The Paw Law.

My four dogs have got wind of some breaking news and now they and I have become like the Beatles in 1970 - eyeing one another suspiciously and appointing our own legal teams in readiness to sue.
The reason for this threat to the hitherto sweet music made by the Fab Five is the new Animal Welfare Act which this week comes into force in England. Supt Martyn Hubbard of the RSPCA said of this landmark legislation: "Crucially, the new law will mean that owners and keepers of animals will have to provide their animals with their basic welfare needs."
Sounds good, doesn't it? Being northern Europe's greatest animal lover (although that was never proved!), I, of course, welcome this move to get tough on those bastards who are cruel to animals.
In brief, the new law makes it a legal requirement for pet owners to do what is reasonable to provide, and I quote from the RSPCA's website:

* A proper diet, including fresh water.
* Somewhere suitable to live.
* For any need to be housed with, or apart from, other animals.
* Protection from, and treatment of, illness and injury.


You wouldn't think people had to be told these things, let alone forced by law to ensure that they are provided but, sadly, if there are people about who think Noel Edmonds is a jolly good chap, rest assured that there are also people around who think torturing fellow creatures is a jolly good idea.
So, why the canine unrest here at The Towers? Well, that has been generated by the fifth requirement placed on pet owners by the new law. We are charged with ensuring our pets have, and again I quote:

* The ability to express normal behaviour!!!!!

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!!!

Have these bloody people got any idea at all what constitutes "normal behaviour" for my pack? I've got a fucking Dingo-cross which, to date, has dug up a 30ft-high fir tree in my garden, turned the lawn into a model of Michael Carroll's backyard, raped my three-legged dog Henry on numerous occasions, ripped out and chewed up several phones, eaten the wallpaper in the hall and dug up the grave of the first dog I ever had!!
All four of the buggers piss and shit around the house frequently and the alsatian, who weighs in at six or seven stones, has dumped so spectacularly on occasions that I have been forced to treat the resultant mounds as traffic islands!
My littlest dog is obsessed with trying to hump the alsatian, who is not keen on the attention, and she also likes to shag MY leg when she is bored!
I have, in the past, had strong words with all of the offenders in turn but I can see that going out of the window now. I can almost hear the future exchanges:
"Caty, that's naughty! Put the postman down and don't piss in daddy's apple juice."
"Back off, Fascist! Don't oppress me. I'm just expressing myself. You'll be in court so fast your feet won't touch, son!"
Or.....
"Tilly, please don't shag Padfoot while he's eating his tea."
"Henry!! Get my solicitor on the phone. I'm the product of a 12-parent family, this is an outward expression of my angst and, anyway, society is to blame. It's the European Court of Humping Rights for you, Pater!"
Where will it all end? Politicising and empowering dogs will lead to the ruination of us all.

There will be marches on Parliament, sit-ins, "Dogs Against The War" protests and, before you know it, they will be running the country. We can't have a load of animals with a low IQ, never-ending greed and the desire to shag anything which moves running the place.......hang on a bit. Oh, well, you get my drift.
Thanks a lot, all you hippy, right-on, PC law makers! I've now got the choice of living in a shit and piss-covered, semi-derelict squat backing onto The Somme or spending a lifetime behind bars!
No, let the people of Grantham experience first-hand my dogs' "normal behaviour" and see them try to stay fashionable!!

Bathus Interruptus

I hate being disturbed when I'm in the bath!

Treeman came round again today to give me a quote for work on my Leaning Bower of Pither.
He had arranged to call at 4pm and so I decided I just had time for a bit of a soak in a hot bath before finding out how much it would cost to stop Nigella, my blue lawson fir, from toppling over onto my next door neighbour's pigeon loft.
I got in the bath at 1pm and kept my mobile phone on a chair alongside, firstly to chat idly with anyone who would listen and secondly, and most importantly, to keep an eye on the time which is displayed on the homescreen. It was 3pm when, having noticed that my gonads had all but disappeared, I decided to get out, dry off and get changed but just as I was shoehorning myself out all Hell broke loose!
The dogs went berserk and charged the front door, indicating that someone had been foolish enough to call at Pither Towers unannounced. I grabbed the nearest towel to hand (which turned out to be just a very large flannel!) and ran to the bedroom window to peer out and see who it was. It was only bloody Treeman, wasn't it!
Right, I thought, I'm going to give him an earful. He said 4pm and he calls round a bloody hour earlier. We didn't win two world wars by turning up early - although, come to think of it, the Americans won them by turning up late.
Anyway, still dripping wet and trying hard to cover my dangly bits and as much flesh as I could with the microtowel, I managed to herd the dogs into the kitchen and then open the door. Treeman was walking back to his van but I shouted to him to come to the side door and I would let him in.
"Bloody Hell mate," I began. "You said 4pm. I was in the ruddy bath, as you might just have gathered."
"It is 4pm," he said.
"'Tis not."
"'Tis so."
"'Tis not."
"'Tis too."
Just then my face fell, my sphincter clenched and my blood drained as a metaphorical lightbulb went on over my head. I squelched back into the kitchen to check the clock there - it was indeed 4pm.
AAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgghh!!!! The clocks, the fucking clocks!!! They have beaten me yet again. Every bloody year I think I've got it cracked and every bloody year I am beaten. I HADN'T PUT THE CLOCK ON MY MOBILE PHONE FORWARD BY AN HOUR LAST WEEKEND!! Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!!
My mobile is now yet another timepiece to add to the ever growing list of clocks which have to be altered around British Summer Time and I really don't think I can cope. I shall stick at Pither Time and sod the world.
Anyway, the upshot of Treeman's visit is that I can either kiss goodbye to Nigella once and for all for the price a villa in Marbella or I can have her lopped in half for £260 plus VAT. A lopping it will have to be, although I find that hard to take as viewers of the real Nigella will know - her top half is the best half.

Dog - Free to Good (Indestructible) Home?

I have measured my tether and there is just 0.02mm of it left. I am, likewise, down to the last, frayed bits of my rope and the proverbial camel's back is about to fracture through straw overload.
It's THAT DAMN DOG again!! Caty, the Dingo of Doom.


I keep saying she cannot cause any more mayhem and I keep being proved wrong. Well, this time I am convinced she has peaked.
Regular readers may recall that Nigella, the 30ft-high blue lawson fir in my back garden, has "got bent".
By that I mean that the tree has taken to leaning over at an angle which has almost prompted my next door neighbour into walking round in a hard hat, when he is not protectively throwing his arms around his beloved pigeon loft.
Well, yesterday I finally got round to calling in a tree surgeon to take a look at Nigella and see what could be done. It only turned out that part of the massive base of the tree had been turned into an underground adventure playground, with a network of tunnels and caves undermining the formerly well-anchored root system.
Guess who? None of my other dogs is a digger. Caty, on the other hand, loves digging, so much so that she has, in the past, dug up one of my beloved old dogs who died some years ago and was buried in the garden. Many is the time she has seemingly vanished after being let out and returned later, snout covered in mud. I just assumed she was truffling and bone burying at the far end of the garden so thought no more about it. It appears she has, in fact, been systematically trying to fell Nigella!!
Treeman has gone away to have a re-think about shoring up Nigella and filling in the Cheddar Gorge playground underneath her with something substantial - and Caty-proof.

