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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I thought that Auden made a creditable putt at this but nevertheless it needed improving!

Where is the Night Mail which once crossed the border

Which brought us our cheques and our postal orders

With bundles of letters for disembarcation

For sorting at depots next door to the station

An essential amenity served by the train

But post’s now transported by truck or by plane

...

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An oldie but a goldie.

They say we’re young but I’m a man

And ewe, I know is mutton dressed as lamb.

The other sheep say it’s wrong when

You shag me as well as other men.

Babe, I got ewe Babe.

I got ewe Babe.

Those happy nights we spent alone

While next door your sheepdog gnawed his bone.

I’d take a shower, you’d swim the dip,

I’d paint your hooves, I’d...

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Some little while ago I read Bill Bryson’s “One Summer – America 1927”, in which he writes about various events of that year – the Lindbergh Crossing, Babe Ruth’s season and the release of The Jazz Singer among other things.  The genius of the man is to make “unputdownable” something about which I had no prior interest.  It inspired me to have a go myself and, with reason, I chose 1952.

It was ...

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A poem I wrote while I was Verger at Selby Abbey

And prior to this each wedding guest

Arrives bedecked in Sunday best

The groom and ushers like cock birds

Winking, whispering knowing words

At length appears this Wednesday’s queen

Alighting from her limousine

Then with her dress the bridesmaids fussed

Last minute details to adjust

Her father proudly standing by

Su...

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The current gourmand’s feast of football at the European Championships reminds me of an incident 55 years ago, almost to the day.

They say there are some events in world history by which you can remember exactly where you were and what you were doing at the time.  This was one of those and in that respect is probably shared by every man of my age.

As a 14-year old boy I was suffering a two w...

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Worldwide fans will have noted the venture in my last post, “World of Sport”, into the comforting realm of nostalgia.  As I am a bit loathe to hand back the blanket I submit this offering on “tuffees”.

When I was a nipper the weekend’s evenings were an orgy of sugar and telly.  On Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights me and our Linda would accompany my dad to the beer-off to help relieve his pock...

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Some interference on the audio.

While I was surfing that cinematic piece of mindless enthralment that is YouTube, I came across some clips of the wonderfully nostalgic World of Sport – Dickie Davis, Eamonn Andrews, Fred Dinenage an’ all.

Several “sports” featured such as darts and ten pin bowling but it was the wrestling which was the jewel in the crown, and whole prison cell doors in m...

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If he'd have tried a bit harder this is the masterpiece Cat Stevens could have come up with rather than that piece of pap about not being time to make a change.

As you approach twenty-one

Get out there and start to have fun

But before you start kissing

It’s time you should listen

To a father’s advice to his son.

When choosing a woman, of course,

Be wary of some of th...

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Yes,  it’s gonna be a backbench Matt Hancock

His ending has come down to this

A catalogue of criticism and failure

Sealed with a kiss.

Boris Johnson said he’s just “fucking hopeless”

And looked for a way to dismiss

Then Doormat Hancock said “I’ll do it for you,

And seal it with a kiss”.

He lied about all the care homes

He lied about PPE

He stuffed his pocket...

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Vitval Orfjall Vebjorn Ejler

Some years ago when I was a pin-striped highwayman, I stayed in a hotel just outside Birmingham; Oldbury, it might have been.

 If you can picture 4 or 5 terraced houses knocked through to make one big dwelling you have an idea of the external structure of the hotel.  To capitalise on this internally the management had used the several sets of stairs and a myriad ...

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It's that time again.

A professor of medicine from Chile

Is conducting research you'd think silly

His study comprises

Comparing the sizes

(I can see that you've guessed) of men's willies.

It seems the good Doctor's detected

Amongst the sample selected

That phalluses fall

Into “normal” or “small”

(That's under 2 inch when erected).

But a problem has h...

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As reluctant as I am to give credence to any story which appears in the Daily Mail, I could not ignore one which popped up on my iPad.

it seems that august and revered body, Stonewall, not content with having got itself in a bit of a dog-knot with LGBTQ....  transgender issues (don’t get me started!) has excelled itself in advice it has given to organisations to enable them to improve their rat...

