The Grumpy Old Blog

I no longer go to the cinema. I’ve really had enough. It’s not the cost of a ticket at about £8, or the price of a soft drink at £9 and a bucket of popcorn at £18. It’s the social degenerates. The mobile-morons. The fatuous phone freaks. They drive me mad. Committing-murder mad. I would, ordinarily, go to the cinema to watch, and hopefully enjoy, a film. However, the new breed of cinema goer now seems to go simply to play on their phone all film long. They are totally incapable of the slightest of social graces necessary to watch a film in the company of other members of the public. The continual click-clacking of phone buttons, the flashing on and off of phone screens, the loud nudging of one of these degenerate’s friends to show them something on their phone drives me mad. Can they not just switch off their phones and put them away for an hour and a half? Is it so much to ask? Nowadays, when you walk around town, it’s a more tiring experience than it ever used

I had a wonderful English teacher at school. Mr Blackmore. Nicknamed Moses because he had a very bushy beard, but then pupils were assuming, without any proof, that the original Moses never shaved. He was somewhat height-challenged, but in those days, dressed in his batman gown as teachers always did in the black and white days, he nevertheless commanded the respect that the threat of having the wooden blackboard duster thrown at you was always bound to command. And he also had a very unique attribute that he made Shakespeare enjoyable, giving us teenage schoolboys a laugh each time by accentuating his pronunciation of “Coriolanus”. I shall leave it to your imagination as to which bit he accentuated. I remember he started one class with a statement that was to set me on my path to a life of cynicism. He suddenly announced that “ Nothing acts faster than Anadin, so all you guys must, from now on, take nothing .” I believe – and hope – that Ian Blackmore is now a healthy pensioner

Well hoo flipping ray. The government are at last thinking of deploying water cannons on the streets as a measure to deter the trouble-making rubbish that cause our valiant police men and women such heartbreak and physical abuse. I wrote to No 10 and the Home Secretary Kenneth Baker not long after John Major took over from Baroness (then Mrs) Thatcher suggesting how useful water cannons were in deterring the rubbish from making trouble on the streets of Northern Ireland. They replied that "no", not on my watch, i.e., "I've got an expenses scandal to built up to and the police have helmets anyway". While I realise that the average police-worrying trouble-maker on the street possibly doesn't wash voluntarily anyway (the two words they detest being "soap" and "work"), they nevertheless object to being soaked with water on a typically cold British night. So don't faff around Mrs May. Get cracking and help the police to help them

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. We have all, at some time, achieved greatness and magnificence through hindsight. We have obtained CBE's, OBE's and other wonderful accolades, been to afternoon tea with H M the Queen and even appeared on the BBC's One Show, all without the necessity of lowering ourselves to being a useless, snivelling, senior public-sector executive. All thanks mainly to hindsight. Well not really. I just like having a go at the pathetic honour-chasers (we all know one of those in either local government or a local voluntary organisation don't we? You know the sort - does none of the work but grabs all of the glory). Had I the Tardis, (you know, the Time and Relative Dimension in Space machine Dr Who drives around Time in - saves a fortune in parasite, er, I mean parking fees), I could return and correct some of the great errors of my ways  -  through hindsight. Most I wont mention here, as being of the plain stupidity and male pride type, I don&