THE STRAIN OF BEING TOTALLY RELAXED AND THE WORLD ARM WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIP..."LETS CALL IT A DRAW!"....

                                                                                                         

In my younger days of early Karate training ,like all youngsters i wanted to be tough n' hard and tensed muscles all the time and jaw ache from clenching my teeth. This was before i discovered the arts of relaxation after the science of pure bone idleness. I discovered Tai-Chi and the incredible speed and power that training slowly and gently with proper breathing can give you. This was a real eye opening moment ,the holy grail for a died in the wooly-bed blanket lazy bastard !

We used to go to boozers all over the place on our'jolly boys outings!' After a 'skinful' it was time to put the locals in their place. As the groups muscely little bugger i got pulled into the arm wrestling and grinding of teeth ,muscle popping grunting n' straining ensued. I didn't do too bad ,but the tendons in the wrist and in the crook of the arm got a good straining.

Managed to ease off all this silly stuff and recently i had an arm wrestle and relaxed myself instead of powering into it and "dang my thighs" if it didn't work !?....The secret to everything is relaxation, simple as that ,but it's hard to totally relax ,knackering stuff this relaxation, let me tell you !

ONLY PRESIDENT FOR A FEW DAYS AND TERESA MAY FIRES A TRIDENT MISSLE AT 'OUR CUZN'S ACROSS THE POND! :...TIM LEATHERBARROW

DONALD TRUMP RAISING 'THE WIG' !

Ah well its happened! A certain MR DONALD TRUMP, A multi billion, trillion quinti- squillionaire of the parish of Manhatten New York has gone from being possibly the richest most powerful man in the U.S.A. to being .....The richest most powerful man ...In the U.S.A. Only the President, but wether the president is the most powerful man in the states is debateable, he's the face that gets to shake hands around the world, don't know if he actually does anything, rather like our prime minister, as we all know who do fuck all . Any politician would know the best place to be is 'IN OPPOSITION!', as on the other powerless side of the house ,you don't actually have to do anything just slag off everything the goverment haven't done, but are proposing to do, the trouble starts if you get voted in.

JEREMY CORBYN

It is for this reason that the LABOUR PARTY have as their leader a dedicated ,but totally useless waste of time as party leader OL RED JEZZA CORBYN....Who has lots to say, but nothing to do  and hasn't a chance of leading the party to leave the opposition benches into the goverment seats which, i would imagine makes many of the bone idle ,lazy, exspense fiddling responsibility- phobic M.P's of the opposition LABOUR seats more than happy

The goverment  have had a busy year having the BREXIT VOTE and  the majority voted to leave our 'friends?' in Europe...We live in a democracy and the basic premiss of that is we vote for 'whatever' and who ever gets the most votes wins, it was voted to leave the EU, but the losing minority aren't happy with this as , apparently all those who voted to leave are scrounging rascists from 'Up North!'.....I don't pretend to understand the 'ins n' outs' of it all, but the vote was passed and as far as my simple naive political mind is concerned 'thats it!

Over the pond the same sort of thing has happened. The vote for the presidential election  took place and DONALD, gawd bless him won. But he won in the home of democracy and 'moms apple pie' as the yanks like to think of their home , but those who were fairly beaten demonstrated and  voiced their disagreement of the election process that runs the country.....Personnally i think its not the new president thats nuts ,but the population when i watched 11-year old girl guides blasting away with automatic rifles.

"OK, TERESA. I GET YOU DONT WANT ME AS PRESIDENT, BUT ISN'T FIRING A TRIDENT MISSILE AT ME A BIT OVER THE TOP????"

Theres worried talk about the breakup of the EU and TRUMP being less than a fan of NATO, so the RUSSIANS are happy with the possible break up of those two  exclusive clubs. Will the cold war 'heat up' again?....Will the arms race start up again? The British wont be caught out , thats for sure so to show we don't take shit off anyone ,even our close allies and cousins we fired a TRIDENT MISSILE at the UNITED STATES....Trump wants America to be great, but TERESA MAY  might be  kickstarting THE BRITISH EMPIRE again ,i'm expecting my call up papers any day soon.....

TIM LEATHERBARROW....HAVE WE ALL RECOVERED FROM ANOTHER FESTIVE GUT-BUSTING; BRAIN PICKLING ;FESTIVE SEASON.

THE WISE MEN WISELY SCARPERED WEST WHEN THE STAR IN THE EAST FOLLOWED THEM !

