Category: Awful, just awful

Avatar Death of Quirky

It had to happen sooner or later.

Here I am, sleep- deprived, lumbering around like a zombie. The heat isn’t making it any better, neither is having to be up most hours trying to make a baby go back to sleep. I have bruises up and down my legs and arms from accidentally bashing into things. My spacial awareness is at an all time low.

I remember opening up the cupboard door and watching in slow motion as the glass that hadn’t been put back properly left the safety of the shelf and collided with the kitchen floor.

I had been using it almost every day since we got them back for Old Man Kevvers 40th birthday. It’s the perfect size for refreshing juice on a hot day.

No more pint glass for me.

At least I have the memories. Does anyone want to watch me walk into the pub?

Avatar I don’t feel so good

I feel a little off today.

There’s a tightness in my chest. The room keeps spinning and I definitely have a temperature. I need to open a window, hang on.

There. That usually makes me feel better but… but not today.

What is it? What’s making me feel… oh no, I’m gonna need to… quickly someone pass a bucket!

*heaving followed by squelching noises*

Oh. Oh no. What have I done?

Avatar Perfect for all the family

Do you like sport?

Do you like families?

Do you like ball-based sports?

Then you need sport balls!

This unbeatable set includes:

  • A football, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play football
  • A basketball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play basketball
  • A tennis ball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so can be used to play tennis if you don’t mind the ball not bouncing or travelling far enough because it has the wrong weight and ballistic properties
  • A baseball, which is 8cm in diameter and made of foam, so cannot be used to play baseball

Perfect for all the family!

Avatar Chris can’t organise a village fête

Someone had to say something.

There we are, having a good ole friendly chat at the Winston when this Chris guy starts talking about some formal occasion he’s organising. Nice one, right?

Wrong. He’s got it all wrong. What should be an easy win with an open goal turns into an own goal which smells of bad eggs and then renames all the roads in England and Wales without telling him, and they’re super silly names too that you’ll never remember.

I get the impression he’s never been to a village fête, let alone sorted one out. Here’s all the information we have so far:

What he does have:

  • A carousel
  • A big event (possibly involving cars)
  • Everyone turning up in formal dress

What he doesn’t have:

  • A craft tent full of bickering old ladies
  • A white elephant stall selling all the piddling crap people got for Christmas that were too embarrassed to drop off at a charity shop
  • A man with a laser who loves lasering names into pieces of wood, metal and any other material that’s safe for his laser
  • Whack-a-rat (sometimes known as ‘Splat the rat’)
  • A cake stall where someone has mislabelled the prices so a full fruitcake is 99p but a single scone is £4.99
  • An announcer who is so muffled by feedback nobody can tell what he or she is saying
  • Terrible weather halfway through that clears up after 8 minutes, giving all the old people something to talk about for the rest of the afternoon

As you can see, there’s a lot of work that needs doing in a very short period of time. I’m also sure I’ve missed a few obvious ones there.

I would recommend the services of Kevin “been doing this 30 years, bruh” Hill because he’s been, well, you probably get the jist. The experience and expertise he can bring will be invaluable and will ensure that Chris and his village fête are quintessentially perfect in the eyes of everyone who attends. The eyes are all that matter.

I’ll bring a bag of pennies and the overwhelming optimism of a man who hasn’t watched the news for two decades.

Avatar Am I losing my mind?

There I was, aimlessly looking at my Facebook account.

Do you remember how much you faffed about with Facebook when you first got it? Adding in all your likes, favourite bands and films, trying to find people you used to go to school with and sending them a friend request. Poking, apparently, still exists. You can still poke people even now and a lot of people I know are still poking each other (waaaaaay!) so that’s good to know. It was all pretty pointless.

I still get notifications of memories of things and a lot of them are random statuses I typed trying to be funny and failing miserably. Sometimes they’re photos of Reuben or silly things he said as a tiny baby orb. Today was slightly different.

I was linked to something I’d written circa 2008. A short script for something called ‘Cockitt and Pullit’. This was episode two so I must have been on a roll. I glanced briefly at the script before my current orb needed something and I had to switch it off, and made a note in my head to come back later on for a proper read.

I tried to look it up now and it’s gone. The memories have moved onto something else. I sifted through all the various (mostly pointless) pages trying to find where it could be hiding. I’m convinced there used to be a kind of notebook where you could write and store things. Wherever that is hiding must have my scripts for whatever this Cockitt and Pullit thing.

It was a cop drama, probably stupid as we all know the kind of humour 2008 Ian was packing. I’d completely forgotten I’d written them and for now they remain unseen by my judgemental eyes. I’m sure they’re not worth the paper they’re written on, yet if they’re part of my legacy I want them back for future generations to, well, to have.

Except… it’s not mine. If you Google it apparently it was Chris Moyles’ idea, which makes me even more confused. There are references to it in his blog from around the same time. Now I feel like I’m completely losing my mind and I made the whole thing up.

Sometimes remembering isn’t fun.

Avatar A touching tribute

Walking through London recently, I came across what would otherwise be just another shop selling tacky shite to tourists.

I nearly ignored it completely until I noticed the act of public service they were performing. The whole of the shop window was not being used to sell their tasteless wares. Instead, it had been given over entirely to display a deeply moving tribute, providing a focus for the grief and gratitude of all those passing by.

In the window was this.

Yes. It’s Queen Elizabeth II, with Marilyn Monroe’s hair.

Just how we all remember her.

Avatar Cloves? No idea

The world is full of mysteries. There are so many things that we still don’t fully understand. I personally struggle to understand a lot of things. Sometimes it’s easier to make up your own ideas than taking the time to read a book and get the jist. That’s 50% of parenting anyway, making your kid believe that you have all the answers.

Oh, you expect to get them from me? Don’t be silly, I can’t answer your questions. Who do you think I am? I’m no science master like Kevin, all I’ve got are my street smarts and the money maker (aka my viso / volto).

That’s all I got.

Have you ever considered cloves? What they are? Where they come from? No, me neither. Cloves are a thing that is and you have to accept them regardless. The sooner you do the sooner we can all move on.

You still want me to explain them? Go on then.

You might think that cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae Syzyglum aromaticum, but you’d be totally wrong. They’re really toenails from donkeys that have been “lightly spiced” with effervescent apples and fervent aggression. Put it this way; have you ever put a clove in your mouth and felt happy? No. No you haven’t, and if you have then you’re a liar.

Cloves are made bitter to suck the very life out of you. There’s all this talk of helping with looking after your teeth and improving the flavour of your cooking and it’s all nonsense. They want you miserable and they will stop at nothing to turn you into a brittle, chafing dish of a man. They taste of misery squared. Do me a favour and steer clear of cloves.