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We’ve lived in it for 35 years.  We bought it new so “Ol’ House” is a bit of a stretch.  But we’re moving soon.  “Downsizing” they call it, although the concept seems to have eluded Our Gert who has gone for another 4-bedroomed detached which will end up costing us more than we’re getting for ours.  I, on the other hand, was looking for something that would do me till they carried me out in a box.

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I’ve played in most positions so that being quick and lean

I started off at fullback where I wore the shirt “15”.

I joined the line in their attacks, my kick was like a mule’s,

I tackled like a rhino (sometimes within the rules!)

A surfeit of jam puddings, though, at dinner time would mean

The coaches said that I’d become the fattest back they’d seen;

And fellow team mates o...

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An imminent house move means I shall have to leave my sheds behind.  Our Gert has threatened me that the new abode is to be shed-less. Little does she realise that a shed is the secret to a happy marriage.

There’s summat that a husband like me dreads

That they ought to warn a bloke of when he weds;

That’s the sound of Our Gert’s call

And her ominous footfall;

That’s why the Gre...

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Unlike ourselves they’ll not grow old

Now empty shells where once they sold

Their stuff in every High Street town

Their names respected and of renown;

For these victims of this viral year

Some raise a glass, some shed a tear;

Department stores know how this feels

Ask Debenhams, John Lewis, Beales

Oasis, Warehouse, Thorntons closed

And Evans for your fatties’ clothes

Y...

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The "eagle"-eyed among you may spot that this is a re-post from when I was a young man in my prime with functioning body parts.

On a cool Torquay evening three kids in the car

One sick just preceding, most of it on Ma;

We’d travelled down from Barnsley, argued all the way

My head was pounding from the constant shouting;

Just glad to end that day.

A sign by the highway was a ...

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Some years ago, while I was working on a contract away from home, my shoes gave up on me.  I was desperate to get another pair to go to work in the next day so choice was a bit limited.  I found a pair in a charity shop which seemed to do the job.  Some of the clothes in these shops are from house clearances after a bereavement.  And I could tell that these shoes were from a dead man.  What's more...

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In the early 1990’s I was tasked by British Coal with organising the recruitment for the imminently opening North Selby Mine.

We preferred experienced transferees from closing mines, either locally or from further afield, like South Wales; but we also took on “Green Labour”.

I recall one occasion when I received a bunch of application forms which included two from Russia.  Bear in mind that ...

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I've just given my 50th donation today.  I was disappointed not to be trumpeted in.

I’ve seen many movies that starred Vincent Price

Or Karloff or Christopher Lee

I’ve watched at the cinema or on the box

Where I’ve peeped from behind the settee.

I saw Captain Quint get clean bit in half

By a fish we just knew as Jaws

The Exorcist too made me sweat at what next

They’d f...

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Isn’t that the Freerider Kensington she’s riding?

Huh huh

With Captain’s seat and pneumatic tyres?

Huh huh

By the way, where’d ya buy it?

I saw it stood in EdenCare

It had pizzaz, it had the flair

I thought “That’s mine.  I’m Leader of the Pack”.

My knees were always letting me down (down down down)

I struggled hard to walk around town;

I couldn’t tackle modest h...

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I’ve planted spuds; I’ve planted peas;

I’ve scrabbled round on hands and knees;

I’ve sprayed against a plague of bugs

But seen them eaten up by slugs;

The seeds had cost me seven quid

Which from the wife I kept well hid;

I’ve had to chuck them in the bin

(At Tesco’s they’re ten pence a tin!)

In light of this my bets I’ve hedged

And gave up cultivating veg;

I sent...

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I'd never heard the saying until we visited some years ago.

The chanting in the cloister

The pealing of the bell,

As sure as God’s in Gloucester

So all with Gloucester’s well.

It’s said that God in Heaven

Benignly chose this place

This city by the Severn

To domicile his grace.

So many towers skywards tilt

As to the clouds they’ve clawed

So many seats...

