World Cup 2030

The voting has taken place at FIFA headquarters in Iran and outsiders Saudi Arabia have won the rights to the 2030 tournament. There were claims of racism after a newspaper poll found that every single delegate had voted for them. By a weird coincidence, all the delegates had at least one hand missing.

FIFA president Sam Allardyce, who earlier described his presidency as his "dream job" said, he was delighted at the result and, at the same time denied rumours he was now at number nine in the Forbes list of the 20 wealthiest men in the world.

If England get through their difficult qualifying group alongside Andorra, Brunei Darussalam, Macau and Bingley, captain Wayne Rooney says he is confident England will progress to their usual place in the quarter finals before being elimininated by the lowest ranked team still in the tournament. Rooney, who will be 45 when the tournament kicks off, also guarantees that he will add to his tally of goals for his country despite not having scored since 2016.

England sponsors, Stannah Stairlifts, are pouring money into youth football to bring down the average age of the England team in the hope that fresh talent will emerge. England vice captain, Wayne Rooney, fully supports this move though warning that the old brigade won't give up their positions without a fight. Rooney has come under fierce scutiny since he was appointed England manager and appointing Vera O'Flynn, a ninety two year old former masseuse, as the team physio.

Early betting puts the hosts Saudi Arabia as favourites, followed by Kuwait, the UAE and Allardyce Rovers, who qualified without playing, in a secret ballot.

One of the BBC's Christmas highlights is a new episode of Sherlock. I really enjoyed the previous series, second only to the great Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce who will never be bettered.

Despite this, I don't think I will enjoy it as much as before. Instead of seeing Sherlock, I will see Cumberbatch preaching and sneering at people who don't share his lovey views on the world and how we should be managing it.

I won't see Watson but, Martin Freeman telling us how the Labour Party and, Ed Milliband in particular, were the only choice to take the country forward and rid us of the misguided people who think that socialism isn't the great answer to everything.

I am sure they are perfectly decent people but, they should stick to what they do best, pretending to be someone else. If they want to be politicians, drop the day job and try to earn a living as a politician. I doubt the money would tempt even their social consciences.

Grannies in the groove

My dad moved into a care home a few weeks ago as it was no longer safe for him to live alone. This follows on from my late mother who moved into a brilliant care home some years earlier as her memory disappeared with dementia. We knew the time had come for her when my dad fell in the bathroom and lay on the floor, wedged between the toilet and the wall for over twelve hours without my mum noticing he was even missing. Making him tea with cold water or gravy browning was one thing but this was a step too far.

What brought this to mind was looking at a notice board in his new home and seeing various events for the residents lined up. These included horticultural lessons, talks from guest speakers and music and dance. Anyone who knows my dad will realise that this notice is of no interest to him as he makes a hermit living in a cave look social by his standards. With my mother it was different. She loved the weekly sing songs and the dancing. It took her back to her youth and she was a young woman in her head for a short time.

She could never remember what music had been playing when I asked her but other residents told us that it was mainly war time stuff with Vera Lynn and Glen Miller type favourites. Of course, all the old ladies loved these and looked forward to them every week. Occasionally there was a comedian who would tell jokes going back to the period they knew best. This got me thinking.

Move forward a decade or two and what will it be like when the children of the 1950's are in the homes. What will the entertainment be then? It will be no good playing "we'll meet again" to them as that will be the music of their parents. Can you picture the scene? In comes the entertainer. He sets up his equipment and seconds later blasts out "One two three o clock four o clock rock and all the grannies stagger to their feet and start jiving around the room. The older gents will try their best to curl their top lips like Presley without, hopefully, their top set of dentures falling out. St John's ambulance will be outside to give oxygen and take care of dislocated hips. The cooler women will sit and hand jive whilst the teddy boys will snarl and look on with disdain.

Move forward another decade and we will have old men head banging bald heads to America by the Nice and playing air guitar to 21st century schizoid man. The folkies will try and squat on the floor when Dylan is on and aggravate pleurisy by attempting to smoke a joint after breaking a finger or two whilst rolling it. The old mods will glare at the old rockers whilst hippy grannies try to dance naked to Jefferson Airplane. The local hospital will have a deluge of dislocated hips after every Chubby Checker record.

The next decade will all dig out their flares and apply copious amounts of make up whilst getting down to Bowie and Bolan. Old men will relax back in a chair listening to "Tales from Topographic Oceans" and criticize others for "not getting it". The younger end will jump to their feet at the first hearing of. "God save the queen, it's a fascist regime" and old ladies will have the safety pins removed from their knickers and stuck through their top lips. Men with three hairs will cough up a lump of gunk and spread it through them to get an authentic punk look. And what about the comedy? Will they laugh at a Bernard Manning tribute act when a fat old bloke comes on and starts telling jokes about Pakis?

