grumpyf1

This is an intervention - step away from the cheese. I hope you’ve had a wonderful festive season so far? Just a few days to go until the Doctor Who special. Oh, and the New Year. The days are getting longer, and we’ll soon be done with a year dominated by Brexit. 2019 will be better, right? Right? Please say yes. I thought I’d finish the year with a romp through my notebook, allowing me to serve up a few choice items that got me thinking over the last 12 months, but didn’t make it into full columns. A kind of Bubble & Squeak of randomness. Mmm... Has anyone ever wondered what time-travellers would think if they jumped forward 30 years to today? Considering the number of smokers back then, it would be easy to assume that cigarettes had now been replaced by people carrying small bags of dog poo around. 2018 featured an awful lot of meals with pea shoots on them, for no discernible reason. I’ve even had a fry-up with them on. Is there a committee that decides what this year

Yippee-Ki-Yay, motherlickers! What will you be doing on Christmas Eve? Snuggling up with the kids, looking forward to the Big Day? Out with friends for a drink? Desperately trying to find cranberry sauce in your local supermarket? I prefer my plan. I’ll be in a cinema, watching 1980s action blockbuster ‘Die Hard’. In case you have somehow missed this oft-repeated classic, it stars Bruce Willis as New York cop John McLane. He’s meeting up with his estranged wife and daughters at her Christmas Do, when terrorists (not really – they’ve come to rob the vaults but decided to do it the flamboyant way) take over the high-rise building of her employer making everyone a hostage, and McLane very, very, annoyed. Cue explosions, destruction and mayhem as he goes on a one-man, wisecracking, rampage to take down the bad guys and rescue everyone. It’s a stone-cold classic romp. I can’t think of a better way to spend the evening, and I’ll be all happy and warm inside and out once the end-

When you pop into a shop for something relatively inexpensive, how do you pay? Are you fumbling around in your pocket/purse for the right coins, only to find you haven’t got quite enough and have to break into a note? Do you pop your credit or debit card into the reader, tap in your PIN and accept your receipt? Or are you wafting your contactless card in the general direction of the payment thingy, before heading off as soon as the assistant says ‘done’? I’ll freely admit that I’ve only recently started going contactless. I’m still comfortable with cash – it’s nice to instantly see what you’ve spent based on what’s left in your wallet. However, I do understand the logic of the modern method of paying for your bag of chips, double-shot mochachino or (up to) 30 items from your local Pound Palace. But digital regicide is sweeping our land, overthrowing the old regime of paper and metal tokens. The BBC this week reported on a London pub that has stopped taking cash altogether. I st

Missing you... Disaster – we forgot to buy an advent calendar. No teensy, hard to get at, unidentifiable shaped chocolate treats hidden behind cardboard doors and impenetrable foil for me this year. Still, there’s plenty of time left to consume my own body-weight in mince pies, cheese and pigs in blankets before the inevitable guilt (and medically necessary dieting) kicks in as 2019 shows up excitedly just when I’ve started getting used to 2018. So, instead of wasting a shed-load of packaging to get at the equivalent of a very small chocolate bar, here are my environmentally-friendly Adventness Delights for you – a treat for every remaining day as we count down to the online sales. (And Christmas.) 18: Jona Lewie successfully Stops The Cavalry. 17: You win £50. 16: The kids are well-behaved. 15: The algorithm that shoves ads into your social media timeline fails for the day. 14: Unlimited Chocolate Hob-Nobs. 13: Calorie-free cheese that still tastes fantastic hits

Old... Gold. There really is something rather joyous about seeing a favourite band live. And there’s something rather miraculous if you’re seeing them getting on for 40 years since you first discovered them. I was lucky enough to see both Midge Ure (former owner of pointy sideburns, Vienna means nothing to him) and The Human League (still concerned in case you don’t want them, baby) last weekend, and both were fabulous. Both were also hitting the top of the charts in the early 80s and whilst they have had long careers, many people will remember them largely for their first flourishes of success. Neither Midge, nor The League’s front-man, Phil Oakey, are exactly youngsters now, with bus-passes just around the corner, and the interesting hairstyles long gone. But boy, they still go for it, rattling out the hits and taking their audience back to a time before worrying about pension funds and aching knees became the norm. Neither insisted on playing much in the way of later nu

