Jesus,
what a few weeks it has been.

I am getting really bored with writing about the various disasters that have befallen me recently. In fact, I am a bit scared that I am boring you lot as well but I guess that's the deal with friendships; good or bad you have to take it all in your stride.

At least I am not continually bleating on about politics, bands or sex like some I could mention. Mostly because the politics is pointless until we get a new world, bands are off my radar for now because they have driven me to insanity and sex is just a visceral memory that haunts me occasionally. (That's what children do for you!).

There are a few things that I think I should let you in on that have happened to me recently. I'll let you in on them because ... well, no reason really but unless I do this will be the dullest post since some crazy wrote a blog in binary.

First of all another 2 distant relatives have crashed and burned. Both male, heavy smokers and drinkers, both stubborn and both arrogant, both successful. Both a bit like me - even if I didn't really like them much.  It seems to me like my genes have a built in life span and that no matter what I do age 70 is about as long as I will be around. That's not bad.

With the pre-ordained date of demise set by the genetic code and my insistence on maintaining some kind of control over my own destiny I have therefore resolved to drink enormous amounts of neat ethanol, take up extreme sports. invest in a tobacco farm and set myself alight every week on Friday nights to see if my predictions are correct. Watch this space!

Mind you, it is all well and good doing oneself to death but there are the real catastrophes of life to deal with that you can never have any say in. Of course there are events like the chinese earthquake and the Burmese cyclone but they are so massive that it is hard to connect to them, and lets me honest, unless you are personally exposed why would you get too involved? It is beyond comprehension. It is the reason we invented governments. It is so big it is impersonal to outsiders. The things that really make an impact are the minor and personal. Apparently trivial to the media but of enormous import to anyone involved.

My disaster is just as stunning to me as the images on my TV. More so. I am not going to apologise for it. It is human nature and it is how I am.

My youngest daughter (age 3) was clipped by a car last week. The mirror smacked her plumb in the centre of her forehead and it is only through luck that she wasn't killed. The fucking idiot that hit her was a female aged about 50 who had come straight across a roundabout and then went through a red light on a pedestrian crossing directly opposite my house. I head the thump. Mrs B was with her - they had been buying ice creams - and she was holding her hand and manged to pull her out of the way. The driver was going about 35mph. Of course the mirror smashed and Scarlett was thrown off her feet but Mrs B had the smarts to put the ice cream on my daughters head where the car had hit and by the time I got there she was already in control. I called the cops and flagged down a passing patrol car that was luckily around. They were fan, fucking tastic. PRAISE TO THE OLD BILL!

So after much sweating and wobbly knees the ambulance arrived and checked her out and believe it or not she was ok. Not even a bruise. Kids are amazing! They let us take her home and she wanted to know where her ice block was! I went to get another one and watched as the driver was booked and breathalised. Seems she had no insurance and no idea that there was a red light. Witnesses say otherwise! Looks like she will lose her licence. No bad thing.

Once the baby had scoffed her ice cream off she went into the garden to play and me and the Mrs looked at each other like we had been shot. Mrs B went as white as a sheet and I just wobbled and then started crying. Weird feeling that. I wasn't upset. In fact I was in a good mood because there was no real damage but somehow it all came out in a few minutes of blubbing. Since then we have all been fine. A touch of whip lash for the babe and serious road crossing activity has been restricted but otherwise everything is normal.

Strange.

That old fucker death is just playing with me at the moment. But you know what?
 
He can get stuffed.
Life is for living!

Dearly beloved,
it has been a while since I last posted anything.

I have been avoiding the tyrany of daily blogs deliberately. Nobody missed me. (sob). I guess my posts are just another titbit in cyber world: like the T shirt - "No one read my blog either". True but slightly wounding.

The reasons I have been off piste are manifold. Mostly I wanted to avoid blithering on about the useless minutiae of my life but there are other reasons as well.

I needed to rest my aching arms to try and escape the RSI. I am getting married in August and all that needs planning. The weather is good and the garden needs working on. The sailing season has started again and the football season is over.  Cricket is back on the agenda. I have been to see a lot of bands again. And sadly another good friend of mine died - this time from cancer. All in all that is enough to make anyone stop blogging for a while. (I could have said I was busy but that's the minutiae that you needed to know so that I didn't come over as an arrogant berk!)

