Nowt so strange as Folk.

    Readers of long standing know of my fascination with the human condition. So around a dozen instances from the press in recent times that caught my jaundiced eye.

Money, power, always in the news. A couple, referred to only as Mr and Mrs Y, 'of an illustrious Oxfordshire family' were in the High Court contesting a divorce settlement. The husband suggested he could only afford £7 million, she maintained  she needed £11.2 million to keep up her lifestyle; she was awarded a lump sum of £8.7 million. We are not allowed to know their names! (The judge said her aspirations were not outlandish or avaricious' but 'borne of her lifestyle' and 'expectations from birth'.)

    A highly successful auctioneer from Dorset found a tree in his neighbour's garden spoilt his view over Poole Harbour. The answer, get a friend to cut it down whilst the neighbour is away. Result £125, 000 in fines.

     Its a strange thing, power. I suspect arrogance and power go together. Eric Joyce, MP has to wear a 'curfew tag' for being involved in a brawl in Parliament earlier in the year. No problem, he cuts it off in order to attend a function. Some in the world seem to think they are above laws and rules. A leader of the People of Freedom Party in Italy (Berlusconi's Party) regularly parks in a disabled parking bay. (He is not disabled). He is reported so he slashes the tyres of the man who reports him; who is incidentally disabled.) His defence 'It was a technical error due to a fit of rage.' That's all right then! 

    An accountant from Bristol way is obsessed with cars. He embezzles £562,000 from his employers and bought, over a period of time, over 100 cars; including Renaults, Vauxaulls, Morris Minors, a hearse and two caravans, not exactly your vintage motors. He had them stored all over Bristol, garage rents over £4,200 a month. All bought on eBay. His defence said he was 'a shopping addict'; He wasn't kidding!

    We all need a certain amount of money. Rosemary Smith from Derby, my home town auctioned a piece of toast allegedly left behind at breakfast by Prince Charles on the day of his wedding to Princess Diane; it fetched £230. Far more than the Henry Moore sculpture sundial, value between £250,00-500,00 stolen by two men in Hertfordshire and sold as scrap for £46. It was fortunately recovered intact.

    Its not just people searching for money, or people seeking power I find so entertaining. Some people are so naturally entertaining without meaning to be so. Southend Pier is the longest in Britain. John Smith from Raleigh just up the road is a trawlerman. So what does he do, he rams his boat into the pier. He is fined £3,000 for failing to keep a proper lookout; cost of pier repairs £130,000.

Perhaps its the sea air that makes people a bit light headed. A man from Weymouth washes his pants and socks then puts them in the microwave. He has to be lead to safety when his flat catches fire. There's no law that says you can't dry your underwear in the microwave. You can't lock people up for being daft. And if you did its not a bad life inside. Not for much longer, mind you. Around 3,000 prisoners in private run prisons have access to Skye TV and Chris Grayling the Justice Minister is not happy!

    If you break the law you must pay for it. Providing it IS a law you break. A Ms Moira Johnson has paraded round Manhattan trying to gain awareness that it is NOT against the law to appear topless in public in New York; for neither men nor women. Good for her I reckon, but, dear readers, why shouldn't females walk about so in the 21st century if they so wish. To deny them that right is surely sexual discrimination. It truly is a funny old world.

It's All Still in the Mind.

    Five of the family met up together recently. Its fairly unusual for us to be all in one place, sitting still and talking together. What sad lives we lead at times. Plus we are all getting older. The time will come when we will be saying simply 'I wish.....'

    I've always had strong views on aspects of life; being orphaned young and thereby being 'my own man' accounts for a lot. On religion 'I know nowt'. What I do believe is that the human brain is the cleverest 'computer' ever. I believe that the brain can and does store EVERYTHING we have ever experienced. It is always there in our brains and can be recalled, how I'm not sure, right up to our end. We have no control over this in the same way that we have no real control over our living and breathing. ( Obviously things like demensia affects the equation for some of us). But when that old ticker stops that's it; what happens then to our memories, you tell me.

    This musing, these 'What's it all about. Alfie' moments came to mind when I remembered, several hours later what had been mentioned/ discussed at a family get-together. No order, no pattern, things/events/happenings fleetingly recalled and then gone again. If you think you are in control of anything in this life, you must be joking.

 Uncontrolled recall, in no order at this gathering.