That bloody dog! On Wednesday I noticed that a large catoneaster bush which used to be tethered to a wall in the garden had also started leaning over. I actually found Caty behind the bush, chewing happily on the rope which I had used to tie up the bush.
These days I look in deep sorrow at what was once my immaculate, manicured lawn.
Since the Devil dog's arrival it has been turned into a mini-Somme and my efforts to let the grass grow back by fencing off key areas have all ended in failure - Caty just leaps the chicken wire barricade in one jaunty bound.
To Grantham or not to Grantham, that is the question? The trouble with Caty is that she is one of the prettiest dogs alive and can be impossibly cute at times. She is also very loving. Oh, I don't know. Answers on a postcard please.

Gizza (Silly) Job

I was still very down and wallowing in self-pity over my abject failure to land the job on which I had pinned my hopes (see previous post) when the television "news" this morning helped me begin the healing process - by turning my depression into disbelief and downright disgust.
It suddenly occurred to me that here was I, a bloke who has spent 21 years learning a trade, a trade now about as much sought after as Coronation Day flag-selling, when all the time I could have no doubt been trebling my earnings by being a "life coach", as one woman was described on the programme.
What the buggery, bleedin' 'ell is a fucking "life coach"?..........
"Ok everybody, thank you for coming in this morning. Brenda, the lights please. Right, look at the powerpoint screen. Well, what happened was, when mummy and daddy decided they loved each other very much, daddy put his love pencil into mummy's magic muff and nine months later you were born. After that, you went to school and then got a job. Some of you will get married, some of you will get divorced, some of you will use your own love pencil or magic muff to make more babies, then you will retire, then you will die. Any questions? No? Ok, make you cheques for £2,500 each payable to Money For Old Rope World Domination Ltd, leave them at the door and show in the next group. It's been emotional."
Another git popped up on screen to talk about whether eating too many crisps and chocolate was bad for you. Well, let's face it, you're going to have to gain a few degrees, MScs and PhDs to work that fucker out. That in mind, he was described as, and I kid you not, "an expert". Just think of the opportunities that would open up for you...........
"Well, Mr Pither, I notice you have simultaneously applied for the positions of brain surgeon, mountaineer, Mediaeval painting restorer, astronaut, lion tamer and Dean of St Sorearse College at Cambridge. What qualifications do you have which suit you to all these posts?"
"Well, I'm a fuckin' expert, ain't I?"
"In what?"
"Well, like, in expertise, innit."
The third one which got me gnawing my own foot off was a woman who was billed as "a relationship counsellor"! 'Scuse me, I may be being a bit dense here, but isn't EVERYONE over the age of 10 "a relationship counsellor"? How many times have you been called on to listen to someone else's turbulent emotional life and offer soothing words and advice? Jesus H Christ, my soon-to-be ex-wife gets calls EVERY BLOODY NIGHT from one pal or another about the latest perceived drama in their life. Because STB EW either talks so loudly or sits so close during these exchanges I too have become a fully qualified "relationship counsellor"......
"Oh, I know. I know. He didn't? Oh, never! Well of course you did. Of course. Yes. Well, the stretch marks have faded, love, believe me. No, it doesn't look big in the blue. Hmm. Well perhaps the ointment is for a cut? Ask him. Oh no! Well, I would tell him. Reg is the same."
These dreary counselling sessions ALWAYS end with the same statement. Yes, that one...."They're all the same." Learn that off pat and you've already got a doctorate in the discipline.
The television news was followed by another programme packed with these sorts of wankers. This time they were those people, like Trinny and Susannah, who have dubbed themselves "style experts" and insist they are qualified to tell everyone else what to wear. "Clothes criticisers" I believe it says on their CVs. Believe it or not, this show focused on a bloke trying to organise a group of people into putting up a tent!!! It prompted one of the supposed style gurus back in the studio to comment: "Oh, he's just never going to inspire leadership and command wearing that blue outfit." Aaaarrrgh!!! It didn't do fucking Napolean any harm, love!
If you can't beat them, join them I say. If people can get away with selling themselves as "life coaches, experts or relationship counsellors" then surely I can? Maybe those markets are saturated already? It wouldn't surprise me. I will have to invent some more "jobs", I think. How about "breathing consultant"? Maybe "ambulation adviser", "hair growth co-ordinator", "curtains criticiser" or "coat hanger use instructor"?
I will also get the dogs jobs, just to swell the Pither coffers. Yes, "scent experts" I think.

Yes, the way ahead is clear. In the meantime, to avoid competition, all people with ridiculous, meaningless job titles can go to Grantham.

Pither and The Scrapheap of Scribes

I DIDN'T GET THAT JOB!
You know, the one I had been pinning my hopes on? The job I had researched in detail, the one about which I had been to see people who had previously worked for the outfit so as to get the inside track. The job which would have steered me clear of the reefs of bankruptcy once and for all.
My skills and experience were, I learned today, and I quote, "Too journalism focused for the position." The position?.........Chief Press Officer!! Work that fucker out!
If I was a Punch and Judy showman I could understand their reticence at giving me the job. If I had gone in dressed as a milkmaid they would have had grounds for marking me down. If I had spent my life offering donkey rides on Blackpool beach or had been a carpenter, an oil rig worker, a fireman, a ballet dancer or a jockey I could see that I might not be ideally suited to the post....but I kinda fucking thought that being a journalist of 21 years' standing might have stood me in good stead and not, as it turned out, been a major drawback!!
I can't name the employer, obviously, because I wouldn't want anyone who sympathises with me to go round there and burn the premises to the ground or introduce anthrax spores into the water supply.... I shall be doing that in due course.
With hindsight, I should have known I was on a loser when I walked in and was interviewed by one of those ubiquitous directors of communications. She was, as they nearly always are, a mid-50s fluffy with plastic tits and skin artificially stretched so tight around her eyes that she looked like a Japanese sniper. She had spent her "career" bullshitting and smiling falsely for a string of corporate giants, most of them in the motor industry.
She knew as much about journalism as I knew about how she had managed to cram her child-stretched, sagging nether regions into the pencil skirt she was wearing. She smiled inanely throughout the hour-long interview, mostly because she had no choice as her facial skin was evidently gathered up and knotted somewhere at the back of her head. The facade only dropped twice - once when I told her how impressed I was that the company had managed to hush up the fact that it was currently making widescale compulsory redundancies and again when I said "So you're from Yorkshire but now live in Essex since your divorce, I gather?" "How do you know about those things," she asked, ashen faced and incredulous. "Because I asked people," I said. "It's kinda what I do." I had, in fact, picked up these two juicy titbits by chatting to the woman behind the counter in the company canteen while I was waiting to be called for interview.
Well, rest assured that the Press DO now know about the redundancies!!! - Bitter? Not me.

Yeah, bitter, hurt, angry and feeling very, very unwanted - bit like Christ on the cross, only without the imminent prospect of sitting on the right hand of God in paradise.
Ah well, it's time to meet up again with an old, old friend - the drawing board. Quo Vadis? I think my pole dancing days are well and truly over. There's not much call for blokes to measure women for bras and becoming an astronaut is out because I can't stand heights. Still, I'm sure something will come up, as the man said after popping Viagra.
I can't name the employer, as I said, but, as a tantalising clue, programmes like CSI Miami and CSI New York can fuck off to Grantham.

