What a Load of Crap

When I woke up this morning I noticed a sticker in the shape of a star on my palm. I closed my eyes and retraced my steps for the previous evening. Oh yes – Tan and Angie’s next door. Tan’s parents had arrived and we’d gone over to see them. As usual we were delayed in returning home by copious amounts of wine and great conversation. But what was the conversation ?

I remember we spoke about the glorious orange moon we had last night and Tan had a go at me for being a right-winger (not football but politics). Julie told the others about her day at the beach but there was something more – what was it ?

Ah yes – crap ! My sticker should have given me a clue. I went to the toilet in Angie’s and as I sat there having a wee-wee (or pee-pee as they call it in France) I saw little Violet’s toilet training stickers. By the way I should point out that I always sit down for a wee – it’s cleaner, easier, more relaxing and much more refined and you never know what else might come along ! Anyway, as I had sat down on the loo, had flushed and had washed my hands, I was due a potty training sticker so I took one and stuck it on my palm – don’t know why but it must’ve had something to do with the wine !

Anyway, somebody spotted the sticker (I think it was Anna – Angie’s sister) and they were off, telling everyone in gruesome detail how much poo their child does, what colour and consistency it has and how the flies just love it ! I tried to curtail this awful conversation but then Angie started talking about Violet’s toilet training exercises and the results in extraordinary detail. And all this just after we’d been served a delicious dessert !

I managed to get Angie off the subject but then Julie started and before you know it all three mothers were comparing notes about their respective children’s faecal matter. How gross ! There were actually four mothers including Tan’s but thankfully she revealed nothing about Tan’s early bodily functions. That would have been the last straw. Now I'm 57, have brought up between 3 and 5 children depending on what rules you use and have therefore been exposed to the stench, look and feel of a dirty baby's nappy....but I dont need to discuss it over dinner ! Thank God we weren't having chocolate mousse !

For whatever reason I'm a bit sqeamish about these things and once had to don a set of marigolds and a divers mask when changing my last nappy and thankfully that was about 8 years ago. Today I'd probably call the Pompiers. Honestly, when confronted with a baby in my care who smells less than fragrant I panic then peuk. That's why I've only ever changed two dirty nappies in my life. Clean ones or wet ones are ok but the others - yuk !

And so the discussion went on and on. Each nappy was dirtier and smellier than the last - they were trying to outdo each other now. 'Oh you should have seen Olivia's one the the other day' said Anna. 'Nah' said Angie in her Floridian drawl, 'Violet's are the worst ever'. What does a sensitive guy like me do in a situation like this ? The only way to get through the evening was to drink more wine which had absolutely nothing to do with me falling down the stairs and rolling about in the lavender. Another memorable night next door and I’ve got a sticker to prove it !

Want to Play Around ?

I’m watching the British Open golf championship at the moment. This is the greatest test of golf in the world and when the wind blows and the rain drives in from the sea, like it is doing at Royal Birkdale at the moment, those golfers who are used to manicured courses and perfect weather suddenly become mortal. I still couldn’t give them a game though – I wouldn’t get near them.

After taking the game up some 25 years ago I still have not scored less than 100 on a full size (18 hole course) but this is due, not to a lack of skill on my part but simply to the fact that I very rarely play. I’ve played three times in the last nine years and never with my clubs which lie forlornly beneath the stairs in my hall. They are brand new, bought some 11 years ago and never used in competitive play. At one stage before our new house took up a large part of the garden I used to stand on a raised part of the terraces and fire shots down into the far corner of the ‘garden’ where Guy was duly positioned to (a) watch the shots as they landed and (b) gather up the balls when I had finished peppering him with shots. It did not take him long to figure out, even at the age of about 6 or 7, that this was a risky job he’d been given and off he stomped, as he does even today when upset about something.

So as I watch the golf on telly and express amazement at some of the skill on show, I wonder just how good I could be if I practised a bit more. After all I’m brilliant at golf on the Nintendo Wii we’ve got, hitting shots to within a couple of feet of the pin/flag and being clapped constantly by the crowds in the gallery. However, even on the Wii if there’s water about I’ll hit it. I dread to think about the balls I’ve lost in water which was nowhere near any line I should be taking. Maybe if I played more often I’d lose even more balls which would be a disaster for a Scotsman.