    Travelling eighty miles to Grimsby as a salesman to sell a kitchen and they were out. Introduction to Grimsby, two female police officers jump on a man for drinking in the street. Bridlington, a friend moves to Bridlington. Why would anyone WANT to live in Bridlington by choice. School lesson plans, first teaching wage, was it £27 a week. Why should school and teaching be recalled. I invite an ex pupil back to school; he returns driving a large circus lorry and trailer. I 'manage' an aging aunts lock up garages. A caravan turns up on the yard with occupant but NO vehicle. In one garage is no vehicle but around a dozen hens. I can remember the days when it wasn't unusual in the village to have hens behind wire netting under the kitchen table.One garage is used for prostitution. (A pimp watches from another garage, unobserved; I find a man's empty wallet, a slip of paper informs he is from from Burton. He has been robbed, an expensive transaction.)

    My wife and I take a mattress as a gift to an old couple. The man comes to the door minus trousers or pants. Under the kitchen table is a dead dog. Concerned I visit the council offices. I am told to mind my own business, it is their 'right' to live as they see fit. In the garages are gas meters that are fitted prior to the meter readers call and returned after his visit. I meet a man on Allenton Market. He specialises in machines that slow down a meter (to do with magnets). I like him but one Sunday afternoon he murders his brother in law after a drinking session. My brother in law working for the Post Office has to set up elaborate wire taps for the police but is not allowed to know why. I remember a family who ran a family business supplying fire lighting sticks for the public. Their electricity supply was courtesy of the local street light. I remember being shown how to feed a coin through a fruit machine continuously by using a coin on a length of wire. I remember living in a changing room of a youth club I ran. Eventually I got decent 'digs' then I married my landladies grand daughter. My grandmothers funeral was like a scene out of a Dickens story. Snow howled down; It seemed a shame for the oldest of the mourners to go home. 

    Enough is enough. It all reminds me of David Bowie and 'Ground Control to Major Tom'.None of this blog is in any order, neither is it 'doctored for effect. It is not meant to be and that is the point. All I am trying to show is a fraction of what is stored in a brain, a tiny fraction overall; in this case recalled in a two hour period.

    I can see how events trigger off memories. Some/most of these events long forgotten. I can see all the events were real, not made up. Beyond that I understand/know little. I will come back to this 'theme' again but not yet.I assume I am reasonably normal in all this, of any case, what is normal. Whoops, here we go again! Any comments gratefully received. Of any case I can't do too much about it all, so I'm off, in the pouring rain, to see Derby County. Now that ain't normal!

'It's Nice to be Nice'.

    Am I the only one fed up with Melvyn King constantly appearing on television telling us all how the 'bad times' are here to stay. (A man who 'didn't see it coming' and he's only the Governor of the Bank of England).

    I spend too much time discussing whether life is harder than it was in our youth, a long time ago indeed! Times are hard, but not for everyone. Plus I reckon we ordinary mortals are only sold half the story, we get only half the picture. some are doing very well, thank you very much in these hard recessional times.

    The greedy failed bankers still receive massive index linked pensions for life. The energy companies are caught out fiddling the figures so as to inflate their profits. Little or nothing will happen. The price of oil has dropped dramatically over many months, the price of fuel to you and me has hardly changed over the same period. Starbooks, Amazon, Google, all morally corrupt, contributing very little to our country in taxes, despite earning massive profits from their UK dealings.  I suspect we could wipe out much of our debts if we REALLY wished to nail those profiting at our expense. All the aforementioned, I feel, contributes overall to the 'mood/feeling' within the country. A 'feeling' that can be reflected in our day to day lives, both as 'buyers and sellers'. And how we ALL live our lives will affect the mood of the country.                            .

    T K MAX. An international retailer in the USA, Poland, the UK and Canada. Recently opened its 1000th store. Originally of the 'pile 'it high and sell it cheap' philosophy.

My wife bought a rucksack/bag from T K Max that unfortunately suffered a defect in a strap that made the bag unusable. (Have you seen what women carry in their bags!) She took it back and explained the bag had special sentimental value. A cheerful young chap went to the trouble of sorting the problem 'How about £30 to have the bag mended?' he suggested. A visit to a cheery shoe shop, Greens Footwear Ltd in Allenton       and two days and £4 later, job done. Well done all concerned. Happy smiling faces all round.

    CURRYS. Originated from the efforts of Henry Curry who first made bikes in 1884. also Currys Digital Stores. Owned by Dixons.(PC World) around 400 shops/stores.