L'il Ol' Wine Drinker Me

"Come away Dave, it's not worth it."

Oops!! Things you shouldn't have done Number 12,345,897.
I done a bad thing, George. I went out yesterday and, for some reason which is still a mystery to me, got totally and utterly banjaxed! I am, as a result, nursing a slight headache while gradually trying to piece together the events of the day, piece by wine-sodden piece.

Ah, now that's a starting point - wine! That was the principal cause of my trip to Idiotsville. Beer I can drink, no problem. I have certificates for it. I once even toyed with the idea of becoming Professor Emeritus of Ale Quaffing at the University of Life. I am, in fact, so good at it that I tend to expect my alcohol to come in a handled, pint glass! There's the rub. Beer tips the alcohol strength scale at about 3 or 4 per cent while wine comes in at about 12.5 per cent. You should, therefore, drink about a quarter as much wine as you would beer. Not me!
I was still a bit perky from Saturday night and made my first mistake by skipping breakfast. Then, when the sun rose over the proverbial yardarm, I took myself out into the garden as it was a fairly nice day and cracked open my first bottle. The next thing I can definitely remember is taking a photograph of a steak and ale pie I had made for dinner and then MMSing it to about 10 friends and relatives!
A half-hour-long chat on my mobile with a friend in Glasgow also seemed like a good idea at the time (no, I DON'T get free weekend minutes) and then I came up with a really blinding wheeze - why not go to the pub AGAIN? My soon-to-be ex-wife and I got through 3 bottles of Chateau Headfuck (at more than £8-a-bottle!!) and.............being totally honest, the next thing I can remember is waking up this morning with a mouth like the bottom of a parrot's cage.

God knows what I did during the evening! I do know that the pie I had made now looks as though someone has ridden over it on a motorbike so I must have had food eventually. There is NO wine left in the house so I must have had a small tincture when I got home as well. I have yet to check on the anti-freeze in the garage - I just pray that it is all as I left it and I didn't swig that as well.
I could, I suppose, start ringing round my friends (ex-friends?) to find out exactly where my performance ranked on the Arseometer but I am just too embarrassed. I should also e-mail my online chums to see if any of them are still talking to me but, again, it would be just too painful.
It could possibly have been worse, now I think about it. I have not found that I am now married to a Filipino prostitute, there is no donkey in my bedroom, my genitals are not painted with blue gloss, the police haven't been round, the house is not ablaze and none of the dogs is in the washing machine. That is a comfort - but only a small one.
When will I ever learn? I am 46, for Christ's sake! I have to somehow get my knickers into gear because I have an important interview tomorrow which I must prepare for. I also have to try to ensure that I do not go in smelling like a used beermat.
Right, I shall get cracking (but not bottles) and, as I attempt to rebuild my life, I shall send wine in pintpots to Grantham.

Times They Are A Changin'

The clocks went forward in the early hours and I am now mentally exhausted.
Two things have conspired to make the switch to and from British Summertime a nightmare for me. The first is the ceaseless advance in technology and the second is the fact that I am one of the most anally retentive beings on this planet (Virgo).
I live in fear and dread of forgetting to put the clocks forward or back and so gear myself up for it weeks in advance. It never used to be such a trial for me. Years ago, all I had to do was to alter my watch and the grandfather clock in the hall. Job done. Easy. No way you could forget.
Nowadays the task has become a tad more involved. Right, there is still my watch and the hall clock but there is now also another clock in the kitchen.....oh, and the clock on the microwave........and the central heating timer.........and the digital clock on the oven...........and the digital alarm clock in my bedroom..........and the digital alarm clock in the spare bedroom..........and the digital clock in my study..........and the clock on the video......and the clock on the video in my bedroom.......and the clock on the video in the spare room.

Each time I think I've got all the bases covered and each time there is some bloody clock somewhere I have forgotten. Like the clock on the answerphone, and the timer-clock on the light in the hall, and the timer-clock on the uplighter in the lounge, and the timer-clock on the back garden security light, and the timer on the pond lights, and the timer on the fish tank in the kitchen, and the timer clock on the fish tank in the lounge.
By the time I have completed this Herculean feat of memory and clock changing I am invariably shagged out. Then I spend the rest of the day recovering, and when I get up for work the following morning and get in my car to drive to work.....OH SHIT! THE FUCKING CLOCK IN THE CAR!! AAAaaaaarrrrgh!!!!!
Being so anal, I HAVE to make sure ALL the clocks are altered AND BEFORE THE ALLOTTED DEADLINE! I used to stay up until about midnight and do the clock rounds then. As the task became more complicated I brought that deadline forward and would metaphorically ring the changes at about 9pm. Still more clocks to change and the deadline crept forward to about 7pm. Yesterday, I altered the clocks at 5pm!!!!! (or was it 4pm???) Soon I will be altering them a week early, then a month and then......Yes, the nightmare scenario. I just spend my entire life moving the clocks forward, then back, then forward again, then back...........

I'm getting one of my headaches again. I need to lie down. Wake me in an hour.........or an hour ago...............or now?????
Sod it! These clock changes can go to Grantham.

Slavery - An Apology

I, Reginald Pither, would hereby like to formally apologise for the part I played in operating the triangle of death which was the slave trade of the 18th and 19th Centuries...........

.........While I'm on, I would also like to put on record my deep regret at having colonised North America from the 17th Century onwards and then wiping out the native Indian population.
I am also extremely sorry for my abject imperialism over the last 500 years which saw me take over a third of the world and subjugate the people of countries such as India, Australia, Canada, Singapore and other Far Eastern outposts, bits of Africa, the Falkland Islands and various shitholes in the middle of the Pacific.
I am dead sorry for having been the first person in the world to operate concentration camps (Boer War, 19th Century) and I am also really red-faced about having killed loads of French chaps at Agincourt in 1415.
I am mega dischuffed about having massacred the Scots at Culloden in 1746 and then systematically purging the world of the Highland tribes and I can't begin to tell you how fucking pissed off I am about the whole Trafalgar business in 1805.
Christ, am I ever fucking soz about that Battle of Waterloo caper ten years later and what a twat I was over the whole Irish thingy?
Sinking the Spanish armada in 1588 was, let me tell you now, one of the wankiest days of my entire life and I should have my eyes gouged out with red hot pokers for being such a bastard to the Welsh since I don't know when.
I wouldn't begrudge anyone hacking off my testicles with a rusty razor blade and then packing the gaping, weeping, bloody wound with salt for the fucking Crusades of the Middle Ages and don't even get me started on how much of a wank-faced tosser I was for burning witches at around the same time.
God, what a cunt I am! I deserve to have all my skin peeled off and then be dunked in a vat of boiling hot dog shit!!
I'm sorry.
Do you hear me? I'm sorry.
I'M SO UNBELIEVABLY, GROVELLINGLY FUCKING SORRY, ALL RIGHT?.........................Can we move on now?

