Can't do, won't do!

FOOTBALLING
Everybody in my family, all of my brothers and all of their children and all of their friends are BLUES! and in Manchester that means we are City fans, supporters, spectators, followers, call us what you will but we are BLUE! all the way through. That is until last week, when my Jack came home with a Uni-ted! shirt. It's not his fault really as he hadn't been to many matches and didn't see himself as a football follower at all. I must say though, that all of the games he has been to were to watch City. The sad thing is that Jack has only just taken up playing football and when he went to buy a kit, with his own money, the shop wanted £45 for a City shirt and only £20 for last seasons United change strip in blue. Well, I did tell him to make sure he got a blue shirt, so you're quite right - it's my fault.
IT'S MY BIRTHDAY
(AND I'LL CRY IF I WANT TO!)
Last week I mentioned that my birthday was on August 25. And I asked if anybody else shared the same aniversary? Well, it seems that quite a lot of people do. So, each week I intend to feature one of the amazing people who were born on the same day of the year as me. Just to give you an idea of who I'm talking about, I'm going to chuck some names into the ring. Billy Ray Cyrus 1961, Elvis Costello 1954, Gene Simmons 1949, Leonard Bernstein 1918. Well, as you can see there are a few singers and songwriters on my list, want some more? How about actors? They don't come much bigger than this one! Sean Connery 1930, Writers? How about Frederick Forsyth 1938, or Martin Amis 1949. Film directors? Tim Burton 1958. Models? Claudia Schiffer 1970. On the downside, I've been told that Atilla the Hun was also born on this day, I'll have to research that one myself! Finally, let's not forget Mia Zapata 1965. And of course, Grandmaster Gareth from Misty's Big Adventure. Gareth Jones 1980.
SORTED?
Just to let you know that the lift thing finally got SORTED! You may remember me moaning about Nicola's lift (that's elevator in USA) keeping me awake at night, it had an awful buzzing noise like a de-tuned radio and the only solution was to turn the damned thing off. The problem was, the switch had been installed downstairs at the top of my front room chimney breast nine feet high and well out of my reach. The answer was of course to have the switch moved to the upstairs bedroom where I could control it myself. So, how long did it take? Well, just thirty minutes for the certified electrician to fix it and nine months of waiting for his certified self to appear! Still it's SORTED now!
StraightTalkingStreetTalkingSweet...
My really bad poetry blog gets updated on a tuesday, more or less at the same time as Proper Joe's. So, what's on STSTS this week? Well, I've put a song lyric from a stupid song that I've been singing round the house for the last seven or eight years or so. It's called Shirley and it's subtitled She's such a nice girl. you can clink the link if you want to check it out but I will warn you...
BIKE-BITS, BATS + BRATS!
Everybody's going really green these days and cycling is the big thing. We all want the latest bike, the fastest or the shiniest or the most comfortable one we can find. Jack has a BMX so does Nicola's helper Jessica. Ruth, Nic's other helper has an old 1970's Puch mini-cycle, which is a fine looking machine, complete with dynamo to work the fore and aft lights. I ride a bog standard MTB but I would like to make/buy a Ziggy bike so we/I can take Nic on trips with us in the wheelchair she calls Ziggy. I was looking at wheelchair cycles (Ziggy Bikes) on the internet and there are some interesting ones available, at a price! And guess what? We've got one - a picture of one that is, as a screensaver on this computer.
EAT ON DEMAND
How's the non-diet going? Very well, thanks for asking! This is week six and I can't say that time is flying - if anything, it's dragging a bit and the monotony of high protiens period! is beginning to bore me. For example, we went to Nic's Dad's 'seventieth birthday do' the other night at a restaurant in the Manchester suburb of Didsbury Village. All very nice, but there wasn't much on the menu that I could eat. Just take the night off, and start again tomorrow, it won't kill you! will it? Well, no! It won't kill me, but according to Dr Stillman (my non-diet guru) just one scoop of ice cream could set me back three days. So, no I didn't take the night off, I just did the boring thing and ordered the steamed mussels!
GREEN GILBERT
I used to write/edit a daft funzine called Space Travel for Beginners. In this publication we had a character called Green Gilbert and I was just thinking that it might be fun to resurrect him as he's been lying dormant for much too long. So, watch this space! By the way, I must tell you that I first met Green Gilbert many years ago when I was the school milk monitor. My job was to put the straws into the 1/3rd. pint bottles by piercing the silver top with the straw and to hand out the strawed bottles to the girls in my class. Well, there was one lad in my class called Smiffy, everybody called him Whiffy! Anyway, Whiffy hated girls and do you know what he did to their milk? He carefully peeled off the silver top and spat a dirty big greeny (green gilbert) into the milk, stirred it in with the straw and expertly replaced the top.
MORE SOON!