Shopping - Will I Ever Learn?

I am the most stupid man in the world. Will I ever learn from my mistakes?

We are going to a family wedding next weekend and, of course, Mrs PM has to have a new dress for the occasion. I know from past experience that shopping with Mrs PM is a dreadful experience, made even worse when she has to buy clothes for herself.

I’ve suffered before (read about it here).

Last weekend, I made several mistakes. First, I told Mrs PM that I was thinking of going to the Trafford Centre to buy a new shirt and tie for the wedding.

“I need to buy a new dress,” she replied.

The horror of a trip to the Trafford Centre being dragged around lady’s clothes shops well up inside me and I almost screamed:

“NOOOO!!! Don’t make me come with you. In the name of all that is sane and holy, please don’t make me come with you.”

Thankfully, my mental firewall intercepted the tsunami of pure panic that threatened to overwhelm me and turn me into a gibbering, blubbing wreck and I managed to compose myself and say:

“Fabulous. I tell you what – why don’t you go ahead and I’ll join you later. I’ve got one or two things to do; I’ll give you a call when I arrive.”

“Fine,” she said, much to my relief.

I let her go and my intention was to give her three hours before joining her. That was my second mistake.

I can barely stand to spend more than an hour in the Trafford Centre myself, so I foolishly assumed that three hours would be ample time for Mrs PM to find herself a dress. Wrong!

Three and a half hours later I set off and arrived at the Trafford Centre with a very simple plan; meet Mrs PM for a coffee, buy a shirt and then go home.

I called her.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“I’m in NEXT”, she said.

“Have you found a dress?” I asked.

“No!” she said.

I felt an invisible hand squeezing on my heart. I almost wept. People stared at me as I crumbled.

“Are you there?” she asked.

“Yes,” I squeaked. “I’ll see you in a minute.”

I managed to pull myself together before I reached NEXT and found her looking frustrated as she moved from dress to dress. I managed a smile.

“Honestly, I’ve been to loads of shops and I can’t find anything,” she said.

“Fancy a coffee?” I said hopefully.

There was no chance. She looked at me as if I had just kicked a dog. We spent the next twenty minutes wondering around NEXT before she dragged me off to Debenhams.

Some people say that Debenhams is a great shop because of the wide variety of choice. I say that it is the eighth level of Hades. The entire ground floor is dedicated to woman’s shopping; if you aren’t asphyxiated by the smorgasboard of female fragrances, then you find yourself, as a man, surrounded by all manner of female attire. It is quite easy to panic in there and find yourself in the lingerie section. If you a male and alone there, you may as well start praying to your maker.

Within Debenhams, there are a large number of franchises each of which has a huge selection of clothing. Mrs PM was like a kid in a candy shop. I was hauled around every single rack of clothing. I saw dresses for small women, big women, fat women, thin women and there were numerous varieties for all ages. I was surrounded by females all of whom were totally and utterly indecisive. Are all women Librans? I think they are. I made another mistake at this point. I said:

“There are hundreds of dresses. Why can’t you decide? You’re worse than I am.”

She physically abused me at this point. If the look of rage wasn’t enough to strike fear into my soul, the thump that followed was an appetiser that had me wondering about the manner of my impending doom at the hands of my beloved.

I had to make amends. I had to feign interest.

“What about this one?” I asked.

“Are you mad?” she replied with ill-concealed venom.

“How about this?” I asked picking up a small number that I foolishly thought would accentuate the better parts of her figure.

“DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT I LOOK LIKE? ARE YOU BLIND?”

I decided to shut up and only add words of encouragement when she showed a little interest in a garment.

After an eternity Mrs PM managed to select some dresses. By this time my diminishing interest was but a memory; I had no idea where she had picked up each item and had followed her around the store like a lost puppy.

“Right,” she said. “I’m going to try these on.

“At last,” I whispered under my breath.

“WHAT?” she snarled.

“Nothing, my sweet,” I said smiling.