I have tried to play down here in France and it’s not for a lack of courses that I’ve failed. It’s just that it’s difficult to find someone who is as bad as me and who does not mind walking twice the normal distance as my shots criss-cross the golf course and I spend hours looking for a lost ball which I’d probably found in the bushes on the previous hole !

I tentatively arranged to play with the lady who performed a reading at my wedding, the Reverend Anne Naylor no less but when Julie heard me asking Anne if she wanted to play around my pensioner’s bus pass was removed and now I’m stuck at home having to watch it on the telly ! Women, apart from Anne, never understood golf !

Move to Spain and I’ll Divorce You !

I’ve always had a hankering for Spain. Don’t know why really when on my first holiday there I got an ear infection from the then rather dirty sea. Off I went to the doctor in the town who had no difficulty in working out what was wrong. Off I went to the chemists where I was given a pack of the largest tablets I’d ever seen. They tasted so soapy and it was only after I went back to the pharmacist and they collapsed in fits of laughter that I finally worked it out. I was inserting them in the wrong part of my body – they were suppositories !

But even that experience did not stop my love of Spain. It’s like France with, in my opinion, better, more varied food, friendlier people and the required sunny climate. I’ll watch any programme on Spain – Living in Spain, Living in the Sun, Flloyd on Spain etc etc. I even supported Spain in the recent European Football Championships – and they won !

In fact I was thinking of re-locating there having spent a wonderful holiday in Nerja when I was invited down to Tourrettes for a romantic weekend. Ten years later I’m still here but I still hanker after Espana. It’s one of those few places in the world where you can ski in the mornings and sunbathe by the sea in the afternoon (of the same day) and I must admit to being completely surprised by the fact that in Tourrettes you can do that with half the driving time that it would take in Grenada.

Spain is also cheaper than France and now I’m a poor old pensioner, the fact that we could sell up and move to Spain and have a great, financially trouble-free life is very appealing. However, ‘her indoors’ is dead against any plans to relocate. She protests that after 10 years, every shop in the giant mall down on the coast welcomes her by name. It would be awful to have to start again in Spain. Similarly, having tried every expensive restaurant within 50 miles and having whittled them down to a preferred short-list of about two dozen, she would not wish to have to go through that gruelling culinary exercise again !

So, I have to admit to being astonished when Julie and the kids accepted the offer of a friend of mine to use his villa in a small northern Spanish coastal resort. Car was loaded up, Thomas was kissed goodbye and off they went on a 600 kilometre drive to Callela. Initial reports were favourable. Nice villa, nice pool but just up the road were ‘kiss me quick’ stalls – quel horreur ! Pretentious or what ? Further reports stated that every beach was full of tourists (well what did she expect) and that it was very hot ! The food was ok but some places were just full of Brits !

I ignored all this drivel whilst I luxuriated in my own company – well just me and Shadow (the dog). We watched what we wanted to on telly, had lunches out and basically just did our own thing. Then the text arrived. ‘If you move to Spain I’ll divorce you’. Well, talk about a red rag to a bull (continuing the Spanish theme). I responded that I’d already looked up some Spanish estate agents and things were on the move. Within 36 hours the ‘mob’ returned, 4 days early with the kids having been brainwashed on the 6 hour drive home to slate Spain and all who wish to live there. Apparently, the final cultural straw was a group of old foggies dancing to Una Paloma Blanca in the town square. I cant wait !

C’mon – Answer The Question

By now if you’ve read my blogs you’ll know that I’m a bit of a sad git so it’ll come as no surprise that my preferred viewing on a Wednesday afternoon is Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQ’s) from the UK’s House of Commons. OK – I know it’s a sad admission to make, almost as bad as admitting to watching Heir Hunters where they try and find the heirs of people who have died and have not left a will. Voyeurism I hear you say but it’s not that, there’s a surprise connection between these two programmes in that if an heir is not discovered, the cash (from the deceased’s estate) goes into the government’s coffers – a travesty – it should go to charity.

So politics in general and this government in particular is the link (albeit tenuous) and let me start of by saying that I think Gordon Brown is an out-and-out pillock, prat, plonker and a few other words beginning with ‘P’ which I cannot possibly put into print. So - he’s a fellow Scotsman, but that does not even register with me when I think of the untold havoc he has wreaked on the lives of my fellow ex-Brits.

Why am I worried when I live 1000 miles away in France ? It’s because my children and grandchildren have to suffer the consequences of his financial mis-management and will suffer for many years to come. Also – I have recently started taking my pension so I am directly involved albeit not to the same extent as some other people.