Well thats that!....Another gut-busting ; brain pickling fortnight over with as the festive gluttony and piss-up is now done n' dusted. The decorations are down and the new year resolutions are starting to wither ,die and be forgotten as the new year builds up and our will power dies out.

Go on , admit it you were going to lose weight; go to the gymn; Read more books; Basically all the stuff you were determined to do the last 10 New Years!!!....Christmas is now over as all the christmas film channels on Sky have stopped ,but it does feel a little like its just starting as you watch all the programmes you've recorded over the weeks and they've still got the lead up adverts to christmas ,so theres people in party hats joyously cooking and pouring gravy over turkeys. I'm ploughing through the X-Files and Spooks and whizzing hi-speed between level 12 and 6 on the fast foreward on the remote and seeing blurred festive families and turkeys and kids playing in the snow. I then have to watch a little backwards a little slower as i fly past the beginning of the next part of the programme and have to rewind to get to the restart.

In the 'old days' programmes started with a theme tune and showing the stars then on it went. The breaks had 'End of part one', or whatever , then 'Part two', or whatever. Nowadays programmes just start and as it goes on for the next twenty minutes you get the names of producers, directors, etc and the break is just that...'Zip!'..Gone to ads. Likewise when it restarts ...'Zip!...Ads finish and instantly back to programme. A problem is that as you whizz through the fast foreward the ads before the reumption of the programme is some forthcoming programmes , even future episodes of what your watching so you have no idea when to press play again, so you'll end up half way through the next half unaware the adverts have finished.

But we had a 'good' un' while it lasted. Now i've got to get another 7 months stint of work around the other side of the world to help pay for the next christmas. The fine busy caricaturist month of December kicked off with nothing for yours truly, then a rush of work came through, oh joy be unrestrained thought i !........Then after knocking a few other gigs off as the dates clashed the originals decided to cancel, so i got a few , but nothing like it looked like being at one point, bastards!

Anyhow , one n' all hope it went well and the New year is a 'Blast', lets live each day as it's meant to be.

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.

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 !

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!

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.

MUSIC ,LOUD N' TWANGY !....WITH DISTORTION ,FEEDBACK AND JUMPING AROUND!!!!!

When i were 'nobbut a lad' in the 'swinging 60's'( much as it pains me to admit it!)....Music to me was the theme tunes to classics on the telly like; 'SUPERCAR', FIREBALL XL5, STINGRAY and later 'THUNDERBIRDS. And lest we forget DOCTOR WHO and another personal favourite of mine was 'GARRISONS GORILLA'S! The joys of MERSEYBEAT were lost to me ,except for the CILLA BLACK show and for some very strange unexplainable reason i fancied the pre nose job Cilla something rotten . Even more inexplicably i enjoyed and still do enjoy some of her major hits. The other one i liked was PETULA CLARKE....She had the voice of an angel and when i heard 'DOWNTOWN' i loved it and couldn't stop whistling it. Even today ,even typing about it ,i'm whistling the damn tune. We went to see her last year in Manchester and she was still good and i was whistling that damn tune for weeks. The funny thing was when i mentioned it to anyone a few minutes later they'd be humming or singing it. Without doubt it is the most infectious pop song ever!....Don't listen to it without ear muffs and a bio defence suit on!

Years later i'd watch bands in pubs ,even old cellars in dingy back streets in the fair city of Liverpool which gave me an idea of how it was in a variety of pubs ,clubs and dingy cellars in those days where in that fine city the biggest music explosion took place and the world is still shaking now! A whole heap of our own local lads inspired by BILL HALEY, ELVIS and LONNIE DONEGHAN and his home made 'SKIFFLE' band made their own bands and started playing something called 'ROCK N' ROLL' clad in leather and brycreem'ed hair they played bloody awful stuff wherever they could. A similar sister port to LIVERPOOL was the naughty red lights of HAMBURG where a lot of the bands served an apprenticeship playing all day and night in various strip joints. One group of four greasy leather clad rockers who hit Hamburg and came home to tell the tale and got quite a following in their home town was 'THE SILVER BEATLES', soon shortened to 'THE BEATLES.'....They started playing in a dingy cellar called the 'CAVERN' in a dingy back street that now inspires billions of tourists to visit called 'MATTHEW STREET!' The walls would drip with sweat and the toilets would overflow and it was an absolute shit'ole that people would queue for hours to get into and scream their lungs out worshipping these heroes. Bands from all over played at the Cavern ; THE ROLLING STONES; THE WHO and anyone you want to mention. Directly opposite the Cavern is an old Liverpool pub called 'THE GRAPES'...Most of the famous rock stars from then and now drank in there , LENNON n' McCARTNEY wrote in there, but if you go in that musical holy of holies now ....It's a bloody KARIOKE BAR!

