Friday, 17 October 2025
Insight into insanity.
Saturday, 9 August 2025
Letters
I receive literally ZERO letters about my “fascinating” blog. Here are a few letters I’ve not received this week…
Friday, 13 June 2025
Song Sparrow! In Yorkshire!
People at Christmas: Don’t say Christmas Day “falls funny this year, It’s midweek, so you get a weekend then Christmas then another weekend”. What’s funny about that? Then in three to four years tine you’ll be saying “it falls funny this year, you get Christmas at weekend then there’s a full week and it’s New Year on the next weekend”. I don’t want to hear it anymore. What difference does it make apart from the date you finish then start work again?
It doesn’t get much better honestly…
Cat litter doesn’t taste very nice, like.
You know the old one that all Chinese tourists in London who get a cab always end up in Harrow? Well, they all ended up at Tooting Common when they were trying to get to the Tutankhamen exhibition apparently. During covid they wanted to go clap the NHS on a Thursday and ended in Cwapham. Taxi drops off a Chinese guy to meet Trump and Putin for talks, he only asked to go to Quiz Two Powers and ended up at Selhurst Park.
Not bad that one. Thanks to Pauline for sending that in.
Very poor indeed.
Chinese guy books a posh hotel with underfloor heating. Tells driver “Hotel please”.
“Which hotel?”
“Hotel. Warm Floor”
“Ah, Romford B&B. The A187 is closed today though so I’ll have to go round the harrrziz………….”
Very poor indeed. You’re wasting your time.
“Save time in the morning before going
to a movie set like me, by putting
cornflakes in a bowl and putting
the milk on the night before.
The cornflakes go all mushy though.
And you just bin the fuckers like.
And, thinking about it, it costs
the same amount of time the night
before plus your pre-prepared
breakfast is inedible so my
Jimmy Nails Top Tip is to not do any of that, like”.
A Wasp landed on me futtin leg like,
so I waved my hand sort of over
the futter and it flew off like.
No one was harmed. Does that count like,
cos I’m running out of time and
I’ve gotta go meet Sting for a chinwag
So, a Song Sparrow no less! In Yorkshire! I went and looked right at it.
Right at it.
Sunday, 12 January 2025
Twitching!
Today I awoke with Paul Youngs subliminal classic “Every Time You Go Away” in my head. The old joke about the song being a Butchers shop favourite of course entered proceedings, so I strutted around the house singing Every Time You Go Away, you take a piece of meat with you… much to my childish amusement. The kids unanimously agreed “Dads off his fucking head again…”
Yesterday, it was Eighties TV ads (that got stuck in my head). It all started with “The champion Mushy Peas - that’s these! Batch batch batch Batchelors! The champion Mushy Peas!” I couldn’t get it out of my head.
Has any other or my reader(s) ever awoken with an eighties advertisement jingle regarding Mushy Peas before? We’d LOVE to hear from you if you have.
Then, on HOOVERING (it’s fucking hoovering, yes, I realise it’s a trade name that has become a colloquialism in everyday life, but that’s how it’s become to be known. NOT vacuuming. No way, sir. A bit like spam. That’s different actually. Chimley. Instead of Chimney. Chimley IS a word) I became obsessed with Eighties hoover-in scented carpet cleaner/freshener Shake ‘n’ Vac. Note to self: Parentheses way too long: reader may not follow.
“You do the shake n vac and put the freshness back, do the shake n vac and put the freshness back. If your carpet smells fresh, your room does too! Every time you vacuum (bah) remember what to do, you do the shake n vac and put the freshness back”.
Two things about this.
1) Has anyone ever had that pop in their head when they’re NOT hoovering?
2) The lyric “If your carpet smells fresh, your room does too…” is genius! Who, in their right mind, would offer that up as a catchy jingle? I don’t know, but it’s worked, as I still remember it!
3) There is no number three.
