Curiosity Killed The Cat!

The above title is a bit strange, because of course curiosity is the one thing that has kept the whole species of felines alive throughout history. Their ability to look at everything, anywhere, then judge whether it's edible or not is one of the great qualities of all types of cats.

We humans also possess the greatest curiosity in the whole of the animal kingdom, this is why we are so dominant and so dangerous to both ourselves and the planet we live on. If it wasn't for our eternal quest to find out why, what and how, we would still be hunter-gatherers, scraping a meagre existence.

Our urge to go over the horizon to find new pastures has led to trade routes thousands of years old, where spices and ideas have been transported around the globe. Unfortunately, they also brought religion and infectious deceases. But what we now think of as indigenous plants and animals were usually brought by others. If you have ever had any meal that is remotely Italian in taste, you will know that, without the humble tomato, the Italians might as well shut up shop and move on. Well the tomato is a native of Iran/Persia and was brought to Italy by the Romans, no doubt. Speaking of Romans we have them to thank for the rabbits that are such a familiar sight here in Britain.

My wife always claims that when I was a child I was feral. I was no different to any other kid in my neighbourhood, we played and looked at the world around us. We did disappear for long periods and fended for ourselves, but it made us very ingenious. It also increased our imagination, because, like all ideologies, what we couldn't explain we gave a supernatural explanation to, hence the amount of ghost stories I have to tell.

When, as a ten year old, my friend was given a reel to reel tape deck, it had a slight squeak on it. This drove him mad. I called to his house one day to find the tape deck completely stripped down. I mean stripped. Everything was removed. My friend then cleaned and oiled all the pieces of the machine. When I called at his house the next day the whole machine had been rebuilt and was in perfect working order, though he had six bolts left over. That was over forty-five years ago. Yesterday I called to see him, and we were cleaning out his garage when we came across this tape deck. We then had a bizarre experience of listening to our childhood selves that we had recorded many years ago, because the tape deck still works today and, taped to the side of the recorder, are the six bolts that were left over. The same guy will now, as an adult, strip down and rebuild any machine that is faulty. He has never had a day's training on how to do this. He claims its just common sense, curiosity and enthusiasm.

I, on the other hand, am best kept away from anything mechanical. I can be quite dangerous with a spanner. But I do love anything to do with the mind, and I love to question everything and anything. I have no taboo subjects, which unnerves a lot of people, but I'm quite happy to discuss any subject at any level.

I often ask questions or have an idea, and people who know me roll their eyes, thinking, "Here we go again!" Others think that I think of the strangest of things, but for me I can't understand why people wouldn't ask the questions that I do. The other day, while out shopping... sorry taking my wife out shopping, I was, as usual, standing outside a shop waiting for her to buy the usual stuff she doesn't need. Then I noticed a man walking through the shopping centre. He was tall and grey and had deformities to his arms caused by the thalidomide drug. If you are not aware of this drug, it was hailed as the wonder drug for women with morning sickness during pregnancy in the sixties. It was later found to stop the limbs on the fetus from developing, something the company already knew, as the same effect had been shown on animals while testing the drug. This led to lots of babies being born without arms and legs. The man I was looking at had no arms, just two little hands coming out of his shoulders. Normally I wouldn't give this man a second glance or think any more about him but as he walked past me I noticed how tall he was and how he only had two little hands and I thought, "How does he take a pee?" When my wife came out of the shop, I pointed the man out and asked her the same question, to which she replied, “You are one sick bunny!” Why? What is wrong with that question?

I think we should all ask questions and debate everything. Try this, if you are of good honest mind and body. If you are the most law abiding person on the face of the earth. Imagine that you were out in the middle of nowhere and you came across a haul of gold and jewels. You know that these are ancient and worth a fortune. You also know that your house is about to be repossessed and you and your family are to be evicted. The jewels can never be traced back to you and it will save you and your family to take them and keep quiet, would you take them?

No one would suffer, though you have technically stolen them, but from whom? But they don't rightly belong to you. But who has the right to them, the government? Why should they have them; what right do they have to them? What about the land owner? What if the landowner is some inbred aristocrat whose ancestors had spent their lives kissing the arse of some other inbred monarch, and they were given the land as a thank you. They, technically, are living on stolen land. So what are you going to do because it's a victimless crime and it will save you.

Try this one. Lots of people tell me they would never be unfaithful to their partners. But what if you were away from society, lost, for a long period, with someone of the opposite sex who was kind and loving and you had no one but each other? What if once again no one would find out? Would you give in to your human urges and "Love the one you're with" or would you struggle on alone, racked with temptation?

