A Bit More Positive Today

After yesterday’s rather gloomy posting, things are a bit better today. J and I went to bed on New Year’s Eve, long before the New Year was rung in and so we had a great sleep and woke to brilliant sunshine. The cats were lying in the sun. Shadow was doing likewise and even the fish were sunbathing at the top of the pond. I didn’t make any rash New Year’s resolutions, in fact I didn’t make any at all and so I wont get depressed when I break them. The children are in Ireland with their father and there’s not a soul about. Apart from the odd shotgun trying to kill something on the other side of the valley, it was quite idyllic.

It’s not unusual for us to spend New Year’s Eve at home. Some years we have people over for a late dinner and occasionally we’ll go off to a friend’s house but this year we decided to spend ‘the bells’ at home, reflecting on a very good year (financials aside) for both of us.

The early part of the year was completely dominated by our wedding and my memories are of my beautiful bride-to-be walking up the aisle with her sister whilst I waited at the desk, fully kilted with my brother (in France you get married in the town hall). Thereafter, things were a bit hazy as I fully enjoyed myself with my family and friends who had flown over from the UK to be with us.

The ‘honeymoon’ to Florida and New York was wonderful and I especially loved showing the kids round The Big Apple, although Tiffany’s and The Apple Store competed admirably for their attention.

The builders were back in March, April and May completing work to our house and then summer took over. Twelve weeks of dry and not-too-hot weather allowed me to do quite a bit of work in the ‘garden’ with my pride and joy being a rather dark, dismal corner which has been transformed into an oasis of shade-loving plants.

J and the kids went off to Spain for a few weeks in July and my mate Steve and his partner Debbie joined me for a long weekend of chat and socialising. It was fun and I keep on at them to ‘get back out here asap’.

My weekend in Glasgow in October was terrific and it could be the last time I see my son, Timothy, before he heads of to help quell the Taliban in Afghanistan. He’s desperate to go and I’m happy that he’s happy to go off to war, but we all hope that he keeps out of harm’s way. Having said that, Timmy could start a fight in an empty house (and frequently tries to) and I fear that he’ll start a major uprising as soon as he hits that foreign land. The Taliban have absolutely no idea what’s about to hit them!

The final weeks of the year were dominated by my ‘little problem’ which I’m pleased to say has been fixed by the excellent French Health Service. Thanks to all the people who have passed on their best wishes and the thousands of jokes which have flooded into my e-mail in-tray.

And so another year ends. A good year, but one which passed very quickly. 2009, in theory should be another good year but as I look at the clouds massing over the sea – who knows. I’m sure you’ll all read it here first. 

Happy New Year

 A Happy and Prosperous 2009 to everyone. I hope you all have a great new year.

At this stage though it looks gloomy. It’s raining outside and very miserable and the euro continues to get stronger against the pound day by day. The stock market crash has not only reduced my investments by some 60% (thanks mining companies) but my pension fund, out of which we were hoping to build a new house at the bottom of the garden, has also fallen by some 20% - not bad when you consider the Footsie has dropped by 31% but a blow nonetheless. My pension has also dropped by around 25% per month as the euro has grown stronger and stronger but luckily I took a bet on my pension some months ago and am still getting €1.25 to my pound. Eventually, that will change though and I’ll be in the same (sinking) boat as everybody else.

J and I will undoubtedly weather the storm and we should be able to ‘muddle through’ until the euro falls when the European Central Bank eventually decides that its member states are in the same mess as everybody else and it reduces interest rates down to a much more reasonable level. The problem is that J continues to spend and therefore the French economy looks strangely strong when, in fact, it’s as bad as the UK’s. I keep telling Sarkozy that he’s got a false picture of his country’s economy, but he wont listen – he’s still besotted by his model wife an only has eyes for her – not the population struggling to get along.

The French mortgage system is also not helping the overall picture. In France, as long as you can show some sort of income, virtually no matter your age, the banks will lend you money to buy a house confident in the knowledge that your heirs will pay off the loan when you pop your clogs. Consequently, most French people can afford their loan repayments and there are not the repossessions you get elsewhere.

The ‘live-by-credit’ culture does not seem to exist here. Non-housing loans are quite difficult to get and the banks keep a close eye on your accounts so defaulters are not so common.

The overall picture to the French Treasury therefore is one of ‘it’s tight but not at crisis point’, and so interest rates have remained high. It’s only the manufacturing recession in Germany and Italy which will force the bankers to reduce rates and hopefully, that will be later this month. Once that happens, the Euro may become weaker and the pound will rise.

The main losers are, of course, the pensioners who choose to live here but have their UK pension sent over month by month. They have seen their monthly amounts reduce by some 25% over the last few months and there’s absolutely nothing they can do about it. The less than sympathetic commentators who say that these people chose to leave the UK and therefore need to ‘struggle along’ don’t take heed of the fact that many of these people have been here for over twenty years and are now at the stage in their lives where re-locating back to the UK is not really an option. These are the people I am sorry for but hopefully, in the next few months we’ll be back to maybe 1.10 or 1.15 but only after the currency speculators have managed to achieve parity. The halcyon days though, when you got €1.64 for each pound, are long gone.    

To some extent, I support the decision of the UK Labour Government (and the Tories before them) not to join the single European currency because if they had, the Bank of England would not have had the chance to cut interest rates to 2%  - they’d be at the higher ‘European’ rate. On the other hand, if we’d been in the single currency, maybe the European Bank would not have allowed the UK to get into the credit boom mess it’s in now where people regularly sign up for a new loan simply to pay off an old one.

But hey – it’s a new year and the stock market is a fantastic buying opportunity right now. I suppose nothing will curb my capitalist instincts!

 

 

Leonard M P Mackie R.I.P.

My ex-wife’s father, Leonard, died on Christmas morning. It was expected as he’d been seriously ill for a week or so and his life support systems had been switched off but nevertheless, I’m sure it was a very sad time for all when his wonderful life finally ebbed away. Fiona (my ex wife), will miss him immensely as he’s been a constant in her life since she was born, latterly living with her and her husband George on their farm just outside Glasgow.

I first met Leonard, known as Gumpy to his various grandchildren, when I started dating Fiona some 40 years ago. I was welcomed into the family immediately and when we started getting serious, I was offered a spare room in their magnificent mansion, located on the south side of Glasgow. Often, after the whole household had retired for the night when I would try and sneak across the landing into Fiona’s room, Leonard would be standing by his bedroom door and all he needed to say was ‘Tommy, and where do you think you are going?’, and I would shuffle, embarrassed back to my own room. Nothing was ever said in the morning.

