Hand jobs, Statistics and a rather cynical exercise….

Hand jobs are better than machines….

Part of my Sunday routine – if I have been to visit the Parents – is to stop off at the jet wash on the way home. I like the jet wash – you pay for time not a ‘program’ so if the car isn’t too dirty a quick clean can cost £2. If I tried harder I could probably do it for £1.50 but I would probably induce a heart attack and I would certainly swear a lot. This would not be a good look for passers-by to see. Unfortunately, what with the Parents been away on holiday and the rain we have had of late, my black car was filthy today and a £2 session was not going to do anything other than re-distribute the filth around the outside of the car.

When I arrived at the jet wash there was a small queue. A youth was washing his Citroen C4 and a Picasso was waiting behind him. On the basis that neither car would withstand a lengthy jet wash (being Citroens they would fall apart if blasted with water for too long) I joined the back of the queue. The Youth had alloy wheels on his car and these were clearly items he was proud of. However wiping them dry while two cars waited behind was a step too far so he qualified for one of my hard stares. These are beyond the hard stare that Paddington Bear used to do – in my mind my hard stare has added lasers and mind bending abilities. It worked. Next came the Picasso. I suspect Dad had been sent out with his small child on a kind of bonding mission to wash the car, what with it being Father’s Day and all. the small child eyed up the buttons, the water and the look of desperation on his Father’s face and decided that a mock gun shoot-out would be the best way to pass the time. Dad decided that a blatant lie would be the best way to deal with this situation by trying to suggest that ‘it’s time for home – just get back into the car’…..and then locking the car shut as he continued to wash his Citroen. Next it was me…

Imagine my joy when I noticed that the jet wash machine had been replaced with a brand new one. It had lovely new digital displays, lovely new buttons and lovely hoses that were not twisted and messed up as the last machine had been. If you have owned a black car you will know what a trial keeping it clean is… this jet wash produced lots of lovely foam that made the car look like a huge marsh mellow with hints of pink, blue and yellow……so much so that not a bit of black could be seen. The power wash rinsed the car a treat. Now I am home the car is drying and looks……..shite. The copious amounts of foam meant I could not see where my brush strokes had been…so I have a lovely black streaky car. Clean in bits. Filthy elsewhere. The morale of the tale? New shiny jet washes might be an efficient way to wash your car…..but sometimes you’re just better off paying £8 for the Iranians to do it by hand at the place down the road.

Hit me Baby…

Midway through this week my little blog had it’s 11,000th hit. I was so excited when I saw the stats. But what, I wonder, are people reading about? My most popular blog mentioned Emma Watson and included a lovely picture of her…..so she clearly has a huge following…..but I suspect most hits were by lone males. So if you are reading this alone, chaps, here’s one for you now…

   The second and third most popular subjects where Stephen Fry and David Cameron. Interesting. The fourth most popular was my blog about Chipping Norton…..which strikes me as a bit jolly random.

One of my favourite things is to look at some of the search engine entries that have brought people to my humble blog. I wish I had written some of them down from way back…..as they really made me laugh out loud. And I mean belly laughs. So I thought as a cynical exercise I would finish today’s blog with some hot topics to see how they effected my statistics and I shall let you know in due course how it works out.

So…….who would be better than current favourites One Direction? A bit of Wand Erection might work? So Stephen Fry, David Cameron, Emma Watson and One Direction attending a tea party in Chipping Norton. That could certainly work. Oh yes, and Prince Harry. Let’s include him. I wouldn’t wish to blow my credibility by putting anything about sex or nudity – that would be inappropriate. But let’s finish with a gratuitous picture to help.