Grey Headed Lapwing Northumberland. Been in the country maybe c.28 days? First time around, I got within an hour of it but had to sack it off due to alcoholism. This time around, I was determined! Determined. I am the quickest twitcher off the mark. If some big news breaks, I just go insane to get there. So when news broke that it was back at East Chevington I decided to set off some twenty days later and you know how twitchers like to get there near dawn? Well dawn was around seven (I haven’t got a clue tbh) so if I set off at four, three hours there, half hour with the bird, three hours home, I’m home at 1030 to conduct more tests on the ex. True to form, shit-hot twitcher, I arrived on site at 1150am, around ten minutes before the afternoon was due to begin.
I saw it though. It was, like, proper good. And that. The next day it was nowhere to be seen. Or the next.
Maybe it’s dead.
…..
Saturday, 14 September 2024
Football Hooligans go Birding at Spurn.
Thursday, 22 August 2024
Usual suspects….
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
With Birds Eye in Hull now closed, No Neck Ted off Benedict looked for work. As well as running raw steel to Iran for use in the arms trade, he started work at Siemens working 6-2 and 2-10 with the chance of overtime. Drinking tea at break, treating himself to a Double Decker out of the vending machine underneath the stairs, and generally trying to experience as much as he could.
Some say his father’s German. He grew up in the west of Hull, making his name on the streets through petty crime, protection rackets, and stealing cheap crocs and sausage rolls from Greggs.
What I’ve been told and what I believe, No Neck Ted comes home from the graveyard shift at Birds Eye, to find the Hungarians at his house, his wife raped, his children with knives to their throats. The Hungarians tell him they want his territory, his business, and the sausage rolls if there’s any left. No Neck Ted looks over the faces of his wife and children. Then, to show these people of will what real will is, he puts PopTarts in the toaster. For ninety seconds the room is silent. The kids are looking around. His wife doesn’t quite know what’s going on. The Hungarians all sort of look at each other. No Neck Ted off Benedict starts to twiddle his thumbs. It’s all a bit uncomfortable. The toaster pops. The Pop Tarts spring up and just like the part when Vincent gets shot by him out of Die Hard and Moonlighting in Pulp Fiction, No Neck Ted looks his family in the eyes and shoots them. With a pistol. He shoots the Hungarians but allows the last one live, telling him he would rather see his family buried than give up his crocs and sausage rolls.
He goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their parents, their parents friends, he burns down the stores they work in, he blows up their children’s BMXs, he kills people who owe them money, he blows up other random things that their close family own, and like that…he’s gone. Underground. He becomes a myth, a spook story, every arch criminal has heard the name of No Neck Ted off Benedict.
“Back when we were at that barber shop in Skokie, Illinois, I’d asked for my one pound fifty protection money, the barber , big fat guy, I mean Orca-fat, says he’ll cut my hair in payment. The hair-do I received was only £1 so he gave me 50p as well. You know, to make it square. I got a new barnet plus 50p”.
The Hungarians held the only man that could identify No Neck Ted off Benedict, “Mad Dog” Nicky Dunn. What I’ve been told, and what I believe is, it was Nicky Dunns partners birthday, so, to show what real will is, took her out breaking into sheds, or “shedding”, high on amphetamines.
“The coffee out of the vending machine under the stairs is shit. Back in Guatemala we’d pick the beans straight from the tree, then dry it for four days, grind it, sieve it, leave it vacuum packed for eight days, then boil it with cream and sugar”.
“I saw Nicky Dunn die”.
“Why didn’t you shoot him? He was your friend?”
“It was No Neck Ted off Benedict. I mean, the devil himself. How do you shoot the devil in the back? I mean, what if you miss? I mean, look at my hands, they look like crabs claws, and have you seen how ridiculously cross-eyed I am?” and he is REALLY cross-eyed, like, properly cross-eyed.
“Let me tell you what I know. There was no dope on that boat. No Neck Ted off Benedict used you to get on that boat to kill the only man who could identify him. It was a hit”.
“No”.
“Mad Dog Nicky Dunn was No Neck Ted off Benedict“
“No. He was my friend”.
“Mad Dog Nicky Dunn used you to get on that boat”
“Why me? I’m just an over-exaggerated cross-eyed cripple, why me?!”
“Because you’re an over-exaggerated cross-eyed cripple with crab like hands”.
