Hello. I'm a bit grumpy.

It’s my Birthday next week, where I reach a frightening mid-point between two round figures. A bit like being stuck between a naked Eric Pickles and a mirror. Sorry – did I just spoil your sausage dinner?

My Birthday wish list is the usual, sensible, collection of life-affirming items for a man of my youthful years: Bucks Fizz reunion, an edging iron (can’t beat a straight edge! Trust me. I’ve tried.), 10 x 1kg bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk, loud shirts, something to cure my cappuccino addiction, the ability to smile and move on calmly when someone says “Can I get a pint please?” in a pub, column in local newspaper...

Hang on! I don’t remember writing that last one down! (Remembers near-homemade-Damson-Gin-overdose incident and a Star Trek:TNG marathon) Oh. Right. Awkward.

Bizarrely, the jolly nice people at the North West Evening Mail have entrusted me with preparing you for the wonders of the weekend. This is probably an occasion where excessive use of inverted commas is required, as this may not be a ‘good thing’. (I’m ranking ‘good vs bad’ here on a ‘might depress you a bit’ or “isn’t he a miserable git?” scale, as opposed to World War 3, shutting your fingers in the car door or any programme featuring Fearne Cotton saying “I love it” repeatedly. Or a Beadle’s About box set. )

I’m not clever enough to have prepared an extensive list of subjects I need to talk about, and don’t have a good enough attention span to... Ooh! Look at that photo on the other page! Brilliant!

You can, however, rest assured that I will be doing my utmost to try and keep things light and cheery and never stray in to random diatribes about why tourists are annoying. Or how we reached a stage where we all have a drawer full of cables that we haven’t the SLIGHTEST idea fit into what, even though techies keep banging on about The Cloud and how everything is wireless. Or the pleasures of visiting hospital for an MRI scan. Or what the point of Juliet balconies is. Or why food packaging is so damn annoying and it’s impossible to get into anything without it ripping, covering you in yoghurt of showering your slippers with cornflakes. If you can even get into it at all (I’m looking at YOU Crespo olive jars.)

Um.... sorry. I seem to have gone a bit purple in the face – I should probably go and have a lie-down and read my “Anger Management For Dummies” book. Again.

Should you feel confident enough that I won’t appear on your doorstep to take umbrage at your opinion (you’re probably safe – my sense of direction is terrible), feel free to say hello on that twitter thing – I’m @grumpyf1

Now that I’m a journalist, do I have to hack my own phone? (Hacks own phone. Discovers there are no messages. Cries a bit.)

Have a lovely weekend.

If you can.

(This is the unedited version of the column that appeared in the North West Evening Mail on Friday 4th May 2012. You can view the edited version on the paper's website here: http://www.nwemail.co.uk/home/columns and leave comments. Which would be nice. Ta.)

(Gentle Bank Holiday tuneage provided by Murray Gold/The BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Ben Foster and the original television soundtrack for Doctor Who - A Christmas Carol.)

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