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Dangers of a slippy bottom ...

4/28/2017

I HAVE two simple tests to warn me about encroaching old age. When I go for a shower or bath, I drop my boxers and flick them up with my right foot, catch them and drop them in the laundry basket: it's my knicker flick. And when I put on fresh ones, I do so free-standing, without having to lean onto any type of support.

If my co-ordination begins to falter, I will know that years of sex, drugs, rock and roll and football have finally taken their toll and step more carefully. If I get my foot stuck during either manoevre, fall over and crack my skull on the bath, the warning will have arrived too suddenly and too late.
Both rituals are working fine and assure me of my physical condition but I still decided to take extra precautions because bathrooms can be dangerous places.
There you are, naked without the protection of clothing, shoes or hard-hat, standing in a cast iron container with a slippy bottom. I mean the bath. One wrong move could mean disaster. And, let's be honest, I'm not as young as I used to be.
So I bought a rubber-suctioned hand grip to help getting in and out. It fits on the tiles and looks a bit like a phone and I keep getting the urge to ring the curry shop for a take-away at unexpected moments of solitude. Amazon, I find, is best for such bathroom accessories for those getting on a bit. You can buy them anonymously on-line without a store assistant nodding in silent agreement that, yes, you're passed it.
I made the mistake of mentioning I had bought the hand grip down at the club, which caused everyone amusement rather than sympathy or praise at my foresight. Rag laughed and said: “You'll be getting one of those rubber grip things, next, to put round the tops of jars to open them.”
Already got one,” I said. “I can't grip because of repetitive strain injury. Years of working on a keyboard have taken their toll.” Keyboard meaning typewriter and computer; I never had the urge to be Elton John.
This did not impress chaps with proper jobs in engineering, roofing, building and decorating. I dare not tell them that I now have my eye on an extra long suction rubber mat with cosy bubble foot-grip to further ensure safety in the bath.
Perhaps I really am getting old?

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Time for a little Thelonius Monk ...

4/24/2017

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BEING hip when I was a teenager meant wearing black, listening to Buddy Greco and Thelonius Monk and reading Jack Kerouac. It was a jive term for someone who was cool and definitely not square. Being hip has always had its roots in literature and music: Elmore Leonard and Ian Dury were hip, and Paul Weller is probably the hippest person around. Evis was never hip.
So I was devastated to read that, according to The Office for National Statistics, a hipster now has a designer beard, likes speciality coffee, craft beers, vintage, gentrification, saving the planet and veganism, knitting and urban bee-keeping, prefers typewriters instead of laptops and bicycles instead of cars.

Good grief, has the world gone mad? That's not being hip, that's being a poser of the worst kind. Pardon me while I retire to an enclosed room for a dose of Monk and a chapter of On The Road.

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April 20th, 2017

4/20/2017

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Every move you make ...

THE CIA and MI5 have turned smart television sets, computers and phones into listening devices, according to WikiLeaks.
Oo-er, mum. Does this mean what we get up to on the front room sofa, in our bedrooms or in the back of the car down a Lover's Lane is now open to spooks in Langley and GCHQ?
Experts say ordinary people are unlikely to be targeted. The technology is used to spy on international drugs dealers and terrorists. Mind you, if it's a quiet night who knows what the eavesdroppers might get up to. Particularly if they activate a video link via the TV or computer screen.
“Who do you fancy?”
“How about 35 Acacia Avenue. She's a bit of all right.”
If they tune into our house they'll be disappointed. Everybody sitting round with trays on their laps, eating curry and the occasional comment on the state of society.
“Back in my day,” I would say, “we didn't watch TV while we ate supper. We actually talked to each other.” Pause. “It was awful.”
It has been noted that Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg covers the camera and microphone on his laptop with tape. Does this make him paranoid? Does he have inside information? To be honest, I do the same with my laptop. Just in case.

