The Grumpy Old Blog

  I have never been a great sports attender. Yes, as a secondary schoolboy, I don't believe I missed a single International Rugby Match at Lansdowne Road between 1970 and 1973. And I was a very keen tennis player. Other than that, I attended the 1988 Challenge Cup between Wigan and Halifax at Wembley where Wigan won the match 32–12. I had not the slightest clue what was going on. I also went to watch an international cricket match that summer at Headingly, and had even less of a clue as to what was going on.    It appeared to be grown men dressed in white, starting to run miles away while scratching their nether regions with a ball, and then prior to collapsing with exhaustion from their 3-mile run into the stadium, throwing the ball at someone holding a cricket racquet.    My final foray was for Leeds versus Reading at Elland Road on the occasion when they were trying to move up a division, a match they lost. Some chap kept screaming at the Leeds team while ru...

  I have always liked the Jehovah's Witnesses. But I think I'll have to drop their HQ a line to complain. They very naughtily knock on the door in pairs, today, one a middle-aged gentleman who dressed like a Job Centre civil servant from the 1970's, the other, an extremely attractive girl in her late twenties/early thirties whom you'd want to ask if she'd care to help you book a cruise with the sole intention of not going out on deck too often with her (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more!), thus keeping the ports of call strictly within the cabin. Today's very attractive co-caller was a rather prim and proper Lily James lookalike who would otherwise have scored an admirable 11 in the Dudley Moore film "10". Tempted though I was to ask exactly what they had witnessed and to state that as I don't get involved - that makes me somewhat of a Jehovah's Bystander - following a few pleasantries and a leaflet titled "Will I survive...

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...

I admit that I use Facebook. And furthermore, I admit to being an early user of Facebook. Not long after Facebook started, a website I was honorary webmaster for (local youth club) a few years ago, put their volunteer workers' profiles on-line in a question/answer format, one of those questions being: Facebook/Myspace? I had a look at these sites, and, as someone happy to make satirical replies about all and sundry, I was hooked. Yes, at times, I act my IQ rather than my age, but it has reunited me with a number of people from my past, who, unlike some, I am delighted to get back in touch with! A particular example is a friend from college (in Dublin) who I hadn't seen for 30 years. I had a flying visit to Dublin and was able to meet this man, potentially one of Dublin's finest opticians and a gentleman to boot, for lunch and a chat. However, what does amuse me is the varying levels of communication represented on Facebook. Peoples' literary or grammatical abiliti...