WHAT WOULD BRIAN BOITANO DO?

Off up to the rink yesterday morning to meet with instructor, Shirelle. She was just finishing off a lesson with her son who was amazing. He jumps, he goes backwards, he does the whole routine and would win X Dance Come Jungle easily, in my opinion.

Still, in my role as destroyer of dreams as he exited the ice, I gave him a bit of friendly advice:-

"Watch me, kid, and I'll show you how it's really done!"

He shot me a withering glance as I wobbled out onto the ice.

Second outing for my new skates. I am now a pocket rocket in the forwards stakes. However, as the leather has yet to mould itself to my feet, they make my arches ache. Particularly when attempting backwards.

So backwards was attempted, as were some changes of direction and cross-overs. It all looks very easy when others do it. I think this is going to take some time!

Dark Lady is champing at the bit waiting to try out her skates and get some lessons in. Her damaged middle finger is recovering well. She no longer has to wear the comedy splint all the time. Just as well. Being flesh coloured it looks like she is making a "gesture" if you catch her from the wrong angle.

On the way to the bus I met the reason why Britain’s businesses are in such a poor state; a young thrusting tycoon-type strode toward me and demanded:-

"Is the London Business school along here?"

"What's the address?" I asked

"No idea" he boomed and strode off!

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BILLS BILLS BILLS AND MORE BILLS!

Some, or all of the above, self-inflicted I will admit. I am not going to plead poverty but neither am I about to fly out to my private island in my personal jet.

Yesterday down to Damyns Hall Airfield for the first flight of the New Year. A glance at my log book told me I had not been up since 20th October.

If that sounded like a double entendre then shame on you. It is difficult enough to stop Producer Strangelove from turning into a sniggering adolescent whenever we decide it's time for some Willie (Nelson, that is!) without you starting.

The weather was near perfect as Keith the instructor and I took off and headed out toward the Thames. Good visibility. Calm dense air. How much had I forgotten? Not too much in truth. For those not familiar with my Biggles-ing, I have a licence but am converting to another type of aircraft so need to get enough practice in before I can go solo in this one.

We flew round for an hour practicing take offs and landings and Keith pronounced himself satisfied and if I wanted to take her up alone I could. I decided that the day had gone so well I'd wait for another day when I felt fresher.

I find my brain fries trying to remember everything and also you have concentrate rather hard as there is the ever present-danger of making a smoking crater in the ground.

Remember: I'm the guy that often plays the same record twice!

Back at home the bad news started to trickle in:

For some reason my finances are so arranged that everything arrives at once at the beginning of the year.

So the post brought the Christmas credit card bill. It also brought the car insurance. Dark Lady and I are still paying off the wedding Electricity bill. No idea what the next one’s going to look like as I noticed that Herberts had shinned over the fence and turned on the lights in my garden. Due to the odd nature of my house I can't readily see it so they could have been on for days.

Then the boiler gave up on me. It needs a new pump and that's before anything else on it needs sorting.

"pilot light won't light so there's definitely a bigger problem," beamed the engineer.

Man came round to talk to me about secondary double glazing. I have rattley sashes. (Uh-oh. Strangeo's off again!) Oo-er Missus!

"HOW MUCH?????”

Don't think that's going to be happening any time soon.

Oh nearly forgot; The Tax Bill.

I did forget it completely one year. That was the year I spent most evenings at home with the lights out and the bailiffs turned up.

When I was growing up in what would now be a deeply unfashionable middle-class household, we always knew when it was getting close to payday as biscuits and cake would disappear and more offal would arrive.

In answer to MWhite who left a comment on yesterday’s blog asking if I wash posh and of "nobility": Nah, but I was born with an EPNS spoon in my mouth!

The ever-present threat of liver, Kidney tripe and ox heart ensure that wherever possible I don't live beyond my means.

I'VE MET CAPONE AND HOOVER AND LOTS OF OTHER FAKES!

We had been thinking for a while of changing the odd bit of the show. As we listen to it everyday we are acutely aware (we like to kid ourselves) that not every feature lasts forever and hopefully things change before you are fed up with them.

So at the tail end of last year Dr Strangelove and I started thinking about a replacement for the 4.15 Confusion Hareem. I like to think of content, Strangeo wants it to rhyme!

Hence we have just published the second edition of the 4.15 Buffoon magazine.

The idea was to turn out our own headlines with your help.

Over the years and many producers the show has changed. It has evolved into the monster it is now. When I first started going it 20 years ago if I had an idea I would throw it out and wait a couple of days for any reaction to arrive, if there was any at all. Not every idea is a rip-roaring success. There would be a yawning tumbleweed filled silence.

