Three Nil

Three Nil, or to put it another way, 3-0.
Yesterday afternoon was the derby against Newcastle or as Joe calls them, the black and white bastards. We couldn't get tickets so Joe dropped his laptop off so we could watch it live on some app he has got that I haven't got on mine. He put it on and buggered off to the match because he had a ticket. Quarter of an hour before kick-off and it went on the blink, turned gangster on us in fact and we couldn't get it back on because Joe's instructions over the phone were gibberish to me.
Then our Jimmy phoned up. "Hey!" says he. "Are you coming round to watch the match? I've got some drink in and Helen is coming down as well."
Good enough for me, it took us about five minutes to walk round there and pour myself a vodka just in time for kick-off. Newcastle were all over Sunderland until Collochini got sent off. He shouldn't have because he didn't actually touch the other player. Never mind, he did get sent off.
The game was ruined after that and personally I don't like cheats no matter who they play for.
Anyway, by the end of the game I had polished off a bottle of vodka and half a bottle of whisky. Jackie said I was falling all over and was in bed for about six bells. I've got scrapes and wounds all over me from falling over so she says. Personally I think she took the opportunity to beat me up, she is sneaky like that. However! I don't give a Fiddler's we won three nil!

I forgot to mention.

I forgot to mention Angela's little dog, Poxy Roxy.
Angela is Jackie's daughter, she is thirty going on ten. She wanted a dog a couple of weeks ago so we took her to Cleadon kennels where she paid sixty five quid for a miniature Jack Russel bitch. It's dafter than Numb Nuts and actually tries to pick fights with him. Tara ignores the pair of them.
Yes, Angela;s Poxy Roxy, I forgot to mention that.

Numb Nuts

Numb Nuts, that's what he SHOULD be called.
I was talking to young Rebecca the other day, well, she's lovely and I have adopted her to all intents and purposes. She's just gone twenty and she isn't sure which side she is batting for, but she will work it out in her own way.
Anyway, I was talking to her.
 A couple of weeks prior she had bought a mastiff from the internet for fifty quid, a lovely dog too. So, and I have no reason why I did this really, I asked her to see if she could find me a young German Shepherd. Well, Tara is getting old now, she is about ten and having just had an operation to have a cyst removed she is not recovering as quickly as a young dog would.
So, I asked Becks to trawl tinternet and I hadn't got over the road before the phone was ringing.
"What!" said I in my best bedside manner, me being a doctor and all. Not a medical doctor you understand, but I'll have a good look at it for you.
"I've found a dog for you!" cries the unsure one. "It's an American Akita pup, at Gateshead."
"How much?" says me, turning round in the middle of the road and upsetting a driver who had to brake and blow his horn. He got a finger, he wasn't worth two.
"Forty quid!" says Becks.
"That's cheap," says I. "There must be something wrong with it."
I arrived back at the shop and turned the phone off, not much point talking to her on the phone if she is standing in front of me.
So, she shows me a picture on her phone and it seemed that the couple flogging the dog just wanted rid of him because they were moving house and the new landlord didn't allow pets.
Off we went to Gateshead and purchased this dog, an American Akita called Khan. No bother at all in the car despite the fact that he is less than a year old and is already bigger than Tara who is 103 pounds! Head out of the car window, all that, loved it.
Got him back, Tara put him in his place and then it started. He steals everything he can get his teeth into, opens packages, destroys letters, chases his own tail, plays with little dogs and anything that squeaks, wants to play all the time, sits beside the car because he thinks it is his, fights with Jackie and anybody who wants to tussle and follows me like a bad smell.
Jumps on the bed to wake you up, the dog is a complete pratt!
I don't know who named him Khan, but they should have called him Numb Nuts.

What a Performance!

