Now I’ve retired I’ve adopted a routine whereby I get all my chores done first thing so the rest of the day’s my own.  This morning, for instance, I’d read-the-paper and had-the-shit so I settled into my shed in front of the log burner, put the coffee machine on and started thinking.

All sorts.

And every argument I had in my head I won by clear philosophical thought.

Now after an hour or ...

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Take the advice this year.

Before you put them away neatly coiled last year you checked them and they worked.

You took them out this year and they have inextricably entangled themselves; and they don’t work.

You wonder why, but you needn’t.  The answer is in the name, Fairy Lights.  It is, of course, the fairies who make them work.

But where ever there are fairies there are hobgob...

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A re-post celebrating the numerous times we have travelled on the North Yorkhire Moors Railway.  And played with a bit of elementary slide guitar.

I hear the train guard’s whistle

The slamming of the doors

The fireman stokes the furnace

For the haul across the moors;

The driver lets some steam off

And sees the train guard’s flag

Then gets those big wheels turning

For t...

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A Christmas song for the little children.

You all know Santa Claus

The saint each child adores

He brings the good ones gifts, does Pere Noel;

But I’m his kith and kin

I punish kids that sin;

I’m Krampus and I harvest souls for Hell.

And unlike brother Nick

Well, I bring a big stick

To beat the naughty children till they yell,

“Have mercy, Santa, please,

I...

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Well, actually, I’ve misled you a bit – she didn’t actually fall in it.  But it was a close and very funny second best.

We’d gone on a bike ride and came back by way of a cycle track at the side of the old Barnsley Canal.  I rode in front on the towpath with her behind.  She has a habit of stopping every few minutes to answer her phone, take her coat off, send a text message, put her coat on or...

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Consider a game of football

That’s gone into extra time

Their team is winning the game 6-0

So, sadly, that team’s not mine!

All of a sudden the skies break apart

And so starts a thunderous storm

The ref takes the players off from the pitch

“For safety” the tannoys inform.

But after ten minutes the storm has passed

The ref has restarted the game

It’s a curse ...

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Naar then!  Sithee! Dunt be messin abaart wi nonna that theear forrin muck.  Get thissen ta Scarbra forraz gudda fotnit as ivver thallev.

Whoa! We’re going to Scarbados

Whoa! Those cloudy Yorkshire skies

99’s at Jaconelli’s

Whoa! It’s peas and Pukka Pies.

Whoa! We’re going to Scarbados

Off to play on them slot machines

Show! them ponces in Ibiza

What a Yorkshire G...

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I watched a recent programme on Nazi Germany.  It made the point that the persecution of the Jews started (and always starts) with language.

You approach The Ladder.

Your neighbour stands on the first rung.  “They don’t belong here”, he says.

“I’ve nothing against genuine refugees but these are just economic migrants”.

On the rung above a man is saying, “We should send t...

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Come on over to my place

Hey You! We’re having a party

There’ll be singing, dancing and a-swinging

Come on over tonight.

Come on over to my place

We’re here at Boris’s gaff

We’re dancing again at No 10

It’s party games, booze and a laugh.

You’re stuck at home in this lockdown

Relatives are dying alone

Contact’s banned, you can’t hold their hand

Just get o...

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A nice Christmassy one.

And so this is Brexit and isn’t this fun?

We’re starting to find out just what you have done.

You wanted us sovereign to end Brussels rule

Now where are the drivers to transport our fuel?

They’ve gone back to Warsaw and Bucharest too

They’ve gone back to homelands throughout the EU.

The fishermen voted for “Leave” as their wish

But fin...

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For 5 long years I’ve lived beside

These other senile twits

In this home for retirees,

Old biddies and Old Gits.

To offer some excitement

I read my poems out loud

And started to attract

An appreciative crowd.

40 perhaps or 50

attentively sat round

Hanging on my every word

Like I was Ezra Pound.

I read to them my comic verse

(I pride myself on ...

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I can’t be doing with that whiney twat, John Cooper-Clarke but one of the truly great poets on the Open Mic circuit in my opinion is Les Barker.  There’s a pantheon of stuff on You Tube of his but a recent event at an Open Mic I’d attended reminded me of his brilliant “Cosmo – the Fairly Accurate Knife Thrower”.

