Comfort Zone

Welcome to a changeable South Manchester where the weather has changed since the highs of last week. It’s not unpleasant but it is a lot cooler and we have had a few rain showers. Apparently, the weather is more typical of early June – so that’s alright then (he says sarcastically). 

Still, there is cricket going on and Wimbledon is due at the end of the month. There is plenty of time for more intense heat or intense rain and thunderstorms before then. 

The World Cup starts this week in Canada, Mexico and The United States and England and Scotland have qualified. It should be interesting and now that I have retired I will be able to become a total couch potato for the duration and watch as many games as I can. It was always a problem when I worked because work completely go in the way. Sadly, because it is across the pond, it means that the games kick off much later and some of them take place in the middle of the night. I may be retired but I won’t be staying up until 4am to watch any matches. I will simply record them and watch them the following morning. Luckily England’s games are at a reasonable time. 

Come on England!

Let’s dive into some odd questions from Sunday Stealing. 

This time they require a little thought. Those are my kind of questions. I love a challenge. 

1. What celebrity would you never want to meet? 

Honestly, there are hundreds of them. For example, there are thousands who are only famous for being on reality TV shows because their egos have told them that they deserve to be famous when the reality is that they have no talent whatsoever. I also wouldn’t want to meet anybody who thinks that he or she is better than me simply because other people know who they are. 

To those people, I just want to say you are NOT better than me at all. In fact, in may ways you are far worse than me. 

So, let me pick a "celebrity" for you. 

Piers Morgan.

This man used to be a tabloid newspaper editor and has since managed to find his way into mainstream television as a presenter, interviewer and all-round pain in the backside. He is controversial and loves to be so just to stoke division and anger people. A lot of people in the UK despise him and when he went to America the whole of the UK breathed a collective sigh of relief. And then the Americans sent him back! Why?

Here’s an example of why I really don’t like him:

I also wanted to mention James Corden but I don’t want to bore you with the list of reasons why I dislike him.

2. What do you label yourself as?

I label myself as bit of a weirdo and a bit of a geek. I tick a lot of the boxes for both. For example:

• I have worn glasses since the age of eight and when I was eighteen I looked like the stereotypical nerd you find in geek-bashing movies.
• I love science fiction and anything weird and wonderful such as superheroes.
• I would probably have fit in quite well as a geek on The Big Bang Theory (though not quite as weird as those guys and definitely not as clever – theoretical physics is extremely difficult to understand). 
• I worked in IT for 40 years and my degree is Computational & Statistical Science).
• I was really good at maths (note the extra “s”) and I am pedantic. 

Of course, I do have some qualities that are not geeky and weird but if I weren’t a little strange I just wouldn’t be me - and I like being me.

3. You can only have one sandwich for the rest of your life. You have every sandwich-making ingredient known to man at your disposal. What sandwich do you make? 

That’s easy. It would be ham and cheese with tomato, lettuce and mayonnaise. It’s a simple sandwich but I love it. 

4. An angel provides you with a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. What's it gonna be?

It would be beer. The problem with beer is that I tend to drink bitter and ales in the winter and lager in the summer so the lifetime supply would have to take that into account. 

5. Have you ever built a snowman?

Yes, I have. I built one when I was a kid and I also built one or two with the help of my two lads when they were young. 

6. If you could ask your future self a question, what would it be?

Can you look up the winning numbers for the Euromillions lottery next week and tell me what they are?

7. Have you ever baked your own birthday cake?

Absolutely not. I have baked a very simple cake with my two kids when they were young. It was so simple that even I could bake it. The kitchen was a total mess but it was fun. 

8. Which are cooler: dinosaurs or dragons?

Dinosaurs are definitely cooler because dragons do not exist. Also, when I was in junior school (that would be aged between 7 and 10) I was obsessed with dinosaurs. At the time, we were asked to write a project over a period of a term about anything we wanted (within reason) and I chose dinosaurs. I have rarely had more fun at school.

I also love movies involving dinosaurs, even the old ones from the 1950’s and 1960’s and I have seen every Jurassic Park movie at the cinema (apart from the last one – I was on holiday at the time). 

9. What do you like about babies?

I recently told Mrs PM that I hate feet – even my own. But babies’ feet are lovely. They are pure and clean and cute. Also, I love it when a baby is just lying there cooing and smiling and giggling. It is such fun to watch them – even better if you can make them giggle yourself. 

10. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. What's the first rule you put in place?

This is smaller in scale to my dream of one day becoming World President and removing every odious person from Planet Earth in a fleet of spaceships whose aim is to find a new world where they can live and not annoy the rest of us. Piers Morgan is the pilot.

So, if I had an island instead, I would banish any odious person from setting foot on it, especially politicians. 

Think of a question you'd like to ask and insert it here.

Imagine that you have a machine that can create any new invention for you based on your description of it. What would you ask the machine to create – and why?