Quality, quality, quality

It's good to be English. There are loads of reasons for this, none of which conflict with my pro-Europe stance. I do not believe being pro-Europe is anti-English, in fact the most fanatical of Europeans are often the most patriotic for their homeland. Hence, Germany as a big European player has a very strong sense of nationality, which has not been diluted by the Euro currency or European laws on human rights etc. Ditto France. Ditto Spain. Ditto Italy. All have remained fiercely proud of their national identity. I'm also OK with being British as well, but despise the Little Britain mentality of small minded island race bigotry which says that for some reason we are better than Johnny Foreigner.

However, one bastion of Englishness and Britishness envied by all others is The BBC. I have a logo on the page declaring my support for this organization and have often posted before about it, specifically the fantastic value we ALL get for around 35 per day, without a single advert in sight. So, once again its hats off to them for yet another innovative and compelling piece of drama in the form of Life on Mars, aired for the first time last night. Starring the marvellous John Simm and Phillip Glenister it is the story of a copper transported from 2006 back to 1973. Well, in fact he's hit by a car in 2006 and the assumption is he is in a coma and all the 1973 stuff is happening in his head whilst he fights for life in hospital. The show is made by Kudos productions who made Spooks, another of my favourite shows and is fast becoming one of the most classy of independent TV production stables around. However, this is not just simple time travel, with the usual paradoxes and conundrums. No, this is about the capability for someone to accept massive change and to do the best they can when things change beyond all reality. A sort of Groundhog Day scenario without the constant repetition. But what wins me over the most is the attention to detail in the nostalgia-fest for everyone over 40. The little touches like flowery wallpaper, TV's with no remote control, old news bulletins featuring Robert Dougall as the newscaster, a Cortina Mk3 Ghia with Vinyl roof, an 8-track as the music system in a Rover car. The list just goes on, wonderful shots down streets lined with parked Austin Allegro's, Vauxhall Viva's and Morris Marina's, a vinyl record shop with listening booth playing "Teenage Wasteland" by The Who and Simms characters reference to buying his first record there - Cars by Gary Numan, not released until 1979. And of course the Sweeney like attitudes of 1970's British police. A sexist environment where women police are referred to as "skirts" and charged with making tea or filing paperwork, where all the men made jokes about a recently murdered woman because of her alleged sexual exploits, a police station where smoking in the office is de rigour, and a world of no computers or mobile phones. The look on Simm characters face when he learns it will take two weeks to get some lab results back because it's all done by post is priceless. Alongside this there is the intriguing story of the link between a murder in 2006 and something very similar in 1973. It is a series so I guess each week there'll be something different story wise with the underlying story-arc around the time travel bit and how they wrap it up will be intriguing to say the least - I wouldn't imagine it's a multi-series...err...series if you get my drift.

However it is simply indicative of how a public funded service can be innovative, different, take risks and produce high quality drama. To put it into context, the offering on ShiteTV last night was the abysmal Soapstar Superstar. Need I say more?

Later, Grocerjack

So farewell then.........

Tony Banks. A proper MP in his day with a passionate nature and a fierce and sometimes cruel wit. He followed my beloved Chelsea with a passion unmatched in political-celeb fan circles. I once sat in the old Galleria with him in the Shed End on a Corporate jolly when we played Leicester a few years back and he was as loud as me, much to the chagrin of the collected Prawn Sandwich Brigade you tend to get there. I think he shared a similar hate relationship with Ken Bates as well, although Ken would never ban Banksie because he was if nothing else speaking honestly about what a curmudgeonly old goat Bates was. After the game, as we walked back to our respective tables he looked over to my bit and I caught his eye. He lifted his glass and with a knowing wink mouthed the words "keep the passion...good result". In fact he might have said "fucking good result* but I didn't notice as I'd gone a bit star struck at that point. The point was he had recognized in me a kindred spirit, that of the real football fan , the one who'll sit and eat the luxury free food of Corporate jollies, but in his heart wants to be in the terraces with the fans, singing, chanting and swearing. I guess the point is that although not all of his opinions were along my lines he had the inate ability to respect those on the opposite side of the fence in all walks of life. At that game he was sharing a table with true blue Tory Stephen "Shagger" Norris with whom he'd had many a political tussle both in The Commons and later in his failed attempt to be nominated to stand as Mayor of London. All throughout he afternoon they baited each other and were having a laugh, all political differences set aside in order to get behind the one set of Blues he truly loved - Chelsea FC.

