10 Years

I’m interrupting my End of the World series of posts to highlight a little milestone in my life.

Wednesday 21st March is the 10th Anniversary of “The Plastic Mancunian”.

Yes, that’s right – I have been posting inane drivel on this blog for ten years.

Can you believe that?

On Friday March 21st, 2008, I wrote and posted my first tiny little missive about the trauma involved in supporting a third rate football team called Walsall.

Although it wasn’t a particularly auspicious subject, sadly the same sentiment rings true today. I still support Walsall Football Club, my home town team, and they are still shit, threatening to ruin Saturday afternoons for me in the football season with their sometimes totally inept performances. Sometime, however, they do me proud and actually win games.

Enough of that nonsense – I don’t want to depress myself.

So what has happened to the blog since that first post?

Basically, I‘ve written 720 posts (including this one), mainly involving small essays. I have ranted mercilessly about things I don’t like, tried my best to introduce my wonderful musical taste to the world, talked about my travel exploits and skirted around the things that have popped in and out of my life.

Some of it has been funny, some of it has been controversial and some of it has been rubbish.

I’ve steered away from certain subjects such as my job. One day, when I finally quit or retire, I will let rip about my career – there is a lot of material there – but for now that subject is taboo – lest I get into trouble. I think that deserves a blog in its own right to be honest.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand; I have enjoyed writing these mini articles – even the bad ones.

The truth is that in the last few months I have been debating whether or not to call it a day – and the bad news is that I have decided, for now at least, to carry on for a while.

I’ve enjoyed the interactions with people from across the globe; UK, America, Australia, Europe and even places like Russia – it’s a truly global thing.

I’m also happy to have stamped a little of my inner thoughts on the vast universe of the internet – even though future generations might put me down as being a bit of a goon.

I don’t care really.

So what’s changed in 10 years?

I have become older, wiser, fatter and more grumpy but, ironically more happy with life. My work still irks me but now I can see the light at the end of a long and frustrating tunnel.

My hair is still mad and I now have grey streaks at the side. My eyesight is worse – I now wear varifocals and am even more frustrated about wearing spectacles than I was as a child.

I’ve learned a lot of stuff from reading other blogs – some amazing stuff in fact, written by some very funny and very interesting people with the same desires to put a little bit of themselves out there into cyberspace. You know who you are.

I’ve written about 75% of a rather terrible novel that needs a lot of work but may one day see the light of day (after approximately a thousand rewrites).

I’ve done a fair amount of travelling too, including weird and wonderful places like Brazil, Japan, Canada, USA, Iceland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Oman as well as a lot of European countries.

Mrs PM and I are celebrating 20 years together this year – and I am still a slave to two very old but very demanding moggies. All of them have been with me for the past ten years.

My two boys are now adults – one of whom is travelling to Australia on Friday for what I suspect might be the beginnings of a life-long love of travel. I'm proud of them both.

However, they do make me feel quite old – but I also feel quite young too in a bizarre way. People tell me that I don’t look my age. Judge for yourself.

Here I am in 2008 when the Plastic Mancunian first arrived.

Mrs PM and I in Hong Kong in 2008

And here I am now.

A selfie in Abu Dhabi taken last Friday

Regular readers (if there are any) will probably cringe at this next sentence – here’s a beautifully mellow song by one of my favourite bands to finish off (I love to end on a song). It's by a band called Riverside and is called "Towards the Blue Horizon" and is in many ways quite apt.

I’ll see you soon for the next post which will discuss the next instalment of the End of the World.

Perhaps I should have reconsidered that topic if I'm trying to be positive.

Proactive Washing

The other day I had a surreal conversation with Mrs PM.

It went like this.

Mrs PM: I want to weight myself but I can’t.

PM: Why? You’re not scared are you? You look fa… OWWW!!!! Why did you thump me?

Mrs PM: You know why, you arse!

PM: I was going to say, you look fabulous!! What did you think I was going to say? Anyway - why can’t you weigh yourself?

Mrs PM:  Oh! Thanks! The batteries have run out on the scales and we haven’t got any more.

PM: Yes we have. I bought some, remember? I’m proactive. As I’ve always said, it’s better to have stuff in than nothing at all.

Mrs PM: You’re not proactive! I’m the proactive one out of the two of us.

