Cruet but kind

It's not often I give away one of my main dietary secrets but if you could have unlimited access to a tasty calorie-free food that is dirt cheap, wouldn't you eat more of it?
Of course you would!
A food that your body loves and yet will put nothing on your hips and is one of the cheapest things at Tesco?
That's right.
A delicious no-brainer?
Manna from Morrisons?

That's why I've been eating more salt.
What do you need with your fish and chips?
Salt!
With your Salt and Shake crisps?
Salt!
And shake.
Remember when people used to put them mountains of salt on the side of their plate instead of sprinkling it all over?
Who did that? Old people, that's who. People who lived to be old.
And how did they get old? With a lifelong commitment to delicious salt.
It's essential for every cell in your body and full of crystalline goodness.
Load up a few mounds of salt today. It's the ultimate convenience food.
Cut ready to be poured and licked directly from the palm of the hand.

And you'd be hard pressed to say that about vinegar!

Eat more salt!

(From the Salt Advisory Board)

What is a poem?

A contraction of concern
An epithet of threat
A way of saying what you think
A pithy, verbal debt

Or written so it must be read
As code or playful cypher
The cloud of sunshine.
The ray of rain
That lovers give a life for

A surgical incision
Like you take a knife to cutlet
With simile or metaphor
In lilting rhyming couplet

An instruction from the teacher
When she gives you all the time
To write a little masterpiece
(You don’t have to make it rhyme)

A recipe of taste and thought
In a package of expedience
A distillation of all we know
That’s more than its ingredients

It’s everything we think, we feel
A wiki of the soul
It’s the cherry on the cake
Or added to life’s bowl.

A beating re-creation
That examines and inspects
The brio and allegro
Of drugs, rock, roll, and sex.

An eyebrow-lifting smile
In a mirror that reflects
A pulse in rallentando
Con heart.
Con soul.
Con text.

Joke 3

I thought of my 3rd ever joke today ( I can't think of the other 2)

I have tested it on my work colleagues and they correclty assessed it as rubbish (and that when I performed the punchline with a brilliantly staid John Wayne impression, my itchy fingers dancing over my invisible holsters, and more than a measure of enthusiasm).
Here it comes:

Q. How did John Wayne come off heroine?

A. With Drawl

Thank you.

The D is for Difficulty

The problem with going to DIY stores is you spend a lot of time ' visiting wood' which is nowhere near as much fun as it sounds.

I saw a self-assembly bird table today.
Honestly. I'd like to see them try!
It's hard enough with opposable thumbs.

Outsiderism and the Conventioneers

Outside is a good place to start.
And not a bad place to finish.

We all end up outside - sediment in a jar, just a too-light pile of ash and fireproof Levi's rivets.
Or under the sod. Inside a box I grant you, but I can see those worms getting in eventually and that's outside to me.

A metaphorical outside is the best perspective.
Ask the Undercover Boss. Ask the Secret Millionaire. Ask Watchdog.
It may be the only perspective worth having.
And when you roll with it, the extremes are more severe and the journey is more fun.
Riskier, yes.
Treacherous of course.
Villainy and danger await.
If you cannot stand the heat, get back inside the kitchen.

What are you outside from?
What are you without?
Well "convention" of course.
Outsiderism is an entrepreurial spirit. All progress depends on the unreasonable man (G.B. Shaw).
So be unreasonable. Do it with a twinkle. And some will "get it".
Call those people friends.


There is a concept of Outsider Art. I only know this from a Jarvis Cocker (template outsidist) documentary which hauled him round the US to look at outside artistic installations be they made of tin cans or sand dunes.

A little outsiderism is a good condition.
It gives your opinion voice and credibility and lessens the fear to act.
Outsiders are the best people there are.

You are outsider art.
And you are your own masterpiece.

Things you don't want to hear (at work)

"Can I have a word in private please?"

Smelling of Roses

Can't get those stubborn stains out of your cricketing whites?
Now there a new product from Pakistan.
New "Flood". For really built-in grime.

Have you suffered accusations that should be water off a duck's back?
Do your clothes smell of corruption?
Try new Flood!

Are your pockets lined with dirty cash?
Grubby from having your palms greased at work?
Did you wake up today and find you had betrayed 170 million of your country folk and that they want your guts for garters?
Well haven't we all!
Fortunately now there's new Flood!

Submerge yourself in new Flood and watch your problems disappear.
Your character will come up whiter than white.

The Final Curtain

I used to tell a little tale about the first time I saw Last of the Summer Wine.
I was just a young lad, still old enough to roll on along the sides of our circular pouffe in a rhythmic aid to post-prandial digestion. I saw a program that was so utterly devoid of quality, humour, wit, writing, performance, that it made impossible any remnant of pleasure. For the time my life I needed immediately to understand what was on my screen and, if possible, why.
I hunted down the family TV Guide in order to discover the name of the programme, the sole intention being to facilitate myself never bumping into it again. This debacle turned out to be a much loved BBC television - The Last of the Summer Wine. Happily, I thought to myself, "Well thank God it's the last".
This true incident always amused me and over more than the quarter of a century in which my hopeful prophecy has turned out to be more wrong than I could have ever imagined, I have related it a number of times.
But tonight, it came true. It really was the last the very Last of the Summer Wine - the final episode.
The very last of these famously lovable characters careering around in their last tin bath
I'm not sure there was never anything particularly lovable about Compo, Clegg and Foggy. To me they all had slightly sinister overtones but as I watched the last 10 minutes of 31 years of the world's longest-running sitcom, I noticed the cast contained a parade of older actors - refugees from other well-loved sitcoms.
Add in some innocent slapstick, a bit of contrived plot-propelling claptrap and a grotesque laugh track and the formula was in place for... well, let's hope now, the final time.

And in fact, I noticed that they were just a bit lovable.

You're the Radio

I'm the sleeper, you're the dream, I'm a drifter, you're the place I go.
I'm a song ...

Blast from the Past

The problem with cleaning out your drawers is that you might discover old poetry.
Here is a classic from 14 years ago.

My Favourite Goal

My favourite goal
Was by Peter Beardsley
He hit it
Fiercely
And it didn't Peter out.

Oh dear!