2480 days ago
Sing & Sign is not to be confused with politically correct poetry. The latter is on a Wednesday at our local library or will be until, that place is shut down. As the Po faced poetry dominatrix explained this week, Bristol City Council is being forced to make big cuts. Well of course there is no cut in its donation to the Pride festival, the City council can afford a fully staffed press office, to fund Chess Tournaments and to make donations to very rich charities such as the Terence Higgins Trust as well as Womankind Bristol Women's Therapy Centre Ltd, Independent Sex Workers against Violence, the Hype Dance Company, the Bristol Zimbabwe Association and a whole raft of other valuable causes. But it must close down our library here in the white working class district of Brislington because of the wicked Tories. Whatever.
2529 days ago
I am back in Bristol for a few days and was wandering back from lunch with Joshua when we happened to pass the Conservative Club. The door was open and i was conscious that I needed to renew my father's membership. Though not a Tory, or indeed a Bristol resident, he likes the idea of being able to access cheep beer at a place not far from our house.
2835 days ago
Gosh, the Conservative Club in Brislington is efficient. It was only on Wednesday that my father and I trouped in to complete his application. On Thursday another visit as Dad thinks the Cider is cheap and enjoys a place where the only newspaper is the Sun and with cricket on the TV.
By Saturday an email arrives
2936 days ago
Have I mentioned that Finncap are complete and utter bastards? If I forget to do so in this bearcast please refer to my FinnCap and Wandisco special earlier HERE. Lucian is popping over tomorrow but I shall try to record a sober bearcast before he arrives. On today's podcast I look at Fastjet (FJET), Strat Aero (AERO), Premier Foods (PFD), Hellenic Carriers (HCL) and Outsourcery (OUT), the demise of which will certainly be an ouzo o'clock moment.
2937 days ago
Having received two threatening emails in two days from lawyers acting for celebrity xxxxxx and his partner xxxxxxx who do not want us all to know what we all already know about threesomes, unprotected anal sex and olive oil baths, I am feeling a tad skittish. And so seeing a bearded man get off his bike and wander to my front door carrying a brown envelope I feared the worst. It would not be the first time that I have been "served" at this adddress.
Sure enough the envelope was stuffed through the letterbox and had my name on it carefully typed. I opened the door and shouted "who are you" as the fat bearded man got back onto his moped. He asked if I was "Mr Winnifrith" to which I shiftily replied that I was at which point he announced who he was "Comrade, I am your local labour councillor".
Indeed,
2978 days ago
I shall not curse West Ham by going to watch the match tonight at The Conservative Club but for Striebs and others I am aware what is happening. Instead I shall be watching the new series of Grantchester with the Mrs and Oakley and I recommend it to one and all. I look at the latest Horse Shite ramp from David "I am incapable of telling the truth" Lenigas and flag up a placing rumour at UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) and also Regency Mines (REG). I look at the Pathfinder (PFP) disaster in detail and at Driver (DRV) where the curse of Steve "shagger" Norris strikes again. Madgascar Oil (MOIL) confirms that minority shareholders will be buggered and I look at the farce at Edenville (EDL). So that is three companies operating in Bongo Bongo land where PIs have been screwed today. Then there is a detailed look at games developer Frontier (FDEV) where the valuation is a rum and coke even after today's profits warning.
3382 days ago
As you know I have guided West Ham to the brink of Champions League football by studiously paying no attention to every game played and avoiding going anywhere near a match or even watching on TV. When I have weakened and thought about attending a game, suddenly The Irons stop playing like Brazil and start playing like a Hackney Marshes side. I must warn you that with the Hammers travelling to my home City of Bristol this Sunday for an FA Cup game, my resolve weakened.
My daughter is in town and I tried to buy a pair of tickets off an online site. Luckily www.ticketbis.net offers the most useless service on this planet and treats potential customers like shite. I was promised calls back, I harried, a bloke called me asking for my business and said right now go buy tickets online only to find there were none. This company is run by a bunch of total wankers from Liverpool. The sooner the welfare safari that is scouseland is towed off into the Irish Sea and sunk the better. I heartily advise that you never use this company ever, not even to buy a stolen hub cap.
So no tickets. That prevents an almost certain cup upset. However I should warn you
3412 days ago
Yesterday I posted my Christmas message in Greek to readers in Kambos. Today in English a message from myself, The Mrs and our two cats Tara and the three legged Oakley pictured below.
We all celebrate Christmas in different ways. For the Mrs and I it is a traditional day. Midnight Mass here in Bristol, perhaps with a swift sherry at the Conservative Club beforehand. It is on the way to Church after all!
And then stockings in the morning. Well I know she is getting one as she has been well behaved all year. I cook the duck and trimmings, presents, calls around the world to family and friends and then a collapse as we await Downton Abbey. It is on Boxing Day that the travel nightmare of family days starts with a Greek Christmas with the wife’s sister and Greek Husband in Hertfordshire. Goat followed by Christmas pudding.
For Oakley & Tara it is just even more food than usual and, yes, they have both been fairly well behaved and so get a stocking too.
