Back Home For A Bit.

To be honest I was gasping to get back to England for me summer hols ever since the blast furnace weather showed up a couple of week back. It wasn't just that though, the Spanish celebrations at winning the World Cup had a strange effect on me. Don't get me wrong, I think they were the best team in it and were worthy winners and all that but all those fireworks, thunderflashes and honking of horns were great - for the first half dozen hours, but In the end I just stood at my open window propped up on my elbows rather like a German paratrooper caught up in V.E Day.
No such problems with the heat here in Blackpool then, was in the "Philharmonic Club" the other night and accosted by a bloke from Sheffield in an alarming long white cardigan with a hood on. Apart from doing Mavis Riley from Coronation Street impressions for no apparent reason he also felt obliged to tell me of his journey to Blackpool from the day previously. "Aye, - we allus come to Blackpool, me and Arnold, have done for 30 year, never have a problem getting ere. Then this year we had a Sat Nav fitted to't car and got lost! The voice just stopped talking like! Arnold went mad, I said it were nowt to do wi me! - said "All I know Arnold, is that we're 17 minutes away from where we should be, - that's it - What a bloody carry on!" And so it went on, and on........
Conversation with girlfriend yesterday: She says, "Is that a sty on your eye there? Me: "No, I don't think so, I can't feel anything, and anyway you only get them when you're a kid don't you?" She angrily replies "No, of course not, you get them when you get run over!" (Think she meant "run down") - She's half Spanish you know.

Thanks For The Memory Lads

So there we have it, it´s all over for another four years then eh! (should we qualify for Brazil 2014). More tears, more gut wrenching disappointment, more horror, more ineptitude and on this occasion – humiliation, - which is a new one.

Are the players overpaid? Yes, do they care as much as the fans? No. Are they happy to look themselves in the mirror today? Yes, probably. Do we need a manager who can actually communicate to his players in their own language? Yes (can you imagine an Englishman managing Italy? – though it might not be a bad call at the moment). Do we need a manager who is willing to change formation once it is apparent that we are getting murdered? Yes. The questions go on and on. And YES we need goal line technology, good God, we score few enough goals as it is without getting em chalked off because the linesman is looking the other way!

I´ve always taken my football very very seriously, - I don´t know why, I just feel ridiculously passionate about it and take every defeat personally. Yesterday was like coming home and finding somebody that you don´t like at work tucked up in bed with your wife. I once heard Rod Stewart say that once you get married and have kids you realize that the football results aren´t the most important thing in the world, - well, I never bothered with all that so it looks like I´m stuck with it.

When Frank Lampard´s “goal” was disallowed yesterday I admit to getting a tad disgruntled, there was the odd tantrum, a bit of “industrial language” and a bit of finger pointing at the big screen, I was a broken man, and when I eventually slumped down again into my seat, I was the owner of a broken heart – and watch strap.

Come on England cricket team!!!

Another Literary Masterpiece Overlooked

Best story of the last couple of weeks here in Benidorm was relayed to me by girlfriend´s mum Dorette recently. She has worked at the airport in Alicante for years and part of her duties is to inform irate British holidaymakers that their luggage is in fact overweight, and if they´re not prepared to cough up the excess charge they have to unload enough unwanted items so as to satisfy the check-in-gate scales. So, as is usual there is a pile of dirty laundry, half empty shower gels and semi squirted, shaving foams toothpaste tubes and shampoos. As she is poking about in this stinking pile of unwanted household castoffs with pointed finger and turned up nose, she comes across – per chance under a lonesome sweaty sock - one of my books!! – “Chasing the cheese – a year in the life of a Benidorm class B celebrity” to be exact. Hey-ho.


As I write this am listening to one of the local English language radio stations, it´s a Sunday morning religious sort of thing and one of the presenters has just said, “Now, this is a difficult subject, - but some people don´t know what to do over here when you die”. – Would have thought opting for lying down and turning blue is the favourite, no matter what country you´re in?

"God Give Me Strength".