What a performance! It's been a funny ould month to say the least. We, (me and Joe Percy) finally (we thought) got a publisher. Sent all the stuff away, waited for a contract and got a refusal. Very disappointing to say the least. But no worries, we have girded our loins and strengthened the weak knees and faint heart and are ready to try again. My idea is to give something to charity and get an introduction to a publisher that way. We will see, but any advice would be great and we would be grateful.
That's not all. I bought a dog. He is called Khan and he is a pedigree American Akita' Nine months old and huge. He is also as thick as a bull's lug, wants to play all day and thinks even flies should be chased around and killed. I agree there of course.
Hold on, that's not all!
My other dog, Tara the pedigree German Shepherd (long haired) had a growth on her boob, a mammary cyst, so I took her to the PDSA, me being a pensioner and everything. They operated and she pulled the drain and stitches out! So they did it all again!
So, all in all it's been a queer ould month, what with recalcitrant publishers, hooligan Akitas, dogs undoing the vet's work, a sister who should be in a mental institute and a car that thinks petrol comes out of a tap. No wonder I am always skint. What a performance!

We Enjoyed It

We enjoyed it last night.
The little-un goes to dancing classes and last night they had a show on at the Royalty Theatre with all kinds of singing and dancing. The kids were from about four up to school leavers and it was brilliant. We took our Jack who is coming up to sixteen and even he enjoyed it although he wouldn't admit it. Well. no young lad is going to admit he enjoyed anything as girlie as that, but he did.
All for cancer research as well. and the place was packed out so they did well.
Oh yes, I never thought I would be saying I went to the theatre, but we enjoyed it last night.

She's a Pain in the Arse

She's a pain in the arse, she really is. I am referring to my little sister. Well, actually she is technically my only sister now, but either way you look at it she is still a pain in the rectum. We all went out for a jar on Saturday night and she was happy enough, dancing and generally making a fool of herself, so I left her to it, just carried on having a good craic with sundry friends. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, she went for another lass. It would seem that she thought the lass was someone else.
Anyway, we all ended up getting tossed out of the bar so that was the night ruined by my little (and only) sister.
I told you, she's a pain in the arse.

My Car Is Dead

My car is dead, defunct, no longer with us. It has gone to join the heavenly choir in excelsium. It is what is commonly called, knackered. It was a great car and I had it for nearly two years, nothing wrong with it. Then, just about a week or so ago the clutch started to slip. It was going to cost about two hundred quid and once a car starts costing that sort of dosh it has to go, so it went. I've got a Clio now, nice little car but it's not the same as my Fiesta. Jackie got the hump of course.
"YOU GOT RID OF DAISY!" she cried. "BASTARD!"
Well, you can't please everybody.
I wish I could get rid of some of the females in my family as easily as I got rid of Daisy.
So, a new car because I had no choice, my car is dead.

There's loads of them!

There's loads of them! Let's have it right, everybody is entitled to have a family, it's only normal; but my lot are taking the piss! Every day more of them come out of the woodwork. The other day, Valentine's Day actually, I took Jackie out for a meal, one of those special VD package things. Ha Ha, VD, that didn't come out the way it was meant. Valentine's Day, okay?
So, out for a VD meal and let me say, they took the piss! The drinks were included in the price but the drinks were quite simply not worth the bother. So I said to the waitress that we didn't want those drinks, we wanted our own selection, Archers and, and Bells and.
"Oh sir," says the one track minded moron. "If I don't charge for the drinks it won't be a VD meal!"
"Wonderful," says I. "In that case, get the drinks, you drink them and bring us what we want, okay?"
She did that, nine quid for two drinks! Daylight robbery.
Anyway, that's not the point, the point is that after we had eaten our steaks and Jackie had pinched the centre-piece and tea candle off the table, thieving little toe rag, we went to the establishment of a friend of ours who can't tell time. In there, quaffing the best of whiskey with my brother Jimmy and his better half, Pauline. In comes our Joe and our Kevin, being abusive and rude as usual so me and James went outside to have a fag and give the seagulls a bad cough.
A taxi pulled up and two females got out.
"For fuck's sake," says Jimmy, politely.
It is our sister Wendy and she is only little, but she has got an even smaller lady with her, it is my uncle Harry's daughter, Bernadette, or, as she is better known, little Bernie.
Mind, fair is fair, she's lovely but the rounds were coming to twenty odd quid by then and that 'includes' special discounts because my pal cannot only not tell time, he likes round figures, easy to calculate.
We rolled out of there after four bells in the early morning, legless.
The point is that there were eight family members there! I told you, there are loads of them.

