No More Sore Ankles and Elbows

I’m not sure about the rest of you out there in blog land, but I decided to join the annual horde of people in the sales. However, this year I failed to get my ankles bashed by manic women with prams containing screaming children nor were my elbows bruised by the sheer weight of my (mostly) pointless purchases.

I even managed to avoid the stress of finding a car park space, sweating it out in an overly long queue and packed to the rafters shopping centres. I also joined in the annual buying frenzy in nothing but my pyjama bottoms, a cup of hot tea, a glazed donut and a smug smile – and all without being arrested.

Yeap, this year I made all of my sales purchases by pointing-and-clicking on the good old Internet.

People may complain that it’s destroying the high street, but my purchases were all from major high street chains with an Internet presence – and the foresight to run their sales on-line too.

Also, by doing my sales shop in the virtual world I even managed to avoid that impulse purchase of the usual piece of crap for a few pounds near the tills. You know the stuff I mean, talking key rings, garish belts with massive buckles and lime green bobble hats that you wouldn’t be seen dead in – but heck, it’s 90% off so must be a worthy bargain (after all, why else would they be giving them away!?)

So I’m now smugly sat with my freshly delivered DVDs with £100 savings and two fantastic designer shirts with combined savings of around £75. The only downside is that I was unable to get my designer jeans – some other Internet nerd beat me to those. Still, I’m sure I’ll get my chance in the post-Christmas-pre-Easter clearout coming to an Internet connection near you soon...

Just What I Always Wanted!

So, Christmas day is pretty much out of the way and the turkey is looking a little thinner than it was this morning. I’m feeling rather full and my stomach is currently in "simmer" mode for the next few hours – that is before I resume shovelling in mince pies and alcohol sat in front of the television watching the Doctor Who and Doc Martin Christmas specials.

Presents wise, I did quite well this year. I got four rather nice new shirts off various family folk plus some new aftershave (people must think my wardrobe is in need of renewing and that I smell). I also got the usual collection of bits-and-bobs plus, in the much sought after "lack of presents" department, there were no socks, ties or underpants (a first for heaven knows how many years!)

Anyway, you must excuse me, I have a mince pie with my name on it…

Leaving it to Fate

Well tomorrow is the big day. The booze will be flowing, the bird will be undercooked and there’s bound to be some “interesting” presents to be opened that you’ll either (a) never wear or (b) never use.

Never the less, I’ve played it safe this year and resorted to either things people have actually asked for, books, DVDs, CDs or vouchers. And since it’s a well know fact that men hate to shop - the majority of these presents were purchased via the good old Internet. Hopefully, all presents will be gratefully received without too many returns or surreptitious askings for the receipt.

But it’s yet another year without a gift to buy for that special person in my life. I had high hopes for 2006, but I guess you can’t have it all – especially since I did manage to achieve one objective out of two for the year (that being my new super-whizzy job). So when the family disperse tomorrow, they’ll head off to visit their girlfriends or head home to spend a cosy night together. As for me, I’ll get to wash up the mountain of pots and endure having my lack of love life being the main topic of conversation.

Still, that doesn’t mean there’s no activity in that department. My current Match.com friend could still be an interesting possibility as, just when I’m about to give up on her, she always seems to pop up with a phone call, text message or MSN message.

She talks a lot about always being busy at Christmas, seeing friends, looking after her family and going to various parties, but I always get the feeling that she’s going with “someone else”. But then again, if she was, why would she bother contacting me and showing me pictures of her party dress? Guilt perhaps, or I’m I just being paranoid – as you can become when attempting this Internet dating lark?

I know she's been hurt in the past, so perhaps she's just taking her time - or wanting to get Christmas out of the way first. Perhaps once the silly season is out of the way I’ll get a better picture of where things might be going. Anyway, I’ve decided to stop my endless nights of worry as to whether she’s really interested in me and just leave it down to fate. That way, if it’s meant to be, it will be.

Finally, Happy Christmas to all of you out there in Blog land.

Bah Humbug!

Christmas is that the time of year where people go temporality insane and buy the most ridiculous presents that will either get used once, not at all, or quietly returned for something more appropriate when the gift giver is not looking.

