FATHERS : REMEMBER WHEN DADS LOOKED LIKE DADS , BEFORE THE CARDIGAN MARKET CRASHED !

Add caption

When i was a kid , my dad was the oldest man alive. He was that monsterous age of 30 when he took delivery me with a little help from me mam !....When i was 10 , he was 40....And still alive at that incredible age. It seems very strange now , i'm 57 not becoming a dad until i was in the last flagging days of my 30's. The daughter thinks i'm a miserable old fart ,but as to wether she thinks of me as the oldest miserable fart in the world i don't know, but i wouldn't be suprised.

In the old days couples fell in love and 'courted!'....After a long time their engagement followed by years of innocent romance then marriage and eventually the happy couple would have the post marriage 'filling of the boots' and eventually the kids'd start tumbling out. 

In them far flung innocent times dads were a lot older and looked it and wore ties around the house, as well as puffing on ciggies as they slobbed on the couch puffing on their fags in cardigan n' slippers. Then in years later they'd evolve into grandads often swapping the ciggies for a constantly smoking pipe. My dad never got to that stage ,as after a brief sojurn at her Majesty's pleasure in Strangeways Prison in Manchester he started smoking 'Rollies'...Whereas ciggies ,smouldered ,rollies fizzled like fuse wire, ash tumbling onto his lap as he frantically rolled the next one. They used to say 'Rollies' were made from dog shit n' bus tickets !.....There was a bloody good reason for that !

The years passed on and the young lovers got younger and the period of courting got shorter and dissappeared as the 'filling of the boots ' phase came around much earlier and marriages had to be hurriedly arranged before the 'signs' of the forthcoming sprog became too apparent and shame was averted. Later in the marital evolution , the birth was before the wedding , couples getting younger and younger. Now the parents are about the age of what would've been an elder brother or sister.

When we were kids we were never in the house and dads were kept from daughters ,girl problems , but were given responsibility for the boys , who are just trouble. Dads were wise and knew everything as i wasn't bothered about learning and knowledge as i just wanted to be outside running around the streets.

When we got into trouble ,i'd get a good smack off me 'awl fellah!'...Didn't bother me and i looked foreward to the day when i'd have darling kids of my own i could kick the living daylight out of ,but we live in enlightened times and we're not allowed to raise our hands....Life can be so unfair!

Nowadays the computer generation is upon us and my generation have been left way behind by our housebound computer game ,playing ,texting kids. My daughter thinks i'm a brainless turd . If i ask her to give me a hand ,you can hear the sighs, tsks ,and various respiratory sounds of impatience , like the boiler of an average steam locomotive....This combined with almost impossible rolling of bulging eyeballs....Dads are firmly in their place . In our house it was ...

1) The Dog

2)the kid

3)the missus...

...........

............

.............

.............

4) Dad

Nowadays trendy young dads are equally gened up on computers and social media ,etc. In shopping malls families aren't a couple with screaming kids , but all quiet as they mooch around all texting, so all is peace n' quiet. So daddy isn't important at all, just supplying new computer games when needed. They look smart n' trendy with tight fitting jeans and trainers ,n' footy shirt. 

The days of proper dads and dads looking like proper dads may have changed with the changing social climate and the crash in the cardigan market, but one thing that never changes is mums n' wives get something special ,kids get their ,once upon a time toys, but all soft wear now ,but dads still get the SOCKS, SHIRTS N' AFTER SHAVE ..All the time ! ,

NEITHER MAN NOR MARTIAN CAN FIGHT AGAINST RED TAPE

Theres a lot to be said about being a lazy bone idle get, and being a dedicated, proud 'arlarse' of many years standing(on occassions), i've heard most of them. Everybody needs to have a rest from their everyday activities(or lack, thereof), so, when i'm not slobbing about, i relax by forging my body in the white hot furnace of my will, into a steel hard finely honed fighting/killing machine by doing a bit of Karate. A few parents of kids who go to my daughters school asked if i'd run a little basic afterschool class for them. I thought any opportunity to belt a few snotty kids around the 'lug'oles', is an opportunity not to be sneered at, so i said ok, go'ed(an old ancient Liverpool expression of assent). The school seemed happy enough to have me drag myself off the slightly sticky cover of my couch once a week to go down and reveal the secrets of the Orient ,Zen and the art of smashing somebodies face in. Then the fun starts.

