Go West. Life is peaceful there.

Every Lidl helps

European Yawnion

And the loser is…

Cocktail sausages and E numbers

It’s true: The first thing that goes through a young child’s mind the second they de-slumber is ‘Time to wake everyone up’ followed by ‘I wonder what I can break?’
The living room which you lovingly tidied with one eye on Gogglebox last night, will again soon resemble an Aleppo landscape. The car keys will be found in Peppa Pigs rocket, although I’m unsure as to how she could control such a vehicle with hoofs for hands and lashings of pig-puppy fat.
I have found my wallet in the microwave, my shaving foam sprayed on the carpet as daughter one threw a Star Wars foam party, and my 16gb data stick wedged into a granny smith. Much as I love my kids, I often beg them to leave my stuff alone and play with mummy’s personal effects for a change.
It is with this destruction in mind, that I welcome kid’s parties. They are always at someone else’s house or a neutral venue. The added bonus is watching a fellow father host struggle to contain being head-butted between the legs and being run ragged for a couple of hours as I make small talk with a bedraggled dad bemoaning his lack of sleep whilst giving a blow by blow account of his bairns eating habits.
Generally, I am left to clothe my youngest if the party falls on a Saturday due to my wife’s work commitments. She has taken to leaving suitable attire out for me to use after a previous party where I put the dress on back to front and brushed her hair making her look like she had just come of a 3-week military exercise in the Cairngorms.
Respite comes the second you hit the venue. In the last 10 years we have been to trampoline centres, soft play, houses, ski centres, safaris and zoos. Despite the cold, I have a penchant for a community hall. They often utilise the space with some well-planned party games. Many hire the singing Ana/ Elsa lady who manages to warm up the frozen kids with let it go and other juvenile club classics.
After the games, the kids generally run around like lunatics with balloons in a scene that resembles the Poll Tax riot before the inevitable paper plates and finger foods make a welcome appearance.
This is the first real test of the chaperone party parent. Despite wanting to relax and hide for a little bit, the offer to help is a 50-50 Russian roulette type scenario. If the answer is affirmative you spend the next 30 minutes listening to parents giving you a detailed account as to why little Jonnie should never be given a cocktail sausage due to his veganistic, gluten free lifestyle choice, or, if you manage to swerve waiter duty, you embark on small talk with a harassed looking accountant with a muslin on one shoulder and dried baby sick on the other.
It is this moment I find equally tricky. I am still unsure as to whether social etiquette dictates if I am allowed to sneakily shove down a sausage roll or chicken bite from the table. I usually wait to be asked but then miss out to the plus sized mother who hoovers up anything mildly unhealthy in the blink of an eye.
Party over, it is time for party bag roulette. I once read that guests at the Oscars often only attend as they have tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of goods lavished upon them in the party bag including watches and holidays. This trend seems to have continued in kid’s party bags to a lesser extent although the offering of a paw patrol colouring book and ben 10 pen set are non-too shoddy replacements. So yes, I welcome a kid’s party. For the parent its free childcare, the kids get to socialise and celebrate, and I get some great ideas as to what to do for my daughter’s parties next year. Just keep your hands off the mini pizza’s and turkey twizzlers. I have plans for the leftovers, although the cucumber strips are fair game.

Put down the keyboard and take a trolliday

I have quickly grown to love them. Blue, semi-transparent, aesthetically pleasing and tender to the touch, the new £5 notes are a hit in my wallet leaving me handling the grubby old notes with equal lashings of shame and disgust.

Silly season commences in earnest with the introduction of new currency. Urban myths of misprinted serial numbers bump supposed values up to £5000. The desperate jump on a news article by the Huffington Post to legitimise their belief that the ‘AK47’ serial number they beseeched from Superdrug that morning is worth some ‘serious wedge’.

As an evening Facebooker, I find myself trawling through the updates on my page in search of a gem amongst the phlegm. Recently there have been a gamut of postings from imbeciles desperate to flog their fivers for many times face value. With a penchant for a wind up, I thought I would test the gullibility of social media users with a self-penned experiment.

On ‘Items for sale’ I posted a picture of a new Lady Godiva I had in my pocket. I wrote ‘For Sale: A £5 note. One of a limited run of 22,000,000. Only £5. No offers’. It was posted as a tongue in cheek piece of online irony. Many got the joke, but many more didn’t.

A couple got into a row on the page with one alleging they had called the Police citing ‘bullying’. Another couldn’t get his head around how I could claim it was limited edition with a print run of 22 million? There were veiled, and blatant, threats, and reports were made to admin. People were blocked for trying to discuss the joke sensibly and eventually, after over 100 comments and the same ‘likes’ the post was withdrawn into the cybersphere never to be seen again,

The vitriol was somewhat surprising and I guess I was the victim of trolling (no pity required, I found it amusing and fascinating in equal measure). I received private messages from members of the group and public ones from keyboard warriors incandescent with rage as they openly vented their online spleen. To me it was a mass online cry for help and desperate attention seeking tactic. I sat back and watched, non-committedly, as people were, in effect, cyber bullied.