I thought that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. I had a moment of pure optimism where, in my mad mind, I saw Mrs PM trying the first dress on, loving it and then both of us leaving the store happy.

What an utter clueless goon I was.

I forgot two things:

(1) It was Saturday afternoon, arguably the busiest time on the busiest shopping day of the week.
(2) Debenhams had a sale.
(3) Mrs PM had several dresses to try.

We arrived at the changing rooms and found a queue. We moved to another set of changing rooms and found another queue. My heart sank.

“We may as well join this one,” said Mrs PM and before I could blink, she added

“OOH – just hang on a minute. I want to look at that dress over there. Keep my place in the queue.”

She handed me the dresses.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse I found myself in a queue of four women waiting for a changing room cubicle to become free - and I was holding several dresses. To the average passer by it looked as if I was queuing to try on the dresses myself.

For the first time I felt like a colossal pervert, a cross dressing maniac. Several blokes walked past. Some laughed openly; others whispered to their partners and pointed; the rest shook their heads, knowing the torment I was going through.

After what seemed like an eternity, Mrs PM returned.

“I didn’t like it,” she said, as if that would make me feel any better.

After an eternity, Mrs PM finally reached the front of the queue. As she disappeared within the changing room I said “If there’s anything you need, let me know.”

That was my biggest mistake. Born out of a desperate need to rectify the numerous faux pas I had offered to assist Mrs PM in the hope that we would leave this hell hole in harmony.

I vowed not to make the mistake of trying to answer the world’s most difficult question: How do I look in this?

Regrettably I heard seven words that shattered any hope of leaving with a tiny amount of my pride intact. The changing room attendant came out holding one of the dresses that Mrs PM had taken in.

“Are you Dave?” she asked.

I should have run away at that point but I said, yes.

“Can you get this in size 14?”

She handed me a purple dress and disappeared back into the changing room leaving me standing there like a complete cranberry.

For a while I was too shocked to react. When I finally came to my senses I realised the enormity of the task before me. I hadn’t paid any attention to the exact location where Mrs PM had acquired the dress. It could be anywhere in this enormous shop. And then I realised that I would have to find the location whilst clutching the bloody dress. I wouldn’t have Mrs PM with me so once more I would look as if I were shopping for a dress for myself.

This last fact was with me as I walked through the shop. I was being mocked by a series of thoughts entering my head from an unknown nemesis within:

“They think you’re buying that dress for yourself.”

“I’ll bet it would suit you if you tried it on.”

“They’re all laughing at you – you’re a PERVERT!”

I ran around the store, frantically searching. My haste made matters worse because the dress clung to me like a purple leech, giving some people, I’m sure, the impression that I was actually wearing it.

It probably only took me five minutes to find the location and swap dresses but it was the longest five minutes of my life. I raced back to the changing room and almost threw the dress at the changing room attendant. My face was red and flustered; I’m sure I heard mocking laughter.

Thankfully my efforts weren’t in vain and Mrs PM chose the dress that I had just humiliated myself with.

Two hours had passed since I’d arrived- Mrs PM had been there for FIVE AND A HALF HOURS.

I managed to buy a shirt and tie within ten minutes and we enjoyed a relaxing coffee before finally going home.

To give you some idea about how I feel when shopping with Mrs PM, consider the following excerpt from the hilarious show “Father Ted” where a bunch of Catholic priests suddenly find themselves in the lingerie section of a department store and have to escape unnoticed (follow this link).

I am looking forward to the wedding – I just hope that Mrs PM doesn’t tell everybody about our escapades with the dress. Knowing her, she will convince them that I actually tried on the dress myself – or worse that I actually enjoy shopping with her!!

The Nutter Magnet

I have an affliction that has tormented me for most of my life: I am a complete nutter magnet.

I’ve asked myself why nutters are drawn to me but I simply cannot see what it is about me that sends them into a frenzy. I could be in a room full of people who are all completely different. When the nutter enters the room, he will invariably look around for a victim, spot me and then home in. As soon as he sees me, he will shift into the highest gear of weirdness, smile his crooked smile and, before I can blink, he will be there, inflicting his nuttiness on me.