In 2008 three men I knew and loved have passed away in such quick succession and the with the imminent nuptuals (after 13 years of living together) I have been forced to take stock of the entire Baria battlegrounds. I needed to check the ranks who had fallen and who remained and more than that I need to take some time to figure out who I am.

 "After 40 years, I've become my fears, I've become the kind of man I've always hated!"
James

The jury is still out. No verdict is expected soon.

I really have been going through a big clear out of the detritus in my life. As it transpires there isn't much.

Of course there were the inevitable boxes filled with receipts and paperwork. They are almost all in a landfill somewhere now. Then there are the records of my existence; tiny pictures from photo booths and scrawled drawings and sketches from my youth. There is the swimming certificate from 1975 recording my achievement in 25 yards of breast stroke. (If only I could stroke that many breasts these days!)

I have unearthed half written and totally forgotten screen plays and yellowing and tattered copies of articles I have had published. Yesterdays chip paper. There are pictures of wars that I visited like a ghoulish tourist  in my days as a photojournalist and there are  scores of unseen negatives from football matches in decaying or demolished grounds. But all these amount to very little. You could cage my existence from that period in a small filing cabinet. And yet, they are still the days that formed me and they still have a resonance in my mind.

Today's creations are more substantial and longer lasting and yet they aren't the things that made me. They are the things that I have made.

They are my children, the homes I have built and the people that I love and they cannot be locked away in a  dark basement and ignored. They are the living, breathing expression of all that I am and all that I may become. I have transformed and I never knew it was happening. No wonder I feel  so  disconnected at times. I am in so many places but I am never there.

If you really take stock and wipe away the grime and dust of your lifetime from the clouded corneas  in your eyes  sometimes what you find surprises you. 

I have also discovered that I am still afraid.  I have tested myself for my entire adult life and  I have exposed myself to all kinds of dangers from wars to penury and beyond. And yet despite my survival and continued  material successes I still find myself  cowering in the face of the unknown future. Unlike my kids who are ready and willing to try anything.

That is why we have children. That is what the selfish or single can never grasp.  That is part  of the miracle. 

Bizarrely enough that fear is what makes me whole and it is what drives me on. Without it I am a husk of a man. Finding out this kernel of truth about myself I have begun to recognise it in others.

Some, are more afraid than I am and as a result they have achieved greatness, fame or notoriety. They are the ones we consider successful.

Others are so afraid they are skeletal figures hovering on the periphery of existence, they automate their lives to such a degree that the only variable is the occasional illness. Even their bowel movements are regular and orderly. They are the ordinary. Dull beyond measure. A waste of protoplasm.

Then there are the last and most remarkable group that I can discern at present. They are the extra-ordinary. They are the people who can continue the routine without fear. They can raise hell if need be and exercise restraint when they have to. They have reserves of unbounded resilience when required and they are compassionate but not weak. They are the ones who will never fail you, desert you or quit. They are not rare or blessed by a deity. They are not saints. They are not mythical or fabled.

They are you.
IF you want them to be.

The 10 zeros proved to be a stumbling block

A man in the US state of Texas has been arrested for allegedly trying to cash a cheque for $360bn (£182bn).

Charles Ray Fuller had said he wanted to start a record business, authorities in the state said.

The 21-year-old's attempt to cash the money in a bank in Fort Worth failed when staff spotted the 10 zeros on the personal cheque.

Mr Fuller was arrested on a charge of forgery and was released on bail of $3,750 (£1,900).

$1m scams

The man from North Texas said he had been given the cheque by his girlfriend's mother.

The bank said it had contacted the account owner and had been told she had not given Mr Fuller permission to either take or cash the cheque.

Fort Worth police said Mr Fuller also faced charges of unlawfully carrying a weapon and possessing cannabis.

Officers said a small amount of cannabis and a .25-calibre pistol were found in his pocket.

In October last year a man in the city of Pittsburgh was arrested after he handed over a counterfeit $1m bill to a cashier at a supermarket and asked for change.

Three years earlier a woman was arrested after trying to use a fake $1m bill at a supermarket in Georgia.

Which popular slang expression drives you nuts?

24-7
how lazy is that!

