Contrast

One minute you're planning a great big fuck off weekend at Fairford Air Show, with an early start, pole position in the grandstand, great big zoom lenses primed and loads of environmentally unfriendly and hugely noisy death and killing machinery whizzing past at 3oo mph.

The next you're nursing a hangover and sat in front of the TV all day long feeling sorry for yourself because thanks to the good old British Summer, the vast amounts of rainfall that have fallen thus far in July have waterlogged the whole Air Show site and the organisers called the whole thing off. yep, the whole of the flying displays cancelled with the a stroke of the proverbial pen.

250,000 people's planned weekend flushed down the drain unlike the water around RAF Fairford. We decamped to the pub on Friday night after finding out, the eintention being to determine if any sort of Plan B would compensate. Short of a Pink Floyd reunion with us getting a back stage pass there was nothing that even flickered us into life. Only one thing for it then.

Guinness.

Loads of Guinness.

Loads and loads of Guiness.

And a great big fat Cuban cigar, normally reserved for celebrations but in this case used to soften the fucking blow.

And soften the blow the guiness and the cigar did on the night, but at the usual price of a headache that felt like I'd been hit with a cricket bat by Kevin Pietersen. This is why there's no God. If there was then he'd have sympathised with our plight and waived the hangover fee just for one day.

I ended up gardening for fuck sake. Which in the scheme of things doesn't really come close to seeing an F22 Raptor do a vertical take off does it?

Later, GJ

Reasons

Reasons to be Grumpy.......

It's pissing down with rain, but apparently the temperature is normal for July. WTF?

Global climate change is happening but the drop in polluted skies is the cause, as the clearer skies mean more of the suns rays melting the polar ice caps. Or is it the shift in the magnetic poles? Or is it Aircraft - which contribute 2% of the man made emissions globally....far less than heavy industry or the car. No-one really knows, trust me, no-one really knows.

The housing market is collapsing, repossessions are up and mortgages are being restricted.

House building is stalling and government building targets are fucked. The government and the highly paid Economic analysts didn't see this coming? WTF?

Food prices are rising globally because we want biofuels instead of food. I mean does anyone know anyone who is running their car on a biofuel? FFS?

Fuel prices are rising due to the price of oil. Apparently India and China are to blame because they want to use it as well. And the G8 couldn't see that coming? WTF?

Fascist dictator Robert Mugabe stole the Zimbabwean elections whilst the US and Europe sat there watching. No oil in Zimbabwe I guess. FFS!

18 teenage stabbings this year but according to the Governmment they are tackling crime. Presumably by getting the police nicking more speeding motorists, graffiti 'artists' andmetal thieves rather than the rapists, stabbers and murderers. WTF?

Gordon Brown and his deadhead, blundering, incompetent, lying, cheating, corrupt Government are in charge. The opposition is The Conservative party. Whoopee-fucking-do!

I have 2 teenage daughters now. Offical. OMG!

I still have my braces :-( Just how much longer can this take?


Reasons to be cheerful...

Chelsea have a new Head Coach!

36 days to the new footie season!

I'm on holiday in France soon!

Doctor Who was great!

We're going to transform our garden and grow our own! I get a Greenhouse!

I can work from home 2 days a week!

My bonus this year was good!

Hellsbells has a new shiny bike!

Our new second car arrives soon and it's bright yellow. A Mr Happy car!

Pie is doing very well at school and Teenager has left school and is working until college starts! I have yet to see how this might save me some money though!

It can only rain so much.

Later GJ

Bored bored bored

Well people, the dust has settled after the reorg....sorry ...transformation and despite the best efforts of Queen Wasp (formerly Beach Babe...I will update The Players in good time of course) it became the ritual slaughter of good people we expected.

Of course her style, her apparent friendliness, the blonde hair, the certain look in her eye and an easy smile (to quote the great Roger Waters) allowed us all to be duped, but in the end good people walked and complete arseholes remained. It's all down to role, not ability or loyalty you see.

Quoting Roger again " You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to, so that when they turn their backs on you, you'll get the chance to put the knife in"

It's all a crock of shit and hopefully I will dedicate 20 minutes per day to writing an article here for your perusal, which over time will explain the .........bollocks of the last few months. Yes, I've been slack, but it's a combination of laziness, misery and a period of reflection on whether to decide if Jack should be woken from his self induced coma. No promises here, but I might just be full of inspiration again!