P.S. Further to the matter of meaningless apologies, I shall be writing to: The Italians about throwing Christians to the lions, the Danish about a few incidents of pillage and maiden-raping, the Germans about two European domestic disputes, the French about just being fucking French, the Welsh about Max Boyce, the people of the South East about Timmy Mallet, the people of my town about clogging the roads at rush-hour, my next door neighbour about his pigeons shitting on my roof.......oh, yes, and various African leaders about the part played by them in selling off their countrymen to the white slavers and getting rich on the proceeds.

No Way Back...or...The Virgin (Drama) Queen

I am keeping a low profile, making excuses to "just nip out to the shops", burying my head in a book or locking myself in the loo with the newspaper. There is a girly-style crisis in the air at Pither Towers and my Y chromosome is screaming at me to be anywhere other than here.
News of this crisis was broken in a phone call to my soon-to-be ex-wife last night. It was her 16-year-old god-daughter. "Aunty Soon-To-Be Ex-Wife," the pubescent one began, "I've lost my virginity and mummy is furious."
A frenzy of furrowed-brow chat ensued as the current Mrs Pither was passed between the ruined virgin and her never-was-a-virgin-in-the-first-place-to-my-knowledge mother. Mrs P, bless her, was very much of the opinion that IT was going to happen some time, the girl had lost her cherry to her boyfriend and not some stranger in a nightclub, she was of legal age and they had "gloved their love" so - good for you girl!
Despite that, there were tears, Mrs P began quaffing copious amounts of wine, chain smoking and then, when three sheets to the wind, she came out with the line I had been dreading. "Come and have a word with her Reg." Quick as a flash, I said, as earnestly as I could, that there were some loose tiles on the roof which needed replacing and I had been meaning to fix them for a while but STB EW was not to be thwarted. "Reginald, it's 11.30 at night! Not a good idea. Come and have a word."
What the Hell was I supposed to say to the tainted teenager, particularly as I am a 46-year-old man whose most recent sexual encounters have been with his own hand? Lucky cow?
I can't remember much about when I lost my virginity. I think there were doodle bugs flying overhead and I seem to recall the sound of an air raid siren.
I resisted the temptation to say her mother had been somewhat morally casual in her youth and that, in fact, at the age of 16 her pants had been about as difficult to get into as an unlocked car on a cinema car park. Instead, I billed and cooed about how mummy was only upset because it evidently seemed to her that she had lost "her little girl". There then followed the statutory lecture about condoms, contraception and personal safety. I did, I think, cheer her up with that maginificent poem recited by Robert Saw in Jaws:

Here lies the body of Mary Lee,
Died at the age of 103,
For 15 years she kept her virginity,
Not a bad record for this vacinity!

The phone was, however, snatched from me when I mentioned something to the effect that "it" was good for your skin and she had to learn to fully relax her throat muscles to perfect deepthroat.
The hullabaloo is still going on today with the phone ringing every hour or so and Mrs P going into hushed counselling mode each time. I am running out of excuses to stop me being dragged into this kitchen sink drama and so I think I will have to escape to a place a sanctuary - one that sells beer. Hurrah!
As ELO almost sang, "it's virginity, it's a terrible thing to lose" so the traumas of cherry popping can go to Grantham.

The One, The ONLY......Mr Edward Brown (and The Story of The Rabbit)

I was short of blog ideas today when my memory was jogged by the local news at 6pm. It was a cutesy story about a mummy kangaroo at a safari park which died but staff had discovered a little joey still alive in her pouch, managed to rescue it and were now busy hand rearing the little critter.
Animal stories are always winners for reporters, particularly if they are happy ones. To that end, I always used to keep a supply of contacts who worked at animal hospitals, safari parks, rescue centres and the like. Because of my forethought, I got a call one day from a ranger at a country park. "We've got a little fox which has befriended a baby rabbit," he said. Ideal, I thought. That will make a nice, sugary, colour picture on an otherwise slow news day.
This is where I have to introduce you to the most fantastic photographer I have ever worked with. I say "fantastic" even though I am sure he was not the most skilled or the most diligent or the most nationally-acclaimed - but he was, to my mind, fantastic!
I shall call him Ted (although his real name is Eddie Brown). Anyway, having checked in with my news desk, I called over to Ted in the office to tell him about the photo and said that the news desk wanted it as a front page, colour picture for that day. Now, this was in the days when colour in newspapers was in its infancy and so if a picture was to go colour in the paper the production guys had to be warned hours in advance so that a space could be left for it.
Off Ted trotted and I got on with other work. Deadline approached and I had still not heard from Ted. I began to panic. "What if something has gone wrong?" I thought. "If there is no photo there will be a blank space in the paper and I will be signing on tomorrow." My then chief reporter told me "Fuck Ted! It's his problem. If he can't be arsed to phone in that's his problem." Just then the phone rang. It was Ted. "He's dead," he said. "Who's dead," I asked. "The rabbit, it's dead!" "No it isn't Ted," I countered, "I only spoke to the country park an hour ago and all was fine." "Well, it's fucking dead now. Don't panic.......I'll improvise." I shouted at Ted not to ring off but it was too late - he had gone (these were the days before mobile phones, you see).
Anyway, the paper came out at 1.30pm and there, on the front page, in colour, was a beautiful, cutesy photo of a fox craning its head down to sniff a little bunny which was standing on its hind legs to greet the kiss. An hour later Ted wandered back into the office. "What the fuck do you mean telling me the fucking rabbit was dead, Ted? You almost gave me a heart attack," I bellowed. "Funny you should mention heart attack," he said. "It WAS dead. It apparently keeled over with a heart attack just as I arrived. Still, I sorted it." "What the fuck do you mean, Ted? How did you sort it?" Yes, the fantastic Ted had indeed improvised. He found a garden cane at the park, screwed it as hard as he could right up the dead rabbit's backside until it penetrated its head, stuck the other end of the cane in the ground and, not unsurprisingly, the fox came over to investigate the poleaxed rabbit - Snap! Photo taken! Job done. Hurrah! If the public only knew.
There is so much more to tell about Ted but I shall save it for other occasions. In the meantime, Grantham can have the paparazzi, we shall have Ted.

Murder! - Murder Most Fish!

There's always one, isn't there? Why can't everyone just play nicely?
Pither Towers has been the scene of bloody murder and the callous killer is still at large! Ok, ok, I might just be racing ahead a little - an occupational hazard for a member of Her Majesty's Press.
The truth of the matter is there has been a death and....... no, no, that's not strictly accurate, either. I am unable to "habeas corpus" so death is only assumed at the moment. What is beyond doubt is that there has been a "disappearance".
The facts, m'lud: There are three fish tanks round at Pither Towers. One is a marine tank with just one occupant - Mongo the Invincible (explanation to follow later). Another houses the legendary Reg, my lobster, and his tropical tankmate, Jabba, a black, bull-headed fish with a serious attitude problem.









The last tank, in my lounge, is home to a collection of tropical fish. Specifically, there is a fish which looks like a badger (honest!) and two couples - a male and female "bright yellow fish" and a male and female "grey, spotty fish" (taxonomy was never my strong point!). Reg used to be in with them all but he was getting the shit kicked out of him by the male yellow fish! Said yellow peril then turned his attentions to his partner, once Reg had gone, and terrorised her, chasing her round the tank at every opportunity. She took to hiding in a little cave or behind the filter in an effort to escape his attentions.

