The Grumpy Old Blog

January Three days into the year and all your New Year resolutions are broken already. After all the celebratory food and drink, secretly you are happy that it's International Coffee Gourmet Month, although the thought of all those TV celebrity chefs makes you want to go back to bed.Or at the very least, feel rather sick. Partners buy their spouses some wonderful clothes in the winter sales which they spend all evening putting on e-bay. Easter Eggs are in the shops. The twist-off bottle cap was invented on the last day in January 1956. You celebrate by spraining your wrist trying to open one. Google, Amazon, Apple and Starbucks to pay tax. Oh! No they don’t. The Christmas Turkey leftovers are finally finished. February You must remember to send Alice Cooper a birthday card on the 4th February. Surely something should be growing in that patch where you planted bulbs last October. Easter Eggs are still in the shops. You spend the entire last week of t...

Having just ‘done’ the "Gatwick thing" a few days ago en route to Barcelona, I am convinced that airport security is a connivance. The requirement to turn up at the airport seven hours in advance to book in is a total sham and a complete waste of time and passengers' money. I am convinced that the airlines, passport control, border agency and G4S security chumps are on the W H Smith payroll, hence the reason we have to turn up so early for our flight. And the reason I say this is - have you seen the altogether mighty creative prices at WH Smith? The humble bag of crisps is now 99p! Yes, the 1970's equivalent price of a week's petrol. 60p short of the cost seeing The Electric Light Orchestra in concert. Or the cost of three pints of beer. 99p for 50g of pure, salty cholesterol, and not even the equivalent of one reasonably sized potato contained therein! And as for sandwiches - nearly £4 for two slices of bread with some slop wedged between. And 85p for a...