Who would ever know, it is just two people giving each other love when they both needed it. But it is deceiving your loved ones, the ones that trust and love you. But they are not there, and they will never know. You have no intentions of ever leaving them, and the love you need and receive now may make you stronger for when you do get back. But what if there's a child born out of this union of convenience?

Discuss these topics with others and you will be surprised what answers you receive, people have to be honest with their responses. Most won't be. Most people will tell you what they think you want to hear, or what they should say to make them look like good upstanding citizens. But  I will say there is no such thing as a victimless crime, sometimes the victim might be you, the perpetrator of the crime. You could argue if there is no victim there can be no crime. It also depends on what you think crime is? I would argue with every fibre of my being that apartheid was a crime against humanity, yet I have met others who thought it was best for the human race to be divided! Who is right? Depends on your politics I suppose.

Oh, yes, just one more thing, before I go off to work (I do work you know, it's only talking but it pays the bills) You know earlier that I mentioned the drug Thalidomide and how it had terrible consequences for the families of the people who took it? Well, guess what, it turns out that what was bad for one thing is good for another, they found out that it cures leprosy! But before you start cheering, the only reason the company that manufactures the drug found out was because they were still selling it for morning sickness to women in the third world, where leprosy is rife.

Maybe we should all ask more questions sometimes!

You Have Nothing To Fear, But Fear Itself!

The above sentence sounds like a line from a Batman film, where the caped crusader has a head shot to camera and mutters the words with menace.

It was actually Franklin D. Roosevelt who uttered this memorable phrase in the 'thirties. America had just had the Wall Street crash, and the Great War (nothing great about it!) had not long finished. While, over in Europe, a certain Mr A Hitler, formerly of Austria, now residing in Germany, had plans to re-design Europe without the aid of a Feng Shui expert, which can only lead to disaster, as nothing would be in the right place when he finished with it! People were worried about the future and with a certain amount of good reason.

But what about now? Does this still ring true in the world today? We have a world recession, with banks and governments trying to shaft ordinary working people. House prices are out of the reach of large sections of the population. We have more paedophiles per acre than ever before. Not to mention lunatic religious factions taking power in already unstable countries. And then we have global warming, just to bulk up the list of things to lose sleep about.

But are things really that bad? A lot depends on who, where and what you are. If you are eighteen and want to buy your first house in London, unless Mummy and Daddy are rich, or if you are on the extreme benefits band such as the Royal family, forget it, you have no chance. But if you are middle aged and have a large family home and you wish to move on, then the market is quite buoyant.

Banks and governments have always stuffed the people, but yet we keep on voting them in and bailing them out, do we ever learn?

Most of our fears come from the media and the government. Theresa May said that our terrorist alert had gone up to "Oh my God, think of the children!" level, then added that intelligence suggests that there wasn't a terrorist threat that was imminent. Was this announcement nothing more than scaremongering? After all, the Tories did want to bring in new legislation to give the police more powers. I find myself saying this next sentence over and over to people, Every new law is one fewer right for you! Human rights are often removed in the name of security. They are not about keeping you safe, they are about keeping you under control!

You are more likely to die in a golfing accident than by terrorism. I know we have the lunatics in the Middle East who want to kill everyone who doesn't read the only book in the library. But we have always had them, its just that we aren't funding this lot! And at some stage, just like with Mr Hitler, or Adolf to his friend, we no doubt will have to go to war with them, because they will, sooner or later, alter the price of oil. We all know that you can kill and maim innocent people as much as you like, but mess with the oil supply and you are in deep, deep shit!

Then we have the paedophiles. They are around every corner! No child is safe! I blame the bleeding hearts and the liberal minded people for this. First it was letting gay people get married, two people who love each other showing affection is disgusting, Then it was letting the great unwashed drink Pimms. Even ginger-haired people can now have children outside Scotland!! What the fuck is happening to this country? It used to be full of good, hard-working people. Where the police were looked up to, and free to invent as much evidence as they liked against people they didn't! And the clergy were the backbone of our lives, with their unflinching morals about sex and families and sex in the families. They were the people to go to in time of trouble. There are no paedophiles around every corner when the church is strong in society, because most of them are there in the church.

When I was a kid I was forced by my father to become an altar-boy, I have to say that I have never encountered any sexual impropriety by any priest, just lucky I guess. We did have a priest that displayed psychotic tendencies, but people were too scared of him to point this out to him.

We used to go away on trips with the church to, of all places, a convent! I know, it sounds odd to me now, but it was just one of those strange things that you take for granted when you're a kid. We all had to go swimming under the watchful eye of Father Butch! That wasn't his name, it's just how I remember him. He used to swim around with us and he used to wear Speedo budgie-smugglers, but I suppose everyone did in the sixties. I can't help but think, if you remove the 'S' from Speedos, what you are left with.