I remember one other instance where he captured the feeling of supporting Chelsea perfectly. We reached the FA Cup final in 1997 having been trophyless for 27 years. For whatever reason it was the last time the BBC did the "all day" coverage and build up to the game. Cue Des Lynam at the peak of his presenting powers as he said "and now over to a true blue..the MP Tony Banks". He asked Banksie how he felt and commented that it must be great to be at the game and how much he must be relishing it. Banksie's reply was the EXACT summation of how I felt that morning

"Des...this has been the worst experience of my life...I couldn't sleep, I can't eat, my mouth is dry but I can't drink, my stomach is turning over in circles and I;ve never felt so awful about anything. It's been bloody torture!"

Even GMD smiled at that and looked at me as if to say "I think he's summed you up there as well!" And he had, for that day was as nerve racking as any I've encountered before or since. The level of expectation was so high that had we lost I think I might still be in therapy somewhere now!

His passion for animal rights was well documented and although it was too extreme for me it was also something to behold when he was in full debate about. He also shared a love of art that I have acquired over the years. I also felt that when he was Minister for Sport he was truly a man who understood the importance of Sport within the social fabric of this country. He knew the positive effect that success in any sport had on the beleagured people of Britain, and the feelgood factor it would induce. As a true football fan he more than any other Sports Minister before or since just how much the passion of sport can be a force for good in people. How it teaches you to accept defeat graciously (well unless it's Chelsea losing) and to win with dignity (again Chelsea excluded!).

I have a feeling that day he acknowledged me we could have been in a pub and he would have happily sat there and chewed the football cud over a few beers or glasses of wine until the night ended naturally with a handshake and a mischievous smile as he walked away. A true man of the people, he will no doubt be missed in politics but also at Stamford Bridge where everyone was his friend and he was everyone's friend.

RIP mate, and wherever you are KTBFFH.

Later, GrocerJack

How NOT to complain

Here is an edited transcript of my letter of complain to SKY about their total inability to install a dish, SKY+ and therefore let me have ChelseaTV. Hopefully you can spot the edits of what I really wanted to send and what I did actually send. And yes it is nothing more than a big sulk.

MR. JACK GROCER

Jack Palace

SmallishVillage Lane

SmallishVillage, Hampshire

4^th January 2006

British Sky Broadcasting Group

Customer Relations

Grant Way

Isleworth

Account Number FU/CK-0FF-U-SLIM3Y-CU/NTZ

Dear Morons@SKY TV,

With regard to my recent order for Sky + Multi-room at the listed address this letter is a letter of complaint tirade of built up hatred unfortunately with regards to what I consider to be very poor unbelievably pisspoor customer service and relations. The order was done via the affinity agreement you have recently signed with The Company and the associated staff offer to employees of The Company.

I ordered the equipment in good faith, the equipment being a Sky + box, along with two additional normal STB’s for a multi-room installation. Under the deal I paid £49 for the boxes and signed up for SkyWorld at the reduced rate of £21.50 per month for the first year. Is that simple enough for your amoeba like brain to comprehend? When signing up I also agreed to ditch my NTL telephone service in favour of BT Option 1, in lieu of transferring to Sky Talk Anytime phone package at £7.99 per month. On the day of my order being confirmed I asked NTL to terminate both TV and Telephone services and on the Sky rep’s fuckwits advice got the phone service cut over two days before the installation in order to ensure I could transfer to Sky Talk Anytime.

On the day of the Install (November 24^th) the Sky monkey brained/monkey trained non-installer turned up. Instead of “Good Morning…..” His first words were (and this is an exact quote)

“Your mobile isn’t working mate”

Charming was not my first thought. In fact my first thought was “Twat”, followed immediately by “Sky do train their staff well don’t they?”

