Top Searches

About a year ago I wrote a post commenting on the strange searches that people had used to find my site – you can read about it here.

Well, I am glad to say that I still seem to be popular with a certain demographic. Today’s top ten searches were:

• Kat Deeley (note the American spelling thereof)
• Louise Minchin stockings
• Claudia Winkleman nude
• Anthea Turner
• Kylie Minogue nu-di-ty (why the hyphens?)
• Poppy Appeal
• Banana Splits
• Cat Deeley nude
• Nude celebrities
• Christine Bleakley nude

While I personally am disappointed at the demise of Sally James in school uniform, I guess this at least explains the success of Celebrity Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing With The Stars. Methinks it also provides a certain insight into the inner thoughts of men in their mid-forties. Dirty boys!

If you have found this post through one of these searches please feel free to use the search box top right to find the specific post you are looking for. Knock yourself out!

Girls In Uniform

I knew that using this title would get someone’s attention……..

I was back at the hospital yesterday. With my ears. Well, that might be kind of obvious – I guess I should have said, “for my ears” and the ongoing attempts to get them right following my operation last February and various different infections since then.

I am very appreciative of the service I receive from the NHS – America wake up and listen to Obama! – but I did not appreciate the hour and ten minutes wait in the pharmacy. The reception at the pharmacy was staffed by two ladies of a certain age. I promise you, they were like something straight out of a Les Dawson sketch. They WERE Cissie Braithwaite and Ada Shufflebotham personified. But without the headscarves….

They did make the time pass somewhat more amusingly. Normally I wait patiently (how apt) trying to spot one of the several attractive young pharmacists that work in the department as they busy themselves collecting potions, lotions, pills and bandages in the background. I think it is back to that thing I have for women in uniform – air stewardesses, dental nurses, Avon ladies and the like. I am not sure why I have a thing about ladies in uniform. It certainly pre-dates the policewoman stripogram that my petrol station dealers gave me as a leaving present. It may have had something to do with Miss Diane in the original Crossroads I suppose……..but I digress.

Clearly Cissie and Ada were volunteering. I cannot imagine that they were being paid to receive their customers. They were having far too much fun. They were there for the company and to entertain the various people waiting for their drugs – fat people, old people, people with damaged limbs, people with hacking coughs, and, kids in school uniform who looked like the Cheshire Cat having been allowed to skip class on the first day back at school.

Cissie and Ada talked loudly. They must have done. Even through my infected ears, my perforated ear drum, my ointment plug and wads of cotton wool, I managed to catch every word of their conversation. They were doing the crossword. They were doing it badly. “Helicopter moving part, four letters”, says Cissie. “Blade” says Ada.  “A thread, six letters ending in d” says Ada.  “Cotton” says Cissie. This went on for a good forty five minutes or so until one waiting patient volunteered the answers “rota” and “strand”. “Oh, we’ve done it. We’ve finished. We’re cleverer than we look.” exclaimed Ada to Cissie, ignoring the fact that they had been helped somewhat.

Cissie and Ada greeted every patient with the same message. It could have been a script from Little Britain. ”Do you want to get a coffee? Computer is down. It’ll be a good fifteen minutes to wait.” Regulars would take their advice. They would go for a coffee in the cafe run by the Friends of Leighton. Or they would go to get their blood test done. Or, mostly, they would go to have a “quick fag”. Anyone over 60 would be invited to share Cissie and Ada’s thoughts on how we are “too dependent upon computers these days” and how “young people today wouldn’t know how to run a reception without a computer to rely on”. And, neither did they.

Cissie and Ada decided that they needed to share their mobile phone numbers with each other, producing brick-shaped objects that would not have been out of place on the set of “Wall Street”. Cissie, who wouldn’t know how to turn a computer on, didn’t know how to program a number into her phone. Ada, walked her through the process in excruciating detail, making several errors on the way and oblivious to the growing queue of infirm people clutching prescriptions and desperate to escape for another cigarette.