You can take this as far as the next decade where there was still a definite style. Young romantic old folk dressed like Steve Strange and cursing Joe Dolce for keeping "Vienna" from number one. I can see in my minds eye the DJ playing the gap band and all the old folk sitting on the ground rowing and then having to sit there and piss themselves waiting for the carers to come in and pick them up. Worse still, how about a granny twerking!

I have given you a glimpse of your future. Be prepared.

Tradition is on the way out. A serious viewpoint

It's an eye opener when things you have been lead to believe were true from childhood turn out to be nonsense

Yesterday the dustmen were emptying bins at the end of the street and I stopped for some happy discourse. The first thing I noticed was that none of them were wearing hats which was a surprise. You can then imagine my shock to discover that there was not a pair of cor blimey trousers to be seen. I was appalled at this lack of respect for tradition.

Things got worse as I realised that they were mostly wearing trainers. I asked them why there wasn't a pair of daisy roots to be seen and there were mumblings of "he's probably a bloody immigrant or a care in the community"

Once I had gained their confidence I broached the subject of accomodation. Of the three men, one was living with his parents whilst the other two had semi detached dwellings in Greetland to go home to, not a council flat in sight.

It seems dustmen have now joined the aspiring middle classes and the song is in need of a 21st century update.

Tonight I will be placing my chewing gum on my bedpost and will report back my findings as to flavour in due course.

Hindsight and regret

A few weeks ago I noticed that the youngest brother of a family I used to be very friendly with, was on facebook. I had known them since I was twelve and the eldest son was best man at my first wedding and I was best man at his. Another brother, John, became a good friend as we got older and his elder brother went off to university. John and I had similar personalities, both opinionated and smart arses and we argued as much as got on over all manner of trivia. We were both overly sarcastic at times but we had a real friendship.

John queued for tickets for us to see Led Zeppelin whilst I provided the transport. We went to see King Crimson. I dragged him to see Budgie and he blackmailed me into a Trapeze concert. A group of us Island Hopped around Greece in the late seventies and he dragged us along on two skiing holidays with a group of his adrenalin junkie friends. As we got older, we drifted as we all had jobs in different parts of the country. I divorced with the usual acrimony that entails and we lost touch. I built a new life with new friends. Over the years, I'd hear snippets about them from mutual acquaintances or from my sisters bumping into their parents. I was told I should call and see their Mum and Dad but didn't.

Rather bizarrely, over the last six months, I began having dreams about my old friend David. I say bizarre as he still looked 30 and, in my dreams was a complete bastard. He is anything but. I began to think that it would be good to get in touch but, apprehension ruled. I couldn't help thinking that perhaps, all we would have in common is the past.

As I said at the start, the chance to communicate presented itself and I took it. Three weeks ago, John was killed in a mountain bike accident. He was 59 and still an adrenaline junkie. All being well, I will be meeting all these people next Monday, at his funeral. I cannot think of worse circumstances.

A saying you so often hear is "It's never too late". Sometimes it is.

School (part one)

Just last night I realised that is is fifty years to the week since I started my first term at Grammar School. Ours was the first "post eleven plus" year but I think I can say without arrogance, I was probably bright enough to have passed that anyway.

I was a catholic and went to catholic Junior School. I can still vividly remember my first day, at four and a half years old, walking up the road with my lovely Granddad who stood and watched as I was ushered into the place. It seemed vast, milling with kids of all shapes and sizes, none of whom I knew. My big sister was there but I didn't see her as we had started an hour later on the first day.

My teacher was Miss Ellison and I fell in love with her immediately. I reckon she was about 21. She had short curled hair and wore cotton v necked jumpers and a tweedy type skirt, over the knee of course. It's a little disturbing now that I actually remember what my first school teacher used to wear. It would probably freak her out. My oldest sister saw her last week at a funeral. She will be around 77 we worked out. I can only see her as a lovely 21 year old.

I was teachers pet. I learned to read very quickly and went through the blue books and green books in no time at all. Miss Ellison used to let me pick a more challenging book from the small library they had so I didn't get bored but I think she was right when she told me I wouldn't find "The diaries of Samuel Pepys" too exciting. I made friends. John Ellerton, Michael Carter, Mark Abberton and others. I haven't seen any of them for longer than I can remember.

The school day seemed to mainly consist of catechism with Miss Mullarkey. She was the head teacher and a formidable woman. She scared the bejesus out of the kids and many of the parents too. Oddly, I remember her deferring to my Dad. Most people did. Who made you? God made me. Why did God make you? God made me etc etc etc. I can still recite all that crap now. We learnt them all off by heart. On a positive note we also had our times tables hammered into us. I am grateful for that now. It should still be compulsory. Teachers were allowed to slap kids but, by and large we were well behaved and I can't remember any punishments. That changed dramatically at Grammar School. We all got a bollocking when the fist male teacher arrived at the school. John Leedle. He was the first teacher who seemed to have a first name too. He played the violin and we were amazed as we crowded at the classroom door to see him play. Miss Mullarkey was not amused.