I checked my mobile against what he was dialling and pointed out the fact that he was dialling the wrong number. He protested that it must have been printed wrong, but in fact the work order did have the correct number down, it was just his inability to read the number correctly that was at fault. Perhaps this moron hadn’t plugged in his “function as human being chip” instead of his “be an ignorant fatuous cunt” chip he uses when he goes out with his mates to get skulled on Carling and WKD every night. He then pointed out the fact that I was a Chelsea fan (not hard to detect as I was wearing a Chelsea Polo shirt on the day) and stated that he was a an Arsenal fan and that we had “bought the bloody league with bent Russian money”

I was slightly surprised by this level of familiarity which wasn’t done in a particularly customer friendly manner.was done as if I’d inadvertently wandered into The Clock End at Highbury just as we scored our 2^nd goal wearing a shirt saying Chelsea shit on Arsenal from a great height! He then stated immediately that he couldn’t do the job because my house is cladded. This much is true. Front and back are indeed cladded with decorative tiles. The non-installer stated that he wasn’t insured or authorised to drill through tiles This apparently simple question regarding cladding had not been asked of me by the initial Sky telephone sales rep.muppet. However each side of the house is ordinary brick to the roof with a clear South facing view as the house is detached. Translation – the dish can be positioned there with ease as there are no tiles within 3 feet of the position! I did point this out to the non-installer but he wasn’t convinced. I did say he could install the dish on either side and then run the cables through the brick into the garage and then to each room. Kapiche? I was happy to pay any extra for additional cabling. He Plant-brain then stated that he was not authorised or insured to do this either!. I’m not sure what he intended to do originally so I asked him whether he intended drilling through my uPVC window frames! Because frankly he was so fucking thick it was probably exactly what he wanted to do. I didn’t get an answer of course. He said he would check with his boss “Jamie” and so he disappeared for 5 minutes. On his return he said “Jamie says don’t fucking touch it” (presumably Jamie probably being a Spurs fan) and then informed me he had rung Sky and I could expect a phone call from them to arrange an “independent” install. Throughout the whole period he was rude, unhelpful and definitely unwilling to seek any alternatives despite me showing him at least two. I just got the feeling that he did not want to do the job. I even asked him if he could leave the equipment and I would install it with the help of friends. His answer was that only he was authorised to ring and get the cards activated. He disappeared with some haste and was pretty terse with his departing comments, along the lines of “nothing I can do mate, just one of those things”.

I then received a call from a Sky cretin rep (presumably the non-installations team) who said as the house was cladded it could not be equipped with Sky. I also remonstrated with this person that the house was normal brick on either side and that there was a route through the garage on one side or via the NTL cable entry point on the other. He was just as intransigent unbelievably thick and said that in his insufferably high pitched, cheerful, patronising and near indecipherable Scottish “I’ve got one over an Englishman” accent “nothing could be done it’s tough shit you stupid English bastard, that’s for Culloden and the clearances , we’ll refund the money someday when we can be fucking bothered and you’ll have to eat a massive slice of the Shit Sandwich from the Humble Pie lorry cancel the NTL cancellation”. Of course on this day I was already on BT for the phone and without the Sky install could not sign up to Sky Talk Anytime. I asked about arranging an “independent” install as suggested by the installer but was told “Sky don’t offer that service couldn’t give a fucking shit about you, you’ll have to get off your imperial, enslaving and oppressive English arse arrange it yourself by shopping around and that will mean we can’t do the same deal on the boxes or the SkyWorld package”. In other words The Company staff offer would not be valid on an independent install.