   Have a great week 🙂

 

 

 

My Star in a Reasonably Priced Car top 5 wish list……

I went to Sainsbury’s today – all very exciting [it was not exciting] but my trip home was full of surprises. Within a mile of leaving the car park I saw a Land Rover Evoque, an Aston Martin DB9, a Bentley Continental GT, a Range Rover Sport, a Lamborghini Gallardo, A Range Rover Autobiography and numerous Audis (which are now rather common…though I still want an A5). As far as I was aware, none of these vehicles were driven by footballers. On my way to work in the mornings, however, on one stretch of road which takes me to the motorway I frequently see cars heading in the opposite direction which are driven by footballers – commuting to one of the training grounds. The ‘footballer cars’ are usually uber expensive and new……and usually either white, black or matt black. And usually a bit crap. Trust me – having lots of money does not guarantee good taste. Look at the Range Rover driven by Katie Price.

So what cars would I recommend to footballers who have more money than sense? A Maserati Quattroporte, A Jaguar XJ, Lotus Exige or a Volkswagen Up! (I would dearly love to see Wayne Rooney turn up to the Carrington Training Ground in a Volkswagen Up!)

But would I like to see any of these pampered poodles appearing as the ‘Star in a Reasonably Priced Car’ on BBC tv’s Top Gear? No. No I wouldn’t. So here is my latest list…..people I want to see appearing as the ‘Star in a Reasonably Priced Car’ on Top Gear…

 

 

 

 

 

So – my top 5 are as follows…..

 

1. Prince Harry – do I really have to explain why? No, I thought not…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Holly Willoughby – lovely lady

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Emily Maitlis – something tells me this news reader would be a hoot on the test track

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Nick Hewer and Margaret Mountford – a classic duo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.  George Michael – who wouldn’t want to watch the spectacle of Mr Michael going round the track?

The Royal Family, The Bentley Mulsanne and the ‘other’ Royal Wedding…

I’m not a ‘royalist’…..I do not collect tea towels or mugs and I do not refer to the Royal Family as though they are personal friends. Looking back at the death of Princess Diana and the who-ha that arouse in the immediate days after, the scenes that angered me most was the film of the crying and wailing crowd that the young Princes met in their walkabout. The boys had lost their mother and the crowd had lost some fictious character they had never met…..why on earth did the people in the crowd think they had the right to display such emotion in front of these young boys whose Mother had just died? It made me shudder.

I can see the value of the ‘key’ members of the Royal family in terms of PR towards Great Britain and the business/tourism generated – very much needed in the current financial climate. Some of the wider members of the Royal family should, to be frank, get a job and quietly disappear.

That said, as I have written in previous blogs, certain members of the Royal family do intrigue me. Certain newspapers rely on the HRH’s to fill their columns and you can describe certain Royals with one or two words based on the caricatures created in the media. For example – Prince Charles – eccentric, Prince Harry – pissed or ginger, Prince William – balding and lucky bugger, Duchess of Cambridge – fit, Prince Philip – hilarious or rude, The Queen – ma’am.

But the Royals are back in the papers today following Zara Philip’s wedding to the Rugby chap Mike Tindall yesterday. It was a low key event after the wedding of Wills’n’Kate a few weeks back, but it is interesting to see how they all scrubbed up. And the car of choice was the Bentley Mulsanne – not a car with a huge profile at the moment….which fitted the theme of the wedding perfectly…

My thoughts on ‘Yesterday’…the Royal Family and why I want to go to the pub with Prince Harry

One of the most depressing concepts for a tv channel is ‘Yesterday’….the channel that specialises in dramas of days gone by and has a schedule rammed full with programs about the war – it’s basically a tv channel targeted at people who have reached the point in their life when they are happy to settle down into a winged back chair and interrupt an afternoon nap with episodes of ‘Tenko’ or ‘The Secret War.’ You can almost visualise the Worthers Originals on the coffee table next to the copy of the Radio Times, folded open at the freeview page with ‘Antiques Roadshow’ circled in red ink.

The obsession with that time in history when the Britain was ‘Great’ and not ‘merely part of the EU’ seems, to me, to be unhealthy. Watching footage of ‘Trooping the Colour’ today finished with a grande finale of a fly-past by a variety of aircraft…including the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. To be honest I would rather see Concorde fly by. And a longer display by the Red Arrows.

That is not to diminish the importance of the two World Wars. The individual acts of bravery from so many young men and women must never be forgotten. But we must not be scared of looking to the future. And we all know there’s plenty to consider moving forward as a country…..on so many levels.

