The Lion, The Witch, and the Flat Pack!

There comes a time in all young men’s lives when they must prove themselves as men, not only to the females of their particular tribe, but also to themselves.

This takes many forms in many countries around the world. In certain Amazonian tribes, young men go out into the jungle alone to hunt, some under ‘’Shamanistic’ influences; they are whacked out of their brains on drugs!

The Masai of Kenya send out their young men to kill a lion to prove their masculinity, here in the west it’s different.

When a young man has reached a certain age and has moved out of his parents' dwellings into the first step of a relationship with a female, he is wooed and seduced by the female. She offers him freedom and lets him have sex in the ’Birthday Position’. This is the height of lovemaking, but is offered only on birthdays and special occasions. This is enough to keep the young man interested in the female.

When ‘SHE’ decides that it’s time to take things to the next level, the young man must be prepared to be taken to a land  far, far away, known as ’IKEA’. When this happens the young man knows he must face his ultimate challenge, ’THE FLAT PACK!’ These very words are enough to strike fear into the strongest of men.

His journey starts when the female announces that they need to expand on their furnishings; the young man knows what the next steps are. The female then 'phones her Mother and auntie to accompany them on their ritual visit. The first task for the young man to prove his prowess is to fit the oversized aunt and mother into the back of his three door mini without the use of a crowbar and cattle prod. Once they are all fully squeezed in, he doesn’t know it yet, but he has already failed the first test: DON’T FILL YOUR CAR FULL OF PEOPLE WHEN YOU HAVE TO RETURN WITH A FLAT PACK! The women know this, and gloat between themselves, as the young man drives on nervously.

On reaching Ikea, they then have to choose what flat pack is to be used for the test. A lazy woman who doesn’t care about what type of man she wants will chose a coffee table, where only the screwing in of four legs is required. The average man can accomplish this in under five hours.

The clever women will go for the wardrobe, but there are some evil ice-queens out there who plump for the dreaded six drawer head board combo! This should only be undertaken by a group of older men over a two week period.

A clever young man will look at the wardrobe that has been erected by the Ikea fairies, to work out how to construct it. These little people work only on a night, when the store is empty, to build furniture, to dupe young men into thinking it’s easy. Once the wardrobe with the unpronounceable name has been purchased the next test starts; getting it home.

The young man will quickly discover, as the women already knew, the said wardrobe will not fit into the mini with the mother-aunt combo in the back, or even without them in the back!

The young man thinks of how this engineering feat could be completed as he is reminded on several occasions by the females that other men didn’t have this problem. Other young employees of the store will offer to help, but their offers must be spurned if the young man is to prove his worth.

He thinks about asking the aunt/mother combo to lie in the back in the ‘Birthday’ position, but it has been so long since they did this, they wouldn’t be able to achieve full bend. Their idea of carnal lust is to lie on their backs and inspect the ceiling for cracks and cobwebs once a month!

He thinks about removing seats and cutting the side of the car off! He finally opts for the women to go to the café for some meatballs and pasties with the same name as the wardrobe he has just purchased while he does a forty mile round trip, with seats and doors removed from his vehicle. As he drives away one of the females then points out that he could have bought a roof rack in store for only five pounds!

The next test comes when he then has to erect the said beast. He goes to his tool kit, which comprises a kitchen knife and a tape measure won from a Christmas cracker! Then, nervously, he sets about reading the instructions.

The young man could have a degree in Astro-Physics but, when confronted with the Ikea instructions, he turns into a special needs kid on their first day at school. Nothing makes sense so he decides to build it blind, so to speak.

Two days later the finished article does bear a passing resemblance to the wardrobe in the store, except his has a strange lilt to the left and the doors don’t shut. He is also very concerned that he has over twenty screws left over.

The females tut and remind him that other men don’t have this problem when putting up Swedish furniture.