Well, Mrs Yellow is no longer anywhere to be seen in the tank - You do the maths!! Bastard!! He's obviously gone and eaten her, although I'm not sure I can make a murder charge stick.
I don't have much luck with my tank fish (there is also a pond outside). I once spent £35 on a "banana wrasse", a beautiful, bright yellow marine fish. I well remember the day I bought it and how I was reading up on the species as I prepared to release my purchase into the tank to join Mongo. The book said "this species likes to burrow and will often hide in the gravel". I read those words at the precise moment the little git wriggled free of the bag in which it was acclimatising and promptly shot to the bottom of the tank and drilled into the gravel! I never saw the fucker again!! Mystery, of mysteries, even when I cleaned the tank out thoroughly and sifted the gravel I still couldn't find it! I might just as well have tossed a cheque for £35 into the water and just watched it dissolve.
I used to have a marine tank in which one particularly vicious Picasso triggerfish gradually ate all the other occupants before keeling over itself, eventually (no doubt through over-eating). I decided not to restock but for six months kept checking the water to see that the salt level was correct and the ammonia and nitrite levels were kept to almost zero. The water was, in fact, in such pristine condition that fellow enthusiasts used to come round just to admire it! I then decided to restock and so gave the tank a thorough clean, draining all the water out - that's when I found Mongo!!

If you have 20-20 and can see anything blue and yellow in this photo that's Mr M T Invincible.

The little man (a yellow-tailed, blue angel) had hidden himself inside the filter and stayed there for six bloody months without me tossing in so much as a morsel of food (hence his Christening). He was a tad thin, to say the least, and all the colour had been bleached out of him - but he was alive, and is still going strong to this day.
Anyway, back to the case in point. I hate injustice and desperately want to avenge the murder victim but, there again, don't want to oversee a kangaroo court (can fish have a kangaroo court?) I have decided just to stare out Mr Yellow from time to time. He too, as you can see from the photo, has taken to staring back. Bastard!







No, piscine suspected wife beaters and murderers can swim off to Grantham.

Fir-kin 'Ell!! Nigela's Got Bent!

The Wind In The Willows - and The Force 10 In The Fir Tree.

Remember the Pither motto? "You're Never Ahead For Long"? Well, it's proved true again.
In my post about biorhythms and the ups and downs of life, I predicted that a shitty day was on the cards because I had gone and had the audacity to have a good one. Well, right on cue, the excrement has arrived!
My neighbour came round today to gently advise me that a touch of tree surgery might just be required in my garden to avoid a possible accident. His actual words were: "Yow're fuckin' tree's bent over like Michael Barrymore on a Sat'day night. Gerrit fixed cos if it comes down on me fuckin' pigeon loft yom forrit!"
I waved him a cheery goodbye, thanked him for the kindly advice and went to inspect my Chamaecyparis Lawsoniana 'Allumii'. Oops! He had a slight point. The fir - Nigella, I call her (she's a blue Lawson - get it?) - was indeed, like Pither, leaning more than a little to the left. What to do? It's going to take two big lads and a wheelbarrow, I fear.
Ho hum. Another problem to sort. Any suggestions, short of hacking down Nigella, would be appreciated. In the meantime, storm damage can go to Grantham.

Loving It In a Cold Climate

It's cold - I love it when it's cold.
All right, I'll grant you, first thing in the morning you need a bit of warmth to loosen up the getting-out-of-bed muscles but, as for the rest of the time, just let me chill.
I know why I am this way. It's not down to my dad, that's for sure. He definitely didn't have Inuit blood in his veins, more's the pity. If he had eaten more freshly caught, oily fish then he probably wouldn't have keeled over with a heart attack and died when I was five. My mother, now that's a different matter. There's Eskimo somewhere in that 5ft mound of malapropisms, there has to be.
When I was growing up we lived in a succession of what can best be described as Western-style, brick-built igloos.


Our first home - we were the talk of the Poplar Grove housing estate!
In my toddler times we relied on open fires and an arger for heat. In later years we occupied semi-detached snowholes which already had central heating when we moved in. My mother's attitude to lighting the former or switching on the latter was the same - "We can't do that, it will run up the bills!" This was the same logic which brought us, as children, "If we go away on holiday you'll only want to come back again" and "If I give you money you'll only go and spend it". The result was that our homes were always freezing cold and the atmosphere was never helped by mother's insistence on having all the windows open, all year round!
My schooldays certainly did nothing to stop me being forced to acclimatise to Polar conditions. I'm sure there was heating somewhere in the place but it was probably just in the staffroom. It was a gigantic, rambling, Gothic-style collection of buildings built in about 1870 as an orphanage for victims of a cholera epidemic in Small Town. I think they worked on the premise in those days that keeping the whole institution fucking freezing would take the kids' minds off the fact that they wouldn't be going out for Sunday lunch on either Mothers' or Fathers' Day ever again.
My school was one of those God awful public institutions which claimed to build character into the nation's young men by mentally and physically torturing them on a daily basis - and teaching them Latin! The result was, as with nearly all public schools, it turned out an unhealthy proportion of future rapists, murderers and other assorted prisoners, members of the Army, lunatics, tower block snipers and tramps, all suitably equipped for their careers by being immune to the cold. The only other thing we all shared was our full understanding of the importance of the school motto - "Comestiblus Locare, Scoffus Ou Mortem" or................."FIND FOOD THEN EAT IT - OR DIE!"
My inheritance from all this is that I like having the windows open all year round and I like it when it is cold. I can't stand hot houses but that is a bit of a drawback at my age. Most of my friends have young kids and, as they fear the little mites could go down with frostbite or pneumonia if the temperature dips below 70C at any time, they tend to keep their homes about as hot as the surface of the sun! Other people I tend to visit are either at the other end of the age scale or they are girlies. Both of these groups also live in greenhouse conditions, primarily because their circulatory systems are fucked - ever slept with a woman (or a pensioner??!?) who had warm feet?
Being a smoker helps me immeasurably when visiting these people. Because us smokers are these days treated worse than lepers, I can go and stand in the garden to cool off while also enjoying a draw. Hurrah!
Anyway, to draw this moan to a conclusion, I shall confine the hot-blooded and their hothouse homes to Grantham.

Dingo + Duvet = Destruction.

My Dingo of Doom has notched up another victim - or should that be "noshed up"?
Yes, Caty, the dog with a criminal record longer than John Dillinger, took herself off from under my nose (the best place for her) for half an hour today and................ate my bed!!
Last time I said I was not going to send her to Grantham but she was at least on her way to the bus station. Well, now I have bought her a ticket!

Life Is A Transverse Okey Cokey - Up, Down, Up, Down, Shaken All About!

I'm a pretty down to earth kind of chap when it comes to life, you know.
No-one has ever said that I'm away with the fairies - not since my acquittal, anyway! I could hardly be called a dreamer, a bit New Age or gullible, and I have never claimed to be some kind of spiritual medium (I'm XXL, in fact). No, sitting around, holding hands and being complicated while surrounded by crystals with mythical powers in an effort to get in tune with Flange, the god of inner well-being, is just not my cup of sparkling mineral water.
I am conservative with a small "c", a realist shot through with gallons of cynicism, someone who sticks his finger in the sphincter of the unproven and tweaks the nose of hippyish ideas.
It is somewhat worrying, therefore, that I have come to believe in "biorhythms". There HAS to be something in them. There is no other way of explaining life. Discuss? Ok, I will.

