(My Christmas cracker)

My time here’s been quite a charmed one

As smooth a ride as it gets

Although I’ve not been an angel

Mostly I have few regrets.

But now as Christmas approaches

The season of warmth and good cheer

I find myself in reflection

On loved ones no longer here.

Perhaps you loved someone dearly

Or fought like cats in a sack

Perhaps there’s wo...

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She was a girlfriend of mine when I was at Durham University.  Her real name was Birgitz and she was a Danish au pair for the constituency MP.    Hence the nick-name Lurpak.  And how I treated her is best described by that old fashioned word “cad”.

This is a short piece about my immaturity – a character trait I have retained into old age.

I can’t remember how I met her but she must have been...

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A tired seasonal oldie.  Autobiographical too.

As the snow flies -

Cos it’s Christmas here in Haddlesey

And Santa sits underneath his tree

In the Grotto.  (In the Grotto)

Eating warm mince pies.

And if there’s one thing that he don’t need

It’s another squawking kid running off its lead

In the Grotto.  (In the Grotto)

As the kiddie cries.

People don’t yo...

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(One 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’m begging o...

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An Appeal.  I never part with money to beggars on the streets.  However I buy vouchers from Greggs loaded with a few quid. That way I know they will be "spent" on food and a hot drink.

In the bleak mid-winter

Doorway for a home

Cold and wet and hungry

Christmas Day alone;

Veteran of country’s wars

With PTSD

Nation of the caring

Nation of the free.

In the bleak ...

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You know you’ll pay top dollar The truth is plain to see

The clue is in the spelling of “F-A-Y-R-E”.

Cos whether “fayre” at Christmas Or whether “fayre” for crafts

They’ll try to charge you prices You’d otherwise think daft.

It started with my flapjack A favourite of mine

That with a cup of Breakfast Tea Cost £8.99.

But I am no slow learner And only buy what’s...

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I was discussing with Alfie the other day the relative merits of being a two-leg or a four-leg.

Alfie opened up by saying that he envied me because I could choose what and when to eat. He, on the other hand was fed dog biscuits every meal.  “Biscuits!  Fucking biscuits! Every fucking meal!  Fucking biscuits!”

“Granted” I said, “But your times your own.  You spend it eating or sleeping – not ...

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(It's always sad when an icon of stage and screen departs us prematurely.  My homage to one of the Greats)

Sticky Vicky, I watched you perform

Sticky Vicky, in Benidorm

Sticky Vicky, you showed till you were 72

The hidden contents of your flue.

Sticky Vicky, I’ll forget-you-not

Sticky Vicky, with your X-rated slot

Sticky Vicky, it’s all so clear I still recall

Wha...

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It strikes me that this little prick has got away for quite some time now with some serious red-washing.  So it falls to Yours Truly to subject it a little revisionist challenge.

Let’s start with Rudolph’s isolation.  He would have it that he was excluded from the other reindeers’ games, clearly trying to elicit sympathy from a more gullible readership.  Indeed, if the reason was down to bullyi...

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It’s one of my proud boasts that I have never had a Big Mac, never seen an episode of I’m (No Longer) a Celebrity…, or that I’ve ever been into gaming.  (The last’s not strictly true as I have played Space Invaders at Corrigan’s Amusements in Filey during the 80’s.)

But an experience in Curry’s recently showed me what I’d been missing.

I was in need of a bit of R&R while Our Gert bought stil...

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(It was Joe's funeral yesterday.  He was just a few weeks short of his 100th birthday.  I wrote and recited this to him on the occasion of his 90th.  Too many refeerences to explain but it summed up the innate decency of a lovely man)

Joe 90 is a carpenter and has been all his life

And like the good Lord Jesus works with saw and plane and knife

A quiet man from Haddlesey, both humble...

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I watched it behind my very own eyes as I lay steaming in bed.

It was a rugby match.  Their team had hoofed the ball miles down into our half.  It was about to roll into touch when it was picked up by some Nerdy Bloke having a group picnic around a bench-type table on the pitch just inside the touchline.

(What do you make of that, Sigmund?)

Anyway, he tosses it like a girl would toss a be...

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Auntie Ridie (or was it Auntie Nellie who lived in one of the old people’s bungalows on Cadaw Avenue?)

