A re-post about a time when we had proper invasions.

Will they come through the darkness? Will they come?

Or screaming with the dawning of the sun?

Is it time to fire the beacon

Lest men’s resolve should weaken?

Should we tell the boy to beat the battle drum?

Does that eastern glow mean Jarrow’s over-run

And presages the stinking Viking scum?

To visit us with thun...

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It’s my party

And I’ll lie if I want to

Lie if I want to

Lie if I want to

I’ll swear it’s true that I never knew.

Yes, there I was with a glass in my hand

The party hat hid round my back

We’d spun the bottle and then

I photocopied my crack.

It’s my party

And I’ll lie if I want to

Lie if I want to

Lie if I want to

I’ll swear it’s true that I never kn...

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You may need to be of a certain age to recollect first hand this story.

For many huge wealth will define how they live

For some it’s a blessing, for some punitive;

This is the story of Castleford’s Viv

Who announced to the world she’d intend

To spend it; she’d “Spend! Spend!  Spend!”

One word from the Gods is all that it takes

To rescue a waif from those Pontefract c...

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I’ve been reading Michael Simpkins’s “Fatty Batter”, charting his love affair with cricket from an early age.  In it he makes the point that sport seems to bring out primeval instincts in otherwise placid men.  The shyest and most mildly mannered of men (and I do here mean “men”) can transmogrify into Mr Hyde by playing and spectating sport.

Take Gunny for example (not his real name but close e...

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I turned my TV on last evening to watch Match of the Day

There were no commentators tating, much to my dismay;

I couldn’t recognise the players, they all looked much the same

So without the likes of Mottie it was only half a game.

And of course no Alan Shearer and neither Ian Wright

But the biggest miss was Lineker – the target of the Right;

He had spoken out of turn with hi...

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Go on!  Admit it – I’ve caught you, haven’t I?

You were thinking this was another one of Coops’s from his lascivious stable.

In fact, the Fanny pit was a coalmine near Garforth, Leeds, which was closed many years ago.  It was one of two, the other being, I believe, called Primrose pit, which, when they were sunk, the coalowner named after his two daughters.

Shame on you!

Be more carefu...

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It's today. My piece in support of the sisterhood.  I never feel as though I've quite "grounded" it.  Let me know what you think.

Raise your voices; have your say!

International Women’s Day.

Banish weakness.  Let’s be strong.

Time to right what has been wrong.

Linking arms in sisterhood,

Pledged to Justice, pledged to Good.

Standing proud and standing tall,

The worth o...

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It won’t have escaped the notice of those of you predisposed to commemorate such things that on March 8th it will be International Women’s Day.  What you may not be aware of is that according to the website “National Day Calendar” IWD is one of 47 (yes, 47!) other World/International Days in March.

If you are so inclined you can participate in and celebrate (among others) :-

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This occurred to me some years ago and hasn’t got any better since.

We were on holiday somewhere mooching around some pretty coastal town on the south coast.  For Our Gert this means looking in exactly the same shops she looks in at home – the likes of M&S and Primark, ie the same lookalikes that infest every town.

I, on the other hand having more cerebral tastes and will to steal away on my...

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Some Wetherspoons have started handing the tea bags to you over the counter.

Although I might lampoon

That icon Wetherspoon’s

Your second tea was always free

It’s something of a boon.

They’d charge you for the cup

Just once so you could sup

A second free or even three

You just kept filling up.

That went for coffee too

So what I tend to do

Was fill up...

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Of course it's shocking.  These weren't holiday camps.

In the beginning it was so simple, all so easy.  Then it amazed him that she would fuck for a small piece of bread and cheese.

For her, she did what she had to do.  What guilt she had was not for prostituting herself but because she did not share with the other women, whom she saw becoming walking skeletons over a matter of weeks.

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A re-posted villanelle from last year commemorating the one year anniversary of resistance.  It means "All Glory to Ukraine: All Glory to the Heroes.

A thousand years will not expunge this stain

Nor sate the Devil’s craven appetite

All Glory to the People of Ukraine

He smiles as children speak their prayers in vain

And laughs as Death reaps Innocents in flight

A thousan...

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This Roald Dahl thing I’m talking about.

It seems the Fascist Society of Woke Revisionists is concerned at the effect some of his language might have on the delicate sensibilities of our children.

And whilst I am delighted that through its good endeavours I shall no longer be considered “fat” but rather that I have achieved “positive secondary weight gain” and that no longer shall I have to ...

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A re-post but Mondays are still as good.

The replacement hip Gives me some jip

And my Tens just overflowed

I need Deep Heat For arthritic feet

In winter when it’s snowed

And drivers reprimand me

For shuffling across the road

But I still have reason To enjoy each season

For the rest of the time I’m owed.

I’ll tell you why I Just love Mondays

I’ll tell you why I J...

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Three of us worked under Syd at the Coal Board – Blountie, Gilly and me.  Blountie would have been in his early 30’s while Gilly and me were in our late 20’s.  So Blountie was known as t’Owd Lad, while Gilly and me were t’Thin Lad and t’Fat Lad.  And t’Owd Lad had rotten luck. 

Shortly after the three of us split up to go our separate ways, I heard that his wife had died of cancer.  She’d have...

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When shall we three meet again

The Isley Brothers, Bill and Jane?

From my birth I’ve been called Bill

Occasionally I feel male still,

Being born with cock and balls

I use the Gents when paying calls.

Sometimes though I don’t feel like him

That’s when I’m Jane with home-made quim

And when I’m in my lady mode

That’s when my nudger’s in the road.

At other ...

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I number among my proud achievements

That between us Harry Kane and I

Have scored 267 goals for Tottenham Hotspur

And together share the record number of goals

Scored for England of 53 with Wayne Rooney.