Well done to “Telefonica” once more, who have once again brought me to boiling point for the umpteenth time since I moved here. Not content with arsing me around for days on end when I first got the phone line connected (so´s I could have broadband). They have now inexplicably been round and changed my phone number, - I haven´t got the slightest inkling why they did this, everything was working fine as it was. But now of course, my internet connection has gone south and when I got in touch with the local paper who provide my connection package they sounded as baffled as me. After some thought they said that I could either try and phone them and try and get my old number back, or to keep the new number and start all over again – 5 to 10 days waiting time. I plumped for the latter, as the first option would include having one of those useless, incompetent, bumbling toe rags round here again, and frankly, if I catch sight of one of their vans outside my gaff again I´ll simply pull the curtains, hide under the sink and per chance lob a grenade out of the window.

On a lighter note I recently read Paul Daniels autobiography, which was a surprise, not least because it isn´t called “You´ll like this – but not a lot”. He´s got some good working men´s club stories in there, of which this is one –
“It was also time to change my name, Ted Daniels as it was often mis pronounced by concert secretaries as Ted-d-d Daniels (with a stutter) or it became one word – Tedaniels. A very good act called “Les Pollux” I once heard being pronounced as “Lez Bollocks” (as if it were a man´s name). When the concert secretary had his attention attracted by the band, they tried to tell him that it was in fact the French pronunciation “Lay”, and that there was two of them. - He turned back to the microphone, apologised and then announced them as “The two bollocks”.

"Has Anybody Seen My Quiche?"

The quiet week leading up to Easter and resultant sparse work commitments meant me going back to Blackpool and being acquainted with my girlfriend´s new dog – he´s the biggest pup I´ve ever laid eyes on - a sort of Pit Pony/hearth rug cross called Rigsby. He´s quite an endearing chap actually and fairly agile for his size has he proved when managing to scoop out the leftover half of my cheese and onion flan off the top of the oven when I wasn´t looking.


Also in Blackpool were Nigel and Yvonne from the Cumberland Bar and we met up for a livener in the British Legion on Friday afternoon, this short liaison was stretched to a walk down the road to the “Catholic Club” on Queens Street where a delightfully grumpy Glaswegian bloke kept us entertained as he battled the drunken locals who were coerced by him into a game of “Hoy” which is a sort of playing card bingo with no rules (or so it seemed to us). Whilst on our travels we bumped into a couple of our members from the Cumberland Ex-Servicemen´s Club –“ Jimmy kneecaps” and “Jukebox” Johnny. – Much laughter and jollity ensued and we just sort of lost track of time.

Unfortunately for me the day after was set aside for a house removal of Nikki´s gear from a flat in the town centre to a house on an estate in Bispham and, as I´d woken up feeling awful and gradually deteriorated from there, I was eventually reduced to a shambling (and retching) wreck and she was lucky that the new sofa bed arrived in the same colour that it was when it set off.

The wonderful array if characters in England´s premier tourist spot constantly amuse me, and apart from the eccentric oddballs found in the clubs, I bumped into a chap ambling down the street with a ferret on his shoulder. And do you know what, - I´m not certain that he knew it was there.

Back in Benidorm now where tomorrow night I look forward to trying to entertain the backs of necks of the massed ranks in “Sinatras” as they crane their heads towards the Manchester United Bayern Munich champions league quarter final being played out on the widescreen television to stage left. I can´t wait.

"I Am A Singer - Therefore I Out Rank You"

Had an action packed night at “Sinatras” the other night, an otherwise wonderfully attentive and suitably engrossed audience of senior citizens were shaken to their core every few minutes by a vociferous Manchester United fan watching the widescreen television near the stage. I was warned before hand by the act that preceded me that he was in fact mentally handicapped which made it next to impossible for me to shout him down. So I, along with the audience had to grin and bear it as a series of joyous expletives echoed around the shocked arena every time they scored (they won 4-0). The first one was a shrill “Get in there you f×××××g beauty” followed by a bellowing “Oooooh you t××t!! – presumably aimed at the referee. I did my best to ignore him, but my god it was difficult.