The fact is that most, though not all, of the high-profile abuse cases are historical, and most were committed by teachers, doctors, and mainly priests: all middle class, all professionals. I'm not saying that there weren't or aren't paedophiles among the working class, but now, just like then, it wasn't some dirty old man in a greasy overcoat but usually a family member or family friend that committed the act. Last year in Britain, there were fewer old people dying over the winter than ever before. This is a fact, records prove it, but it's not news worthy.

We also hear a lot about gang culture in our cities, and how dangerous the situation is, and getting worse. What the hell do you think the Kray twins were? There were more gangs in the Victorian period than ever before, but we have turned these people into folk heroes.

The third world is still impoverished and starving. If the Ebola crisis had started in Washington, we would have a cure for it now. And, strangely, the HIV virus is getting weaker and burning itself out! 

But some things never change. The rich are still rich and getting richer, while the working class are still going to food banks. We now have twenty-four-hour news channels that have to fill their schedules so "news" that years ago wasn't reported is now reported with a bit of a twist to keep you interested.

Yes, there are lots of problems in the world, and yes, there are lots of bad people in the world (most have suits or work in banks, or both!) but nothing ever changes, and that is a problem, and something we should worry about. But there is always hope. I'm a glass half-full man and education is improving, although Gove did his best to put a stop to this. Healthcare now has more money thrown at it than any other time in history. We need to change our view on politics and about society. Stop the blame culture that we have grown so used to. Every new wave of immigration is seen as the cause of all the country's problems, but the problems remain. Maybe, just maybe, the problems were already here.

We elect politicians to improve our lives, our society, and the world. We do not elect them to further their own careers and bank balances. So if you are worried to leave your house because of fear of getting mugged, or if you are scared of your house being repossessed there is only one direction to point, and that's to your government.

"You have nothing to fear but a bland faceless bureaucrat in a suit!"

Darth Vader Has Arthritis!

It's true, the man in black has all the symptoms the average eighty-year-old has! You heard me right: DARTH VADER IS EIGHTY! Well, nearly.

Of course you have every right to point out that he is a fictional character, you smartarse! But I am of course talking about David Prowse, the body of Vader, (the voice was done by James Earl Jones, I think.)

The story goes that the film producers realised that there were no black characters in the film, so they dubbed Prowse's voice to make him more "ethnic". Shame that they had to choose the most evil character, one who wears black and is a slave to the master in the film to give a black voice to! But I think the real reason was that James Earl Jones's voice has gravitas and power, whereas David Prowse sounds like a west country hill billy farmer. There will now be millions of people (lonely men) who will disagree, and scoff at my feeble grasp of the biblical struggle of Star Wars, and I shall immediately bow to their superior knowledge. I have never seen a Star Wars movie from beginning to end. I can't be bothered reading up on it as I have one of those useful things called... a life! So, sorry if the info I have given so far is incorrect.

I saw a programme the other evening where David Prowse was being interviewed, not because he was Darth Vader, but because here in Britain in the seventies he was the "Green Cross Man". If you're not familiar with this character, he was dressed in Lycra and looked like he had just escaped from a Brazilian Mardi Gras, but he spoke like a west country hill billy farmer!

He was part of a road safety campaign and shouted things at children who didn't cross the road properly, like, “You blockhead don't you know it's not safe to cross here, oo arr!" (I'm not sure if he actually said the "oo arr" bit, but he could have done).

I was shocked to see how the man looks now. He has had a hip replacement and quite bad arthritis, and looks considerably smaller than he did. He walks with a stick and looks quite old and frail, mainly because he is old and frail. I wouldn't have known who he was if the presenter had not introduced him, he looks so different.

But that's the thing; we don't see our own ageing process but when, if you are my age (nearly thirty!) and you encounter someone from school that you haven't seen for years, you think, "he looks old now", not realising that he has the same thoughts about you.

I do try to keep fit, but I know I'm just maintaining my fitness level as I wont get any fitter at my age. My hair has gone snow white, and like all snow falls is starting to melt. I have all the body parts I started out with, with the exception of my tonsils, which will no doubt be a subject for another blog.

Age is a strange thing, as up until a certain age you worry about the ageing process, then without warning one day you wake up and think what the hell, and embrace it. There's a certain amount of stoicism and a certain amount of smugness about being middle-aged. I must be one of the lucky ones as I haven't yet encountered any illnesses all my life, and at the moment all my bits are working fine. I haven't reached the age yet where, as Billy Connolly says, you can no longer trust a fart!