It’s happened all of my life and continues to happen to this day.

Here are a couple of examples of my encounters with nutters.

In the eighties, I was sitting in a pub with a mate. He got up to buy a couple of beers and when I turned around a second later, the only nutter in the pub had taken his seat. It was as if he had been waiting for my friend to leave. This guy (they are always guys) stared at me with a very creepy grin. He didn’t say a word.

“Excuse me,” I said politely. “This seat is taken.”

His grin widened but he said nothing. I should have simply stood up and joined my mate at the bar, but being the idiot that I am I stayed there.

“I can read your conscience,” he claimed. “I KNOW your mind.”

Oh no, I thought – a bloody nutter. Instead of getting up and walking away, I tried to engage him in conversation.

“Look mate, my pal’s at the bar and will be back in a minute.”

“I knew you were going to say that,” he said, his grin becoming even weirder. “I can read your mind like a book.”

“No you can’t,” I said. “Nobody can read minds.”

What kind of idiot was I? What was I doing trying to engage the nutter in conversation? I knew that it would end in pain.

The nutter, buoyed by my stupidity, settled into his seat and started to explain why my thoughts were so easy to read. I can’t remember what he said exactly but his words were mad enough and loud enough to attract the attention of quite a few people in the pub. Instead of coming to my rescue, these people simply enjoyed the show and started laughing openly.

“What’s he saying now?” said one.

My mate returned from the bar and, being much more forceful than I am, said “Oy, mate! That’s my seat.”

The nutter got up and I breathed a sigh of relief. However, such is the strength of my nutter magnet that he wasn’t finished. He walked behind me and continued telling me, in increasingly bizarre terms, why my every thought was screaming at him. And then the final humiliation – he put his hands on shoulders and started massaging my neck. He lowered his lips to my ear and said “I think you can read my mind as well – we’re so alike.”

I have to thank my mate at this point because he intervened.

“I wouldn’t touch him, mate,” he said to the nutter. “He’s got AIDS.”

I have never seen a man fly out of the pub so quickly.

Perhaps I should have simply ignored the nutter. Unfortunately that doesn’t always work as my second tale will reveal.

I was on the London Underground. The train was full but I had been lucky enough to get a seat. When I say “lucky” I really mean “unlucky”. I was listening to music at a fairly high volume and was so engrossed in it that I was oblivious to my surroundings. I noticed that the woman opposite me was staring in my direction – I thought for a brief second that I may have attracted the welcome attention of a nice young lady. But then I noticed she wasn’t looking at me at all; her gaze was focussed slightly to my right. Her eyes briefly flitted back to mine and her brow furrowed as if she were puzzled. I turned my head to my right to see what was so fascinating.

That’s when the person to my right grabbed my headphones and ripped them off my head.

The man next to me was a complete nutter, one of the worst kinds – an angry nutter. He had apparently been yelling at me for a while but my music had been loud enough to cover his insane screaming; that’s why the lovely lady opposite had looked so puzzled. I had been sitting next to the nutter as he screamed at me but my music had been so loud that I was oblivious to his insane ranting.

He gripped my headphones in his dirty hands and shouted “WHY WON’T YOU LISTEN TO ME????? NOBODY LISTENS TO ME.”

The person on the other side of the nutter must have breathed a sigh of relief at this stage because, as usual, the nutter had focussed all of his attention on me.

“Can I have my headphones?” I asked calmly.

He threw them into my lap in indignation and shouted.

“LISTEN TO ME!!!”

Because he was angry, I agreed to listen to him. He spent the next ten minutes telling me about alien invasions, evil doppelgangers and peculiar conspiracy theories. He punctuated his ranting with “DO YOU BELIEVE ME????”

I nodded in the hope that he would leave me alone – he didn’t. I’m sure that if I said “No,” he would have carried on ranting.

