DURING A HIGH KARATE KICK WHICH IS WORSE THE SOUND OF CRACKING JOINTS ,PULLING LIGAMENTS AND TENDONS OR THE RIPPING OF TROUSERS?

Every Kung Fu and Karate practitioner spends ages putting themselves through warm up and stretching excercises before and after the training session so they can throw high thrusting, snapping, roundhouse, spinning kicks of all kinds and angles ,front, side ,back, etc ,but all ,mainly due to films want to kick to their opponents head.

Without a doubt head kicks are most spectacular. Flatten someone with a spinnig back roundhouse kick and you'll feel and be thought of as the 'Dogs bollocks' until the next time you get beaten or flattened or use a boring low front snap kick and your arsenal of spectacular 'Dogs bollocks' kicks becomes the 'usual load o' bollocks!'

In non contact Karate competition the fighters tend to use lower wider stances and go for the high kicks whereas the full contact use narrower stances  and boxing style guards , but interestingly use low kicks to the outer and inner thighs, not so much the knees as damage can occur, mind you those nutty THAI BOXERS probably boot 'em anywhere ,they use lots of low painful kicks ,but since they train 23 1/2 hours , 7 days a week they can use high kicks to great effect to knock out opponents. Even MMA, etc don't use THAT much high kicks, using low kicks ,knees, fists, elbows and throws and locks as it's not point scoring it is beating your opponent in a fight.

Out in the ' mean streets ' People can, sadly get into a bit of grief! The fight, if it does 'kick off' will normally be the good ol 'KNUCKLE BUTTY!' Very rarely will anyone be able to launch a fight stopping kick to the head. Most martial artists are average blokes ,or ladies and the only way they will be able to get a kick up to the dizzying heights required is after a good 1/2 hour stretching warm up excercise session ,which, unfairly as it may seem , your opponent wont be the level of gentleman needed to allow his opponent to warm up.

The sad truth most people have seconds to dive into 'the mill' as the prizefighters used to call it. If 'our hero was to throw a head kick 99.99999%   will hear a variety or cacophany of a series of horrendous teeth grindingly awful sounds made worse as they come from your own body as ligaments and tendons twang; Joints click and crack, not only does it sound painful ,but it is painful and will be for days ,if not weeks after.

If you throw the kick ,not only may you cause untold suffering and strain upon your joints, but even those who could throw the kick are further restrained by the trousers they wear, it is ridiculous that we spend years turning into human fighting machines , as long as you wear the loose fighting pyjama-like Karate Gi we are fine. Then when we need to use our long hard learnt lessons we can't because we'll split our trousers. The energy needed to flatten your opponent will be drastically reduced by the energy required to tear the seams of your trousers apart!Which is worse the cracking and twanging of joints or the RRRIIIPPPING of your trousers in front of a full pub or in front of the girl of your dreams as well as your opponents mates?

The only fellah i knew who could walk into a fight and flatten multiple opponents with full blown Karate foot work  as he worked on club doors in his suit around clubs in Liverpool was the immortal TERRY O'NEILL,there are many stories of 'the guv'nor's exploits, Dig out DENNIS MARTIN'S book about life on the Liverpool doors, 'WORKING WITH WARRIORS'.

After years of clicking joints the slow TAI-CHI excercises have allowed me to kick high anytime, but again that is .....TROUSERS ALLOWING! 

THESE DAYS WE EAT OCTOPUS'S IN POSH RESTAURANTS, REMEMBER ON OLD TELLY WHEN THEY WERE HUGE IN 'VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA AND COULD WRESTLE NUCLEAR SUBMARINES TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN!

These days we go to a restaurant and eat bits of squid and octopus for dinner or fried tentacles. I remember when i wuz 'nobbut a lad' when i thought that all those tentacle clad wee beasties were huge monsters dwelling beneath the waves as in the 60's there was a lot of science fiction on the telly and 'everything went.

I first saw my monster tentacle comming out of a steamy bog on the PLANET SKARO in a very early episode of DOCTOR WHO with the wonderful WILLIAM HARTNELL in them far flung black and white days. Planet Skaro was the home of THE DALEKS ,as if you didn't know. The tentacle came out of the bog clutched a good guy ,a race called THE THALS who were going to rescue the Doctor and his grandaughter SUSAN. The poor Thal was dragged into the gurgling bog

VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA was another classic sci-fi show about a n incredible super nuclear submarine called SEAVIEW. The Seaview would sail under the seven seas saving the world from aliens and monsters every week. Like most 60's series , because of the success of the 'camp' attitude of 'BATMAN' all the other series veered towards the 'camp!' All kinds of ridiculous monsters, robots, killer dolls, walking ,man eating plants ,witches, wizards, etc were dragged into ruin 'VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA'; 'LOST IN SPACE'  and some ,originally very promising series. But the SEAVIEW being underwater was prone to these massive be-tentacled creatures which'd wrestle the worlds mightiest nuclear sub to the bottom of the ocean. As this was happening there was always the crew getting thrown from side to side with clouds of sparks bursting out of bleeping flashing spectacular control panels. I seem to remember the ships bosses CAPTAIN CRANE and ADMIRAL NELSON get the engineer or 'SPARKS' to  boost an electric charge through the hull which would electrocute the octopus causing it to release them then they'd finish it off with a couple of torpedoes in its tentacle junction, tat would normally do the job before the end theme and the adverts could come on to a safe world again.

Another favourite for giant octopi....Was the wonderful GERRY ANDERSON creation  about anothe super sub 'STINGRAY'. A few exotic creatures with tentacles appeared throughout the series and electricity and Stingrays 'STING MISSILES' would do a similar job to the Seaview, but there was only a two man crew CAPTAIN TROY TEMPEST and PHONES as well as the sexy mute MARINA. THUNDERBIRDS also had a fondness for tentacled themed stories for ,mainly THUNDERBIRD 4, the submarine in the THUNDERBIRD fleet of rockets and craft. I seem to even remember SUPERCAR getting clutched by giant tentacles.

In  more modern days all these wonderful monsters have been neglected. Dinosaurs are going through a boom period at the moment, but theres nothing with giant tentacles coming from beneath the waves , unless its on your plate . .

WHEN KARATE STUDENTS ARE STRETCHING DONT CRACK YOUR KNUCKLES ,THEY'RE JOINTS MIGHT LOOSEN ,BUT THEIR HEARING SHARPENS!

Whenever a KARATE class starts for the first 20 minutes or so the students get into strange postures and bounce and jerk as they try and stretch and loosen their joints ,ligaments and tendons. Along with the grunting, groaning and gasping there is the odd click,crack and grinding sound as joints ,balls n' sockets ,etc bend in unusal angles and positions...Some may say unatural rather than unusual!

As you find yourself straining your ,mainly leg joints, you can hear the internal straining noises as your body grumbles and moans about the beastly treatment your putting your ever trustworthy frame through. 

As you go through all this you also are aware of the external and internal protestations of the bodies around you, some not as in possibly as good a physical state as yourself causing some real teeth clenching ,stomach churning joint grinding, cracking and oddly popping type sounds , but sometimes they can confuse you as you sometimes wonder was that tortured joint cracking your own knee or hip ball n' socket joint.

I remember one evening in a room full of straining grunting gasping students all in lines trying to adopt a sideways full splits, a very odd sight to a passer by. All the years i trained and stretched the one thing i never mastered or came near to was a sideways splits. I was fairly suptle and even with my short stubby legs allowed me to kick to head height even to this day.But this evening our instructor who was a real 'KNUCKLE CRACKER'....Knuckle crackers're a strange breed and are fascinated with the grinding crunch of  simultaneous 5 knuckles at a time 'CRAK! CRAK! CRAK! CRAK! CRAK! Some impressive ones can crack the thumb as well, but the more they do it the stiffer the fingers get and the easier and louder the knuckles crack!