Despite being a protestant and a Rangers supporter, the catholic Mackie family welcomed me with open arms and a wonderful friendship started. Leonard, Paul (his youngest son), and I all started attending football matches, one week at Rangers and the following week at Celtic. We’d have a few beers after the game and then invariably, Gumpy would take the whole family out for dinner. My only responsibility at this time was to cook an enormous 12 item breakfast for about 10 people, each Sunday as the whole extended family descended on Ossian Drive. They were great big family occasions and I loved being part of it.

When Fiona and I married, Leonard kindly provided us with a loan to buy our first house and when we moved two years later, into a larger house five doors down from ‘the Mackies’, Leonard again just asked me how much I needed. Thankfully, I had joined IBM by this time and was able to repay him quite quickly so our relationship never suffered the way many do when money is involved.

In those days, Gumpy and I were not father-in-law and son-in-law, we were mates. On a Saturday morning after he’d finished work, I would head into town to meet him in a pub called the Virginian where they played trad jazz over lunch. We’d have a meal and quite a few pints as we enjoyed the music and then we’d get on our little Honda 80cc mopeds and rather shakily race each other back to Langside. Invariably, the one who was able to hold onto the handle of a moving bus the longest, won the race, albeit at the risk of falling foul of the law...... or even just falling!  

Of course, it was Leonard’s liking for a pint of beer which led to me missing the birth of my first born son (Stephen). When he and I had rushed up to the hospital after Fiona had been admitted with a complication, all Leonard had to hear was the midwife saying that it would be ‘a little while’, for him to eagerly accept my invitation of a pint. Several pints and a great football match later, Leonard and I headed back to the hospital only to find out that it was all over – Fiona was sitting up in bed cuddling a rather light (3lbs 14 oz) Stephen before he went off to the incubator for 4 weeks.

I didn’t see Leonard for quite a few years after I left Glasgow  in 81 and then we met up at my son’s 21^st birthday party. We had a few pints, sorted things out and mended a few bridges which had become broken with my divorce from Fiona, his beloved daughter.

As the years past, Leonard became infirm and had to move in with Fiona despite him wishing to retain some degree of independence. When I saw him a few years ago he didn’t really know who I was but he still had that shine in his eye.

And so a dynasty has gone. Leonard was one of those great father figures of days past. Not a ruler of the family, but a figurehead to whom everybody looked up and respected. He was loved by everybody who met him. He will be greatly missed.

  

Riverdance

One of the great things about Xmas is all the ‘specials’ they show on the TV. The films you’d thought you’d never see again. The shows you loved in the past and which they run again, and the spectaculars, one of which was Riverdance.

Now I’ve seen countless ‘Riverdance Specials’. Riverdance – The Beginning. Riverdance in Beijing. Riverdance – The Dancers. But on Saturday they showed a compilation of all the best bits of the shows and I took the opportunity to record it to show in my bar when people get fed up of Girls Aloud, Madonna or Club Ibiza.........which they do .......frequently.

Let me say at this point that I have no great affinity with/for Ireland, or to be more precise Eire, despite the fact that J has tried to trace my family tree and found that us Cupples’s may actually originate from Eire as opposed to good old France which is what popular myth says.

Anyway. I don’t know what attracts me to Riverdance although I have a vague memory that one of my ex’s took me and I thought it was great but it could be that I like strong, rhythmical music. I could watch those girls dancing all night long with their arms, rigid by their sides and their long hair swaying to the rhythm of the drum beats. I wont say anything about the guys in case you get the wrong idea but they’re quite cute too.

With a compilation show, you get all the lead dancers of course, but by a country mile, the best were Michael Flatley and Jean Butler, who co-developed the original 7 minute act at the Eurovison Song Contest in Ireland which started this global phenomenon. Flatley has gone on to be a multi-millionaire achieved through his ‘Lord of the Dance’ productions, but many people do not know that he was born in Illinois, USA and was a boxing champion and a proficient flautist before he became all-Ireland, World Dance champion. He also held the Guinness World Record for the number of ‘taps per second’ at 28 then 35 (that’s taps per second – not his age). I saw a film of Flatley recently and he came across as a total big-head which I suppose is only to be expected if you are worth in the region of £350m.    

Jean Butler, who was also born in the USA, and who was heavily involved in the original Riverdance productions presented the compilation show and came across as a really nice girl, but then she’s a redhead and all redheads tend to be gorgeous. Oooops – sorry J!

So back to where it all started at the 1994 Eurovision Song Debacle (sorry Contest) which was staged in Ireland because they had won it the previous year. The interval came along and then the stage went dark. A mournful songstress appeared in the gloom but after two minutes of what the global audience must have thought was a rehearsal for a funeral, Jean Butler started dancing, followed within a minute by Michael Flatley. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

See the 1994 Eurovision interval which introduced Riverdance to the world at the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Mc03_rlWo

Go Further With The ….The Lipo Car

Now you may think this is a monumental wind up, as I did, when I read the article. I thought it must be April 1^st, but no – it’s for real – read on and weep or laugh or be sick – whatever.

US authorities are investigating a Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon who claims that he used fat he removed from patients in liposuction operations to power his "green" four-wheel-drive car. California's public health department has opened an inquiry into claims made by Dr Alan Bittner that he had turned fat removed from his patients into biodiesel. Mr Bittner wrote on his website: "The vast majority of my patients request that I use their fat for fuel - and I have more fat than I can use. "Not only do they get to lose their love handles or chubby belly, but they get to take part in saving the Earth." US business magazine Forbes reported that Dr Bittner used the "lipofuel" to power both his Ford Explorer car and his girlfriend's Lincoln Navigator.

When I picked myself up off the floor after rolling about laughing, I thought about the article and its implications.

Should Dr Bittner set up a cooperative which collects lipo fat from the various cosmetic surgeries in his state and set up a proper business where he can produce Lipo Fuel in greater, more economic quantities?

Would this business get to the stage where clinics pay patients for their Lipo Fat instead of charging them an ‘arm and a leg’ for their operations?

Should he move the business to Hawaii where the people are rather larger than average and there would be no shortage of Lipo Fat?

When he drives his car, what is the by product of the internal combustion process – does it smell like a KFC take-away?