Of course, the rest of the train found my experience highly amusing and again some people were openly laughing. It was as if the nutter and I had been surrounded by a bubble impervious to sound; he was oblivious to everybody else and the mocking laughter that echoed around the train.

When the train finally stopped, I waited for the doors to open and a few people to get off, before leaping up at the last minute. I managed to get off the train before the nutter could react and follow me.

These days I am more aggressive to nutters; if one were to sit next to me in a pub I would get up and leave rather than being subjected to a one way humiliating tirade of abuse.

All this has got me wondering whether I have any physical properties that draw nutters to me. Have I got a kind face? Can they really read my mind? Am I an alien?

Ah – I think I may have it. I think it is my mad bad hair. It must be an antenna that draws nutters in. Perhaps if I shave it all off the nutters will leave me alone. Perhaps I’m like Samson – except my hair doesn’t give me strength; it is the nutter magnet.

Maybe I’m wrong though – perhaps it’s just me. Whatever the reason, I fear that nutters will still be drawn to me. I have never done anything to encourage them at all. I wonder whether I have an invisible tattoo on my forehead saying “I LOVE NUTTERS” that only they can read.

Anyway, I’m not the only one who suffers:

Listen here for the Birmingham commedian Jasper Carrott's experience of nutters: Nutter On The Bus

I know exactly how he feels.

Australian English

In Australia, I would probably be called “The Plastic Pom”, although maybe such a title would better serve an Australian living in England.

For those of you who don’t know, Pom is a term of endearment that our Australian cousins like to call people from Britain. It’s a bit of a weird name to be called and, from what I’ve read, nobody really knows where the name originates from. Some say it comes from POHM, meaning “Prisoners Of His Majesty”; others say that it is short for pomegranate, derived from the colour that pale English skins became when exposed to the sun down under.

Either way, I like the word, though I’m not sure that I like being called a Pom to be perfectly honest. As far as our Australian brethren are concerned, we simply call them Aussies.

All this shows that there is healthy banter between our two nations. We are fiercely competitive but to be honest I think we like each other, probably because we share the same sense of humour; I certainly haven’t met a bad Australian.

When it comes to sport, Aussies are insanely jealous of us because we beat them repeatedly at most sports. Well, sometimes anyway. Well – rarely if I’m perfectly honest. Nothing is sweeter than kicking Australian arse at cricket or rugby. Recently Britain inflicted a fabulous Australian bum kicking in the last Olympics, causing outrage down under. We won a magnificent 19 gold medals, compared to a pathetic 14 by team Australia. Of course, the Australians claim victory because, of the 19 British medals, 6 were won by Scottish and Welsh athletes making the real result: Australia 14 England 13. This is quite clearly a desperate and pathetic argument – we kicked your arses my Aussie friends.

Sadly, in rugby and cricket, we have limited success against them, and apart from beating Australia in their own back yard to win the Rugby World Cup in 2003, we don’t have much to shout about.

Anyway, the point of this post is not to gloat about sport; it is to differentiate between the way English is spoken in Britain and Australia. And boy do Australians have some strange words

Here are a few examples:

Ankle biter - a small child
Arvo - afternoon
Barbie - barbecue
Bathers - swimming costume
Billy - teapot
Bingle - car accident
Blue - fight (“he was having a blue with his wife”)
Bonzer - great
Cactus - dead (“this bloody machine is cactus”)
Chook - chicken
Cobber - friend
Daks - trousers
Digger - soldier
Dinkum - true, great
Docket - bill
Drongo - stupid person
Dunny - outside toilet
Franger - condom
G’day - hello
Grog - booze
Hoon - hooligan
Jumbuck - sheep
Liquid laugh - vomit
Matilda - sleeping roll
Moolah - money
Mystery bag - sausage
Ocker - oaf
Pommy - Englishman
Porky - lie
Rip snorter - fantastic (“It was a rip snorter of a party”)
Roo - kangaroo
Ripper - great, fantastic
Rotten - drunk
Sanger - sandwich
Seppo - an American
Sheila - woman
Shonky - dubious
Skite - boast
Spewin - angry
Sticky beak - nosey person
Strides - trousers
Swaggie - tramp
Tinny - can of beer
Tucker - food
Whacka - idiot
Wowser - a prude