I had to wait to see what the postman would bring.

Now with the advent of social media reaction from you can be instantaneous. This can be a double-edged sword as often there are too many emails, texts, Tweets and Facebook postings to do them all justice.

So we felt that a virtual magazine would be a fun thing to try. Just like a newspaper or periodical, it would have different features: Blaring headlines, ludicrous made-up stories, showbiz gossip. In fact, it would be a mickey take of the world of publishing.

So to that end over to you. What we are looking for is original thought and ideas. Anyone can do puns and recycle old jokes. We know you are better than that as the first two issues of The Buffoon have proved.

So listen out each day for the contents page and get your submissions in. We will be delighted and grateful.
Dr Strangelove will also be beside himself with joy if the headlines rhyme!

I AIN'T NEVER SEEN A ELEPHANT FLY

There was a show on Radio 4 where the usual suspects got to do stuff they have never done before.

I say the usual suspects, for if an alien arrived on earth and decided to land here rather than in the backwoods of Nebraska at midnight (and abduct the stupidest person for a thousand miles as they usually tend to do based on those satellite TV shows: "UFOs are they real? Compelling evidence" followed by blurred footage of hub caps, frisbees and witness statements from idiots and the gullible), they would - after a cursory glance at the TV - realise that the world is ruled by one man and a coterie of sycophants. Step forward the ubiquitous Stephen Fry; a hugely talented man who has cornered the market in, er, everything!

The premise of the show which, after starting on radio like so many ideas, was snatched by TV. Although he didn't present it he was a guest on one of the episodes.

I've never seen I've Never Seen... so can only guess that the "star" (from now on known as “the Fry”) gets to experience things they never have had before.

It is nice to try new things and I am a firm believer that new experiences keep us alive.

Having said that, Dr Strangelove the Producer, had Friday off as he was trying a new experience. He had been invited to the Brits. He, as you know from listening to the Shoe, is well-versed in the ways of the VIP but this was a first for him, within the narrow confines of Strangeoworld which revolves around the gym, important meetings, schmoozing celebs and the areas in nightclubs behind the coloured rope where us mere mortals are not allowed.

It must have been quite a weekend as judging by the look of him this morning he had been carousing solidly for 72 hours. (Possibly a new experience)

Dark Lady and I had had a peaceful and relaxed and tranquil weekend in comparison as we headed off to France. Oddly (certainly for me) we ate and drank sparingly; in fact not a drop of alcohol passed our lips (unlike Strangeo!).

We lit the fire and watched some DVDs, from the sublime Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. (a Guy Ritchie film that I really enjoyed - a new experience!) to an Adam Sandler film that we hated, Billy Madison (a new experience also).

Sunday morning we woke up and peered through the window and to our delight a first for the Dark Lady and only my third sighting in 20 years a red squirrel was sitting in the tree outside.

A new experience for her and a nearly new experience for me.

What would be a totally new experience however for everyone would be to peer through the window out into a frosty Normandy morning and see Stephen Fry sitting in the tree. Although I expect he has done that already, or the TV show, Fry's Wood, is already at the pilot stage.

JUST LOOK AT THEM BOOTS!

It always amazes me how long it takes before things settle down to normal after Christmas and New Year.

Every year we grumble about how Christmas is starting earlier and earlier and yet not sure we make the same distinction with the post-New Year period.

As I outlined yesterday being a bit of a curmudgeon and having suffered from curmudegeonliness for many years now, I quite like the year as it runs without any sudden changes brought on by Bank holidays and Festivities.

Before you leap down my throat at my lack of joy I may tell you that I am trying to get Curmudgeon classified as a bona fide medical condition.

"What is it Doctor"?

"Bad news....I'm afraid you are in the early stages of Curmudgeon."

"Can you do anything?”

"I'm afraid not....it’s progressive. Early symptoms include railing against Bank Holiday traffic jams, then it progresses through to how Christmas was better when you were a child and how people knew the value of things. Eventually, I am afraid, you'll be shouting at Trick or Treaters and won't find Del Boy falling through the open bar flap in Only Fools and Horses anything other than profoundly irritating."

"How long have I got?"

"Depends when the run up to Christmas starts"

If I get this off the ground there could be scope for good, honest, hard-working people to dig deep and fund the research which I would selflessly undertake in the Cayman Islands.

I would also try and get the news of this awful condition out there by getting people to retweet me on Twitter so that we get

#curecurmudgeon trending.

That and maybe a selection of Z-listers will get together to make a charity record of stunning awfulness. However, as it is for charity, radio and TV will be forced to feature it.

