(My Christmas cracker)

My time here’s been quite a charmed one

As smooth a ride as it gets

Although I’ve not been an angel

Mostly I have few regrets.

But now as Christmas approaches

The season of warmth and good cheer

I find myself in reflection

On loved ones no longer here.

Perhaps you loved someone dearly

Or fought like cats in a sack

Perhaps there’s wo...

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

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

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

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A tired seasonal oldie.  Autobiographical too.

As the snow flies -

Cos it’s Christmas here in Haddlesey

And Santa sits underneath his tree

In the Grotto.  (In the Grotto)

Eating warm mince pies.

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

It’s another squawking kid running off its lead

In the Grotto.  (In the Grotto)

As the kiddie cries.

People don’t yo...

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(One for the little children)

You all know Santa Claus

The saint each child adores

He brings the good ones gifts, does Pere Noel;

But I’m his kith and kin

I punish kids that sin;

I’m Krampus and I harvest souls for Hell.

And unlike brother Nick

Well, I bring a big stick

To beat the naughty children till they yell,

“Have mercy, Santa, please,

I’m begging o...

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

In the bleak mid-winter

Doorway for a home

Cold and wet and hungry

Christmas Day alone;

Veteran of country’s wars

With PTSD

Nation of the caring

Nation of the free.

In the bleak ...

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

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

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

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

It started with my flapjack A favourite of mine

That with a cup of Breakfast Tea Cost £8.99.

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

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

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

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

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

Sticky Vicky, I watched you perform

Sticky Vicky, in Benidorm

Sticky Vicky, you showed till you were 72

The hidden contents of your flue.

Sticky Vicky, I’ll forget-you-not

Sticky Vicky, with your X-rated slot

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

Wha...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joe 90 is a carpenter and has been all his life

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

A quiet man from Haddlesey, both humble...

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

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

(What do you make of that, Sigmund?)

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

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

Uncle Ron and Aunt Win on Montague Road

Aunt Florrie on Henry Street

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

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

We...

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

I used to turn up on them marches

Arms linked with the Trotskyist host

But now I tune in to the Archers

“Them as lives longest learns most”.

I wore all my badges and labels

The shouts and the slogans and words

I...

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“How Do You Solve a Problem Like Suella?”

Lately of my Tory Cabinet

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

And also brings me out in a cold sweat.

Her outbursts nearly bordered upon slander

On demonstrations, migrants and the police

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Housing for sale or rent

Can’t afford and got no tent

I hear Suella’s voice

Telling me this is my choice.

I’ve got blanket and begging cup

Laddie who’s my faithful pup

If she’d choose this life for free

She’s a Braverman than me

Vouchers I get for Greggs

A kindness to a man who begs

Society’s lost dregs

Scum of the earth.

Shop doorways I lay my he...

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I wish I had the knowledge and dogmatic certainty

That others can dispense as wisdoms' pearls;

Complexity confounds me; unlike others I can't see

Solutions to the issues of this world.

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

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

Anyroadup, my rather facile c...

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

St Peter stands at Heaven’s gate

Please be polite; don’t make him wait;

You know you’re past your sell-by date

So just Accept Your Fate.

You know you all exacerbate

Our parlous economic state;

Forget the call...

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

Little Bastards, trick or treating

Little Bastards bloody cheating

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

Little Bastards, trick or treating

Little Bastards need a beating

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

Just the same.

Little Bastards to...

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

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

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

We’re all going on a Saga Holiday

On a Barton’s single decker bus

One week Llandudno then on to Colwyn Bay

We ladies here are all 80+

And nearly old as the bus.

We always have a Horlicks nightly

Which means we always need the loo

And those o...

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

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

And we Old Ones don’t need a second chance

To moan, groan, to dribble piss and to pong

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

The Old Ones, we’re all crabby Old Ones

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

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

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

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

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

See, he ...

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

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

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Or me, as it happens.

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

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Don’t hear that train a-comin’

The service it will end

At New St Station, Birmingham

Cos Rishi will not spend

The fortune that is needed

Paid by me and you

The North can kiss ta-ta

To the HS2.