Another one of my favourite phrases is a pommy shower, yet another reference to Brits but good nonetheless. What does it mean? Well, imagine that you’ve been out boozing all night and then have to go to work the next day. Obviously you still stink of booze so you try to mask the smell by drowning yourself in deodorant; hence a pommy shower.

Some other good phrases:

All over the place like a mad woman’s breakfast – in a state of chaos.

Park a tiger on the rug – vomit

I could kick the arse off an emu – I am very healthy

He’s got a head like a robber’s dog – He’s ugly

I was very surprised to see that a lot of British and Australian slang is very similar; the words may vary slightly but in essence they are the same.

One final word that has me a bit stumped is Manchester which apparently means household linen; it brings a whole new meaning to the Plastic Mancunian. I’d love to know the origin of that one.

Finally, have you ever watched Australian rules football? I swear it is the most violent and crazy game I have ever seen. If anybody can explain the rules to me feel free. I recall watching it for the first time in the 80’s and to me it looked like a bunch of Australian thugs running around on an oval pitch and kicking seven colours of crap out of each other. In the game I saw, one guy was sent off for excessive violence and, when heckled from the crowd, launched himself at the guy before being dragged off to the dressing room. The commentators shrugged it off as a normal event saying “Boy – he must’ve been pissed off!”

Yet in England, when Eric Cantona, having been sent off in a game of football, leapt into the crowd and karate kicked a fan, there was universal outrage with the commentators, pundits and newspapers condemning him in the most vehement fashion. I’ll bet the Aussie guy’s antics went unnoticed and he had a tinny in the dunny before he went home.

I’m looking forward to my next trip to Australia, which unfortunately won’t be in the near future. It gives me plenty of time to practice Australian English thankfully, though a Pom impersonating an Aussie in his own back yard may precipitate a fight rather quickly.

By the way, Aussies, if you are reading this post, I hope you’re looking forward to having your arses kicked in the Ashes this summer. Of course, if the results go your way, I will make an excuse, just like you did when we battered you in the Olympics.

Beautiful Rock, Beautiful Metal

I am misunderstood when it comes to music and I’m bloody sick of it.

I’m often asked “What kinds of music do you like, Dave”

When I reply “I love classic rock and heavy metal”, the person reacts in one of three ways:

First, they run away, screaming “Devil worshipper”.

Or second, they say “Oh – so you don’t really like music then. Heavy metal is just a wall of noise that makes most of its fans tone deaf.” They then proceed to lecture me on how the singers can’t sing, the guitarists just pour out wailing noise and can’t really play before accusing me of having no musical taste whatsoever. I have to listen to a one way diatribe about how “rock is dead” and that all rock lovers are smelly, brainless, long-haired idiots who wouldn’t know a decent tune if it came up and said “I’m a decent tune”. Finally, they say something along the lines of “If you want to listen to some good music, buy the latest album by Britney Spears or Take That”.

Or third, they say “YEAH! METAAAALLLLL!!!””

I want to target this post at those in the first two categories (as those in the third category are usually like minded people).

Before I go on, I would just like to say that I appreciate most forms of music and have a varied collection of CDs. I just happen to prefer rock music and heavy metal.

There are people out there who genuinely believe that rock music is the spawn of satan and all people who buy CDs by bands like Black Sabbath are destined to burn in the fires of hell for all eternity. There are also people out there who believe that heavy metal simply isn’t music at all, claiming, as I said above, that the artists are in fact using electric guitars as noise generators and somehow convincing people like me that it is music when in fact it is a tuneless dirge.

