How To Look Cool With Snot On Your Lip!

One of my pleasures in life is to play badminton with friends for a few hours each week, then go for a coffee and a catch up with an old friend. We usually go to a coffee shop located in a media centre in the middle of town. This coffee shop is the haunt of what seem to be young professional types who like to make an entrance when they turn up for some important meeting that involves chat but no action. The whole place is lively and vibrant and quite a relaxing and comfortable setting to sit and chat.

Because of the type of clientele this coffee shop attracts, my friend and I - dressed in our scruffy shorts and tee shirts - look more than a little out of place, but we have being going there for so long now that no one pays us any attention (the story of my life). 

The other day while we chatted we couldn't help but notice a group of young people next to us doing the “Oh darling, so lovely to see you!” routine followed by the obligatory air kisses. I cannot for the life of me see the point of air kisses: either physically kiss someone or don't bother! These people were very well dressed and seemed to be boasting about who was the most successful when in walked a young man who stood in front of their table. It has to be said this guy knew how to make an entrance. The door slammed shut behind him as he had obviously planned; he didn't flinch or look about or apologise for his carelessness. He was quite tall and slim with skin-tight jeans and a skimpy vest barely covered by a skin-tight, under-sized blue suit jacket. His head was covered by thick well-groomed orange hair and he supported a large pair of thick red spectacles balanced carefully on the end of his nose. He also had placed a white scarf strategically around his neck. This was a person hoping to be noticed!

As he stood in front of the table next to where my friend and I were sitting, the people there jumped to their feet as this was a person they all wanted to be seen with. The problem was, it looked as if he had just blown his nose before entering the cafe and not done a very good job as he seemed to have most of the contents of his nose still on his top lip. The people rising to their feet to greet him went to give him the obligatory air kiss then stopped dead in their tracks when they noticed the snot on his lip. They then found themselves in the very British quandary: do you tell, and risk being rude, or do you ignore it and hope that he notices it himself? This man then broke into a stream of over-the-top camp statements which were all designed to get equal amounts of gasps and laughs at the same time, but no one looking on could take their eyes off the snot on his lip! 

Finally one of the party nervously pointed to his lip and muttered, “Harry, you seem to have a bit... your top lip, there seems to be... something!” The man then took out a purple handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his lip. He then did what we all do and examined the contents of the handkerchief before announcing to all in the café, “It's just a bit of mocha that I had bought for me by an incredibly sexy young man!” To which my friend retorted in an equally loud voice, “It looked like snot to me, mate!”

Without any hesitation the man glared at my friend over his over-the-top glasses and exclaimed, “Really! Where do they find these people?” then flounced out of the café before anyone could reply. My friend found this so funny that I thought he might have an heart attack, he laughed so much!

I loved the confidence of this young man, the fact that he wanted to be seen and wasn't ashamed of who he was. I know that in private just like lots of people he will probably be wracked with insecurity - this is, of course, part of the make-up of people who like to “peacock”. But the way he handled the situation was cool and really quite funny; he didn't fall to pieces as lots of others would have done in this situation. I have to admit I couldn't care less if someone had pointed this out to me. I couldn't have looked more out of place in the café, wearing my three-quarter pants and old sweatshirt covered in various stains, and rather smelly. If someone had told me that I had a snotty nose I would have thanked them and been quite grateful. You see I have never been cool, never will be cool, so I might as well accept who and what I am and be happy - which I am.

The only other time I have seen someone try to pull off a masterful cover-up was back in the '70s, while drinking in a local pub. One of our group had gone to the toilet. This guy (who sadly is no longer with us) was extremely witty and quick-thinking; he was also a devout coward when it came to a fight. This particular night he had gone to the toilet and, as was common back then, a fight had broken out in the toilet. It was routine for people with grudges to follow someone into a toilet and attack them. The fight broke out while my friend was using the urinal and, true to form, he ran out as quickly as possible to make sure he was in no way dragged into the fight. 

He came back to our table out of breath to tell us what had just happened, and we all fell about laughing. He had been so quick to flee from the violence that he had forgotten to tuck his little man servant back into his trousers: his willy was still hanging out! My circle of friends don't stand on ceremony or try to be diplomatic so as not to hurt your feelings, they just say what they want when they want. It was very quickly pointed out to this guy what was hanging out. Instead of recoiling in horror he calmly looked down at his appendage bobbing about for all to see and announced, “Oh, this little thing? I picked it up in a market in Marrakesh. You know it was very reasonably priced!” With that he tucked it back into his trousers and asked, “Anyone fancy a pint?” He did this with such charm and nonchalance that it still makes me laugh today whenever I think back to those times. Some people just know how to look cool no matter what the circumstances. Unfortunately, I'm not one of these people...

Growing Weeds!

If you have just logged on to this post in the vain hope of learning tips on how to grow recreational smoking substances, forget it! I'm actually in the running for the title, 'The World's Worst Gardener!'

The only thing that I have successfully managed to grow in my whole life was a moustache. I can't even grow a beard, it always ends up looking like an old worn tennis ball stuck to my chin.

It all started way back when I was a child, both my brother John and I were staying with our Grandparents. John, being a little older than me, used to work in the garden with Granddad while I stayed in the kitchen with Nonna, cooking. One day, Nonna wanted me out from under her feet while doing the weekly clothes washing. This by the way wasn't just chucking a load of clothes into a washing machine and sticking your program of choice on. It required military-type manoeuvres, taking out an old vicious tub-washer. This thing could rip a grown man's arm clean off! The clothes then had to be passed through a mangle, which I'm sure had been used as an instrument of torture back in the Spanish inquisition! This industrial piece of hardware removed all excess water before the clothes were hung out on the line to dry.