You would have thought that given the tone of my waffling I would disapprove of the Royal Family. I don’t. I find Prince Philip a fascinating character…and Prince Charles is most definitely someone I would want to meet….and I could look at the Duchess of Cambridge for hours….and I would go to the pub with Prince Harry expecting a riotous time….I would not bow for The Queen though. It would seem odd.

Worldwide our Royal Family have such a following …. and in this day and age we need to capitalise on anything that will help promote the UK abroad ….but I have to admit that some of the wider members of the Royal Family do annoy. I should bring up Prince Edward or Prince Andrew at this point. But you have to admire the brave decision by Princess Anne to bring her children up without royal title…with hindsight this was the best thing she could have done. But anyway…

So maybe next year the Trooping the Colour fly-past should include an Apache helicopter…or a stealth bomber…or an A380….and end with a long display by the Red Arrows….with Concorde in tow. Then Prince Harry can buy me a pint…and in forty years they can repeat it on ‘Yesterday’….

 

 

 

 

The Royal Wedding…..how very 2011

Back in 1981 we did not have mobile phones, we did not have Twitter or Facebook and we did not Blog. We were in recession, however, and we did win the Eurovision Song Contest with Bucks Fizz performing  ‘Making Your Mind Up.’ We also had a bit of a Royal Wedding. Thirty years on we are going to have another Royal Wedding – and is there the same buzz?  This is the favourite question of the media at the moment, it would seem.

The tale of Princess Diana is the stuff of legend – a fascinating transition from Shy Di into the world-wide icon of her time. Her life story is the stuff of a Hollywood film. So, thirty years on from the wedding of Charles and Di, what a daunting prospect for William and Kate…but maybe what we want as the general public has changed too. We have enough wannabe ‘celebs’ – and to be honest they are very tiresome……but during difficult times maybe what we do want is an international ambassador for the country – make UK a desirable international brand?  Not in the style of Prince Andrew though. But we do have the Wedding this year and the Olympics next. Could this benefit Brand UK?

The lazy benchmark of the media – ie, how many street parties we will be having – is outdated and irrelevant. Households are busy – both parents working etc etc – and people don’t gossip with their neighbours but use social media…so the idea of a street organising a street party seems unlikely. I listened to an Irish radio talk show this week – RTE Radio1 – and they interviewed people with Republican beliefs….and most of them admitted they will be watching the wedding ‘to see the dress’…..I think on the day itself the viewing figures will be huge. And there are so many more ways to watch the proceedings than thirty years ago – so many more Tv channels, online, etc etc.

Maybe there isn’t quite the excitement and discussion ‘on the street’ as there was all those years ago, but there’s still time. I can imagine if the weather is fine there’ll be a few households having a few beers and a BBQ whilst watching the proceedings. But watch for the subtle media promotion of the wedding by Clarence House in the coming weeks. The paper interviews. The ‘exclusive’ magazine articles. The documentaries. The coverage of the central members of the Royal family increasing.

My own perception is that most people have respect for the Queen, and do like William and Kate….and I know Harry has quite a following (he seems the kind of chap you’d have a few beers with) …..and to be honest for all his quirks Prince Charles seems a decent bloke too. Maybe the likes of Prince Edward and Prince Andrew seem rather out of step….and should be put on to quieter less relevent duties….or told to get a normal job.

So is there the interest in the Royal Wedding? Yes there is…but maybe we aren’t going to dress the street in bunting and stick Union Flags out of the window this time. Maybe in 2011 it’ll be households doing it for themselves rather than a communal street party. After all, we do not know these people – and yes they are our Royal Family, but it is unlikely that we will ever meet them. So maybe we appreciate the Royals and what the do….but don’t revere them in the same way as people may have done in 1981. Some of the mystique has gone. Or perhaps we are all a little more worldly-wise this time.

Either way, I know I will be watching the Wedding…and I wish them all the best…but I shall not be making a cake or hanging flags from the front of the house. I’m not sure it’s what we do in 2011.