PM: Then why didn’t you buy the batteries? When I bought them two weeks ago, you said “Why have you bought those batteries? We don’t need them!”

Mrs PM: No I didn’t.

PM: Yes you did. I’m surprised you don’t remember. You remember things that I said eighteen years ago. OWWWW!!! What’s that for?

Mrs PM: I’ve just remembered what you said to Susan in 2001!

PM: See? I don’t remember that! In fact, I’m not even sure who Susan is!

Mrs PM: It shows that I’ve got a good memory and that you are a stupid arse!

PM: What did I say?

Mrs PM: Well if you don’t remember, I’m not going to tell you.

PM: What does that even mean?

Mrs PM: It means that you are an arse!

PM: By the way, did you know that women make great archaeologists?

Mrs PM: Why?

PM: Because they love digging up the past. OWWW!!! What was that for?

Mrs PM: Sexist pig!

PM: It was a joke.

Mrs PM: I’ll remember that!

PM: I bet you will. Pity you don’t remember saying what you said about the batteries.

Mrs PM: That’s because I didn’t say it.

PM: Yes you did. Did you know that those batteries are also used for other things like the TV remote control, for example?

Mrs PM: Really? I thought you were just hoarding batteries. You hoard other stuff.

PM: No I don’t. I’m proactive. When you’ve just shopped, you leave things off the list because “we don’t need it”. And then we run out. I’ve always said it’s better to have too much than not enough. We nearly ran out of toothpaste last week you know.

Mrs PM: Yeah – and we’ve got food that’s past its sell-by date because you bought too much.

PM: Nonsense – and when I say that I mean you saying that you’re proactive.

Mrs PM: Okay smartarse! Tell me why you’re proactive and I’m not.

PM: Well besides the batteries and the toothpaste, I’m proactive with the washing.

At this point I have to pause because Mrs PM burst out laughing and I watched in puzzled astonishment as she struggled to control herself.

PM: What’s so funny?

Mrs PM: Proactive washing? What the hell is that?

PM: Look at the washing basket and you’ll see.

Mrs PM: It’s empty.

PM: Exactly.

Mrs PM: You are deranged. What the hell are you talking about?

PM: I’ve done the washing before the washing basket filled up and started overflowing with dirty shreddies and socks!

Editor’s note – “shreddies” are what the Plastic Mancunian calls his underpants for reasons that I don’t want to go into. Suffice it say, it’s not a pleasant name when you think about it.

Mrs PM: So proactive washing is making sure that the washing basket is empty?

PM: Duh! Yes!

Mrs PM: I thought you meant that proactive washing is making sure that the washing never gets dirty. I’ve got a wardrobe full of clean clothes if you want to be proactive about it. You can wash all my clean clothes BEFORE they get dirty. That way, the washing basket will never ever have anything in it.

PM: What are you talking about?

Mrs PM: You! You’re an idiot!

PM: Well I’ll remember that!

Mrs PM: No you won’t!

PM: Yes I will! I’ll write it down in my next blog post.

Mrs PM: And let the world know exactly what an idiot you are. Proactive washing! Have you heard yourself?

Maybe I will review the conversation and not post it after all. I don’t want to look daft to the world. I also don’t want the world to know that I don’t understand women. Looking back, I still can’t understand why I was thumped three times during these exchanges. It also makes people think that I rarely win these fun exchanges with the love of my life. The truth is I rarely do.

I think I’ll consign this draft post to the “also rans” folder on my computer.

“Proactive washing” indeed! 

What a stupid idea! 

What a stupid title for a blog post.

Introducing Tonto

I recently introduced you to Captain Chaos, a nemesis of mine who, along with Captain Paranoia, strives to make my life as chaotic as possible.

You can read about him here.

Well there is a third nemesis who helps to complete this unholy trinity; his name is Tonto.

The truth is that Tonto was not part of my life until 1998; that was the year that Mrs PM and I started our relationship.

Is that a coincidence?

No – because Mrs PM and Tonto are a partnership that cannot be broken. Wherever she goes, Tonto goes. She is possessed by Tonto.

And since he came into my life, he has started to haunt me too.

So who is Tonto?

Tonto is the entity that annihilates Mrs PM’s sense of direction. And he is starting to do it to me as well. Tonto is the creature who switches off Mrs PM’s brain turning her into the world’s greatest scatterbrain.