When he does a lipo-operation is he tempted to suck all the patient’s fat out leaving them looking like a dried up mummy?

Does his car ever suffer from hardening of its cylinders or high cholesterol on its valves and will it eventually die of a heart attack or engine failure and does his car go to a heart surgeon rather than a garage for it service?

OK – by now you’re probably feeling rather queasy so I’ll stop but just remember, if you know anyone who has had the old lipo business then unknown to them they could be helping Dr Bittner and his girlfriend drive to the ‘eat all you like’ diner just down the road.

 

The First Ski Of The Year

We all jumped in the jeep on Tuesday and headed up to Gréolieres for a morning’s skiing. We, (sorry J), had originally planned a mulled wine and minced pie thingie but as the snow is exceptional at the moment and the forecast had been good, we decided that we could not miss the opportunity to take advantage of the conditions. Quite a group of us had planned to go, both skiers and non-skiers. The non-skiers would come up slightly later and we’d all meet in the restaurant and have a long, lunch.

The weather was perfect as we set off, skis on the roof rack and mountains of boots, poles and other assorted paraphernalia in the boot. Unfortunately, Shadow could not accompany us as he’s not allowed on the slopes for obvious reasons and he sat there with that sad look on his face as we all piled into the car and left the drive. ‘Guard, kill’, were his usual instructions which means he’ll just go and lie in his bed on the terrace all day.

The snow was exceptional and even with the kids now on holiday the queues were not too bad. The pistes were empty as we got on our first chairlift heading for the first run of the season. Will your legs still know what to do? Will your edges hold on that first turn? Will you still have the courage to do that first shush? Will you still be able to do a racing stop at the chairlift queue or will you take everybody out?

I’m pleased to say that everything worked out fine although I seemed to be the only person on old ‘long’ skis – I MUST change them.

The weather was fantastic. There was this remarkable thing that as the chairlift left the station, a warm current of air gradually became stronger and warmer as the lift progressed up the slope. It was amazing. And when you got to the top, the views over the Riviera coastline were incredible – we could even see Corsica in the distance.

Photographs were taken. Snicker bars were handed out. Admonishments given to the children for trying to ‘wipe out’ French pensioners who only ski because it’s free and then the wipe out of all wipe outs as Kitty came hurtling down the slope, lost control, nearly hit a fencepost and then flew about 10 feet like Wonderwoman, face first into deep snow. Hilarious.

Lunch beckoned and we had the remaining few sandwiches the bar had left. Strangely, they had plenty of wine to sell but few sandwiches – why is that?

The non-skiers went sledging and J and I just sat in the sun having a few glasses of wine, the odd coffee and the remaining snickers bars. It was a terrific day.     

The picture was taken from the top of one of the lifts. From this vantage point you can see virtually the whole Riviera coastline from St Tropez to Italy with Corsica in the distance. 

Happy Xmas Everyone

To all my readers and fellow bloggers …. I hope you all have a wonderful Xmas and a terrific 2009. I hope you all get a chance to spend quality time with your families and friends. 2008 was a good year for me – I hope it was for you also.

What Xmas means to me……

1.  Opening the first present on Xmas Eve and then looking forward to opening the rest on Xmas morning.

2.  Getting a roaring log fire on even though it might be sunny outside – it makes the house seem more welcoming

3.  Putting Mariah Carey’s Xmas DVD on and dancing round the house.

4.  Fighting with J to see who will cook the turkey.

5.  Watching any videos/dvds which the kids got for Xmas.

6.  Giving the cats and Shadow their Xmas presents – they seem to know what’s happening.

7.  Having friends over for a drink or two or three.

8.  Having a really good bottle of red wine with lunch.

9.  Phoning my family and friends – especially my sons and my brother.

10.    Turkey sandwiches on Xmas Day evening in front of the telly.

11.  Watching some of the Xmas specials on TV.

 And finally. Thinking of those who are less fortunate than ourselves and to whom Xmas is just another day.

Oh Brother

Us bloggers stick together you know. We have to. We’re all quiet little wallflowers who wouldn’t say ‘boo’ to a goose and therefore we write our postings to get our messages and thoughts out without fear of anybody taking issue with us in person.

But then of course we sometimes meet our readers and we get it – full in the face. ‘Crap’, ‘Boring’, ‘Too Long’, ‘Too personal’ …….and these are the comments I can put in print! But I don’t care. I really don’t. The blogs are for me (to keep me cerebrally active) and for my family so they can see what I’m up to without having to resort to daily phone calls, but even then, my family can be cruel. My eldest son, Stephen, is very complimentary, says it is one of the first things he does each day (reads my blog – good job he works for his mother !) and then you have my brother who says it is ‘absolute *****’ but as he’s only just learnt to read, I suppose his comments are only to be expected.

I was reading yesterday’s posting of a fellow blogger, Allison,  (I use the word ‘fellow’ in a literal sense as she’s quite a delightful girl judging by her picture and her postings) who was both celebrating and moaning about the festive seasonal visit of her brother Pat who, crime of crimes, ate all the left-over Pizza which made me think of my brother Robert.

Only last night, as the whole family sat on the sofa in front of a roaring log fire watching Mama Mia and singing along with the words, J said, ‘Ohhhhh I wish Robert could be with us this Xmas’. ‘What prompted this outpouring of family longing was his slushy, pink, feminine looking Xmas card which had arrived earlier in the day, addressed to ‘Mrs T Cupples’, and which made only a passing reference to the other members of the family including myself – his only brother!  As J bemoaned the news that her relatively new brother-in-law would not be visiting this Xmas, I celebrated the fact by manipulating my misshapen knuckle which unfortunately was broken into several pieces when my fist accidentally hit his head quite a few years ago! I also thought of the scar on his temple which is the exact replica of a Hornby Dublo curved section of railway track which I threw at him one day and which, most unfortunately, stuck in his skull! I can still see that section of model railway track arcing through the air and sticking in his head – ha!

But don’t think this is a one-way-street. He’s had plenty of opportunities to get his own back, the most recent being when we went for a haircut the morning after we’d had a ‘boys night out’ in Paisley (see post of 18^th Oct). Needless to say, and given that we’d only crawled into bed about 3am,, arriving at the hair salon at 9am was a bit ambitious….but we made it. I knew Robert had told the girl who owned the salon that I was his brother but that was that. We arrived and the owner immediately came up to me and said in a very slow speaking voice, ‘oh… you …. must ….. be … Thomas. It’s …. sooooooo ….. nice to meet you Thomas. Here – we have a lovely big leather armchair over here. Would you like to sit in that nice big chair Thomas?’