This is the time when most young men decide that they can live without the ’Birthday’ position for a few more years and that living at home with Mum and Dad has lots of benefits and do what all self respecting men do when faced with such a problem, walk away and go to the pub with his mates, job done!

Addicted to You!

This week I had the good fortune to be in the company of a truly amazing woman. I won’t mention her name, for reasons that will become quite obvious as you read on.

She was born into a respectable middle-class background; her mother was a teacher, her father a doctor. She had a good education and a loving family and a good social network of friends. That was until a new boyfriend introduced her to a friend she couldn’t get rid of for years and years, Heroin, Smack, whatever you want to call it.

This drug took her to places only the depraved of mind can think about. She robbed those she loved, sold her body and aborted many unwanted pregnancies because of this. She lied to and cheated everyone she had contact with, but ultimately she was lying and cheating herself!

One morning in a cold public toilet she awoke with her skirt and pants around her ankles. Urine and vomit covered her hair and clothes, most of it not hers. She weighed six stones and was on the verge of death due to drug, malnutrition and hypothermia. 

Many people have said that to cure your addiction you have to first reach rock bottom, though she carried on with her best friend Heroin. Nothing could separate these two lovers, but this was the most abusive of relationships.

Her moment of realisation came by the strangest of ways. It wasn’t a drug-fuelled fight. It wasn’t a divine epiphany, or the loss of dignity. It was boredom! 

She said she just became bored with the routine; it was harder than having a proper job being a junkie, smackhead, user, whatever the term is now.

She was bored with the people she hung about with, bored with going nowhere, doing nothing. Bored with the need to score. Bored wth her punters, who pitied her, but still had sex with her. She was bored with people trying to help her. She was just totally, utterly bored. So she thought she fancied a change. Honest, I’m not being flippant, that is how she put it! 

She admitted the road to getting clean is not that easy, but she said it was easier to come off smack than it was to give up smoking. She also said (now she’s a drug counsellor) that there was so little heroin in the wraps she bought that she was addicted to the idea of taking the drug more than the drug its self.

I asked why she started to take the drug in the first place. Did she really think she was going to be the only person in history not to get addicted to it? She replied, “Yes”.

Like all drug users, they don’t realise the slow descent. There are of course recreational drug users, but like her smack that was cut with bleach etc, all drug users don’t really know what they are taking.

A group of friends of mine once went to Amsterdam for a ‘Stag’ party. One of the group went off to buy some cannabis; he found a man selling various products and purchased a block of resin. When he tried to smoke it, he couldn’t help but comment on the peculiar smell - he had in fact been sold a small block of dried dog shit!

This remarkable woman, who, if you spent any time in her company, is someone you would find it very hard to believe the life she used to lead. She is the three ’a’s’  articulate, academic and attractive. She speaks matter of factly about her experiences, and doesn’t stand in judgement of any person. She listens to what is said to her even if its an obvious pile of bullshit. She told me, “That is reality to them”. she also said that, “We are all addicted to something but we are not aware of it.” She is, of course, correct. It doesn’t have to be a mind-altering drug, or smoking, it can be a sport, politics, and religion, sex, saving the world, travel; we are all in one way or the other obsessives about something.

I have to admit in one way I’m a bit like her  - I do become a bit obsessed about things, but then I just get bored with them. Alcohol is such a thing: when I was younger I loved to drink, I could drink for England at national levels, but now I just can’t be bothered with it!

No doubt I shall find something else to fill the void, but I can guarantee you, it won’t be heroin! 

Comb on Over to My Place!

There comes a time in most men’s lives when they are forced to make some difficult decisions.

When you go to the toilet, do you admit the dribbles are winning, and pee sitting down?

Should you go for the prostate test, and admit it’s not gay to let a doctor stick his finger up your bum?

But the big one is, should you comb over, or shave it off? I personally believe that it’s a crime against masculinity to comb over! Under no circumstances should you even contemplate this. Do you hear me, Terry Wogan? We all know!

