grumpyf1

Sling yer hook! You're out of date, mate... 99% of the time, an apple looks exactly the same the day after you first scrutinised it. In all probability, it will taste exactly the same. Should it have deteriorated in either look or taste, I’m pretty certain you would identify that rapidly and decide if you wanted to start/continue your fruit-based snacking. Based on this simple fact (and applying it to all other fruit and veg too) it’s safe to say that putting a ‘Best before’ date on the packaging is pretty damn pointless. For many other products in packets and tins, that it supposedly means that the quality of your product may deteriorate after the specified date means very little too. ‘May’ is the key word in that sentence. Anyone with a vintage grandparent will have heard rattling yarns about consuming a tin of bully beef from World War II sometime in the 1970s and it never doing them any harm. I’m 92 you know! We made our own fun in them days! (etc.) Your baked bean

Will they do the fandango? Malik and Lee as Mercury and May, Hot Space style I don’t go to the cinema that much. For starters, there’s no way I can drink a litre of cola (which appears to be the smallest size available now) and then sit for two hours without needing to take a ‘comfort break’. Then there’s the trauma of contending with other cinema-goers, most of whom seem to have come to talk, deliberately rustle crisp packets, or be unreasonably tall and sit immediately in front of me. It looks like I’ll have to brave all that come November, when a movie about rock band Queen scaramouches it’s flamboyant way in to your local flea pit. Cunningly titled “Bohemian Rhapsody”, it charts the history of the band from their early 1970s formation through to their remarkable performance at Live Aid in ’85, which is often cited as their best on-stage performance ever. Judging from the trailer, which was released this week, the attention to period detail looks to have been dialled up to

The final full-page... Things happen fast sometimes, don't they? Just three days after writing the joy of six , I got an email asking me to call the new editor at The Mail. When we eventually caught up, I was mid-way through my new commute home. Apparently, they want to include more news, and are therefore cutting down on the full-page outings. So I'm back to a column, but at 400 words, not even the 500 of my original 'Thank grumpy it's Friday" outing that lasted five and a half years. In the end, I had just a 15 week run as a full page and in both The Mail and News & Star. I'm now back to just appearing in The Mail, too.  It's hard not to view it negatively - I thought it was going pretty well. The additional pressure was tough though - by the time I got in from work, had something to eat and watched a bit of TV, I spent three evenings a week writing. After that, 400 is a breeze. So. Back to the future, then. Ah, well. At least I can sa

You stupid boys... It could easily be a scene from a sitcom. Scene 1 – it’s a sunny Bank Holiday is Chester. In a red phone box, someone dials “999” and says “I’ve just seen a bunch of people dressed in combat gear, carrying guns! Come quickly!” Scene 2 – A recently dunked biscuit plops into the large mug of tea on PC WiIlkins’ desk, as he sits, open-mouthed, listening to the caller. “Machine guns, you say!?” he gasps, wide eyed. “Right you lot, bring your truncheons!” (Assorted bobbies exit the station and pile clumsily into a Police car.) Scene 3 – Police car screeches to a halt and it’s occupants leap out, pointing their truncheons at a group of startled men in uniforms. “Put the guns down and, er, step away from the guns!” PC Wilkins shouts, from behind the squad car. “B...but we’re war history enthusiasts. We’re promoting a forthcoming battle re-enactment. These aren’t real guns!” replies one of the men, who are all dressed as members of the Home Guard. To prove his po

In ‘scream, run out of the room, scream some more then flap your hands pointlessly in the air’ news this week: Scientists have trained a spider to jump. On demand. Apparently, they’re interested in understanding how they do it as it might be handy when designing robots. To clarify, the scientists are interested... I’m guessing the spiders already know how they do it. If the world isn’t already scary enough, boffins in lab coats training 8-legged nightmares to leap when they want them to sounds awfully like the sort of thing you see at the start of a film which soon has hordes of people dying, and deranged scientists with wild hair saying things like “Now they’ll pay for mocking me for being in Dungeons and Dragons Club when I was 14!”. Probably followed by laugh along the lines of “Bwooooahahahahaaaa!” Kim (yes, they gave it a name) can leap six times the length of her own, hairy, body, and normally uses her skills for pouncing on prey, rather than amusing bored science nerds.