Finally, to my relief, the post was taken down by the anonymous ‘admin’. No doubt ‘admin’ is in reality an animal loving spinster called ‘Cheryl, who, in true cyber style, stands alone as a one-woman online kangaroo court. Cheryl is a self-anointed arbiter of good taste, resplendent in a Cats protection league tie tied hoodie and Pooh Bear oversized slipper combo. Despite dressing cool, she acts rather cruel and doesn’t hesitate to banish others to virtual infinity for forever and a day.

I’m glad the post has gone but am now a little dubious about advertising a job lot of Mr Tumble bikes that I bought in a fit of entrepreneurship some months ago. I will advertise them as ‘something special’ but no doubt will expect a trolling as they aren’t geared or carbon framed. I’m happy to take a fiver for them, but only if they are AK47’s.

Always problems, never solutions…

Arriving home, my expectation was to be greeted by the girls eulogising the day’s school shenanigans. In contrast, my welcoming committee at Chateau Colney was a red card stating my item ‘will be at the collection office in 24 hours’. The knowledge that the bell works, ‘the wife’ was in situ and there is a humongous sign on the door asking delivery drivers, in our absence, to leave any parcels with my neighbour, added to my first world problem. To then be informed that it may take Royal Mail 24 hours to safely ensconce said item at the sorting office 2 miles yonder brought me a delivery of first world angst. My issue was exacerbated the following evening as I fought to prove my credentials to a Post Office counter staff worker bedecked in the most glorious mullet I have ever seen. Her raison d’etre was that she was doing me a good turn by not delivering my item the previous day before proceeding to make me jump through identity hoops for a 5 pack of inner tubes and non-drip water bottle.

A curious 21st Century phenomena, the First world problem, in the heat of battle, seems like the biggest issue in the world. In hindsight and upon reflection however, the issue that causes undue stress still seem like the biggest issue in the world.

I raged internally yesterday when Sainsbury’s ran out of Bubblemint extra chewing gum. My utter disdain was intensified a few minutes later when the checkout operative confirmed the fact that she aint no Carol Vorderman. I handed over £12.05 for items costing £7.05 and then watched as confusion reigned. After explaining that the return payment should be £5, she then casually put the boot in by handing me change in 50p pieces which she placed on top of the receipt before offloading. She then watched nonplussed as, with 3 bags of shopping cutting into my wrists, I attempted to tip the coinage into my wallet before she bid me a ‘pleasant evening’.

Upon exit, with my hands now having lost all feeling, the automatic door was on go slow as I walked straight into it before one of the bags split and I attempted to balance 2 packets of Weetabix Minis under my armpit as I stumbled off to the Vauxhall Corsa in the drizzle. Upon opening the tailgate with my knee, I managed to locate the 27 bags for life that were hiding in the boot before I shed a self-pitying tear and grabbed a handful of damp breakfast cereal with which to console myself.

FWP’s have me in the crosshairs some days. Wearing socks in a wet bathroom, being given a restaurant table outside the toilets, not having ‘Brett’ written on a named Coke bottle and the amount of ice pubs serve with soft drinks, these fast become major irritations which grate intensely in the heat of everyday battle.

A friend raged recently because he couldn’t close his wallet bemoaning the fact that he had ‘too many notes in it’. I saw another lose his rag as the Ketchup in the café wasn’t Heinz but a cheap watered down substitute.
We all have stress inducing FWP’s, yet we need to find time to eradicate them once and for all. I don’t want to get too Socialist and advocate us all living in harmony and respecting each other come what may as, to me, they are empty idealistic vessels, full of meaning yet devoid of substance. Even as I write this column, lying in bed at 7am on a Saturday morning, I am somewhat irked as I have a mild hangover due to the fact that Carling was off and I was forced to endure the head heavy Stella last night. One thing that will console me is the go to guy: Earl Grey. Sadly, I will have to construct it myself as my wife fills the mug to the brim and frequently overlooks the milk and sweeteners.

Keep Russ Abbott in the madhouse and let Gnasher out of the kennel.