Well I want to make a stand here and now and prove these people wrong. The purveyors of rock and metal are not satanists and they are, on the whole, possibly the most gifted musicians on the planet.

I have numerous discussions with Mrs PM about music and I frequently end up banging my head against the wall in frustration. To say our tastes are different is a massive understatement.

Mrs PM would rather listen to nonsense like Britney Spears and Lady Ga Ga. When we drive a fair distance, we argue constantly about which radio station to listen to; she prefers Galaxy, a station that plays endless dance music. We end up playing one or two tracks of my music and one or two tracks of hers, which means that I am exposed to the latest bilge from Britney whilst trying to educate her about the finer points of heavy metal.

“It’s over,” she keeps saying to me when I extol the virtues of rock.

I am utterly fed up with this stereotyping and I am sick of people accusing me of having no appreciation of decent music just because I like to play air guitar with Metallica, or leap up and down while singing along with Trent Reznor or Geddy Lee.

Who else can play a musical instrument the way that Kirk Hammett, Joe Satriani or Tony Iommi can play the guitar? Who can play drums better than Neil Peart, Ian Paice or Cozy Powell?

Here for you delectation are a few songs by classic rock and heavy metal artists that will prove once and for all that these people have a rare talent for song writing, can actually sing delightfully and most importantly are superb musicians. These songs are, in my humble opinion, beautiful.

I present to you some exquisite examples of beautiful rock and beautiful metal, without a devil and barely a wailing guitar in sight. Follow the links to YouTube, close you eyes and let your imagination take you away on a cloud of wonder:

(1) Black Sabbath – Laguna Sunrise
(2) Ten – The Elysian Fields
(3) Foo Fighters – Still
(4) Queensrÿche – Silent Lucidity
(5) Jethro Tull – Slow Marching Band
(6) Joe Satriani – Day At The Beach
(7) Black Sabbath – Fluff
(8) Gun – The Only One
(9) Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb
(10) Evanescence – My Immortal
(11) Nine Inch Nails – Right Where It Belongs
(12) Deep Purple – The Aviator
(13) Def Leppard – From The Inside
(14) Rainbow – Temple Of The King
(15) Led Zeppelin – All My Love
(16) Nazareth – Fallen Angel
(17) Whitesnake – Don’t Fade Away
(18) Rammstein – Ohne Dich
(19) Little Angels – Feels Like My World Has Come Undone
(20) Ozzy Osbourne – My Little Man
(21) Black Sabbath – Spiral Architect

These songs are so delightful that they bring tears to my eyes.

I hope you appreciate how musical these guys are and I hope that I’ve persuaded you a little. If you decide to listen to a little Def Leppard, Deep Purple or Black Sabbath as a result of this post I feel I will have done a good job.

Let me know what you think.

And finally, in the words of Bon Scott – LET THERE BE ROCK!!!!!!!

I'm In Love With My Car

Why do many men fall in love with their cars?

And if you don’t think that they do, think again. A large number of men are obsessed with their cars and treat them better than they treat their women.

I hasten to add that I am not in this category. I drive, what my mates describe, as a shed on wheels. It is a thirteen year old banger, although the manufacturers prefer to call it a “Ford Escort”. Boy racers and car-obsessed guys pour scorn on my old car, and openly mock me for continuing to use what they also describe as a “heap”.

I’ve owned my car now for about nine years. One of the reasons that I have kept it, instead of succumbing to pressure from car-loving mates to replace it, is that my car is totally and utterly reliable. In the time I have owned it, my car has only let me down once; I broke down on the M62 crawling up a hill in a traffic jam and the car overheated because a fan had failed. The breakdown guy who rescued me managed to get it going within two minutes and I managed to get home without further problems.

Sure, it’s got a few dents, a couple of rusty spots and it has definitely seen better days, but it still goes. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the point of having a car? Aren’t cars simply meant to be devices that simply take us from A to B?

One thing’s for sure; I am definitely not in love with it. I would be a little miffed if something happened to it, but not for any reason other than the inconvenience it would cause.