My wife bought a microwave from Currys. It was fine but developed a fault in the plastic casing. We were horrified as the fault was identical to a previous microwave fault. Apprehensive I took it back. (It was on extended warranty.) Someone lifted it out of the car (helpful at my age) and we were invited to choose another. No interregation, no fuss, nothing. Fresh paperwork sorted for the new microwave. (It took my wife ages to choose another!) and away. Thanks Currys. Happy smiling faces all round.

COSTCO Wholesale 92,000 full time employees worldwide  Founded 1983 first company to go from zero to 3 billion dollars in six years.

 We shop regularly at Costco. Everyone seems happy to work there. We bought a television, the range was bewildering. Three young men (on successive days) took us over, sorted us out, guided our purchase even down to payment methods for best effect. Everybody seems happy to work there. We're waiting to see a long face. (Black mark, the baked potatoes can be iffy!) Nevertheless happy smiling faces win.

DEBENHAMS  240 stores across 28 countries. Multichannel 'Retailer of the Year' 2012. 'Of Proud British Heritage.'  and  stands for 'greater value, wider choice, excellent service'. (Debenhams own words in both cases.)

    My wife bought some boots from Debenhams, price £65. Less than a year old, the tops parted from the soles, making the boots unwearable in wet weather. My wife took them back. She found Debenhams response unhelpful. I did not go into the shop but on her return she was crestfallen to say the least. Not amused I rang head office. Not unhelpful I thought they were nevertheless far from enthusiastic regarding our problems but suggested another visit to their store. Not easy (I am classed disabled) We nevertheless complied.) Monday morning, a wearying experience. Seeing the manager, as suggested, not possible. A senior member of staff took charge. The boots, she suggested, were FASHION boots. (not bought as fashion boots). Of any case, Debenhams guarantee was for SIX months only I was informed.I took off my own shoes, over two years old and we compared. (My shoes are Hotters, British made. No comparison. Another senior member of staff was summoned and EVENTUALLY conceded my wife's boots (made in China) at £65 were poor value. We were eventually offered another pair of boots but declined and accepted a voucher instead. Hopefully they do sell items that will make us smile, not frown; any suggestions. Last words on Debenhams. We found Debenhams lukewarm, condescending, unsmiling and unhelpful in the main as if looking for a let out. On the morning we attended staff were 'thin on the ground' as some staff were on 'Staff Training!!! 

    I have, by the way, no connection with any of the firms concerned. What I do have is friends in a high tech business who, amongst other things, teach massive conglomerations how to teach their staff how to deal with people. A lot of 'how to's' methinks. I once knew an old man in a pub. Long gone, both. I remember nothing of him except for one thing. He used to say, simply, 'It's nice to be nice.' Trite maybe, but wise words. Many a big business would do well to have the old man's words 'WRIT LARGE' in bold lettering on their company walls.

    It occurs to me that a system is needed to give award to firms or individuals that do actually contribute to lifting our moral in these hard times. Any suggestions for Grumpy prizes, to be be known forthwith as The GOK awards!

26,665 days or therabouts.

It's my birthday tomorrow the 9th. It was a Thursday like today. I remember it well! So I've been about for around 26,665 days or thereabouts.

How many more depends on a heart that started on day one and will stop when it's ready; quite a thought. Its a lot of days in a way. Mind you, around 9000 of them have been accounted for by sleeping. I spent around 4000 AT school and over 6000 IN school. (Teaching). I spent around 1500 in a boring office job, 750ish working for Woolworths and around 1700 trying to be a full time youth leader. Add another 1700ish training to be the aforesaid teacher and youth leader and you no longer wonder where the years went. Plus over 15,000 days of married life aren't to be sneezed at: not easy but always happy.

There have been trauma galore. Losing your mother at thirteen is life changing: especially when no father was ever present. Plus reminders of our mortality are always educational, whether they be courtesy of motorbikes or boring old diabetes, skin cancer or TGA's. You spend more time at doctors and hospitals when you reach 'senior years' than is comfortable but we ought to remember many in the world do not have such privileges.

Wise William Shakespeare was spot on when he wrote of the Seven Ages of Man. Basically you start as a dribbling infant and you end as a dribbling 'infant elect'.

But good times outnumber the bad. The joys of a happy marriage, children, grandchildren. So ordinary an existence; so blessed am I. I am pleased to be alive. Who was it who said 'This ain't a practice'. As our American friends tend to say 'Have a nice day'. I'm sure I will!.

      .  