Anyway. Doctor Who? Fucking brilliant. The series goes from strength to strength and the latest series is no exception, far outstripping its predecessors for excitement, humour, fear and unbelievable beautifully written pathos just top make the girl's cry and men complain about something in their eye. The last 3 episodes finished the story arc off superbly with the iconic sight of the Tardis being piloted as it should be by 6 people for the first time ever. Awesome. As per usual the Doctor was played brilliant by David Tennant who has thankfully cut back on the gurning and grinning since Rose departed. Of course she was back for the end, but sensibly the role cut back a bit until a fitting re-union with the Doctor-Donna clone. But this brings me to the point of why the last 3 episodes and the whole series was an improvement.

Catherine Tate. Yep, after wholesale Whovian derision on the announcement of Catherine Tate as the new 'companion' by, frankly, sad idiots who can't separate her sketch show characters from her portrayal of someone by the process of acting. Something she is trained to do. She has in fact been the best of the companions to date. Instead of fawning over the Doctor like Rose did and indulging in annoying lovey-dovey dualist banter, nor adopting martha's doe-eyed approach (I love him but he hasn't noticed me) , Catherine tate played the part of the sympatehtic and critical humanist. She made The Doctor think about what he did, she bought common sense to the decisions of him and others. She cried at tragedy and showed bravery in the face of great peril. She really bought the audience into how living with someone like The Doctor could be both enlightening and frightening. She deserves a BAFTA for her performances throughout, but especially for the tragic and desperately sad ending involving the 'reset' button technique so beloved of Russell Davies for overall stories. Except this time this was for one person, whose life had been made so much better and yet she would know nothing of it.

Being Doctor Who of course, she may well return, but I have a feeling Catherine Tate will resist any attempts to bring her back. The character has closure and despite not being the happiest ending, she has her life as it always had been before she met The Doctor.

I didn't use my hankie once...honest.

A quick word as well for the superbly portayed Davros, by a guy called Julian Bleach. Wow. The best Davros by far, with a beautifully understated yet potent menace to his voice, and great mannerisms even if restricted to the right arm! His speech about "All the Stars and all the planets and all the people will become dust, and the dust will become atoms, and the atoms will become nothing' was delivered in a superb whispered menace just hinting at the great victory he expected. Truly a scary and iconic villain, now firmly lodged in Whovian folklore with his creations , The Daleks.

All in all superb family TV, which Baby nearly cried at, Hells Bells stated she didn't, MiddleSis and LittleSis admitted the tears and which Teenager also succumbed to. When the series returns with a new Executive Producer in 2010 it can only go from strength to strength.

Later, GJ

God, that last post looked shit didn't it? Well its deleted now so of you haven't seen it then you missed bugger all.

I'm thinking about how to continue this blog and whether I can find the time....which is ridiculous...20 minutes every couple of days shouldn't tax anyone, so maybe its just me being a lazy bastard.

Anyway, I'm not ready to kill the Grocer off just yet, so lets have a few quickie points.

Gordon Brown - God help us. Anyone see the resemblance to John Major?

The Planet is saved! - Planet Rock has been bought by a consortium of old rockers including Tony Iommi, Gary Moore and Fish. Great news and a poke in the eye to the continuing ripping out of the soul of radio we see from Corporate giants in it to make money at the expense of the listener.

Teenagers and knives - see the Liberation manifesto!

Chelsea - season over, no trophies, goodbye Uncle Avram, no new coach...I miss Stamford Bridge already.

A bright yellow new car - surely not? Unfortunately yes, outvoted by Hellsbells, Teenager 1 and Teenager 2.

Inter-costal muscle tears hurt ...a lot.

Co-codamol constipates you!

Redundancies at work, change is good (sic), change is inevitable etc and more work bollocks.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Amy Winehouse - what an abuse of talent.

Later, GrocerJack

I hope this is true!

Top this for a speeding ticket. This took place about 70 km North of Leeds in UK .

Two traffic patrol officers from North Berwick were involved in an unusual incident while checking for speeding motorists on the A-1 Great North Road . One of the officers used a hand-held radar device to check the speed of a vehicle approaching over the crest of a hill, and was surprised when the speed was recorded at over 300 mph. Their radar suddenly stopped working and the officers were not able to reset it.

Just then a deafening roar over the treetops revealed that the radar had

in fact latched on to a NATO Tornado fighter jet which was engaged in a low-flying exercise over the Border district, approaching from the North Sea .

Back at police headquarters the chief constable fired off a stiff complaint to the RAF Liaison office.

Back came the reply in true laconic RAF style:

"Thank you for your message, which allows us to complete the file on this incident. You may be interested to know that the tactical computer in the Tornado had detected the presence of, and subsequently locked onto, your hostile radar equipment and automatically sent a jamming signal back to it. Furthermore, an air-to-ground missile aboard the fully-armed aircraft had also automatically locked onto your equipment. Fortunately the pilot flying the Tornado recognized the situation for what it was, quickly responded to the missile systems alert status, and was able to override the automated defence system before the missile was launched and your hostile radar installation was destroyed."