Uncle Ron and Aunt Win on Montague Road

Aunt Florrie on Henry Street

Arthur and his wife whose name began with “M” on Ruffs Estate

 I knew them all when I was a kid.  But it’s a matter of some frustration to me now that I haven’t a clue where they fitted into our wider family.

We...

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(A poem I wrote to wind up my fellow loony leftie Facebook chums, especially during those whacky Corbyn years when they thought political suicide attractive)

I used to turn up on them marches

Arms linked with the Trotskyist host

But now I tune in to the Archers

“Them as lives longest learns most”.

I wore all my badges and labels

The shouts and the slogans and words

I...

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“How Do You Solve a Problem Like Suella?”

Lately of my Tory Cabinet

Who’s left a stink so bad that I can smell her

And also brings me out in a cold sweat.

Her outbursts nearly bordered upon slander

On demonstrations, migrants and the police

She’s led us down a dead-end with Rwanda

I’d like to gag the bitch’s big mouth piece.

So How Do I Solve a Problem Like S...

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(An homage to a colleague and a gentleman for Remembrance Week)

“All the girls like Dick” he used to say, as if it were the best joke in the world.  He’d only say it to us blokes in his office though, not to the girls.  He was too much of a gentleman for that.

And they did.  They used to jostle for the prize of coming down to our office to do his typing – my wife included.  He’d greet t...

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Housing for sale or rent

Can’t afford and got no tent

I hear Suella’s voice

Telling me this is my choice.

I’ve got blanket and begging cup

Laddie who’s my faithful pup

If she’d choose this life for free

She’s a Braverman than me

Vouchers I get for Greggs

A kindness to a man who begs

Society’s lost dregs

Scum of the earth.

Shop doorways I lay my he...

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I wish I had the knowledge and dogmatic certainty

That others can dispense as wisdoms' pearls;

Complexity confounds me; unlike others I can't see

Solutions to the issues of this world.

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A few weeks ago, some friends and we (doesn’t that sound wrong?) were discussing the meaning of life – not the film “The Meaning of Life” but the meaning of life.

This is the sort of thing we did when I was a student and blind drunk on Newcastle Exhibition.  These days as a 70-something teetotaller I’ve got no excuse for such navel gazing and should know better.

Anyroadup, my rather facile c...

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(I am always unimpressed by poems which try to rhyme every line.  They strike me as a self-indulgent exercise in dexterity by the poet.  Anyroadup, here's one.)

St Peter stands at Heaven’s gate

Please be polite; don’t make him wait;

You know you’re past your sell-by date

So just Accept Your Fate.

You know you all exacerbate

Our parlous economic state;

Forget the call...

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A re-post in response to the clamour from my world-wide fans for this seasonal treat.

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.

Little Bastards to...

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The cellar to my mam and dad’s house served as both a pantry and a workshop.  It had electric lighting of course, but also benefitted from the daylight it got from the coal grate.  (For the more privileged among you, this was where the coal got tipped in).

It wasn’t a comfortable workspace, for me at least.  The ceiling was about 6 feet high and so am I; so I’d frequently bump or scrape my head...

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(I have to credit Uncle Graham Sherwood for this brilliant title he suggested for me.  You have to blame me for the singing)

We’re all going on a Saga Holiday

On a Barton’s single decker bus

One week Llandudno then on to Colwyn Bay

We ladies here are all 80+

And nearly old as the bus.

We always have a Horlicks nightly

Which means we always need the loo

And those o...

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(There's a bit of skipping - on the audio, that is, not by the old ones)

The Old Ones, now these days we’re Old Ones

And we Old Ones don’t need a second chance

To moan, groan, to dribble piss and to pong

But we Old Ones won’t be Old Ones very long.

The Old Ones, we’re all crabby Old Ones

And we Old Ones don’t think that it is wrong

To go bald, wear our pants when th...

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So like I was telling you, I’ve always considered myself as something of a MOTW but recent events have shown that even I can always find something new to learn.

Take Ben.  He’s just started working on a cow farm and he was telling us about how the cows were inseminated. 

“By the bull” I hear you say; and, strictly speaking, you’d be right.  But not normally by the farmer’s bull.

See, he ...