For some reason my first record was 'MORNING HAS BROKEN' by CAT STEVENS...Which i swopped for ALICE COOPER'S 'SCHOOLS OUT!' I had never bought an LP, as they were in those black n' white ,far flung vinyl days, so i'd never listened to the 'FAB FOUR' unless they were on the telly. But one day my dad came home with an 8-Track player bought from the biggest 'knocking shop' in the world FORDS, HALEWOOD! He had two 8-Track discs ,i can't remember one ,but the other had a great picture of an exploding pinball machine and it was by a band called 'THE WHO'!

That was me hooked....I played it to death and even bought 'THE BEATLES' and was pleasantly suprised. I didn't buy a lot of records ,etc ,but TOP OF THE POPS' Was onthe telly with 'THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST' with 'WHISPERING BOB HARRIS' for the serious rock music follower ,as opposed to the pain in the arse RADIO 1 D.J.s for pop fans, or 'pop-pickers!' all blathering like ,well caricature pop D.J.s that HARRY ENFIELD and PAUL WHITEHOUSE would take the piss out of. 

One thing worse than the D.J.s was the bands in the 70's n' 80's, when'GLAM ROCK!'kicked in, glitz n' glamour was the main thing, make up ,platform shoes ,remember 'THE SWEET'; SLADE; The tartan of 'THE BAY CITY ROLLERS'....(oh god!) . The good thing about them days was that the 'GIGS' were played in theatres like the EMPIRE in Liverpool, old victorian theatres, great for watching a band....I'd've loved to have seen THE WHO with KEITH MOON when they were at their peak in the Empire. Now they play in ARENAS ,massive places requiring the aid of huge videos to see the bands. You often have to stand at ground level ,even though ,nowadays its all seated ,some pains decide they have to stand so everybody has to stand. I remember seeing PAUL McCARTNEY at the KINGS DOCK in Liverpool and getting stuck behind some stupid bastard with his girlfriend waving her arms sitting on his shoulder. Whenever i see some silly cow sitting on her fellahs shoulder i imagine the 50 yards of people behind who want to rrip her head off ,because i've been there. There was a phase were people lit matches and held them up during the show. Then small cameras ,now telephones and now I-pads held aloft to block the sight of shortarses like myself!

Music is a matter of personal taste and its a case of whatever floats your boat!....I love guitar rock and my hero is PETE TOWNSHEND i can't take my eyes off him when he lets rip. JEFF BECK, DAVE GILMOUR, etc ,etc i've seen them ,all brilliant. The other day we were out having a drink and in THE CAVERN watched a local band and the lead singer was an absolutly blistering guitarist, brilliant! My missus ,the LOVELY LYNNE, plays trombone in a SKA BAND and they're great to watch and through Lynne who started in Brass bands and Swing orchestras ,etc has got me into that stuff and even a smattering of classical music.....Not too much tho'!....She's played on the stage of THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL, and fallen off!.....As did PETE TOWNSHEND...Well ,it impressed me! Recently i've been playing a lot of THE BLUES....Which it must be said Lynne hates.

Music can help your moods .....If THE WHO'S 'LIVE AT LEEDS' doesn't charge your energy levels ,nothing will....If i was feeling pissed off i'd always play 'QUADROPHENIA' that got me buzzing. There are tons of sounds that have an effect.I like prog rock ,saw PETER GABRIEL ,recently ,listening to the old GENESIS stuff. Watched YES recently, then played THE SEX PISTOLS the following day, not progressive, but good! I was playing the soundtrack of some of the JOHN BARRY early JAMES BOND films ,helps me feel like 007 when i'm walking the dog, lean ,mean and licensed to thrill

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

F**KIN' FREKING !.....LIKE F**KIN' DRINKING ....HIGH PRESSURE NOXIOUS GASEOUS EMISSIONS AND OMINOUS RUMBLINGS!

                When you go out on a night on the'razzle' us Brits tend to go for it in our time honoured fashion which, basically consists of going into a crowded room and guzzling as much drink as is inhumanly possible. The beer consists of two types, basically ,lagers which are gaseous and the darker thicker stouts which are sludgey!!!.....Wether we force gaseous liquids or thick sludge under increasing pressure into our system ,after a bit ,in it's own special way the body starts to make its discomfort known in a variety of recognisable ways to both the person involved and ,unfortunatly for those sharing their company. 