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Several of the formative experiences of my earlier years took place on Friday afternoons in the Admiral Duncan, Hyson Green, Nottingham.  The place would be crowded with blokes awaiting the arrival and subsequent deshabille of the day’s stripper.

A particular favourite of mine and many of the others was a woman in her late 20’s I’d guess, whose name has faded into the mists of my youth but whos...

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I'm reading Hunter Davies's "The Co-op's Got Bananas" at the moment - recollections of his childhood.  It prompted this memory of mine.

When I was a kid I collected cards.  They weren’t cigarette cards by then, with artists impressions of clean-living, square-jawed footballers, all looking like Roy-of-the Rovers. 

No, by my childhood you found them mainly in packet tea.  I collected ful...

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The title is pure plagiarism from Bill Bryson's "The Road to Little Dribbling" which everyone should read rather than my dribblings.

Love me tandoor, sag aloo

Take me to your heart;

Chingri chaat, prawn vindaloo

Popadums to start;

Love me tandoor faithfully

Two peshwari  naan

Seekh kebab and prawn puri

Sizzler from the pan.

Love me tandoor, love me nice

Hold...

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Bill Brown’s body lies a-turning in his grave

For him, Mackay and Blanchflower it’s not Mammon that they’d crave

And other icons of the past all knew how to behave

But the Spurs have sold their soul.

We have a proud tradition when the season ends in “1”

We’ve won the Cup, we’ve won the League but now this is all gone

He’s branded with his infamy our Harry Kane and Son

As ...

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Last Monday when lockdown eased we were first out of the blocks to whisk our caravan off to Bridlington.  Being there was nice but driving there was even more fun.

You folks are always putting me down (down, down)

You say you think I drive like a clown;

It’s fair to say you’re no fan

When you’re stuck behind my caravan.

Tough shit! For now, I’m Leader of the Pack.

I put...

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Matt Hancock own shares with his sister

In Topwood; he says “It’s no sin”;

Some 15% he was gifted

My God how the money rolls in.

Now Topwood supplies the Health Service

And where does procurement begin?

The Minister is Door Matt Hancock

My God how the money rolls in.

Rolls in, rolls in

My God how the money rolls in.

Now Cameron lobbies for Greensill

Despite wh...

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a zealous republican; but nor am I an ardent monarchist either, for that matter.  I sit firmly in the camp of “Don’t give a shit”.  It doesn’t bother me whom we have as Head of State to press the flesh of dictators of former colonies.

So it was with deep apathy that I learned of the death of Prince Philip.  He struck me as an offensive, upper class twit; but that was...

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Written on the occasion of our Ruby Wedding Anniversary.  Cowperthwaite was the vicar.  That we ran out of food at the reception was largely down to him, the greedy git.

We have a photo stowed away

That’s taken on our wedding day;

In truth it does not flatter us –

My double chin, your mountainous

Bosoms occupying all

The shot in their supported sprawl.

But when I ma...

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A re-post; but who's counting?

There’s a lady out there

And she can’t climb the stairs

At her bedtime which is

Half past seven;

She was lured was Aunt Hannah

By the junkmail from Stannah

Into buying their Stairlift

To Heaven.

But she found it so slow

When she needed to go -

Half an hour on the Stairlift

To Heaven;

So from ground to first floor

Sh...

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The tune is a mish-mash of "Star Trekking" and "While We were Marching through Georgia".  But the real debt is to Pam Ayres's "Littering" and to the dirty bastards who've dumped crap down our local country roads.

Fly tipping – we’re out for a nice ride

Fly tipping – the van is full inside

We’d have to pay at dumpit sites so blight the countryside

We’re your friendly fly tippers.

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I confess to being a bit envious of those who self-identify on the issue of gender; that despite their meat and two veg they say they are a woman.  Or vice versa.  And I say “envious” because although  I’m not such a person myself (contentedly masculine, you understand, although I have been known to help the boys out when they were busy) it nevertheless strikes me that if it’s biologically permiss...

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For Doreen, the Mother of Fleetwood,

The dynasty's come to an end

Of strong eucalyptus and menthol;

She's sucked her last Fisherman's Friend.