Today, shortly after midnight (note, just after the clock ticked into Tuesday), I was contacted by a good and lovely friend who had not spoken to me for more than a week. I had been rude to her while tired and grumpy and she had, understandably, got cross. We spoke again and put our tiff behind us.
About five hours later I awoke to glorious sunshine. I had breakfast in the toasty warmth of my kitchen and then shaved and showered in equally glorious hot water. I received some good news in the post concerning a job I am going for. The rest of the mail consisted of a cheque from my former employer for some profit share payout I am apparently entitled to, a letter from a mate, a bank statement and a magazine I subscribe to (no, don't go racing ahead. I withdrew my subscription to Big Girls Wobbly Bits Monthly a while back).
I chatted on the phone to a couple of friends who are anxious to hook up and both invited me down/up to stay for a weekend. Another friend e-mailed to say that they still do work for an outfit I am applying to and could give me some useful tips and info for a forthcoming interview.
The dogs have snoozed peacefully in between playing nicely and quietly together in the garden. I, in the meantime, have done some work and e-mailed it off. I shall go out for a pint later, read the papers, have a bag of dry roast and no doubt contemplate how good life is. I shall then be cooking beef Wellington for dinner. Delicious.












Yesterday, I awoke as exactly the same Reg Pither. I had not undergone some cruel medical experiment in the night to completely change my personality. The Americans had not, I was pretty sure, carried out some kind of war games test on the atmosphere in the wee small hours. There was, however, snow on the ground and it was bloody freezing. The house was like an icebox and I soon discovered why - the central heating was on the blink. I couldn't shower because there was only ice cold water and I cut myself to ribbons trying to shave in same.
The post consisted of a threatening letter from the bank, my phone bill, a job application "Dear John" and YET ANOTHER FUCKING FLYER FROM A PIZZA PARLOUR!
The dogs were utter arses all day, fighting and barking in the garden, crapping in the hall and getting their muddy paw marks on virtually all the things I had worked so hard to clean over the weekend.
During the course of the day I chatted with two friends who proceeded to criticise the way I was living and one of them slammed the phone down in a huff - I swear, I had said nothing to prompt either outburst. I later chatted online to two people, one of whom tried to borrow money off me while lacing the talk with copious amounts of bullshit and the other got angry when I said I had to sign off as I had some work to do and so said they would never contact me again.
There was only cold chicken left over from Sunday for dinner and at one point I caught Caty, paws up on the dining table, licking it!!
Right, now you explain it to me? Two days, back to back, exactly the same Reg Pither involved in both. No change in attitude, approach, manner or anything else. So why does one day turn out to be lovely and the other about as good as the day the first person showed up in casualty in Europe suffering from the Black Death?
It's biorhythms, I tell you! You don't change, they do! They dictate that, some days, you may fall in a bucket of shit but will still come up smelling of roses but, on other days, if you are picked for a marching band you will be playing the piano!
I am just revelling in an upturn in my rhythms today and enjoying it while it lasts. No doubt tomorrow I will be arrested for war crimes, have my house repossessed and my genitals confiscated.
Biorhythms? It's off to Grantham with you. Give me a steady, albeit predictable, life.

Oh What A Night!

Ouch! It's Scooch! Fasten you seat belts, extinguish your cigarettes. We will soon be touching down at the Bigots' Ball!

Oh ho, oh ho ho ho, fnaar, fnaar, tee hee hee, ha ha ha, chortle chortle! It's that time, it's Eurovision time - and what a start! We're on course to beat all previous competitions by a country mile.
Last night, lardarsed leprechaun Terry Wogan and an obligatory sugary sidekick, this time Fearne Cotton, got us off to a start of which I could never have dreamed. The tension was intense as the would-be UK entrants for THE most prestigious music crown of all were whittled down to just six contenders and Emerald Isle Elephant Man Terry kept us in suspense as he paused to announce the winner. Agonising seconds passed as he looked knowingly to camera. He was toying with us, teasing us, prolonging the moment. Could we bear it? Just as he had got everyone screaming at their telly, "Tell us, Terry, tell us!!", he decided we had suffered enough. "And the winner is.............................CYNDI!!!!!" The audience erupted in a tumult of screams and whoops, I was mopping tears from my eyes and Cyndi herself, pants no doubt saturated on hearing the announcement, was a picture of ecstasy. Next stop international stardom. All her money worries were over. Permanent residency in Success City at last! What a night! What a magical night!!

"Felicitations, Cyndi. Mais, que est ce que c'est? Tu ne gagner pas. Hah. Au revoir, le visage du poisson."

Sadly, fluffy Fearne only allowed Cyndi's orgasmic moment to last...well....about as long as an orgasm (and a male one at that). "No she isn't," spluttered a bemused Fearne. "The winner is Scooch." "Oh dear, are they?" chuckled Tel. More screams and whoops from the audience, which would evidently have cheered even if all its members had been told that their homes were being confiscated and their children sold into slavery.
Scooch, an horrifically camp, two-boy, two-girl outfit, clasped their jaws in stunned amazement while at the same time you could almost hear Cyndi's pants dry out instantly and begin to crack.
What a fuck up! What an areswipe of an evening! What a fitting event to prepare us for the real Billy Bollocks Circus to come at the actual contest!
Best of all, the UK stole a march on all those Johnny foreigners across the Channel before the rigged voting even gets under way at the final in Helsinki. Why, specifically? Well, because Cyndi (Cyndi Almouzni) IS FUCKING FRENCH!! Yes, FRENCH!!! How she came to be bidding to represent the UK Christ alone knows but what a way to ram it up those rude, arrogant, self-obsessed, moaning Dunkirk water-sellers in that occasional annexe of Germany which is France! Tell one of their famed beauties that she is a winner, a success, a triumph, the best of the best - then say "Nah! Only joking" and snatch back her award while simultaneously crushing all her dreams. That's a full working day, lad!!
God, I LOVE Eurovision. My mutant pals and I gathered at one of our number's grief hole last year to party the night away while watching the song contest. You should try it. Loads of booze, loads of food, REAL music on throughout the rest of the place but the telly on in one room with Terry taking the piss out of the whole competition. There are lots of little sub-contests in it as well which can inspire heated argument among your number. The "Filthiest Female" competition, the "Most Ludicrous Costume" challenge, the battle to be named "Campist C***" and the blue riband - the "Who's Going To Get Nil Points"!
That is the REAL test, the REAL prize on offer. Norway were the first winners and I seem to recall went on to become back-to-back Nil Points champions, a feat which will be hard to repeat. Those who spoil potential Nil Pointers' chances are roundly catcalled and booed at our parties - "Bloody Dutch, what have they got against Cyprus? It was truly fucking appalling so why on earth give them 'un point'? Bastards!"
The final game is the judging. Sod who wins! That's, obviously, got nothing to do with it. It's guessing who will vote for whom that is important. Us and the Irish frequently stick together (given the last 300 years that is more than a smidgen strange). Apart from that, the only predictable element is that everyone else hates the UK. The French and the Germans tend to be as one (as they often have been, border-wise, over the last 80 years), the Scandinavians have a habit of lumping together with Iceland like congealed milk, the Eastern Europeans like to become best pals all of a sudden (even those states which have been at war with each other for the last 10 years), the Latinas are fond of pooling their hot tempers and the Belgians are just on their fucking own!