I took a days leave to be available for this non-install, all to no avail. I have had to eat a huge slice of shit sandwich/humble pie to get NTL to cancel the cancellation and get the “deal” I had with them reinstated. So, another delightful experience courtesy of SKYhite TV – how to grovel in order to retain something you already have! I am still waiting for BT to transfer the phone line back to NTL and in the interim have had a bill for £38.41 from them for the phone which is far more than I normally pay NTL, but then I don’t get any discounts from BT as I did with NTL. So, Sky’s pisspoor customer service has cost me a days leave and a higher than normal phone bill. Thanks for fuck all you moronic bunch of mindless, brainless, incompetent, festering pus ridden wankers

As you can understand I am very angry and upset with the way I was treated and of the costs I have incurred as a result of your own automaton like pre-programmed staff’s inappropriate and commission based greed driven recommendations regarding the phone, not least the loss of a days annual leave. A day that could have been spent doing something I like, such as playing golf, riding my bike with my family through sunlit country lanes, having an all day boozing session with mates, or just sitting in my own garden reading a book has been spent being pissed off by a lumbering corporate megalomaniacal company hell bent on seizing money and time from people and not delivering anything remotely close to what has been contractually agreed. Be assured this experience has been shared on our internal intranet discussion boards, as well as with as many friends as possible. I am not asking for any compensation, unless BT decide to apply a punitive charge for cancelling a contract after just two days but would like some explanation as to why potential high value customers mug punters such as me can be treated so poorly.shittily and with such utter contempt. Frankly people like me willing to pay the price of your top premium subscription after the special offer period had expired should receive better treatment than outlined here. In fact if Sky intend to be a serious company regarding customer acquisition and retention then I would expect them to be going out of their way kissing arse and sucking cocks to get my custom. In the interim, could you please arrange to have my details erased from all of your databases and to cease from sending me marketing propaganda regarding services you provide which I apparently cannot receive due to decorative tiles cladding the front and rear of Jack Palace.

Yours covered in bile and vomit, Faithfully

Jack the very annoyed Grocer

Same time every year

Every year around this time I get swollen glands in or around the throat and ear area. Well, OK the neck then. Every year I trot to the Good Doctors and every year he says the same thing.

Every year.

Every year I go and get a blood test which is inconclusive. Every year he decides I have an infection and that the debilitating pain is actually a good thing because it means my body is fighting the infection and thats what causes the pain.

Every year he refuses to give me anti-biotics and recommends Ibuprofen. Every year he also prescribes a nasal spray. Every year he links it to my sinuses becoming more frequently troublesome.

Every year this goes on for about 6 weeks. Every year I think it's neck cancer, throat cancer, or something similarly horrible. Every year I stop singing in the car in case this is making it worse.

Every year this happens immediately after the Christmas break where I haven't been near the office for a week or two. It never happens during the warmer months of the year.

Last year the Good Doctor decided finally that the the cause was my failing sinuses not draining away the mucus properly, allowing it to sit in the throat and then infect the glands and sometimes the throat. Last year he decided there was no real answer other than defying the laws of science and actually growing younger each year.

Still, it gets me a couple of days off work, so yet again proving the maxim that "every cloud has its silver lining". Of course these couple of days are not spent lying around catching up on DVD's or Podcasts, nor reading books I got for Christmas, nor just playing Football Manager 2006 for 2 whole days. No, they're spent catching up on all the crappy admin stuff around the house. This years "sickie" admin delights to sort are

1.) the cost of Christmas
2.) how to finance my teeth straightening,
3.) how to finance the mobile home we bought now that the wankers at the Building Society have refused to let us add to the mortgage
4.) fit a trip to Argos in to buy a replacement desk pedestal for the MFI one that collapsed in pieces like a demolished block of flats two days before Christmas
5.) can I afford my OU course this year?
6.) Why has the golf club subscription risen by £20 per month this year
7.) Why haven't NTL asked BT to return my phone line to their system - incompetence being the answer there.
8.) Write my letter of complaint to Sky about their fuckwit installers and staff - done (an edit to be posted later)

Thus proving the opposite maxim to the one quoted above - "that every silver lining has it's cloud".