As we stretched and strained in our attempts at the splits he walked behind and interlocked his fingers and did a thunderous 10 -KNUCKLE CRACK!!!.... I honestly shit myself convinced i'd  wrecked my hip joints and was on my way for plastic hips within the hour. As i looked about me in abject fear and panic waiting for the pain to kick in which it was bound to any second now! The strangest sight met me, everybody was like me , in that bloody awkward position, but also, like me they were looking from their groin, hips and around the room in blind abject panic! Then slowly the realisation that we weren't  lifelong cripples and paraplegics, but it was a knobhead instructor who passes his spare time cracking his knuckles kicked in and a collective sigh of relief filled the room . The relaxation helped us sink deeper into our sad attempt at the splits.

Like the cracking of knuckles where the joints stiffen and crack easier the more you do it, the stretching excercises , bending and bouncing which i followed faithfully for donkeys years i now realise didn't do a lot of good. After the training my hips would click and be stiff after being seated for a while. My knees were 'shocking!'...If i bent down i could guarantee an explosive 'KEEERRRAACCKK!!''....I remember being in WH SMITHS bending down for a magazine when my knees exploded and everybody in the shop just shuddered and clenched their teeth in horror and disgust ,i ended up apologising for my cracking knees.

Years later in my 40's i started TAI-CHI while living abroad and now i'm 55(ouch!)....I train in a Tai-Chi manner ,slow and relaxed . Ideal training for a lazy bastard ,the slower and more relaxed ,the better. But a very odd thing has happened . My speed and power as well as stamina has improved as breathing is very important. Try not breathing and see how far you get! But my suptleness is better now than when i was a youngster ,grunting ,tensing and straining and stretching .My joints dont click at all. Much as it pains me to admit it , in some respects i'm growing old gracefully, but in many other ways ,thankfully i'm making up for that by doing the rest thoroughly disgracefully i'm proud to say.

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY...TOP SECRET....IT'S NEARLY CHRISTMAS !

Last year it felt like christmas started about June. This year i feel like it has been quite quiet and we've been spared the x-Mas torture of non stop adverts of people in sweaters and bobble hats going up snowy roads to collect parcels wrapped in bows and wrapping paper on shelves ,i wonder how they know what they're buying as they're already wrapped up to go under the tree by the roaring log fire. At christmas ,everyone has a roaring log fire....The rest of the year they have boring old central heating? Getting the shopping in during our weekly jaunt to Asda i let a loud groan out as that god-awful CLIFF RICHARD  song about "logs on the fire and happy children ,etc ,etc" was played throughout the store i thought, "'ere we go! It's started." But  i thought 3 weeks before the days not too much overkill

There is a reason that i think i may have missed a lot of the build up. My darling daughter is mostly ensconsed in the back room watching NETFLIX, on the computer ,skyping and texting. The Lovely Lynne is working away or home late ,but it means i plough through SKY+ , ON DEMAND and the SKY MOVIES,etc....This means that i manage to almost totally avoid advertisments. These telly channels and services mean you find yourself ploughing through continuous episodes of various series. Recently i'm going through a spy /action phase. I've ploughed through the STRIKE BACK series ,tons of blood and snot; The lovely arse kicking assassin  MAGGIE Q as goverment assassin NIKITA; PERSON OF INTEREST about an ex C.I.A. assassin who's trying to help people. But i got the DVD collection of the classic CALLAN; I waded through the BOND films to brace myself for the long awaited SPECTRE, which i've seen a mere 3 times and i managed to catch THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. which i also enjoyed. So while the rest of the world has been warming in the pre -festive glow i've been living an imaginary life of  extreme violence from mean steely- eyed charming ex-special services spies. Santa  better watch out when i comes a calling as i go to bed with my WALTHER PPK, Bonds weapon or Callans NOGUCHI 38 MAGNUM under my pillow.

TIME HAS BEEN AROUND LONG BEFORE EINSTEIN INVENTED IT!

Time is a funny old thing , it's been around for years. In fact it might be the oldest thing in the whole universe and it's still getting older and dragging us along. Time is a pure wonderful thing that zooms through eternity as an arrow of time. While our version of time is a thing called aging!....Time and space are fantastical effects in the physics of the universe ,whereas ,for us it's not the physics ,but the physical....Or the decay and decline of our physical being due to a nice little thing called the LAW OF ENTROPY!....This is quite simply the 'Falling apart of everything over time. Listen to the cracking and clicking of your bones and feel your aches and pains as you get up in the morning, You thought that was old age ,which it is ,but it is much more it is one of the basic laws of physics one of a couple of laws of thermodynamics!....There ,y'go, sounds a little better than arthritus or lumbago!

We think of time as that pain in the arse thing that causes the alarm clock to ring in the morning and makes us rush as we are late for work ,etc and is the reason for rushing and cramming onto busse,trains, the tube and the gridlocked motorway system as we all rush to get to wherever 'ON TIME!'....Times physical form seems to be  traditionally bells, from the start of the day with the alarm clock to the vastly more dreaded bell that signifies "LAST ORDERS!" in the local boozer.

What is TIME?....How long does it last?...Is it a second, an hour, a day, a week , a year?????....We have atomic clocks that measure billionths of a second, However we can measure it in either direction ,the small or the large time fills that measurement. We have watches to measure seconds hours ,days and months; We have diaries covering days to years; Doctor Who has his 500-year diary!

A lot happens over time ,we are used to stuff happening instantly ,with computers and the rush of day to day life and living, but major 'stuff' is going on a lot slower and mainly unoticed. Through time the universe was formed ,the Earth was formed; Life formed and slimey stuff climbed out of  strange oceanic soups and crawled over that dry stuff which in later years we called 'The Land'. These little 'yukky' thingies eventually developed, or evolved in a thing called EVOLUTION ,ask a certain MR DARWIN about all that, but something daft happened and tiny crustacheans became 200 foot dinosaurs. Which in millions of years would evolve into a thing called 'SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER MOVIES' for the lazy movie buffs that the dinosaurs ,etc would be replaced by over time.

Nothing stays still as time passes , mountains grew and disappeared ,oceans came and went; continents ground against each other and formed new mountain ranges ;continents split and stuff like a lump of rock which would evolve into America over the other side of the developing planet....There may've been volcanoes and eartquakes destroying and shaping the planet, but at least America is 'over the 'pond' which was also formed.

A lot has happened the planet was shaped by comets destroying the dinosaurs , Man evolved ,invented fire n' wheels n' soap operas and even there was a time England won the world cup ,a lot has happened through time.

But things happen over time which may not be epoch lasting ,world-changing, but defy the laws of living and life. When i was a younger lad and we'd go out on 'the razzle' on the weekend, we'd be looking for something to wear to impress 'the chicks' at the Liverpool nightclubs. At the beginning of the week i'd dump my dirty ,highly pungent socks n' 'Bills' ( Bill grundies....Undies!)....Into the laundry basket like workers in radioactive labs carefully inserting the radioactive core rods into the reactor core. At the end of the week you were looking for socks n' 'Bills', but couldn't find any ,so you'd root around in the laundry basket and!......Your SOCKS N' BILLS DIDN'T SMELL...Quite as bad!.....They could be worn, go on , you know what i'm talkin' about!.....This is a real example of  Times effect on organic (sort of ) life forms.....As sometimes i was sure the socks n' Bills moved themselves. My socks n' bills evolved over time and cleaned themselves!? 

Time does have it's mysteries which will never be solved ,but affect us in our daily lives. Most of us wear a watch and many of those watches have a little square hole with a number signifying the day of the month by the number 3 (quarter past). The date hole is normally quite small so they put a thick block of glass to cover it and magnify the date number. The unbreakable law of physics is that whenever you want to look at the date ,IT IS ALWAYS QUARTER PAST!!!?...So whenever you need the date you cant as the finger of time is pointing to 3 ,covering the date, So you have to hang on for a few minutes into the next day to get todays date.

What is time ? Is it the point when Doctor Who starts on a Saturday night, or the kick off for the football ....( or Rugby!) ?......Or is it old black n' white telly or films, so you know its old , or does time exist in the real world outside of the telly screen? The guy who 'sorted it' was a well known ,now scruffy pipe smoking patent clerk who would one day have possibly the most famous moustaches in history. Yep!..You guessed it ALBERT EINSTEIN.