Last year's winners were the best there has ever been. Finnish glam/thrash metal/twat band Lordi became the only "artists" in the history of the contest to gain overwhelming support from, and for once unite, us Brits AND Johnny Foreigner. Our continental cousins thought they were highly talented musicians producing a truly superb sound and we thought they were, without doubt, the worst act to grace any stage since Orville contracted mange and Keith Harris went back to stacking shelves at Tesco's.

Yes, what a night it will be. It is a superb Bigots' Ball. We get the chance to sneer at everything which is not British and look down our noses at what passes for music abroad. We may not win many Olympic gold medals or Oscars or Nobel prizes but we still do sneering better than any nation on earth.
Grantham SHALL NOT have Eurovision, it is too precious.

Virgin Lift Lizards

Virginmoney advert:
Three lounge lizard, executive types are in a lift (lift lizards?). Two are chatting about how superbly brill the Virgin credit card is. They turn to the weird-looking, slightly nerdy third lizard and ask which credit card he uses. Said third lizard promptly dons headphones and pretends to be listening to music, even though the headphones are not plugged into anything. The inference we are supposed to draw is that Lizard Three is deeply ashamed of not having a Virgin credit card because that is an omission which makes him a schmuck.
Why then does Lizard Two pick up the trailing end of the headphones wire and speak into it to mock supposedly stupid Nerdy Lizard? How fucking smart does that make Lizard Two? This is a bloke who speaks into the end of an unplugged wire hoping that it will make him heard? We're supposed to take financial advice from him??
MY overall inference from the ad is that someone on the top floor should just use bolt croppers to cut the lift cable and let all three lizards experience a really painful flat rate first-hand.

A Nephew Of A Sunday.

.............And then it all got better! From a very shaky start it has turned out to be a really good Sunday, principally because I spoke to my nephew!!!
My nephew is briller than a good thing which has just won an international superbness competition. He is the kind of bloke I always wanted to be but, sadly, life got in the way. When he was just five years old he told me he didn't want a Christmas present because "I just get too excited". If that don't stir you up you ain't got no mixer option.
He has gone on from there to act on the decent genes I have in my make-up, but none of the crap ones. He does, for instance, love wildlife, animals and the real world in general. He is great with people and makes friends more easily than other people pick up STDs - he did, for instance, meet my mutant chums just once on a weekend away and they adopted him immediately as their hero, dubbing him "Marvellous" for his habit of apeing the way we greeted every new beer or experience. He is, however and above all, talented. One of the talents he has of which I am most proud is that he is a damn good cook! He told me today, or rather his gran (my mother) told me, that he had cooked Tunisian lamb for Mothers' Day. It involved marinading the boned leg of lamb and then dishing it up with exotic, roasted vegetables. His marinade, I remember, involved yogurt, mint and a host of other ingredients. His dad (my brother) finds boiling an egg difficult so where this talent for cooking has come from I do not know. All I know is that I LOVE COOKING and was the first of my line to take an interest in it. It could be me? I bloody hope so.
He has, unfortunately, opted to become a police officer. I know, I know! I wanted him to join me with an Armalite on top of a tower block when we took over the world but it is now not to be. The way I look at it, however, is that the wanky reputation of thick coppers who lie to protect their own and would beat you up in the quiet of the cells at a moment's notice can only be changed by decent people working from the inside. If anyone can change that reputation, it is my nephew.
I always wanted kids of my own but, for a variety of reasons, it was not to be. Having said that, now that my nephew is in the world the job is done. He is the lad I would have loved to have had and I'm sure I could not have improved on him.
Anyway, he made my day. It is, however, still snowing on what has otherwise been a strange day but I am replete.
To add to it all, a little behind the return of my newts and the flowering of my crocuses, my magnolia has finally flowered. It is usually well ahead of everything else in Spring but, better late than never.
My day has ended well. Hurrah!

A Mother of a Sunday

It is turning out to be a fraught Sunday..........a VERY fraught Sunday indeed.
I was woken at an obscenely early hour by the sound of snoring birds outside my window but frenetic activity, coupled with moans and groans, in the bedroom. Oh goody, I thought, I must be having sex with someone - hurrah! Sadly, I was wrong. SOMEONE ELSE was, however, having sex, or at least trying to.
My littlest dog, Tilly, no doubt flushed with the onrush of Spring, was chasing my biggest dog, Padfoot, round and round in a desperate attempt to shag him - again! I love ambition and optimism in a beagle-jack russell-cross! Pad, on the other hand, is a very reluctant suitor and it was his anguished groaning, together with the sound of his 6-stone frame lumbering around the room, which woke me.
Not a top hole start to the day. Still, I managed to pull the would-be rapist off her victim and then let both of them, and my other two dogs, out to greet the day and wake up the birds. I could scarcely open the back door, however, because a hurricane appeared to be passing through. There were bird feeders all over the lawn, buckets and watering cans tumbling down the path and the trees were bending ominously low. The weather has added to the strangeness of the day as it broke in glorious sunshine but since then there has been, by turns, hale, rain, then more sunshine and then the strong winds, and then rain, more hale and, briefly, snow! It is currently beautifully sunny again but I doubt it will last. Oops! In fact, as I type these very words, it is haling again. What is going on?

Tilly tried to shag Pad on and off during the morning until she finally gave up and sought solace with the real love of her life, Henry, my three-legged, Heinz 57 Varieties dog.
The weirdness of the day was not lessened when the current Mrs Pither dragged herself from her pit before 10am - unheard of on a Sunday - and charged downstairs, still pulling up and tucking in items of clothing while also brushing her hair. "Hell, I'm going to be late," she said, in a flustered sort of way. "Late for what?" I not unreasonably enquired as she raced out of the door to her car."I've got to blow up a tower block," she shouted back, as she leapt in the car and raced off.
Now my soon-to-be ex-wife, as I outlined in a previous post, has won medals for trashing things but blowing up a whole tower block is impressive, even by her lofty destructive standards."Why?" was an obvious word which came to mind. Maybe she had joined Al Qaeda? I dismissed that as a possibility almost instantly, however, as Osama and the boys are strict teetotallers and so Mrs Pither would fail the entrance exam spectacularly. I phoned her on her mobile to find out exactly what was going on. "Oh, I'm on call this weekend," she said, "and the council is demolishing an old, empty tower block. I've got to sort out Press coverage and photos of them blowing it up." That made some sort of sense. Anyway, I had other more immediate problems.
A mass fight had broken out in the lounge after Caty, the Dingo of Doom, found an old ball in the garden and she and Henry were having a spectacular dispute as to its ownership. Once again I leapt into action to separate the parties involved and then had to spend half an hour dabbing a cut on Caty's nose as she had been coming off second best when I intervened.