Where's my car!

I looked out of the bedroom window this morning and said to Jackie, "Where's my car?"
She looked.
"There!" says she. "Under the snow."
A pile of snow in my yard, well, in everyone's yard I expect. Sodding snow, don't like it. The best place for snow is on christmas cards.
I went down and swept the snow off my car and turned the engine on to warm things up. Left that running and went back upstairs.
"Poxy snow," said me, apropos to nothing at all.
She said, "Stop moaning. You are like an old woman sometimes."
I said. "Speaking of old women. There was a thing on the telly this morning about this woman who has a cat, and this cat goes out every morning in the garden, digs a hole, has a crap in it then fills the hole in again."
Jackie says, "All cats do that."
I responded with, "Not with a fucking shovel!"
I could hear her laughing when I was down in the yard, she's easily amused.
Poxy snow, hiding people's cars.

Nothing but a charlatan

He was nothing but a charlatan, no other way to put it. We have this telly. It's a big one but we don't use it as a telly, I just use it to play on my playstation, nothing else, oh, and to watch DVDs. If Jackie wants to watch telly, she's got her own in another room. Anyway, my big one kept buggering up, turning itself off and refusing to turn on again. So we found this expert and he came and took it away for 80 quid. Phoned up a few days later, just before xmas in fact. "Got to order a part, be done just after xmas!" The lying toe rag!
We got it back last friday afternoon 9th Jan and it wasn't repaired. So, me on the phone, less than polite. This morning he gave us the money back and slunk off, tail between legs. So, this afternoon I went to see a decent enough lad, runs a repair shop.
"Ha!" says he. "This curcuit board hasn't been renewed! It's just had a couple of the components changed, costing about £2:50p"
"Can you fix it?" says I.
"No bother. Got one of these boards in stock. Cost you forty quid."
Had my telly back in half an hour, full working order, Jackie WILL be pleased.
So, the toe rag was ripping me off, he may regret that when I tell everyone else about it. He was simply robbing me. At least in the old days when I robbed people I had the decency and common courtesy to point a shotgun at them first!
The toe rag is nothing but a charlatan.

It's a jungle out there

It's a jungle out there, it really is. It's not as though I live in a bad area, I don't. It used to be a bad area thirty years ago, but it's gone a bit up-market since I was a marauding bandit in the bad old days. Having said all that, in the last few months the place is going to hell in a barrow, the police are finding dead people all over the place, one a week practically. The latest one is right next door to me!
We woke up on sunday morning and Jackie said that  the front and back were cordoned off, police cars all over the place. The back was sealed off too with tjat tape that says we mustn't cross, scene of crime stuff. I opened ,my electronic gate at the back to get my car out but a horde of boys in blue told me to shut it again, scene of crime.
Anyway, they had found a stiff in the next flat, blood all over the place. That was sunday, today is wednesday and they are still there!
I'm telling you, it;s a junglr out there!

You couldn't make it up

Ypu couldn't make it up, not at all. There I was this afternoon, lying on the settee looking for work and it occurred to me that I was surrounded by more animals than Dr Doolittle, or in my case, Dr Dofuckall. I had two budgies in a cage whistling like a sailor in a knocking shop; I had a cat called Grey lying on my chest trying to rip my skin off and purring with another cat called Kia lying looking at the budgie cage and licking it's lips. Lying next to the couch was the biggest, fattest, hairiest long haired shepherd on the planet, watching the cats closely. I thought to myself, fuck it, let them kill each other, and went to sleep. Well, you couldn't make it up.t

The new lady

There is a new lady in my life and I have got to say it, she's magic. I have known Jackie for a long time but it is only recently that we have become an item, so to speak. Best thing I ever did really, she looks after me well, no two ways about it. Of course we shouldn't be expected to see eye to eye in everything, but oddly enough, we do! Oh well, all I can say is that I am delighted that there is a new lady in my life.