After a few months together I began to notice things. Things like Mrs PM’s sense of direction being virtually non-existent; things like Mrs PM’s forgetful nature; things like Mrs PM’s outstanding ability to excel in the scatterbrain department.

I have met many scatterbrains before, but Mrs PM is an excellent specimen.

Here is another example of a friend of mine who is also a scatterbrain.

Tonto is a constant source of frustration for Mrs PM.  I came up with the name, Tonto, as a joke, because the Lone Ranger’s faithful sidekick was meant to be an expert in tracking fugitives – the last person on Earth you would expect to get lost or forget anything. I talk about him as if he is a real person; it would be either that or accuse Mrs PM of being a massive scatterbrain. Personifying Mrs PM’s lack of sense of direction and her forgetful nature as an imaginary nemesis is quite an amusing way to think about it.

Here is a recent example of Tonto’s work in action.

Just before the jubilee holiday, Mrs PM brought her work laptop home because she was on call. Most of us had a four day break but Mrs PM had to work on the final day of the holiday. I didn’t, so I was looking forward to enjoying a lie in. She managed to leave the house without disturbing me too much and set off for her 23 mile journey to work.

Around half an hour later, while I was enjoying a lovely snooze, the phone rang. Bleary-eyed, I answered the phone. It was Mrs PM.

“I’ve done it again!” she said.

“Done what?” I replied.

“I’ve left my laptop at home. Can you bring it for me, to save me driving all the way back there?”

So much for my lie in, I thought. Tonto had struck again. The worst part of this is that it is not the first time it has happened. On other occasions, she has had to make a 46 mile round trip to retrieve her laptop. At least now, she could avoid that.

Tonto must have been chuckling away at another triumph but he saw another opportunity to strike. I had only ever been to Mrs PM’s place of work once, so I was unsure of the exact directions.

“Bloody hell! “ I moaned. “Alright – I’ll bring it in. Can you give me directions?”

“Bingo!” said Tonto.

And this is another area of his expertise – destroying Mrs PM’s sense of direction. To be honest, Mrs PM was frustrated at her own failure, so she was a little flustered. She barked a set of instructions to me and I wrote them down.

Now this is where Tonto had his moment; instead of following my instincts and looking up the directions using Google Maps – or even using the navigator on my phone to get a set of clear and concise directions to her place of work, I left the house and set off with just a few hastily written directions.

I was tired and Tonto had exploited that.

Suffice it to say, the instructions were not quite correct. Mrs PM had mentioned a couple of roundabouts, with the instruction “go straight on to the NEXT roundabout”. What she didn’t tell me was that in order to get to the next roundabout, I had to turn left; I carried straight on.

And I got lost.

I have to say, dear reader, that my language in the car, when I realised that I was lost, was the deepest shade of blue I had ever experienced. I was using expletives that I didn’t know existed.

When Tonto strikes, it infuriates me. I am enraged by my own stupidity for not double checking directions, for listening to and trusting Mrs PM when she has packed something, rather than just checking for myself.

Lost in deepest darkest Cheshire, I had to turn around and retrace my route until I worked out where I had gone astray. How I managed to find her place of work I will never know – it was trial and error all the way until I spotted the roundabout when I tried the left turn I had missed.

By the time I pulled up outside her office I was apoplectic. I picked up my phone and dialled Mrs PM.

“Where are you?” she said.

“I’M OUTSIDE!” I yelled. I then launched into a massive rant about forgetting laptops, a lost chance to have a lie in, bad directions and getting lost. My soapbox was buckling under the strain.  Anybody who was watching me as I rocked back and forth in the car must have thought that I looked like a caged animal.

“ … AND ANOTHER THING …” I yelled before stopping abruptly mid-rant.

“Wait a minute,” I continued. “Are you LAUGHING?”

“No,” lied Mrs PM audibly chuckling.

“You ARE laughing,” I yelled. “Come down and get your BLOODY LAPTOP!”

A few minutes later, Mrs PM was at the car and I handed over the laptop with a look of fury on my face. Mrs PM didn’t dare speak; if she had she would have collapsed in a fit of laughter.

“Thanks,” was all she could say. “Tonto sends his regards.”


I didn't say a word - just allowed steam to come out of my ears.

I drove back home, gradually calming down. By the time I arrived back in Manchester, I was smiling to myself and cursing Tonto.