Later, GrocerJack

Battle Stations

How are you ? Well? Have a good Christmas,? Enjoy the break? Didn't it go quickly! Christ, one minute I'm packing up and thinking about my week and a bit away from the office, and precisely one minute later I'm back at my desk thinking "funny...thought I had a break due to me?". How did my Christmas go the? Actually it wasn't too bad. I tend to endure Christmas Day as my house is taken over by hoardes of children running riot through it like speed crazed kids from Village of The damned. And yes I include my own in that evaluation. It's just not the sort of Christmas day I grew up with and therefore it's hard to adapt. For some the noise of kids screaming, shouting and playing drum kits/keyboards as their prezzies is joyous, but for me...well it just raises my blood pressure instantly and I end up smiling through gritted teeth for the latter part of the day. The morning is always nice though as my kids open their prezzies and the adults (me, GMD, The Grand Master, Audrey and our special guest Helpful Auntie) open ours. Helpful Auntie is a recent addition to Christmas Day. She has been down previously with her husband but unfortunately he died earlier this year so this was a new experience for her, Christmas without someone you've been with for 40 odd years. No doubt a new and rather unwelcome experience one would imagine. Why Helpful Auntie? Well, she's always doing something around the house. Making tea, helping with the cooking etc.

However, the day started with a present to me which frankly took the wind out of my sails and left me in a rather emotional state. And it was Teenager that did it. In brief, Teenager is the product of GMD's rather brief first marriage to Dickhead. Dickhead is a man who, no matter what you've seen or done, has seen or done it bigger, better or quicker than you. He lies and bullshits his way through life. In effect he lives in a Billy Liar themed alternative planet to the rest of us. Yes he's that sort of Dickhead. He proved his worth in his short marriage to GMD by being her childhood sweetheart for many years and then having an affair with another woman whilst GMD was pregnant with Teenager, having already been traumatized by an earlier miscarriage. Quality bloke huh?

Anyway, because of this and despite the fact that teenager has lived with me since the age of about 1, Teenager has had to use the surname on her birth certificate at school, and well everywhere a legal name was required. This has meant she has been missed at fire drills because they called out her name with his surname and has been referred to in letters from the school in the same way. Something I know she has never been happy with. Over the years Dickhead has seen less and less of he, not due to me or GMD, but because she is a growing young woman with her own values and friends. Stroppy, yes. Typically confused by teenagerhood, yes. Easily distracted, yes. In fact she has all the stereotypical symptoms associated with being a Teenager. She also has her own growing sense of independence and this is what has caused the decrease in her seeing him over the years. Context set? Right, on Christmas day she hands me a wrapped box which rattles. I am told I must open this first before anything else. I proceed to do just that. The box is a shoe box and the rattling things were just Christmas Tree decorations. However inside the box was also a certificate, and when I opened it up it was a legal document, signed by Dickhead, Teenager and witnesses, that Teenager had changed her surname from that belonging to Dickhead to that belonging to me.

She had done all of this off her own back and by her own devices. She asked him face to face if he would allow this as a Christmas present from her to "her Dad". He is a Dickhead but this must have hit hard, and to his credit he agreed and sad that this would be his Christmas present to her. I can't tell you what this did to me, but suffice it to say, the normally verbose Jack suddenly had a fit of being somewhat tongue tied, and frankly speechless. Every present after that seemed rather trivial to be honest. But I have revised my opinion of teenagers in general, and especially my own Teenager. She's a special one and no doubt. And so other news. I won the Battle of Boxing Day. This was the battle that GMD had decided to start by preventing me from going to see my beloved Chelsea play Fulham that day. Quite simply I put my foot down and said that the days when I was told what I can and can't do are gone, I'm 44 years old after all. I also recruited the covert help of The Grand Master, Audrey and several other friends to lobby in my favour. At least I thought it might be covert but in the end it was obvious that I had lobbied my lobbiers as it were. I also argued that after Christmas Day I deserved a few hours of Jacktime in more peaceful surroundings. believe me, the cacophony of noise at Stamford Bridge paled into insignificance against the competition between Christmas CD's, kids drum kits, electronic robopets, kids electronic keyboards and hand held microphones with built in amps! I didn't get the job I applied for before Christmas, but luckily I hadn't put too much hope on that. Just getting to the second interview stage was cathartic enough for me to snap out of my wage-slave depression. I liken it to reaching the final and losing. You can let it devastate you or you can treat it as a good learning experience. So I guess my days at work continue to be unchallenged, but buffered by plenty of "working" from home, days off to play golf , no arguments over long holidays and time to write this blog. See , life ain't so bad when looked at from another angle.