I’d gone with my son-in-law, Rob, to one in York; I crucify a few parodies and he d...

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Scotland's double triumph in winning both the Men's and Women's titles at yesterday's European Championships prompted me to re-post this.

It started off as mischief in Landers café in Hucknall in the early 1970’s, until the Gods of Comedy got hold of it.  We christened it “Push-the-Pepperpot”.

The idea was to slide the pepperpot across the table so that it stopped exactly over-hanging t...

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I remember waking to dreams like this!

I woke excited this morning.

You know, excited down there;

I’d dreamt of us being together,

Aroused by the scent of your hair.

We walked hand-in-hand so slowly

Soaked to the bone by the rain

Its rivulets streamed down your forehead

We laughed and were twenty again.

The street turned into a bedroom

So seamless as ha...

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There was a time when some of us put coal upon our fire

That was the time when all of us used coal that came by wire

It paid my bills but now is the munificent pariah.

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When I was a lad of around 19 and at university I had a holiday job as a labourer at “Billy” Bodill’s builder’s yard.  The minibus would pick us up about 7 o’clock and take us to the job.

It was a formative experience.  For one thing, I risked lung cancer every day travelling in the fug inside that van.

Then there was Gran.  Short for Granville, he seemed about 80 to my mate Bruce and me.  B...

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With an enormous nod to John O'Farrell

We’d sunk a fair few pints of mild

One evening when we’d met,

Discussing life’s imponderable,

“The best a man can get”.

We argued long throughout those beers,

That’s Colin, Phil and me

But reached consensus in the end;

So this was our top three.

A close-run thing but in third place

Which gave us each a thrill -

...

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Bailey Bailey

Blunsden Bray

Buckley Bunce

Clay Cook

Coopey Dale

The register call and seating plan of Form 1A, Henry Mellish GS and the first column of three comprising a class of 30, all of us aged 11.  Well, we’ll all be 69 now, one or two even 70.

It’s a mantra I’ve never forgotten, like your times tables or service number.  I remember their faces too and their voices, but as ...

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An historical poem, in as much as any story of Edward II having a hot poker shoved up his arse is historical.

“Prithee, knave, what scribe you there,

By candlelight and fire?”

“Your immortality’s the toil

On which I labour, sire.

For future generations

Your life and legacy

Transcribed upon these parchments

Your obituary.”

“And does this legacy describe

...

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In the cemetery of my hometown church are 13 plain white crosses which bear the names of Polish airmen killed in World War 2.  These were boys who escaped Poland to volunteer with the RAF. It always struck me as poor reward that when Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin met at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences of 1943 and 1945 that Poland was bequeathed to Russia.

Sleep easy, young Tadeus Makuls...

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A poem to celebrate this eternal harbinger of winter.

I watch you in the winter’s sky as billions have before

Looking down the arrow’s shaft, the flight held to your jaw

You’ll never miss, nor ever kill the prey that you aim for

Condemned for all time to be a Hunter.

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A re-work of a classic by the incomparable George Formby and set in the context of Doncaster's Well Spoken Open Mic.

Now I know I’m not handsome nor ever used to be

But the girls I try to catch my eye would not look twice at me;

But I know ugly fellas that the women seem to woo

There’s Kevin and Mick Jenkinson to single out just two.

And if women like them like men like those

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I thought it worthwhile reprising this masterpiece while we are at loggerheads over poissons.

Quand il me prend dans ses bras

Il me parle tout bas

Je vois la vie en rose

Edith Piaf, petit pain

And Zinedine Zidane

Depardieu with grand nose

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A song stolen from me by Pete Seeger when he made his inferior cover of "Little Boxes".  A re-post from 2014.

Little Bastards, trick or treating

Little Bastards bloody cheating

Gave them sweeties, gave them money, gave them popcorn when they came

Little Bastards, trick or treating

Little Bastards need a beating

I got dog doo on my doorknob, I got dog doo

Just the same.

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Throughout the early 80’s we in Britain set the pace

(And unashamedly I was a fan)

As weekly records fell in that iconic 4-lap race

To the troika that was Ovett, Coe and Cram.

The one ran with pure arrogance, the second of these had

A running style that simply seemed to flow;

The third, the pride of Sunderland, a loose, ungainly lad;

There was no match for Ovett, Cram or ...