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I’ve often heard cynics deride the efforts of environmental campaigners like Greenpeace or XR for their personal hypocrisy; or for ridiculing a little teenage girl by, predominantly, white middle aged men, for drawing their attention to the issue.  “How did they travel to their protest, then?”.  “Who made their clothes?”.  “Didn’t she fly to the States?”.  Criticisms which miss the point completel...

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(The first verse, of course, is not mine.  It will be well known to rugby players returning home from away matches on the coach.  Simple pleasures!)

When I was just a wee wee tot

I sat on my wee wee pot

But wee wee there I could not

Till I lay in my wee wee cot.

Wee wee

Wee wee

Wee wee wee wee wee  wee.

And now that I’m an OAP

My bladder’s once more haunting me

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I’ve sung their praise and I’ll sing it again

How Rob and myself would spend hours there then

In days we could gather and argue the toss

But now they’re all closing and this is our loss.

So long, s’been good to know yuh

Now, though, we say “Cheerio” to

Thorntons, it’s time to forego yuh

These haunts of indulgence are all shutting down

And I’ll lounge in your cafes no m...

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A recollection of a halcyon day in 2017 and referencing the iconic and talismanic Frank Worthington who died today.  A cowboy both on and off the pitch.

We praised the God of Yorkshire that October afternoon

It’s not a day we’ll be forgetting sometime very soon;

The scoreboard told the story – it had ended 2 to 1

We sang songs to their glory – the Terriers had won!

They blamed ...

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Spare me these doldrums of malaise;

Though loss and shame I’ve known before

Last Thursday was the worst of days.

I simply ask each man that plays

To wear his badge as if to war;

Spare me these doldrums of malaise.

And if we lose, lose in a blaze

With passion not a spineless bore;

Last Thursday was the worst of days.

It’s hard to find some kind of praise

When this stic...

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I think I've heard Billy Connolly say that you have to respect Mother Nature knowing what she's doing.  But it's beyond the wit of even David Attenborough to comprehend what threats to your ageing body she is anticipating which makes her cause an explosion of body hair in unlikely places.

I’ll be your Long Haired Lover from Haddlesey

With thick foliage on each eye brow

A growth that ...

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Summertime and the lockdown is easing

Hope’s emerging, expectations are high;

Through vaccinations the upper hand we’re seizing

But Covid restrictions will all still apply.

Summertime and the outlook is pleasing,

Folks are thinking “We’ve got this Covid thing beat”;

But use your kokum, and act with sense and with reason

We’ve got an advantage but it’s not yet in full retr...

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The world and its uncle knows the number of days there are in March.  “Thirty one” some wag says.

But I’m talking celebratory and memorial days like International Women’s Day, St David’s Day, St Patrick’s Day, World Book Day, World Wildlife Day, Red Nose Day, World Poetry Day, Tolkien Day and Piano Day; not to mention the focus there’s been on LGBTQIANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH issues. Any more and they’d...

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N’didi says she’d like to meet me

“Hasty very soon”

She says she’ll come to Ingland

From her home in Cameroon.

She says she has such lovely eyes

And lovely, smile time teeth

She says that she’s a princest

As the dotta of the chief.

It seems that men of my age

Are something of a catch

To 18 year old virgins –

I think we’d make a match.

She re...

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From out the closet I now voice

The truth about my drug of choice -

The heroin contained within

The kitchen cupboard’s biscuit tin.

For found there is the stuff of dreams

Jammy Dodgers, Custard Creams;

And pinching one will never do

I need to see the packet through,

Then hiding crumbs is common sense

For fear Our Gert finds evidence.

From breakfast-time I’ll...

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My hardy perennial in support of the sisterhood.  I'm not convinced I "ground" the poem properly.  Suggestions welcome.

Raise your voices; sisters speak!

International Women’s Week.

Banish weakness.  Let’s be strong.

Time to right what has been wrong.

Linking arms in sisterhood,

Pledged to Justice, pledged to Good.

Standing proud and standing tall,

The worth of one the...

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I’ve never been the sort of bloke that needs to end up as the hero in one of my own stories.  Rather, I quite enjoy being “done up like a kipper” as they say.