I also passed my exams that I took in October time, so am now a fully qualified IT Service Management professional. So, things begin to look up, and the lesson learned is don't think there are no surprises left. Good things come to those who wait as they say in the world of Guinness.

Later, GrocerJack

You don't say

According to research it is proven that no such thing as a cure for a hangover exists. After many years of extensive research into this area I have also reached the same conclusion. Although the conditions under which I have trialled my experiment have not exactly been..........errr.........scientific, they are probably more accurate becaue they are based in real drinking situations under real pressures. So here are some of Jack's findings and observations surrounding the noble action of social drinking, supporting the notion that no matter what anyone says there is no cure for The Hangover other than time itself.

1.) Sticking to one drink - this makes no difference whatsoever, unless of course it's water.

2.) Mixing the "grain and the grape" makes your hangover worse - Nope, one glass of wine followed by a decent single malt will not give you a hangover. 2 bottles of wine followed by half a bottle of single malt however will make you cop a bad one.

3.) Giving up smoking makes the hangovers less painful - intially this seemed to be true as I'd often woken up after a session which included a packet and a half of lung torpedo's and thrown up at the thought of 3000 chemicals being inhaled into my lungs. Having been clean of smoking for 4 years now I can honestly report that although I don't cough multi-coloured gelationous gooey stuff up after drinking, The Hangover is still there.

4.) If you wake up without The Hangover then you've got away with it - wrong, wrong, wrong. You are still pissed from the night before and The Hangover is lurking away covertly in the body, like an invisible Crack crazed, hoodie wearing, body mugger waiting for the right time to hit you hard. Thus 12 hours after waking you will feel worse than you thought imaginable.

5. Ejecting the main body of semi-processed food and bile with a good throwing up session heals The Hangover - dream on! All this does is make you feel like jumping from a 7 storey building whilst slicing out your throat with a rusty bread knife because it hurts less.

6.) A full English breakfast sorts everything out - of course it does. No, what this does is accelerate the speed at which the worst bit of The Hangover kicks in. Similar to having pregnancy labour induced, this is the bodily equivalent of shouting "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough" at The Hangover. The hangover is hard enough, you are not. I've seen some of the roughest horriblest peeople become snivelling wrecks at the hands of The Hangover.

7.) Staying in bed and sleeping it off - the world is split into two other groups than men and women. Those who can sleep The Hangover off, and those who can't. The lucky ones are those who can fully sleep it off, even if they lose a whole day. I, however, belong to the other group, the unlucky ones. This group tries to go back to bed, but no matter how they try the body prevents them from sleeping. The Hangover has its vile fingers in all areas of the body and has full control over this group. Here are some reasons to stop you sleeping it off
a.) Temperature fluctuations of the wildest kind from massive sweats to an arctic like chill.
b.) The huge twitch is another control mechanism, just as you enter the blissful doze phase The Hangover flicks a switch which gives the body a jolt like having 5000 volts of pure electricity rammed through you.
c.) The "horrors" - a combination of all the above, along with doomladen thoughts of death,
excessive pulse checking, reflux, heartburn, inability to even sip water and mad mad
mini-dreams at the start of the doze phase

8.) Drinking water before you go to bed - bollocks, utter bollocks. All this does is increase the chances of a mid-sleep toilet dream and subsequent sheet changing exercise.

9.) Hair of the dog - this does not cure the hangover but merely delays its onset by allowing you to top up the alcohol level - The Hangover knows it is never going to be effective if you're freshly drunk.

10.) Vitamin tablets, Ibuprofen (the king of all drugs!), Resolve, Andrews Liver Salts, smoothies, fruit juice, fruit, oats, sex, tea, coffee and whatever else anyone recommends. No, no, no. All crap, all failures.