But I have another dilemma. I have spoken before about how my hair has passed the go to grey section of life and arrived at the whiter than Hollywood teeth section of life. On the whole I’m not that bothered, but it does put ten years on me, no matter how I try to pretend it doesn’t (I look nearly forty some days!)

So do I go for it, and cut it all off? Or should I keep it and, as the kinder of my friends say, look distinguished?

I think "looking distinguished" is a euphemism for "creaky old git". People always try to do this to make you feel better, well some do. A woman once told me that I had an "interesting" face! What is she interested in?

Another woman (I meet lots of women in my job) told me that I had a face that had been lived in? By what, though; has my face been inhabited by two old tramps and a scabby dog?

I fully intend to grow old disgracefully; I’m not the type to have a pipe and slippers while reading the newspapers in the morning. I’m more of the "I hope I don’t get caught" type of person! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not up to no good (not been caught yet!) but I just like to live my life to my rules.

I once knew a seventy-year-old man who had eight kids to eight different women. His last girlfriend, who was very attractive, was only twenty six years of age. He drank and smoked, and lived life to the full; when he died I was shocked to find out he was only forty-three - having fun plays havoc with your looks! I thought he was at least in his seventies. But the women in his life only ever saw the fun-loving man who put them first; well he did until they got pregnant!

I hate the saying "why don’t you act your age"? I have a radio show, Phoenixfm 96.7, which is a mixture of comedy and…. Well it’s just comedy. It’s basically me ranting at poor Chantelle my co-op! Most of the people that listen to the show have no idea how old I am. I know this because they send in texts, emails etc saying remember when you were a kid, did you ever...? Then they reference something that would have been more appropriate for my son’s age! 

We all find it easy to put people in little pigeonholes, to make our assumptions easier for us. While I’m at it why isn’t pigeon spelt with a ’D’= ’Pidgeon’, that’s how most people pronounce it!  Sorry, I was distracted then.

So what should I do? Cut off my hair, or keep what I have left?

Pros

Less easy to identify my age.

Save on shampoo.

Save on barbers' bills.

Cons

I can’t see the back of my head to shave it!

Cuts owing to careless shaving of the head!

My head is peanut-shaped; shaving will make me look like a Doctor Who villain.

My skin is a light brown; if I shave my head it will be will make me looks like a pint of beer!

I think the best thing is to compromise. I’ll cut my hair down to a number two. I only hope the barber doesn’t point me to the toilet when I ask him if I can have a ‘number two?!’

The Pain in Bahrain is Always the Same!

There has been much consternation this week about David Cameron meeting with the king of Bahrain. This is of course because of the dismal human rights record this country has. It has marginalised the Shia Muslim population using torture, and often uses violence against its own people to quash any demonstrations against the ruling class.

People are asking should we be seen to do business with such a country. Of course we should!

Do you really think that this is the first dodgy regime that we have ever done business with? Who do you think armed Gaddaffi or Saddam Hussein? 

In the seventies, when the British Government was condemning the IRA they were in secret talks with them at the time, just as we are now with countries all over the world.

Trade is a dirty business; don’t believe that all shopkeepers like their customers - that is not the way trade works. You smile and nod until the sale is done. We are in an economic crisis at the moment, in case the self-righteous out there haven’t noticed. This tiny little island of ours needs trade now more than we have ever needed it, and as much as I don’t like Cameron, he knows that it’s the job of the PM to bring in trade.

If you have read any of my previous blogs you will be aware of my views on freedom of speech and that every person has a fundamental right to education. I abhor restrictive religious ideologies that keep the majority of people from developing freedom of mind and body, but what makes us so different from the people we are condemning? Have you never heard of British colonialism? Or of the atrocities that we have committed around the world? Have you never heard of how we have raped whole countries of their wealth? This was not hundreds of years ago, but in living memory. I believe that we must all hold our government accountable for their actions, but it doesn’t work like that!