Whatever you do, we all send you are best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
3712 days ago
Having told the local Conservative Club that St Valentine’s Day at 8 PM was not such a good time for an interview, I am now set to meet the committee tomorrow night for my interview. The Mrs, the woman formerly known as the deluded lefty, has been warned that I shall be popping out and may be some time.
With snow looming I sense that the idea of gaining access to a hostelry where (I gather) the internet now works, where booze is cheap and which is not a long trek down a big hill, is growing on her. If I pass she will be able to pop in as my guest, seven times a quarter without having to join and sully her ideological principles. The snow is looming.
And so tonight I must find suitable attire (a shirt with a collar of sorts) and brush up on why I believe in Conservative Principles….I guess if I read Call Me Dave’s recent speeches and then say the opposite I should be a shoe in.
3725 days ago
The Mrs strolled in yesterday saying that she had posted some witty thoughts about, and pictures of, our cats on her Facebook page. I went to look. “hang on? I can’t get in” said I. “Oh…I de-friended you a few weeks ago” said she.
My crime was to put up some comment about how she and her lefty mates could always pop down to the local Conservative Club if they wanted as it would be a good opportunity for them to meet folks from outside the intellectual middle classes for a change. That apparently did not go down well and I was de-friended.
As a 14th February gesture I have now been re-friended. The Mrs says that if you are in a relationship you should talk face to face rather than digitally or on line. Now that I have been re-friended I shall consider it….down at the Conservative Club.
3779 days ago
I am yet to enjoy my formal interview at the local Conservative Club or indeed to find out whether they have fixed the Wi-Fi yet. But with snow forecast the Mrs may well have to grit her teeth again and visit the only boozer which is not down at the bottom of a slippery big hill.
The Mrs are convinced that the blue lights now in the windows of the Club (pictured below) are some sort of political statement. As a BBC watching Guardian reader she might have forgotten that Christmas was on its way. If course she has not! Only kidding.
My father (a deluded lefty) has already decided that faced with cheap beer and a short walk or expensive beer and a long walk he is quite willing to throw principle to the wind when visiting. But then if you have spent the past few years drinking at the White Bear in Shipston-on-Stour with David Mills (Silvio Berlusconi’s friend and once again Tessa Jowell’s husband now that the old bag is quitting front line politics) you will drink with anybody.
Anyhow, are there any suitable captions for the picture of “my club” below
My effort is:
3782 days ago
I appear to have fallen out with another LinkedIn Group – the West Ham Supporters. My “crime” is that I posted links to articles wot I wrote about the Irons. Apparently to stay there I have to write the whole piece on that discussion group.
Hmmm. I am a writer and earn a living from writing articles. So how about a new business model for me? I shall stop writing for websites where I earn money and will just post articles direct on LinkedIn Groups or on Bulletin Boards and so earn no money.
Can anyone spot the minor flaw in that one?
If you are not a professional writer and you wish to post your thoughts (judging by the timings, in many cases when you are being paid by someone else to do an actual job) that is fine.
But if you actually get the cash to pay for cat food, vets bills, a round of drinks at the Conservative Club and other essential things in life by being a writer, but then give everything away for free I would suggest you have a problem.
On that basis I have quit West Ham LinkedIn supporters. A surprising number of folks from there read this website. They know where to find me…
I guess it is better to quit than to be evicted as I was from the LinkedIN Friends of Greece and UKIP groups.
3786 days ago
As I tap away in a local hostelry, the Mrs is sitting opposite me reading the Independent on Sunday. This really is a minority taste but I suppose someone has to. I know that I would struggle to manage more than five minutes of imbibing the Indescribablyboring’s diet of anti-capitalist, Israel hating, politically correct bilge. But…
The Mrs has just piped up that she thinks that it is too right wing…I am trying to contain my sense of disbelief. She might as well have said that Elvis Presley was sitting on the table behind me. Be calm... after lunch we head to the Conservative Club where I suspect the Indy is not on offer behind the bar.
3793 days ago
Still with no internet at the new house of the Mrs, I spent the whole of Sunday working in what I thought was the local hostelry in our new Neighbourhood. At ten o’clock I started wandering home and as I reached the top of the quite steep hill and about two thirds of the way back I started wondering how I will cope with this trek in the snow. But then I saw a bright light burning across the road. It called me towards it….
In a rather tired looking Victorian building there it was. The Conservative Club. With the Mrs away I thought “why not?” and buzzed my way inside. This place is less than 250 yards from my front door with no hills involved. It has Wi-Fi (although the barman did not seem to know what Wi-Fi was all about), snooker and pool tables and very, very cheap booze indeed.
It was just £5 to join and £16 a year to be a member (an extra fiver in the unlikely event of the Mrs, the woman formerly known as the Deluded Lefty, deciding to join as well). I rapidly worked out that at £2a pint/glass of wine I will get my money back very quickly indeed. All I needed was a proposer and seconder who had known me for 5 years and an understanding that I supported the principles of the Conservative party.
Hmmmmmm,