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So much to do

If we only had time

To halt the decline;

This means me and you

This issue is shared

Yours and mine.

So much to do

If we only had time

To halt the decline;

This means me and you

This issue is shared

Yours and mine.

So much to do

If we only had time

To halt the decline;

This means me and you

This issue is shared

You...

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I’ll tell you what annoys me, seeing as you’re interested; and I can’t see me making many friends by this.  But for an international influencer like my good self this is secondary to exposing awkward truths.

And that’s motorists who don’t leave much room for me when I’m on my bike. (Cue vehement anti-cyclist/anti-motorist tirades).

And here’s the rub; they mostly seem to be women.

Don’t g...

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This phrase was the tipping point in every story sent into "Readers' Letters" of the soft porn mags of the 70's that I splashed out on.  The Marge Proops of sex advice was Fiona Richmond.  But I was on holiday at the time I wrote this and without "research resources" and remembered her name wrongly as Fiona Millicent.

Dear Fiona Millicent, I write about an incident

Which happened on a g...

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I’m intrigued by this scene which crops up many times as a theatrical device in TV and film dramas.  You know what I’m talking about; the couple have had a blazing row and the woman clutches a handful of dresses from the wardrobe, stuffs them into a suitcase she’s thrown on the bed and storms off out of the house.

I just can’t see it happening, myself.

In our house, for instance, Our Gert wo...

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The cycling is pleasant from Wakey to Cas

It’s mostly on tarmac or gravel or grass

No doubt you’ll surmise that the biking will be

Rural and quiet and hence traffic-free

It’s known as the greenway by those here who know

Although there is huggins of signage to show.

By the side of the Calder your journey starts there

Then by the canal to join up with the Aire

But s...

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There really was a chip shop known as Sweaty Betty's on the corner of Hallgarth and Church Street when I was a student there in the 70's.  She'll either be 130 years old now or she'll have gone to that Great Codfather in the sky.

Sweaty Woman With the greasy top

Sweaty Woman At the old chip shop

Sweaty Woman

I watched your perspiration drip

Into the fat that fries the chips.

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The prospect of being "no-platformed" has persuaded me to downtone the authenticity of the racist language typical of this Jim Crow era I would otherwise have used in this.

From the day he was the Champ he had a target on his back -

The price he paid for whupping Tommy Burns;

They tried to find The Great White Hope to end the reign of Jack.

He dumped him on the canvas like he...

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I’m talking about personal experiences I’ve witnessed and to which I was complicit, with some of them being relatively trifling deceptions and others not so much!  And I have quite a rich vein to mine on this, having been a management consultant in more than 50 companies over a 20 year period. 

At Sxxx, for example.  This was a contract bakery which made bread and cakes for most of the major s...

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A re-post from four years ago when she and Harry Redknapp were on "I'm a Celebrity...".  My ardour for her has not waned.

I’ve got the hots for Hegerty

I think that she is Ace

Cos if I’d run her round the bed

I think I’d win The Chase.

I’ve little peccadillos

They’re naughty, I confess

To feel the crop upon my bum

Of Anne, The Governess

Old ‘Arry’s ‘e’s a ...

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Ten wheels on my wagon but it’s not rolling along

It’s full of fuel but life’s so cruel

This delivery was for BP

They’re not singing a happy song.

Ten wheels on my wagon; it’s parked up back at the plant

Well, what a surprise now prices rise

Of gasoline, as you’ve all seen

You’re not singing a happy song.

Ten wheels on my wagon but it’s not rolling along

You si...

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As I am on hols at the moment and only have the phone for company, I am unable to post anything new on the incomparable Jimmy Greaves.  This is a link to an old piece I wrote seven years ago.

https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=50211

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I read recently on the BBC News website that the parents of several girls of the same name had complained that their little darlings were being victimised because people were pretending to give them instructions.  Clearly, in their minds, a matter for urgent lobbying.

But I really don’t get it.  Just how fragile must you be to require protection from other kids saying, “Alexa, do this” (or “do ...

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Fellow Baby Boomers like myself will no doubt recall him.  He appeared on Opportunity Knocks during the 1960’s.