Look at our best friends, the Americans, you know the big guy with lots of muscle. The one who, with us, goes to war against countries we disagree with for no reason. The guys who spout about freedom then lock up people in Guantanamo Bay without trial. 

All politics is about power and hypocrisy, what you are told is always someone’s version of the truth. But having said all this, trade is trade; we buy and sell to make our country more prosperous (Well a few in our country more prosperous). We need trade.

Sanctions do work for a while, but they also isolate people. Isolation creates fear and distrust. Fear and distrust create hate and we all know what that leads to, young men with bombs and guns!

If you really want to deal with a big bully, stand up to him let him know that you’re willing to fight. Let him know that if you fight you are more than capable of inflicting damage on him. Then, in the stand-off, make friends with him. You can do more to change minds and ideologies with a hand shake or a hug than any amount of violence!

So if you feel the need to jump on the band wagon of condemnation of other countries and ideologies, first look at your own and remember, that every other government in the world, no matter what they say, will be 
more than happy to do trade with Bahrain!

Holiday Heist!

Psychologists now believe that grumpy old men were in fact once grumpy young men. People, it seems, do not get grumpier as they get older - it’s just that their grumpiness gets more noticeable.

I have to agree with this. When I was younger, I moaned and complained and marched and argued about everything. I was known as an ‘Angry Young Man’. Now I’m of an age and still doing the same things I’m known as a ‘Grumpy Old Man!’

Nothing has changed, only the description of me; I still have the same passion for pointing out stupidity and people’s acceptance of injustice. I still get angry when people act like sheep, afraid to rock the boat and be different.

I must point out that I’m not one of those people that wakes up every morning and reads a newspaper or watches the news on TV to see what they can complain about. I am in the main quite a placid person, so long as you don’t piss me off!

But after saying all this, I did have a major rant earlier this week. It wasn’t world or domestic politics, religion, poverty or human rights that set me off this time, it was the simple act of trying to book a holiday!

Both my wife and I decided that we would like to visit the Balearic Island of Majorca this year. We have been there before, many years ago, and enjoyed our stay and thought we would like to go again. So far so good.

I first trawled the local travel agencies to see what bargains they had on offer (I’m a Yorkshireman, it’s illegal for us not to seek out a bargain!). This drew a blank, as the prices they quoted suggested that they thought I was actually launching a military invasion of the island, rather than just spending a week there.

So I turned to my friend Google to help me: this is where I get all hot and bothered!

There were some fantastic deals to be had, but only until you phoned the companies to book them!

It seems that, ’£169 ALL INCLUSIVE TO MAJORCA! is only the name of the advert. When you phone them up it seems the £169 turns into £500.

This is not an isolated incident, this was with every so-called deal I saw. The main culprits are the so-called low cost airlines that give you a low price then add on a £50 booking fee and £50 to check in fee and £50 baggage fee. They offer you a fantastic offer if you want to sit on the wing of the plane to your destination!

It’s like advertising an Armani suit for £5 then explaining that is just for the raw cotton. If you want the cotton processed and made into cloth that will be extra. Then if you want a designer to design you a suit that will also be extra. Oh yes and if you want us to make you the suit that of course will also be extra! The price of the suit, sir, for you today, is £2,000.

GIVE US THE TOTAL PRICE, YOU LYING BASTARDS!

Also these companies use call centres in India, I wonder why? No doubt these people will be working long hours for little money. The people that I spoke to were always courteous and willing to go the extra mile to make a sale, but we had a language problem every time.

I have a Yorkshire accent, if you’re not familiar with the Yorkshire accent hit yourself over the head a few times with a large baseball bat; now try to speak - that is the Yorkshire accent!

These poor people,  up until getting their under-paid and over-worked jobs no doubt thought that all English people talked like Hugh Grant. How wrong they soon found out they were; only Hugh Grant talks like that.

The English are fiercely proud of the region where they originate, and our accents identify us. Anyone born in Britain will be able to distinguish a Yorkshire accent from a Geordie, Scouse or Cockney accent. But if you’re not from Britain, we might as well be speaking another language.