I hear he keeps on saying

The spades are in the ground

You’ll find them South of Watford though

The spades aren’t Northern bound

So for this brass-necked turn round

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I do think it right to let Justice prevail

And offer him chance of release upon bail

With full explanation he should avoid jail

So for what he did to that tree

I'd saw him off at the knee.

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

Our Leader had not an ounce of fat on her

So found it easy holding Shavasana

She started us with words “Just touch your toes.

Now you can try to hold the Lotus Pose”

But I am just an old crone

I let out a low moan

Tremors down my backbone

Aching...

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Day 1 at Slimming World – I was a man alone

Lots of tubby women though – I weighed 16 stones.

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

Second week on the scales – Blimey! 16.2!

All week on celery – Pie and chips no more

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

Seven days at the gym at classes for old men

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

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

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

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I know you conceived me but here’s your surprise

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

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

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

So the joke’s on him

Now he’s soaked to the skin

Cos I’ve changed my smile

Now I‘m evil and vile

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

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Of all the evil things we eat

The Champion must be

The one I cite as “Devil’s Food” –

The humble garden pea.

And it’s not me that judges this

In this poetic blog

But rather I shall leave it to

Lord Alfred, our pet dog.

At times we feed him left overs

From Sunday lunch or teas

Which he gobbles up right quick

But spits out all the peas.

Now Alfie is...

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Among her signature dishes

Is one as is ever so ‘umble

Our Gert is renowned around these parts for

‘er “Castleford” Blackberry Crumble.

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

But seasons for blaggies are key

At this time o’ year near Autumn

Wild brambles in hedgerows are free.

(And that’s a big plus point for me!)

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

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It started off with Tamsulosin to help relax my prostate gland

With Solafenacin the next, repeatedly prescribed as planned;

Lamzoprazole for acid reflux; then to try to get control

Atorvastatin was my 4th pill to combat high cholesterol;

Lercanidipine is the latest that I take to keep at bay

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

I find this all quite disc...

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I remember it well, “The Crossroads Motel”

Your acting consistently shite

Giving my head through the script being read

A migraine that lasted all night;

But those were the days; I rode BSAs;

We watched on our screens black and white;

Your actors were poor, the walls and the door

Would wobble as lines they’d recite;

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

Your legend ...

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“Why don’t you leave your boots on?”

She said, as I walked through the door,

“There’s nothing to spoil in the kitchen;

There’s nothing to spoil on the floor”.

And later on in that evening

As I kissed her softly I said,

“Why don’t you leave your boots on?

There’s nothing to spoil on the bed”

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

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

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I heard about Yevgeny

My true and faithful friend

The horrid accident you met

Your sad and tragic end.

We may have fought like brothers

But we were never foes

Sure, we had our differences

As all the world now knows.

Rest easy now Yevgeny

My soulmate all these years

I must try to face my pain

And wipe away my tears.

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

As quiet closes end of day

When evening’s calm has gripped us

I set a fire and in it lay

Dried logs of eucalyptus.

A billowing blue smokiness

And flames begin to dance;

The leaves and trees stand motionless,

No breeze to bre...

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

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

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

I could have slept all night

But I was kept all night

Busy in the loo;

It wasn’t what I planned

But now my prostate gland’s

Enlarged, it grew and grew;

And now it’s closing off my bladder

And cho...

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

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

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

Unt hev you learnt our lenguage?"

"JA. NEIN. JA".

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I remember it from its beginnings

Its earliest broadcasted days

With stories of lives like our own told

In black and in white and in greys.

It starts with its iconic theme tune

For viewers a rallying call

Then cuts to cobbles and terraces

And Bobby the cat on a wall.

Annie and Jack ran the Rovers

And she was a surly old bag

Who often locked horns with Elsie

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

The trout lakes sit at the side of...

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I used to ride a Bantam

175 cc’s

I got it up to 40 once

With a tailwind breeze.

I bought it from a gypsy

Who kept its flaws well hid

I reckoned I’d a bargain though

It cost just 80 quid.

But soon I came to realise

His pocket I’d not picked

And anyway I’m guessing that

The bloody thing was nicked.

Its bigger brother, “Gold Star”

Made manly thump...

