grumpyf1

I’m getting on a bit, aren’t I? I mean, look at that picture of me up there. You may have been thinking of words like “thin” and “fashion”, but probably only if “on top” and “disaster” are added immediately afterwards. There is good and bad in this. After fighting it gamely for years, there is probably little more satisfying in a man’s life, than finally reaching the point where you suddenly realise you just don’t give a damn about anyone else’s opinion of you any more. On the other hand, there’s that desperate, lingering death of your sense of decorum and style, as you frantically try to convince yourself, friends, colleagues and anyone else unfortunate enough to come into visual contact with you, that you are still, resolutely “with it”. Sadly, the “it” in question is usually a massive confusion over what you think is trendy, and what actually IS trendy. This can be detected by increasing use of bold colours and wearing clothes that look good on someone half your age, but...

It comes to all men eventually. We unwittingly enter the hitherto unknown domain of the ladies hairdressers, and our lives are unrecoverably damaged by the experience. I’d done remarkably well to manage well over 40 years without going through this life-altering adventure, and it happened so easily. Back when it was summer (you know, that bit where it was really hot for a few weeks and didn’t rain), I thought it would be preferable to sit in on Mrs G’s hair-coiffuring in the air-conditioned calm, rather than wander round in the unfamiliar heat, looking at things in shops that I couldn’t afford. The place was chilled so effectively, the furnace-hot world outside started to be a hazy memory. It is just possible that the miasma of assorted hair sprays might have caused the pleasurable feeling of detachment from the real world – perhaps that was part of the nefarious plan also. This, of course, made it a thousand times worse when I did eventually escape. In this last bastion of ...

(A story for my friend Rebecca.) “YAAARRGH!” shouted Captain Hairy Bumchin, wobbling precariously on the rolling deck of his ship. “SHIVER ME TIMBERS, YO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM!” He added. For good measure he then bellowed “HORNSWAGGLERS!” before tripping over a coiled piece of rope and landing, face first, at the feet of a determined looking young Pirate. Red Becca eyed him warily, before fixing him with her best steely gaze. “I don’t speak Pirate fluently yet.” she said. “But I think you’re saying that there’s a hole in the side of the boat.” “ARRRRRR!!” roared Bumchin, approvingly. “That there be, young fella me lad!” “Girl.” Said Red Becca, wrinkling her nose slightly in annoyance. “I’m a girl, not a boy. And that was very poor use of the English language, by the way.” Bumchin looked slightly uncomfortable. After sailing the seas for many years, being a salty old sea-dog and generally making a nuisance of himself in pursuit of some shiny treasure, he wasn’t used t...

TV posh-nosh-fest Masterchef is back on our screens, but whilst the C-List Celebs battle it out, I’ve been busy coming up with some much better culinary delights. Inspired (as I often am) by the brilliant advice of my Niecelet Rebecca, I have thrown caution to the wind, and whole-heartedly embraced the idea of alternative flavour-combinations in a way that only the mind of a nine-year-old usually can. Or maybe Heston Blumenthal. Rebecca concluded that a pizza that only had mango, pineapple, assorted other fruits and a few kinds of meat as toppings wasn’t really complete. The simple answer was chocolate buttons. Suddenly, it’s a taste sensation that would have Greg & John gushing enthusiastically about how Rebecca “has really taken cooking to another level”. Whilst adding chocolate to just about anything will inevitably make it better, this fusion between sweet shop and pizza parlour got me wondering what I could improve. In my small, twitter-based, universe it has been co...

Peter Capaldi was announced last week as the 12th incarnation of TV ratings stalwart Doctor Who. Thing is though... he’s quite... old... isn’t he? Although the bookies had already closed their tomes well beforehand, the much-hyped announcement of Capaldi who-vering up the job as the iconic TV Timelord did actually startle me quite a substantial amount, although not nearly as much as finding something is bigger on the inside probably would. The fact that it was done via a reality-TV-styled spectacular, with 30 minutes of wacky celeb superfans gushing about their love of all things Who-ey, fronted by a hugely over-enthusiastic Zoe Ball, was certainly a very ‘now’ way of doing it. That both the show’s current supremo, Stephen Moffat, and outgoing Doctor, Matt Smith, only appeared in pre-recorded form, spoke volumes about the whiff of tackiness to the whole thing. And yet, this still didn’t detract from the wow-factor when Capaldi appeared, nor (for me, at least) the follow-up ...

I had the pleasure of attending my brother’s wedding recently. Impressively, I managed to look like a tramp, even though I was trying to look cool. You may remember that I recently obtained a new pair of glasses, after agonising so long over which pair to purchase that the staff at the opticians came close to offering me a bed for the night. Armed with my trendy new specs, I foolishly fell into the trap of thinking I’m now some sort of hipster. Having attended many previous weddings, christenings, funerals and other important family events (with varying degrees of joy and misery, but not necessarily in the order you might think), I’ve done my fair share of suit, plain shirt and tie outfits. I’ve seen other chaps at events wearing a nice shirt and without a tie, and started thinking “Could I?” or occasionally “Won’t I look like a man who has forgotten his tie?” Having concluded that this wedding was a great opportunity to go neck-naked, I selected a less loud than usual patt...