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As I walked through West Haddlesey

I clocked a bloke an’ ‘e clocked me

I nodded and bid ‘im “Good Day”

But all the old git had to say

Wa’ “Naar Then!”

Then nowt more said as ‘e trudged by

I puzzled this confused reply;

Whilst not the greatest o’ life’s shocks

It seemed a perfect paradox.

Naar ,

A paradox is when two bits

O’ thought are polar opposites

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The first time that I saw him I heard his scooter beep

He made a big impression then which memory I shall keep.

I copped him outside Flavour’s (sic) (Apostrophe Abuse!

Grammatical precision here is played with fast and loose).

For this is downtown Castleford where orange Tigers prowl

And few here know the difference twixt consonant and vowel.

But thats another story (sic) so, hel...

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Mostly to do with upsetting people that matter to me – Our Gert and the kids.  But they all predicate on two principles – things I’ve said or done which I shouldn’t have and things I haven’t said or done with I should have.  But it might be a measure of my superficiality that my mind keeps returning to a school rugby match over 50 years ago.

I was playing as an open side flanker.  They had a li...

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Something for Holocaust Memorial Day - but a different angle.

They took us near Vinnytsia in 1941

Supply lines long since severed, ammunition all but gone.

We numbered 97 boys, all from Podillia’s lands

They shot a half of us right then as we raised our hands.

They ordered us to strip our dead beneath that wintery sun

I’ve asked myself a thousand times, “What would you ...

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I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it on the box but the premise is a simple one – ostensibly.  It is to turn the dating game on its head.  Whereas conventionally a relationship starts with a first date, a coffee or a drink in a pub, perhaps followed by a trip to local Essoldo, a goodnight kiss etc and, if things go well, end up in bed, sometimes with a loved and lifelong partner.

In Naked Attrac...

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Zahawi, oh, oh!

He’s Sorry; Oh, oh, oh, oh!

So please, you must understand

It’s not something that I planned;

And now I’ve paid back

All my outstanding tax,

A careless and small oversight;

I tried to keep hid

The five million quid I was light;

And as per the laws

There were penalty clauses.  Oh, shite!

Zahawi, …….

I ran the country’s Exchequer

We caught ...

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Believe me if you want to or ignore me if you don’t

It will not fuss me either way; I tell you, chums, it won’t.

It’s a story of a spectacle I witnessed once in France

About a shagging couple whom we happened on by chance.

We’d gone out “birding” in the woods, the wife’s old man and me

And both had binoculars, enhancing what we’d see.

We’d spotted Milan Noirs et Busards circ...

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I was given three choices by the dentist

1  have it extracted

2  live with it and run the risk of its infection spreading

3  root canal treatment costing hundreds of pounds

You won’t be surprised to learn I discounted No. 3 quicksticks.

So today I went back for the extraction.

It’s been over 50 years since I last had an extraction and I can tell you in those days dentists were bu...

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There never was such injustice

To torture an innocent soul

As that dealt out by the Halifax bitch

Whose heart is as black as kohl.

For she struts abroad in her manor

Bathing in Virtue and Good

While he seethes alone with his daemons

Child-like and misunderstood.

But Hope is never abandoned

If we all rise with one voice

And shout from our streets and the hill...

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My 91 year old mother-in-law lies in a Stroke Rehab Unit at the moment.  Three years ago she was ballroom dancing and doing countryside walks.  Five years ago she was playing tennis.  Yesterday was her birthday.  She is a shell of who she used to be.

A student nurse feeds Rosie a meal she didn’t choose

But Rosie’s thoughts are far away; she’s at The Moulin Rouge.

A chorus girl and da...

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Let me say from the off that the Kit Kat Chunky is without peer as my favourite bar of chocolate.  And I’m not alone in this view.  Kit Kat is the 2nd best selling chocolate bar in the world.  But let me add that I am hugely impressed by the skill of Nestle in achieving this with not very much.

I’ll explain, shall I?  Everyone will realise the cleverness of putting a hole in a Polo mint and, wh...

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Aficianados may have noticed a passing resemblance to Elvis Presley's "Teddy Bear"

I don’t wanna be your oven ready Spare

The place I fill

Is after Will

To be the country’s heir

Don’t wanna be your ready Spare.

Don’t wanna be a royal

In Camilla’s crew

I say that I want out

But also have my cake

And eat it too.

The book sales they will make me a mu...

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The Challenge Cup Final of May ‘68

Is etched in my memory from that fateful date

Affording the chance for the Good to be Great

For some though the memory mocks

None more so than Wakey’s Don Fox.

For those unfamiliar this was the scene

The climax of which was the best ever seen

An epic Cup Final contested between

West Yorkshire’s top pedigree breeds

The pride of Wake...

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Three little letters

Each on its own benign

November, Delta, Romeo

Short and anodyne.

But once in combination

In your heart strike fear

And three that you will never

Ever want to hear.

Three letters that will haunt you

You’ll bear for life the scar

In memory of the time they asked

Your views on DNR.

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I’m a long time out of it now, so whether modern-day woke-ism has overtaken it or not, I really don’t know.

But 50 years ago when I was an exceptionally mediocre rugby player post-match entertainment would be described at its kindest as “laddist”.

In those days even top tier rugby union at the international level wasn’t professional.  In the sport’s bargain basement where I wore my boots not...

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(I'm sure Adele would like to team up with a singing talent like me!)

There’s a fire burning in my hearth

It’s warm there and it’s cosy – no need for gloves or scarf

But I must be demented and not right in the head

Or easily persuaded – I’m on the beach instead.

The wind it is howling and the waves are pounding in

My toe dips in the North Sea – it’s time I must begin

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