Einstein must've been a funny bloke as he sat and conducted his 'THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS' imaging why things happened ,like "What would it be like to sit on a beam of light!"....Usual stuff like that. Must've been great fun to go to the boozer with him. He developed to amazing theories that even todays smartarses want to prove wrong can't! He did the SPECIAL(Involving high speed travel) and GENERAL( Gravity n' stuff!) THEORIES OF RELATIVITY. And all together now!!!....E=MC2!!!

It's all clever complicated stuff, but he basically said that SPACE N' TIME are linked into a thing called SPACETIME. Basically there is no time as such ,the forces of  energy n' mass distort space and time which is gravity and all the stars and planets spinning through space under the influence of distorted spacetime. And just to make it a bit more interesting if you fly through space at great speeds and distances say from Earth Time is totally shot!....A ship leaving the Earth would seem ok on board, but time would slow for them as it would speed up in relative terms, so on return ,possibly hundreds of years could have passed on the Earth for a few years on a very high speed ship.

An airplane flying overhead exists on a different ,albeit a tiny bit of a different time , they will be aging slower than us on the floor. Your sat navs have to be tuned into the satellites, but allowance has to be made for relative changes in the passage of time to get it to tell ,accuratly where you are.....roughly....That field 5 miles from where you want. But although time is a variable time travel will never happen as the universes speed limit is the speed of light. Light has little ,if any mass ,so you could carry a lot without straining yourself, but as it flashes through space Mass is negligable so it's virtually Energy =C-speed of light 2, so thats a lot of energy ,almost a universe full ,theoretically it could manage 9.999999999999999999999999999999999999% recurring the speed of light! If you could overtake that maybe the universe would seem to go backwards. They theorise Tachyons actually live on the other side of the light limit, so they exist in a backward universe.

So theres no going back to kill your grandad....So you wont exist ,so you can't kill your grandad, so you can exist and go back to kill your grandad ,so you wont exist, etc, etc ,as the 'good Doctor would say you 've created a 'time loop'. What would happen if you went back , met your grandparents to be and fell in love with your grandmother ,to be and 'you got together!'......So your seed was planted back 'in the day!'....What kind of time loop would that form?.....Maybe a time coil would've been better! 

ECLIPSE OF A SUPERMOON....FASTER THAN A SPEEDING COMET ; ABLE TO PASS A GIANT GAS PLANET IN A SINGLE ORBIT!

As our beloved lunar partner the MOON whizzes across the sky on any average night ,it always amazes me how billions of tons of rock is just drifting over our head. It is a quarter of a million miles away, so i feel fairly confident and secure in my bed that the lunar lump will stay up there.

There is a problem as all our happy smiling pretty lady and some men weather forcasters are constantly reminding us of an amazing and a rarely  occuring astronomical event was to take place last sunday night/monday morning. That billions of tons of  lunar rock is zooming intowards our  occupied billions and trillions of planetary rock and water . Suddenly that distant beautiful distant fixture in our skies becomes a very much bigger approaching figure in the sky.

The gravity builds up and the moon slurps up the oceans of water causing tidal effects all round the world.

Also ,ladies get on the scales as a few ounces may be lost as the lunar pull increases, it may be back tomorrow, but you can fool yourself for a night!

As the moon whizzes closer n' closer the lunar glow becomes a reddened glow ,causing religious nuts and nuts of varying causes ,codes and creeds to be convinced .."THIS IS THE END !!"

But as the Earth passed in front of our much to close Lunar friend the lovely blood red glow was covered by the eclipse ,but the awkward way of the universe caused this astronomical miracle to take place long after i'd gone to bed and dropped my Kindle to the floor as i fell into my unwakeable 8 hour kip....Even billions of tons of Lunar rock drifting 50 feet above the house couldn't wake me. 

The following day the Moon is zooming off into the vacumn of space back to it's normal parking space. It's always nice when billions of tons of rock is heading away from you and getting smaller all the time.

Some good pictures on the telly the following day, tho'....The best was the supermoon  with one of Liverpools' Liver birds in the foreground !....It's always a supermoon to me !

M.I.5.M.I.6.C.I.A.K.G.B.S.M.E.R.S.H.S.P.E.C.T.R.E.T.H.R.U.S.H....THE OTHER SIDE..AND THE TAXMAN?..NOT EASY BEING A SPY!

Spies are back ......Not that they ever really went away ,but the new JAMES BONDfilm  'S.P.E.C.T.R.E.' is on it's way in and sadly ,as i've not seen it and wanted to the new 'MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.'film is on it's way out! 

It's been strange as for many years all the film and telly spies have fought 'the other side in a quest for micro films and dots and killing enemy assassins , but spies were taking a back seat in their Austin Martins as the assassin took over the role of screen hero. Nowadays trained kickboxing killers are filling our screens. steely cold hard eyes and gutteral speech patterns are replacing the smooth ,suave ,sexy ,sharp quipping secret agents like Bond and Napoleon Solo.

No idea where the first spy came from. Maybe once upon a long time ago a lincon green clad English lad  by the name of Jameson of the Bond was dressed in animal furs given a horned metal helmet and paddled across the North Sea to infiltrate the Viking hoardes massing to invade our green n' pleasant land. I dont know how our first spy got his 'intel' scrolls back to 'YE OLDE M.I.6. but he didn't do too good as the viking hoardes hoarded over and gave us a good kicking and did stuff to the maidens fair ,of the day ,thats how some of us have viking blood coursing through us!

Through the years the spy has evolved from the sneaky slimey untrustworthy worm of the middle ages as seen in Robin Hood films and stuff like that as spies were always spying on the 'good guys' for the nasty king ,etc. As the centuries clicked by and the world became a bigger place and we discovered lots of new exciting enemies like the French and the Spanish spying became a lot more complicated and for the greater good of the country as the French and the Spanish as we all know can't be trusted and don't like the British 'cos we're much better than they are. So they decided to  rule all of Europe then invade us . I'm sure a spy discovered the plans for the SPANISH ARMADA and reported home .Things were a lot slower in them days so our spy got the Armada 'intel' back home to ye olde MI6 in a mere 6 months which was fine as the Armada probably took about 5 years to get prepared then 6 months to sail, so we just about managed to negate their head start and met them about half a mile out to sea and gave them a good kicking.

Spies came into their own and job centres all over 17 n' 18th century Britain were dragging people off their ye olde job seekers allowance to spy on the French and Spanish when a certain French dwarf decided to rule the world. Napoleon ,apparently he was fond of spies and lots of them galloped around Portugal ,etc gathering 'intel' for 'Boney!'. Watch any episode of Sharpe and you'll see what i mean.

Spies come in all shapes and sizes as we all know real spies are fit and incredibly handsome and irresistable to women . They travel the world on incredible expense accounts ,gambling ,eating and drinking the finest cuisine at the finest restaurants, hotels and casino's and oddly enough for SECRET AGENTS are known and recognised throughout the world?

It has been said that spies are trained to blend in and look normal and  not attract attention, be grey and go about their devious doings unoticed, but that wouldn't be much good for a film or telly series.

As we all know the enemy have what we call 'SLEEPERS' and what they do is settle down make a good old boring domestic life ,get a job ,maybe even raise a family waiting for a call from the 'motherland' through their 'Handler' who may drop them a coded letter or a phrase , a trigger for them to do what they were trained to do before they became domesticated ol farts like the rest of us. They may work in an office or the local chippy, but they have to inflict damage or kidnap ,or steal important documentation (maybe the new menu in the chippy!) for their masters in the Kremlin ,or wherever!