The symptoms of this physical rebellion against high pressure liquids and gasses forced into the body consist of the emission of high pressure noxious gasses, commonly known as 'farts!'...Rumbling guts and the high pressure emission of the bladder and ocassionly the stomach contents. Not pleasant at all!

But somewhere a scientist sliding down a toilet cubicle wall after the suffering described above put the hard learned lessons to good use and developed the theory that would lead to the process known as FRECKING!

In theory if you force high pressure liquids and gas into anything ,something has got to give and something will come out the other end????

So one day up in the drinking capital of the country around the North West where we understand the principles involved in drinking to excess ,so FRECKING sounded like just giving the ground a drink ...Our green n' pleasant land has sustained us for long enough and deserves a wee drinkie!

So high pressure fluids were forced deep into the ground and like its human counterparts gas and fluids were emitted in the form of gas and oil, which to the politicians and fuel companies was 'absolutly super!' As pound signs filled their eyes and minds, so enraptured with the financial boom that the good ground had peed ,burped and farted out they were quite happy to dismiss the 'rumblings!'?

The boozed up lands 'rumblings' took the form of a mild earthquake!.....But it was only 'mild!' so , of course thats ok!....But considering the area isn't exactly 'The Pacific Rim ' not known for fault lines; Volcanic activity and general drastic seismic disasters suddenly has an earthquake after a good night on the 'Freck!'....Understandebly the locals who sat watching their cups n' saucers rattling on their shelves were understandebly perturbed by the ussually reliable floor suddenly taking it upon itself to bounce and rattle and even crack slightly. But ,of course those who know better reassured us there was nothing to worry about. Even when our cuz'n's in the U.S. reported a drastic increase in seismic house rattling ground shaking earthquakes due to increase in 'Frecking'....The yanks in charge are even more worse money grabbing bastards then our lot so the 'people' were ignored and on it goes!

As we all know we have a special relationship with 'our cuz'n's'......That means our goverment want to be quids/dollars in with the powers that be in Washington, so it would be in all our benefit to keep them happy and ,funnily enough an announcement was made for the go ahead for licenses to be awarded for Fracking operations to take place all over our green n' pleasant land.....They stressed that areas of natural beauty will be spared which leaves the rest of the country to look like those Texas oilfields with nothing ,but pumps and smoke and fire as far as the eye can see.

When you drink a lot you get a beer belly...I magine the country with one huge expanding beerbelly.....Probably around Birmingham ,which will rise above the surrounding countryside, a little like Yellowstone park which is swelling and one day likely to explode in a huge volcanic eruption.....Some say that Brum exploding wouldn't be a bad thing, but it would disrupt the hi-speed rail link ,the other bright idea!

When you see Marilyn Monroe with that draft up her gusset shot that could be happening all over as gas spurts up the new faults and cracks in our pavements from our constantly rumbling frecked out green bits and totally unpleasant land!

AGE ...ITS A LIFE LONG CURSE !

The other day as i was starting to blubber, sob and generally embark on a total emotional collapse at the prospect of the next day being my 54 th birthday.....This harrowing prospect was compounded by our beloved 'JESTER' editor ,tha t ELLERY person who went and  got in touch to see if i would do a blurb on 'AGE?'.....So i found a prominent vein and sought a sharp knife, but as we have a brand new kitchen i couldn't find the cuttlery draw, so i could end it all ,so i s'pose i'd better write something.

So now i've hit the far too advanced ,as far as i'm concerned , age of the big 54. My daughter whose birthday falls on the same day as mine (15 th July), she's 16 and combined with a big operation in hospital which she's just getting over meant that my thunder was well and truly stolen!

So another year has ripped through the calendar, far quicker than the previous year ,which was faster than the previous years.....If  OLD FATHER TIME IS FIRING YEARLY BULLETS , HE MAY BE RUNNING LOW ON AMMO, BUT HIS RATE OF FIRE HAS INCREASED!!!!....When i see pictures of myself as a cute little baby in old black n' white photos with cute little black n' white sailor suit with white dummies.....Teen pictures were full of colour ,now as i look at myself in photos ,the photos are in digital colour ,but i'm in digital grey and white and getting more so. My character forming crinkles /laughter lines are now just plain old wrinkles. This isn't just a build up of birthdays, but a full blown law of the universe, One of the laws of Thermodynamics the 'LAW OF ENTROPY'.....There you go, you thought it was just age ,but never dreamed you were a indesputable  law of physics.