To do ANYTHING, now requires filling in of endless forms detailing everything, place, whom, what, where, why for every ten minutes over the last 20 years. For someone who has an uncontrollable hatred of forms and the people who give them to me ;And the people i've got to send them back too. To await their bloody reply/decision, or whatever, so, i dumped it on my Lovely Lynne ,faithful wife n' form filler-upperer. So this 'effin' form was sent to the police criminal records people, or something to see if i was Jack the Ripper or Gary Glitter, or someone. Apparently, i'm not, so i'm in the clear. I was a little dissappointed to see only a few speeding fines mentioned. I was hoping to be on an old 10 most wanted, somewhere in the world. I'm getting on, i s'pose my wild days're behind me,(sigh, it comes to us all!). Well, with all that sorted, i thought,' well off we jolly well go', but no, that would be too simple.

Now, through the years i've been called a liability on many occassions,( often by many ,if not most of you reading this, ya bastards!)....A public liability , and even a private liability, but we'll draw a heavily stained blanket over the private stuff, as it doesn't really concern us now, as i don't need insurance for that. But i've just been told i've got to pay and be accepted for public liability insurance. All this just to do the local school a favour for half an hour a week. I trained for years and got me black belt ,(yeah ,now!ya boo n' sucks to you!), but i've fought many people ,even won a couple, but i concede defeat to bloody red tape.....RED TAPE HAS BEATEN ME!!!!......There is a company ,THROTTLE, STRANGLE and ENTWINE Ltd and they make red tape for all the goverment departments whose sole purpose is to make the simple complicated and everything baffling and befuddling and not worth doing. Theres health n safety ,those must be strange people .Their job is to find danger, everywhere! Then come up with ridiculous ways of earning their wages by illimnating the ,danger, risk, peril.or whatever that nobody noticed in the first place ,then install 'safety features' that nobody wants or likes or uses . Then, there's probably a very creative busy department that designs forms, for everything..AAh we live in wonderful times.Some of the departments in that big old building with the clock in London must have departments that make the Ministry of Funny Walks quite resonable.

In the wonderful Jeff Wayne's 'WAR OF THE WORLDS', who can forget Richard Burton speaking about the 'RED WEED' that spread across the world strangling the life out of the existing vegetation all over the planet Earth. That was why Mars was red. Because of the Red Weed. That 'Rip-off merchant H.G. WELLS' said the same in his 'War of the worlds'. Now its slightly different our blue/green Earth is being strangled by Red Tape. The martians'll be wondering why parts of the Earth is looking Martian red. I s'pose, one good thing will come out of it, tho'. Well, if we can't walk without stumbling over Red Tape ,what chance do the martians have stomping around in those big,huge tri-pods? They'd be antennae over tentacle before you knew it. So they wont be invading yet. Not 'till they get the forms through, anyhow.

NEXT TIME THIS OLD MAN SEE'S A KID STUCK UP A TREE, THE LITTLE GET STAYS THERE..OLD MEN DON'T CLIMB TREES.

The other day, walking the dogs through some woods near where i live, i happened upon an oppertunity to do a good deed and help somebody in trouble. Being the warmhearted christian, caring sort you all know me to be, i pounced upon this god given test of my courage and general wonderfulness. There was a couple of kids around the base of a tree who ,as i approached said, "Hey, Mister. Will you help our mate , cos he's stuck up that tree?" So, i looked up and sure enough there was this rag arsed little scruffy get up near the top of the tree. I asked if he was ok, and if he couldn't get down. He said he couldn't get down. So, your hero, (thats me ,by the way), ditched my jacket and, much like riding a bike, my years of climbing trees hadn't been forgotten and i shot up like a squirrel. As i got near the kid, he started panicking, a little, and kicking his legs and waving me back. That was ok ,but when the little get started shouting. "GET BACK, OLD MAN!". And not in the good ol' polite English form of address manner, but in direct reference to my physical age. Well, i nearly kicked the little sod off the branch he was so desperatly clinging too. I got him down, all the way he was asking how should he grab this branch,or where should he put his foot, etc, etc, but all the time, addressing me as, OLD MAN! Then when we got down, his mates gave him a little 'stick' about how he'd not of gotten down if 'THE OLD MAN', Hadn't come and helped him. One of the little sods, very nicely told his mate to pass me my jacket, but spoiled it by asking his mate,' to pass the ol fellah's jacket' . So, next time any young' uns need a hand getting down any trees. Well, it's tough titties,they can stay up there, 'cos old men don't climb trees.