grumpyf1

Like many others, I was saddened to hear of the death of Jimmy Perry last weekend. Comedy writers of his calibre are rare indeed. There wasn’t a great deal that me and my Dad had in common. I had a minor, grudging, appreciation for classical music that I tried not to show, but beyond a shared enjoyment of custard, we mostly couldn’t have been more different in our views on the world. Clearly, anything I decided was cool was pretty much an aberration from his point of view: Clothes, my taste in ‘music’ (“You can’t even understand the words!”) and even haircuts. The slightest hint of bad language on the TV meant it was immediately turned off, and Top of the Pops was endured, but only if the volume was down sufficiently low that I had to guess what the songs were. If that makes it sound like I didn’t like him, then I’m doing him a massive injustice. I loved my Dad, and the last couple of paragraphs (bar the TOTP reference, perhaps) probably apply to many young people as they reach...

I went to a rave last week. The music was supplied by a slightly mad French pensioner. Welcome to 40 years of Jean-Michel Jarre. If you were vaguely interested in avant-garde/ambient music, and had an ear for the relatively new-fangled synthesiser sound, you’ll have been impressed by JMJ’s Oxygene album, boldly announcing the Frenchman’s arrival into the big time, late in 1976. Spooky skull-in-a-peeling-planet-earth cover and all, this gently pulsing masterpiece set him off on a career involving numerous awards, spectacular and record-breakingly vast outdoor concerts in unusual places and more the 20 albums. The most recent of these, Electronica 1 & 2, saw him collaborate with an impressive who’s-who of current and veteran musicians, and his first visit to the Top 10 album chart in a quarter of a century. He’s not exactly been growing old gracefully, either. Some of these recent tracks are firmly in the techno/dance/rave category, with relentless beats and decidedly up-te...

We’re only a couple of weeks away from Halloween, but the creepy stuff has arrived early this year - in the unlikely form of a clown invasion. If TV has taught me anything, it’s that the end of the civilized world will either involve everything shutting down due to malevolent sentient computers, an alien invasion, or zombies rising from the grave to devour us all. Computers is certainly plausible – my phone is already able to adapt for my fat fingers missing the keys, so destroying mankind is an obvious next step. Aliens? I’ve not see any evidence, but Cumbria has lots of uninhabited bits they could be hiding in, plotting our downfall. As for Zombies – if the end of the world comes from an attack by the undead, at least our destroyers will be smartly dressed, as not many people get buried in jeans and a T-shirt. But are we really heading for Clownpocalypse? If you’ve kept up with the media this week, you could be forgiven for assuming that the end is very nearly nigh, such has ...

To chill or not to chill? That is the question. Except some of my colleagues already seem to have the answer when it comes to their precious ground coffee. Before I go any further, I should make it clear that I love a good cup of coffee. I’m a cappuccino man myself, but I’ll forgive you your lattes and espressos, and I’ll bite my lip if you’re a skinny macchiato freak. I’ve even had a bit of barista training, so at the very least I’m permitted to express an opinion on the subject. It’s a national obsession, after all. Every high street features an alternating display of big-name coffee shops, vying for our Grande money and sweetly enquiring “would you like any pastries with that?” Drinking coffee is now as British as a cup of tea, fish and chips and curry (free business idea there– open a restaurant selling that combination and you’ll be rich in no time). I’ve got a coffee machine in my office at work, and some colleagues do too. Sometimes it’s hard to get near the sink in th...

Wasps: wearing the same stripy jumpers as bees doesn’t fool anyone - they’re the soccer hooligans of the insect world. It definitely feels decidedly autumnal this week, which means two scary and unpleasant things are pretty much over; me wearing shorts, and the preponderance of angry, irritable, wasps who want one last fight before winter arrives. If there’s a defined scale of despicability, our waspish chums are right near the top, battling it out for the “pointless but ruddy annoying” award with the daddy-long-legs. These surly, benefit-free, bee impersonators have seemingly no redeeming qualities. This is largely because flying at your face isn’t something that generally starts you off well in the likability stakes. Having the ability to sting and repeating the face-flying thing guarantees it, and also encourages violent retribution. Sitting next to the open window in my office has allowed me to observe their modus operandi first hand, over an extended period of time. I c...