Things going on......

1.) I've discovered the League of Gentlemen...typically a couple of years after it's stopped being made. How the fuck did i miss this absolute comedy gem? A veritable cornucopia of bizarre and disturbing comedy characters set in a village that can only be described as 'decidedly odd and not a little scary'.

Much like the one I live in...examples to follow!

As pictured the the iconic Papa Lazarou is quite simply one of the most disturbing characters I've ever seen on any TV show let alone such a multi-layered and intellectually challenging black comedy like this. And as for Tubbs and Edward......

2.) It's the 18th March apparently. That's the new D-Day for us at The Company. A day when we find out whether we have jobs going forward or are out on our ear. Invites to see Mr Blonde on Monday will not be good news. Squeaky bum time as a famous football manager likes to say.

3.) Open University studies. Yep, that'd be me who'd forgotten just how time consuming these can be. Muppet. Still, just this year and an exam pass and dopey old me will be a BA! And they say academic standards have dropped?

4.) Ricky Gervais. I downloaded 'Fame' his latest stand up show and laughed like a fucking drain. Totally un-pc, totally funny. Very clever. Bought the real thing plus his other two in a box set because it's guaranteed to make me laugh no matter how I feel. A clip from Animals, his first ever stand up show...bearing in mind he'd never toured or done stand up before. Very subtle, but very funny.

5.) Ditto Steve Coogans, comedy classic, Alan Partridge. Comedy Gold over both series. Example...check this link out first...and then this!

6.) Gout in the elbow? Why me? No, it's not fucking funny and yes, it is fucking painful.

7.) I love my Cuban Cigars. They're my real treat on a Friday now. Smoking bad for you? yeah...but one of these a week and my eyes are opened to the real difference between smoking chemical filled fags, and these beauties.

8.) Chelsea - my beloved Blues are creating turmoil in my life mainly due to the sacking of the greatest coach we've ever had, Jose Mourinho and replacing him with the litle know, inexperienced interloper, Avram Grant. read more here at my favourite, most intelligent football blog site.

Later, GJ

How very true!

Subject: Passport Application


Dear Minister,
I'm in the process of renewing my passport but I am a total loss to understand or believe the hoops I am being asked to jump through.

How is it that Bert Smith of T.V. Rentals Basingstoke has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a satellite dish from them back in 1994, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date?

How come that nice West African immigrant chappy who comes round every Thursday night with his DVD rentals van can tell me every film or video I have had out since he started his business up eleven years ago, yet you still want me to remind you of my last three jobs, two of which were with contractors working for the government?

How come the T.V. detector van can tell if my T.V. is on, what channel I am watching and whether I have paid my licence or not, and yet if I win the government run lottery they have no idea I have won or where I am and will keep the bloody money to themselves if I fail to claim in good time.
Do you people do this by hand?

You have my birth date on numerous files you hold on me, including the one with all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30-odd years. It's on my health insurance card, my driver's licence, on the last four passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the planes and boats over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done every ten years and the electoral registration forms I have to complete, by law, every time our lords and masters are up for re-election.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, I was born in Maidenhead on the 4th of March 1957, my mother's name is Mary, her maiden name was Reynolds, my father's name is Robert, and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and the day I die!

I apologise Minister. I'm obviously not myself this morning. But between you and me, I have simply had enough! You mail the application to my house, then you ask me for my address. What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals working there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to activate the Fifth Reich for God's sake! I just want to go and park my weary backside on a sunny, sandy beach for a couple of week's well-earned rest away from all this crap.

Well, I have to go now, because I have to go to back to Salisbury and get another copy of my birth certificate because you lost the last one. AND to the tune of 60 quid! What a racket THAT is!! Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? But nooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some tosser to confirm that it's really me on the goddamn picture - you know... the one where we're not allowed to smile in in case we look as if we are enjoying the process!
Hey, you know why we can't smile? 'Cause we're totally jacked off!

I served in the armed forces for more than 25 years including over ten years at the Ministry of Defence in London. I have had security clearances which allowed me to sit in the Cabinet Office, five seats away from the Prime Minister while he was being briefed on the first Gulf War and I have been doing volunteer work for the British Red Cross ever since I left the Services. However, I have to get someone "important" to verify who I am -- you know, someone like my doctor...
who, before he got his medical degree 6 months ago WAS LIVING IN PAKISTAN...

Yours sincerely,
An Irate British Citizen.