Henry, meanwhile, retired victorious to HIS armchair to spend the rest of the morning with his prize. It all went to reinforce the motto my STB EW came up with years ago - HENRY DON'T SHARE!!!
I then phoned my mother, to see if she had got the Mothering Sunday plants I had sent her. She had, but when she described what she had received I soon realised it was nowhere near what I had ordered. Still, she seemed happy enough, even though the card was addressed to "Dear Gladys" and her name is "Dorothy".
Ho hum. Well, the day is nowhere near over yet but I have already decided to keep a low profile for the rest of it, just in case.
I'm not sure how any of this relates to Grantham and, what's more, don't care.

On Chuckles, Charity and Chucked Out Chiefs.

A fellow blogger, some may recall, was compiling a book of funny blog posts to drum up money for Comic Relief.
Well, true to his word, Mike at Troubled Diva has finished the book in just about a week (pretty impressive, huh?) and it is now available to buy online. Be a loveheart blesspet and have a tootle over to Troubled Diva to learn more about it and, Hell, if you're feeling cheeeritable, possibly buy a copy.
P.S. On a mild note of narcissism, one of my posts features so the book's sales could do with all the bloody help they can get - get 'em while they're hot!


Teepee or Not Teepee? Sorry Gez, Get Thee to Grantham, Reggie's Back in Town.







P.P.S. Reg and the old-look blog are back! My team of marketing "executives" reported back on the rebranding of Grantham New Town. They told me, in short, that it had been left out on the backstep but the cat didn't lick it up, it had been run up the flagpole but no-one saluted and, finally, it had been seen aboard the 4.30pm to Westchester but it never got off. I took this report back to people who spoke English and it appears, as I had suspected from the start, that rebranding the blog was about as good an idea as Heather Mills deciding to enter an arse-kicking contest. My team also reminded me that I had only changed things around to clumsily emphasise a point. The point, I believe, is now made.
The result is that I am back to where I was before. Geronimo Sideboard-Wainwright III is no more (even though weirder readers can still e-mail him at geronimo.sideboard-wainwright3@hotmail.co.uk) and I have packed him off to Grantham - I had my reservations about him anyway (fnaar, fnaar).

Welcome to the World of Geronimo Sideboard-Wainwright III or...They've Just Rebadged It You Fool!)

Goodbye Reg.....say howdy Gez!

Well, waddya think? Makes a world of difference, eh? Things should really take off now because this is the all new, improved, washing whiter than white Grantham New Town! I have finally entered the 21st Century - I have learnt the genius which is behind "rebranding".
I watched a programme today about the wonderful world of advertising, a world which regular readers of the old, stuffy, out-of-date, not "fit for purpose" blog will know I absolutely adore. Basically, the programme was trying to get people to work in advertising by claiming that it was an exciting, rewarding and worthwhile career. To that end, all the fab and brain-taxing "skills" employed by those already in the industry were outlined.
Re-branding was the central theme. You know, where some lounge lizard, shiny-suited, hair-gelled, advertising twat who uses gallons of cheap aftershave every day in a pathetic attempt to cover up the all-too obvious pungent aroma eminating from him because he is a total wanker/cunt decides that Snacko Wheatyflakes could make their manufacturers more money? Producing a replacement breakfast cereal not packed with salt, sugar, saturated fats and more Es than there are Evans in Wales would involve a bit of thought and spending some money - so that is right out! No, what they do is just change the name of the product, then everyone will think it is completely different, "new and improved". Advertisers always say something is "new" AND "improved", to distinguish it from products churned out by those highly successful companies which have built their place in the market by making something new which is crappier than the old thing they made!
We had Marathon becoming Snickers, Opal Fruits became Starburst, Jif became Cif (that must have been a long meeting), Oil of Ulay became Oil of Olay (how proud they must have been at the advertising awards ceremony), Royal Mail became Consignia - before the chairman realised what a wanky idea it was and changed it back - and the AA became Centrica. Even kiddies weren't left alone. Children's television became CBBC, Watch With Mother-style programmes became even more ridiculously CBeebies, independent telly followed with CITV and, holy of holies, Blue Peter became BP (no doubt when it was taken over by the oil giant!). Then, the best of the lot, The National Socialist Party became New Labour. The list is almost endless.
Well, not to be left behind, I have rebranded. Suddenly, everything is "new and improved". It's a belter. Why didn't I think of it before?

Oh, and I've not just re-badged the blog. I am rebranding myself! I have decided that, in order to obtain optimum market share, it is no longer appropriate to use my real name. No, Reg Pither is no more. I thought long and hard about a pen name. I wanted something earthy, homely, classy and English yet exciting, vibrant and with more than a hint of danger - so I have plumped for Geronimo Sideboard-Wainwright III.
I can now be e-mailed at "geronimo.sideboard-wainwright3@hotmail.co.uk". The old, faded, so-yesterday "reg_pither@hotmail.com" will, however, remain in service during the course of this rebranding experiment.
(NOTE: For the hard of humour, this IS intended to be sarcastic! Normal service, and Reg, will return shortly.)

Street Life.

"Just a quick word, it won't take long, honest. You don't even have to give your real name, Mr bin Laden."

I was working in Big Town yesterday, doing street interviews with passers-by for the sake of a rammed up, ludicrous story to keep the name of a very big corporation in the newspapers.
Yes, I know, and you're right - sleep does not come easily to me at nights. I promise, I did try to get into blackmailing, pimping, people trafficking, drug dealing and estate agency but there were no vacancies, so journalism it had to be.
Anyway, you do get to chat to all sorts in my line and it does little to bolster your faith in human nature or stop you from constructing stereotypes.
I went up to a taxi driver who was sitting, reading a paper, in his black cab which was halfway down a rank at which no would-be passengers were waiting.
"Can I have a word, mate?" I piped up. "Sorry chum, I'm too busy," he replied. I suppose, on reflection, sitting on your fat arse, breaking wind, reading The Sun and picking your nose does constitute stress to a taxi driver. I mean, he's doing four things at the same time! Serious multi-tasking! Strangely enough, he pulled out of the rank and drove off, passengerless, just after I spoke to him - spot the unlicensed cab?
Another target of mine was a haughty-looking 60-something in classic twin-set and pearls. "Hello, I'm a reporter and.........." was as much as I managed to get out. "I only read The Telegraph," she snapped. "Well, it will probably be in The Telegraph," I countered. "Well, I don't deal with street vendors," she said sniffily as she waltzed off. Street vendor! Fucking STREET VENDOR!! "I don't have to do this job because I'm actually a fully qualified brain surgeon," I called out as she hurried away. Little victories, little victories.
How about these for some of the other responses I got on collaring people, all of them true, I swear? "I 'day' talk to the 'pearpers' since our Audrey's trouble." (Seriously! That's all one bloke could say!); "Are you licensed?" (What am I? A fucking dog?); and my favourite "Will I be on telly?" (I'm standing there with just a fucking notebook and a pen!! He probably WILL be on telly one day - on Crimewatch.)
There were, of course, some decent coves around but, as Frank Zappa once said, "There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life".
Mind you, Frank also said "The whole universe is a large joke. All the things in the universe are just subdivisions of this joke so why take anything too serious?"
Let stupidity be the one thing at which Granthamites excel.