We moved house last month. I now live in what can best be described as a rural location. Even without opening my eyes in the morning, I am reminded of the countryside just outside my window by a wildlife chorus made up of bleating, tweeting, squawking and the occasional moo. Beats the sound of traffic any day, although what engine noise we do get has a much higher percentage of agricultural vehicle notes than I’m accustomed too, interspersed with hints of trains. Just like any modern nerd, prior to the move I exhaustively investigated how to connect myself to the outside world from the middle of nowhere. Clearly, broadband is now right up there on the list of life’s essential requirements – somewhere just after air and water, but probably jostling for position with warmth and food. Much to my delight, it turned out that our new pad is on the edge of the B4RN area – meaning the availability of fibre optic cable, not just to a nearby green cabinet, but right through the wall int

Matt Campbell at the 2017 ASICS Windermere Marathon This Sunday will mark two weeks since Matt Campbell died whilst running the London Marathon. The talented Masterchef star was fundraising for Brathay Trust. When I wrote the piece about him last week, the incredible figure donated to his JustGiving page was £165,000. By Saturday, it has soared to £250,000, and on Sunday it passed £300,000. Remarkably, as I write this on Wednesday evening, the total looks set to exceed £350,000. With my colleagues from Brathay I did what so many others have done recently, and went out on Tuesday and completed 3.7 miles – the distance Matt was from the end of the London Marathon. Well over 30,000 people have donated, with many of them doing the same distance, running or walking – whichever they could manage. It has been a truly remarkable outpouring of love and generosity that, at times, has even had thick-skinned old me in tears, as I’ve monitored and responded to the thousands of social me

Amber Rudd has gone, then.  In light of the reasons behind her downfall, it’s been suggested someone should show her a copy of her own resignation letter – just in case she hasn’t seen it. Stepping into her Home Secretary’s shoes is Sajid Javid. There does seem to be a bit of a problem with that governmental footwear though – the left and right shoes seem to be unfeasibly far apart. Perhaps that explains the rather comical photo of Mr Javid outside his new office, looking like he’s in the process of doing the splits to entertain the press pack. This feet wide apart stance isn’t anything new for the Conservative Party’s bigwigs, though. Over the last few years, the likes of George Osborne, Theresa May and David Cameron have all been snapped looking like they have severe chafing problems. Interestingly, they have also all fallen from power spectacularly... except Theresa May, who is (at the time of writing, at least) still Prime Minister. We’ll see if she becomes another victi

"OK guys, let's try not to be too OTT... ah. Too late." When Swedish quartet Abba last recorded music together, I was 15 years old.  I know that, based on my youthful good looks, you’re probably thinking that was about 20 years ago. 30 at a push. Miles out – it was 35 years ago. Following aborted attempts at a ninth album, they went their separate ways in 1983. As they never officially went on record to say they’d split up, you could argue this has just been a very, very, long break. More than long enough for other returnees, such as Take That, to grow up, form a group, have hits, split up, leave it for a while, get back together, have more hits, then gradually shed members. Arguably still at their peak when they said “Thank You For The Music” and vanished, Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Anni-Frid produced some of the most joyous and infectiously catchy pop music of the 70s and 80s. As with most music icons, it wasn’t long before they were viewed as cheesy, kitschy

Last Friday, the 4th of May, marked a significant anniversary for me. As my full page, 305th, newspaper outing was published in Cumbria's The Mail and News and Star, it was six years exactly since my first "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column in the North West Evening Mail, as it was back then. Amazing. I've mentioned before about the journey to the first column, through the paper's Big Blogger contest, and how I very nearly packed it in at the start of this year, only to be offered the full page. I said I'd review how it was going after a few months, but a stressful house move throughout this period means my perspective on all that is somewhat skewed - it's hard to make the time to write, and even to research or concentrate, when your life is all about legal paperwork, bewilderment, boxes and bubblewrap. To add to the confusion, I recently discovered that my original contact at the paper has left. So far, no-one has been in touch about who I no

Pretty pounds? A new currency, exclusive to the Lake District, is set to hit the tills on the 1st of May. £2 million worth has been printed, and it can be ‘purchased’ for the equivalent amount in sterling. The idea behind the scheme is for visitors to the area to use the money within the Lakes, whilst enjoying their time in the area. Only local businesses will accept it, so it’s use will support local communities. The Lake District National Park Authority is certainly banking on the Lake District lolly being a boon for the area – they’ve invested £30,000 in the project. The bank notes are colourful, featuring attractive designs of local luminaries such as Beatrix Potter, Alfred Wainwright and living legend Joss Naylor, along with the distinctive scenery of the area – by which I mean mountains and lakes, not sheep and rain. It’s likely to be a hit with collectors, keen to swell their bulging bank-note stashes. It seems to have been broadly welcomed by local businesses too, w

Matt Campbell set out on the 26.2 mile course of the London Marathon last weekend, but he didn’t make it back. After collapsing less than four miles from the finishing line, Matt tragically died. The 29 year-old Cumbrian was a star of Masterchef, and also a committed supporter of the charity I work for, Brathay Trust. Matt’s family had already had to deal with the early death of his father, Martin, in 2016, who had also championed the charity. His ever-cheery support of our 10in10 (ten marathons in ten days) challenge saw him live and breathe the event from start to end, filming, editing and documenting the runners’ daily battles with the groundhog-day effects of running the same course and battling their increasing tiredness and injuries, to raise vital funds. Befriending all who took part, ‘Camera Dude’ was a big, and important, part of the event for the runners, and he left a huge void when he died. After his untimely death, Matt picked up that support of Brathay, running in