In social climes, it can be as difficult to extract yourself from a conversation as it is to inaugurate one. Chatting to a local recently, and with a pause in proceedings, I enquired as to his favourite comic from his childhood. He commenced on a long ramble about Groucho Marx and Tommy Trinder, completely missing my point and giving me the same feeling of emptiness I get when slowing down on the M25 after spotting a Police car in the distance, only to realise a few minutes later that I am actually crawling past a vehicle from the Highways Agency.
Despite my protestations that I meant ‘reading’ comic, he was in full flow and I had to endure an elongated comedy connections one-man show taking in the sights of Tommy Cooper, Bernard Manning and, worryingly, Russ Abbot.
I had earlier that day taken a post work sojourn to London Colney Sainsbury’s to buy my daughters a comic. It is a fair summation today that the UK comic industry across the board has gone up in price and hugely down in content despite the gloss. It is all about fooling the child with aesthetics doing away with substance. It is the product equivalent of being trapped in a lift with a supermodel. The awe lasts 30 seconds before you’ve read what is in front of you from cover to cover and realise there’s precious little between the pages.
As a child it was the highlight of my week hearing the dull thud of the Beano, Dandy or Whizzer and Chips on the doormat prior to bounding down the wooden ladder 3 steps at a time to feast on classics such as ‘Wheelchair Danny’ and ‘Beat your neighbour’.
To be fair, it is unlikely that the crop from the 70’s and 80’s would pass current day censors. More likely the east offended would start a petition and call for a ban to be implemented. To be fair they may have a point when looking at the social constructs of the characters. Either that or they could politicise it and relaunch Viz as ‘Vaz’, and caricature a serious career politician who becomes embroiled in numerous japes with A class drugs and gentlemen of ill repute (allegedly).
The Whizzer strips including ‘Beat your neighbour’ was about 2 warring families. One thin and desirable, the others fat and scruffy. Wheelchair Wonder was a heart-warming yarn of a 15-year-old top league footballer who was so ill he was wheelchair bound throughout the week. Come 3pm on a Saturday he would muster some strength, get out the chair confines and bang in a hat trick or two for the team, prior to collapsing through over exertion and being wheelchair bound for the next 6 days and 22.5 hours. As a 2D role model he was one of the greats, inspiring legions of benefit cheats who perform such miracles and are exposed weekly by the Daily Mail.
I guess the downturn in comic joy can be lay at two doors. Firstly, the politically correct brigade who have, rightly or wrongly, ushered us away from characters with attributes that are now unmockable, be they big ears, or are camp or overweight. Secondly is the financial bottom line with most publishers now having a stable of comics catering for a range of diverse child target markets. Gone are the days of limited choice sadly and its goodbye Bunty, Judy, Victor, the Beezer, Lord Snooty and Sid the Sexist and Hello Lego, Peppa Pig and the Simpsons.
For me, I will be buying job lots of old comics from boot sales for my kids to enjoy. That’s the plan until pester power hooks me once again as they are enticed by the free piece of plastic tat as I try to lure them back to the past with my dog eared, moving eyes Gnasher badge.

Parlour games in the vestibule? Dont mind if I do squire…

Mastermind to me is not a grouchy Humphry’s sandwiched between an orchestra of social inadequates as they smugly answer questions about the Grupo Montparnasse period. The BBC intellectual blue riband clashes continue to be frustrating to the layman. That said, I confess I correctly answered 4 specialist subject questions concurrently recently, sadly unwitnessed, prior to reverting to type and struggling to comprehend the questions, let alone the answers.
No, Mastermind to me is a classic board game portrayed by an out of focus photo of a pretty young Asian woman standing next to a pretty aged, ginger bearded, octopus pawed male. Chipboard cover discarded, it transforms into an addictive, if dull and moreish chance game to be begrudgingly endured by all the family.
Back from the downtime abyss, parlour games have made a comeback in my family. Having spent weeks in this here column bemoaning the technology overkill with which we smother our young, we have, in the last few months, played Monopoly a few times a week with roaring success. It is educational (teaching about Business, failure and risk), keeps you engaged and tests the range of human emotions, from fear and anguish to defeat and mind blowing glory. Granted, it can sometimes drag on for 6 hours too long leaving you too clear up after a wounding defeat to a Gordon Gekkoesque 8-year-old.
That said, despite the board game resurrection, there are certain adults that I point blank refuse to play Monopoly with. One cheats mercilessly, and somehow ends up with all the pink notes when sitting within 20 metres of the bank, throws the dice before you have time to collect your dues and elicits properties that have never been landed on, and another is a fellow Aries. Although an unbeliever in the mystique of star signs, if a fellow April born player is partaking, then I’m out, thus avoiding the ruckus that would ensue as the rams’ clash, despite the goading and chicken noises directed as you watch through gritted teeth from the sidelines.
Connect 4 is also a winner in the longevity stakes. It is the board game equivalent of unchained melody. It comes in different guises but always delivers and its popularity endures. Triv is good, despite the awkwardness of technicoloured cheeses. Scrabble is also a stayer as long as you have a dictionary handy to check words like ‘becuddlemental’ for a 98 pointer on a triple word square.
Sadly, like the Madonna back catalogue, there is little new to pique the interest. Usually in the summer, when trying to amuse the bairns, we buy a board game or two to play in the caravan and they never surprise, always ending in underwhelming disappointment. Modern games are generally produced with inferior materials, and have forgotten about the number one rule of any participation genre: game play.
Cluedo, Hungry Hippos, Jenga and Battleships have it, games devised in the last 20 years do not. New games are like tennis. An age is spent on the logistics of setting it up, and between turns, with very little user activity. This leads to frustration, boredom and valuable space taken up in your understairs cupboard until you come across it again in 3 years’ time, and, forgetting how crushing it was the first time around, set it up again for further disappointment.
Like Haribo have managed in their dumbing down of the sweet world, Hasbro, and their compatriots should stop wasting cash on game development and invest in extending the classic products further. If it aint broke, why attempt to fix it? Yes, Mr Mattel, I don’t like the cut of your updated jib. You can keep your piranha panic, pie face, gooey louey and seagull splat. As for me, I will be spending this weekend, playing games in my ‘parlour’ masterminding how I will bankrupt my daughters whilst causing my wife to go becuddlemental.