My Back Is Sore

My back is sore through buggering about on horseback.
Now, I know perfectly well that people of my age shouldn't even be riding spirited horses, let alone buggering about like a rodeo clown, but my trouble is that I don't listen to good advice, especially not my own. So now I've got a sore back.
Anyway, three o'clock this morning and I was woken up by the world's ugliest mutt shoving her face into mine.
"What do you want?" I asked, not unreasonably I thought. "Want to go toilet?"
So I got up despite my sore back, toddled all the way down to my kitchen door, unlocked it, opened it wide and looked around. No Tara.
Back upstairs and there she is, gone back to sleep beside my bed.
"Bastard!" I thought, and went back to sleep myself. Half an hour later I am woken up again, this time she is snoring, kicking her back leg and making funny noises in between snores. It's not even funny!
I mean to say, nobody likes a joke better than I do, but there is a point where a joke ceases to be a joke and turns into taking the piss.
Me with a bad back too!

Nothing To Do With Her.

Apparently she has decided that it's got nothing to do with her, guarding the place is for lesser mortals (like me) while she lies there, yawning and watching the world cup. I'm not exactly sure who she wants to win it, she hasn't told me.
By the way, I am talking about my alleged guard dog, Tara.
I got my CCTV all working and everything, my premises is now idiot-proof, so I suppose that's why Tara no longer she feels the urge to bark when anyone arrives to be rude to me or ask for directions to the nearest massage parlour.
So, there she lies, practically comatose while I run around doing everything. She even lies down to casually eat her food! I call it just lazy. Of course she is popular. "Oooo!" cry several people a day as she ambles past, taking me for my daily perambulation, "Isn't she lovely!" Yeah! Right! Lazing around all day doing bugger all she has got the time to be lovely, I'm just surprised she hasn't started painting her nails yet.
As for any sort of reaction when the door bell rings, forget it, it's got nothing to do with her.

The Simple Fact is, I Am Dim

Can't get away from it, the facts of the matter are plain, even to a blind man. (Am I allowed to say that in these days of political correctness gone mad? I know I can't say Lesbians any more, I have to say "Ladies in sensible shoes.")
Ha! They are all looking down at their feet now and whispering to their friends, "Would you call these shoes, sensible?"
To get back to the point, I am basically dim, can't be denied.
I was going for a chat with the twins and was warned by a well-meaning idiot, "Watch them, they can turn nasty after a drink."
They are lovely really, Angie and Tishy, lovely ladies.
So, our hero, (that's me for those dimmer than I am) sits down between them and I put my arms around them, one arm each. Well, any more would be an extravagance and show favouritism. So, we are having a chat and as is my wont, I was very forthright with my words. They chased me with a view to reorganising my face for me. There was a lot of laughter, but that was the twins, I was busy screaming.
So, when they let me go and returned to stirring their cauldron... I mean to say, all I said was, "Right, when is Cinderella getting here?"
"What do you mean?" asked either Angie or Tishy.
"Well," said I. "We've got the two ugly sisters, I was just wondering..." and that was as far as I got.
Afterwards my pal told me, "I told you!" he said, but, well, you know me, the simple fact is, I am dim.

It's All Relative Really

It's true! It's all relative really. One man's security system is another man's pain in the arse, especially if you are a burglar just trying to earn an honest crust during the hours of darkness.
Where was I?
Right!. Today I got my security system all sorted out. The rear of my own place can only be reached through electronic, steel shutters, then up a steel fire escape and through my rear security door. That wasn't good enough for me, I decided to put in a CCTV to watch my back yard and door. Today I got my camera, any movements turns it on so let's hope the sparrows understand the flashing lights and machine gun nests.
I also got my monitor and recorder box thing, plus a very fancy cabinet to put it all in. I was going to put another camera outside the front door but let's be pragmatic here, burglars never come through the front door, especially when it is only feet away from a bus stop. All I need now is for our Joe to have a day off work to put it all in for me.
"I'll have to drill through two walls!" he cried.
"Lovely." was my reply.
I think he is off work on Thursday.
So, if the burglars can get past the electronic gates, the cameras, the rabid dog, machine gun nests, mine field and security door, then they will discover that I have got fuck all worth pinching anyway because as I stated earlier, it's all relative really.