Oh and the way you should say a year is Two Thousand AND eight, not two thousand eight. That has been adopted by lazy journalists and wannabe Americans. It is simply wrong.

Finally, a man is found in hospital with a steering wheel in his trousers.
DOCTOR "What is that doing there?
MAN "Dunno, but it is driving me nuts"

Anti-aging-cream

Is it just my perception or do the women of this world have a serious self-image  problem?

What is going on out there that makes women fall for the increasingly  spurious and  pseudo-scientific adverts that the multi-national  cosmetics companies  put out?

It has been at the back of my mind for a long time now but last night I went out and ended up in a nightclub surrounded by well dressed and fancy looking chicks who had all plastered themselves with makeup in attempt to disguise the minor flaws and imperfections that they probably saw as huge obstacles in their lives.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against make up or women looking as sexy as hell. In fact I am all for it but it does concern  me that the female  members of our species seem to be so obsessed with their  appearance that they occasionally appear to have taken leave of their senses.

Before we went out last night my 3 year old daughter had spent at least 30 minutes plastering herself with powders and eye shadows. She had hidden herself away in the bedroom where I had thought she was playing with her toys. When she emerged she looked like one of those freakish children in American talent shows. You know the thing - Britney meets Debbie just before she does Dallas. I have to say it set me on edge a bit but I know she is only a child so she will never see things the way I do. There was no point in making a fuss about it. So I didn't. But it is symptomatic of how early this fixation can begin.

Later on, in the pub, I saw a very very very fat woman snogging the face off a very thin bloke. This was not, as Shakespeare would have said, "a consummation devoutly to be wished". In fact the discussion for a few minutes at our table concentrated on how big the chaps John Thomas must have been to allow them to conclude their obviously imminent activities. Flagrantly on display in the centre of a busy pub on a Saturday night, the obese womans four buttocks were hanging out of her jeans and despite the fact that she had almost every flaw that you would consider a hinderance in the mating game she seemed to be holding her own. Soon after she left the pub I would stake money that she was holding something else as well! Obviously that woman had something the bloke liked and it had nothing at all to do with our stereotypical assumptions of beauty.

When I see adverts for some product or other that claims to prevent aging by puffing up your skin to hide wrinkles I am reminded that fat people have wrinkles too and their skin is puffed up enough for anyone. I have to tell you girls. It is rubbish and it won't work. Take a look at this:

Lesash011006_700x413

The woman in the pictures is Lesley Ash, a well known British Actress. She was a stunner. A total babe who had no need of any enhancements as far as I can tell and yet she fell in to the vanity trap and after a dose of botox or collagen that went wrong she turned into the face of bloated excess you see before you.

What a shame. I bet her husband is spewing. Years ago I actually knew her hubbie and whilst I think he is a decent bloke I wouldn't want to annoy him. (Again. I did once and it wasn't pleasant. He is a 6ft plus ex-soccer player and I bet he has a right hook that would make you think twice about crossing him.)

But enough about the disasters that women make in public, what about the private mistakes? What about the women who waste all that money on  potions and lotions that will do nothing to prevent the ravages of time? What about all the mumbo-jumbo garbage about Xylitol XP or Wangachagawongabonga PCt with added DDT or whatever it is they purport to put in these things. For my money - and I spend a lot of it indulging she who must be obeyed by buying her buckets full of Lady Clarins hogwash for hair - it is all a crock of shit.

I know you have probably heard this before but the only thing that will fix your fat arse or your sagging gut is exercise and the only way you will prevent wrinkles is by the judicious application of plaster.

You would be much better advised buying yourself some moisturiser and a set of really raunchy knickers. That way you will feel fresh and you old man will be so delighted with his new found sex kitten  that he will never  notice the  bobbles and wobbles  on your bum. You will feel better too. Imagine all those endorphins running wild - they will fix the wrinkles faster than any hatchet faced celebrity endorsement will.

So here is a man's advice for women who are feeling vulnerable / wrinkled / fat / old / useless or unlovely.

DON'T!

Men will not notice the minor imperfections.
They WILL notice  the  chemistry between you. 
Men will ignore  almost anything about you that you consider unsightly if they think they are about to get a good seeing to.
The most attractive thing about a woman - any woman - is  the fact that she finds someone (you) attractive.