Entropy is quite simply the decay and increase in disarray and chaos in the whole universe. Whenever they demonstrate it on telly science shows , they ussually show a cup of coffee falling off a table to shatter on the floor, exploding into fragments all over the floor. The human body is a little like that ,except it was in a plastic bag , so the cup explodes into fragments within the bag which is our skin, so the cup and the liquid within are our 'innards'. So our early days are whizzing through the air, all joyous and fun ,then comes a moment of impact around our late teens ,early twenties when we start to crack and break up and as the years pass the bits become more disconnected and less efficient and our innards become more disconnected and disjointed within our fleshy sack which is supported by muscles and holds the insides in check. As time goes on the muscles fade and the body takes on a more 'portly' demeaner, often referred to as 'middle aged spread 'as the innards are forcing their way out as we shrink ,but widen.The skin which as age eats into us loses its healthy glow ,paling to match the grey of the hair ,or whats left....The elasticity is lost and becomes more parchment like and the broken entropically ravaged chaos inside does tend to make the odd break into the outside world via a variety of spots ,abcesses and puss- pumping poc marks. Which isn't pleasant for the person involved or those around.

People always go on about wisdom comes with age......Or is it failing mental faculties ...Wisdom or dementia?....I'm not sure i can't remember what i was on about!

WHO'D WIN ?....CONAN THE BARBARIAN ;KRULL THE CONQUEROR; XENA THE WARRIOR.....MY DAUGHTER RECKONS ..HARRY POTTER!

I have to admit to never being a great fan of  'FANTASY'....I'm more of a SCIENCE FICTION fan. SWORD AND SORCERY  isn't real life enough for me . I want ;Faster than light space ships ; Ray guns ; Horrible evil robots ; Gut busting aliens ; worm holes through black holes....You know all the real life ,genuine stuff backed up by science and technology. SWORD AND SORCERY ?...Well a time of wizards and demons ; Dragons and serpents and muscley half naked men and women roamed the barren wastes cutting other muscley men and women with swords forged from the metal forges of gods. God! There was lots of gods in them days. Every town village and fortress or city was full of gods , only outnumbered by the holy men and evil sects that worshipped them. The gods were very greedy in these times. All they seemed to want was lots of sexy ladies as human sacrifices and lots of jewels and treasure ,which seems reasonable enough!

The world of fantasy is very fond of swords and warriors. One of the most famous was ROBERT .E. HOWARD'S 'CONAN, THE BARBARIAN'. A big beefy bloke from the frozen "Eeeh it's grim up North!" wastes of CIMMERIA. But he came down south wearing animal skins ;Horned helmets and most important his massive sword forged by those unbeatable northern swordsmiths from unbreakable northern steel, which helped him as he was a bit of a bad tempered sort and picked fights with gangs and armies and more than a few dragons and serpents. He became a thief and tended to nick 'THE CRYSTAL OF THYTORACKACDACKODACK' or the DIAMOND OF SALOAMONDIPIDDTYDUDAH'. These juicey items were always guarded by beastly man eating beasts, so CONAN, being of a butch ,manly persuasion and having the beasts drooling had to fight and slaughter these devil beasts. Shouting to his own god, a guy called 'CROM!'....."By Crom i say thee nay!"...." And with this sword Crom will strike you down!" and lots of friendly endearing stuff like that, i read some of the books ,but i got most of my CONAN stuff from MARVEL COMICS.

MARVEL got into the fantasy stuff with CONAN and KRULL THE CONQUEROR and i think a couple of others. KRULL and CONAN made a few low budget telly series along with a very tasty 'well-proportioned 'Warrior princess ,whom you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of ,XENA. CONAN was made into two quite big films with ,'Who else ,but ARNIE!', which weren't bad ,even with GRACE JONES in the second one. I don't believe for a minute ,even in the heights of fantasy CONAN/ARNIE could ever beat GRACE JONES....I mean JAMES BOND struggled!

The 'daddy of fantasy is ,of course 'THE HOBBIT' and 'THE LORD OF THE RINGS'.  I've never read them and i'm ashamed to admit i've never watched the films all the way through. I had a chortle the other day, tho'! I picked up a copy and opened it at a page and it was a wizard telling someone :"To cross some plain: until you reach the mountains of something , then cross the sea of wotsit and enter the forests of thingey!".....I dont know if this was for the rings or for a 'packet of fags ,a loaf of bread and some p.g. Tips, or something!'.....It just seemed to sum up it all up.