Through the years theres been lots of enemies. Traditionally , there was the Nazis' then the Russians and everybody in behind the IRON CURTAIN this was spying's glory years...Tons of countries whose names finished with SLAVIA, SLAV, BOSTOFF, etc ,etcOFF i honestly dont know which were real and which were made up, but every 'MAN FRO UNCLE and most tell y spies where in these places fighting the K.G.B. or  S.M.E.R.S.H. And there was East and West Berlin and the 'WALL'...That was a spies dream. But the spies who dealt with the wall were the more gritty ones HARRY PALMER and my favourite CALLAN. The film 'THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD'  with Richard Burton as an agent drinking himself senseless as he pretended to be braking down and pretending to defect....I could do that ,i think i've been doing it for years, qualified to be a spy ,thats me ,i reckon!

There was also the CHINESE and Asian ,all points East baddies. The spies didn't actually go there according to fiction ,but the Chinese were everywhere plotting to destroy the western devils with nuclear missiles in secret bases and nerve gasses ,whereas we Brits wouldn't do that sort of thing we just discovered their devious plans for world domination and stole the micro films. Fictional baddies were like Bond vs S.P.E.C.T.R.E. or U.N.C.L.E. vs T.H.R.U.S.H. ; Then many of the enemy agents were just 'THE OTHER SIDE!' Now we've dealt with all other points east ,it's the middle east popping up on the BADDIE NETWORK!

Our heroes would in the early days doff a mackintosh over coat ,hat and glasses and infiltrate 'The other side' for secret documents, then codes and their cyphers ; Then micro film came in with those clicky little cameras every spy had; Micro dots, i never quite figured out how you discovered which full stop in 'war and piece 'held the details of the Russian missile system. Now we've computer hard drives and those computer 'dongle' thingee's that drain all the info from computer hard drives. 

In old films and books the info was simple , but important, so the micro film was important for the freedom and safety of the west. Now they explain the wheeling and double dealings that take place with the politics and spy networks, just watch the average episode of 'SPOOKS' ...I love it....Can't understand it ,but still love it!

Nowadays spying looks decidedly nasty and dangerous ,as a kid i'd watch and dream of being a spy. In them days when they were captured ,which was every week , they were interrogated, not tortured ,interrogated. Our hero may get a blooded lip ,work up a sweat and you knew it was tough, esspecially when his tie was loosened and top button was undone. Now it's a good beating in the cellars of 'The other side ' Water boarding ,electric shocks, etc .....As we all know know our greatest enemy is our biggest ally!....The good ol' U.S.of A....The C.I.A. who seem to have their sticky fingers into everyones business and seem utterly ruthless.....The CIA make the soviets look like sweethearts. Assassinations ,drug running ,arms dealing with ...everybody on all sides...According to whatever you watch or read ,everybody is after their own agenda ,did they kill JFK?....Etc ,etc!  Do spies get the chance to retire or do they get 'removed', permanently?

One thing i never understood is how much and how does a spy get paid?....If an agent is undercover ,say in Russia , why don't the Russians just check his bank details.....£20,000/month from the Ministry of Defence....Bang!...Your dead, Tovarich!

The reason i wanted to be a spy was so i could wear a shoulder holster....Nowadays its not as cool as the automatic pistol is shoved down the back of the agents trousers, not half as good as the ol' shoulder holster.....At one point...Ok , i still do , i fancied adapting the shoulder holster for holding pens at a caricature gig!

I said before real spies come in all shapes and sizes ,but it's not just that ,you don't even have to be alive, possibly the best ,most successful agent was a dead body. An agent doesn't just steal 'intel' ,but can feed false 'intel' to the 'other side'! In 'OPERATION MINCEMEAT'...A body was washed up on the Spanish coast durring WW11 around 1942

with notes detailing the British intention to invade Greece and Sardinia which the Germans swallowed 'hook, line and sinker' ,whereas us crafty Brits were going to invade Scicily instead and up through Italy!....And a certain Mr IAN FLEMING was involved with that scheme!....Wonder what happened to him?

SUPER HEROES ,SUPER POWERS, SUPER SWINGERS AND SPANDEX UNDIES OUTSIDE THEIR TROUSERS????

 

I'm now sadly a middle aged ol' fart and my reading matter these days is reading comics on disc....I'm ploughing through decades of DC and MARVEL comics ,THE AVENGERS to AQUAMAN; SPIDERMAN TO SUPERMAN and THE X-MEN and the list goes on!....Sad and tragic?..Yes i know i've been told many times, butit keeps me happy ,so all you mature ,know it all friends and family.."Shut yer gob!"

The American idea that the world begins and ends at the borders of Manhatten and is filled to the gunnells with all kinds of super heroes ,good and diabollically evil, monsters ,alien races ,etc knocking 7 bells outta each other is fascinating. 

New York is the home of the skyscraper and is known as 'THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS!' Which is reasonable enough if you imagine yourself trying to sleep as THE INCREDIBLE HULK and GODZILLA are flattening skyscrapers ,THE X-MEN or THE AVENGERS are fighting mystic alien hordes at the bottom of your street most nights of the week.

The two main creators of our beloved SUPERHEROES are MARVEL and D.C. comics. Marvel tend to stick to 'Noo-YOIK!' while DC tend to have their 'heroes' in their home cities....BATMAN/GOTHAM ;   SUPERMAN/ METROPOLIS; THE GREEN ARROW/CENTRAL CITY; FLASH/STAR CITY. But the main thing is they are all based on 'THE BIG APPLE', the artists don't have to be too geographically or architecturally accurate, whereas Marvels may be able to take liberties, but only sometimes.

It amazes me how old some of these characters are ,most of the existed popular ones sold even today ,came about in the early 60's SPIDERMAN,THE X-MEN,FANTASTIC 4, etc and many DC guys n' super gals. But the biggies SUPERMAN, BATMAN, CAPTAIN AMERICA ,jeez!..They came out in the 30'-40's

DC were a bit more traditional and BATMANwas a masked detective ,but their superheroes tended to be from outer space. Whereas those whizz bang futuristic new boys at Marvel went for the exposure to radiation angle . In the MIGHTY MARVEL UNIVERSE if you were exposed to cosmic or gamma rays ,they always seemed to be the favourite forms of radiation at Marvel....Whereas you or me would be irradiated and suffer agonising illnesses and certain death they would be endowed with super powers.....Force beams from your eyes;Super strength ; Turn into the biggest ,greenest man in ripped trousers; Given the proportionate strength ,speed n' reflexes of a spider; Even fly; Turn into an elasticated stretchy man ,etc,etc.....

When i was a kid there was a few heroes without super powers ,to which i would groan with bored disgust. But one of the all-time classic comic characters is BATMAN and he's a self trained super detective, and his history of stories and villians are known to all even those who dont read comics. So i bite my middle aged tongue and say some of these athletic non super heroes are great. They were often trained for years in lost temples in the himalayas or by lone masters living in the middle of nowhere....Theres nobody like that or mystic temples in Warrington so i don't s'pose i'll be a hero around here!

BATMAN is an interesting character and has been around with his trusty sidekick ROBIN since he was a small minor character in DETECTIVE COMICS no:27 then there was no looking back. He was made into a few American black n' white telly serials and on the radio. In the 1960's a television version starring ADAM WEST hit the tellys of our green n' pleasant land. Everybody of a certain age can still hum the dynamic theme tune and had a toy BATMOBILE as a kid! It was on over two nights ,always with a cliffhangar and a fight with the baddies along with graphic comic sound effects on screen like ...POW!..SOCK!...KERSMACK!...ZINGO!....

It was played totally camp with tongue firmly in cheek and it was wonderful. All kinds of celebrities wanted to appear as baddies or to make appearences in the legendary Batman and Robin walking with the aid of the BATARANG and BATROPE up the side of a skyscraper, celebrities would hang out of the window holding conversations with the 'DYNAMIC DUO!'...Great stuff!...The silliness and campness may have damaged the comics ,etc, but later the character became very grim and dark indeed in comic and in film beating the shit out of the nasty underworld of GOTHAM CITY swooping out of the darkness from his grapling hook and line the trusty batarang!