It is as simple as that.

Police

YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE COPPER!
YOU ARE ON MY MANOR AND  I DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF YOU ARE  PLOD. ON THESE STREETS YOU PLAY BY MY RULES, NOW TAKE YA  SPEED GUN AND FUCK OFF BEFORE I SHOVE IT UP YOUR 'ARRIS!

As a pimply youngster I'd rehearsed that speech many times in private but now that parenthood, life and  a sense of  reality have eroded  my once impregnable arrogance I  found myself unable to recall a single word when the time came.

I was bimbling along in London yesterday on my way to a meeting that would bore the pants off a nun when the radio told me there was a massive log jam on the Embankment, so, to avoid  Ken's congestion charge and about 4 hours worth of diesel fumes I cut off around Regents park to avoid it all. There I was happy as Larry,  music blasting, sun shining  and only a few miles to go when I turned the corner at the Zoo. In the distance I saw a yellow jacket and slowed up a bit - just in case. Well bugger me.. they pulled me over.

"Do you know the speed limit here sir" asked the lady bobby.

"erm..40?.. 30?" smile and look daft.

30 sir.   and so it went on. Anyway the speech was no where to be found and I found myself to be MR un-threatening and responsible despite my best laid plans. 

"You were doing 38 miles an hour and I can charge you but on this occasion I will let you go. Please think about it sir. Take your foot of the gas."

At this point I was delirious. GOT OFF! BRILLIANT! Foot off the what?...  I was away with the fairies and hadn't heard a word so my first reaction was to hop like a scalded cat whilst still in my seat so I didn't press the pedal and lose my get out of jail free card.

"Not now sir. When you are driving!" said Mrs Plod with a grin. "You are free to go."

So I did.

I love the Met. Decent honest, hard working bastions of society who deserve a pay rise and a pat on the back. God bless the British Bobby, and I don't give a crap what any one says about them. Diamond Geezers everyone.  And,,, and,, , the way they danced on mary Poppins was just AWESOME DUDE (or were they chimney sweeps? Whatever)

Today I love the Old Bill.

We're already three months, and many, many albums, into 2008. What's your favorite album (thus far) that was released this year?

Very good question.

For me the anticipation is palpable and three I can't wait for are the as yet unreleased albums by James, XLC and REM.

So far this year, struggling to beat Goldfrapp or some re-isses of Ivor Cutler - especially Jammy Smears

OH! Got it..  Kate Nash - Great album!

There.

10750

I was going to get back into blogging this week by posting a long and considered analysis of the continued sub-prime farago and the credit crunch but I guess you might not be in the mood for it right now. Instead I thought I would ask you a few questions about some other stuff that may be even more interesting and pertinent.

I have spent the past few weeks alternating between despair and excitement as I watched the meltdown in the world financial markets. Believe it or not it has a direct impact on what we do and on everything we work for. Somehow it seems bizarre that the mistakes of a few (and they are a few) greedy bastards on Wall St can have such a profound impact on the lives of people across the globe but then that is what globalisation is all about. ... The Butterfly effect in action.

At the same time we need to remember that there are some things in life that are not reliant on the actions of others - no matter how powerful. We are all masters of our own destiny to a greater or lesser degree and it is no good blaming Bear Sterns for our own penury and idiocy.

I thought I would let you in on an email from my best friend. A dear, deluded and somewhat deranged nutter who spends his time in East Asia working on aid programmes for various governments.

Here is what he sent me this morning and my reply. Enjoy:

"Got pissed last nite and let my tranny hairdresser give me a number 1 !! (to help lose weight ha ha). Lip up fatty, this is the skinhead i wanted when I was 13 but was too scared. Only thing is I now need to wear a hat as am liable for sunstroke.
 
The continuing life and crimes of pw......."
 
My reply

hahahahahaha

I know the feeling
I went to a barbers in London once - italian geezer - no english
He asked me what I wanted I said No3 at the back and he proceeded to carve a swathe right through my lovely locks from back to front. I looked like an ethnic peach! So I shaved the rest off and went back to Tara looking like an extra from Trainspotting. To make matters worse I had a spot on my forehead the size of a belisha beacon.

It grows back.

Make the most of being scary. You get better seats on the bus