Out with the old... (Part 2)

Last week I gave you the sorry tale of my first six months of 2012.

In a shock move, here’s the skinny on the last six. (Warning: More gloom and mentions of rain.)

July: British Grand Prix! Unadulterated joy! Succeeded on saying nothing of any use on twitter for 2 whole years. Just like everyone else on twitter. It rained a lot.

August: After months of back pain, I finally started seeing a Physio, with amusing results. Especially if you happened to be looking through my window when I was doing exercises. Luckily, the police let me off with a caution and said I should remember to put clothes on before attempting the “arch”. It rained a lot.

September: Moved offices, to a room where you can hear chaps having a tinkle next door. Worryingly, we can now figure out who some of the tinklers are, by their signature style. Coincidentally, it rained a lot.

October: Discharged from Physio – I swear I saw them writing “beyond economical repair” on my file. Immediately started having problems with my left foot feeling numb and tingly, causing me to limp. That and the hunched back have meant I’ve had to keep away from bell-ringing. It rained a lot.

November: Discovered Mrs G had already purchased and wrapped all the Christmas presents and written cards, making me think I’d lost a month. The limp, plus full beard and mud-coating, caused local Yeti-sighting panic when I went out for a hobble along the coast. Made it to 6 years in Arnside without being chased from the village by an angry, torch wielding, mob. It rained a lot.

December: Had an MRI scan in a portakabin to try and diagnose foot problem. At least, I think it was... I might have just fallen into a particularly noisy disused fridge. After the physical setbacks, I finally managed the 200 miles on the 30th. I also managed to lose 8lbs (which is good – that means more chocolate, right?). Completed the 37th newspaper column for this august journal, proving that you can have too much of a bad thing too. It rained a lot.

Conclusion: A mixed year, during which complaining about stuff to anyone that would listen (and still complaining about stuff even if they weren’t), surprisingly didn’t win me any kind of award. Not even an MBE, although to be fair, they probably ran out after giving them to everyone who took part in the Olympics. By the look of it, I’ll be lucky to see the end of 2013, as I’ll either have fallen apart completely, or drowned.

What does the year hold in store? Move office again (the bin is full in this one already). Walk/limp 210 miles, and lose another half a stone. I assume some other part of me will hurt, fall off (or out) or stop working properly – hopefully I’ll still have enough functioning bits to see 2014. Grumble about things a bit it a weekly newspaper column.

Build an Ark.

This column first appeared in the North West Evening Mail on Friday 11th January 2013. You can view the printed/online version here

In a return to normal conditions, 60 words were edited out by the paper, but you've got them in all their wordy goodness here.

Apologies for the lack of pictures, but the button that allows you to select them seems to have vanished from my upload screen. I'd investigate, but unfortunately I have lazy-git issues.

(Still Pink Floyding it at the moment, with the really rather good Echoes compilation.)

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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