A doctor once told me that women are fine until they reach forty, then they have nothing but problems because of, as he put it, "bad plumbing". A friend of mine agrees, saying she always has a spare pair of knickers in her handbag just in case she is taken by surprise by a cough! Another female friend says that one cup of tea/coffee is equal to four visits to the toilet!

But when you are young, you don't ever think any of these things will ever happen to you. In fact at nineteen years old I knew that I was immortal and invincible, I have had to revise this notion quite a lot over the years. The things you worry about when you are young are irrelevant when you get older and the things you worry about when you are older are irrelevant when you are young.

When you are young, pensions and savings are something to think about later, When you are middle- aged they things you should have thought about sooner.

When you are young, you know the girl that you were madly in love with? The one with the perfect smile and breasts, with long hair and breasts, who had charm, grace, and breasts? You know the one her who you swore you would end your life over when she spurned you? Well, imagine when you meet her in her fifties with three grandchildren (one of each) all screaming and crying as she struggles around the supermarket. Her long hair is now thin and bleach-dyed, forty cigarettes a day have given her the complexion of a cadaver, and she now has a glandular problem that means her once lithe body is bloated. Her beautiful breasts, that you only noticed in passing, now look like two dowsing sticks and are long, thin and pointing to the floor. Also, the years of being married to the hunk of the school who all the girls wanted to go out with have taken there toll. He is a man who worked for a year when he left school then gave it up because it wasn't for him. He had a string of affairs and drank all the money she earned doing mind-numbing part-time jobs. Well, I bet she would be up for a date with you now! And, girls, for the female equivalent, see her husband!

When you are a young man, sex is all you can think about. Some men love porn, whether it be films or magazines. A friend of mine who is the same age as me says that when a Screwfix brochure comes through his letter box, it has the same effect on him that a "wank mag" used to have on him!

I used to love my nights out with the lads, chatting to girls and drinking until the early hours. We used to chat about everything and anything. Now a night in with a good book, in bed with a cup of green tea and honey and a couple of slices of toast is my idea of heaven. I don't want to hear anyone talking!

They say that youth is wasted on the young, but it's just not true, I work with young people all the time, and most of them, like I did, love the freedom of their youth. There are some people that are old before their time, I have known people in their early thirties acting like they were ready to retire.

Age has a devastating effect on the way some people look. I know that I don't look like the younger version of me, years of abuse have taken their toll, no doubt.

But there are people like Bruce Forsythe or, when he was alive, Fred Astaire, who never look any older. That is because they always looked old! Look at old footage of Brucie in The Generation Game in the seventies, and he looks older then than he does now. The same can be said about Fred Astaire, look at him in the film Top Hat and Tails, shot in the 'thirties and he looks the same age in The Towering Inferno, in the seventies. He looked the same in both of them.

Then there's the heart-throbs that all the girls love when you are young, you know, the ones you are really jealous about and hate. But you secretly wish you looked like them, because your girlfriend the girl who is GOING OUT WITH YOU! fancies them. This drives you crazy with jealousy and anxiety, even though she is GOING OUT WITH YOU!

You can't help but gloat when they appear on the TV thirty years later, bankrupt and looking like Yoda! (another Star Wars reference there for the lonely men who are reading this blog by accident, thinking it was a Star Wars forum).

But, whatever you think about getting older, I can assure you of this, getting older is far better than the alternative!

I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus!

No, you haven't read the title of this blog wrongly. It's true! I saw Daddy kissing Santa Claus! Well it wasn't my Daddy, or anyone's Daddy as far as I know, let me explain.

There are some things in life that no one should have to witness. I'm not talking about war or famine: we all know that those are crimes against humanity, I'm talking about strange things that really affect you. There are things that no rational human being wants to encounter in their daily lives. Like catching your parents in the throes of wild uninhibited sex, or Anne Widdecombe in a bikini, or a Conservative government, these are all things that can wreck your life.

The above title came about a few years ago when my wife and I called to see some friends of ours one New Year's Eve. They were at a party held in a bar in the centre of the town where we live. The bar was a gay bar and well renowned for its outlandish parties, so we knew what to expect. But I wasn't ready for my response to something so mundane.

There was a man dressed as Santa and the make-up and the costume he wore was so good that he really looked like the Coca-Cola Santa that we are all so used to. As he passed our table I remarked on his likeness to the real thing and added maybe I should tell him that I had been a good boy all year (I have said before that I lie) and give him my Christmas present list. I had no sooner said this to one of my friends when Santa bumped into Batman walking in the other direction. They stopped, gave each other meaningful looks then launched into what can only be described as tonsil tennis! I have never seen two people kiss with more lust before or since! No!, No!, No! This was so wrong!