11.) A round of golf - hmm this works whilst on the course but only by masking the doscimfort of The hangover with the discomfort of being shit at a game you love. After the game, the sense of being cured disappears within seconds and then the shivers and sweats start. Last week I played after a Guinness induced hangover. The temperature on the course was -2.5C, and yet because of The Hangover played the whole round in a polo shirt! After the game, not even the worlds most efficient golf jumper and The Kings super heated Volvo estate could warm me up.

And so my friends the best thing to do is avoid The Hangover by not drinking, but who is going to take any notice of that? No, the advice from Jack is this - drink water and only water. If you must have anything else then try Orange Juice. The reason?

Simple, they both taste the same when coming up as when they went down.

Cheers, Happy Christmas Your Arse, GrocerJack

Xmas greetings and Felicitations

Following my recent spat with Blue Witch (which is finished with I think a mutual agreement to accept we have different views on this) someone very kindly sent me a link to this video (thanks Dee). It is apparently of someone's house in a place called Mason in Ohio in the U.S (where else). Now this really is a Christmas Lights Show! Not one for Blue Witch to appreciate I fear, but if you’re a gadget oriented techie minded sort then you’ll appreciate the amount of work required to set something like this up. Apparently, it’s all done by computers, and although the music (which is a bit naff – a sort of cocktail in the style of an ELP/Rick Wakeman/Bobby Crush mix) is broadcast outside the house, it’s not at high volume, whereas inside it is. He also coincidentally broadcasts the music on a local FM frequency so that passers by in cars can tune in whilst they watch. He broadcasts and displays between 18:00 and 22:00 every night.

As much as I admire this I’m not sure how happy I would be if it was in my street (yeah, so no hypocrisy there then Jack).

On a different subject, I have become a member of something called The Witanagemot Club as mentioned previously. Follow the link to see what it’s about. Basically it is a group of Bloggers who believe that England as a country and nation is disadvantaged by the current constitution, especially in light of devolved power to other members of the UK. Scotland has it’s own parliament, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own Assemblies (are they like school assemblies, with a register and hymns I wonder?). Of course those who know me might think this view conflicts with my Champagne Socialist views and aligns even more to the Dark Forces of Tory-fication swirling around me like a spell woven by the charming (but sinister) new Chief Tory Wizard (Mad Vain Credo – anag), and also seems to contradict my very very pro-Europena views. But you’d be wrong. I could argue that my pro-Eurpoe views are as a result of nto feeling I belong to a state called England. A sate where being English is immediately associated with an Imperialist past and a xenophobic, culturally scared society. It isn’t racist to declare your Scots heritage, nor your French, Spanish or whatever. However, being English seems to be associated to neo-nazi, Little Englander, racist thuggery.

Which is of course very, very wrong.

No, I want to be pro-European, but to claim my nationality is English with pride and not be fearful of PC backlash, or be asked to atone for sins of my forefathers. I want a constitution that recognises the State of England as a sovereign entity within both the UK and Europe. I want English MP’s to pass laws specific to England. I want an English Parliament which does not vote on Scottish, Welsh or Northern Irish issues, and has that ideology reciprocated by those states. I want England to welcome other races and creeds whilst firmly retaining it’s own identity. Go to virtually anywhere in Scotland and you know where you are. You cannot doubt what country you’re in. A lot of England has sadly become a homogenous landscape of copycat towns with over zealous PC mad local councils. Hence, when Blue Witch nudged me to the Witanagemot Club site I was astounded to find that I liked what I saw and heard. I will of course try and partake in some of their healthy debates and let you know of anything strikingly interesting or controversial.

It’s the Locals Night down at The Local tonight ( a local pub for local people!). This means I will of course be very drunk and therefore probably not compus mentus tomorrow. For me this is where Christmas really starts…yep, the first real blow-out and consequent full day length regret session fighting the nausea, temperature fluctuations and general grogginess of excessive Guinness and Red Wine. I’ll try to avoid any silly drunken posts tonight.

Later, GrocerJack