There are other examples of Tonto’s mischief and I will tell you about them in subsequent posts.

Suffice it to say that Tonto is a thorn in our side, particularly as we like to travel to places we don’t know.

And when Captain Paranoia, Captain Chaos and Tonto combine, the effects can be terrifying – but funny.

Over to you, dear reader.

Do you have your own manifestation of Tonto? Are you a scatterbrain who forgets things and gets lost?

I swear that I could claim that I didn’t have Tonto in my life until I met Mrs PM. And now he stalks me relentlessly.

Or perhaps I too and getting forgetful in my old age.

Happy Birthday Mrs PM

Mrs PM reaches a marvellous milestone tomorrow (18th August); she is forty years old.

I have already mentioned that she is slightly traumatised by the prospect of turning forty, despite my attempts to convince her that it she is still a child (well compared to me anyway).

I have said before that I simply do not understand why it is such a problem – I mean look at me!! It’s only a couple of years until I am fifty and my hair is starting to go grey. You don’t see me moaning and moping.

I’m sure she will get over it and, like me, she will embrace her age and enjoy it.

Mrs PM shares her birthday with Edward Norton, Robert Redford, Christian Slater and Malcolm-Jamal Walker (the latter being born in the same year).

To celebrate her birthday, I have compiled a series of facts about my beloved lady, one for each year of her life.

Without further ado, I present for your reading pleasure, forty facts about Mrs PM.

(1) Mrs PM’s real name is Lisa, a name she loves. Sadly, I am an immature buffoon and love calling her derivatives of her name – like Betty, Beth, Betsy or Elizabeth. Sadly I suffer pain as a result.

(2) She is from Blackpool, a seaside resort in the North West of England famous for its tower. Again Mrs PM is very proud of her home town. On a trip to Shanghai, we climbed up the Pearl Tower (not literally obviously) and as I was squeaking with fear and ready to explode from all orifices, Mrs PM pointed to a display that mentioned other towers. Guess what? Blackpool Tower was there even though it is tiny in comparison.

(3) Mrs PM hates football but has suddenly found an interest in the sport – because her home town team, Blackpool, are now in the Premiership (although they will be absolutely destroyed by all clubs they play). I actually caught her listening to live commentary on Radio Five Live on Saturday – something she has never ever done before. And Blackpool handed her the perfect birthday present by winning 4-0 against Wigan away. It is all downhill from here.

(4) Like me, Mrs PM is a seasoned traveller and has visited similar countries to me. We are both visiting Iceland on Friday this week, a country neither of us has been to before. It is my treat for her birthday. We are looking forward to it, although I believe that it is very expensive. I will say hello to Eyjafjallajökull for you and ask it stop erupting.

(5) Mrs PM and I have been together since 1998. She has had to put up with me for almost twelve years. She obviously has a lot of staying power.

(6) Lisa is a Leo and is convinced that she possesses all of the personality traits of the rest of the twelfth of the world population that share her star sign. I am a Libran and apparently Librans and Leos are ideally matched, which is lucky I guess. Our relationship consists of me trying to stop her from being impulsive. I am careful by nature (she uses the word “indecisive” instead of “careful”) so I try to rein her in sometimes. I don’t always succeed and end up on the top of places like the Sydney Harbour Bridge in a stupid suit absolutely shitting my pants.

(7) Mrs PM has bad taste in men. Why else would she choose me?

(8) Mrs PM’s taste in music is utterly, utterly dreadful. She loves the Black Eyed Peas, Lady Ga Ga and all sorts of similar crap.

(9) Mrs PM hates my music so you can imagine the battles we have (Rammstein versus Madonna for example).

(10) Lisa has seen a few big acts live like Madonna and the Black Eyed Peas. She wasn’t impressed with Madonna and paid over £100 to see her. I would have gone out of curiosity but chose to spend the £100 on several decent CDs instead.

(11) Mrs PM can speak French almost fluently (though she claims to be rusty). I have seen her hold a conversation in France and she doesn’t sound rusty to me. She sounds extremely sexy when she chats in French even if she is insulting me.

(12) Mrs PM can also speak a little Spanish. With my German we have a lot of Europe covered (though my German is crap).

(13) We met in Hong Kong – hence it is our favourite city in the world. We always stop off there if we are heading in that direction to visit old haunts and reminisce about our early relationship. We plan to head east on my fiftieth birthday and no doubt we will stop off there on our way.

