HUNT EMERSON ; VEGETABLES, EXPLOSIVE INTERNAL COMBUSTION AND THE ROUGHEST, TOUGHEST KARATE CLUB IN THE WORLD !!!1!1

BACON BEAUTY

My old mate HUNT EMERSON....A fairly decent cartoonist in his own right and an okay comic strip artist of world renown recently commented on the above cartoon ..."GROTESQUE, DEAR BOY!"...which coming from the sick twisted mind of mr HUNT EMERSON can be looked on  as the ultimate accolade..... One of the many weird and odd facets of the EMERSON character ,of which there are more than a  lot, let me tell you!!!.....One off the oddest to me being an out n' out carnivor, is that HUNT EMERSON is a  VEGETARIAN.....yes!...A VEGGIE!

A number of years ago i stayed with HUNT  as i was working at the N.E.C. complex in Birmingham. I hadn't seen the old fellah for a wee while and we talked and gulped a fair bit of drink far into the couple of nights i intruded upon his very kind hospitality. He cooked me a couple of very ,suprisingly for me ,tasty vegetarian dishes. Which i thouroughly enjoyed....Until the next day!

The next day as was working surrounded by hundreds of people as i was doing caricatures at some trade fair , i made a shocking personal discovery. Vegetables give me wind!!!....Not just wind ,but shocking wind ,basically i was farting my bloody brains out.

A few years later when we were living in India , i had  a bad accident with a plate glass window whilst warming up a Karate class, to this day i dont know what happened . Did i hyperventilate ,or have a fit???..But a heap of severed tendons and sliced arteries later the students and sensei carried the mess that was me to a local hospital,spurting blood all over everybody within 20 yards basically saving my life. I awoke surrounded by people absolutly plastered in blood. Some in Karate gi's ;track suits ,tee shirts and some in shirts and trousers ,all plastered in my life giving blood. I was rushed in to emergency surgery . While i was getting resusitated three times, apparently ,they all went to a chinese retaurant nearby. I was told much to my morphine boosted amusement the following day that they got some weird looks from the staff and customers. I told SENSEI SUBRAMANYAN that they probably wont get many new students as everybody seeing them all plastered in blood must've said .."...GEEZ!...THAT IS ONE TOUGH KARATE CLASS!"...

The hospital was run by a religious group who were strict vegetarian and the food was strictly basic veggie fare. I ate and lay there with both legs in plaster and in stirrups pointing at 10 to 2...A lot like a pregnant women......

Illiciting more than a few cracks about my contractions and had my waters burst yet ? and when was 'it' due? etc,etc....Aside from the legs my right arm was in plaster held up by a sling ,my left arm although thouroughly bandaged was let hang loose, but it was enough for me to be hand fed for a few days. Then ,it started!!!! The gurgling and the build up of pressure in my stomach as it actually distended before my eyes, as the internal pressure dials rotated'into the red'!

The room was empty so i thought i'd just sneak a little'PARP!' out,to ease the pressure off slightly, c'mon you all do it! But that was not to be ,my insides exploded like a deflating ZEPPELLIN with a sound like the fog horn of THE QUEEN MARY....Just as the ward sister came in through the door and faced me through my  spread legs, which was the sight that greeted everyone who entered. She was pinned  by a mighty horrendous blast of  gaseous pressure to the wall until she dropped to the floor as the pressure dropped and the pressure gauges dropped out 'of the red'. She looked at me absolutly stunned and shocked.....She was attractive in a stern way, but she suddenly burst into laughter and the two of us couldnt stop for ages, every time she came in after she'd duck or skip past my exposed danger area, but it wasn't a one off, even THE LOVELY LYNNEwho originally was going to stay in my room took to  going home and taking the visiting option. When they finally let me out all i wanted was to go for a meal and eat a steak ,a bloody big one!

THE WHO: .....ROCKIN' LIKE BASTARDS !!!!......AND THATS ONLY THE SOUNDCHECK !!!!!!!

My olde Geordie mate ,the incredibly tall (going grey) SIMON MALIA.....This maniac is a maaaaaaaaddd, maaaaaaadddd, mad , psychotic WHO fan since before they formed ,i often think. Well his lovely missus in a  moment ofcrazed

 alcohol fuelled love and genorosity treated Simon to a V.I.P. ticket for the WHO's performance of QUADROPHENIA at the MANCHESTER ARENA last night. So this entitled the lanky ,jammy Geordie bastard to be allowed in early to sit through the soundcheck ,get 'nibbles' and a bag of pressies and swap phone numbers with those TOWNSHEND and DALTREY chappies.