Various heroes can fly ,but the other mode beloved of those sad one who can't is 'swinging!....These swingers have a variety of shooting lines between skyscrapers and swooping between them or grabbing a flagpole as every skyscraper in the US has a handy flagpole. BATMAN has his Batarang and ropes all tucked up in his UTILITY BELT. The GREEN ARROW fires his bow n' arrow firing an arrow into a building wall and using them as a zip line. DAREDEVIL who was blinded by radioactive chemicals which enhanced his senses and gave him a form of radar sense he has what the yanks call a 'BILLY CLUB' but it has a line for all those flagpoles.

SPIDERMAN'S alter-ego was a scientific genius PETER PARKER who created this incredibly strong elasticated web fluid and web shooters to fire them at skyscrapers up the Avenue. I wondered did they ever shoot a bit too far so when they swang did they ever swing down too far and scrape their spandex drawers on the road tarmac or smack into a truck or a car!

The real daddy of the heroes is SUPERMAN, he is so powerful he can push planets out of orbit and fly into the core of the sun just to light a ciggie ,if ,god forbid he had bad habits like smoking. He could fire heat beams ,x rays ,telescopic rays from his eyes . He could freeze deserts with his breath , he was totally invulnerable . I wonder how he controlled that almost infinite strength ,if he shook your hand would you ever play the piano again? If him and his lady, LOIS LANE ever 'got to it!' how would she survive? I believe in the later comics Superman and WONDER WOMAN got together ,i'd imagine she could handle our man from KRYPTON.

SUPERMAN is the one who created all the od superhero cliches, the changing in the phonebox, the tearing the shirt oen to reveal his costume. Mobile phones have got rid of phoneboxes ,so our heroes have nowhere for the quick change to save the world ...So if the world isn't saved it's your fault for having a mobile texting all day n' night, while diabolical evil geniuses and super villians overun the planet.

Maybe public toilets can take the phone booth's place , but maybe  all those strange fellahs arrested in public toilets are superheroes trying to save the world....Maybe George Michael is a superhero and thats why he got arrested in so many!

SIR MACCA'S BACK HOME IN LIVEROOL AT LAST, GOOD ON YER 'R' KID!

Possibly the most famous man on the planet and he's a SCOUSER'!....Which seems perfectly reasonable to me.....MR /PAUL (SIR MACCA) McCARTNEY once of a poular little beat combo that went by the name of 'THE SILVER BEATLES' when they wore leather cloths and greased hair in the strip joints of the Reeperbaum in the naughty red lit streets of Hamburg where they played almost constantly and got the hang of playing this ROCK N' ROLL stuff. Coming back home playing around various clubs n' boozers sleeping in vans before getting a posh manager who smartened them up much to the orgasmic pleasure of the growing numbers of screaming female n' male fans as they played in a grotty little warehous in a grotty cobbled little back street ...THE CAVERN in MATTHEW STREET in the fair city of LIVERPOOL.

50-Very -odd years have passed and MATTHEW ST and the CAVERN is one of the worlds major tourist sites from a world still full of BEATLES(the SILVER was dropped) manic fans.....No other band in the world can claim to illicit the fervour displayed by so many of all ages at any time during or after their career any where or anytime on the planet. The old boozers where they drank are still there, some with 'the lads 'scribbles on the wall. THE GRAPES was right opposite the CAVERN, many bands ,THE WHO,THE STONES ,etc all dropped in for 'a few scoops!', to sit there is amazing ,the history of a time long gone ,i once spent an afternoon having a skinful and a gab with ALAN WILLIAMS the BEATLES first manager and BOB WOOLER the DJ of the CAVERN ,a fascinating ,drunken afternoon.....Much to my disgust theres a karioke there now instead of Macca n' Lennon swopping ideas.

As we all know JOHN LENNON and GEORGE HARRISON died tragically leaving RINGO STARR, whom gets a lot of stick ,maybe as he's not the rock drummer we are all accustomed to, but he was a skilled talented drummer who drummed on the finest songs ever recorded for the finest band ever ,so he can't be too bad. He's travelling the world with his 'BLUES BAND' telling how PAUL McCARTNEY actually did die all those years ago and was replaced by a look-alike BILLY SHEARS who is the guy we've really been listening to all these years. He's also the reason for the BEATLES bust up ,as LENNONdidn't get on too well with the imposter SHEARS!

But BILLY SHEARS or PAUL McCARTNEY, we'll call him Paul McCartney ,i think for ease! SIR MACCA, his official LIVERPOOL title ,cos the Queen invited him to 'er 'ouse!' for some 'sarnies' n' a bevy! Macca's always loved playing live and has never stopped ,way back to his WINGS days where this superstar ,bored, wanting to get back on the road ,jumped into a truck with his new band and literally turned up at collages and universities and offered"to play that night!"...Slightly gobsmacked student union staff ...."...Er go on then?" I will always love him for that!

He's beenhome this week. ,As my other hero ,MR PETE TOWNSHEND once described it "It's great to be back in the MERSEY MUD!".....Sir Macca was back in the MERSEY MUD. In the massive ECHO ARENA which now stands on what used to be the KINGS DOCK which is where i saw 'The Man' out in the open sunshine and it was a joy....I'll never forget 'LIVE AND LET DIE' i'd never seen it live with the fireworks and explosions...Wonderful!

All the reviews of his tour and the LIVERPOOL shows were all 5-stars, he even let a couple propose marriage on stage with him.....is that not a story to bore the arse of everybody for ....Well ever!

He told stories of 'the early days' and his Liverool days much to the joy of the Liverpool audience. I read of his trip from JOHN LENNON airport through SPEKEand GARSTON his and GEORGE HARRISON'S childhood home and stomping ground, all familiar sights as he drove into town, i'd say a few tears were shed.

You can't knock the fellah for lack of effort ,as he was up for over 3 hours and 38-40 songs were performed, thats not bad, boss !

Not bad 'r' kid! 

SEPP BLATTER THE HONEST ,PURE AS THE DRIVEN SNOW GODFATHER OF THE MAFIFA.....(Joke courtesy of my mate Graham (Hit man)Fowell...So don't blame me!)

                                                                         

                                                                          Over the years the so called beautiful game ,our main national sport ,soccer ,footy, whatever you want to call it has been the passion of many working class men all over our green n' pleasant land. In the old days ,i remember the 60's up until the 80's the game was watched by fellahs who paid a respectable price for a match ticket and had a couple of pints and a pie at the ground and pee'ed in the pocket of the poor sod in front who was probably crushed up against the crash barriers that kept the crowd fairly stable and he was probably peeing in the pocket of the fellah in front of the barrier who was under no pressure and was lounging comfortably against it puffing away on his ciggie. The players were ,in those days not particually well paid and used to have testemonial games towards the end of their carreers to help start a business ,or run a pub ,or something in their 'retirement' years as their late 30's drew close. Players didn't move around that much and a side could have virtually the same squad for ten years ,or so. I remember the evolution of the great 60's LIVERPOOL side into slowly into the great 70's LIVERPOOL side, then a slight press 'on the gas' and the slightly faster evolution into the great 80's LIVERPOOL side. After that you had to have a photographic memory to keep up with the players coming and going and computer like grasp of mathmatics to keep up with transfer fees and with the introduction of agents wages soared and ,despite what they said about being true to their club and giving younger players a chance and facing new challanges ,etc,etc, it was money ,pure and simple.

On the international scene players played for the honour of playing for their country, look at the heroes of 1966, the great players, none of them refused to play in case it interferred with their clubs league ambitions, etc. There was a purity and schoolboy honesty and naivety which has all but gone now.

No doubt naughty dealings, etc have always gone on through the years, but these days ,well ,'WOW!' As i said the players are all ridiculously paid club hopping foreigners in grounds full of corporate booths full of canopies and 'champers for company clients and celebrities, the grounds have expanded ,all seated to drag ridiculous numbers of fans who's dedication which has often reached back for generations binds them to 'their' club and is how the clubs screw these 'true fans blind' with the ridiculous prices of match tickets week in and week out. The whole thing stinks.