Take these two examples.

Some years ago I had the pretentious urge to buy a fob watch for myself.  I saw one on Bawtry Market and after examining it thoughtfully and with an entirely unwarranted professional mien, told the stallholder ...

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I walked this battle trail a year or two ago and it's a bloody inhospitable place even without a blizzard and someone trying to stove your head in.  Said to be the bloodiest battle ever on British soil.

In 1400 and 61

I believe that was the year

There happened a bit of a fallout

With Yorkshire and Lancashire.

For brothers like this to come to such blows

It needed the ca...

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get up

dress

breakfast

ipad

dinner

morrisons (mon)

walk/bike ride

tipping point

the chase

calendar

dinner

corra

news at ten

match of the day (sat & sun)

bed

       repeat 

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After I was made redundant from 20 years in the coalmining industry I embarked on a second 20 year career as a self-employed management consultant.  And what a life it was too!  Getting paid three, sometimes four, times the going rate for advising executives of the bleeding obvious; the joke being that they could have heard my thoughts down the pub at night for free!  And if it went wrong?  Well, ...

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Based on "Hesitation Blues", a song of disputed origin but made famous initially by the Reverend Gary Davis.

I’m drawing Old Age Pension

I’m over sixty eight

Can’t cope with all this tension

I’m waiting for my date

How long do I have to wait?

When’s my Covid jab a-coming?

How long till I vaccinate?

The Government require us

To stay at home alone

I’m sick of ...

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One hundred thousand victims who have died this lonely death

Some on ventilators, some gasping for their breath

One hundred thousand victims who no longer are now here

And millions more of kith and kin who’ve shed their bitter tears

But you have drunk and popped your pills and danced the night away

At secret raves throughout the land; I’ve often heard you say

“Self-isol...

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Originally thought to be a prostitute from a nearby Roman encampment, the skeleton turned out to be 30,000 years old and a man.  It had been laid out ritualistically alongside the skeleton of a mammoth and dyed with red ochre. The suppostion is that a hunting party killed the mammoth but lost one of their own in the process.

Lay me in this sacred cavern

By the softly surfing sea

Let ...

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I saw the call for volunteers and thought I’d do my bit

By taking out food parcels for old biddies and old gits.

I drove my van to Asda and then loaded orders on;

In some were cans of lager so I helped myself to one.

The first old bloke just moaned at me and said that I was late

So when he went back in his house I pissed upon his gate.

The next old skank complained a lot her brea...

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Based (plagiarised) on Jesse Fuller's "San Francisco Bay Blues".  Murdered by Blind Drunk Fats Lemon Coopey.

Walking with Our Gert down beside the flooded River Aire

Scruffy togs is what folks see us wear;

It’s been the same it seems

Since our quarantine,

Just stay at home,

No need to roam,

No need for make-up, scent or comb;

I’ve suits in the wardrobe, white shirts an...

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An homage (and autobiographical update) of the vaudeville star Bert Williams's far superior "Somebody Else Not Me" (1919).

I’d gone to Goose Fair with some of my mates

As panic arose in the queues

The punters were scattering all over the shop -

The tiger was on the loose.

“A ten shilling note for its capture”

The Keeper hollered and cried

“What do you say, sonny?” looking...

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It’s Mel Gibson and I’m surprised he hasn’t won awards for it.  So why do I say this?  “The Patriot”, “Braveheart” and “Apocalypto”, that’s why.  It’s hard to imagine three films that play so fast and loose with historical accuracy that Joseph Goebbels himself would have been proud of them.

Take “The Patriot” – a full-bodied partisanerama of American and British characterisation.  No mention of...

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For those of you unfamiliar with mining an explanation of what's going on is given in the first comment below.

“There’s no bigger, silly bastard undergroun’

A disgrace to thee, ‘is mam an’ ‘is class

‘E took ‘is fuckin’ shovel wrong road roun’.

We’d walked back in once t’shotties fired their roun’

An’dep’ty said as we wa’ clear o’ gas

There’s no bigger silly bastard unde...