So after much consideration I have come up with the top five most useless Christmas presents in the known universe:

1. The Chocolate Fondue Fountain

Is this some sort of Swiss led attempt for world domination? Just what the bloody hell do you need one of these for? If there was ever a “use once and shove in a cupboard” gift then this is well and truly it. Listen, we’ve tried it before with the cheese fondue - and we hated it then - and replacing the cheese with chocolate still isn’t going to work.

2. The Smoothie Maker

Right. Let me get this right. You place some fruit and ice cream in the top, switch it on, mash the contents up in to a fine paste, pour and then enjoy. Er, excuse me for being a bit slow on the uptake here, but isn’t this just a blender with a tap?

3. The Juicer

See above. Except replace fruit with a carrot. Vomiting after drinking resulting mush is optional.

4. Jamie Oliver Flavour Shaker

The packaging happily informs you that it’s a "fun, quirky and highly original food preparation item" No it isn't. It’s an expensive salt and pepper pot!

5. Home Karaoke Machine

I thought the whole idea of Karaoke was to stand up in public and, usually after much quaffing of alcohol, blast out in your best drunken voice some of the words to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”. Now where’s the fun in doing that in your front room?

She’s Certainly Got The X-Factor

So call me an old cynic if you like, but I loathe any television show where Z-List celebrities come out of the woodwork to sing, eat bugs or dance around a television studio in their tuxedo. After all, once the show is over, both the winners and losers get some much need publicity – and hopefully work – from their efforts. And there's me thinking it was all for our entertainment.

So, as with the X-Factor, I always suspected that the only people that made any money from the show were the three judges - Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh. Year on year winners have come and gone (I couldn’t even tell you who the previous winners were) but this year one person in particular caught my ear. I just happened to be passing through a room whilst the show was on and thought “Oooh, that Leona person can’t half sing”. As a result, and for the first time ever, I started to sit down each week and watch the X-factor to how she progressed.

So, last Saturday (17th December) was the nail biting finale with 21-year-old Leona Lewis and 18-year-old Liverpudlian Ray Quinn, who looks remarkably like Eddie Munster, battling it out for the ultimate prize. In another first for me, I just had to give my hard earned money to a television series by voting.

Leona may have been accused of lacking in the confidence that little Eddie oozed, but her singing was so pitch-perfect and versatile I had to vote three times just to make sure Ray didn’t win (although, to be fair to the lad, he did sing pretty well too).

So, unlike the previous winners who have disappeared into obscurity, appearing in trashy gossip magazines and quite possibly a future series of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, I think I witnessed history being made.

Leona romped home with 60% of the vote and a wonderful new star was born with the voice and talent to conqueror the music industry in the United Kingdom and, that finicky of places to an outside singer, the Holy Grail that is America.

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And before the evening was out the records begun to tumble. Her Christmas single, a cover of Kelly Clarkson's hit single A Moment Like This, has already broken the world record of having 50,000 downloads in the 30 minutes after the show had ended.

Needless to say, it’s a pretty much forgone conclusion that the much coveted Christmas No. 1 is in the bag. And, as sad as it may well be too, I’ll be dashing down to my local store on Wednesday to pick up a copy or two of the CD single.

It’s not every day a singer can make me sit up and take notice, but if Leona can do that to the likes of me, she’s got a very bright future indeed.

How to be the Perfect Girlfriend...

Ladies, it's time to put that "girlie" magazine down - you know, the one with that drunken "Z list" celebrity falling out of a taxi and showing her knickers on the cover - because it's time to pay attention.

Yeap, I’ve got some very important information that every girlfriend needs to know about us blokes. Watch it and learn...

VideoJug: How to be the Perfect Girlfriend


Thank you for watching. If you need us, we'll be hiding in the shed...

Men Make 'Smalls' Talk Buying Lingerie

According to a report on Yahoo news, an army of macho men will be patrolling the smalls section of Marks and Spencer to help prevent the blushes and blunders of blokes picking up sexy undies for their wives, girlfriends or secret lovers for Christmas.