The international scene is run by a proud noble organisation called FIFA they make the decisions and organise international competitions like that little tournament called THE WORLD CUP. Only a few years ago all the prospective countries put in their bid to host the next world cup. Apparently the U.K. put in a really good bid and was a tip top favourite to host the tournament, but were unceremoniously kicked out of the 'offing' and forgotten .It went to a place Quataar ,(i think)....A lovely place in the middle of the desert where even in the depths of winter temperatures are close to the boiling point of  water. Nobody could believe it and accusations of corruption,bribes and general naughty doings being afoot were hurled around. They said they'd play it around Christmas time as its cool ,the fact that it is also the middle of most northern hemispheres season wasn't really mentioned. The other country to get a World cup is Russia ,where even in the middle of summer it's cold enough to freeze nitrogen.

Everybody in the world thinks FIFA is rotten and the guy who runs it ,an obnoxious little turd by the name of SEPP BLATTER who hates the BRITS with a vengeance is the man who makes the decisions for this rotten sporting MAFIFA!.....Any doubts were shattered in the week by the F.B.I. busting the men at the top for corruption ,fraud, bribery ,etc of magnificently ridiculous proportions over the last 3-4 decades....Thats a lot of kickbacks ,nothing has been levelled at BLATTER, but you cannot run an organisation this rotten and not notice a few little discrepencies as you travel the world in untold luxury with ridiculously rich and 'connected' people.

He's been voted back in ,Russia, PUTIN and the RUSSIAN MAFIA like him and the African states love him, but them goverments wouldn't know anything about corruption n' stuff would they? But SEPP BLATTER is back to sort out this terrible situation .....Hmmmm?

IF YOU HAD THE CHOICE WOULD YOU SHAKE THE HAND OR THE THROAT OF SOMEONE INVOLVED IN BLOWING A RELATIVE TO SMITHEREENS?

Yesterday ol' PRINCE CHARLIE went over to IRELAND and quoting an Irish news paper journalist and editor, GERRY ADAMS  who ,apparently is always on the hunt for a photo oppertunity and "would upstage the bride at her wedding"given half a chance, decided he would show up and  instigate the most famous handshake in recent history. I don't know if that was the plan all along ,or just 'happened' ...... As we all know the leader of SINN FEIN ,who as we all know had absolutly nothing at all to do with the I.R.A. during 'DE TRUBLES!!'......The horrendous years from the late 60's up until relatively recently, in fact some still think the good fight still, if not rages ,smoulders on. Adams met with CHARLES who was over to see the site where his favourite relative ,mentor and godfather ,LORD MOUNTBATTEN was blown to smithereens by an IRA bomb on his fishing boat one sunny afternoon in the late 70's. And on that same tragic day a pile of men of the parachute battalion were killed.

So the man who 'had nothing to do with any of this !'....Met the still grieving relative and he is also the colonel in cheif of the para's ,so it was a double whammy for CHARLES . So if Charles had shook Adams by the throat who'd've blamed him. 

I'm not particually a ROYALIST, but i do like and admire the ROYAL FAMILY and think we should be proud to have them. I like Charles ,he has his own mind and as he showed yesterday he has courage and strength.

I remember growing up during the 'Troubles' and the horrors that occurred on an almost daily basis. As my family are Irish i spent a lot of time over there and in as i got older and my beer intake grew with the size of my mouth got into rows and arguements with people about it. I saw a few army disposal robots blowing packages up on the streets of Liverpool, so it wasn't that far away.

Also found myself one day in an IRA rally as they took over a shop in O'CONNELL ST in central DUBLIN and i'm there with a new short haircut and an old BRITISH ARMY COMBAT JACKET!!!!....But i survived.

When the hunger striker BOBBY SANDS died i was in a village where the family hail from called COOTEHILL in the south and just slurping a pint in the sunshine (it does shine sometimes)  and i noticed two men in black ,mean looking and dropping into shops up and down the street ,they just looked odd. I later found out they were a couple of 'THE BOYS'..suggesting it might be a good idea to close up shop as a mark of respect on the day of the funeral.....It was reported how shops all over the south closed 'as a mark of respect!'....Thats as near as i wanted to get to any of 'the shit!'

Life seems to be relatively normal ,thankfully ,i can't pretend to understand all what went on and don't particually want to. People say "Give Ireland back to the Irish!?"....Seems to me they have it in the south, its up in the North where Loyalists and Republicans want totally opposite things and Britains stuck there basically, wether it likes it or not!

"WOKE UP THIS MORNIN'.....AND THE KING OF THE BLUES , B.B.KING WAS DEAD!"

Over the last few years i've got quite fond of 'DA BLOOS!' music......My love of 'THE BLUES' is, alas not shared by my beloved missus ,the LOVELY LYNNE..... she can't stand it. But i have to admit to a fondness indeed from early ROBERT JOHNSON, to  MUDDY WATERS to B.B.KING (gawd bless 'im!).....To HOWLING WOLF ,to BUDDY GUY and SEASICK STEVE, etc......

I got to like it when i heard the gravel voice and gravelly chuckling of JOHN LEE HOOKER when he apeared on an album by PETE TOWNSHEND...THE IRON MAN based on the poem by TED HUGHES. So i got an album and enjoyed a few compilations ,preferring the so called 'ELECTRIC BLUES', but still like the harmonica and 'traditional' stuff. I currently am spellbound by BUDDY GUY, his blistering guitar stuff with a beautiful powerful voice which reminds me a little of TOM JONES which i mean as a compliment.

The giants of the blues crossing the old days through to modern times are possibly MUDDY WATERS  and B.B. KING, these ol fellahs showed the rock stars from the 60's on 'till now 'how it's done!'Everything from pop music to hard rock ,heavy metal and prog rock all spawned from the blues and these 'ol fellahs', who started in huts in cotton plantations in places like Mississippi ,and had a real bad time of it and armed with an old guitar played for buttons in clubs, bars, speakeasies,brothels ,etc constantly playing the soundtrack to America's 20th century, eventually getting the recognition the wholly deserved and Playing trendy places like GLASTONBURY and wowing the crowds and the cool groovy ,pain in the arse Radio 1 DJ's.

B.B.KING died the other day. The man used to play hundreds of gigs every year and never really left 'the road'....It was also said ,and admitted by himself that he couldn't play the guitar properly, he reckoned his skill was because he always played out of tune . I couldnt tell you ,but it sounded good to me.

The masters and true artists are diminishing as time wears on , but not to worry i'm sure the next king of the blues will be found on the X-FACTOR.

NEVER CRACK YOUR KNUCKLES WHEN PEOPLE ARE DOING STRETCHING EXCERCISES!

 Years and years ago in the 1970's i started KARATE training.....When you went into the school gymn we would immediatly start warming up excercises which included a variety of stretching excercises. These consisted of spreading and bending the legs and hips in a variety of cringe forming positions of a totally unatural positions and then once you'd forced yourself into this god awful ,painful position , you then started bouncing to force yourself further into the position to pull the ligaments and tendons. And to add to the fun and twanging tendons ,clicking knees and hips we would have a fun-packed time as partners would press you down into the splits leaning on your shoulders or as you lent against a wall with your leg in the air in front or to the side, they would put their shoulder under and push them further up.....Oh happy days!

I was always able to kick to head height insofar as i'm physically a short arse , with short stubby legs. Many of my fellow Karatekas were able to do the splits and the longer limbed had amazing kicking abilities, but to this day i still cannot do the splits, but could deliver a hefty boot within the limits of my god-taken limited reach.

The funny thing was before i did any training i had to do this 10-20 minute warm up, but when i walked about my hips often felt quite stiff. But the fun started with my knees. Whenever i knelt down my knees used to click horrendously.......I remember looking at the magazines in a branch of W.H.SMITHS.....I wasn't looking at the high level mags, but the comics at the bottom.....I knelt down and this 'K-K-KRACK!!!!' as my knees cracked horribly!.......Everybody in the shop went into a hyper-cringe mode, they looked at me with horror and wondered how a young fit looking teenager could be racked with arthritis and rheumatism!....I shruggled and smiled with a slight touch of embarressment and left the shop.