At the end of my show I come out as Eric Morecambe and mime to “Bring me sunshine”, I immediately see a bloke sat in the front row with a haircut not unlike that of Ernie Wise only darker. I thought it would be a wheeze to lift up the front of his fringe as Eric would do with Ernie pretending he was wearing a wig. The only problem was that it really was a wig! – and although it didn´t come away in my hand exactly it definitely moved a bit, and I at once realized my error as the texture between my forefinger and thumb felt something akin to horse hair and the look of sheer terror on the bloke´s face rendered me rigid for a split second. I could see a look of complete helplessness in his eyes and a plea deep in his pupils which said “Please don´t do this” – I felt awful, - especially when it transpired he was Belgian and wouldn´t have had a clue who Eric Morecambe was, and thus rendering the hair tweaking meaningless to him. He must have just thought I´d spotted the fact that he was wearing a rug and gone for it to take the piss. – Sorry mate.

Meanwhile at the “Cumberland Bar” keyboard player Andy Davies has been packing em in on Wednesday nights. Only problem is some of the “Singers” need a small step ladder to climb down from their own arse, and one such elderly gent fitted snugly into this pigeon hole. When he started to advertise that his friend did a spot in a bar on the beach front and that everybody was welcome, Nigel - the owner politely requested him to refrain as we have our own karaoke of an afternoon and he didn´t want his customers coaxing away thank you very much. Our superstar friend didn´t take kindly to this and shouted something along the lines that karaoke is for lesser mortals who probably couldn´t sing properly in the first place and are a somewhat inferior breed of person altogether. This view was not universally accepted and resulted in much muttering in the ranks from our loyal members and when one of our regulars, Terry from Leeds got up to sing he gave a small speech. With piercing eyes and flared nostrils he directed his gaze directly at the irksome little turd. “Can I just say that my kids and grand kids come in here singing karaoke, they are made to feel welcome and have a great time. Also,I happen to know that Joe Longthorne one of the great singers of our time, spends hours on the karaoke, he loves it, says it brings singers of all types together..........................and I, er... don´t like your trousers neither!!” – ( he was sporting a pair of those comical creme slacks, the belt of which hangs snugly somewhere just below the nipples). – His response to this outburst was “Well, we should discuss this outside” and our hero Terry countered – “Yes, we can go outside – but we won´t be discussing it!!” – And we go on about the youth of today!

I must stress that I wasn´t present during all of this and Nigel recounted the events to me this afternoon as I started my shift – the “And I don´t like your trousers neither” line had me in convulsions.

Broadband Saga - Part 1

Ivé decided to get a phone line installed so that I can have broadband which will mean I can download more than half a clip on “You-tube” before my computer slows to jurassic speed and thus converting my life into slow motion.The “Dongle” system is hopelessly one paced and went off all together for a week and a half recently.


The chap from “Telefonica” rolled up last Friday but couldn´t do a thing because we couldn´t locate the junction box – or the porter, who could´ve possibly pointed us in the right direction. He said that he would come back next morning “Between 9 and 10”, so I dutifully waited in even though I knew he wouldn´t be there – especially with it being Saturday – which I had initially overlooked, - which indeed so had he – obviously. So I then waited in on Monday – and nothing – until 1:45pm when he phoned me to say he´d be with me in “15 minutes”. An hour later he polled up and I informed on the intercom to stay down stairs and I would show him the where the junction box was (I´d meantime asked the porter in my pidgin spanish of its whereabouts – he regarded me with bewilderment before answering in English). When I got down there he was nowhere to be seen so I rushed back up the stairs to see him grinning at me outside my door.I practically took him by the hand and led him back down the stairs and to the junction box which resembled a severe explosion in a spaghetti factory. I then told him that I was due in work in 10 minutes and how long would he be, this seemed to baffle him and he then informed me that he had left a tool he needed back at base. “How long” I pleaded. “15 minutes” he replied (I think that “15 minutes” was the only English he knew). Luckily our barman Dave who was in the bar on a social visit agreed to babysit him whilst I went about my shift, and had to wait a further 2 hours for our friend to return and finally install the line. Well, at least that´s done, only problem is “Telefonica” have me down as flat 11B instead of 3B, and when I informed the internet company of this (who have been organizing all this) the girl said “Oh, dont worry about that´cos “Telefonica” work to a different map to the rest of the country”!! – Now, whilst I can fully believe that scenario, unless the postman is also working to their exclusive map, flat 11B are going to receive my bills right? – I´ll let you know. – I´m still waiting for the internet connection by the way.