My stay was a little longer than fifteen minutes. This was due to the fact that the pharamcist had to check with the consultant that he really meant me to put an unlicensed lotion normally prescribed for bad knees into my right ear, and, because they needed to go back to the ward I had just left to get some of the ointment that I needed for my left ear. Apparently, the hospital pharmacy didn’t stock it because it only comes from Australia. As you can see, we are at the experimental stage in the treatment of my ears……

But, my drugs were finally dispensed and by a very attractive brunette with an East European accent and a nice white uniform. So, it was worth the wait.

Related posts:

Ear, Ear – the operation

The Avon Lady

The Air Hostess

Male Bonding

This weekend saw my annual male bonding exercise. Six men on a testosterone fuelled display of strength, endurance and all-round manliness on a yomp around the Peak District.

This year included two of my best friends in all the world – friends from university who I have known for more than half of my life. Then there were three others who have joined the group over the years either by being a friend of a friend or by marrying into the group. They are all great guys and fun to be with. But, I still don’t want to sleep with any of them.

We spent Friday night at the YHA in Eyam, Derbyshire. Youth Hostels have changed a lot since I last used them – which was some 22 years ago. Back then the typical age range would be from about 14 to 25; you were segregated into male and female wings; there was no alcohol; and, you had to do chores to earn your breakfast. Now, our group of forty somethings were amongst the youngest of the residence; the corridors were mixed-sex; they had a bar; and, all we had to do for our breakfast was strip our beds.

That said, our room was still reminiscent of a POW camp – three bunk beds, a window with bars, and a single sink. And, the facilities were less than salubrious. The carpet in the corridor was suspiciously tacky. If you were not first up (and I was not first up) then you waded into the shower. And, you didn’t want to think too hard about why the floor of the toilet was a little damp and tacky. Men and their toilet habits. Pigs the lot of them!

As much as I love my guys, sleeping with them is not the most enjoyable part of the walking weekend. That would be the pub at the end of the walk. Indeed, my sleep on Friday night was somewhat deprived. It is never a good idea to follow a trip to the pub (during which several pints of ale and lager are consumed in order to wash down fish and chips or sausage and mash followed by some pudding that has not passed ones lips since school dinners) with communal sleeping. It is doubly not to be recommended when the walk from the pub is up a one in five slope on a very muggy and humid evening.

I pity the three women in the room next to us. I pitied me. Within just five minutes of our return to the hostel our room and the corridor we shared were, well, fragrant. Beery, sweaty, farty fragrant with an undertone of mint. The one brief attempt at cleanliness seemed to involve a communal huddle around the single sink in our room for a bout of tooth cleaning.

Isn’t it funny how different people clean their teeth? Me, myself, am one who needs to hang over the sink in case I dribble and I need to rinse and spit a lot. Some of my fellow ramblers were very adept at brushing while walking around the room.

We all then sucked in our bellies, averted our eyes to ceilings, corners and floor and undressed for bed. This involves grunting and harumphing in a deep, gutteral, manly way as if to say “yes I am dropping my trousers now so avert your eyes or, as alpha male, I will be required to beat you”. 

There was a strange array of pj bottoms, boxer shorts and briefs, with or without t-shirts. We all clambered into and onto our bunks, said goodnight (like the Waltons), and turned our faces to the walls. Turning our faces to the walls was clearly a failed attempt to convince our psyche that we were not in fact sleeping in a room with five other men. Like hiding from monsters by burying your head under the duvert, if you could not see them then they weren’t really there.

“Sleeping” is not something that I did much of that night. I did not sleep well because:

1. I was attempting not to breathe the beery, sweaty, farty fragrant with an undertone of mint atmosphere through my mouth
2. I was in the top bunk with my head closest to the door; there was a glass panel above the door through which the corridor light burned throughout the night like a searchlight in a concentration camp
3. My fellow cell-mates have shrivelled bladders or pituitary issues which required an average of two trips to the loo per man; this required the door to be banged and light to flood the room
4. Two of our number snored like troopers while another squeaked and whimpered like a little girl (clearly the face to the wall trick had not worked)
5. All beds creaked and groaned with the slightest movement and there were several wrigglers amongst our number
6. It was hot, hot, hot

It was a relief when 7.30am arrived and I was able to vacate the room to take a gulp of corridor air and wade to a shower cubicle.

