 2006, while most people slept soundly in their beds, Peter Walsh passed away, in his own bed, surrounded by his family.

If there is such a thing as a good way to die, I suppose to most of us that would like it to be that way.

His life was just an ordinary working man's life, yet it was truly extraordinary.

He left no money or property or expensive items. The only things he did give me were male pattern baldness and a big nose. But he also left me with things that have made me an incredibly rich man.

Peter was a small, slightly-built man, but he was a giant in stature and dignity. He towered above pettiness and spite.

He not only spoke about love and tolerance, but practised it on a daily basis. Teaching people that they should be free to think and live the way they chose. Even though this meant that my thoughts and beliefs were the opposite of his own, all he would say was, “That’s your choice, love.”

He had the worst fashion sense known to man, but yet my son, his daughter and I wear his "genes" each and every moment of every day.

Peter had a wonderful singing voice but, just as with his talking voice, hardly anyone heard it. He accepted his standing in life and worked to make sure that his family benefited from his labours. He didn’t want to change the world, just change the lives of those he loved.

He worked as a carpenter, and now lies in a small patch of earth marked only by a wooden cross. People walk by, not knowing who he was or what he did. Rabbits chew the flowers left by his family upon his little plot of land.

He has had his time here on earth, but yet he lives on in the very breath of each one of his children and their children and children’s children.

I am not the sort of person that wins big money on the lottery or scratch cards. I have never won anything just by luck, but yet I’m one of the luckiest people alive, because Peter Walsh was my father!