'ORRIBLE HARRY POTTER N' THE UN 'ORRIBLE 'OO!!!!

                                                                           WHAY HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.................Its a grotty wet cold Warrington morning, not that theres any other kind ,so i'm fairly used to it ,but what makes this grotty morning different from all the other grotty mornings is that for some reason i've managed to get an image on the fuckin' blog ,at long last!......Forgive the colourful language, but i've been totally screwed for weeks and ,although i haven't a clue what i've done .....I've done it!.....I did a couple of pure painted caricatures the other day ,not using pencil sketches or anything ,just slapping on the jolly old acrylic paint. The reason you have been exposed to yet another WHO image is twofold.....If you are sitting comfortably ...I shall explain.

The other week we were across the'pond' in the good ol' U.S.of A. We had a trip to Florida no less. The weather was nice and there wasn't that many people there so the 'parks' weren't full so 'yours truly' could go on the rides 'again n' again....I admit it ,i'm a middle aged ol' fart and i love 'the rides ,even the simulated ones ,like SPIDERMAN and THE SIMPSONS at UNIVERSAL....But the main reason for the park trip was because my daughter ELARA is an out n' out HARRY POTTER nut!.....Her mum THE LOVELY LYNNE is quite fond as well it should be said and has read the books a heap of times. The two of them have the ability to 'fly' through books ,Lynne can read an 8 inch thick tome in a day...It's a gift i'd love to have, but alas! Elara takes after her mam ,thankfully and zooms through books retaining the information ,yet another gift i don't possess. But anyhow the two of them were reading HARRY POTTERin the Florida sun and going on the HARRY POTTER RIDE again and again and yet a few more agains and again, but its all very clever and impressive and they loved it.

But HARRY POTTER was a big part of the trip ,but not all .....There was something else ,far more important due to take place!

THE WHO were playing in down town ORLANDO!!!!.....And we were going to see the boys. Anight or two before we went to see them ,they played their first QUADROPHENIA gig and after when they were ploughing through the hits when my best mate PETE TOWNSHEND with his much publicised hearing difficulties muttered something about the sound levels and walked off....Nothings ever simple when the 'ORRIBLE 'OO go on stage. Our tickets were for Petes side of the stage and we had visions of bare stage with tumbleweeds blowing across. But the boys were there on the night in fine fettle and let rip !!!!.Townshend leaping about like a madman, wonderful! And Daltrey sounding stunningly powerful after surgery on his throat a while back....Even ELARA conceeded "THEY WERE AWESOME!"......Praise indeed!

Across the road was a boozer where we met a few English lads who'd lived in the states for years, one had a proper Union Jack jacket as TOWNSHEND  and MOON used to wear i got a photo of me wearing it ,if i can work out the advanced technology in putting a photo on the blog i'll treat you . Lynne now knows what she can gether stylish hubbie, me for xmas, wether she'd let me out in it is another matter, although she'd not be above nicking it for one of her SKA GIGS ,as she's done to her daughters DOC MARTENS boots( what would the bank say?...) And you lot thought she was nice and respectable, well !Let me tell you!...............

The other reason for the WHO picture was purely because it was on the scanner from last week so PETE n' ROGER were my scanner guinea pigs..............

TRAVEL MAY NOT BROADEN THE MIND ,BUT IT BROADENS THE HIPS!

Having just returned from a more than well deserved holiday across the Atlantic pond in the wild untamed themeparks of Orlando.Stuffing our faces at a variety of help yourself buffet restaurants and having a lot to drink in everywhere else. In lovely sunny Florida, i caught a cold after getting soaked by that killer whale and the girl he killed a few days later. This drama and adrenaline pumping ride-fest(after 2 hour queues) was followed by a week on a cruise around a bit of the Carribean on a 30-storey, 5 mile long luxury cruise ship. The boats are made that size to accomodate the people who go on cruises(of which we aren't). Very large ungainly ,definitley not streamlined, like the boat ,take time to get' up to speed' and have trouble coming to a stop. So the passageways above and below decks are constantly filled with very strange shaped older people shuffling along. You have to be in possession of swivel hips and boxers feet to avoid collisions. But with the stop offs on various tropical isles and copious amounts to eat n' drink i can think of worse ways to pass my time. Only the other day my beloved 'lovely Lynne'treated me to a breakfast in Asda. (There! I told you she loved me.) There you are one morning on the sunny deck off the coast of Honduras having a luxury gut busting fruit n' pancake breakfast. One week later your choosing what greasy fried combination you want slapped onto your plate in the cafe in Asda ,Warrington.

Once back i have found it damn near impossible to get back to writing this rubbish. Stop clapping and cheering, i'm a sensitive soul you vicious bastards. The brain and the imagination just would not function, absolutly nothing was there to light the blue touch paper of the imagination.And they say travel broadens the mind ? The food and drink might have broadened the hips as the Lovely Lynne keeps complaining. I suppose its just as well i dont write travel books, Bill Brysons got nothing to worry about for a while anyhow. I'll sit and gaze out of the window and see what flotsam and jetsam drifts into the vacumn of my imagination. A total void cannot exist as is proven by the theory of the 'big bang ' suddenly appearing out of nowhere. Maybe i'll have an imaginary' big bang'.......(Ooooh' err, missus!)....Sigh.....only in my imagination!!!