“I saw Mad Dog Nicky Dunn die”
“Mad Dog Nicky Dunn was No Neck Ted off Benedict, the kind of man that could engineer a police line-up, the kind of man that could kill Edie Finnerhan. Found this morning, two shots to the back of head”.
“I don’t have to listen to this, I posted ten minutes ago. Fucking cops….”
He walks out. His hands turned from crab claws into a normal persons hands, his (and I can’t EMPHASISE just how cross-eyed he is) over-exaggerated cross-eyes returned to what a normal person’s eyes would look like to be picked up by Kobayashi but walked straight into the bonnet as his eyes were still adapting.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. And like that…..
He’s gone…….
……
Monday, 24 June 2024
25 (maybe) Fun Rice Krispies Facts
The team at Q@Spurn have written this for me, I mean, us, just to keep me, us, at least somewhat “entertained” even though I, I mean they, have started spelling Crispies with a “K” then resorted quite quickly to a “C” but I, they, can’t be bothered to go change them all. These are the things that trouble me. Them.
1. Rice Krispies are a breakfast cereal, usually served with fresh milk and granulated sugar.
2. But other serving suggestions are available including just in a bowl by themselves as per the front of the box. This is just to save money on the milk and sugar needed for every front of every Rice Krispies box.
3. It costs Rice Crispies manufacturers (British Gas) about 10p in milk for every box front.
4. Mad innit!?
5. When I typed the word “milk” the spellcheck changed it automatically to “milf”.
6. I may need to look at my self.
7. Now!!Because I typed the above sentence, Google has just opened a browser with links to “watching yourself”, “cameras”, and “wanking furiously”.
8. Rice Crispies are made from pure Crispies and they only got the word “Rice” involved because they looked like rice.
9. Google has now automatically opened a new page because I typed “wanking furiously” a few sentences, or fucking paragraphs, ago. Does that make sense? I’ll have to read it back.
10. Yeah I think it does.
11. With links to “Wanking furiously - A Bachelors Tail (very poor indeed) by Roald Dahl - buy now with Amazon Prime”, “Rice shaped cameras”, and “Tony the Tiger off Frosties and that”.
12. Tony the Tiger only represented Frosties. He never once saw fit to praise Rice Crispies.
13. Rice Crispies once asked Tony the Tiger to praise them on the front of their boxes and offer a secret toy which children of all ages would have to fish out of their cereal and milk with their hands, initially excited about finding a mystery toy in a small plastic bag in their breakfast bowl only to find it was a small, plastic, purple, sort of star thing, that had no interest or couldn’t be used for anything of a fun nature as the word toy denotes
14. Rice Crispies only have two friends.
15. Tony the Tiger, God rest his soul, was named after Tony Robinson who played Baldrick in Blackadder. He would say his catchphrase “you plonker” quite a bit.
16. I’ve just laughed at “quite a bit” which is wrong as it’s my own writing. Im in idiot.
17. My mate Jim used to eat Golden Grahams and Cinnamon Grahams quite a lot. That was less amusing to me. Let us think about the development/marketing team when they were revising these new cereals. What shall we call one of these new cereals made from bran and other things? Graham. Graham?! said the Chairman…. Fuck it, call every single one of them Graham. And everyone cheered!
18. Gary, who’s in accounts, was a bit upset but still liked the name of the new branding.
19. Golden Grahams?!?! Golden. GRAHAMS. Golden Grahams.Thats Golden, then Grahams. Golden….Grahams…. I need to take this in that Ive just accepted this name for all these years but never actually realised what they were trying to do to us.
20. Tony the Tigers catchphrase was “I’d rather eat one than be one!!!” when he was advertising Frosties. Advertising. But this backfired as everyone realised that they too, obviously, would rather eat one than be something that they eat. I wish I was that steak, or should I just eat it?
21. Tony then fell on hard times and approached Rice Crispies for future work but they’d already marketed three boys called Snap, Crackle and Pop to be on their front cover..Tony suggested “Snap, Crackle, Tony and Pop” but it fell on deaf ears. Tony can be seen in the background in the shadows of some of the early Rice Crispies front covers trying to get in on the shot. Originals are worth a few quid nowadays.