Gordon Brown is the great illusionist of our times. He reminds me of those rather average people in IBM and BT who persuaded (no conned) their management that their skills were actually better than they were and who were promoted beyond their wildest dreams. Once promoted they couldn’t be demoted (as the management who promoted them would be regarded as having flawed judgement) and so were promoted again and again to unbelievable levels of influence within the company.

Gordon Brown is the same as these corporate pond-life. Him and Blair got together years ago and ok managed to make the Labour party electable. By then they had the two main positions sown up and there they stayed. By common consensus amongst financially knowledgeable journalists, the only remotely positive thing Brown has done was to give the Bank of England independence in setting the UK’s interest rates but I suspect this was all part of the Labour party’s initial propaganda campaign – since then Brown has sneaked through tax after tax after tax.

Britain once had the best corporate pension system in the world albeit funded by some Government rebates which had been in place for years. Then along comes Brown and wipes out the rebates at a stroke thereby plunging corporate pensions into an abyss. Now I have no real issue with the rebates being gradually removed or eroded over time but in typical Brown fashion he saw an easy £5 billion a year and grabbed it, literally overnight. Pension companies could have restructured and redesigned their schemes with a bit of notice but because it was another ‘stealth’ move, most, if not all pension schemes are now in deficit and many loyal workers, having worked all their lives and paid into their company funds now find their pension scheme closed and they are thrown to the mercy of the stock markets. All well and good except that if you were retiring today on such a scheme you would get precisely 22% less than you would have got 6 months ago ! What pensioner can afford a 22% reduction in their pay ?

I could go on but I get angry so when I see the pillock standing up at PMQ’s and evading question after question, spouting forth financial statistic after statistic, all of them praising HIS record when, if he was faced by financial jouralists, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

I tell you, if my family gave me a poll rating as bad as his is with the British public, I’d leave home. Let’s hope the Scottish control freak is shown the door when Labour are brave enough to call an election. After all there’s no chance of him being found in a celler with 5 hookers having an orgy and being forced to resign – is there ?

Middle Aged Spread on the Riviera

All my adult life I’ve been able to squeeze into size 32 Levis. Indeed it’s a standing joke between my brother, Robert, and me that when we see each other after maybe 6 months, the first thing we do is check the labels on our respective jeans to see what size we’ve progressed to. Unfortunately, whilst he still has 32 on his, my waistline is creeping inexorably upwards. It has only just occurred to me that he might be devious enough to change the labels on his jeans to a smaller size so the next check will inspect the stitching as well as the size on the label !

Now, he has quite a manually demanding job and I’m sure that must have something to do with keeping him at size 32 because otherwise he’d be as fat as a barrel. He lives in the West of Scotland (Glasgow to be precise) where size is quite clearly associated with the number of pints and curries one consumes on a weekly basis and he certainly consumes both with great enthusiasm. Also, his job entails visiting restaurants and hotels all of whom seem to provide him with enormous amounts of free food so he’s never short of a couple of meals or two ! So it must be the job but perversely, my builder who worked harder than anyone I’ve ever seen had a beer gut which would have made a sumo wrestler proud.

Anyway, my waistline is creeping up and up and I blame, fairly and squarely, the totally pervasive social life which embraces this area. It is not uncommon for me to return from a ‘boozy’ lunch to be woken up from my early-evening slumbers to be told we’re going to ‘so and so’s’ for a BBQ ! One just doesn’t get a rest. I suppose I could refuse to go but then I’d be categorised as a social pariah and then I’d be cast out from the ex-pat party scene and that just would not do. You wouldn’t get to hear the local scandal and gossip and if you’re not there – they talk about you !

Every now and then I blame the booze (wine to be precise) for my ever-expanding condition and try and stop or at least cut-down but with very sociable neighbours living next door it’s very difficult. Also, having a bar in the house does not help. Screening football, rugby and tennis on the large display seems to attract a variety of sports watchers all of whom drink vast quantities of booze and if you do not keep up with them you suddenly feel like you’re a stranger at your own party !