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Syria: targeting civilians is not new

4/13/2017

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THE condemnation of the use of chemical weapons in Syria has been universal. It prompted White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, a well known presenter of alternative facts, to produce the comment that could define what is left of his career. “You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons,” he said. This is the same Hitler who used gas chambers to kill millions of Jews.
Without condoning the use of sarin on civilians by Bashar al-Assad, it is worth reflecting on the outrage it has provoked with every western leader lining up to bash Bashar and his Russian ally Vladimir Putin with the stick of self-righteousness on two counts: using chemical weapons and targeting civilians.
They should pause to think, like Sean Spicer, before climbing too high on their pedestals.
Britain, America and Germany all used chemical weapons in the First World War. All had stockpiles in the Second World War and, if Hitler had invaded Britain, plans were in place to fight the Germans on the beaches with mustard gas. The only reason neither side used them in battle was fear of reprisals.

America extensively used Agent Orange, that contains a deadly dioxin, in the Vietnam War to defoliate the jungles that hid the enemy. It caused death and health issues to thousands of civilians which lasted decades.
Which takes us to the second emotive point: the victims in Syria were civilians.
Assad denied his forces were responsible or that civilians were the target. They were, to use that euphemistic expression, collateral damage. There were quite a few of those during the Iraq War when indiscriminate bombs fell from 30,000 feet.
The dead of Dresden in February, 1945, were not collateral. They were targeted as part of the British planned terror bombing of civilians that was intended to demoralise the Germans, create a humanitarian crisis and bring the end of the war closer.
The cathedral city had little military significance but Allied aircraft – mainly British – dropped 2,400 tons of high explosives and 1,500 tons of incendiary bombs that caused a firestorm of apocalyptic proportions and killed up to 35,000 civilians. Adult corpses were shriveled to three feet in length. Children under three were vaporised.
Our political war leaders, like Assad, lied to the public about terror bombing in the Second World War. Lies these days are more difficult to hide because of saturation TV coverage.
But the message remains the same: war is hell, particularly if you are a civilian statistic of collateral damage. And whether death and destruction comes from chemical weapons, barrel bombs or firestorm doesn't make much difference.
(Picture shows the aftermath of Dresden. Photographs of the victims are too horrific to display).

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Could I be the next Dr Who?

4/5/2017

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I THOUGHT you were supposed to shrink with age but my feet seem to be getting bigger.
For years I took a size six shoe which meant I was just out of the children's section. Over the last few years, I have expanded to a seven.
My feet are in proportion to my size. I am below average in height, although not so diminutive that I could audition as a Hobbit (three feet six inches, apparently). For years I have been buying track suit bottoms for youths aged 13 because even a small adult pair concertina so much I could play a tune.
This has never given me a complex and I have always consoled myself with what my mother told me: they don't make diamonds as big as bricks.
She also said my widow's peak was one of the seven points of beauty but, as she didn't mention the other six, I presume I never had them. Leonardo Di Caprio has a widow's peak, probably as part of the complete set, particularly if wealth, fame, talent, looks, height and charisma are included.
So a seven shoe size is fine but when I bought a new pair of trainers the other day, I thought I would need an eight. Am I regenerating into a different shape? Perhaps I will be the next Dr Who? The new sevens were tight and uncomfortable when I put them on at home.
At my age, I avoid trying anything on in a store.
“Can I try these on?” I might ask of the young lady doorkeeper to the changing rooms, holding up a selection of casual tops.
“You? In those?” her look might suggest.
And, let's face it, sitting down to try on a pair of white trainers in Sports Direct might also attract raised eyebrow and the unspoken query: “What do you need new trainers for at your age?”
So I bought them untried and now they were so tight that I walked like a ballerina.
“Shall I take them back?” said Maria.
“No. I've got an idea,” I said.
“What's that?”
“I'll cut my toe nails.”
And do you know, they now fit perfectly, which is a relief that my body is not shape shifting but disappointing that I won't be the new Dr Who.

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Dangers of a slippy bottom ...

Time for a little Thelonius Monk ...

April 20th, 2017

Every move you make ...

Syria: targeting civilians is not new

Could I be the next Dr Who?

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