Now I was still pretty well-oiled from the night before but even I could work out that something wasn’t quite right here. The owner continued, ‘now be a good boy Thomas and sit here whilst I get you a drink. Would you like a nice glass of lemonade?’ Lemonade ? Lemonade ? What happened to the mug of coffee I was told to expect, but I let it go and accepted my lemonade. She continued…..’now Robert says you like your hair nice and short Thomas. You sit here, nice and still and we’ll give you a nice short haircut. That’s a good boy.

I was now thinking something was amiss but as I was still inebriated, I let it go. No point in embarrassing myself. Then the clippers came right up the back of my head and right over the top. Although a bit blurry in the mirror, I could see a follicle massacre taking place here, but again I was too hung over to bother. Anyway, the haircut (???) ended and I was helped out of the chair. The owner said I had been a ‘very good boy’ and I could come back sometime and she’d make sure I’d get the big leather chair again. I was still thinking about this stupid infantile language she was using but put it down to the fact that we were in a rather outlying bit of Glasgow where in-breeding is the norm, but I mentioned it to my brother as we left the salon.

He laughed uncontrollably and said he’d told the owner that his brother (me !!!) had been in an institution since the age of five, had had a terrible illness which gave him a mental age of seven years old and that he knew very little of what was going on around him. Everything which had happened for the last 30 minutes fell perfectly into place. Touché.    

Oh Deer Oh Deer

When we moved into our previous house next door, about ten years ago, we, or rather I (as I am the jardinerie – gardener), immediately started putting in plants to soften the landscape of what was otherwise a neglected former holiday home. The garden centres did a roaring trade as I bought all manner of bushes and trees, most of which turned out to be unsuitable for a sun-drenched, south-facing garden. Even Mediterranean garden books did not help me with the correct choices as they were quite generalistic and probably assumed we all had automatic watering systems. One day forgetting to water the plants and a shrivelled, dried-up mess resulted. It was quite dispiriting but gradually, and after spending more than I care to estimate, I worked out where certain plants should be placed and greenery started to grow and spread in all the right directions. After planting the terraces, I bought the final two pieces of the horticultural jigsaw for the front of the house – two large terracotta pots with magnificent hydrangeas in them. I looked at them from the upper terraces before I finished for the night, happy with the final part of what had been six months hard work.

The next morning, as I went to the garage I passed my hydrangeas and gave them another admiring glance. Quel horreur – there were just two mangled stumps. Every leaf and flower had gone. J immediately stated that the culprits were deer. They roam wild in the hills behind our house and although you rarely see them, the hunters wouldn’t spend so much time shooting up there if it wasn’t worth their while. I was pretty annoyed, more with the wasted expenditure than anything else but reckoned it was a small price to pay to live in an area where you get deer coming to the front door – at 2am!

Ten years pass without any more of my plants being used as sustenance and then this year, I embarked on a major gardening exercise for the new house. A couple of thousand euros worth of bushes and trees in an attempt to turn a new modern, provencal style house into something more Mediterranean with Cyprus and Mimosa trees, Oleanders and various all-year flowering bushes. Work done, I looked forward to next summer when the greenery would have established itself and the scars of last year’s building works would be well hidden.

And then this morning, I looked out of my office window and couldn’t see the mimosa tree I had planted on the second terrace. It had gone. I just couldn’t understand it. I went to investigate and there was the tell-tale sign of a deer taking a liking to the bark of my tree. Branches and leaves had been ripped off systematically and discarded and then the bark had been stripped off almost as if the creature had used a giant potato peeler. That was bad enough but as I wandered back across the parking area I came across my favourite, and most expensive by a mile, Cyprus tree, totally shredded in the middle of it’s trunk. I was livid for all of about ten minutes until I remembered coming across a couple of deer in the lane a few months ago, totally magnificent as they looked at me for a few seconds before charging off into the undergrowth and back up into the hills.

They were living here long before I was – it’s their place – not mine.

  

A Rather Sociable Weekend

Well I have to say that I was glad when Sunday night arrived and I was able to catch up with my sleep after a rather sociable and over-indulgent weekend.

It started on Friday lunchtime with the South of France BT Xmas Lunch. Much planning had gone into the venue for this annual extravaganza. Should we go down to Mougins, the gastronomic capital of the area with fabulous restaurants on every corner? Should we hit Monaco and try the 3-star Michelin restaurant of Alain Ducasse ? We could even bomb down to Cannes to try the Martinez or Nice to lunch in the Negresco. In the end, we went to Grasse for a curry.

What a gastronomic comedown. I suppose it (the curry) was ok-ish. Not bad for a curry created in France but not a patch on the one I had the previous Tuesday in London but then again, London has more curry restaurants than Bombay (or Mumbai as it’s now called), so it’s curry creations should be good. Much wine accompanied the meal and as I was being driven there and back by my mate Ashley, I rather over-imbibed. No problem, I had the rest of Friday to recover.

Later on that evening as I lay slumped on the sofa trying to work out how to work the TV remote, the phone went. J had popped next door to see the neighbours, Tan and Angie and this was Angie on the blower saying that Tan and J were having a love-in and that she was feeling left out. I stumbled the 20 yards to their house to find Tan and J mutually complementing each other on their respective weight loss programmes (about 30 kilos between them) and comparing the gaps between their waists and their trousers. It was pathetic. Angie, who is pregnant and putting on weight and who probably felt a bit left out of this mutual celebration,  poured me the first of several large glasses of wine, produced some pizza and a good night was had by all. I think!  

Saturday morning was rather hazy. My head, not the weather. There was nothing for it but to get my logging tools out and cut up a few tree trunks. This exercise sorted me out and got me ready for Saturday night’s party at Mike and Lesley’s. Their place is only about 3 minutes away and as soon as we arrived, yet more white wine found its way into my hands. Mike, the host, explained that the first glass would be served by him but after that, it was every man for himself – just what I wanted to hear. There was quite an eclectic mix of people there, most of whom I knew and I managed to beat all expectations and behave myself until about 1am when I started to ‘accost’ my good friend, the Reverend Anne Naylor. I noticed that as I attempted to make her less saintly she didn’t exactly run away! J dragged me off but unfortunately got me another glass of wine which only served to cause more mayhem as I decided that the hostess could do with her armpits being cleaned with baby wipes which was probably ok until I started to eat them and hang them on the Xmas tree. Needless to say that on Sunday morning I had totally forgotten the escapades of the previous evening but couldn’t work out what the strange taste in my mouth was!