There are men I know who have spent hundreds of pounds on their cars; their obsession is laughable. All of their spare time is spent polishing the thing and when you are a passenger in it, you have to watch where you put your feet.

These guys drive around for fun; I HATE driving – the only reason I do it is because it gets me to my destination quicker. I have absolutely no desire to drive around for the hell of it. We’re talking about guys who would marry their cars if it were legal to do so.

One mate of mine was so in love with his car that he barely drove the thing; it sat in his garage and he polished it religiously and rarely went out in it. His wife had an old banger and he used that instead Then came the fateful day when his wife announced that she was pregnant. He was faced with a stark choice. Well, to his wife it was a no-brainer but to him it was a huge problem. Could he afford to keep a high performance beauty of a car that he rarely drove AND have the ability to support his wife and forthcoming child? In the end, common sense prevailed and he sold it. There were tears in his eyes as he handed over the keys. He also handed over a handwritten book about how to look after the car, covering details of which polish to use, how often to service it, etc. and what to call it when he drove it.

And his final word was “If you crash it, I’ll bloody kill you.”

He didn’t say that really but I know that he was thinking it.

You only have to watch TV shows like Top Gear to get a feel for man’s obsession with his four-wheeled friends. The three presenters spend the entire show drooling over the latest high performance motors, blinding us with statistics about how fast the things go:

0 to 60 in 2 seconds – now THERE’S a car

I love the show because it is hilarious but the obsession with cars is there for even the most stupid among us to see.

I must admit that some of the cars featured on the show are quite exquisite to look at but how the hell could the vast majority of people in Britain (or indeed anywhere) afford such a beast? Most of the cars featured on the show cost more than my house. If I were to drive a top of the range Ferrari around Manchester, I would be travelling at 5 mph for fear of damaging it. And woe betide the person who crashed into me.

Why do people spend so much on cars? I don’t understand it. My old banger costs quite a lot to keep it on the road and, although the repair, service and MOT bills are modest, they are still expensive. To service a top of the range car (even a modest saloon) it would cost a fortune. To me that would be a disaster – it would be like throwing my wallet over the cliff – utterly pointless and very expensive.

And have you ever been to a motor show?

A car-loving mate once persuaded me to go down to Birmingham to see a show covering mainly motor sport. He and just about every other male there were drooling over the sports cars, formula one cars, rally cars etc. – I was drooling over the busty models who were sitting on the bonnets of these cars (and I think I was in a minority). Honestly, the place was awash with dribble from car-obsessed men. There were stalls with wheels, bits of engines and all sorts of other anatomical bits and pieces for high performance cars and I have never seen so many men in lust with them. It was absurd and ridiculous. I was bored out of my brain after an hour or so.

My mate spotted a Finnish rally driver and bought a video covering a two year old rally season just so that he could get the guys autograph; I’d never heard of the man, even though I exchanged a few words with him. I can’t even remember his name and I wouldn’t know him again even if I tripped over his outstretched boot.

If only I had been single, good-looking and charming, I could have tried to pull one of the busty models – but sadly that was also a non-starter.

All the way back, my mate enthused over the show and I nodded but lost interest. I haven’t been back to another show.

There is a song by Queen called “I’m In Love With My Car” and I reckon that it could have been written by any one of my mates who are obsessed with their cars. The lyrics are very funny to somebody like me, who regards them as functional devices – here are a few excerpts:

When I’m holdin your wheel
All I hear is your gear
When my hands on your grease gun
Oh its like a disease son

I'm in love with my car
Gotta feel for my automobile
Get a grip on my boy racer rollbar
Such a thrill when your radials squeal

Told my girl I’ll have to forget her
Rather buy me a new carburettor

Here’s the song in full:



I personally think that Roger Taylor’s lyrics probably don’t go far enough for men who love their cars; perhaps they would if the song were called “I’m OBSESSED with my car”, with new lyrics:

When I’m rubbing your wheel
All I feel is your gear
When I’m stroking your bodywork
Oh your touch drives me beserk

I’m obsessed with my car
Want to marry my automobile

Anyway, my old banger does me proud but it will be a sad day when it finally dies and goes to that great garage in the sky.