(14) Mrs PM used to be short sighted but she is not squeamish about eyes and had the eye-butchers laser her eyes into submission. She can see perfectly now. I am too much of a coward to even go near to the place.

(15) Mrs PM shares my passion for science fiction – she is a geek (by her own admission).

(16) She has a degree from the University of Liverpool, just like me. However, we attended university at different times so never actually met there. Bizarrely we even had some of the same lecturers.

(17) Mrs PM works in IT doing a similar job to me but for a different company. We have been known to sit in a pub discussing the merits of databases, programming languages and operating systems, oblivious to the fact that people might be watching and thinking that we are the saddest individuals on the entire planet.

(18) Lisa is a very good photographer and my own ability to take decent pictures has improved as a result of her coaching. She took a course and has produced some great pictures. She was responsible for making me dress up like Gene Simmons. Here are some photos you may not have seen – and yes they are all me and all taken by Mrs PM. She also did all of the make up – and, despite claiming to hate my old leather jacket, she made me wear it (she LOVES it really).






(19) Mrs PM likes to experiment when cooking – she uses me as a guinea pig and apart from the odd disaster she usually pulls it off.

(20) She loves going out for meals and “having a boogie”. Unfortunately “having a boogie” invariably involves dragging me up onto the dance floor to strut my funky stuff to songs like this. I am usually surrounded by lots of attractive young women at the time, even though I look like a mad uncle dancing at a wedding.

(21) Mrs PM is an only child.

(22) She lived in Toulouse, France, for a year and when she speaks French, people say she has a Toulouse accent.

(23) Cats are her favourite animal by a country mile. I reckon that if I agreed we would have an army of cats in our house. Instead we have just the two and she absolutely dotes on them. I am convinced that I am bottom of the pecking order.

(24) I am in awe of her intelligence. Mrs PM is far cleverer than I am.

(25) She is far more adventurous than me and I have suffered as a result of her daring behaviour. As I said earlier she has dragged me kicking and screaming to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and other enormous leviathans like the Eiffel Tower.

(26) I sometimes call Mrs PM Tonto because although she is highly intelligent, she is one of the most scatterbrained people I know. Tonto was the Lone Ranger's faithful companion and could guide him anywhere with his excellent sense of direction and tracking skills. Mrs PM on the other hand is the complete opposite and has managed to get us lost on numerous occasions. “I know where I’m going” she will cry confidently, just before leading us into oblivion. She frequently has what she calls “Lisa moments” when she gets lost, forgets something, loses something or all three. I will one day compile a list of “Lisa moments” for a future blog post – and I can guarantee that you won’t believe a word of it.

(27) She has several names for me, one of which is her “public term of endearment”. Inspired by my crazy hair, she calls me Flossy much to the amusement of friends. Another name is Wavy Davy, again a reference to my horrific hair. Yet she won’t let me cut it all off.

(28) Her eyes are green and very sexy.

(29) Although I am accused of snoring, I can confirm that Mrs PM is the loudest snorer in the world. When our fat cat is asleep at the bottom of the bed I simply cannot sleep due to excessively loud close harmony snoring.

(30) She doesn’t mind being “fashionably” late (unlike me).

(31) My two lads love Mrs PM because she jokes around with them almost as much as I do. We usually have “lads versus girl” discussions and gang up on her. It’s all good fun.

(32) Her favourite TV programmes at the moment include Casualty, Mistresses, Desperate Housewives and Fringe. She is also, like me, a fan of Star Trek, Dr Who and Lost.

(33) White wine is Mrs PM’s favourite tipple but she also drinks red wine, beer and the odd cocktail. She has been known to get drunk once in a while (though usually I am equally inebriated).

(34) Mrs PM claims to be shy but is usually the life and soul of any party. I simply cannot believe that she thinks she is shy.

(35) She gets a kick out of embarrassing me in public. The more people there the more humiliating she can be.

(36) Spiders terrify Mrs PM which is bad news when one appears because I have to get rid of the thing – and I am scared of them too.