I could waffle on for hours about this period of my life, playing football in the tiny yard, rolling up for Robin Hood or William Tell. Red rover was one of my favourites as I always broke through the chain. I must have been a little fat sod. I must tell my favourite story though. All the school was assembled in one classroom. We were being given some instruction or other when the most disgusting smell permeated the air. We've all had the farts at inappropriate times but this was the gold medal of stinks. It had an odour of egg belch and mature Camembert. Kids were holding their noses and the odd one was retching. Finally, the teachers broke ranks and it was the lovely Shirley Ellison who asked the most amazing question. "Which one of you hasn't cleaned their teeth this morning"

I loved that woman.

My Guide to Twitter

It's over two years since I wrote this blog so I thought it was time to update it having had much more experience of Twitter and considerably increased my following.. I am basically here for the humour. I joined a couple of years ago, followed Stephen Fry as you are supposed to, found it boring, and dropped out. In April 2011, Gabby Logan mentioned Twitter and my interest was piqued again. She advised us to follow Gary Delaney, adding he was hilarious though sometimes risqué. I did so and enjoyed some of his early posts. I particularly enjoyed one about him entering a semaphore marathon but after 18 hours he was flagging badly. I replied to a couple of posts he made but didn't, at the time, realise there was a hierarchy on Twitter to conform to.

Twitter basically falls into four levels or "social classes". There are the D listers where I am firmly rooted along with the majority of people who subscribe. Us D listers know our place. We sometimes tweet above our station and, feel excited when someone from an upper level gives us a compliment or a reply. Some might call it common courtesy but on Twitter, these are rare gifts. Most of the people I correspond with are also D listers, even though a few of them do comedy professionally.

The C listers are a strange breed. On here are unknowns who have become famous and lauded within the Twitter family. They feel they have elevated themselves to a higher status and they are due respect from their inferiors. There is an arrogance in their response to tweets from lower orders. Woe betide anyone who tweets a funnier reply than their post. That is unforgivable.They will not follow you, no matter how entertaining or funny you may be. If you do happen to attract a c lister to your following, don't post a funny reply to their tweets. They hate this and will immediately unfollow. The easiest way to spot a C lister for newbies is to check the retweets. They constantly retweet each others posts telling us how funny they are in case we didn't notice and commanding us to follow them.

They often grandly announce in advance that they are going to treat us to an old tweet of theirs so we can prepare ourselves for the merriment to come and gasp in admiration. I have taken to doing this as a piss take. I have no fear of retribution for saying this as no-one from this level would lower themselves to read an inferiors blog. I have lost quite a few C list followers. I am, of course, broken hearted. I do however still see most of their stuff as I follow one or two others and they constantly retweet them. None of them was much of a loss as there was often a touch of arrogance in their musings. I find far funnier tweeters at D level. To be honest, the people at this level are much better too. One thing you must never do to a C lister is question them or disagree with their pronouncements. That is a recipe for immediate banishment. If you tweet something with a copule of words in it that a C lister may have tweeted previously, boy are you in trouble. You will be accused of plagiarism and stealing from these talented folk. Personally, I am sure that 90% of one liners on twitter must have been done before in once form or another. I have seen my own done frequently but wouldn't dream of challenging someone (unless they copied them word for word)as I have no way of knowing if mine was original in the first place.

B list is the celeb level. On this level it can be quite confusing. There are celebs who wouldn't reply to their own mothers whereas some reply generously to questions or to remarks. A good example is David Baddiel who will comment if he sees something funny he likes or will reply if asked a direct question. I do. of course, take into account the fact that these celebs may be bombarded with tweets and it may be very difficult to answer a large number but, if you can't be arsed replying, don't bother posting. I still follow a couple on this level as I find them amusing or informative. I don't expect them to acknowledge my existance or humour me. C listers want to court the B listers. They suckle up to them and massage egos in the hope of kudos amongst their peers or admiration from their implied inferiors.

The A list is in space. It is reserved for the Lady Gaga's and Justin Biebers of this world. It is a publicity tool and offers little or nothing to the substance of Twitter. I follow no A listers.

I am more than happy to be a D with my contemporaries. I am more than happy to see some of them elevated to 2 or 3 and I will still follow them if they remember who us mere mortals are, when they ascend. I will however, continue to view the majority of C's with suspicion. Pride often comes before a fall. And, just in case I become famous (more likely infamous) I will continue to acknowledge the lower orders with a quip or remark, just so than can remind me of what a twat I have become