You can get that trending too

#terriblerecordsforgenuinegoodcauses

However, now that everything is turning to the usual post New Year drudgery it also meant that I could try out my Christmas present.

Dark Lady bought me a pair of skates.

As you are aware - if you read the blog regularly and listen to the show - I have been having secret skating lessons with instructor Shirelle at Alexandra Palace in London.

She is very long-suffering as she stopped me crashing to the ice on many occasions and still does. She also doesn't shout at me when my attempts to turn or skate backwards fail miserably. Her skills are remarkable as she has managed to get Chico sufficiently well-trained that he is now on the latest series of Strictly X Ice Come.

However, it may be beyond her to get me up to that standard.

Although having said that....I was out on the ice yesterday in my new boots having had hired ones up to that point. They are such a difference; like rocket sleds so I can fail to go backwards or turn far faster than I ever did before.

As we were skating along two teenage girls skated up and one said:

"’Ere Mister. You bin on the telly?”

"Er, well yes (puffing himself up with pride at the recognition). I've been on Eggheads and have also done two episodes of Call My Bluff among other cameo roles!”

#pompousarse

“Nah , I said 'ave you ever bin on telly?”

With that they skated off. Unaccountably my feet started to ache at that point so I went home.

#crushedcurmudgeon

MERRY XMAS EVERYBODY

After the honeymoon it was headlong toward Christmas and New Year. Dark Lady is a big fan of the festive season; I am not fussed. I am more of the Grinch in that it is expensive, crowded and raises unrealistic expectations. To me Christmas day is a day like any other. This may be due to spending more than 30 years working (Yes, I know what I do isn't really work) over this period and not having children meant that it was a day when the roads were quiet and everything seemed shut and so it was impossible to go down the pub in the evening.

Having said that this year was going to be slightly different in that I had a ready-made family. Jamie, my Stepson (who you can see and hear in the video - click here - giving a bit of his speech) wanted dumb bells from me for the big day. So I had trudged down to a sports store and dragged 25kg of weights back home and wrapped them best I could. The only proviso is that he doesn't drop them on the floor of his bedroom as they will doubtless go straight through into the living room beneath. Bearing in mind I have already damaged the ceiling once by removing a troublesome smoke alarm and replacing it with a new one…in so doing tearing a strip of paper off the roof where the paint had stuck it to the unit. I am wary of causing further damage directly or indirectly.

Ella, my Stepdaughter, is artistic and so I bought her an easel and some paint and brushes. The proviso here being that she didn't try and re-paint the house (even where I had damaged it!) Nor did she try and repaint her younger brother no matter how annoying she thought he was!

Dark Lady had skates which turned out to be a tad too small so I had to take them back to the shop.

Christmas Eve dawned and it was a family evening with a groaning table. DL likes to cook nearly as much as she likes to over-cater.

After the show it was off to the Midlands to collect my Dad who - at 85 - has decided to stop driving. Other than that it was business as usual: he provided the wine, I did the cheese and biscuits, my Sister did the cooking and my Brother-in-Law did the washing up. This is the perfect division of labour, if you ask me.

I took several pictures but unfortunately this was the best of a very bad lot. My Sister is the nose on the far right. There is a little more of her in real life, otherwise she would be touring the halls in carnival or being studied by scientists.

After filling myself up with gargantuan portions of food it was into the car and back down to the Dark Lady's house.

"Are you hungry?” she asked, as I opened the door.

...I ate some more anyway.

After the show the following day I went back to bed as DL slaved in the kitchen and the children did whatever children do in their bedrooms. I think as adults we know the sort of things that they do as they are pretty much the same as we did when we were their age, but nowadays there is more electricity used.

The idea was that we were going to have a slap up buffet feed and my gorgeous wife was in over catering mood once again. She loves to cook and prepare food with attention to detail. She is also the world’s biggest fan of avocados, maybe even more than our own Alan Dedicoat who is also a huge fan. This proved to be her downfall.

You may remember the film Oh God starring George Burns as God and John Denver who he has decided is going to be his messenger on Earth. In a conversation, Denver’s character asks if he made any mistakes when creating the world.

"Avocados. Made the stones too big. Ostriches. No damn use to anybody".

About noon I was awoken from my slumbers by a scream from the kitchen. At first I thought it may be one of characters in one of Jamie's “shoot ‘em up” computer games. It wasn't; it was the Dark Lady. In attempting to remove the stone from an avocado she had sliced through her middle finger.