Next year I will insist on my usual separate room and restrict my bonding activities to the daytime.

The Soundtrack To My Life

I recently created a Playlist on my iPod of some of the songs that mean most to me. While the list is far from comprehensive, it was, nonetheless, an interesting and cathartic process. I have tried to select songs that reminded me of certain periods in my life. They are songs that, when heard, conjure up memories of people, places and feelings. They are not always good memories, but, memories that have helped to shape me into the man that I am today. The Playlist is as follows:

1. Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)
2. Fleetwood Mac – Oh Well! (1969)
3. David Bowie – Space Oddity (1969)
4. Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven (1971)
5. Soft Cell – Tainted Love (1981)
6. John Lennon – Imagine (1971)
7. Phil Collins – In The Air Tonight (1981)
8. UB40 – One in Ten (1981)
9. Men at Work – Down Under (1982)
10. Billy Bragg – The World Turned Upside Down (1987)
11. Frankie Goes To Holliwood – Two Tribes (1983)
12. The Jam – Eton Rifles (1979)
13. Marillion – Lavender (1985)
14. U2 – With Or Without You (1987)
15. Sinead O’Connor – Nothing Compares 2 U (1990)
16. Beautiful South – A Little Time (1990)
17. Blur – Parklife (1994)
18. Oasis – Don’t Look Back In Anger (1995)
19. Urge Overkill – Girl, You’ll Be  a Woman Soon (1994)
20. Badly Drawn Boy – The Shining  (2000)

Other than nursery rhymes, I think that Bohemian Rhapsody was the first song that I ever learnt end-to-end. I am tone deaf and cannot sing to save my life (people still turn round to look at me on the rare occasions that I have to sing in church) but can still be found belting out Bohemian Rhapsody and banging my head in accompaniment while speeding down the M6 .

It was also one of the first videos I saw. Also, it reminds me of my first days as a student at Oxford. On my first weekend I was taken to the cinema by a certain blonde girl that I had been drooling over to watch the film of the live concert. Unfortunately, while easy on the eye, the blonde girl was shallow and ditzy and my lust was over before the concert ended.

Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” shows how much I have been mentally scarred by my upbringing and my poor self-image. It was the lyrics that resonated with me. I felt that the line “I can’t help about the shape I’m in; I can’t sing, I ain’t pretty and my legs are thin.” pretty much summed up how I felt about myself during those difficult teenage years.

Tracks 3) and 4) were amongst the first songs that I recorded manually onto a cassette from my older cousins’ record collection. I was jealous of my cousins. They lived just a few doors up the street but the family was better off than mom and dad and they seemed to have every new toy and gadget going (and they also seemed to break all my new toys), including a record player. Both boys were a couple of years older than me so I was often in awe of them (until they started to wear makeup in the New Romantic era!) and I thought that their choice in music was (note the past tense) cool. As well as an initial taste in music, the cousins also gave me their hand-me-down clothes. This also contributed to my poor self image – see track 2 again.

Soft Cell reminds me of my first nightclub/disco experiences from the age of around 16 on. It is still one of the few tracks that will tempt me to the dance floor without complaint. I have happy memories of snogging and groping strange/mysterious girls in dingy places such as Peppermint Place and Faces in Birmingham. The extended version of the track gave you plenty of time to find a girl……

The assassination of John Lennon in 1980 struck me quite hard, even though I was never really a Beatles fan back then – hence the inclusion of Imagine which topped the chart following his death.

In The Air Tonight (the version without the gorilla) is a piece of music that resonated with me whenever I was romantically depressed. Throughout the 1980s therefore. While I shared Phil Collin’s general malaise, tracks 13 through 16 are girlfriend specific. The good times were good, if brief. But, you broke my heart. You know who you are.

Men at Work reminds me of the fantastic summer before going to university. I was working at Fort Dunlop during the industrial shut down. The work was hard but the camaraderie was great. We had the radio up loud and this was number one at the time.