All the wizards did everything for the common man of which everyone was one and as his spells and potions did everything ,no inventions or technology ever shows in fantasy. Razors didn't exist as everyone had swords and daggers which were honed to razor sharpness and so they could shave. The only ones who didn't carry blades were the smart arse wizards who all had beards down to their feet. Thats why they carried those really long staffs ,not to fight with ,but to swipe the beards from round their feet before they tripped over their facial hair and went arse over pointy hat !

RIK MAYALL(R.I.P.)...."OOOOOHHHH THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH ,GOD!!!........SIR CLIFF! COULD YOU PUT A WORD IN FOR ME?"

ONCE UPON A TIME.....In the 60's and 70's comedy was MORECOMBE AND WISE; DICK EMERY ;BENNY HILL and MIKE YARWOOD....All of which i am quite happy to admit to quite liking even as it is very un P>C. to admit it to a certain finger on the pulse age range who are currently under the age of 50. The night clubs were full of comedians in dinner suits ,telling 'mother in law jokes' and 'Irish' jokes ,oddly enough mostly irishmen(?)...And many whom i saw in pokey little pubs and clubs were great and funny. They didn't fill arenas and sit on panel shows being clever and smart arsed , they were out every night playing to some rough audiences and making their living for a relative pittance before the bingo!

In the 80's education (students) decided they were funnier than the old farts of the previous generation ,they could come up with clever 'on the edge ' stuff not relying on 'Stereotypical comedy....Ho-hum!'...The 'COMEDY CLUB' was formed and a new set of comedians evolved under the mantle of ALTERNATIVE HUMOUR....The old joke was ,that it was an alternative to humour ,and, in a lot of cases it was true. I remember being up in Edinburgh during the festival and my girlfriend at the time and some of her friends went to a comedy show .....God it was awful! 

A few faces appeared on telly . One i liked was a character called KEVIN TURVEY and he would rant about what had got his 'gander up' ,a very odd character indeed! played by a certain RIK MAYALL. H disappeared for a while to explode back with his performing partner and co writer ADE EDMONDSON and a few others in an explosion of anarchic violence, slapstick and bad taste in something called 'THE YOUNG ONES.' Rik layed 'RIK' ,the 'peoples poet and mad CLIFF RICHARD fan; NEIL, the hippy and Ade Edmondson , Rik's fellow 'DANGEROUS BROTHER' from their insane violent stage act carrying on their violence as ADE played the psycopathic punk VYVIAN . Even today as they carry on showing the 'shows' , i defy anybody not to cringe at some of the 'hits that ADE,RIK and NEIL inflict and have inflicted on each other.

The show was a good springboard for many of their fellow 'ALTERNATIVES' at the time ;ALEXEI SAYLE, FRENCH and SAUNDERS; RUBY WAX and a heap of bands from the 80's who would perform from the bombsite that was their house.

All went their seperate ways ,but would all turn up occassionally on various shows through the years ,the main constant in it all was RIK and ADE. Their constant arguing and violence was a constant under the guise of different characters, a few were made ,but the most popular was 'BOTTOM'. RIK played a number of 'way over the top roles in series such as 'BLACK ADDER.' But got his own smash hit as the totally rotten MP ,ALAN B'STARD in 'THE NEW STATESMAN.' He had some acting work and appeared in various dramas and even films. And life seemed sweet.

An accident on a Quad -Bike put him in a coma for a good while and left him with EPILEPSY afterwards and having to heap piles of medication as sufferers do! The ADE and RIK partnership  split due to reasons around this ,but they both seemed to prosper and seemed almost respectable. ADE ,once VYVIAN is now a country traveller and presenter, DOC MARTENS replaced by WELLIES!

But that dark spectre of EPILEPSY which can strike anytime hit RIK MAYALL but he wasn't going to wake exhausted, sore with a chewed tongue this time ,the heart gave out and R.I.P. RIK MAYALL, Not the only good thing to come out of the ALTERNATIVE COMEDY stuff ,but the best with ADE ,who said how they laughed so much working together and now :"HE'S GONE AND DIED ,LEAVING ME BEHIND ,THE BASTARD!"....Or words to that effect!

RIK MAYALL (R.I.P.)