Why?

Because I’ll have to bloody well fork out for a new one, that’s why.

I've Got This Mole, Ya Know ...

I was having a poke around YouTube (as I sometimes do) and I came across this classic piece of stand-up comedy from Jasper Carrott.

For those of you who have never heard of him, Jasper Carrott is from Birmingham (pretty close to where I was born) and is one of my favourite comedians. I first heard this routine as a child in the 70's and I have never forgotten it.

I was delighted to discover that it came with its own animated film.

I hope you understand the Birmingham accent (very similar to a Black Country accent but not quite).

Enjoy:

Grow Up, Dad!!!

“Why don’t you just grow up?”

Harsh words that perhaps you would imagine were spoken by me when reprimanding one of my sons. The sad truth of the matter is that it is me who was being told off … by my thirteen year old son.

I deserved it, of course. I had been sitting next to him on the settee, driving him up the wall by poking him, prodding him, tickling him and inflicting upon him all sorts of other juvenile annoyances.

“What do you mean – GROW UP?” I asked indignantly.

“You’re an embarrassment,” he replied cruelly. “Stop acting like a child.”

I was mortified. All I was doing was having a little fun. And then Mrs PM, sitting across the room backed him up.

“He’s right. You are a child,” she said. And then she launched into a lecture about examples of how I act more like a four year old than a middle aged man. I couldn’t believe it. She told me that I do the same to her. She reminds me constantly that I behave like a child even when the kids aren’t around. Once, when we visited her parents, she said:

“I’m here with the three kids.”

I foolishly looked around and said “Who’s the third kid?”

“YOU ARE!” she said.

Now I don’t know whether to be proud of this or not. My philosophy with children has always been to join them on their level. I’ve tried to make my lads’ lives fun from the moment they could crawl.

For example:

As babies, I tried to make bath time a complete laugh. I was frequently told off by my (ex) wife for turning the bathroom into a swimming pool, simply because I encouraged the babies to splash me. It was fun – I loved it. And so did they.

As they grew older, I used to hide in their bedroom at bedtime and scare the pants off them when they came in – again they loved it. I have always hidden in the house looking for the best time to make them jump out of their skin by leaping out and screaming “BOOOOO!!!!”.

Even now, I wrestle with them, pin them down and tickle them – and my eldest is sixteen. At bedtime I charge up the stairs and leap on my thirteen year old throwing stuff at him and tickling him.

When we play “Super Mario Kart” on the Wii, I leap up and down like a demented jack-in-a-box when I win, leap onto the losing child and scream “I WON I WON I WON I WON I WON!”

When we have dinner, it is usually me who is being told off by Mrs PM for acting like a buffoon and cracking jokes.

Tell me something – is that so wrong?

I love making the kids laugh. I love having fun with them. I always have done.

It’s a crying shame that my eldest son is almost an adult. I still have fun with him and make him laugh but the looks he gives me when I act like a child are embarrassing.

“Easy Dad,” he says. “I’m sixteen you know.”

You can imagine, I guess, how I felt when my thirteen year old son told me to grow up; I was a little hurt because now he seems to be maturing to the point where my behaviour is an embarrassment to him. And to be honest, I’m saddened by it.

Of course, it is good to see them growing up and I can barely believe that in two years time my eldest son will be able to vote and drink beer. The days of having childish fun with them will soon vanish.

But I am making a promise to myself – I am going to encourage the child within despite people's best efforts to subdue him. After all, we need some fun in our lives and if I can be a child for a little while occasionally, I think it will make me a better person. Embrace that inner child, I say. You will feel better for it.

I must finish now because Mario is calling – I have an appointment with Mario, Wario, Luigi and Bowser and I don’t intend to miss it.