Tracks 8, 10 and 11 reflect my political awakening which largely coincided with my time as a student at Oxford.

Eton Rifles reminds me of the best friends in the world and student Sweaty Bops in the college beer cellar.

Blur and Oasis mark my transition from London/Nuneaton bachelor to married life in South Manchester.

Urge Overkill reminds me of my wife. When she dances, she dances just like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, but twice as sexy.

The Shining? Well, that’s private. But it always takes me to happy place.

I know that my musical choice will not impress many of you. And, I am certain that many of you will interpret my choice in a myriad strange ways. But, I do not care. These are my memories. this is my life. And, if music be the food of love, play on!

Related Posts:

Food Memories

Happy Days

Childhood Memories

Ear, Ear

 

Having spent the best part of the last two months frequenting the depressing environment of Tameside Intensive Treatment Unit (RIP Ken!) it was with some trepidation that I approached my ear operation yesterday.

This was my first operation (unless you count a semi-circumcision and I was too young to remember) and my first general anesthetic. I was somewhat tense as C drove me to the hospital. My fear was partly the result of my recent hospital experience (they are not healthy places – full of MRSA and the like), partly C’s driving (I much prefer to be in control), and, partly because my homing instinct is strong and I was fearful that they would keep me in overnight, and, partly because everyone has spent the last week or so giving me their worst “general anaesthetic” stories.

Why do people do that? You are getting married – people share their wedding day nightmares. You get pregnant (well obviously not…..) and people tell you their giving birth horrors. You need an operation and, well frankly, you don’t want to know what happens to people in the operating room.

To be honest, one of my greatest fears was that I might just begin to drift under the anaesthetic and I would look up to see the face of one of the medics I was at university with smirking at me from beneath their surgical mask. All of them were irresponsible alcoholics and I wouldn’t trust any of them near me with a sharp instrument. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

Indeed, the whole lead up to the op was quite stressful. None more so than the whole process of buying pyjamas. Yes, pyjamas. Proper grown-up, adult night attire for adults. Not “PJs” or “jimjams” as C insisted on calling them. You see, I have not possessed a pair of pyjamas for………well, let’s just say that my last pair probably had teddy bears or super heroes on them.

Since being an adult I have much preferred to sleep commando, au naturale, in the buff. Calm down girls! But, with the prospect of an overnight in hospital, it was necessary to think of my dignity, the poor nurses, and, the not wholly unlikely need to hide an involuntary erection. Well, I often wake up with one, there are nurses about….in uniform…..and, to be frank those hospital gowns are rubbish and offer no protection. Nowhere to hide.

So, a week or so ago, C took me shopping for pyjamas. Jeez, when did anyone connect the words “pyjamas” and “fashionable”. Being a bloke, I wanted something traditional and practical – blue and white stripes, fly, draw strings. Oh no, no, no. “Far too old fashioned”. “Wouldn’t see you de..” (don’t go there). So, I spent two weekends….TWO WEEKENDS – it only took me two hours to buy a new car for Heaven’s sake – trying on every shape, colour and style of designer sleep attire that John Lewis had to offer. And, finally ended up buying a pair of M&S pyjama bottoms (lycra-type material, elastic waist, NO FLY….but trendy, apparently) and a white Polo t-shirt.

I drew a very clear line when it came to the prospect of buying slippers. I am not an old man yet! I have fought hard to fight off my working class, Midland background. I only wear white socks when doing sport these days. Consequently, I never wear white socks these days. My family still won’t leave their houses to visit anyone without their slippers. It is the first thing they do upon arrival – take off their shoes and don their slippers. Me, you get in my shoes or, if I think I might dirty your carpet, in my stocking feet (socks that is – I don’t wear stockings……..often).

