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.)

Making an exhibition of yourself

Now and again, it’s good to reaffirm that you’re a (relatively) normal human being. One excellent way of doing this is to go to a business exhibition. Despite what you might have surmised from reading my previous columns, I am employable, and even capable of acting like a regular person most of the time, even joining in the Monday morning conversation about the weather over the weekend, and why (insert name of footyballs manager here) should be fired immediately. The mug! True, there are times, often involving a caffeine deficiency, where it is like having the distilled essence of ten moody teenagers in the room, but I try and get that out of the way when people I genuinely like aren’t around to see it. As part of my ongoing experiment with what others call ‘working’, my ‘job’ involves me occasionally needing to go and see what some of my colleagues get up to outside the office, and what our competitors do to try and make sure that they do whatever my colleagues do better than ...

Unstable Stables: Throw away the key

It’s comforting to know that there is one less threat to the people of Cumbria this week, following the conviction of white supremacist, Ethan Stables. The 20 year old from Barrow had planned to attack the town’s New Empire pub in June 2017, in the midst of a gay pride event. Despite social media posts saying he was “going to war” and planning to “slaughter”, online searches about how to make bombs and chemical poisons, and expressing hatred of Muslims, Jews and gay people, he claimed his online comments were merely to impress far-right friends. Fortunately, following Facebook posts about his intentions, the police were tipped off and armed officers intercepted him as he headed towards the pub. His aim was to kill anyone he found, with a machete. In a bizarre slip-up, Stables had erroneously added an innocent woman to his neo-Nazi Facebook group. When he vented his outrage at the Furness LGBT support group’s event, the shocked woman contacted the authorities. He’ll have ple...

Is it foggy? No.

When I get put in charge (which is bound to happen soon), I'm going to introduce a whole raft of new laws, for I shall be a just and fair ruler. I'm quite liking the title of 'Most Marvellous Emperor Of Sensible Regulations And Bountiful Lovingness Not To Mention Exceedingly Handsome', but it might be a bit long. On that basis, I'll settle for the more informal 'He Who Is Smashing' from my loyal subjects. Anyway, I digress. I do that sometimes - had you noticed? Here, then, is the first law that will introduced: grumpyf1 law No.1 - Turn your fog lights off, you complete git. Don't get me wrong; If it genuinely is foggy, fog lights are quite handy. The reason for introduction of this law is because 96% of the time (based on my own in-depth research) it isn't foggy when some utter cockwomble blinds you. This has always been a bit of a problem but in the last couple of years it seems to have escalated out of control, possibly because of the...

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