The true meaning of (John Lewis at) Christmas Ho Ho Ho! Merry JL Day! There may still be over five weeks until Christmas, but that doesn’t matter when there’s stuff to sell. Lest we forget, John Lewis & Partners’ eagerly-awaited Christmas advert was by no means the first from a major retailer either. With years of classic ads behind them, including a hare waking up a hibernating bear, a penguin called Monty, trampolining wildlife and an old bloke on the moon, 2018’s outing was always going to have a hard time matching it’s predecessors. It even had to contend with the re-branding Bohemian Rhapsody-school-play advert from just a few weeks ago, which was widely applauded. So, what did we get? Elton John. In reverse. Featuring the Prima Donna’s life in “Your Song” moments, from him sitting at his piano in the present day, through his assorted outrageous looks, and back to him receiving the same piano as a child. Wow. Elt’s folks were minted then. A piano? I used to think g

Why isn't this sold in sacks? Despite news on Tuesday that the UK and EU have finally agreed on the draft text of an agreement about withdrawal, Brexit delivered a serious blow this week – right where it hurts. With months of rumours about potential shortages – notably the worrying scenario of insufficient drug supplies – a far more terrifying threat to our very Britishness came to light this week. We could be staring down the barrel of a crippling thick liquid meal accompaniment shortage. It seems things are looking grave for gravy, calamitous for custard and potentially crippling for Mr Kipling, as the famous brands’ owners, Premier Foods, have announced that they intend to stockpile raw materials ahead of Brexit. Concerned that gridlock at the UK’s ports will mean customers screaming “Oh No!” instead of “Oxo”, they will soon start to stockpile the raw ingredients of their products, to the tune of up to £10m. In anybody’s books, that’s a hell of a lot of Bisto granules

We WILL rock you... If you have even a passing interest in the music of Queen, I implore you to get along to your local cinema and see the Bohemian Rhapsody movie. Don’t knock back a litre of cola in the first ten minutes though – at well over two hours, it’s a long watch. The good news is, it uses every one of it’s many minutes to the full. Covering the period from the band’s formation though to their appearance at Live Aid in 1985, the film focuses on charismatic front man Freddie Mercury. That’s not to say the rest of the group are ignored, but come on – Fred’s flamboyant life certainly warrants the additional screen time. Faithfully recreating the look and fashions of the various eras, the film is funny, sad, touching, poignant and exhilarating in various proportions. The family-friendly rating means Mercury’s promiscuity is alluded to, rather than writ large on the screen, but you’re given enough in the way of visual clues and implications to get the gist of what happene

Five v Four You’d have been a brave F1 fan to have bet against Lewis Hamilton winning the Formula One World Championship last Sunday in Mexico. He’d almost managed it the previous weekend, and arrived in Mexico in the comfortable position of only needing to finish seventh to bag the trophy, even if his rival, Sebastian Vettel, won the race. As it turned out, it was a challenging race for the British star for a rare change, and Vettel came reasonably close to winning. Hamilton might not have stood on the podium, but his fourth place was enough for him to be crowned a five time champion. That 5th title really is something special, putting him on equal footing with the great Juan Manuel Fangio from the sport’s early days, and bettered only by Michael Schumacher’s seven titles. I may not be Hamilton’s biggest fan, but even I have to concede that what he’s achieved is something genuinely special... even if he does have a silly haircut and some questionable fashion sense. Is th