I'm not bothered that it was two men kissing we have lots of friends that are gay, the couple we were in the bar to meet are gay. It was the fact that it was Santa! Everyone knows that Santa doesn't do tonsil tennis! He doesn't do anything with men or women he's asexual - he's not even that, the words "sexual" and "Santa" don't belong in the same sentence! By the way, I do know the truth about Santa, I'm not stupid. I know the man in the shopping arcade is just a bloke dressed up, and the real Santa lives in the North Pole with lots of elves and flying reindeer and other cool shit.

But the sight of these two kissing looked wrong. If they were in their every day clothes, it wouldn't have even warranted a second glance, but the sight of Batman and Santa tying to suck the face off each other was more than I could bear, and  we left the party soon after.

The strange thing is that I pride myself on thinking that I'm not easily shocked, But obviously I am.

I have spoken in my blogs before that I'm an author and I visit schools, here there and everywhere. I specialise in working with young people who have no interest in education or have been taken out of education. My aim is to show them the reason for learning and that it can be both fun and interesting.

I visit some schools once every year, one such school is in a very deprived area, and lots of the students at the school come from very difficult backgrounds. Their parents have never worked, their grandparents have never worked. There is usually a man in a BMW at the end of their estates selling mind-shrinking drugs, and this is what a lot of the young people aspire to be, to them he's a success.

The school in question has a head teacher who is a wonderful lady, but very stern: she has to be. You will note that I have been very careful not to mention the school, town or area.

This lady comes to school each day suited and booted, her turnout is immaculate, she wears long flowing dresses and suit jackets, and her hair is short-cropped. She's the kind of lady that you would see in a period drama, where all the maids and lesser mortals would refer to her with that strange pronunciation when they spoke. "Yes Marm!" (they always seemed to stick an 'R' in there).

This lady is a woman of substance, a woman not to be trifled with, she is the epitome of sobriety, and sensibility. So can you imagine my shock and horror when walking on a beach in Majorca a few years ago with my wife when I heard a loud shriek, “Gez! I can't believe it! Look! It's Gez fucking Walsh!”

I turned to be confronted with a very large lady wearing nothing more than,... well nothing really. You couldn't describe it as a bikini or a garment as it wasn't really covering anything. She had what can only be described as a thong, but it could have been some sort of sado-masochistic device! Her belly hung over her front botty and the implement of torture could only be seen briefly at the back. Her top was no better: it didn't cover anything except her nipples, it was more a feat of engineering than an item of clothing. I got the distinct impression that if one of her breasts were to escape from its anchorage, they were so large that the weight, momentum and gravity would create enough force to take a man's head clean off his shoulders.

She had, it's fair to say, had one or two sangrias, one or two quarts, that is. Her breath stunk of the drink and she was unsteady on her feet. I didn't have clue who this woman was, but unless she was the first ever person in history to really possess psychic powers, she certainly knew who I was.

“Imagine bumping into you here, you old twat!” she slurred, while swaying from side to side. She then promptly grabbed hold of me without warning and pressed me into her mountainous mass of flesh. I'm not sure if I blacked out at this point as I seemed to have been drawn into the very thing that nature abhors, a vacuum. I do remember being engulfed in hot sweaty blubber. Before all noise, light and oxygen disappeared. I seemed to have been trapped in there for some time, before her breasts, like some medieval siege weapon, expelled me back out onto the beach. People looked on shocked, as, to them, it looked like a woman had, as if from nowhere, produced a fully grown man from her bikini!

She turned to her husband and said, “This is the bugger I've told you about! The guy who can get the little shits at school eating out of his hand!” I then noticed the her husband was also wearing a bikini. I think he may have had breasts: my wife told me later it was a woman but I want a re-count on that!

I stared at this woman for what seemed an age, then the shock hit me, it was Miss Suited and Booted, Miss Sobriety, who, it seemed, had turned into an alcoholic, naturist, lesbian! She insisted that my wife and I accompanied her and her husband, sorry partner, to the nearest bar. We did have one drink with them but she was a nightmare. She swore loudly, threatened people who she claimed were staring at her, and told lewd jokes to a couple with a small child, before drunkenly staggering onto the beach only to remove the thong and relieve herself in full view of all the sun-worshippers.

Both my wife and myself made our excuses and beat a hasty retreat, and spent the rest of our holiday trying to hide from them.

Later that year, I was once again asked to visit the school where she was the head, and as I entered the reception area, she was standing waiting for me. No doubt to tell me how sorry she was for her behaviour and how it must have been the sun and maybe it would be best if I didn't mention our meeting out in warmer climes. She had no need to worry as I never reveal any information about anything that could cause people embarrassment. I'm like a doctor when it comes to keeping people's personal information.