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Something to follow this excellent Ashes series.

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

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

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

I hear the train guard’s whistle

The slamming of the doors

The fireman stokes the furnace

For the haul across the moors;

The driver lets some steam off

And sees the train guard’s flag

Then gets those big wheels turning

For the Goathland Drag.

You’re leaning from the window

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

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

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If you hear commotion, a fracas in the street

You might suspect there’s murder when rival gangstas meet

Perhaps a boy lies dying who called himself “Young Blood”

But it’s children who are bleeding, wrong side of the ‘hood

That night was rent with wailing of bravado and of fear

Blood curdling as a dog fox though no-one chose to hear

No-one saw the stabbing, but everybody lied

D...

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Those of you who have been paying attention will recollect I wrote a piece a short while ago entitled “It Was a Very Good Year” about my experiences during the Covid lockdowns.  I explained I’d read that for Spike Milligan the Second World War was the best time of his life.  He recognised the horror and pain which afflicted so many others but was honest enough to admit that, for him, it was the be...

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I love this TV programme - I just can’t get enough

A game show where contestants are parading in the buff.

The basis of the programme on which its tenets hinge

Portrays the “Body Beautiful”,

……..so cuts straight to the minge.

Variety’s the spice of life on here there is no doubt

There’s bald and bushy, black and white and flaps that's in or out.

Of course there’s plenty ...

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There are said to be 14 of these in England and Wales compared to 53 which are simply "Thankful".

I would never have heard of the phrase had we not bought a caravan at Routh near Beverley. One day as we were driving to Hornsea we passed through Catwick with its village sign saying "Doubly Thankful".

The story goes that the village blacksmith nailed a goodluck horseshoe with 30 pennies and ha...

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A collier's to be found

A mile underground

And not in the sunlight like other hominids

Though he loves his mates and wife

His would cut them like a knife

There's no humour crueller than colliers and kids.

A fat kid hears the cries

“Who ate all the pies?”

Or maybe “Specky Four-Eyes” God forbid;

But are a Yorkshire miner's

Manners any finer

There's no humour cru...

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I was discussing her death with Our Gert recently.  It’s not imminent, you understand but it pays to plan.

What prompted it was a meal we were having in an Italian restaurant in Poole.  She was having pasta and I Caesar Salad when I commented that when I started dating again after she’s shaken a six I would make sure I didn’t order salad on our first date

“else there won’t be a second one” s...

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We sat in quiet contemplation

By the fishing pond

Cementing ever stronger

An easy lifelong bond.

Eating bacon cobs upon

A near-by wooden bench

I had caught two mirror carp

My dad had caught two tench.

The sun shone on those honeyed days

(Or maybe that’s my myth)

There’s no-one else on God’s good Earth

I’d rather have been with.

Now he’s slipped b...

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A piece deceptively camouflaged on a website dedicated to the very best of contemporary poetry!  In fact, The Byron was the local cinema in my home town of Hucknall, Nottingham.  Named after the Good Lord of “She walks in ’jamas through the night” fame who elected to be buried in the town’s St Mary Magdalene Church.  (Truth to tell, he didn’t have a lot of say in the matter!).  Incidentally, and I...

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They traded the warmth of a Barbados beach

For London’s damp and its smogs

But met with a welcome as cold as the rain

“No Irish No Blacks and No Dogs”.

Some fought for the motherland during the war

Following in Montys’ tracks

So didn’t expect that they’d ever hear

“No Irish No Dogs and No Blacks”

They kept London moving, helped build it again

Leant shoulders to...

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Most are old or dead now but forever they will be

Young men, stuff of legend from 1953

It claimed the lives of many; "Yours too!" the world would scoff

"But we did it, me and Norgay - we knocked the bastard off".

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I sat for a little while in a side chapel dedicated to the people of Ukraine in Chester Cathedral and wrote this (loose) villanelle.

God bless the peoples of Ukraine

In their greatest hours of need

May He give strength to ease their pain.

And thus he presses this insane

War on those who will not cede

God bless the peoples of Ukraine

As from the skies cruel Death...