As Kenny used to say, 'All in The Best Parssible Taste'

Been a funny week and not 'funny ha ha'. My wife was diagnosed with glaucoma for a start, unwelcome news and something of a shock. Any reader who can tell me anything positive about such news would cheer things up around here. Dark nights, getting old, feeling fragile, good fun this getting old milarky. Stomach bugs doing the rounds, Jimmy Savile in the news EVERY single day, energy prices going up and up, I need a smile: so this post is not the one I intended.

Do you remember an early post when I related the gaffe when I mistook the contraceptive machine in a gents toilet for a hand drier. The look on the face of the young chap in the men's room was well worth the visit. Probably the first time I realised I might be definitely losing it. And wandering round a toilet in a garden centre Blackpool way taking photographs was not exactly a sensible thing to do. But they were magnificent urinals, definitely worthy of a wider audience.

I visited a rather posh pub in the Peak District in the summer. It was not doing too well and bit by bit it dawned on my wife and I that we were almost certainly the only couple who were 'legit', 'married', 'official'. You can always tell; they were speaking for a start! 'canoodling'. They were definitely not with their own wives! The clincher was when I visited the 'gents'. On the wall of this obscure, up market village pub was a machine offering tablets that presumably enhanced ones 'performance' if you know what I mean. And if you lead a sheltered existence and don't, as the television programme used to say, 'phone a friend'.
Times are indeed hard, it must be difficult  for village pub landlords to make a living.
I was relating these 'tales' to a younger, more sophisticated friend. (Come to think of it, everyone's more sophisticated than ''Grumpy'. He directed me to a piece of YouTube that sums it all up. (For those of a sensitive nature please ignore this directive!) Frequently in life I'm back to my favourite saying' by my old friend Bob. 'Times they are a'changing.' Indeed they are.
All very lavatorial but it all amused me. I'm seventy three next week and somewhat past caring. I immediately felt more cheerful. Forgive my vulgarity but hope it amuses. I must admit I feel better already!                                                          .  


   

Animals Galore, Can't Ask for More.

The last two blogs concerning men and women ignored in the main; Grumpy's going to the dogs ! Talking of dogs, perhaps a bit of animal magic might bring out the beast in us all.

    How about  the amazing dog who travelled 11 miles firmly stuck in the grill of a car on Rhode Island when a car failed to avoid him and the driver was unaware where the dog had gone. The dog, was, like Elvis 'all shook up' but okay otherwise. Or Frankie the  strange Jack Russell  who travelled from Gravesend to London, by train, unaccompanied, cost his owner £58 to travel up to London to fetch him back. The loyal little Lhasa Apso, Toby  ran to fetch help when his master, aged 81 got stuck in mud at Borth in Wales. He ran to security guards a quarter of a  mile away and led them to the rescue. Mind you, Bruno, the chaps other dog, a Staffie cross simply walked away from it all; Toby, you're class, Bruno, just crass!  

     Dogs are, well, just dogs when all's said and done. If dogs are sometimes strange its usually human beings who are the problem. Dogs at a Diva Dog Day at Stapleford Abbotts in Essex wore police uniforms, tutus, suits and superhero costumes. Could only happen in Essex. (Is The Only Way is Essex a true representation of the place??)  My home town of Derby is turning out Royal Crown Derby fine  china dog bowls at £1,500 each. Some pooches are indeed pampered; Nikka, the sniffer dog in Vaughan, New Mexico deserves to be. He became the only qualified member of the force when the police chief and the only other officer on the force were both forced to resign. Mind you Nikka cost £6,000 and has yet to sniff out a single drug. Doggedly difficult it would seem! It's not only dogs that make the news. 

    A pair of Galapagos Giant Toitoises in the Reptile Zoo in Klagenfurt, Austria called Bibi and Poldi have fell out, reason unknown, after 115 years together. It is thought to be the world's longest relationship. Oh well, nothing lasts for ever. Including parrots, Tarbu, an African Grey, thought to be one of the oldest parrots in captivity died recently in Exeter aged fifty five. Also mourned was Meow, a 39lb cat at an animal shelter in America. He was on a diet but I guess it was a little late. Talking of putting on weight, a hedgehog in a rescue centre in Somerset has been put on a diet. Its so fat it can't roll into a ball in order to defend itself!

    No lightweight either, Lucky Larry, a three foot long, 16lb lobster in  the Blue Reef Aquarium in Portsmouth is indeed a lucky boy. Two seamen saw him on a fishmonger's stall and took pity on him, bought him (£100) and presented him to the aquarium. (By the way, how do you 'sex' a lobster?)