She held out her hand and warmly shook mine, then hugged me. This time it wasn't as dangerous, as everything was safely tucked away. I smiled a reassuring smile to her as if to say "Don't worry, your secret is safe with me," when she turned to the secretary and said, “This guy is such a party animal, you wouldn't believe what we got up to on holiday!”

This, like the kiss between Santa and Batman, unnerved me. I could no longer see this woman in the way I had before. She had shattered my long-held beliefs about who and what she was, and again made me realise just how naïve I could be.

I would have ever thought that I was a person who liked things in nice neat boxes. Where people have to behave in a way that I expect them to behave, then I find it a bit disturbing because they turn out to be human after all, and not what I want or expect them to be.

Next, I'll probably find out something really crazy like Boris Johnson is not really a lovable eccentric buffoon, but a cynical, manipulating bully! Can't imagine that ever happening though!

Long-forgotten Games

I was talking to my son's partner today about childhood. She was saying how Harleigh, her beautiful daughter and my beautiful granddaughter, will probably never play the games that she herself played as a child.

I asked her just what games she did play and they were all to do with computers! Now, I know that I'm from a different era, but surely all the childhood games from my childhood cannot have disappeared in just one generation?

Games like "British Bulldogs", 'Tin Can Squat", "conkers" and my favourite, "Outlanders". No doubt these games were played in different areas and different countries under different names.

British Bulldogs was where you all stood in a line on a field with just one person in the middle of the field. You had to reach the other side of the field without the person in the middle catching you! Some people played it where you only had to touch one of the runners to be caught, we played it where you had to wrestle them to the ground. I loved this game! I was very fast and very aggressive which made me quite good at it.

Tin Can Squat was where you found an old tin can and placed it in the middle of the street, and a group would go and hide, just like in hide and seek. The catcher would shut his eyes and count up to a pre-agreed number, then look for the kids that were hiding. When he/she saw one of the hiders they would run back to the can and place their foot on it, and shout out the name of the person that they had found and add "tin can squat!! The trick was to find all the hiders before one broke cover and ran and kicked the can. This would release all the people who had been caught to go back into hiding.

Outlanders was another hiding game but over a larger area. Two people had to find and tag the persons they caught; once tagged, they joined the search party. I once had twenty kids chasing me through gardens, fields and the estate in general without being tagged. It was like fox hunting where you where the fox, and I loved it!

There were lots of other games we played, some we made up ourselves, like "Dog Shot" - this was where you couldn't let the backside of my mate Mick's dog point directly at you: if it did, you were "Dog Shot", and out of the game. Poor Dusty the dog couldn't understand why all the kids in the neighbourhood ran from him!

It seems that games like these are regarded as too dangerous for our little darlings now. I used to spend many a happy hour up at the accident and emergency department of our local hospital during the summer months. I had more stitches than a cheap suit and more broken bones than a professional football player will see in a lifetime. But it didn't matter to us, it was just part of the risk you took.

We used to go "Hell Diving" - young boys have a knack for over-dramatic names. All it involved was going to the local quarry and jumping off the slag heaps of stone that were piled up. Whoever jumped the furthest won. I was quite tall and skinny, so athletic-type games suited me quite well. This is why I like them, I was good at them.

I'm no longer a child in body, though in mind is a different thing. My wife claims that I'm a ten year old boy trapped in a man's body, and the man's body is getting older!

But I still love anything that involves speed and an element of danger. I still teach martial arts and love to fight (not street brawling, but in a ring).

As human beings, our environment is becoming more and more sterile. We are removing the element of risk from our lives. This in some ways is good: I like to know that the food I eat is safe for human consumption, something that couldn't always be guaranteed when I was young.

But giving children the impression that everything in life is safe is not only giving a false impression but also removing something that the human psyche needs: danger. This is why more young men are getting involved with role playing computer games, they like the danger, but have been trained to remove any harm. And why we in the west have an obesity epidemic amongst our young.

I know there is more traffic on the roads today than when I was young, in fact in my neighbourhood you could play in the middle of the road most of the day with only one or two cars driving past. And I know that fields are disappearing and being turned into housing estates where shoebox houses clump together like fungi on a tree. And yes there is the risk of drugs, but in my day there bottles of "Woodpecker Cider", which was probably more damaging than the odd spliff. But it's no more dangerous out there than it was when I was a kid, there were men you had to avoid even back then. So let your kids play out and experience freedom and mild forms of danger. And maybe we won't have as many bored and disaffected young adults.

I'm trying to remember more games we played. Think back to your youth, and if you're going grey on the head and growing wider in the stomach, I bet it wasn't much different to my childhood?

