Eulogy to Bertie

He’s not dead, Bertie is very much alive and kicking. I’m surprised his wife hasn’t killed him already but that’s another story. Toastmasters* taught me to plan ahead. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

I have mentioned Bertie before. He’s the one who fed me a space cake. He told me it was packed with CDB, the good bit of cannabis. But he neglected to tell me it was full of THC, the hallucinogenic part. I snaffled the whole cake and passed out, I woke up in an alternative universe. I could still be there.

Horrendous Herbs

I’m an educated man, I have three degrees from three universities so why is it that I can be so incredibly stupid. And I don’t mean make tiny mini mistakes I mean massive momentous mistakes that haunt me for all eternity.

We all make mistakes, no matter how clever we think we are. It’s taken me a lifetime to realise that so long as we learn from our mistakes and evolve, it’s really not a big deal. It just seems like it at the time. So, who wants to hear about one of my biggest mistakes? Okay I’ll tell you, but you have to promise what I say stays in this room/blog.

Seeing is not believing

Please don’t try this. But if you close your eyes and flick your eyelid - it hurts, it really hurts. But you will also see a spark. The pressure on the eye causes the receptors in your eye to see a bright light - but there was no light and you had your eyes closed.

Our eyes are deceiving. Hundreds of optical illusions demonstrate how our eyes can be deceived. When my son was a toddler, he was particularly fond of his toy elephant. I took him to the zoo enclosure at Whipsnade and he held his toy elephant up to those in the far distance. Suddenly three elephants paraded past us on their daily walk. My son was shocked and burst into tears. He received a swift lesson in depth perception that day. He was totally traumatised, but a lesson, nonetheless. But close one eye and your own depth perception will also falter. That is also why one-eyed pirates continuously crashed their ships.

My addiction to white powder

It's the start of the New Year and the traditional time for new beginnings. As such I want to use this blog to come clean, to make a confession: I have been an addict for most of my life - it started way back at school. I developed an addiction to a harmful substance that is regularly digested as a white powder but more commonly taken neat in crystal form. 

My addiction has taken its toll and has affected my health so badly that I developed a “chronic illness” and I’m now dependent on full-time medication. 

A Christmas Parable

When I was a young lad, around 5 years old, I kept mice. I bought two mice, Mork and Mindy and a couple of weeks later I had 8 mice, then two weeks after that I had 16. I discovered a local pet shop that would buy the mice off me for 50p each, so I had a lucrative business for kid. I assumed the pet shop found good homes for the baby mice, but I now realise that they were probably reptile food.

Anyhow I loved my original two mice. I would run home from school each day to play with my little rodent chums. I would dress them up and put them in little Lego cars that I built for them. And at Christmas they would don tiny Santa hats. 

The common commuter types

These days I travel less and less in and out of London. I really don't miss the daily grind on the crowded 8.10 train and unbearable underground. Less commuting is better for health, welfare and sanity. 

Over the years I have noticed the following anti-social, unaffable common commuter types:

We want plates

I like going to pubs, I like going to restaurants, I like nice food, good wholesome comfort food, but I’m not a fan of your fancy food, your nouveau cuisine and I am particularly not a fan of pubs and restaurants that don’t serve their food on plates. 

We’ve all been there - cheese on a slate, chips in a little metal basket, sandwiches on a bread board, macaroni cheese in a pint jug, soup in a tea pot, noodles in a stiletto. Just stop it, stop it now. The plate has been meticulously designed over eons to carry food, be completely cleanable and easily stacked. Anything else is just puerile and pretentious.