After two nights of decadence, there was only one thing for it. I needed to cleanse my soul so I went to church with J. You’ll all be pleased to hear that I refused the communion wine!!!!      

The picture is of J who couldn't last the pace either. Sunday morning - she didn't even take her clothes off from the night before!

It's A Wrap

Xmas is almost upon us. It seems to have crept up on me this year and it’s very disconcerting.  A couple of weeks ago it was November and everything was under control and now – we’ve only got a few days to go before old Papa Noel climbs down the chimney and finds himself locked inside the wood burner.

Luckily I had a few spare hours in London on Monday morning (thank you BA for getting me there early) and so the normal panic buying of presents which will be unloved and unused, was something of a doddle this year. All I had to do was wander into Waitrose and buy J all the things she craves –  cakes, biscuits and anything covered in chocolate. They tend to be regular shapes too which makes the wrapping of them a little easier – more on this later. And joy of joys, when I got back to rainy old France the job I really hate had been completed – the tree had been  bought and decorated. Great!

There are jobs I don’t mind doing at Xmas and then there’s jobs I hate. I cant really think of any jobs I ‘love’ but putting the tree up definitely falls into the ‘hate’ category. Strangely, I don’t mind taking the tree down after Xmas – weird eh? I don’t mind doing the outside lights either but as that needs ladders, hammers and nails, if I didn’t do it, the exterior of the house would remain dark and dull and not very festive. I also don’t mind doing all the cooking on Xmas day – maybe that’s a man thing. However, almost falling into the ‘hate-tree’ category comes the wrapping of presents. I detest it. I generally leave it to the last minute and then frantically throw some fancy paper round whatever it is that I’ve bought and try and hide it under the other presents under the tree. That’s all well and good until the actual recipient picks up the package, looks at the attempt at wrapping, works out that it was me and then hastily rips off the paper and this is the rub. I spend money on wrapping paper. I spend hours wrapping the presents up using rolls and rolls of sellotape in the process and then the paper is ceremoniously ripped off and thrown on the floor in a matter of seconds. Why bother wrapping?

In France they have a lovely little bit of the buying process. Virtually no matter what it is that you’re purchasing, you just say, ‘Cadeau’ and immediately it is gift wrapped for you with little bows and ribbons. And it’s free. It’s great. Unfortunately, Waitrose had never heard of this little bit of customer service and so J’s choccie biscuits will have to be wrapped by yours truly. Similarly, her bin-bag liners which are a horrible, tubular shape will be wrapped in some sort of amateurish manner as will her wooden spoons. Why wooden spoons? Well, throughout the year they split, get burned or just get all yucky with solidified porridge so they need replacing. This is called thoughtful present buying….but I digress slightly and if J reads this blog she’ll work out what she’s getting this year.

But, in London, I hear somebody in one of the big stores had one of those inspired moments of thought. They would offer a Xmas present wrapping service but they would do it in a less than perfect way so that it looked just like…….a man did it! Male shoppers could then put these presents under their tree and it looked for all the world like they had wrapped them. Brilliant.

    

It's The Skiing Season

Well, the snows have arrived. Thankfully not at our place yet but the white stuff is getting closer and we can now see it from the house (see picture). J has already started talking about getting our gear out and heading up into the hills to throw ourselves down the slopes in our garish clothes which we’d never wear at any other time. It took all my powers of persuasion to talk her out of it yesterday morning – I’m still convalescing after all!

We’re very lucky here in that we can be on the slopes, passes bought and at the top of the first run in about 40 minutes which is one of the reasons I chose this as my place to see out my days. J thinks it had something to do with her – silly girl.

I do admit though that spending a morning taking the rust off of the bottom of the skis and then having a long lunch at one of the two restaurants on the slopes is a great way to start the winter season. The fact that we can also see what sort of day it is before taking the decision is also a great bonus – no skiing in gales or annoying wintry snow for us – it has to be very sunny before we set off.

Once again though I’ll be skiing on very old bits of wood bought in Andorra some 12 years ago. I’m told that the ‘new’ carver skis would make me look even more professional on the slopes and allow me to miss the many trees which line the pistes, a skill at which I’m not very proficient as witnessed by my ruptured cruciate ligament several years ago. 

This accident was a disaster in more ways than one, happening as it did, on the very first run of the first day. J had gone off ahead whilst I foolishly (as it was my first run) headed for the trees which had quite a few challenging runs through them. How the tree jumped out in front of me I’ll never know but a shuddering exchange later, I was writhing in agony on the snow. I managed to crawl out onto the piste and some kindly souls called for the ‘blood wagon’ which arrived about 5 minutes later. I had always fancied travelling in a blood wagon but had never thought through the reasons why I would do so but there I was, having achieved my ambition and hurtling down the slopes with two paramedics trying to break some sort of downhill record. Unfortunately, they had neglected to strap me in properly and on one bend I disappeared out the side of the wagon whilst they continued on their merry way. It was a couple of hundred yards later that they decided the wagon was unusually light and stopped, wondering where their patient had gone.

I was re-strapped in and we got to the bottom of the slopes where a fancy ambulance was waiting, lights flashing. A crowd had gathered to see what sort of horrific injury they could witness and as I was lifted, flat out on a stretcher into the vehicle, the last thing I saw, before the doors were slammed shut was J and our other friends sitting in the open air bar, sipping champagne and totally oblivious to my predicament. I’m sure I saw my mate mouth the words, ‘here – that guy who’s just been loaded into the ambulance looked like Tom’. Indeed it was  and it was the start of a very frustrating week.   

Off To London For Lunch

Apologies to my many avid readers – I’ve been off to London for a couple of days for my traditional Xmas lunch with ‘the boys’. And a very good trip it was too. Perfect travel with no queues or delays. Great crack with my mates and a delicious curry with Steve, my erstwhile colleague from BT, yesterday. And I managed to get the Xmas food shopping completed as well, although just what state the mince pies will be in after the Nice Airport luggage handlers finished with my bags is anyone’s guess.

So – some observations about my trip.