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Ever since I was Verger at Selby Abbey I’ve had a rather special relationship with God.  He knew, of course, about the many and various sins I’d racked up prior to trying to put back a bit into the world, too numerous and shameful for me to confess to you all here.  But he cut me a lot of slack and elevated me to a rung just one down from the fucking angels.

Only He knows why, but He seemed to ...

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Or me, as it happens.

I was sauntering through Cas Vegas with my son-in-law and munching on a rather splendid pork pie when we were approached by a grubby old woman flogging something-or-other nobody would want.  In less enlightened times I might have called her a gypsy.  Not so today.  Oh no.  You don’t catch me out like that.  “Traveller” or “Itinerant” I would use in this delicate company.  ...

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Don’t hear that train a-comin’

The service it will end

At New St Station, Birmingham

Cos Rishi will not spend

The fortune that is needed

Paid by me and you

The North can kiss ta-ta

To the HS2.

I hear he keeps on saying

The spades are in the ground

You’ll find them South of Watford though

The spades aren’t Northern bound

So for this brass-necked turn round

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I do think it right to let Justice prevail

And offer him chance of release upon bail

With full explanation he should avoid jail

So for what he did to that tree

I'd saw him off at the knee.

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Memories of the time some years ago when I did yoga.  (Old gits may remember Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' "Shakin' All Over")

Our Leader had not an ounce of fat on her

So found it easy holding Shavasana

She started us with words “Just touch your toes.

Now you can try to hold the Lotus Pose”

But I am just an old crone

I let out a low moan

Tremors down my backbone

Aching...

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Day 1 at Slimming World – I was a man alone

Lots of tubby women though – I weighed 16 stones.

Through the week I’d count my “sins” As Slimming Worlders do

Second week on the scales – Blimey! 16.2!

All week on celery – Pie and chips no more

I’ll be Slimmer-of-the-Week – Jesus! 16.4!

Seven days at the gym at classes for old men

FUCK ME NEVERMIND! It’s 2lbs on agai...

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It won’t mean anything to you unless you are of a certain age ie beyond toddlerhood in the early 60’s.  If you were the number will be synonymous with Luxembourg; specifically, arguably the country’s only claim to fame – Radio Luxembourg.

It rivalled the BBC’s radio output of the Light, Third and Home stations (Radios 2, 3 and 4 in new money).  This was in the days of the BBC’s monopoly with i...

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I know you conceived me but here’s your surprise

I gurgle so sweet but there’s mischief in my eyes

Once I’m clean and the Sudocreme’s on then I play my Ace

Before the nappy’s back I take / best / aim for my daddy’s face

So the joke’s on him

Now he’s soaked to the skin

Cos I’ve changed my smile

Now I‘m evil and vile

I can pee for miles and miles and miles and miles...

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Of all the evil things we eat

The Champion must be

The one I cite as “Devil’s Food” –

The humble garden pea.

And it’s not me that judges this

In this poetic blog

But rather I shall leave it to

Lord Alfred, our pet dog.

At times we feed him left overs

From Sunday lunch or teas

Which he gobbles up right quick

But spits out all the peas.

Now Alfie is...

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Among her signature dishes

Is one as is ever so ‘umble

Our Gert is renowned around these parts for

‘er “Castleford” Blackberry Crumble.

‘ Course there’s been occasions we’ve bought ‘em

But seasons for blaggies are key

At this time o’ year near Autumn

Wild brambles in hedgerows are free.

(And that’s a big plus point for me!)

Yer back knows you’ve filled up your ...

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It started off with Tamsulosin to help relax my prostate gland

With Solafenacin the next, repeatedly prescribed as planned;

Lamzoprazole for acid reflux; then to try to get control

Atorvastatin was my 4th pill to combat high cholesterol;

Lercanidipine is the latest that I take to keep at bay

My raised level of blood pressure;  these are now my “5-a-Day”

I find this all quite disc...

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I remember it well, “The Crossroads Motel”

Your acting consistently shite

Giving my head through the script being read

A migraine that lasted all night;

But those were the days; I rode BSAs;

We watched on our screens black and white;

Your actors were poor, the walls and the door

Would wobble as lines they’d recite;

Ah, but you got away; ITV dropped the play;

Your legend ...

