Friday 18 March 2011

Mr William's got the 'wind up' and 'squits' while he's ahead!





I’m pretty ‘steamed’ up myself. Between Japan and Libya, I’m really upset. I just want to get out there and help all the people in distress, but I can’t, ‘cos I’m just an old geezer, but I can pray and I can say my piece for peace in this little ‘ol diary of mine. Here goes, UN- get Gaddafi out and no more delays. There can be no more ‘innocent’ bystanders in this world. We are all responsible for each other. If we don’t see it that way, then what is life all about? You tell me. Shouldn’t it be about loving and caring about others?



Yes, I’ve really got the wind up. I’m wound up like a grandfather clock-appropriate in my case. Actually, it’s been so windy that my satellite dish blew off. Frankly, with my hearing, I didn’t realise until the ‘Rugby’ disappeared off my screen. ‘Try’ as I did, there was no score until the engineer found where my UFO had ‘touched down’. (In the neighbour’s garden actually.) My daughter asked if I had not noticed the roaring wind and when I said no, she mumbled something about me getting down to that ‘ear-man’ again. Yes, the one that relieved me of £1000. Unheard of-at least unheard of by me, with my hearing.



There are couple of things that have happened to me that I wanted to share with you. Firstly, if you are a smoker, give up. There is no good future in it. I was reminded of this when I went out into my garden last week on a sunny morning. I took a lung full of what I thought was fresh air, only to find my ‘puffing’ neighbour had polluted it. I coughed, she coughed and I gave that up ‘for a game of soldiers’. (If you haven’t heard that expression before, it’s a little euphemism army types invented to avoid expletives. Mostly they didn’t avoid the expletives. Nothing new there!).



Talking about ‘puffing’, an ol’ friend of mine used to ‘swear’ that smoking saved his life. You have to understand he was into dark humour. He lived until he was 90 and smoked since he was 15. He reckoned smoking gave him an extra 50 years, ‘cos he worked as an engineer on the railways. One day he was in the ‘pit’ under the train tracks, having a crafty ciggy, when, unknown to him, a train engine came up from behind him. Coincidentally, he dropped his ciggy and bent to pick it up. When he stood up, he saw the departing train and realised he was lucky to still have head attached to his bod. From that day, he told everyone that smoking had saved his life. Nice story, but trust me, smoking kills. Give it up while you can!



Funnily enough, the other day, I was out walking my little dog and lifting the odd bit of rubbish in my plastic bag—doing the ol’ civic duty, when I started to be aware of heavy footsteps behind me. I didn’t like to look behind and kept up my little routine. It was only when I got to my front gate when I turned round and saw that it had been the street-cleaner following me and he asked, grinning widely, if I was ‘trying to do him out of a job’. Hay-ho!



Anyway, pressing on, I went to the optician’s again, and surprise, surprise, I had forgotten my hearing aids. Apparently she said (And isn’t retrospect, a clever dick), “I think I’ve found a squint in your left eye.” I was already squinting at her anyway and took a buckle in my eye, as we say here, ‘cos I thought she said, “I’ve got the squits.” (You know, the ol’ thru penny bits, do I need to draw you a diagram. Please God, noo!). Well, I really got into the miry doo-doo and told her I was sorry to hear that. She said, “Don’t worry, Mr William, the good news is that they can be straightened these days”. Definitely too much information, I thought. Anyway, the misunderstanding was eventually ‘straightened out’ and no doubt, the ‘squint’ will be too!



Another lesson learnt though. Must wear the hearing aids. Was in church and was sure the vicar said that we should ‘rent our hearts’ for Lent. I thought the Rev. had gone too far this time with the fund-raising. Heart surgery is a big deal at my age! Would that be like ‘Hertz Van Rental’? It would certainly ‘hurt’ me. Any road, just joshing. Another misunderstanding was eventually sorted out, but the vicar lost me on what ‘rending my heart’ came down to in practical terms. Sounds a bit drastic!



Anyhoo, off to see the ear-man and give him a piece of my mind, although frankly there’s not much left. Wishing you all peace and God’s Blessing in abundance on this St. Patrick’s Day. Don’t do anything I would do, at least not before you check it out with someone sane, if you can find one. I can’t. That’s the trouble.



Yours squinting at you smilingly, with a little bit of a wind-up,



The blogging Gogfather!



Happy St Patrick's DayImage by Darwin Bell via Flickr
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Friday 4 March 2011

Mr William is a 'Funny' Man!




Derek Jacobi on stage performing "A voyag...Image via Wikipedia



Mr William is a ‘Funny’ Man



Good Morrow to you, noble reader!



I’m all over the place today. So, please bear with me. No, I don’t mean you to be a bear or run around naked, but I’ll leave that to your indiscretion. No, I went to see Sir Derek Jacobi ‘treading the boards’ last night in the Bard’s ‘King Lear’. The play, the performance by the Knight were peerless, which I hope Sir Derek will not remain for long i.e. he should be made a ‘Lord of the realm’ which would be in keeping with his regal bearing. A propos of nothing, did you hear that the National Ballet gang are bringing out a new ‘Nut cracker’ production? I reckon some of those lifts the blokes do would crack anyone’s nuts, no matter how many socks you put down the support tights!