Occasionally I spot a gap where there are no social events taking place for at least a week and plan a booze free week but then someone ‘just pops in’ and out comes the Rosè. Luckily this is not a spirit drinking culture otherwise I think I’d be pushing up the proverbial daises and I keep trying to convince myself that a few glasses of Rosè cant possibly do any harm after all the South of France diet with a few glasses of red wine is supposedly good for you. And of course we get quite a few visitors who stay with us for the week or the weekend and whose sole aim is to partake of the local Provence Pink during their stay and of course you must join them or you would be a party-pooper. I recall a dear friend of mine, now sadly deceased and living in that large hostelry in the sky, arriving for a week’s stay and dragging me off to the local bar on the first morning for breakfast where he promptly ordered croissants, coffees and brandies for both of us ! I was aghast and the barman was shocked but Alan thought that what all Frenchmen had for breakfast so he was not going to miss out !

So, it’s a never-ending battle which I am determined to win. One day I’ll be back into my 32s which are stored in my wardrobe awaiting the day when once more they will hug my bum.

As I’m writing this I’m eating pizza – do you think that might be the problem ?

Crime and Punishment

This might be boring so if you don’t wish to read the diatribe of a right-wing nutter click on the little cross in the top right of your screen. Caveat over !

The other day whilst sitting in my local bar waiting for some ex-colleagues from BT I picked up the Daily Mail and immediately saw that yet another youngster had been stabbed to death in London. Those who say knife crime in particular and crime against the individual in general is not an epidemic in the UK is either a politician or some do-gooder who has little sense of reality. It led me to think about the underlying nature of this UK ‘social disease’ and how to possibly address it and here are my thoughts.

As a youngster brought up in Glasgow’s toughest neighbourhoods I knew crime. My earliest memory of crime and punishment (although I’m probably stretching the point here) is when I saw a new Triumph Mayflower car parked outside my house in Glasgow. It was stunning – a triumph (pun intended) of sleek design and pure motoring class. Anyway, I was 7 years old and could not resist getting into it and sitting in the driver’s seat and moving the steering wheel whilst making those brrmm brmm sounds kids make when playing with cars. What I stupidly forgot was that no more than 10 yards away was a blue police box (same as Doctor Who’s) and outside was a policeman. He came over, opened the door, dragged me out and took me up the close (which is a Glaswegian alleyway leading to ‘flats’ called tenements in Glasgow). He then proceeded to take my short trousers down and spanked me on my bare bottom until I was screaming. Now three things come from this – (a) it could’ve been my father’s car although someone living where I did could not possibly afford such a car, (b) I never ever did that again and (c) that sort of thing would not be allowed today – I could sue for assault and battery, sexual assault and infringement of my human rights !

Later, in my teens I lived in Easterhouse, a notorious Glasgow overspill housing estate where gangs roamed freely, walking the streets at night was a calculated risk and unless you could run the 100 metres faster than Dwain Chambers on drugs you stayed indoors. After several years of lawlessness (and not a single police station in the area) vigilante groups were set up and within months their summary justice had cleaned up many areas of the sprawling estate. All they had to witness was a group of youths causing damage to cars, smashing windows or harassing innocent passers by and their ‘punishment’ was meted out without mercy. The problem was dramatically reduced.

So it is with a growing sense of unease that I read of the epidemic of knife crime in the UK and a justice system which inexplicably does not ‘cage’ those found in possession of a knife. My earlier point is that if a severe punishment is meted out early enough the problem generally goes away.

I used to go to the Old Bailey whilst I worked in London and the thing which struck me was that on many occasions the ‘victim’ would be a proven drug dealer, rapist or other low-life whose time had come and whilst I have a view that those who ‘live by the sword (generally) die by the sword’ and I’m not particularly worried about that, the kids who carry knives these days are in the early stages of a life of crime and many of them can be made to see the error of their ways – not by the UK Government’s half-baked plans announced yesterday of ‘meeting their victims’ but by a quick, short, sharp punishment in a correctional establishment run in a way which makes them feel they’re being punished not rewarded.

Back to the Old Bailey. When you’re there you’ve been implicated in something really serious and yet during these murder, rape and robbery trials the defendants would often laugh and joke whilst quite obviously facing a long custodial sentence. For them, being inside for twelve years was at worst an inconvenience. At best they’d be reunited with their mates, they’d be fed, watered and would get copious amounts of drugs.

All this leads me to the conclusion that until we get a right-wing government in the UK, a government who actually takes crime seriously and who brings back a measured and appropriate punishment regime, then crime and more particularly, crime against the person will continue to proliferate.

I’m sure we’ve all watched US crime programmes where those pronounced guilty get life without parole, 200 years, the death penalty – read the following article. This would sort the low-life out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio#Changes_to_jail_operations