The funny thing is that when i went to live in India i was introduced to TAI-CHI by SENSEI SUBRAMANYAN. This introduction shaped my KARATE and changed my life as after a few years i'd learnt a lot from the slow relaxed movement of the TAI-CHI and the great MASTER KANAZAWA one of the true masters whom i had the pleasure of meeting on a couple of occassions and he'd studied TAI-CHI with his KARATE for many years and introduced me to the benefits of relaxed movement with proper breathing. A TAI-CHI sifu, MR WONG in KUALUR LUMPUR explained breathing to me and when we stretched instead of the tendon twanging ligament tugging bouncing stuff we would adopt a position and gently stretch using deep breathing.

When i came home and wasn't able to train at various clubs due to transport difficulties i started traing in my Karate moves and techniques in a slow relaxed Tai-Chi way ,concenterating on breathing . When i trained in a club i just did as i was told and would punch and kick with full power ,grunting and yelling like you'd expect. But the time by myself  i suddenly began to understand stuff i'd taken for granted for all my life, why did i have to do this or that , when i did this or that?.....But now i'm nearly 55 , i'm faster and more powerful and more supple than i've ever been ....No cracking, clicking joints.

Slower is faster....Gentler is stronger....The mystical internal energy ,CHI, if you like is all in the breathing, it all hinges on the breathing.....Just stop breathing for 10 minutes and see how you feel!

THIS SPORTING LAND.....????.....SPORT IS A WAY FOR PSYCHOTIC NUTTERS TO ENJOY THEMSELVES!!!!

 THE SLIDE TACKLE !

When you think of sport you mainly think of the three sporting staples for your average
Englishman....Football!....Or "SARKER!" as our beloved cousins across the pond like to call it. They have their own FOOTBALL where the dress up like the cast of IRON MAN 3 and play ,being Americans too the micro second as measured on an atomic clock in the super stadium, so when they tackle each other and it looks looks and sounds like them massive police car pile ups from the car chases beloved by Hollywood in billions of  action films , every second is accounted for so it's possible that a score can be 'scored'(Converted/ touched down ??) in the last 0.0000235 of a second of  time. The good ol' British version of FOOTBALL, properly spelt and pronounced "SOCCER!", or as civilised fans of 'The beautiful game in the fair city of Liverpool, where we have a number of decent teams would refer to it as,"DE FOOTY!" if your watching it ,say 'On the telly'...."Going to watch de footy, down the boozer!".....Or if your a bit more serious going "DE MATCH!" and occassionally a "DE GAME!"...As in "didj'ya see de game?"

          Our FOOTY is different to the Yanks Football as the nearest we have to their very odd idea of a game which is only played by them even though they think it's a globally loved game ,even though nobody on the planet has a clue what the fascination is with it and it is globally resented that the Americans call their big championship games things like 'THE WORLD SERIES????'.....We have a wonderful game called RUGBY where rough tough battered looking fellahs basically fill the pitch and amongst the mass of broken bodies is an oval ball which has to be retrieved by the opposing sides so the can run away to the far end of the pitch to score a try by putting the ball on the floor ,sounds simple ,but as is always the case theres about  between 14-16 big mean hefty looking monsters who dont agree with your intentions and want to stop you in the most painful bone shuddering ways they can. For a game that when you look at it is remarkably stupid in so far its a way of scoring points while keeping your skeletal system in roughly one piece, often unsuccessfully, the players are generally highly intelligent fellahs, admittedly the faces :scars, beaten eye brows ,broken noses and cauliflower ears may give them a slightly Prehistoric caveman look, but most have careers and basically are smart!....They say "Rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen?"

               The 'Footy!' was once a 'mans game', the stuff of comic book heroes in 'TheVICTOR,the HOTSPUR, characters like 'ROY OF THE ROVERS!' decent proud and could hoof an old style leather caseball the length of the pitch and still burst the net at the other end!......In real life we had our 1966 world cup squad with BOBBY MOORES; GEOFF HURSTS; BOBBY CHARLTONS, ROGER HUNTS(One of Liverpools all time greats!)....They played in old leather boots ,in thick mud and went "They dun their foot in!" in a vicious tackle, which were allowed in them days all the had to get them up was an old trainer in a wooly bob-hat and a rusty bucket of freezing cold water with a freezing sponge to slap on the injury....Even broken legs didn't stop our heroes leaping to their feet rather than face the dreaded cold sponge. Nowadays the ball is plastic ,almost ballon like so when given a good whack with the new trendy pink or silver boots worn and promoted by all our new foreign players pushing 'Their ranges ' of clothing, scents and sporting goods, occassionally!...The ball goes sailing up into the stratoshere, so they have to side foot the ball, none of your 30 yard Bobby Charlton blasts with the instep , back in the days when games used to have scores of 6,7 or8 goals in a game when it was slower, but enabled superb talents to dribble in the box, No GEORGE BESTS, KEVIN KEEGANS, ROGER HUNTS, ETC, ETC now as the game is too fast, and its against the rules to tackle!!???....Players do their own stunts and dives and fall and fall flat if they get a dirty look , Nobody "oes their foot in!",anymore ,they all amage tarsals n' meta tarsels,  Groins get a lot of grief, but thats probably nothing to do with the 'Footy' or training ,its out spending their £5000000000/week wages in the best places , you wont see 'the advertising hoardings who are our childrens heroes down the local 'boozer!'.....I hate it now ,i really do!, the say about the 'Footy'...."It's a game for gentlemen played by hooligans!"

                 I was never a fan of cricket and was terriffied on the few occassions i played ,once i got the ball in the face and once on my knee ,i've never felt pain like it i was sure i'd busted my leg. The game was the most vicious of the three as the idea was for the bowler to 'get the batsman out!' any way he could only armed with a rock hard cricket ball that he's trained for years to throw at amazing speeds with a variety of sneaky ,tricky spins and turns to make it impossible for the batsman to defend himself....The bowler gets the batsman in his sights and has a run up to add to his power and it is nothing more or less than to kill the target!......Than if he doesn't manage to do that , they go through it all again and so it goes on for days and weeks. When i lived in India i got interested in the Cricket as it's an obsession over there, the kids don't play 'Footy!' ,they play cricket on patches of wasteland ,or wherever they can.  I always wonder how some of the crowd dont get killed or seriously hurt ,when the batsman whacks the killer projectile out of the ground ,for a six!...A bit of cricketing parlance for you there....But the ball sails high into the crowd and it must ,on occassions smash into somebodies gob as they watch the game in fascination and go "OOOOOhhhhhh!" at the cracker of a shot thats "Jus' gotts be a 6!"....Leaving their teeth behind in the stadium, if it's not severe concussion.

DO ALL YOU OLD SCHOOLBOYS REMEMBER CONVERSATIONS THAT WENT LIKE THIS:"GOT!GOT!GOT!..NOT GOT!..GOT!..NOT GOT!"..Ad infinitum!

All schoolboys of a time long gone who are now middle aged ol' farts remember when they all collected 'CARDS!'....A collection of various heroes ,TARZAN,BATMAN,etc and various telly series ,'THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.'. etc Even tea had cards, in the packet 'P.G.TIPS used to regulary do it. In fact i still have 'THE RACE INTO SPACE' collection and album, as well as the 'SUN' newspaper's 3D football slbum with a wonderful RIGBY cartoon in it which i still have the remains of.

Every playground used to have groups of schoolboys huddled together as one of them with the cards flicking through them like an old western card shark, like Doc Halliday playing poker in Dodge City. The other lads peering 'goggle-eyed' at the collection whizzing past their eyes, but the main thing was the mode of communication was the thing that everybody remembers. This was brought back to me by way of   an advert for something on the radio and some kid was doing this ,which brought these wonderful memories tumbling back and had me laughing like an idiot on and off throughout the day!

