grumpyf1

Pop-a-doodle-doo, pop picklers! What a sen-say-tional bit of news we go this week – they’re moving the day of the Chart Show! For at least the first half of The Eighties, there was only one place you’d find me between 5 and 7 on a Sunday evening. You’re probably thinking; “What? A guy that cool and sophisticated, with such natural good looks and obvious charm? Probably at the front of the queue for a trendy night club. Or maybe partying with stars. Or rescuing kittens stuck in trees. Definitely one of those, right?” Thanks for that, but no – I’m afraid you’re incorrect. I would be in the bath. Hitting the bathroom so that the water had stopped running just as the pips announced it was 5pm, I would then top up with extra hot water at regular intervals, and pull the plug out with a couple of minutes to go before 7. Yes, I was a smelly teenager, but hygiene wasn’t the reason (as my favourite baseball boots would have willingly attested to anyone brave enough to go near them). I w

For a TV show about cars, the BBC’s Top Gear has managed to get an awful lot of people hot under the bonnet. Even those who don’t know their RS from their E-Type. Some say he has more lives than cat, and will stroll back on to our screens with a stupid grin before we can say “Power!” very loudly whilst wearing a leather jacket. Others that he is a preposterous, out-of-date buffoon, who has no place on modern TV. All we know is - he’s called Jeremy. Jeremy Clarkson is, in case you haven’t been out from under your rock for a while, star host of Top Gear, a show ostensibly about cars, but in reality a three-way male menopause featuring “Jezza” and his two mates crashing things, blowing up stuff, being cheeky and driving some very costly cars like they’ve stolen them. Ironically, they wouldn’t need to do that as the show has made all of them (and the BBC) very, very, rich. Whilst the laddish behaviour and fooling about prods the annoyance button for many, the programme has point

It may only feel like last week that the Formula 1 season finished but, after a break so short the engines are probably still warm, it’s back this weekend. Much has happened off-track during the ever-decreasing winter break, including World Champion Lewis Hamilton winning the BBC TV Sports Personality of the Year award and having photos of himself plastered all over his Twitter account looking moody, stylish, and fashionable in shots so posed you could get a couple of quick laps of Monaco in whilst his entourage figured out if the lighting was flattering enough. The Caterham and Marussia teams went bust, got resurrected, went into receivership, were having their assets auctioned off (which sounds painful) , being brought out, saved, optimistic about the future and doomed, and all that before Christmas. The end result is that Caterham didn’t make it, whilst Marussia are now Manor and ready to roll with a hastily altered car from last year. Assuming the paint has dried in time, and

It’s warming up nicely, isn’t it? Soon, the cold of winter will be just a distant memory. But for me, the penguin (much like Celine Dion’s heart) will go on... Whilst this weekend looks set to witness a temperature in Centigrade containing two digits for the first time in ages, last Sunday featured some sudden snow storms and general chilliness. Timing my walk to perfection, I was part way up Arnside Knott when the snow came down soft and fast. I soon found myself in a small bubble of visibility, eerie silence, extreme slipperiness and a facial sensation that I imagine is like an ice bucket challenge on endless loop. Despite the multiple layers of clothing and my usual, disgruntled demeanour, something deep inside me stirred. Cold, worried about slipping over, face stinging from the horizontal assault of iciness, the grumpy me battled momentarily with a deeply buried sensation before losing altogether, as my inner 10 year old joyously delighted at this sight of heavy snow fall

After a jolly day trip to Edinburgh on Monday, we were heading home on the train when Twitter delivered me some devastating news... Still full of excessive amounts of coffee, pizza, and reeling from the sensory overload of a large lingerie department visit, my journey back to the deep south of Cumbria should have been one of calm, tranquillity, listening to the Doctor Who theme song and surreptitiously studying other passengers then pretending I was enjoying the view when they looked up. Of course, a trip to a large city meant a heady day of unprecedented mobile phone signal strength, making the choice between looking at the delights of beautiful Edinburgh, and discovering that my phone could actually load a video, all the more tricky. As the miles slipped by in a blur of lights and a faint whiff of train toilet, the selection of letters and symbols indicating signal strength gradually lessened, until I was once again faced with the bleak message “Unable to update Twitter at th