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Hanging on his coat-tails like a well-trained puppy dog

Were you and Nigel Adams and, of course, that prat Rees-Mogg

Had you let his pudgy fingers in your Tory pants?

While Adams is no more than a self-serving sycophant.

Nadine, honey it’s not you

Oh, Nadine and Nigel Adams too

Seemed like every time I saw you, you were

Noseing Johnson’s pooper flue.

Perhaps you l...

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That’s what we were known as, those of us who lived on Butler’s Hill before they pulled it down in the late 1950’s.  They transferred us to a newly built slum housing estate “up Mosley” and pretentiously called “The Welbeck” to lend it an air of country Home and Garden.  “Little Moscow” because it was so deprived, although I never recognised that at the time and it did, in fact, return the only Co...

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The School Song.  I was invited to write it (co-write, actually - I did the lyrics) some 10 years ago for our local infant/junior school.  Not my finest "art" by any stretch, but pitched for children.  It's rather flattering that they still sing it now.

On mornings when I feel so blue

and my spirits saddened

I join with all my friends at school

where my heart is gladdened;

Com...

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I went down to that London

I thought "Best tek a float"

I’d gone there forra weekend

So I took a £5 note.

I went to Covent Garden

(I shan’t go there again)

I ordered a cortado

They wanted £5.10!

Then later on that afternoon

I thought I’d try a beer

But that wa’ £8.40

I shan’t go back to there.

And thus the day unfolded

“’OW MUCH???!!!” each tim...

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It was in Wetherspoons and we’d just finished a bacon muffin breakfast  (egg, bacon, and cheese on an “English” muffin for £3.49 and worth about half that).

She came in with her mother and sprog, wearing a figure-hugging top and leggings (her, that is, and not the sprog) which pronounced every one of her cracks and huge pokies.

I hadn’t paid her too much attention as you can tell but then sh...

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A prose-poem-song

Sportsfans and transfans may be aware of a recent ruling by rowing’s UK governing body to continue to allow athletes born male to compete in elite women’s races, contrary to the rulings in rugby league and union, cycling and athletics.

Personally, I couldn’t care less if someone wants to self-identify differently from their birth sex, their race or even their species. ...

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I’d gone out on my bike for a quick peddle when I called in at “Guns ‘n’ Roses” for a coffee break.  It’s actually called “Spuds ‘n’ Berries” because it’s a farm shop.  I normally avoid these like the plague as they try to charge you a tenner for a jacket spud that’s been “locally grown”.  Persilanny, I don’t care how far away my spuds have been grown as long as they’ve had a ton of good English c...

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I’m betting this morning you started to grieve

When you heard on the telly he’s going to leave

They’d given the old git the big hey-ho heave

It’s Willoughby One Schofield Nil

There’d be no more Holly and Phil.

They’d been co-presenters for 20-odd years

But Time waits for no man as Destiny nears

Don’t bother with hankies to dry up your tears

He’ll no doubt have made loa...

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Please release me, let me go

The joys were few but not the lows

You’ve caused me pain for 60 years

Release me and let me dry these tears.

My love for you’s not what it seems

I did not get to choose my team

But why, oh why, did you choose me?

Release me, cruel mistress, set me free.

To leave the wife I did with ease

To leave my home I found a breeze

But ...

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It was my mother-in-law's funeral on Tuesday.  I wrote and read this as a message from her to everyone present.  Too many personal references to explain even if I wanted to.

You might have sorrow in your hearts and grieve for me today

And that is right and proper when loved ones pass away

But only weep for me this once but after, come what may,

Remember all the happy times we had.

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Inspired as I walked through the amusement arcade on St Annes's Pier

Bop It!  Twist It!  Spin It!  Pull It!

Crimson weals next on soft skin;

Bop It!  Twist It!  Spin It!  Pull It!

Courtesy of Madame Sin.

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It could have been elsewhere

It could have been elsewhen

It could have been France

It could have been 1792

But it is not.

It is a time for which aristos like my good self

Should be grateful.

Rather than peering into the basket

While tricoteuses knitted distractedly,

Todays tricoteuses

With a simpering deference

Knit bonnets in red, white and blue

To set on...