(37) Her ideal man, apparently, is Antonio Banderas, a man who is the total opposite of me in every respect. He is a ruggedly handsome Hispanic type who smoulders onscreen and who only has to say “Hello – my name is Zorro” to make women swoon in a fit of ecstasy. I on the other hand am a mad-haired Viking with the charm and sophistication of a warthog who only makes women swoon when I show them a recording of Banderas talking. I’m convinced that Mrs PM sniffs glue sometimes.

(38) Mrs PM is very ticklish – and I mean VERY VERY ticklish. Just gently stroking her hand can make her laugh. You can imagine what happens when I really go for it; she transforms into a gibbering giggling wreck. I don’t tickle her often – just once or twice an hour.

(39) Despite hating rock music, for some insane reason she actually likes this song. She also recently admitted that AC/DC were “not that bad”. I think my brainwashing attempts are working.

(40) Mrs PM loves horror films but they scare the sanity out of her. If we watch a horror film you can guarantee that she will have nightmares unless she spends at least two hours actively thinking about something else – unless I casually remind her just as she is about to go to sleep.

I hope you found those facts interesting and perhaps it gives you a picture of the woman I love. She is a wonderful person and I am crazy about her.

I will finish off by posting a photo of myself (sans makeup) and Lisa, taken last Saturday in a bar in Manchester where we were out celebrating her birthday with family and a few friends.



Happy fortieth birthday Lisa and thanks for putting up with me.

Life begins now …

The Hoarder

I am a hoarder.

There I’ve said it. I didn’t need to go on the Jeremy Kyle to tell a bunch of strangers who like car crash TV. I didn’t tell the world that I have come to terms with my problem because of some weird personality trait dictating that I should wash my dirty clothes in public.

Instead, I confessed it in a blog to a handful of readers, a lot of whom I have never met, most of whom probably think that I am some kind of eccentric oddball.

I feel much better now.

Mrs PM knows that I am a hoarder and she hates it. She is transient by nature and devotes all of her attention to whatever takes her interest during that fleeting period.

Take music for example. At the moment, she is devoted to The Black Eyed Peas and Lady Ga Ga and she will continue to be so until she gets bored of them. And then she will ditch them. Not only will she ditch them, she will also dispose of any evidence that she was remotely interested in them. The CD’s will find their way onto Ebay and into the hearts of any crazy fool dumb enough to buy them. To Mrs PM, she has lived for the moment and that moment will be well and truly over – so she will obliterate them from her life with absolute maximum prejudice.

This is her mantra: “It is so over!”

You may have heard me quote that mantra before when I have had to deal with her desire to throw out my clothes.

They say that opposites attract; in the case of hoarding we are poles apart.

As far as I am concerned, if a band enters my radar and I love them, I will buy the CD and I will keep it – forever. It has earned its place in my affections and therefore deserves a place in my life and in my cupboard. I will never, ever get rid of it.

I also have the same attitude to other things too. My collection of books, rock magazines, clothes, gadgets, university notes, football programmes, DVD’s – anything that I like.

Mrs PM hates it.

I have already told you about how, when we got together, she annihilated my wardrobe, throwing out all of my shirts and leaving me without clothes.

“You need to buy new clothes,” she said.

“How? I haven’t got any clothes to wear to actually go and buy anything. Do you want me to walk around the Trafford Centre in my underpants?”

“Not THOSE underpants – they’re SO over.”

Thankfully, she allowed me to wear some unfashionable jeans and a T-shirt in order to buy a whole new set of clothes.

I allowed her to get away with it, simply because we were in the honeymoon period and I wanted to impress her. She clearly didn’t feel the same way I did. I was a formless blob of plasticine to mould into the man she desired.

Of course, needless to say, I rebelled, as I usually do and revisited my hoarding past. It was a dirty hidden secret that I relished.

And this is where the problems began.

You see it is really difficult to hoard without keeping it a secret. My collection of CD’s outgrew the shelving that accommodated them. My wardrobe was only a finite size and every new shirt that I bought had to be crammed into an ever decreasing amount of free space. I bought yet more books and, like the CD’s the number grew too large to store on a bookshelf.

Mrs PM discovered my dirty little secret. She was pretty good about it.

“Let’s have a massive clear out. You can start with your wardrobe then you can move on to those paperbacks. And when you’ve finished with that lot we can look at you CD’s.”

“You ARE joking!” I retorted.

“No!” she replied.

Thus our power struggle began.

I know where my tendency to hoard comes from; my mother. She is the world champion at hoarding. Why does she hoard?