OK was a talent show – a forerunner of BGT and The X Factor and all those other similar programmes predicated on low-cost TV.  It was hosted by Hughie Green whose only talent seemed to be to pull a face every now and then.  But it’s reassuring this tradition of talentless presenters w...

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An inferior homage and update on Woody Guthrie's "Deportees - Plane Wreck at Los Gatos".  Indeed, I slipped up in the recording and inadvertantly said "Deportees" in one of the choruses.

The cops count them in on the beaches of Dover

Those who have risked life and limb on our seas;

They flee from their homelands, from death and from torture

To seek better lives as escaped refugees...

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Is it a hardy annual of our times? Something that in other ages was just thought of as an ingredient of a life to be lived, like Happiness or Pain or Death?  No doubt my grandad experienced what we would call “stress” but, there again, the Germans were trying to shoot his bollocks off – not as traumatic, I grant you, as many of the challenges of today’s modern life, such as KFC running out of chic...

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A re-posted homage to the masterful Benny Hill.  I have merely tried to develop his original.

The crocus and the hostas raise your mother’s memory

I recall the vile old crow cos she looked like an ‘oss to me

The cowslips bring back memories where they’re planted in the grass

The daft bat fell there; I said “That fat cow’s slipped on her arse”

We’d hide behind the cedar when I’d...

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In time as I’m laid to my terminal rest

I pray that there’s courage and peace in my breast;

I pray the Lord grants me, if these be his plans,

The hearts of mine enemies gripped in my hands.

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A much needed Dylan Thomas/DIY/Shakespeare fusion poem and celebrating a little mishap which befell me at my daughter's house.

I should go gentle into that stud wall

For fear of piercing cable or a pipe

Else certes much skunk shite may me befall.

A wiser man might prod with a bradawl

At DIY, though, I am dud arsewipe

If only I’d drilled gentle through that wall.

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I’d waited alone in the bar for my date

The time we’d arranged was a quarter past eight

But now it was nine and I hoped she’s just late

As embarrassed I sat on my own

But you’re never alone with your phone.

A warm summer’s day and it’s turned half past three

I’m thinking it’s time for my afternoon tea

Our Gert’s still in Primark and so it’s just me

Amid the Darbys and ...

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He was a friend of mine

He was a friend of mine

Carried me home when I fell behind their lines

He was a friend of mine

I met his family

Shared their meal and sipped their tea

I carried their photo in my wallet round with me

I met his family

He was a friend of mine

Sometimes we shared a skin of wine

He drove me to the airport where I left him behind

He was...

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It used to worry me a fair bit when my kids were younger that they might put themselves in harm’s way when they’d had a few pops and, believe me, I know from first-hand experience  that it might be in their genes.  I too had been stupid in drink when I was younger to the point of being reckless.

Take these few examples, spawned from those days I spent taxpayer’s money in the form of my grant on...

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A re-post from 2019 when the Mighty Spurs beat Man City 4-4 (away goals) in the Quarter Final of the Champions League and prompted by today's 1-0 win over them. And this is what David Bowie meant to say.

The time was running out I’m feeling low

We’re 4-2 down cos of Aguerro

Then it turns round with Llorente’s goal;

But will the goal be disallowed?

A deathly hush falls upon the ...

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Even seasoned campaigners like Yours Truly get caught out from time to time.

I’d set off at 8 for the bus into Cas

(These days it costs nowt with my Pensioner’s Pass)

And when the bus stops the driver’s a lass

Who says in a tone brusque and surly

“Your pass is no good; you’re a twerlie”.

I wasn’t quite sure as to what she’s just said

But the bus pulled away and I scr...

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Forget those nonsense conspiracy theories about microchips in your vaccine, 5G masts, Hillary Clinton and the devil-worshipping paedophile ring; even David Icke as the Grand Lizard. The real conspiracy is headed by ES.

Ubiquitous, as in a crowd, invisible to sight,

Relentless rolling through the day, anonymous by night

Corporately liveried in red and green and white

Just who can s...

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They made the news some little while ago.  Les Gilets Jaunes or Yellow Jackets as it translates.

They emerged in 2018, protesting about something or other.  But you can’t take French street protests too seriously when they happen every other day.  It might have been over pension reform or air traffic control or lorry drivers or the price of frogs’ legs – it’s all pretty incomprehensible to anyo...

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