Just a few examples as to how the animal kingdom makes our stressed lives more interesting. And two final stories that made me think. A chap in Bideford uses a bow-tied duck to help collect for charity. So what happens. A row has broken out between various charities about using ducks, such enterprise thought of as an unfair advantage. Trust human beings to find problems in such an innocuous activity. Whilst a boy in Innsbruck has bonded with a marmot, not an animal normally inclined to human friendship. 

    So much so that the eight year old boy visits the natural habitat of the marmot annually and is recognised and acknowledged by his furry friend. Mankind is a very clever animal, and he is after all only an animal but he could learn much at times from his less sophisticated cousins.  

And What About the Men.

     As promised a post about the male of the species. Remember, I merely collect articles over a period of time, no order, no particular subject bias. Then I analyse them, tongue in cheek, Grumpy style.

I reckon the first thing that caught my eye was how 'macho' men are; perhaps more accurately, how 'macho' men try to be. The 'extreme anglers' for instance near Bempton in East Yorkshire. the cliffs are huge, but fishing from the top, far too tame for 'real' men. So they descend the cliffs using harnesses and ropes, and at the last section, seven aluminium ladders bolted to the cliff face. Certainly not for the faint hearted. And certainly not for German Alexander Donninger. When his seven year old twins wished to fish whilst on holiday in Austria he bought a filleted trout in Lidl and, by extreme slight of hand, reeled it in at a nearby lake. Only he was seen, reported and the authorities don't believe him. (the evidence has been eaten.) Who to believe; you tell me!

    I suspect that much of man's behaviour is designed to impress; its what they think is expected.

President Putin is always charging around, Rambo style on a horse. (Is the man, like me, below average height by any chance?) And when he's standing still he's showing us one of his collection of watches.

he's got at least six, value £435,000 plus. (income supposedly less than one fifth of this figure.)

    Talking of Rambo, there is a possibility that a new Rambo film might be made, Rambo versus the

Mexican drug dealers evidently. Mind you, they had better do it soon, Sylvester Stallone is sixty five years of age; good luck old fella!

    Most of us, male or female are just happy being 'me' if you know what I mean.

But some, for whatever reason try that little bit harder to be noticed, to be different. The chap in Wales for instance, father of six, divorced who lives as an Apache. He gets a mention from me; mind you, only one line. And the man in court in Cannock who, sent out for wearing shorts, returned wearing a woman's skirt amused me but affronts my idea of basic decorum.

    Some are plain sad, like the town crier in Skipton who, sacked for drinking on duty, insists on carrying on as an independent 'crier'. Talk about liking the sound of your own voice, that certainly takes the proverbial biscuit.

    I smiled at the case of the man in New Zealand who threw an egg at his wife (Ladies, I know I shouldn't) when her pet pig ran amok and damaged his power saw; what a pair. But it wasn't really funny, especially as the egg was an ostrich egg!

    Not funny was the driver, Dutch, who was filming out of his lorry window with his iphone on the M20 in Kent because he liked the 'nice countryside.'

    But certainly daft the burglars who raided a bar at Solway Holiday Village in Silloth. They took the cash machine, emptied it of £615 in pound coins, took them to a local Asda at 5.25 in the morning and tried to change them. 

    There's no 'best' I suppose concerning male and female, just different. though I profoundly disagree with the treatment often meted out to females in some countries in the name of religion. My posts are seldom serious but ignorance never makes anything right. Which in my opinion makes Cecil Chao as daft as they come. Mr Chao is a Hong Kong billionaire playboy with a lesbian daughter in a civil partnership. He claims to have slept with 10,000 women but is not happy concerning his daughter's relationship. 

So much so that he has offered £40 million for any man who will woo his openly gay daughter away from her partner. (Mr Chao has never married but has fathered three children by three different partners.) Not exactly a good advert for the male section of the human race I would have thought.

     I would have also thought Arthur Reid aged ninety of Warmley is more to my taste. He has visited the same pub for seventy two years since turning eighteen. He was a council worker who left school at fourteen and never married. He has drunk an estimated 30,000 pints and has been honoured with a plaque and his own chair. He sounds more contented than Mr Chao!

    So there you have it; just one final thought. According to a Norwegian study, 'Equality in the home' couples who SHARE housework equally have a divorce rate 50% higher than those where the women do most of the work. Perhaps, just perhaps we are put on the earth for different purposes. (Only joking!)