Smell You Later

Some people see the world, while some hear the world. Me, I seem to smell the world!

After that statement, I feel like I need to distance myself from any weird fetishes. I mean in the sense of how I experience the world around me. (Phew! I think I've managed to draw attention away from my weird fetish!)

There are smells I love and, of course, where you have ying you must have yang, so there are smells that I hate.

Firstly, who said that perfume was a pleasant aroma? I've yet to experience one that I actually like! Also, while I'm on the subject of smells we should like, who said that peppermint and spearmint are the best breath fresheners? I know that traditionally they were taken as digestifs, so it was a smell that people were used to. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with them, it's just that we use them without exception as breath fresheners.

I also don't mind the smell of garlic, but this has the same effect on my wife as it does on vampires! The best smell in the world has to be freshly-baked bread! I used to awake to this smell at my grandparents' house when I was young, it was so comforting.

If you're a vegetarian, cover your eyes now! I love the smell of bacon cooking for breakfast; for me, the smell of freshly-baked bread coupled with sizzling bacon is a thing of dreams, first thing in the morning. And instead of the overpowering perfumes that people, use I prefer fresh linseed Putty! It's a smell young people wont be familiar with, because of the horrible plastic double glazing we all have now. When I worked as a joiner on the building sites and we were putting windows in properties I used to rub the putty on my clothes, I loved the smell so much.

The smells I have problems with are vinegar and anything with vinegar in it. The worst of these by far is salad cream! If you eat this pungent cat vomit you have lost all sense of taste and reasoning!

When I was first married I came home from work one evening to find to my horror that my wife had purchased a bottle of this evil gargoyle milk (I'm not being over-dramatic, it really is, read the small print on the label. Gargoyles are being abused on a daily basis!)

I had no choice but to remove the offending bottle of bile, so I donned a pair of oven gloves just in case any of this corrosive substance was to touch my skin. Then with a towel tied firmly around my mouth and nose to remove any smell, I picked up the bottle at arms' length and threw it in the next door neighbours bin!(I didn't want to contaminate mine!)

For years, my wife couldn't work out where the salad cream she kept on buying was disappearing to, and the next door neighbour couldn't work out why full bottles of salad cream kept on appearing in their bin!

I finally owned up to my hate of this substance to which my wife replied, “For God's sake, why didn't you just say in the first place, and I wouldn't have bought any!” I never thought of that!

The other smell I hate is one that we are all familiar with but you wouldn't think so the way we all react to it, DOG SHIT! That's the smell, not me shouting a random insult at you.

These evil little parcels have a way of camouflaging themselves from watchful eyes and unwary feet! When you tread on one all you have to do is remove your shoe and wipe off most of it then wash the shoe thoroughly under the nearest tap. We all know this, right?! Then why do you first inform every person in a two mile radius what you have just done before removing your shoe and smelling the obnoxious little lump of hate? Are you expecting it to be the first piece of dog shit in history that smells of roses? Why are you so surprised and recoil in horror when this lump of dog shit, which is the same size colour and texture of every other lump of dog shit you have seen, smells like dog shit?

You then feel it necessary to ask others to confirm your suspicions, and ask them to smell what looks like and smells like and if you are depraved enough, tastes like DOG SHIT! To confirm that it is the offending material, and not some yet unknown substance that has the same qualities. What's worse is complete strangers will smell it for you, then recoil in horror before confirming what you already knew!

But for me the worst smell in the world is one that most people seem to be immune to. They smell it each and every day and ignore it, even though it can have devastating consequences on their lives. You don't step in it, you walk into it. You don't put it on, it is sprayed at you all day and you don't eat it because it is fed to you neat, the worst smell is BULLSHIT! Yes, people: from the grinning politicians to the adverts on TV, you are fed it daily. It is everywhere, and most are so used to the smell they are totally unaware of it, as it impregnates their lives. Like human pooper-scoopers they pick it up and take it home with them.

While I like to think that I can smell bullshit a mile off, I have no doubt trod in it a few times. But if I realise what I have done I always make the offender pick it up and take it back!

Oh no! What's that on the bottom of my shoe?.. here have a smell, what do you think it is?

I lied!

If you have ever read my blog before, you will be aware of my sudden and somewhat rash announcement that I was no longer going to continue writing it a while back. Well I lied. This, if you are reading the blog right now, won't come as much of a shock to you, but it did shock me, when I decided I was going to start writing the blog again

Not the type of shock like finding your wife in bed with your brother, or finding out that the beautiful woman you have been having a passionate affair with was once a butch ruby player called Keith! But it was a shock, because I found myself missing having an outlet for my rantings.