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“Why don’t you leave your boots on?”

She said, as I walked through the door,

“There’s nothing to spoil in the kitchen;

There’s nothing to spoil on the floor”.

And later on in that evening

As I kissed her softly I said,

“Why don’t you leave your boots on?

There’s nothing to spoil on the bed”

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H & E, Parade, Spick and Span – you’d probably need to be a man of my age to remember them. They were what passed for top-shelf “porn” when l was a lad. (It helped to be tall).  They were called “men’s glamour magazines”.

By today’s standards they were tame indeed, the sort of stuff you might have seen on page 3 of The Sun.  “Top shots” certainly but below the waist?  Nada.  By an early version...

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I heard about Yevgeny

My true and faithful friend

The horrid accident you met

Your sad and tragic end.

We may have fought like brothers

But we were never foes

Sure, we had our differences

As all the world now knows.

Rest easy now Yevgeny

My soulmate all these years

I must try to face my pain

And wipe away my tears.

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A re-post harking back to the final days we spent in our last house, where a man could potter in a shed and burn logs in a firepit.  For fun.

As quiet closes end of day

When evening’s calm has gripped us

I set a fire and in it lay

Dried logs of eucalyptus.

A billowing blue smokiness

And flames begin to dance;

The leaves and trees stand motionless,

No breeze to bre...

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When the bow and arrow was a secret weapon I used to play rugby – union, that is, not rugby league.  I was never daft enough to play rugby league.  For the less well informed of you, besides technical differences between the two, at the amateur level rugby union is a hard game whilst rugby league is plain dirty.

Not that I wasn’t above a bit of chicanery myself.  It’s important to understand th...

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Fellow sufferers will know the discomfort of having to go to the toilet several times a night and then being unable for minutes on end to pee.  The joys of being an old man. 

I could have slept all night

But I was kept all night

Busy in the loo;

It wasn’t what I planned

But now my prostate gland’s

Enlarged, it grew and grew;

And now it’s closing off my bladder

And cho...

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"Herr Herold vots your soughts now you're a Bundesliga star?

Unt you vill vear ze number 9?"
"JA. NEIN. JA".

"Your boots zay vill be Adidas unt Mercedes Benz your car.

Unt hev you learnt our lenguage?"

"JA. NEIN. JA".

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I remember it from its beginnings

Its earliest broadcasted days

With stories of lives like our own told

In black and in white and in greys.

It starts with its iconic theme tune

For viewers a rallying call

Then cuts to cobbles and terraces

And Bobby the cat on a wall.

Annie and Jack ran the Rovers

And she was a surly old bag

Who often locked horns with Elsie

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As a self-employed Management Consultant (blue pin-stripe suit, yellow tie) I always thought I was pretty nifty at feeling around inside corporate pockets to relieve them of money in exchange for advising them of the bleeding obvious.  But an experience I had at Pickering Trout Farm and Fishery some years ago showed me to be no more than a naif in this regard.

The trout lakes sit at the side of...

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I used to ride a Bantam

175 cc’s

I got it up to 40 once

With a tailwind breeze.

I bought it from a gypsy

Who kept its flaws well hid

I reckoned I’d a bargain though

It cost just 80 quid.

But soon I came to realise

His pocket I’d not picked

And anyway I’m guessing that

The bloody thing was nicked.

Its bigger brother, “Gold Star”

Made manly thump...

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Something to follow this excellent Ashes series.

A combo familiar to all cricket fans.  All will be aware that it is a formula for setting batting targets in rain-affected games.  Less well known is that it was devised by Jack Duckworth and Lewis Capaldi.

Cricket fans will talk knowledgably that it was a formula which succeeded the original pro-rata calculation.  By which I mean that if...

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Another train one. A re-post from 2014.  You may hear the dead hand of The Man in Black.

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 the Goathland Drag.

You’re leaning from the window

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I remember nothing about the day itself.  I’m guessing we’d gone down to London to see my dad’s sister, Aunt Lil and her husband Ernie in Edmonton.  I certainly have no recollection of seeing the sights.

What is unforgettable, though, was the journey home.  We left from Marylebone Station on a through train that got into Hucknall about 3am.  Highly implausible you’d think until I mention that t...

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