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Mi firstest poems wa’ yonks ago;

I’ve lost ’em (God be thankst!);

Full o’ trite naivety

An’ post-pubescent angst.

Some of them’s political

(I put the world to rights)

I solved starvation on mi own -

Right On! An’ Outta Sight!

I took to wearin’ neckerchiefs

As Byron could ‘ave once;

It din’t impress mi granddad -

It made me look a ponce.

...

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No doubt about it.

There’s no other possible conclusion.

Examine the facts.

We were 5-0 down after only 20 minutes.  But like Lazarus rising from the dead we saw out a 0-0 draw for the next 25 minutes to half-time.

No flash in the pan either. The turnaround was complete with a 1-1 draw in the second half.

No question about it.

We’re on the Up.

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When I was sixty eight it was a very good year

It was a very good year to stay at home

With no need to roam

While visitors wait

At your garden gate

When I was sixty eight.

I remember reading in one of Spike Milligan’s “Adolph Hitler: My part in his Downfall’s Part” or somesuch that the war years were, for him, the best of his life.  He recognised that was very much a minori...

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Worldwide fans may be familiar with the Cat Stevens attempt at this.He stole the idea from me, of course.  It went down well at Doncaster's WellSpoken last week where they are refreshingly less puritanical about their poetry. 

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.

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In my halcyon career days some little while ago and before I became a drain on the resources of the State as a poorly pensioner, from time to time I gave Powerpoint presentations on any matter folks were prepared to pay to listen to.  Before that they would have been with acetate window slides. (Ask your grandmother).

The structure of the talks was foolproof and never changing.   It was “Tell ’...

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A re-post from 2018 when the story broke first time around.  Say what you like but Yours Truly is often ahead of the game! (A classic made popular by Billie Holliday called "Stormy Weather).

Don’t know why

You would think I would lie ‘bout

Stormy Daniels;

She just gave me oral and manual.

A big mistake of mine.

First finger pie

And then I’d supply

Stormy Daniels

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Inspired by that wonderfully arousing song "The Green Berets".

In the 30’s they’d support

The Fascists whom we later fought;

Shamelessly the flames they fanned

“Give the blackshirts a helping hand”;

So whether sunshine or in rain

In the gutter they remain:

Still today they rant and rail

No change there then for The Daily Mail>

Unrestrained forever free

To pe...

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I’ve been wondering about ancestral memory recently.

Take Alfie.  He’s my daughter’s little white dog.  She describes him as a bichon frise-something-or-other cross.  I call him a mongrel.

Alfie doesn’t mind.

He’s about 7 years old, although he’s rather guarded about his age.  Vanity, I suppose.

Anyroadup, Alfie does that timeless thing that all dogs have done since cavelady times.  (S...

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

Will they come through the darkness? Will they come?

Or screaming with the dawning of the sun?

Is it time to fire the beacon

Lest men’s resolve should weaken?

Should we tell the boy to beat the battle drum?

Does that eastern glow mean Jarrow’s over-run

And presages the stinking Viking scum?

To visit us with thun...

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It’s my party

And I’ll lie if I want to

Lie if I want to

Lie if I want to

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

Yes, there I was with a glass in my hand

The party hat hid round my back

We’d spun the bottle and then

I photocopied my crack.

It’s my party

And I’ll lie if I want to

Lie if I want to

Lie if I want to

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

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

For many huge wealth will define how they live

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

This is the story of Castleford’s Viv

Who announced to the world she’d intend

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

One word from the Gods is all that it takes

To rescue a waif from those Pontefract c...

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

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

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

There were no commentators tating, much to my dismay;

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

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

And of course no Alan Shearer and neither Ian Wright

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

He had spoken out of turn with hi...

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

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

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

Shame on you!

Be more carefu...

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

Raise your voices; have your say!

International Women’s Day.

Banish weakness.  Let’s be strong.

Time to right what has been wrong.

Linking arms in sisterhood,

Pledged to Justice, pledged to Good.

Standing proud and standing tall,

The worth o...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Although I might lampoon

That icon Wetherspoon’s

Your second tea was always free

It’s something of a boon.

They’d charge you for the cup

Just once so you could sup

A second free or even three

You just kept filling up.