Apparently, the scheme was launched in twelve branches of M&S last Christmas on a trial basis and it's now been extended to cover the lingerie departments of fifty stores.

Now, don't get me wrong, whilst this is quite a good marketing idea by M&S, I'd probably be even less comfortable approaching a "macho man" than a woman and asking for help in picking out something sexy in the lingerie department.

If anything, I'd be far happier asking a female sales assistant - after all they are more likely to have a clue about these unmentionables - plus you could simply point at someone in the store when they ask you "what size are they?" and they'd actually have an idea of the size.

The Art of Seduction...

I have absolutely no idea what the heck this is all about, or even if it’s advertising something, but a little stuck for something to blog about I thought I’d follow Chaucer’s Bitch lead and have a go at the test too.

So, I guess I really am the nice person I appear to be. Why not see if you can be any cringeworthily nicer?!

Whilst You Were Out

With our supreme leader announcing his intention to close all of our post offices and make us deliver our own mail by hand – but still having to first buy a stamp – it got me thinking about the wonders of home deliveries and the horror of a visit from the repair man to fix something that has broken down at the most inconvenient of moments.

Whilst it’s annoying at the best of times, not only have you had to take a day off work, but it’s the simple fact that you can never get an accurate arrival time that frustrates me the most. I mean, you speak to the nice girl on the phone to arrange a time and all she can suggest is “sometime between 8.30 in the morning and June”.

So, it’s your first day off work in months and you still end up getting up bright and early knowing that - if you don’t - they’ll be ringing the doorbell at 8am prompt. Still, you know it’s a totally pointless exercise because you also know that there’s no way in a month on Sundays that they will – but you just can’t afford take that chance.

The morning passes – still nothing – and you have to endure early morning television, endless cups of tea, lots of tutting and staring out of the window like an abandoned puppy. Lunchtime arrives and you manage to find something to eat from the fridge – after all you emptied it at the beginning of the week in order to make sandwiches at work - and still nothing.

Another hour – and cup of tea – passes with not an engineer in sight. Was that the front door bell?! You dash to the door, open it and find no one there. Still, it doesn’t stop you looking up and down the road just to make sure.

After all of that tea, and that slightly out of date food you had from the fridge for lunch, you really do need to go to the toilet. Unable to cross you legs any longer, and after first looking out of the window to make sure no one is outside, you head for the loo.

Naturally, you knew it would have to happen. It really had to – I mean it happened the last time you had to ring for an engineer. You’re sat on the throne with your trousers around your ankles and that fateful sound is heard. Yeap, it’s the front door bell (I’m not sure what you were thinking of!).

So, after desperately trying to pull up your trousers whilst heading to the door, in the mere twenty seconds it takes you to make it downstairs and to the door you hear a van driving up the road and you find a yellow card your doormat with those fateful words Whilst You Were Out written on it...

Waiting for God

There’s an old saying – there’s nothing more certain in life than death and taxes. Living in today’s overtaxed Britain you’re probably looking forward to the day when your lights finally go out – but even then you’re most likely to be taxed. Still, it’s not as if I sit around all day thinking about death, rather than the period before it – more commonly known as old age.

The other day I was sat in a traffic jam and, with not much to look at other than the brake lights in front, I decided to have a look around me. It’s then a spotted a retirement home and its occupants happily sat in a communal room no doubt discussing things from the past. It’s then that my mind fast forwarded another 30 years to a time when I’ll probably be a resident.

Thinking of my grandparents, now unfortunately all no longer around to enjoy their company and tales*, I remembered what sort of things they liked to eat, read, watch and listen to. There was always the good old tinned salmon sandwich, the Radio Times, Songs of Praise and Radio 4 – but it’s what we’ll be enjoying in our incontinent twilight years that made me laugh out loud.

Just think about what you eat, read, watch and listen to now and then fast forward 30 years where your Grandchildren and retirement home staff from latest EU member Mongolia puzzle over why we enjoy Chicken Tikka Masala, Harry Potter, Big Brother and Basement Jaxx so much.

*One tale that always fascinated me was from one of my Grandmothers. She remembered the reporting of the Wright Brothers first flight and then was witness to the space race, jet engines and Concorde.