Hilarious. Yours for 99p. RIP DVD? It’s been a bad week for the shiny 120mm discs, with retailer John Lewis announcing that they are no longer going to sell the players in their stores. As far as the UK goes, the format has only managed to drag itself to it’s 20th birthday, although tech-wizards the Japanese have been spinning the video format since 1995. It was always going to have a troubled existence, with no-one ever really agreeing if it was a Digital Video Disc or a Digital Versatile Disc right from it’s earliest days, when it successfully killed off VHS tapes, in the same way it’s kid brother the CD bumped off audio cassettes. Once found nestling under virtually every TV in the country, the continuing rise of streaming video on demand services such as Amazon Prime and Netflix, along with free-to-air catch-up, mean they’ve been gathering dust for a few years now. I can vouch for that – I moved house six months ago, plugged the DVD player in... and haven’t switched i

"On the plus side, it'll help the paint dry quicker..." Finger firmly on the pulse of what’s happening as always, here’s some important breaking news from 79 AD. Historians, archaeologists and others of an all-things-ancient leaning have long believed that the Vesuvius eruption, which wiped out nearby Roman city Pompeii, took place on the 24th of August. Being so specific about something that happened a very long time ago is impressive stuff – they weren’t using our current calendar system at that point, and probably didn’t even have pictures of cats above the months either. The level of certainty was thanks to swanky lawyer and author Pliny the Younger, who penned (or, probably, quilled) the details in a letter to Roman historian and senator, Tacitus, covering the death his uncle, Pliny the Elder. PtE bravely sailed towards the erupting volcano to rescue people in danger but never returned, whilst PtY watched the devastation from the safety of the other side

Sorry, WHO are you..? Considering she fell out of an exploding TARDIS back in the spring, it’s taken the new Doctor Who a long time to crash onto our TV screens. Jodie Whittaker, taking over the role from Peter Capaldi, certainly did arrive with a bang, crashing through the roof of a train before post-regeneration befuddlement saw her surprised by her new gender and unclear what to call her own tongue. Her dramatic entrance was preceded by a handy introduction to the characters that are set to be The Doctor’s companions on her adventures as the thirteenth incarnation of the two-hearted timelord. If, like me, you were hanging on for a new version of the theme tune and opening title sequence, then it appears you’ll have to wait until this Sunday - The episode ran the full hour before bothering with tune or graphics. Happily the first outing, under the direction of new boss Chris Chibnall, soon helped you forget about the missing theme, with a twisty tale of a tooth-faced alie

Smile! It's not real! A pensioner in Bedfordshire has attached a very realistic fake speed camera to his house. Fed up with cars speeding past his home on the A1 in Beeston, 72 year old Mike Lacey decided to do something about it, building the impressive bright yellow rig and camera out of drainpipes and guttering, and mounting them on the side of his property next to the dual-carriageway. With his pad just metres away from the busy road, and fed up that there are no speed cameras operational in the area, enterprising Mike took it upon himself to do something about it, with £40 worth of pipes, copious ingenuity, and some bright yellow paint. It seems that, irrespective of whether it makes a difference or not, the local authorities want him to remove his fake camera as they have apparently been informed by the Highways Agency that it is “distracting”. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? They’re painted bright yellow because people are meant to see them. And as Mr Lacey bui

Wait... is this Strictly Front Room? Some days, when faced with random stupidity, I can just shrug my shoulders, sigh, and get on with all the important things in life – like eating HobNobs, enjoying a Scottish person say “Curly Wurly” or pondering the bleak reality of my existence. This week, one of those annoying stories hit Peak Stupid. According to an article on the BBC’s news website, the BBC (irony klaxon!) are telling a Dance Teacher that she has to re-name her dance group, as Strictly Curved might mislead people into thinking it’s something to do with their spangly, over-the-top, dance-fest, Strictly Come Dancing. Yes, a 50 year old lady from Essex, Teresa Brady, is being told she must stop using the name for her classes, “dedicated to people with curves and a fuller figure”, or risk a financially ruinous court battle with the media behemoth. The Beeb say they’re “fully supportive of someone running dance classes” – how very generous of them – but believe it’s “import