Some are born lucky, some have bad luck thrust upon them.

They say you make your own luck although I have never had any luck working out who ‘they’ are. As a man who often drags defeat from the jaws of victory, I class myself as unlucky. Bad luck is sitting on a table opposite a senior manager and not realising your trousers have split, it is tripping over invisible obstacles or being stricken by objects falling from the sky. I have been the victim of all of the above.

I know one chap who would fall in a barrel of teats and come out sucking his own thumb. Many moons ago his car ran out of petrol so he decided to thumb a lift. Walking along the grassy verge there was little room for pedestrian manoeuvre. Perturbed at having had no luck for 10 minutes he became more animated and thrust his thumb as far out as he could. At that moment a touring caravan came whizzing past, caught his digit and snapped it in two before continuing its journey to some damp outpost.

Strangely enough the only time I relied on my thumb as a mode of transport was on the same stretch of road where I jumped into a deviant looking rotund man’s car. As I did, I made a vow to not drink anything he offered and keep the door unlocked in case I had to make an ungainly exit at traffic lights. I hopped in and trod on his Elvis CD breaking it clean in half. He was visibly angry so I ended up remunerating him with a five pound note when a cab at the time would have cost around £3.

Another friend, a forces firearms instructor chopped his finger clean off in a door of a Citroen Saxo and had to cease a distinguished military career. Musicians are also not immune. A drummer went to a community event. With youthful exuberance he saw a vacant drum kit, ran over and jumped onto the stool. Unbeknown to him the stool had a serious structural fault. The foam seat collapsed under his weight onto a metal spike. Gravity took control and the spike impaled itself in the most unfortunate of places. This rendered him incapacitated and facing many months of corrective surgery along with him being the ‘butt’ of his mate’s jokes.

At work a few years ago a colleague made the mistake of snacking on Sun maid raisins which he was sure were laced with lashings of laxative. Upon clearing out the system he had the realisation that there was no toilet paper. The open plan layout did not allow him to do the shuffle of shame to source some Andrex in a neighbouring trap. Like a poor man’s member of the Territorial SAS he decided to wait it out. 10 minutes later, with the lesson started and the knowledge that 24 kids were probably trashing his classroom, he heard a sound in the next cubicle. Coyly he put his hand under the gap, waved and said; Hi, can you pass me some paper please’? Unbeknown to him it was a colleague with whom he wasn’t on the best of terms and he proceeded to pass him one square of paper. He then repeated the request 6 times and left the facilities humiliated before fielding uncomfortable questions from management as to his going missing in education action.

Another acquaintance was once run over by a steamroller. Working on a road gang, he was standing on the roller before unexpectedly fainting. He never worked again, but ‘luckily’ his body was pushed into soft 500-degree tarmac saving him from death. He looked like a haggard flower that had been pressed between the pages of a hardback book.

The unluckiest story of all award has to go to Garfield Morton and Kim Gorton. Morton and Gorton sounding like a 70’s sitcom writing team, are lifelong burglars. They recently, inadvisably, broke into the house of notorious gay sex predator, Harry Harrington aka the ‘Wolfman’. At 6’7 and weighing over 300lbs, he caught them and kept them captive for 5 days subjecting them to unimaginable abuse before their wails of pain were heard by a neighbour who called 911. Suffice to say their decades long burglary careers are behind them, as was the Wolfman.

The next time I am asked ‘how your luck? I will think of the burglars, the thumb, finger and drum stool and thank my lucky stars that although I may have been knocked off a motorbike after being hit by a remote controlled aeroplane, my misfortune is minor compared to some.