I have a theory about that.

My parents were both born just before World War II and this, as you can imagine, was a very difficult time in terms of acquiring basic necessities. Even after the war was over, the British government continued to ration supplies. People ran out of everything and consequently began to stockpile even the most fundamental bits and pieces.

As a child I remember all four of my grandparents telling me that I shouldn’t waste anything. If there was a use for it then it should be kept. My mum told me the same. It was a mentality born out of rationing. Few things were available so when something passed your way, you kept it.

I remember when my ex-wife’s grandmother died at the age of ninety six. She had lived a fabulously long life, surviving two world wars and more than her fair share of hardship. When the time came to clear out her house, she had hoarded all sorts of things; she had boxes of brown paper bags; bags full of paper clips, elastic bands, pens, pencils, notebooks, thimbles, cotton, plugs, fuses, cutlery, plates, books, newspaper, cotton, plasters, plastic containers, toothpicks, matches, kitchen foil, string – you name it, she had it.

And she wasn’t alone. When my mum’s parents died, we found money in boxes scattered in hiding places throughout the house, under steps, behind skirting boards. My grandfather trusted nobody and hoarded all sorts of junk. He built his own shed and it was literally overflowing with nails, screws, tacks, tools and all sorts of hardware. He could have opened a shop. His wife, my grandmother, was similar. Like my ex-wife’s grandmother, she kept bags and boxes of everything that we take for granted.

The mantra was “You never know when you might need some string” or in fact anything that could conceivably be useful.

Unfortunately my mother shares this mantra and her small house is overflowing with junk. I spend a lot of time telling her that she can and should get rid of some of her stuff but she repeats her mother’s mantra and looks at me as if I am a particularly stupid primeval swamp creature.

One day, I visited her and she said “I’ve bought a new fridge.”

“Fabulous,” I said. “I think you needed one. That old one was falling apart and it was too big for your kitchen.”

I walked into the kitchen to look at the new fridge and saw it standing there, nice and shiny and absolutely full of food. Next to it was the battered old fridge.

“Didn’t they take it away?” I asked.

“No – I’m keeping it.”

I opened it and, sure enough, it too was full of food.

I was speechless. “You’ve got enough food here to feed the British Army and have some left over for the Americans.”

“You never know when it might come in useful,” she said.

This happened two years ago. My mother is also the most stubborn woman who has ever lived and she still owns two fridges full of food.

I am desperate to go there with the world’s biggest skip and have a massive spring clean – but she is prepared. She won’t let me in the house unless I sign a declaration in blood stating that I will not remove a single thing from within her walls.

It’s ridiculous.

Mrs PM thinks that I have inherited this hoarding gene.

She is wrong. I do hoard but the things I keep really are necessary for my life and my sanity. I refuse to discard any CD’s and the vast majority of my books, as well as many other things.

Take my scruffy old leather jacket, for example. It is a masterpiece. I have worn it for every single rock concert that I have been to since 1985. It is twenty five years old and still going strong (though Mrs PM will allow me to wear it if I am with her). That jacket has character and is part of my history.

Here it is:



It’s a beauty isn’t it? It’s seen some of the biggest bands on the planet: Rush, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Deep Purple, The Foo Fighters, Metallica, Judas Priest, Guns’n’Roses… the list is endless. How could I possibly get rid of it?

Mrs PM thinks I want to keep it because, like my mother, I am stubborn.

Despite cementing my feet to the ground and refusing to budge, Mrs PM has worn me down over less important stuff and I have ended up having a massive clear out over the years.

However, I am wise to her motives.

Her “clearouts” are getting more and more frequent and she is trying to shame me into giving things away to charity, accusing me of being a heartless self-centred oaf when I refuse. I have started to give in and, with tears in my eyes, sorted out massive piles of stuff, filling bags and lugging them to the local Oxfam shop.

What she doesn’t know, however, is that I have quite literally started to hoard junk. I keep magazines, newspapers, flyers and all sorts of old tat. That way, when she wants a clearout (which are now becoming so frequent now that they are every two weeks), I simply throw away the junk that I have hoarded and have no emotional attachment to. I fill bags full of crap that I really do not want and then the stuff I really do want to keep is saved to live another day.

My fiendish plan is working. Please don’t tell her. I couldn’t bear to part with my beloved leather jacket.