APOLOGIES if I’ve caused any of you to choke on your toast and Marmite this week upon hearing my voice doing the Thought For Today slot on BBC Radio Merseyside’s Breakfast show.
I do have a serious, reflective side, honestly – though those who regularly see me when I’m all red wine and bacchanalian antics in Hell’s Waiting Room, New Brighton, might be forgiven for doubting it.
Anyway, it ain’t just ‘Thoughtful’ stuff I do. I recently wrote a vulgar comic monologue about extra-terrestrials making Liverpool the base for an attempted colonisation of the world.
It came out of my attending a comedy workshop led by the brilliant Pauline Daniels.
I see this monologue as the start of my glittering new showbiz career...

And I’ll be giving the recitation its world premiere performance at a show downstairs at the Magnet Bar in Hardman Street, Liverpool, on Wed 24 Oct, starting at 8pm.
The show mainly comprises entertainment from the Patchwork Shakespeare Theatrical Company of Liverpool, but a number of comedy acts, including my ´Aliens in Liverpool´ monologue performance, are also on the bill.
Anyone wishing to come, by the way, I’d be pathetically grateful for your support (or your cruel titters if I make an idiot of myself). It costs £3 on the door.
A reminder, too, that our next meeting of the ever popular Bards of New Brighton poetry group will meet at the Little Brighton pub (known locally as the “Ginny”) Rowson Street, New Brighton, on Mon 5 Nov, starting at 8.30pm. Admission is free and all are welcome.
And as it coincides with Bommy Night, me and Posh Boots will, if we remember, bring along treacle toffee and parkin cake for everybody.
Now, before I sign off, I leave you with two scripts for those Thought for Todays broadcast this week on Tony Snell’s Breakfast show on BBC Radio Merseyside.
I’ll post the other Thoughts sometime over t´weekend.
(Sorry about the headline on this posting, by the way, I must credit the inspiration for it to Roddy Frame. A similar line appears in his excellent ´Small World´ song. I just stuck it up to get your attention.
Till next time, love always… and Keep the Faith!

ON HAPPINESS
“This programme daily chronicles a city, a nation, a world, in chaos. Violence, crime, war, natural disasters, environmental degradation etc – most of it gets reported.
It’s difficult to feel good about being a citizen of Planet Earth most mornings.
But, crucially, what also gets reported are the acts of heroism which occur in life – and all the small unbidden acts of kindness.
And there is also humour in the programme, plus wry reflections on the maddening absurdities of modern life.
This humour and those sideways looks at issues are lightening ingredients – because no broadcaster wants his listeners to feel depressed by all the bad news.
Broadcasters, like most people, want the people they interact with – their listeners – to be happy.
Surely, every well-adjusted person desires personal happiness. Well, probably.
Though let’s not forget …misery can bring pleasure too. My life would be much poorer, for instance, without my collection of albums by The Smiths, Morrissey and Roddy Frame.
Now, being content and free of worry is one way of defining happiness. But how many of us can truly claim to be in that state? Exactly!
The truth is that happiness, my friend – and you have to laugh at this, really – is never more than a couple of steps away from disappointment and rejection.
Happiness is rarely consistent and continuous – because life’s not meant to be like that.
Actually, life’s is a bit like a radio news programme. It’s a tantalising mixture of heart-sinking news, humour and life-affirming gestures.
Most of us struggle on, grinning defiantly in the face of our adversities.
Some of us don’t manage to, and so need help.
But what ever life chucks at YOU today, I hope you manage to meet it with a positive attitude.”

ON DOING NOTHING
“Every so often a book emerges from the not terribly sexy religious publishing sector that is so radical it makes you rethink the way you live your life.
I was given such a book recently. It’s called ‘Do Nothing To Change Your Life’.
My eye was caught by a line of blurb on the book’s back cover. “We need to learn to nurture our inner slob,” it proclaimed.
Now, I’d been attending a hectic communications conference at the time I was given this excellent book.
So I was feeling weary from all the dashing off to be present in this room or that room, by this time or that time, for this talk or the other, and another pile of hand-outs.
As luck would have it, I felt this book was tailor-made for me, and, I imagine, for millions of other people who feel the world has become too fast-paced and crammed with deadlines and to-do lists.
The author is Stephen Cottrell, the Bishop of Reading. As well as an affirmation of Christianity, which you would expect, he offers a powerful critique of the cult of the self and consumer addiction in modern society.
But the book’s main thrust is that doing nothing in particular for a few hours is actually a good thing.
When you do it, you very slowly start to rediscover yourself in relation to others and to the world itself.
The bishop gives practical advice on how to sit still and reflect deeply and win back time taken from you by the false imperatives of the modern world.
Everywhere you turn in modern life, he writes, there are more people shouting at you, demanding attention and wanting to consume your time.
That’s certainly been my experience.
And now I’m ready to nurture my inner slob.”

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