When i asked how it went ,he was still stunned . He explained that he expected the soundcheck to be ;ROGER DALTREY doing a little singing; PETE TOWNSHEND  doing a little strumming on his guitar ; A few thumps of the drums; Tinkles from the keyboards; Parps n' toots from the brass, etc......."BUT NOOOOO!!.......THEY CAME OOT ROCKIN' LIKE BASTARDS!!!!!......DALTREY SCREAMING AND TOWNSHEND LETTING RIP LIKE A MANIAC ON THE GUITAR......THEY ROCKED LIKE ABSOLUTE F**KIN' BASTARDS!!!"....( his words ,translated from the original geordie to scouse for all you intellectuals out there.).....So ,Simon god bless his bry nylon socks, was blown out of said socks.

For the rest of us V.I.P.'s (very unimportant people) who had to fight through to our seats in the normal, standard hustling n' bustling pain in the arse way we finally got there in the corner alongside mr PETER TOWNSHEND,which was fine by me. I thought i would try my missus's (THE LOVELY LYNNE) old prescription glasses ,as my far distant vision isn't wonderful ,but these specs afforded this HD vision for the show which was quite revealing. I could count the bristles in Townshends beard , i couldnt believe it....I'm a little off a dog n' white stick, but surely my vision isn't that bad ,but surely its not meant to be that good!

Lynne ,the previous 2 nights had been playing with her ska band THE MANCHESTER SKA FOUNDATION, Friday in a boozer and Saturday we found ourselves in a tent in a bog of a feild at a festival in Stockport. I was given a posh laminated back stage pass to hang round my neck, as i was with the band....Felt dead important. I thought "I know i'll try and use this for the WHO tomorrow, but the bastards at the ARENA wouldn't let me.

But THE WHO were magnificent , fire and passion exploded forth and they 'let rip' and sounded great...Lynne was bouncing, singing and hammering hell out of my thigh...I have a MOD roundel of a bruise on my thigh today. The daughter ,ELARA was typically ashamed of her mum n' dad ,even though she loved the show. Lynne said that the TROMBONIST came in late a few times and she almost had to be physically restrained from running down to offer PETE TOWNSHEND ' Her services for free(?)'....I assume this was her tromboning abilities!

So if your bored with THE WHO , tough shit ,i'm not ,i'm still on cloud 9 and they are on next week in the fair city of LIVERPOOL and ,hopefully we'll see PETE'S little brother SIMON TOWNSHEND in town on the Monday

THE LOVELY LYNNE managed to get some quite good footage on her I-pad ,barring some womans 70's perm in front of us ,but one bit she did get, which if i can i shall put on ,is PETE TOWNSHEND  having guitar trouble after a series of vicious windmills during BABA O'REILLY and ripping the guitar off and slinging it way back stage to wrap around some poor technicians head...If i'd've managed to get back stage with my fancy laminated back stage pass, i could've had PETE TOWNSHEND'S guitar wrapped around my head....Oh the chances we miss in life, hey!

CAMPING AND CARAVANNING , BELOVED BY THE BRITISH.....NO WONDER THE WORLD THINK WE ARE INSANE!

As i speak/type to you as you listen/ read to my ramblings ,i'm chuckling to myself  due to a touch of irony which has hit me via Radio 5's traffic report. They are reporting ,not one ,but two cases of snarled up roads due to problems with caravans. Having spent many unhappy teeth grindingly frustrating hours through the years in lines of traffic stuck behind a car towing a bloody caravan. They are often covered in caravan club badges showing where they've been and screwed up the traffic system of that part of the world, wherever that may be.  These chipboard boxes on wheels are towed in a dangerously wobbly manner through the highways and byways then dragged and pulled through the mud of whatever field in the middle of nowhere that they have decided to plant themselves for the following week or two. The caravan is disconnected from that hi-tec tow bar and the wobbly caravan is now on 3 wheels and a jack .It sinks 8 inches into the boggy mud and the family board this box .Right away the tone is setanybody moving,or even drawing breath ,the caravan starts wobbling from side to side like the 'SEAVIEW' submarine from that old 60's series 'VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA', but instead of electronic sparks theres the clatter of pots and pans as well as the rattle of cups. The rush for the minute space that constitutes the toilet follows ,as being British ,not only do we like to sit in a box in a boggy field ,but the boggy field has to be as far away from their brick n' mortar box as is possible, so after hours stuck in the car, to sit in a vertical coffin with a hole into a bucket with your knees up by your ears  and banging your elbows as you yank on the cheap rough bog paper which is nessesary for all seasoned campers.

The other form of torture that the British classify as holiday is camping in tents. Instead of a chipboard box ,you sleep in a canvas sack and sleep in cotton zip up bags, and everything is done outside except sleep and listen to the rain and the deafening sound of the wind and rustle of the trees. All the times we went camping it was always raining. The fields were bogs. The clouds were 20 feet above the ground ,you could only see the trees or hills when it was going to rain and if you couldn't see them ,it was raining. The rain means that the British national dress is an anorack, supposedly waterproof, but the padding gets sodden, The proofs in the padding ,or disproved. Lakes joined up; Rivers burst their banks and paths became mountain streams. Tents and caravans have very interesting thermal qualities ...In the cold ,they're freezing and in the heat ,they're boiling!!!....