Travelling British Airways instead of Easyjet was like seeing an old friend whom you’ve missed for the last few years. Classy, unfussy and quintessentially British.

London hasn’t changed in a year. Still grey. Still busy. Still vibrant. But a complete dearth of postboxes – I walked about two miles to try and find one on Monday. Their removal the result of the old bombing campaign by the IRA. The conflict is over now – put them back.

The prices - £75 for lunch (including drinks) and £6 for a glass of wine makes me appreciate my local tavern even more where you can have lunch with wine for about £8.

Tube travel – why pay £4 for a single one mile journey when a taxi costs less for the same distance? This was old Red Ken’s (Livingstone) travel policy which Boris needs to put right. On the tube, it’s the same price, £4, whether you travel for one mile or fifteen miles – crazy economics.

There’s not a single British waiter in London. In all the establishments I used on my trip (restaurants, pubs, cafes and hotels), the eastern Europeans held a monopoly. If they all upped sticks and left, London would grind to a halt.

Waitrose (the supermarket) is still the classiest place to shop. Not the cheapest, but by far the classiest. It’s almost a pleasure giving them your money.

The old adage about saving your plane fare if you went to the US on a shopping trip by taking advantage of their low prices and the generous exchange rate is now almost true about the UK. I reckon I probably saved over £100 by buying various items in the UK as opposed to buying the same things in France. Maybe London will be seeing more of me in 2009?

Bargains you just don’t get in France. One packet of sausages for £3. Four packs for £5. More crazy economics.

The rather disgusting conversation at lunch where two of my mates were discussing their recent colonoscopies. Not pleasant.

So that’s about it. Only other things to report are a fire evacuation at the hotel and spotting a celebrity chef sort of person. He didn’t acknowledge me so I just ignored him!

Money, Money, Money

Inevitably, when I tell people that I am retired, they immediately ask what I do with myself and then ask if I miss anything about work. I don’t mess about when answering the first. I don’t say that I’ve taken up oil painting, getting involved in the local dog’s home or running for the local council – I simply say what I do, which is a bit of gardening, reading the papers on the internet and losing money on the stock exchange. Nothing special there. It’s what I want to do.

Similarly, when answering the question about what I miss with relation to my old job, I don’t pontificate on missing the intellectual stimulus of major contract negotiations (which I don’t) or the buzz I got when a new project started (which I don’t). Nope – what I miss from corporate life is having a good old booze-up with my mates, Steve and Dee, after a particularly busy day and…..the monthly pay cheque.

As Xmas approaches and present lists seem to appear from nowhere, each one with more and more expensive designer items on it, I look at my bank balance and shudder. I took a conscious decision last year that as my pension is paid in Sterling, I would not mess about with monthly transfers, I’d bite the bullet, take a decision on the exchange rate and transfer a whole year’s money in one go. That money then has to be sufficient, no matter what.

It was a good plan at the time and although I am pretty good at managing my finances and I do believe in keeping a little contingency stashed away, the ‘extraordinary’ costs which just appear from left field almost defy belief. It must’ve been different this time last year and I suspect it was because I was still benefiting from a bonus I received from BT which I didn’t know I was due. Alas – those days are long gone. The only bonus I get these days is if Angie next door feeds Shadow and I don’t have to buy any dog food!

So let’s look at the sort of thing which just arrives and which costs a fortune.

The wedding. Ah yes the wedding. My wedding or should I say, my wife’s wedding? Despite stringent budgeting and cost control one just cannot legislate for one’s youngest son taking a €400 bottle of spirits from the drinks trolley in the hotel and disappearing with it.

Then there was the ‘honeymoon’ in Florida and New York which ran pretty true to budget until we discovered the ‘outlet malls’ in Sarasota and the Apple Shop in New York. Major damage was done to the credit card which fortunately meant a sterling hit rather than a run on my Euros.

A huge and unexpected hit was a €2,500 bill for taxes which I simply did not think would arrive this year. Along with a huge uplift in our other taxes, it completely screwed my budgeting for the latter part of the year.

Then, having been relatively healthy for years, I suddenly managed to suffer some medical problems which cost me an arm and a leg (get it ?) and although I have a French Health Card, the bills just mount up.

J wanted her eyes lasered. I didn’t see that one coming (get it ?). Major expense.

Then the cat died. How it costs more to treat a dying cat than a living being I don’t know but it does. The bill nearly killed me (get it?).

The home PC was knackered. It’s being fixed and will cost more to repair than buying a new one. I would just have dumped it but it has loads of pictures on it which we need to retrieve. New technology costs less and less each year but the repairs cost more and more.

So, when people ask me what I miss, the monthly pay cheque has a lot to say for itself. That reassuring ‘thud’ as the electronic pay slip hits your inbox is something I miss dreadfully. Especially at this time of year. Ho Ho Ho !

    

Wind and Sails

I was thinking about proverbs today. You know – a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. The sun shines on the righteous. The cat who’s got the cream etc etc etc.

I was wondering where they came from and who first thought them up and then I discovered a web site which gives the origins so my wondering goes on no more. But then I got to thinking about an old mate of mine (Jeff Thomson - if you read this please get in touch) who made up his own sayings which were absolutely hilarious. Unfortunately they are too rude, even for this blog, so I’ll have to chuckle without sharing them with you…..but they invariably included dockers, badgers, witches breasts and the like so I’m sure you get the idea.

The reason for the proverbs occupying the few brain cells I have left was that I went into my bank today determined to tell them in no uncertain manner just what a bunch of robbing bandits they are, when….the wind was taken completely out of my sails  …..although I have since learned that that saying is an idiom, not a proverb  – whatever.

Going back a bit in time, I opened an account with the local village bank in Tourrettes. Some ten years ago actually. In all that time, they’ve never given me too many problems except for the fact that I object to their small monthly charges which they appear to levy for the privilege of keeping my money (and investing it for their profit) and providing me with a bank card. They gave me a loan when I wanted one and over the ten years, I think I’ve only had one or two small problems.

And then last year we decided to open another account for and with my eldest son. Just a plain vanilla, ordinary current account with a cheque book and a card. No problem. A few testimonials, a few signatures and we were up and running.

As he is registered at my address, his statements come here and as it’s my money which goes into the account I take a passing interest in what state his account is in….just in case there any problems.