By the way, those of you who thought I only went ‘cos I misread ‘Lear’ for ‘Leer’ are not entirely misguided, but I’m really not that bad. I peep a lot, but rarely leer. I know my hero, Leslie Phillips OBE wants to be remembered more for his Shakespearean roles, than for his ‘Bottom’ type, ‘Ding Dong’ outings. Very laudable. He is like my ‘alter ego’. (Is that like a priest who has a wire about himself?) You see, we are all multi-faceted. Even I am not just one-track dimensional. I sometimes have higher thoughts, especially when I look up at Joanna ‘Luvverly’ Lumley’s statuesque physique and wonder where I left my stepladder! Did you hear her comment in the Telegraph? “We are raising lazy children with no morals.” What an admission! She should be ashamed of herself and sort her family out. (LOL. We ‘luv’ you, Joanna)



Anyway, I will launch forth, like the Titanic and hopefully not end up at the bottom of the Atlantic. You see, it’s been a busy week. I went back to the food market to cash in on my till receipt with the kisses on it. You remember, the cashier who was clearly after my assets? Well, I popped in and asked to speak with her. I hinted at my intentions towards her and the girls said she would only marry a rich guy. I assured them I was suitably endowed and they raised their eyebrows and my expectations, when they promised to pass on the ‘good news’ to her. Hay ho! Another triumph for hope over whathisname! I may be clutching at straws, but I often clutch victory from the jaws of ‘de-feet’. (And with my feet, that’s quite a feat, boom, boom!)



You see, there are ‘funny’ things about me you should know. I want to be respected and taken seriously. My war record and CV merit it. I have ‘Gravy-ass’, sorry meant ‘Gravitas’, but some would just send me to ‘Dignitas’! (You know the one-way ticket place in Switzerland. I’m sure it’s great, but I wish my son-in-law would stop casually leaving the brochures around for me to see. 10% off if you buy by Friday the 13th just sounds like a nightmare scenario to me. Suppose I could take up the 2 for 1 offer and go with Freddy Kruger? What a way to go!)



Anyway, the point is, I am a man of leisure, who can choose his pleasure, but I want to get my ‘affairs’ in order, and no, I don’t mean serial philandering; mind you, if you’re offering..? Thing is, I’m more ‘Bertie Wooster’ than ‘Bertrand Russell’. I sometimes need a ‘Jeeves’ to clear up my doo-doo! In the absence of a butler, I have to settle for my family. They all think they are so smart. Let’s see how they fare when they’re 86!



As I said to Berlusconi, before he went beyond the pale into the ‘Gary Glitter’ place where no man should go ‘boldly’ or otherwise, I said, “You’ve got to retain your dignity and, if possible, obey a few laws of the land”. To say that he’s gone off ‘piste’ is to suggest that ‘Gaddafi’, the mad, bad one is a touch ‘undemocratic’! With Gaddafi, the West is standing back and allowing him to mow his people down. Would you stand back and allow a gunman shoot school kids in front of you? Would it surprise you that ‘Tone’ Blair helped arm him to the teeth? Where is the moral highground? Can anyone sit on it with his or her sandaled-feet crossed?



You see, I want to be taken seriously as an artist—not ‘Banksie’ stylie. Did you hear he was up for an award? Did you think he ‘painted the town red’ after? Well, I want to be a paperback writer, paperback writer, but I need ‘Help’ as I’m way past ‘64’! Are you there or am I talking to myself? No one listens to me, so I natter to myself. Is that a worry? I don’t think so. I do. Who said that? Never mind that fluff. Did I tell you a pop star moved in nearby? As you know, Mr Peeps could not be accused of being nosy; so I was just being friendly and knocked at the electric gate, beside the electric fence, just to say hello. Well, the minders were so rude and later they even threatened me when I fell out of that tree and smashed my high-powered zoom lens camera. Where have basic manners gone?



Suppose I should tell you about my money kafuffle this week. No, it wasn’t when the bottom broke on my piggybank last Sunday. To coin a phrase, ‘The ass fell out of my finances’! No, I’m not skint. I could take a wheelbarrow to the bank with my spare dosh, but that is the problem. I am generous to a fault and some scammer types have stuck me on ‘sucker’ lists because I give to lots of charities. I don’t mind the occasional genuine charity. I’m not really totally grumpy, just from a generation where you could trust people’s word, especially if it was on expensive, official looking paper. Any road, I have been offered everything from cut-price diamonds for a token cost of £5000 to a lump of ‘Uranus’ for £5.99 (The planet, not the other thing. Mind you, that’s where I told them to stick that one!)



I’m sorted on the scam thing now, after talking with the family, but it all leaves a nasty taste. One person you can trust is Sir Patrick Moore, talking of planets etc. Sir P. has presented ‘The Sky at Night’ since shortly after the ‘Big Bang’. He is so distinguished by his monocle and eyebrows. I have the latter. Birds of rare species nest there and are protected by Eco World-wide agreements. Apparently, Sir Patrick was asked if he accesses ‘Google Earth’. Rumour has it he said he could ‘goggle’ the earth perfectly adequately through his monocle!





So much to say, so little time. Just 2 quickies, as the bishop said to the actress. Seems Stephen Fry is getting excited about ‘Tablets’ and ‘pods’; is he on ‘speed’ or something? As a final thought, a rural sage says a braying male donkey can be calmed down if you send in a female ass. Well, I’ll try that the next time my neighbour is braying at the top of his voice. He’s a bit of an ass.

Off now to open my post. What’s that one that’s ticking with a fuse hanging out?



Yours funnily, but with the odd twist



The blogging Gogfather

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