Streaming? Er... I watched an episode of Top of the Pops from 1986 earlier. At the time it was originally broadcast, I was 18. Yes, I am that old. At that point in my life, I’d grown up absolutely loving music. TOTP was one of my essential sources of the all important new songs and chart placings, along with Radio 1’s Top 40 show. I was buying lots of vinyl. Recording lots of cassettes. Things were fantastic. But I was just getting the first inkling that there were new styles, bands and artists appearing that – and this was quite a shock to me – I wasn’t particularly enthralled by. Why? Well, up to that point I’d assumed my love of all types of music would be everlasting. To discover otherwise was a bit of shock. Still, the years rolled by and there was still a lot of great music around. True, Rave/House never did anything for me, and most Rap doesn’t float my boat. Sections of the 1990s were rubbish, from my point of view. I was buying lots of CDs. And still recording tapes

Fire? Just down there on the right... If someone more senior than you at work does or says something that you feel isn’t respectful towards you, what do you do? Point it out to them - they shouldn’t be allowed to do that? Brush it off – it happens? Sulk for a bit? Light a fire and cause £8 million of damage? The latter was exactly what Amazon employee Adris Ali did back in November. He had been working as a picker in their warehouse in Rugely for around three months. Feeling disrespected by a team leader, he set light to a pile of papers and wandered off. By the time the subsequent blaze had been successfully extinguished, £7.3m of stuff had been damaged. Add in nearly three-quarters of a million to clean up and sort the mess out afterwards, and that’s one expensive episode of feeling a bit slighted. Ali will have a bit of time to ponder the damage, and risk to life, his actions caused, during the 48 months he’s going to be spending behind bars. I’m sure he’ll get lots of r

It's very unlikely that any of this lot just killed a man... Do not adjust your set. It is NOT Christmas yet. It’s easy to see why you might be confused, though. It seems to have become an eagerly anticipated signifier that it’s OK to start the festivities when the John Lewis advert arrives. So when one suddenly appeared on Tuesday during that other institution, The Great British Bake Off, it’s easy to see why some of us might have had a sudden hankering for eggnog and mince pies. Although the lengthy spot, featuring children performing Bohemian Rhapsody as the centrepiece of the world’s most elaborate school play, had no branding until the very end, it was pretty obviously from the same people who give us the heartstring-tugging Xmas epics. But this one had a twist. At the end were not one, but two logos. Different, new, logos. For John Lewis & Partners and Waitrose & Partners. Brace yourselves, everyone – it’s a rebrand! As both are employee owned, the inclu

Why oh why would anyone not like little Donny? Apparently, chief Oompa-Loompa of the USA, Donald Trump, has no limit to his paranoia. This week, he’s declared that Google are “left-wing” when it comes to search results for “Trump News”. By this, he means that they are being rigged so that the vast majority are negative. Wow. Google have understandably denied this (not the negative bit, but that any political viewpoint is used in the complex algorithm that decides what to bung in front of you when you type something in that little box in your browser). Analysts have pointed out that extra weight is probably given to pages that a lot of other people linked to. There’s no point in asking Google that, though. If they explained that appearing higher in search results could be achieved by putting ice cubes down your pants, there would be a simultaneous water, electricity and freezer shortage as everyone in charge of a website attempted to cram extra frozen water into their underwea

The name's Bond... Buggering Off Bond Is would appear that ace movie director Danny Boyle has had his licence to thrill revoked. Oscar-winning Boyle, the man in the driving seat of such monstrously successful and critically acclaimed blockbusters as Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire, has apparently dropped out of directing the 25th outing for James Bond, due for release next year. In the same way that the phrase “under the weather” can mean just about anything, Mr B is apparently putting his departure down to “creative differences”. It’s been a remarkably short time at the helm of the Bond franchise – it’s only three months since production company EON were effusively announcing their delight at having bagged Boyle for their next (and probably final) outing with Daniel Craig as the rugged super-spy. Filming was due to start in December, with the film slated for release the following October, so whilst the current situation might be described as both shaken and stirr