And then the charges started. €3 a month for this. €2.94 a month for that (apparently normal) and then I spotted a quarterly debit of €9.20. This was for the privilege of taking the bank’s magazine called the Dossier Familial, which arrives in the post box, is never removed from its plastic wrapper and goes straight into the fire.

I thought this was a complete waste of money, so went into the Vence branch, said I was representing my son and could they stop this magazine and the associated charge. ‘No problem’, the lady said and that was that…or so I thought. This was 3 months ago and four weeks later, the magazine turns up again. I looked at his statement and there it was – another debit of €9.20. Another few weeks pass before I get the chance to go into my local village bank but when I eventually do so, as usual, there’s a new face behind the counter. A youngish guy who was very sympathetic, took down the details and said he’d do what he could. I said this was not good enough – I wanted it stopped. He then gave a reply which floored me. He said that even as an employee of the bank, he kept getting the pesky magazine and he had trouble stopping the €9.20 debit too! Anyway, I left hoping that he’d fix it.

And then yesterday – yup, you’ve guessed it – another magazine and another €9.20 debit. And so it was today that I stomped into my village branch determined to sort out these bankers. I practised my French relentlessly. Looked up the word for ‘refund’ and sorted out a sentence which would leave them in no doubt how utterly pissed off I was. I walked briskly up to the counter and was about to let rip when ….there she was, a vision of absolute beauty. Young, stunningly dressed with a sweater hanging off of her gorgeous shoulders (both of them). Blonde hair and a smile which would have melted Greenland. I muttered that I was sorry to trouble her and it wasn’t a big problem and could she possibly help me with a little issue and I’d be terribly grateful etc etc etc.

The wind was taken completely out of my sails. Wot a wazzock!

 

Rendition – It’s Extraordinary

J and I watched a film the other night. Nothing unusual in that? Well there was actually. I was already watching the football on my PC and our movie tastes are at opposite ends of the spectrum, but after the first few minutes I was hooked and decided the football could take a back seat. Although it was an English game, the transmission was coming from Russia, Iraq and finally England in ten minute chunks, so it was rather difficult to follow anyway. And so I settled down to watch the film.

Let’s put me in the frame. Let’s imagine my name is Khan. Although I’ve worked in the UK for over 20 years I was actually born in Egypt and I obviously have a middle-eastern appearance. I’m flying out to the US on business for BT (my employer). My wife has dropped me off at the airport and knows she’ll get a call when I get to the office or my hotel……..but after 3 days no call. She contacts the airline who confirm I was on board. An in-flight credit-card transaction shows that I must have been on the flight but there is no trace of me. What my wife does not know is that the American CIA intercepted me at JFK, put me onto a ‘private’ flight to Egypt where, when I arrive in handcuffs and blindfolded, I am treated as a suspected terrorist because there’s a mobile phone record which shows that a known terrorist group has called my number.

I protest that there are millions of Khans and that I’m always getting wrong-number calls but it does no good. My job as a senior researcher into electro-chemical transmissions gives me the profile of a bomber and so I am tortured until near death.

In this case, the guy was rescued, but at the end of the film J was quite disturbed by it and even more so when I told her that this sort of thing goes on all the time. Indeed only a year or so ago, there was a furore in the UK when some of these CIA ‘extraordinary rendition’ flights were stopping in the UK to refuel before carrying on to some country where torture is something of the norm.

And all because the unfortunate guy got a call from a terrorist group by mistake. It’s easily done – wrong calls or texts I mean. In these days of pay-as-you-go mobile phones, did you ever think what happens to the number after you’ve finished using it? After a period of time, it’s given to someone else. I’ve had texts sent to me for the person who had the phone number before. So all you need is the ‘right’ job, have the ‘right’ background and appearance but the wrong phone number and you too could end up being tortured in some Egyptian basement.

Of course, no government acknowledges that these renditions actually take place but the EEC council believes that over the last few years, 100 EU citizens have been ‘renditioned’ to places where they can be tortured. Places which do not recognise the Geneva convention.

So beware. If you start getting dodgy phone calls or texts – well I was going to say ‘run’, but it wouldn’t do any good. They’d get you.

It’s a long URL but it’ll get you to the story of the film.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.criticsrant.com/Images/criticsrant_com/Movie_Rendition/rendition_xlg.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.criticsrant.com/archive/2007/10/21/RENDITION-A-Wild-Ride-With-A-Bumpy-Ending.aspx&usg=__2JdAVEd10zvKkOq1ufn_JmRDD98=&h=1186&w=800&sz=801&hl=en&start=1&sig2=Uc94Nq3TSaz-Q9bkUW0p0Q&tbnid=9ta_wuiXM_OTcM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=101&ei=U0k-ScDcEpygQfPnueMP&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drendition%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

The Great Debate

Nope, it’s not about President Sarkozy’s diminutive stature which the French ridicule almost as much as we do. The fact that he wears Cuban heels with high insoles is not the problem. The problem is that he married a 6ft ex-model who has to wear flat shoes when she would look great in high heels. That’s the crime.

It’s not about the credit crunch either. France keeps its problems pretty close to its chest. We (aaaagh – we ???) don’t shout about it like Gordon Brown does in a vain attempt to lift his flagging stature as a statesman. OK, the housing market has slowed, but that’s mainly the Brits who see their pound losing value by the day and who are waiting to get €1.40 to the pound before they come back into the market.

Nope – it’s about the ‘yellow vest’.

France, it seems to me, passes laws on a whim. A couple of years ago they passed a law which said everyone with a pool had to have a fence around it. If you didn’t do it you could face a fine of up to €40,000 by the secret police, so everybody (except me) went out and bought a fence. Despite the fact that there were no real specifications about the fence you needed, multiple firms managed to sell hundreds of thousands of fences to the unsuspecting, attempting-to-be-law-abiding public. A few years later the specs came out and yes, most of those who bought a fence had to change them because they weren’t up to spec! Good ol France !

Then, this year we had the ‘yellow vest law’ where each vehicle had to have a yellow, reflective vest and a red warning triangle in the vehicle. The vest had to be kept inside the car (or truck or whatever) so that, in the event of a breakdown, you had to put on your vest before you got out in order to place your warning triangle 30 metres behind the car. On the face of it, a good, sensible law but one I suspect which had more to do with the French economy getting a €250 million boost overnight than any attempt at motoring safety. It’s all very well being protected by a bright yellow vest when you break down but what about the idiots who travel so close to you that you think you’ve got a trailer attached? They don’t do anything to stop that. I’ve now devised my own method of sorting out these idiots. In daylight, I gradually slow down until I’m almost at a stop and it really gets up their gallic noses. In darkness, I simply switch out my lights and imagine the panic which goes through the idiot’s mind as the car he (or she) is trailing simply disappears – dangerous but hilarious! 