That went for coffee too

So what I tend to do

Was fill up...

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

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

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

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

A thousand years will not expunge this stain

Nor sate the Devil’s craven appetite

All Glory to the People of Ukraine

He smiles as children speak their prayers in vain

And laughs as Death reaps Innocents in flight

A thousan...

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This Roald Dahl thing I’m talking about.

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

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

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A re-post but Mondays are still as good.

The replacement hip Gives me some jip

And my Tens just overflowed

I need Deep Heat For arthritic feet

In winter when it’s snowed

And drivers reprimand me

For shuffling across the road

But I still have reason To enjoy each season

For the rest of the time I’m owed.

I’ll tell you why I Just love Mondays

I’ll tell you why I J...

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

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

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When shall we three meet again

The Isley Brothers, Bill and Jane?

From my birth I’ve been called Bill

Occasionally I feel male still,

Being born with cock and balls

I use the Gents when paying calls.

Sometimes though I don’t feel like him

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

And when I’m in my lady mode

That’s when my nudger’s in the road.

At other ...

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I number among my proud achievements

That between us Harry Kane and I

Have scored 267 goals for Tottenham Hotspur

And together share the record number of goals

Scored for England of 53 with Wayne Rooney.

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As I walked through West Haddlesey

I clocked a bloke an’ ‘e clocked me

I nodded and bid ‘im “Good Day”

But all the old git had to say

Wa’ “Naar Then!”

Then nowt more said as ‘e trudged by

I puzzled this confused reply;

Whilst not the greatest o’ life’s shocks

It seemed a perfect paradox.

Naar ,

A paradox is when two bits

O’ thought are polar opposites

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

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

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

Grammatical precision here is played with fast and loose).

For this is downtown Castleford where orange Tigers prowl

And few here know the difference twixt consonant and vowel.

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

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

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

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Something for Holocaust Memorial Day - but a different angle.

They took us near Vinnytsia in 1941

Supply lines long since severed, ammunition all but gone.

We numbered 97 boys, all from Podillia’s lands

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

They ordered us to strip our dead beneath that wintery sun

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

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

In Naked Attrac...

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Zahawi, oh, oh!

He’s Sorry; Oh, oh, oh, oh!

So please, you must understand

It’s not something that I planned;

And now I’ve paid back

All my outstanding tax,

A careless and small oversight;

I tried to keep hid

The five million quid I was light;

And as per the laws

There were penalty clauses.  Oh, shite!

Zahawi, …….

I ran the country’s Exchequer

We caught ...

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

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

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

About a shagging couple whom we happened on by chance.

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

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

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

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I was given three choices by the dentist

1  have it extracted

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

3  root canal treatment costing hundreds of pounds

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

So today I went back for the extraction.

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

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There never was such injustice

To torture an innocent soul

As that dealt out by the Halifax bitch

Whose heart is as black as kohl.

For she struts abroad in her manor

Bathing in Virtue and Good

While he seethes alone with his daemons

Child-like and misunderstood.

But Hope is never abandoned

If we all rise with one voice

And shout from our streets and the hill...

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

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

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

A chorus girl and da...

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

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

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

I don’t wanna be your oven ready Spare

The place I fill

Is after Will

To be the country’s heir

Don’t wanna be your ready Spare.

Don’t wanna be a royal

In Camilla’s crew

I say that I want out

But also have my cake

And eat it too.

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

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The Challenge Cup Final of May ‘68

Is etched in my memory from that fateful date

Affording the chance for the Good to be Great

For some though the memory mocks

None more so than Wakey’s Don Fox.

For those unfamiliar this was the scene

The climax of which was the best ever seen

An epic Cup Final contested between

West Yorkshire’s top pedigree breeds

The pride of Wake...

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Three little letters

Each on its own benign

November, Delta, Romeo

Short and anodyne.

But once in combination

In your heart strike fear

And three that you will never

Ever want to hear.

Three letters that will haunt you

You’ll bear for life the scar

In memory of the time they asked

Your views on DNR.

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

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

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

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

There’s a fire burning in my hearth

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

But I must be demented and not right in the head

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

The wind it is howling and the waves are pounding in

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

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