Remember the cards came out and the lightening shuffle started ,but you kept up with ease telling which you had and didn't have ,so you could 'DO SWOPSIES!'....It was simply......"got! got! got!got!..not got!...not got! got!got!got!got!got!   not got! got!got!got!  not got!..not got!..not got!..not got!got! got!got!got!got!..not got!got!got!got!got!got!got!got!got...Not got!...got!..not got!..Not got!..not got!...not got!..got!got!got!..not got!..got!got!got!got!got!got!..not got!got!got!...not got!  got!..not got!..got!got!got!got!...not got!..not got!..not got!  got!got!got!got!not got!  got! got! got!got!got!  not got!got!.......And on it goes,or went, the excitment of this business transaction was palpable, Scabby sweaty, snotty schoolboys were bad enough, but scabby,sweaty,snotty,highly excited school boys were even worse...Ah happy days weren't we sad n' simple with our cards n' comics!

WOMEN SHOULD WEIGH THEMSELVES WHEN A GIANT ASTEROID IS FLYING PAST THE EARTH !

As every man on gods planet knows the lady in his life is always getting fat,putting on weight and weighing too much and has to lose a bit of excess baggage. There's no point argueing although you are expected to, if you disagree your talking absolute rubbish and don't have a clue what your talking about. God forbid if you agree your in dead trouble, my son!... So you can't win. The carpets around the house depending where they are show a little bit of wear and tear as they are constantly getting stood on. There is another really badly battered 12 inch by 12 inch patch that suffers from constant standing upon and that is the top of the bathroom scales in the bathroom. This is  where the love of your life peers intently studying the number of pounds or grams on the scales dial like a scientific experiment check of results to determine the difference from the last time they stood on the device only to normally have their heart broken and ego destroyed.

The Earth is a massive lump of rock and as Mr EINSTEIN told us massive objects have a suction pulling us in called GRAVITY. The planet is relatively circular and a womans weight would be roughly the same anywhere on the planet. But imagine if there was fluctuations in the GRAVITATIONAL FIELD ....If there was a country where the field was weaker and women weighed a lot less that place would be the most popular place for women to visit .....Due to this reason, the influx of weight concious women flooding this 'place '..There tourist trade would go through the roof, with the ladies and a few less weight concious blokes might find their way there for their own odious schemes and reasons involing the ladies. The other booming industry for this part of the world would be for BATHROOM SCALES...The ladies wouldn't be able to spend enough time on them.

On the odd ocassion a giant spinning lump of rock called an asteroid comes barrelling through the vacumn of space and skims by our beloved home planet. The asteroids are nowhere the size of the Earth , but a fair size and the odd collision through history has caused a mighty 'thwack' on the planet. One when the Earth was forming Hit the Earth and knocked a chunk out which formed our moon. Another destroyed most of the life on the planet ,mainly the dinosaurs. In the early 19th century an exploding asteroid flattened 500 square miles of trees in a huge forest in a region called TANGUSKA in Russia. Thankfully the destruction caused by this space debris seems to be falling ferocity and devastation ,in fact the effect of the next could benothing more than a slight effect on bathroom scales around the world!

As the asteroids pass as one did only the other day, it must interfere with the Earths Gravitational field, weakening it slightly....So if in the bathroom the drops from the taps seem to drip slower or the edge of the bog paper doesnt hang down vertically or is horizontally level or even drifting verticlly up these are signs of fluctuations in the gravitational field. So as the asteroid flies over your housing estate get on the bathroom scales and hopefully this force from space will have the weighing pointer dropping to the safe welcoming left side of the dial so a few pounds are lost due to these cosmic forces from millions of light years away, so for a while your excess weight is 'LOST IN SPACE!'.

You dont have to hold your tummy in waiting for another asteroid to come tumbling from the KYPER BELT on the outer fringes of the solar system intowards us in the cosy sun-kissed centre, we have our beloved moon which as it also pulls on the Earth it pulls the oceans up towards it ,thats what causes the tides....If the Moon can pull the Pacific Ocean up towards itself it can pull a few pounds off your bathroom scales.

TO LIVE LIFE TO THE FULL YOU MUST LIVE EVERY NIGHT SITTING FLICKING THROUGH THE SHIT ON THE TELLY CHANNELS AS IF IT WAS YOUR LAST!

                                                                              To live life to the full you must live every evening flicking through the shit on the endless telly channels as your last!
       My missus the 'Lovely Lynne' works down in Birmingham all week and comes home at the weekend and quite often plays with the MANCHESTER SKA FOUNDATION band out and about,which she enjoys greatly, they are a popular bunch and have quite a following and are getting a lot of 'gig' work. The longest we spend together is going shopping at ASDA on a Sunday afternoon.

The Big 'Little 'un' is normally like every kid her age in another room ,texting away on phones or lap tops or ear phoned up so anything short of a nuclear explosion  wouldn't have a cat in hells chance of attracting her attention.

Me n' the dog have the living room to ourselves and the universe of choice that SKY telly has to offer....A mass of channels with absolutly nothing on,except some real shite. Now our telly has all the mod cons so i can record shite ;I can get shite ,on demand: I can buy or rent shite.

I 've even started reading again, normally it was just in bed ,but now in the evening , I feel like Ken Barlow on 'Corrie' as he is always sat reading a 'tome'.....I'm also ploughing through a heap of comics i have on disc...Marvel and DC ,but old stuff like TV21; VALIAN; LION;VICTOR and a heap of stuff  which have brought the schoolboy back out of this 54 year old fart and thats fine by me!

Me n' the dog sit together and discuss the affairs of the day ,i am getting worried as he's starting to make sense ,in fact more sense than me!

   

WHO SAYS DALEKS AREN'T 'FUNKY'...THE SKA-LEKS FROM SKA-RO CAN EXTERMINATE AND SKANK!

A wee while before the extreme excesses of the festive season kicked in proper i accompanied my missus 'The Lovely Lynne' to a very strange boozer in Oldham in manchester to see her and the rest of the hooligans and nutters that comprise the MANCHESTER SKA FOUNDATION play a 'gig'...The pub was called a very un-pub like name...AREA 51. Which as any UFO /X-FILES buff will know is where the yanks keep all the crashed alien space ships and flying saucers as well as their alien crew members who graciously help our transatlantic cuzn's to develop weapons based on alien technology. Whereas the real AREA 51 is in the middle of the desert, our AREA 51 was down a cobbled side street round the corner from some kebab and fried chicken shops which i wouldn't have been too suprised to discover had their origins in some dead alien crew members, i'm not too well up on how many alien ships make the journey across billions of light years to land in that region, but looking at a few of the people ....Quite a few!

THE MANCHESTER SKA FOUNDATION are a really good Ska cover band ,(MADNESS, THE SPECIALS,etc) and have a really good following who do follow them around quite big distances . I've gotten to know quite a few of them ,all lovely people, but totally nuts!...I looked to the side and there was a full size DOCTOR WHO'S T.A.R.D.I.S. I thought, "My the bands reputation is spreading!" I mean the good Doctor has Gasped n' Wheezed his way through time and space to get to a little back street gig.

Even more incredulous, alongside was a real genuine DALEK...It's true music can bring people together ,even eccentric time lords and gooey slimey globules with a sore throat and lousy singing voice that live inside giant pepper pots.

But the love of music didn't end there ,as alongside was a real CYBERMAN standing placidly by his worstest enemies in the whole galaxy

It didn't end there as alongside them minding his own buisness was 'ROBBY THE ROBOT' from 'LOST IN SPACE'.....He'd found his way through space ,but was lost in Oldham, don't ask me which is better or worse.  Oldham and the AREA 51 started to pale as it proved absolutly impossible to get served at the bar. Our interstellar Ska-Fans mustn't be drinkers as they placidly stood and listened to the 'gig', meanwhile there was almost mass 'Exterminations!' at the bar as people were trying and failing miserably to get served.

Although the T.A.R.D.I.S. was there, there was no sign of the DOCTOR. I think he was inside sulking....He'd travelled through billions of years , billions of light years and couldn't even get a bloody pint of GUINNESS at the end !