So- the big debate. It’s about the fact that thousands upon thousands of yellow-vest drivers now put their vest on the spare seat like you would hang a jacket on it to stop it getting creased. It doesn’t really bother me – I just think they’re stupid but this is what the debate is about. It was even brought up in the Time’s French Correspondent’s blog the other day. There are numerous on-line forums protesting about the practice. It’s a big talking point.

I reckon, for those who do it, it’s a way to try and prevent the police pulling you over for a check to see if you’ve got a jacket, the rationale being that if the Police see one hanging over the passenger seat, they are less likely to stop you and ‘do’ you for having bald tyres or no MOT.  But I’m sure reverse logic applies here. If I was a Policeman and I saw some pratt with a yellow vest showing, I’d simply assume that there was something wrong with the car and I’d pull them over.

It’s almost as hilarious as the law in California where if you have a passenger in the car you can use special lanes which are less congested, and so each Californian went out and bought a blow-up dummy to try and convince the highway patrol that there were two people in the car. Being California, of course, there was no shortage of retailers selling blow up men or women!

And so I have my vest, tucked away in the underseat compartment and my triangle in the boot. J says however, that some of my sweaters and shirts mean that I have no need of a bright, yellow vest! Bah humbug!     

Murder, Mystery, Intrigue and €500m

We were invited to lunch yesterday at a friend’s house which overlooks the bay in Villefranche and no, it isn't the house in the picture. It was a lovely sunny day and the view from the terrace was spectacular, overlooking the prime real estate area of Cap Ferrat. I’d passed Cap Ferrat in a taxi some 28 years ago as a brand new, bushy-tailed and ever-so-enthusiastic salesman for IBM and I thought, without knowing anything about the area that it was definitely a place I would buy a house if I could ever afford it. I didn't know it then, but it is THE place to have a house on the Riviera.

Much  of the talk on the terrace was about a large property, surrounded by acres of land which stood in the distance, almost acting as a gateway to the Cap. Even from our vantage point a couple of miles away you could see the manicured lawns and lines of Cyprus trees, but it was the vast extent of the grounds which defied belief. Our hosts told us that the house had recently beeen sold (true) and that it was Bill Gates who had sold it (untrue). Here is the real story of Villa Leopolda.

Until recently, the house (it’s almost a crime to call it a ‘house’) was in the hands of the Safra family who have provided one of the most intriguing stories on the Riviera for the last 10 years.

Edmond Safra, of Lebanese Jewish origins, along with his father, founded a number of banks. It’s strange to think of individuals owning banks, it’s normally corporations, but the Safras opened banks in Switzerland, Brazil and the US, where, at one stage their bank was number three in the New York area behind Citi and Chase. So they were worth quite a few bob.

By the mid 80’s, Edmond Safra had taken over the reigns from his father and was now king pin and living in Monaco and worth some €2.5b. Monaco was just right for the Safras as the principality is virtually crime free (well visible crime) and you don’t pay taxes. It is a highly secure environment with cameras everywhere and so Edmond Safra and his wife, Lily, lived in safe splendour in their hugely expensive apartment block. Edmond developed Parkinson's disease and had eight nurses and several other servants at his beck and call, looking after his every need, however, on Dec 3^rd 1999 a fire broke out and Edmond died in the blaze. One of the nurses, a Ted Maher, was charged with starting the fire and a lengthy legal battle started. It took 3 years for him to come to trial and eventually he confessed. It was dubbed as ‘the trial of the century’ and there are still stories about the trial being ‘fixed’ and the dubious nature of Maher’s confession. In any event, Mrs Safra became an extraordinarily wealthy widow with a fortune now estimated at some €3b.

One of the assets she ‘picked up’ was Villa Leopolda, which is the house we stared at from our friend’s terrace. It is probably the best property on the whole of the Riviera and if money was no object (and you like that sort of thing – see picture at top), it’s just the sort of pad you’d go for…….as a wealthy Russian did in August of this year. Although there are rumours to the contrary, he reputedly slapped €500m cash on the table and poor old Mrs Safra had no option but to take the money and run. Now the villa is probably worth no more than maybe €100m, or at a stretch €150m, but these Russians just don’t want any of those nasty little gazumpers coming in and spoiling their deal and so the ‘rather generous’ offer was made and accepted, which made Villa Leopolda the most expensive 'house' on the planet.

The thing is – nobody had ever heard of this Russian. Well nobody down here. He wasn’t in the papers. He didn’t own a football club. He was just a nobody with the odd €500m to spare.

And Mrs Safra? Well she’s probably sitting in one of her other properties hoping another ‘generous’ Russian, with more money than sense will turn up at the door with another wad of dosh.

http://www.overseaspropertymall.com/regions/european-property/french-property/is-villa-leopolda-the-most-expensive-home-ever/

No Blog Today

Sung to the tune of the Herman Hermit’s song – No Milk Today

 No Blog Today, I’m afraid I’ve gone away

My body’s being changed, my willy rearranged

The doctors all agree, that as I cannot pee

They need to use a knife, to end my trouble and strife

 

How could they know just what this posting means

The end of my hopes, the end of all my dreams

How could they know, the phallus there had been

Behind the door, where my love reigned supreme

 

No blog today, it wasn't always so

The writing came its way, I’d do it night and day

 

But all that’s left is a stump, red and bloody

A crying shame when I get back home to you

Becomes all limp when I think of you only

Just  too sore to screw

 

No blog today, it wasn't always so

The writing came its way, I’d do it night and day

As music played, the faster did we dance 

We felt it both at once, the end of our romance 

 

No Blog today, the surgeon’s got his way

I’m down here at St Jean, being operated upon

The nurses stop and stare, my predicament aware

They laugh and smirk with glee, but at least I’ll be able to pee

 

No blog today, it wasn't always so

The writing came its way, I’d do it night and day

 

But all that’s left is a stump red and bloody

A crying shame when I get back home to you

Becomes all limp when I think of you only

Just  too sore to screw

 

The original can be found here……..

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClQepFF-Sr0