Chatting Idly

So, there I was, sitting comfortably in the sun, dog at my feet and snoozing, watching my horses munching away at the good grass that is coming through. A peaceful, sedate scene by anyone's standards. Unfortunately it never stays that way with me; Along came a spider.
Well, it wasn't a spider, not really, it was one of the horsey set, a friend.
So, she sits next to me and after a minute or two says, "Freddie!" because that is what she calls me. "Freddie! You haven't got a girlfriend, have you?"
I said, "No. I'm a bit gun-shy in that direction at the minute."
"Ooo," says she. "Why is that then?"
"Because," said I. "I had a bad experience recently."
"With a woman?" asks she, eruditely.
"No," says I. "With a duck."
"Alright," says she. "No need for sarcasm. When did you have the bad experience?"
"Nineteen Seventy Three."
Of course she thought that was hilarious and while she was laughing I took the opportunity to bugger off with the dog. Well, the conversation was treading on thin ice in my opinion.
Oh yes, never get into idle chats with single females, even pretty ones in the horsey set. Pretty soon you won't be able to claim your saddle as your own.

More Protective by the Day

More protective by the day, that's what she is getting, downright territorial!
I have had the new flat just over a fortnight now and I am pleased to say that it is more or less all finished although I am still not actually living there, not yet. That's not what I am talking about, I am telling a shaggy dog story here, and if there was ever a shaggy dog, it's my dog Tara. She is a long-haired German shepherd, as ragged as a whore's knickers when the fleet is in town. Anyway, I take her with me everywhere I go and that includes the flat.
When I first took her there she wasn't all that keen, a new place and all that sort of thing; But now she is used to the place she wanders around as if she owns it, and in her eyes she probably does. At first when anyone came to the door she would stick her ears up, give a little bark and then look at me as though to ask for approval.
Not now.
Now she follows me everywhere. She lies at my feet when I am sitting on the sofa and if I get up to get the paper or something, she follows right on my heels. She won't let me out of her sight and even tries to come into the bathroom with me. AND! if someone knocks on the door she charges downstairs barking like a loonie, and let's have it right, being a big dog she's got a big bark. Got big teeth as well come to that. Still, I suppose she has to earn her corn somehow so she is becoming the world's silliest guard dog, she even chases flies! That's all well and good, but she's over six stones and clumsy with it, it's not funny sometimes. I have had to put all breakables where she can't knock em off or over and she is getting territorial, more protective by the day.

I certainly Attract Them

Well, I certainly attract them, the lame, halt, lazy, weird and wonderful. I got myself a flat as a sort of interim measure to better things; Well, Joe is going to have a new bathroom, new kitchen, chimney breast removed and other major work done on the house. So the place will be a building site for a little while. I needed a place so I went and got one, as you do. Nice place, above a friend's shop, bathroom and kitchen are new and the bedroom is big, but nothing like as big as the sitting room which is enormous! It used to be two bedrooms but is now just one big room, you need opera glasses to watch the telly! So, I have done it all, painted, fully carpeted, the works. Nice furniture, all that, it only needed the curtains. However, the windows go with the rest of the place, massive, so I had to buy big curtains. Then I had to work out how to put them up, never having had to do such a thing before. So, I was talking about it to my brother and a pal and this strange female, (well known to my brother,) offered to have a look and tell me what I needed to do. Half an hour later a friend tells me that this woman is pissed out of her brains and running me down saying that I am after her.
Why is life full of the weirdos and cranks that it seems full off, and why do I attract them? And make no mistake about it, I certainly attract them!