No slippers for me. I took my flip flops (or “thongs” as the Aussies call them). I was hoping for that trendy, looks-younger-than-his-age, surf dude look as I walked the corridor to the operating theatre. But it was not to be. To be fair I was not helped by the fact that my friendship bracelet had fallen off just two weeks after we returned from our Thai holiday The hospital gown, my fluffy dressing gown, and skinny legs sticking out the bottom didn’t help. Oh, and the look of sheer terror on my face!

I actually wasn’t feeling too bad as I arrived at the hospital, despite the fact that I had had nil by mouth for the previous five hours. I was hugely relieved that my insurance company were refusing to pay for an overnight stop unless required so the hospital were happy for me to go home as long as there were no “complications”. Also, my environment was pleasant. I was going private. I had a private single room with en suite and a plasma screen. A nurse came, filled some forms, took my blood pressure, pulse and temperature. I left my urine sample (I’m never quite sure how much they need so decided to fill it as much as I could without “spillage”). The anaesthetist came, cracked jokes, filled some forms. And, then my Consultant came………….and he scared me.

He was clearly having a bad day. He was in a bad mood. It seemed to be my fault. He was annoyed that BUPA had refused to sanction an overnight stay (I think it messed his schedule). He was annoyed that the person who should have showed at 1pm to do a hearing test hadn’t, so I had to wait until 2pm, which meant that he was running late. Then it came to the consent form. Then it came to him telling me all of the things that could possibly go wrong requiring drilling of bone, skin grafts, pierced eardrums, deafness, hearing aids and the like, if I every survived the anaesthetic and post-operative infection. Help! At this point I was all for going home with an “actually, I feel much better, thank you”.

But, I needn’t have worried. I went in. I went to sleep. I woke up – no erection, phew. I went back to my room – C fussed and looked please to see me. Within quarter of an hour I had had a drink and a sandwich. Within the hour I had had a wee (hospitals are obsessed with the need to urinate). The, now much happier Consultant, turned up to tell me all had gone well and, despite the fact that they had had to drill bone and do skin grafts, he was happy for me to go home.

And at home I am. I have a huge dressing on my ear which makes me look not unlike Van Gogh following his self-harming incident. I am not allowed to drive or operate mechanical equipment for 72 hours which means that I am under a strict regime as laid out by she who should be obeyed.

And, my advice to you all – don’t broddle*, if you get an infection go to the doctor straight away, and, if you can, go private.

* Broddle = to insert an alien object such as a cotton bud or finger or pencil end for the purposes of scratching or cleaning your ear.

Related Posts:

Girls in Uniform

My Neighbours – The Good, The Bad, and, The Ugly Part 3

I lived in London twice. The first time was just after university. I moved because I had got a job in London. 1987. Twenty years ago. I had to share a flat with another bloke who had joined the Company on the same day as me, Simon. Simon was a drinker. He was a drinker who thought he was bright and was owed a living on a plate. He was not as bright as he thought he was. He was a drinker, a diabetic and a crack addict. I forget the number of times that I had to revive him with a sugar cube or an emergency Mars Bar.

We lived in St. John’s Wood in an ex-council flat above Barclays Bank. Most of the other flats on our floor were still council flats. The tenants were quite elderly and doddery. Many were house bound. We rarely crossed paths. The only time that I would see the old girl across the corridor would be on Sunday mornings. She would struggle across the landing using her zimmer frame to knock on my door. To inform me that my flat mate had passed out on the landing or at the top of the stairs. It was quite a regular weekend occurrence. What must she have thought of us? How embarrassing.

I was glad to leave the flat in St John’s Wood. And Simon. He left the Company. By mutual consent. Something to do with expense claims I think. Or it could have been his regular afternoon naps in the toilets. He was an odd one. He ripped off a bunch of colleagues by organising a fictitious trip to Moscow. He was a raving lefty. And, I once had to bail him out of jail after he had been caught stealing books from Waterstones. We didn’t keep in touch. I suspect he will have drunk himself to death by now, or have been killed by some victim of a scam, or, he may well be a millionaire.

My experience with Simon made me adamant that I would never share a place again. Except with C and Maslow of course.