Jack Whitehall - not gay. Problem? A new Disney movie is in production. Not particularly massive news in itself, but the film, called Jungle Cruise, will be the first Disney flick to have a major character who is an openly gay man. The actor taking on this role, and the associated headache of having to deal with the moral arguments that have ensued, is British – namely Jack Whitehall. Whitehall says he’s “honoured to be part of this epic adventure”, along with co-stars Emily Blunt and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Whilst there’s plenty of support for Whitehall on social media, there are also many who aren’t pleased at all about him being cast in the role. That the first significantly gay role in a Disney movie will be played by a straight guy hasn’t gone down well in some quarters, but the arguments for and against this are complicated. One point of view is that there’s no reason to cast a gay man to play the role – gay actors play straight parts, and it’s rare anyone bats

...and you didn't even remove the stems. *sigh* Our hot and dry summer has brought us many things. A hosepipe ban. Lots of flies. Ice cream addiction. The sight of my legs on a regular basis. I dare say there are some good things too. Chief amongst the hot-weather-horrors (from my point of view, at least) is that most heinous of contraptions – the adult sippy cup. Masquerading as a water bottle for grown-ups, many of these have decidedly unwelcome attributes. Sure, drinking plenty of water is a good thing. Hurrah for hydration. Even those ones with a little cage for you to incarcerate some fruit are tolerable, if a faint hint of raspberry in your water makes it easier for you. It’s not the need to drink water that’s the problem – it’s how it gets from your bottle into your system. We all pretty much figured out how to use a glass many years ago. It’s a proud moment for your parents when their little ‘un manages to take a swig of juice without pouring half of it down the

It's not me, it's you... Beware the Smartphone Zombies! We’ve all bumped in to them – often literally – those expressionless, hunched, figures, shuffling blindly along the pavements of the world, so hypnotised by the glow of their phone screens, that they are oblivious to other pedestrians. Maybe you’re one yourself, and have either dipped into the physical world because your battery died, there’s no signal or for a spot of paper-based nostalgia. Or you’re reading this on your phone. High on the list of online distractions are the myriad forms of social media. Whether you are transfixed by Twitter, immersed in Instagram or fulfilled by Facebook, many of us spend more time interacting online than in real life – with the associated concerns about damage to mental health, bullying, grooming, fake news and all the other potential downsides of interacting online. If you, or your loved ones, seem to be spending unhealthy amounts of time online, then perhaps an announcemen

"Mushy peas? One slice or two..?" Cumbria is great at a hell of a lot of things. Fabulous tourist attractions, breathtaking scenery, attractive sheep, innovative small businesses and miles of dry stone walls, for instance. Where did all that stone come from, by the way? Is that why the lakes are there? So when Transport Focus, the travel watchdog, issued the results of it’s survey about England’s best motorway service stations, I presumed Cumbria would be right up there. We are on the list. Just not at the top. No, that was Norton Canes on the M6 Toll road in Staffordshire, and they’re right. It’s dreamy. There were 111 pee and petrol stop-offs on the list, and Cumbria’s Southwaite (Northbound) on the M6 bagged the coveted 109th place on the list. Bravo, Moto. You may operate two of the top five, but you also ‘run’ four out of the worst five. The surveyors asked 9,600 customers what they thought about the essential things that make your break for ridiculously expens

Nice car... you MONSTER! Yes, we have got some rain.  As upstanding Brits, it is our solemn duty to mention this straight away in any conversation, but there’s a problem – we haven’t had much, have we? You’re more likely to have spent time on one of Cumbria’s beaches than get caught in a downpour over the last month. The plentiful sunshine and absence of rain has presented us with a horrifying conflict of interests – we quite like it sunny and warm, but it’s tough not being able to complain about precipitation. Whilst we’ve somewhat offset that pain by grumbling about it being too hot, or how it’s bad for the lawn, our need to moan will soon be well and truly saturated. Come the 5th of August, there will be a (pause for dramatic effect) hosepipe ban! United Utilities (UU) will be invoking the temporary restriction, which will see seven million people in the North West needing to pipe down for a bit. With the weather forecast continuing to feature unusually high amounts of s