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He fought for you

in two wars

seventy five years apart.

What have you done?

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Not a representation of the Corona Virus or a Russian Sputnik but the Christingle Orange.

Neither Our Gert nor myself are religious people.  I was for a few years verger at Selby Abbey but my interest was always historical rather than spiritual.  But we did used to attend Sunday School with our kids when they were little.  We wanted to expose them to Christian worship so that they might ma...

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Don’t mind

boozing in illicit bars

We’ll find

a rave and drive there in our cars

Cos this whole quarantine

Just applies to has-beens

But it’s not for us teens

Cos the kids are alright.

Don’t mind

meeting up with other guys

I’m fine

if later some old gimmer dies

From the plague that I spread

Just one more old git dead

I’m OK, cos it’s said

That the ...

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Soon there will be no-one

To remember anyone;

Then it will be up to us all

To remember everyone.

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Well actually, no.  Rather a piece about the French predilection for sexing inanimate objects.  (“Ok, ok”, I hear you say, “strictly speaking cocks and fannies aren’t inanimate objects”, although these days mine is becoming increasingly so).

I’ve been reading Tim Moore’s “French Revolutions” about his attempt as a fairweather cyclist to complete the Tour de France.  In it he relates how he went...

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My poem has been deleted

Though why I’m not quite sure

I’d posted it on Write Out Loud

At least two times before!

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This item has been removed by our moderator team because it didn't abide by our Code Of Conduct. Comments may also be deleted.

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While I am on a roll with my railway poems, here is a re-post of my homage to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway and the man in black, Johnny Cash. And played with just a hint of 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

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I saw a post on Fb from a pal of mine who’d lifted an extract from a Douglas Adams story called “The Englishman and the Biscuit”.  Now I have no intention of trying to gazump his tale (his writing far outshines mine) but I suspect I have the edge on him in terms of personal experience.

It would have been about thirty years ago when I worked for the Coal Board that I applied for a job with ...

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I was prompted by the Lloyds Bank advert on the telly with its black horse running alongside the FC to re-post this.

Steel and copper forged and cast

To bring to life a legend’s past

Snorting steam and smoke at last

A spirit now set free

The 60103.

Polished to a brilliant sheen

In LNER racing green

No finer loco has there been

Nor ever will be too

The 4472.

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A re-post from earlier days when dentists were open.

“You keep up with the brushing,

At least twice a day?

And have you done your flossin?”

“Wergly wergly werg”

“You keep good teeth“, he said to me

“But your gums recede.

How hard is your toothbrush?”

“Wergly wergly werg”

“You look well tanned for wintertime;

Have you been away?

“Wergly wergly wergly ...

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If any single event could be said to mark the birth of modern society, my own TOTP would hark back to the 14th century.

The Black Death is reckoned by historians to have accounted for the deaths of between 25 and 60% of England’s population and, in my view, marks the birth of capitalism on which society is organised.

Hitherto serfs were enthralled to landlords by ties of feudalism. The great...

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The tune is Leadbelly's "Bourgeois Blues".  I am to blame for the lyrics. Trump is to blame for the rest.

I’ve always had a mind to visit Nashville Tennessee

But never would you catch me near to Washington, DC.

It’s a Traitor’s town

Ooooh a Traitor’s town

Those redneck traitors they wanna bring their Congress down

Home of the Free, Land of the Brave

Those Dixie boys ...

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A timely reminder, given the current cold snap we're having.

As we crunched through snow together

In inclement Arctic weather,

I thought I’d bring to mind an Old Icelandic song;

There’s a saga of the Viking

That you need to heed when hiking

That “Pissing in His Boots -

Keeps No Man Warm for Long”.

In Nordic runes it’s written

That if your foot’s frost-bitten

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A re-worked piece, updated and prompted by Jimmy Greaves being awarded the MBE in the New Year's Honours List.

Those of us who follow football will no doubt be aware that Wayne Rooney stands as England’s most prolific goalscorer.

A Pretender in my view.

Cited in the New Year’s Honours List is one James Peter Greaves, formerly of Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, AC Milan, West Ham and Engl...

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