On my second spell spell in the Smoke, I lived in Kilburn. Little Ireland. Well, not so little in fact. Kilburn has the largest Irish community in the world outside of Dublin. It was the safest place to be during the IRA bombing campaign of the late 80s. The only time I remember Kilburn being effected by a bomb scare was on St. Patrick’s Day evening. I suspect it was a hoax aimed at disrupting all of the Paddy’s Day celebrations.

I lived in a one bedroom flat on he first floor of a two-storey house conversion, opposite a launderette where the local hoodies would hang out and which once figured in a Crimewatch reconstruction following a murder. Nice.

I only met the girl who lived below me maybe twice to talk to. The first time was on the night I moved in. Not being a southerner I “knocked on” to introduce myself. She was very welcoming, invited me in, and offered me a glass of wine. An hour later we were exchanging spare keys, in case of emergency.

The second time I saw her was a bit more embarrassing. C and I were in the shower. This was not long after we had got together. Apparently, C and I were oblivious to the fact that the spray from the shower was hitting the tiled wall at the side of the bath, running down a hitherto unnoticed crack, and exiting through the light in the kitchen of the downstairs apartment. My neighbour had been knocking, apparently, but we hadn’t heard her. She had let herself in – with the spare key –  and was coming up our stairs as I was walking out of the bathroom. We avoided eye contact How embarrassing. We didn’t keep in touch after I moved.

Related Posts:

Nuneaton

Alderley Edge

Food Memories

I was thinking just recently about how different food and meal times are today than when I was growing up in the 1970s and 80s.

This was a time before most people had heard of a microwave and the slow cooker, pressure cooker and sandwich toaster were at the cutting edge of modern kitchen technology. You bought your greens from the greengrocer (or granddad’s garden), your bread from the baker, your dried goods from the grocer, your meat from the butcher, your fish from the fish shop, and, your booze from an off-license and the only take-away options were fish and chips or a Chinese – and neither would deliver. This was a time when the fruit and vegetables available in the supermarkets and greengrocers changed with the seasons and came in all kinds of non-uniform shapes and sizes. Esther Rantzen built her career on odd shaped vegetables. The hypermarket was still a strange, foreign French phenomenon back then and Brussels had yet to begin to interfere too much.

Every main meal would feature potatoes – new, boiled or mashed (or creamed), or, more typically chipped. The chip pan was often a family heirloom passed down through the ages and with the oil rarely changed across the generations. These were proper chip pans – the kind that burnt your house down if left unwatched. No namby pamby oven chips or deep fat fryers for us. And, this was proper fat – proper artery clogging lard, dripping and the like. Not a poly-unsaturated , extra virgin, or groundnut back in the day.

Every main meal also featured bread. No baguettes or ciabattas or pittas for us. It was sliced white with butter (or dripping) every time. I can still see my grandma sitting on the sofa and roaring at the wresting on a Saturday afternoon while the butter softened on the hearth next to the gas fire in the lounge. Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy used to get her going. Saturday teas sometimes consisted entirely of jam sandwiches – my dad’s favourite.

The Sunday roast used to last for days. Big chunks of meat that always had a bone which I would pick clean while stirring mom’s home made gravy. No Bisto or ready-made in our household. Sunday lunch would be followed by cold meat and bubble and squeak or a cottage/shepherd’s pie on a Monday or maybe a risotto (minced meat and rice) or a homemade pie. Mom had her own contraption for mincing meat.

There was always a homemade cake. A scone, a rock cake, a Madeira, Victoria sponge, coffee, or, fruit cake. Licking the bowl clean after a baking session was often a weekend treat. Sunday lunches were often completed by a pie or a crumble using apples, gooseberries or rhubarb from my granddad’s garden. Sunday teas were often followed by tinned fruit and condensed milk or Angel Delight – heaven in a packet.

Meals were always traditional. Spaghetti bolognese was an exotic treat while curries (Vesta) were made by adding water to a dried powder and they always contained sultanas.

Cheese came in only a few flavours – Cheddar, Cheshire, Stilton (at Christmas)  and magic little triangles of Dairylea.