There was blood. She was holding a towel over her hand. There was then a car and a drive to A&E. I had to drop her off in order to find somewhere to park. When I arrived in Casualty she had already been assessed:

"Is it hanging off?”

"No"

"Wait over there."

We enjoyed our Boxing Day together. The two of us. Although there were quite a number of strangers about. Some moaning, others groaning and some - like the DL - being stoic…

We were there for four hours.

When she had been patched up it was back home for the rest of the day.

Her middle finger had suffered such a slice that it is now numb as the nerve has been severed, but luckily the tendon only suffered minor damage and the artery was unscathed. This was discovered during an operation the following Thursday where surgeons with very big glasses realigned and stitched the nerve sheath and generally tidied things up. No driving for a month and think this will put the skating on hold for a similar period as well.

Just so that they knew which hand to operate on they marked her forearm. I am not a surgeon but would think any medic worth his/her salt would tend to go for the hand with the bandage, that generally being a clue as to where the injury lay.

When we got home we threw the avocado away.


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Plus, get your requests in for Listener's Library by visiting here and don't forget to subscribe to the weekly Oddcast by visiting here.

ONE AND ONE IS TWO

Here we are back with the daily(ish) blog after the Xmas and New Year festivities so I will quickly (for me) wrap up the last bits of the weeding and the honeymoon and then it will be headlong into 2012 and all that it may bring.

After the wedding and the reception, which was the most amazing day (You can see a montage of events on the link which the fabulous photographer Neale James has done for us by clicking here. Hankies ready though, it does it for us every time). When Edwina Hayes started to sing it finished everyone off so Glenda the registrar had to hand out tissues to the assemble throng.

After what seemed a decent interval we retired to bed (a fancy four-poster!) and had about three hours before we had to get up and set off for the airport. As we lay there mulling over the days events (filthy-minded readers may use this is a euphemism), we were aware that our room was directly above the bar area. So we listened to Clive, Matthew and Hirsty, among others, pontificating about life, the universe and everything from beneath our bed which was rather an unnerving experience. It was almost as if they were in the room with us! Had any of them uttered the words "left 'and dahn a bit" we would have called the cops.

A very early start and off to Heathrow. When we arrived and we walked towards the check-in desk, the Dark Lady grabbed me by the shoulders and steered me towards the Upper Class check-in; she had been saving all year to spring this surprise on me.

CLANG! This was the sound my jaw made as it hit the ground. I have only really been economy before. This was a whole different experience and one that I doubt I will experience again but it has spoiled me for air travel from now on.

We rented the same apartment in New York where we had been the previous year and DL had been wondering why I was so concerned that the rain stayed away. The following day dawned bright and sunny so I suggested a walk in Central Park. A few minutes and we were at the Wollman outdoor ice rink.

She has always wanted to skate in Central Park and little did she know I had been having secret skating lessons. (You can see the results on my Facebook page).

"Shall I have go"?

"If you want to, but don't worry! I don't want you falling and hurting yourself!"

"Oh alright. I'll give it a go. You go on ahead and I'll just hang around the edge clutching the barrier"

"OMG"!!

It was scarcely a Robin Cousins moment but I wobbled around reasonably proficiently much to the Dark Lady’s surprise

We were only in New York for a week but we had the best time.

DL bought tickets for Jersey Boys which was wonderful and spectacularly sweary which I wasn't expecting but was delighted by. A notice in the foyer warned:

"Genuine New Jersey Language is used at this performance"

We walked all over the place in the wind and the rain. We walked the High Line. Visited Katz's Deli where "that scene" from the film When Harry met Sally was shot and was delighted that it wasn't a tourist trap. Visited the Tenement Museum and was horrified at the conditions people lived under. Skated a few more times. Went to the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. Which it was.

Then on the penultimate night I surprised "the wife" with tickets to The Book of Mormon, a show which has won 9 Tony awards and is sold out for months. We saw it mid-December and I bought the tickets the previous July. It was howlingly funny. The songs were brilliant and it was one of the rudest shows in the most dubious taste I think I have ever witnessed. Not entirely sure of the accuracy of some of the religious statements but from what little I know, the sight of one of the Elders kneeling in front of Adolf Hitler performing a (Tabloid euphemism coming up) "sex act" on him whilst surrounded by dancing coffee cups in a number entitled "Mormon Hell Dream", I think it would give any self-respecting member of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints pause to consider their belief. However, having said that no one ever said "Faith" was logical.

We had the most wonderful time and it all went so wonderfully well we thought it would be nice to get married again every so often. Same person I hasten to point out. If she'd have me. I fancy a Las Vegas Elvis job next time!