This particular day, I was allowed into the garden with my brother and Granddad to do a little gardening. We had a smallholding, so we grew all our own veg. Granddad prepared a small patch for me and then gave me some radish seeds to plant. I did this with the utmost care and then I watered them as instructed, then sat for the rest of the day staring at the patch of soil, willing my radishes to grow. I ran into the house and announced to Nonna that we would all soon be feasting on the finest radishes any human had ever encountered and if she had any recipes for radishes she should be getting them ready now. 

That evening, I was unable to sleep with the excitement of my new-found love of gardening. The very next morning, I eagerly ran from the house to my radish patch, ready to harvest my first batch of salad products, only to find an empty patch of soil! I was distraught - someone had sneaked into the garden under the cover of darkness to steal my prize radishes! I ran back to tell Granddad of the theft. He, of course, laughed and told me it takes time for plants to grow and you must be patient and nurture them... stuff that! By the time they were ready for harvesting, I was so uninterested in them I don't think I even ate one of them. This lack of interest in gardening has stayed with me all through my life.

One thing I did develop a love for, though, was cooking. My times with Nonna in the kitchen are among some of my most special memories of my childhood. I have a blog called Cooking With Babbo and Nonna, and hopefully a book of the same title coming out soon. I love creating my own dishes, as Nonna often did, while also collecting authentic recipes from around the world. So with this in mind I decided to put my phobia of gardening to one side and start again to grow my own herbs. 

I use a lot of basil and coriander in my cooking so I decided to grow my own. I have now developed more tolerance and patience since I was four years old so I knew I would have to wait for the plants to grow. What I wasn't aware of was I seemed to have put an advert in the slug and snail gazette announcing that a batch of fresh herbs would soon be available for all slugs and snails to eat within a ten mile radius of my house! My house is situated in the centre of a small wood and my newly grown herbs seemed to attract a plague of snails and slugs of Biblical proportions. No matter how I tried to stop them they still kept on coming. In a desperate attempt to save my precious herbs, I took some that were in pots into the house one evening. The next morning it was like a scene from a Hitchcock movie; there were slugs crawling up my windows! I could take no more, so I reverted back to my good old trusty supermarket for my supply of herbs.

A few years ago I noticed what seemed like a few nice flowers growing at the bottom of my garden, so I moved them and planted them about the garden, and watered them, and was pleased to see that for once I was able to grow something instead of killing it! Soon the garden was awash with these plants - they were thriving. Until a friend of mine who is quite a keen gardener called in for a coffee and a chat one day. He took one look at my garden and gasped, “Oh my God you need to get rid of those weeds - they will take over everything and kill it!” He was, of course, correct. I had been nurturing a flowering weed that destroys all in its path. It took me two days to dig out all the plants and the roots, as in true horror-movie style, they can reproduce just from a single fragment of root. I then had to burn them all to make sure they couldn't reproduce.

I would still like to grow my own veg and herbs but I don't think that my nerves could take the strain. Before my failed attempt at growing herbs, I had no opinion on slugs and snails at all. Now I have a pathological distrust of the little slimy creeps. I don't wish them harm and I think they know this, and they know I'm a soft touch. Strangely, since I stopped trying to grow any plants in the garden, I haven't seen any slugs or snails in there. Even though my wife grows lots of flowers, successfully I have to add. But there again, as I have written in previous blogs, nothing is a match for my wife if she considers them vermin. I'm only hoping she doesn't change her opinion of me from "husband" to "vermin"...

Daft Words.

I posted a blog about silly words a few months ago, and a few friends asked me to do the same using Yorkshire words. If you are not aware where Yorkshire is, then you have something missing from your life as it has been proven by a little known sect in Halifax to be the centre of the universe! But we do have strange customs and words. In Yorkshire people don't use the word 'silly', we use the word 'daft' instead, hence the title of this posting. I have decided to just tell you about the words we use for parts of the body. Some will be used in other parts of Britain, but the little-known sect in Halifax says they definitely started in Yorkshire. I have left out the parts of the body that have more names than a Crufts show dog, and concentrated on the parts of the body we are happy to show to the neighbours.

Noggin

The head, “why dun't tha use tha noggin tha daft git” (why don't you use your head, you silly person!)

Lug 'oles.

The ears, “clean tha lug oles owt!” (listen).

Wing Nut.

Big ears, “'e looks like a wing nut wi' those ears”

Gob, Cake 'ole

The mouth, “shut tha gob/ cake 'ole!” (stop talking)

Sneck.

The nose, “keep tha sneck arght!” (mind your own business)

Chops.

The cheeks. Lots of plump young children are often affectionately called, 'chubby chops!”

Tootsie Pegs.

This can be either the teeth or the toes and is usually used only when talking to children.

Mitts.

The hands, this is used not only here in Yorkshire but all over Britain and in parts of North America.

Dicky Belly.

Upset stomach

Dicky Ticker.

Heart problems.

Clod 'oppers.

Big feet, “shift thi clod 'oppers, and let mi pass”

Gammy Leg.

This is a deformed or injured leg.

We don't really have any other words for eyes but we do call spectacles 'Gems” - this is pronounced with a hard 'G' as in 'Goats'.

If there's anyone from Yorkshire reading this and I have missed out any obvious body parts, (not the rude bits, though) please let me know.