Camping and caravanning can be summed up in the film'CARRY ON CAMPING!'....Apparently it was filmed in North Wales and it was mid winter. It poured down rain and if you look at the scenes with a track and you can see mud and puddles. The feild was sodden and mud was everywhere, but they painted the ground green to make it look lush and summery. All the actors were dressed in summer wear and soon as they'd done their scenes wrapped up quick to stop shivering.

But lest we forget aside from the countryside ,full of wee beasties with a total dislike of humans,except for their warm cosy orifices theres nowhere to get stufflike food and drink that you take for grantedat home with your SPAR or ASDA next door, without walking into strange villages with strange locals who think the holidaymakers are nutters and quite often treat you like the average nutter. Also who has ever seen a cheerful friendly farmer? Around the countryside is a thin sandy rocky strip , covered in sharp stones and pebbles and jelly fish all designed to rip your feet to shreds as you go into the ice cold spew-inducing salt water 'for a swim???'....Affectionally known to all Brits as the 'seaside'. On the rare occassions when you find yourself on holidays when the sun is actually shining we all troop down to the 'seaside' and fry in the sunshine ,spending the rest of your relaxing break unable to touch or be touched as your skin has 3rd degree burns, which ,by the time you return home has reverted to the traditional ghastly palour that makes us the most white of the worlds whitemen. Then after all this suffering and enjoyment(?) that was your lot for another year.

SENSEI,TERRY O'NEILL TEACHING A SHORT ARSED CARTOONIST HOW TO SPILL BLOOD INSTEAD OF INK!

Last Saturday i went along to a Karate Dojo ....Thats a martial arts training hall for all you out there whos hands aren't trained to be deadly weapons and whose body isn't a finely honed fighting machine, much like meself, i looked it up! The Dojo was recently opened by SENSEI,BRIAN BENTHAM, just off junction 25 off the northbound M6 . He's done a good job too and intends running courses in various martial arts and fitness virtually every day of the week and good luck to him. But on this Saturday he got one of the legends of world Karate ,Liverpools own TERRY O'NEILL.

As i've described in the previous blog all about Terry and my relationship with the man himself theres no point repeating it all, but it was good to see 'The Guv'nor' TERRY O'NEILL again after all these years. And i was pleased and flattered that he still remembered me......He said to me as we went for a break ,"Hey ,Tim yer still mad,aren't you!", but thankfully he was smiling. He also ,thankfully laughed and seemed pleased when i gave him the caricature which i did for the blog piece. And he let me live ,thank you, Sensei!

The dojo was full and Terry took us through various movements and techniques. Over the years he's picked up a few injuries and bangs from experts and was suffering from a long time smashed knee ,which i was present when he horrendously injured it at Crystal Palace in the 80's. He also had a few bandages over other parts ,but was still moving well and demonstrating. He talked a lot and explained all kinds of stuff and encouraged questions throughout. I for one was fascinated at some of the stuff and a lot of anecdotes and humour flowed.

O'NEILL through his career has fought in competitions throughout the world and has worked in security and 'on the doors' so has seen what real fighting is all about. Most people haven't a clue and couldn't take a smack never mind give one. He explained that ,say a punch in the mouth is useless as the opponent can still come on ,even if he's lost teeth or whatever. Theres the legendary 'driving the nose through the brain!.....pure rubbish.....He went through a lot of what we thought we'd do in a fight and most would be a waste of time, as ,say at night in town when a few things start getting a bit hairy and the scallies start with the drink or drugs firing them on and the fact that so many people can actually fight nowadays, fit n' hard and train in the myriad of martial arts clubs that abound all over these days;KARATE ,MMA, KICKBOXING,etc.....And  these guys can take a dig as well as give it,it becomes vital to hit properly and in the right places.

TERRY loves Karate and that is obvious, but he has no doubts that a lot of people who train do so for fitness and wouldn't last a second in combat conditions and the 'never hit first' mantra is a load of cobblers ,if they move 'plant 'em!' There was a lot to think about.

Throughout he told stories to make points as the thought patterns bounced around like a pinball, which covered so much. It was a great day ,Terry and Brian seemed to enjoy it as did all who queued for pictures with the guv'nor later, which he happily did taken by his mate of many years BRIAN McKINNEY who warmed us up ,playing tick?.....He explained ,that we should imagine ,instead of 'a tick' with the hand on the head or leg, but a stanley knife!!!!!......That got us moving , believe me!


Terry seemed to enjoy the sessions and with his pinball like delivery stories and anecdotes bounced out and about making points and entertaining as well, theres a lot had me thinking all week and no doubt for much longer!