This will also be a shock to people who know me and claim that all I ever seem to do is rant. But when I write it down, it seems to make more sense to me for some strange reason! And I also have two new books out, so you decide my reasons for writing the blog again.

It's a funny thing, lying, most people claim they never lie. My wife, Carol is one of these people. I would say that on the whole this is true, she doesn't make any grand claims or or invent fictitious friends. She doesn't need to, she's married to me! I do enough of that for the both of us.

But she does lie, she lies all the time we all do. When your twenty-four stone wife tries on a size fourteen dress and her ample acreage of flesh is screaming for mercy to be released from what looks like a garment of torture, then she turns to you with a mixture of pain and hope in her eyes and asks the question.. you know the question, lads?

Do you, in all honesty, knowing that she has been dieting for three weeks, well, eating lettuce in front of you and chips behind your back... do you say, “How in the name of Jesus H. Christ have you managed to get into that? You look like a whale in a girdle!” Or do you say "It looks lovely my love, but I think you would look even more beautiful in this”, then give her a more appropriate garment.

Having walked around the seaside resort of Blackpool, it seems there are lots of men that don't have the balls to say this to their over-indulgent lumps of loveliness. I have seen women there dressed in a way that would make Gok Wan cry. They either have no mirrors in their houses or their eyes have completely failed.

I have the opposite problem with my wife, she is small and slim but insists she's bigger than she really is!

If my wife thought that her reply to a question would upset the enquirer, she would not give a totally honest response.

I, on the other hand, could lie for Europe, I love it, It's fun! Yes, it gets me into trouble and yes, people get angry with me, but in some weird perverse way I'm more honest than most people, I own up to lying. I'm a writer I'm a professional liar, I have to sell myself and my work. I can't go on the radio or the TV to plug me and my work then claim my life is no different and just as boring as the next person, even though it is!

Can you imagine the interview, “Now then Gez what have you been up to this week?” “Well nothing really, I had a pie for my dinner on Wednesday and I managed to watch all series four of QI on Dave on Thursday, and get this for breaking news, I think we might be going of for a pub lunch with some friends this Sunday.”

See, that is probably a brief snapshot of my hedonistic lifestyle, but it's not really for public consumption. I cherry pick the best bits of my weeks, wrap them in a touch of believable fantasy and sell it as one hundred percent unquestionable truth.

Although strange things do happen to me, honest! I was once charged by a rhino, in England!

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "I bet this guy is a lot of fun, and probably very handsome" - which is true, honest, but you probably think I'm also about to spin you a lie, but no, what I'm about to reveal is the truth, the whole truth, and a bit of exaggeration!

I once took my sister's two oldest children to Chester zoo. This was many years ago, as they now have children of their own. Anna was a lovely little girl of about four years old, while her brother James was a six-year-old thing of nightmares.

He had been trying to get his younger sister to walk on the "nice green grass" which he knew full well was algae covering deep water in the chimp enclosure. We had all sat down on a wall to enjoy a well- deserved ice cream when I heard lots of people screaming and shouting. I turned, and to my horror saw that James had jumped into the rhino enclosure behind us and was standing in front of one and a half tons of muscle and horn, while dancing and offering it out for a fight!

I had no option but to jump into the enclosure and grab him and throw him up to my wife, who was by now quite hysterical with fear.

Once he was safely out of the enclosure and in my wife's arms I heard more screams coming from the now large crowd that had gathered to watch in horror and fascination at the halfwit bloke in the rhino enclosure.

On turning around, I saw that the rhino had taken James up on his offer of a fight and, being short-sighted, decided it would beat me up first! I can tell you now the sight of one and a half tons of rhino charging at you can cure the most problematic of bodily functions, it makes them all work together in perfect harmony.

I managed to scramble up over the wall, just missing out on what surely would have been a life-threatening beating by the beast.  The rangers of the park had turned up with guns to shoot the rhino if need be, at least I hope it was the rhino they were planning on shooting!

I was promptly frog-marched off the premises and told not to darken their doorsteps again. I did go back a couple of years ago, though, so I guess all has been forgiven.

So, there you have it: sometimes the truth can be stranger than fiction, if it is the truth - it's hard to say, after so many years. Your mind has ways of papering over the nasty cracks of your failings and adding a touch of gloss. Most of our memories will be one third a lie. You know that love affair you had with the most beautiful and understanding person ever, when you were only sixteen. Remember it was a long hot summer, all you did was laugh and love? If you live in Britain that summer lasted two days and how come you split up if he/she was so perfect?

But one thing I can tell you with one hundred percent honesty is that I have two new books out, Great Aunt Fanny's Moustache and The Meeting Room. 

Well, actually, The Meeting Room has been out before, as an e book so that's not one hundred percent true...