So trying to book a holiday with someone whose third language is English, but still speaks better English than me, is very difficult. What makes it more difficult is the area I wished to visit is Spanish, so we had another language to throw into the mix!

And why do these people in call centres give themselves English names? We are not fooled by this deception! I spoke to a Jack, Kevin, Sally, Colin, Lucy all in Mumbai, not one Sanjeed or Sinita!

It is no use getting angry with the people who have to deal with you on the phone, they are just being used, the same as us mug punters, sorry, customers, are. The whole industry needs to clean up its act and be honest and transparent about what they are offering.

Now I need another holiday, to get over trying to book this holiday!

The Great Royal Rip-Off!

Just in case you have been eating Rohypnol burgers for the last nine months, two posh people have just downloaded their offspring.

The Daily Mail usually makes a big deal about Eastern Europeans coming over here and sponging off the state, even though most of them work harder than us Brits.

But for some reason these Eastern Europeans are more than welcome. Not only that, we don’t seem to mind spending millions of pounds on them and giving them the biggest houses in Britain - all free of course.

They will never have to work, and why should they, because the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family changed their name to claim more benefits; they are now called the Windsors after one of the castles we gave them! 

I hope the baby is fit and well - who wouldn’t wish that for any child being born? Well it seems that we ordinary mortals don’t count. Our hospitals are being under-funded and overrun. Leeds children’s heart surgery unit is to be closed; our schools are under-staffed and over-subscribed. But it doesn’t matter! This little baby will get the best of everything, because it had the good fortune to be born into a family of inbred parasites!

Was that a little too harsh? Well the gene pool of the aristocrats of Britain is so in-bred that husband and wife usually have seating for one side of the family at weddings, there is no other side!

The royals have for centuries married other countries royals and aristos, even the Queen and Phil the Greek are cousins.  As for them being parasites, well what do they do?

Now there is a rather strange argument that people put forward to keep the royals, they are great for trade and tourism. The trade argument is very thin indeed; people do not buy British goods because we have royalty! They buy them because they are good and value for money. A royal visit to another country doesn’t bring in orders, politics brings in orders.

The tourism argument is also very flawed, as it has never been proven by anyone that the royals are the main attraction for people to visit this beautiful island of ours. I have never heard of tourists meeting the Queen, nor having trips around the places. They come to see the buildings and the pomp and ceremony we the taxpayers put on for them.

We bang on about democracy and all people are born equal here in Britain but how can you justify this when you have an unelected political party as the head of state? And how we all can be born equal when they are born into state-paid wealth?

The royals are a political party, before you start foaming at the mouth, Daily Mail readers. They handed only part of their power over to parliament. The queen still refers to ’My Government’ and she still hold a veto over what can and can’t be passed in parliament.

The presses coverage of the baby fiasco was nonsense. It was a free advert for the royals PLC. All they had to do was announce the birth and that’s it, but instead we have had to endure days of pure waffle from people desperately trying to fill space. Where was the real news?

What is happening in Syria? The Middle East is potentially where the next world war will start and we were devoting all our news to a baby that wasn’t even born!

I know the Americans love the royal family, but trust me, if they had to pay for them they would be the first to scream and shout, they didn’t even want to pay for free health care for the poor!

And I know there are lots of us Brits that can’t get enough of the royals, well that’s fine, if the royals can do a Katie Price and sell stories about themselves each day to pay for their upkeep I have no problem with that, I won't buy the magazines about them or have to pay for them anymore, I’d say that’s a win-win situation!

The Queen seems a nice enough old lady. I have no problem with her personally, just what she stands for. My Grandmother was an exceptional old lady who worked hard all her life, but didn’t get a castle for it.

It is often said that in years to come there will only be five kings and queens left in the world, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, Spades and of Britain. Unfortunately I think this will probably be true!