June 2007 Archives

THIS weekend, 400 years of socially agreeable English history come to an end – and all because of the efforts of a bunch of whining health fascists.
Yes, from this Sunday, smoking will be banned in all enclosed public / work places.
In a demonstration of spite and contempt for the public, our masters in Parliament have ruled that the smoking ban will apply to all pubs.
An earlier, more “moderate� idea of allowing smoking in those pubs that don’t sell food, was chucked out at the insistence of a handful of hatchet-faced New Labour harpies.
This is outrageous. Think about it. In England (once the very cradle of freedom) people will from 1 July be banned from doing what they have done every day for the past four centuries – namely enjoying smoking tobacco, usually with a comforting measure of ale or wine, in public taverns.

WE live by the western seaboard of Britain so we should expect a lot of rain and be philosophical about it – but the current stormy weather really is dampening my spirits.
This morning as soon as I saw the mighty Mersey rolling by I could have cried me a river. Honestly, my heart was that heavy.
Then as I drove down through the Wirral towards the ghastly, Satanic smokestacks of Ellesmere Port, framed as they were by doom-laden metallic skies, my heart sank even further.
By the time I reached the office where I work, in a very bourgeois village in Cheshire, I felt almost suicidal.

SO here's me (above) pictured in a restaurant on a recent stag weekend in Krakow.
I went with pals from the New Brighton / Wallasey area and hooked up with some other fellas from London, Liverpool and, er, Ireland, I think.
We were in the Polish city to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of Tornton Hutt, our esteemed Cockerney-Oirish friend, who will marry the saintly Bernadette in August.
Most of the guys on the trip were married – so naturally they were reluctant to let rip, libertine-style. Well, that’s the official line anyway.

AS I was saying in the previous posting about John Lennon’s 'Imagine', the words of immensely popular songs are often of very poor quality when seen written down.
That is because songs are sonic entities – i.e. more than just words. They have melody, rhythm and often pack an emotional punch carried in the voice of the singer rather than by the lyric itself.
The subject of rubbishy song lyrics came into my head again last weekend as I watched the build-up to the concert given by George Michael at the new Wembley Stadium.
But by the time I’d endured Chris Evans’ lousy, suck-up of an ‘interview’ with the singer on C4, I’d had enough. I was too bored to be bothered watching the gig itself.
The only bit I saw / heard was George’s rendition of his song ‘Freedom’ or ‘Freedom 90’ to give it what I think is the correct title.

WHEN a multi-millionaire Beatle asked us to 'Imagine' a world with no possessions, for some reason people took him seriously.
Thankfully, however, not everybody did.
The fact that John Lennon died in tragic circumstances has given a sheen of affection and respectability to the man and his music – and to all his cynical politicking.
People are only too eager to smother the memory of the dead Beatle in well-meaning sentiment – forgetting that in life Lennon was an unpleasantly sarcastic man and a wife beater.
And he abandoned the country (this one!) that gave him everything – which in my book is unforgivable.
Lennon’s most famous song 'Imagine' conjures up a supposedly ideal world where there are no countries and no religion. Frankly, I can’t thing of anything worse.

IT isn't always a life of glamour and giddy giggles in New Brighton, you know.
Okay, well it is mostly, if you want to know the truth ... and especially when the Massive are in the new Tallulah's Bar.
However, the other night we all piled into our original local, Hell's Waiting Room, not realising that a canine manifestation of pure evil was waiting for us.
At first the creature (whose name, if I remember rightly, is Satan), looked merely cute.
Slowly, I moved to chuck this strangely beguiling dog (pictured above) under its chin...