These were happy days full of fresh, homegrown, homemade comfort food. While I enjoy today’s variety, ethnicity, and, ready availability, I do think that the modern ready meal, pre-made sauces, stocks and blah, blah, blah are lacking in something.

Now, what’s for dinner?

Related Posts:

My Family and Other Animals

The Soundtrack to my Life

Happy Days

Childhood Memories

Why?

Why is there always fluff in my belly button? And, why is it always blue?

Interpretation Of A Dream

The last few nights I have been having a recurring dream. I have been having a dream that I have experienced every so often for the last twenty one years – ever since I left university.

It is clearly something to do with apprehension. Fear of underachieving. Concern about not being ready for something. But apprehension, fear, concern about what?

The dream is always the same. I am at my Oxford college, Queen’s, and my Finals are imminent. I have a “feeling”/”sense” (for it is no more than that) that there is something that I am supposed to have studied but I have not. Something that I have forgotten to learn. There are only days/hours left before the exams and I am doomed to fail. I don’t even know what it is that I am supposed to have studied.

I try to find my friends to ask, seeking reassurance. But, I cannot find my friends. So, I go and ask a Tutor and are informed that there is indeed an entire volume of ancient texts that I am supposed to have studied for a crucial paper. I go off to the library. In my dream it is a slightly distorted image of the Library – it is much bigger and as if the real thing had been crossed with something out of Hogwarts. In a deep, dimly lit corner of the Library I find my friends. They are all sat around a single table which is laden down with the weight of a series of large, ancient texts – the tomes that I have omitted to study. They are the only copies available and I am out of time and I feel the despair of knowing that I am doomed to be a failure. And then I wake up.

So, what is that all about?

I do have another recurring nightmare about being trapped in my grandma’s old house, hiding behind the sofa. We are surrounded by Zulu warriors who are peering in through all of the windows. My dad goes out to reason with them but is attacked by a large dog that the Zulus set-upon him. This is another dream that I cannot interpret. But, this one, I have put down to eating too much cheese too close to bedtime.

ps. I actually did OK in my real degree.

Back Seat Drivers

C is not the best of passengers when I am driving. She is a tad nervous.

Of course, she has n reason to be so as I am a faultless driver, perfectly in control of my mean machine – the sleek black Audi TT. My forward awareness and peripheral vision are beyond compare. My reading of the road is second to none. For sure, I take a more libertarian view of speed limits occasionally, but, I make allowances for road conditions and am always aware of my stopping distance. And, as my earlier “close call” proved, the TT has excellent brakes! Not that I always drive on the brakes – I hate those drivers who speed up to the car in front of them and then brake. You then follow (at a safe distance – remember the two second rule!) and they are constantly touching their brakes instead of adjusting their speed using the accelerator and gears.

But, C is a nervous co-pilot. She sits grinning like the Joker through clenched teeth while gripping the door handle as if she is ready to bale out at the slightest provocation. Indeed, if you look closely at the door handle you will see that she has left little indentations and scratch marks where her nails have dug in.

On every occasion that she sees the brake lights of the vehicle in front she will scream, grab my leg, and berate me for getting too close. I don’t get too close. In fact, I rarely get closer. I rarely get closer because I have a) anticipated, b) left sufficient room and c) adjusted my speed by taking my foot off the accelerator while keeping my foot hovering over the brake pedal just in case. But, this is not enough. Unless I perform an emergency stop, I am deemed to have been driving without due care and attention by she who should be obeyed.

This is often a source of “tension” while driving. Indeed, this is second only to “navigating” or “giving directions” as a source of “tension” while driving. As readers of my earlier post about our weekend in Goodwood will remember, I have recently been badly let down by my SatNav so remain vulnerable to criticism in that particular area. Indeed, that experience almost prompted a purchase of a Russell Brockbank Cartoon at one of the Goodwood stalls:

Of course, I am only joking at my good lady’s expense. Indeed, driving along with C in the TT, with Radio 4 for company, exploring new areas of beautiful countryside is one of life’s true pleasures…….if only you can block out the pain as she grabs your leg and digs her nails in!