I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and are still managing to enjoy an endless supply of Brussels Sprouts, which are God’s own vegetable – number one in my cooked veg list by far.
We had a good time Chez Bob. My male offspring won at Don’t Panic, a board game I do not recall playing before. We were neck-and-neck at Monopoly (The Simpsons) version until female offspring decided Corrie was more important and then we never got to finish the game.
I was the only one of us who wasn’t sick over the festive period but my toothache made up for it and today I am mainly eating liquidised veg soup. Mrs Bob’s roast Xmas dinner was top notch. Red cabbage and brussels on the same plate. Heaven. Home made Christmas Cake and then in the sales she bought me chocs in the sales that look just like sprouts!
I enjoyed the Christmas Gavin and Stacey. Looked forward to Worzel Gummidge but, having only watched the first one, do wonder what the point was. Not a patch on the original TV version. I have introduced Daisy to the brilliant series that was ‘Chickens’; why oh why was there only one series made? I have been rewatching on a semi-binge basis ‘Trollied’ which went on for 8 series and I bet most people have never heard of it. Consistently funny.
More importantly though, 2019’s ‘That’s good innit’ finalists now come together……….
The Final
Singing Made-Up Songs v The Smiths
I have run out of things to say on behalf of each party here. It is finely balanced here as the Morrissey / Marr songwriting partnership is very much on a par with my own, more spontaneous, approach to music.
My decision has to be based on which I could not have lived without in 2019 and that gives us a clear winner.
Final score
Singing Made-Up Songs 3 – 1 The Smiths
So basically I am the best thing of 2019. Mrs Bob will be delighted as she ‘loves’ my singing / songs. The Bob(off)spring will be similarly happy as they often shout an encouraging ‘shut up’ when I let go with my freestyle boogaloo. I win the prize of a harmony in my head. Forever.
Sticking with music, Spotify can be v useful. As I type, I am listening to my latest annoying badly balanced playlist – now playing Dr Feelgood’s ‘Milk and Alcohol’ – but like the fact you can find most stuff. Now in the 80s I spent many happy hours devising my own pop charts. These would be a top 40 face tracks (more than this at various stages) and a top 10 albums I wanted to own. One of the latter that featured for many weeks was by a band I had never heard but I liked the name and the album cover, ‘Nude’ by Camel. So finally yesterday I listened to some of it. FFS. Flute-playing hippy prog rock boolix (apologies to the less annoying hippies amongst you).
[Blimey – I did a Google search on ‘Camel Nude’ to get a pic of the LP cover to include here – let’s just say it didn’t appear but lots of ‘saucier’ pics did. If you try this search out I recommend that you do not do so at work. Ha ha!]
I shared this with bezzie Killer who also had his own charts. He said Camel were (probably) part of The Canterbury Scene. Never heard of it but thanks to Wiki I know more now. Camel were only tenuously connected to this 60s prog rock hippy dippy scene in fact, but Soft Machine and Caravan were. The former had Robert Wyatt as drummer who became paralysed after getting pissed and falling out of a 4th floor window. He went on to do a brilliant version of ‘Shipbuilding’. Andy Summers from The Police was also in Soft Machine at one point blimey. Now with Bob Junior (male) at uni in Canterbury perhaps he will absorb some of my personally crafted-songs and make them his own folksy tunes, to start up The New Canterbury Scene. He has an acoustic guitar and a beardy thing so watch out for Hippy 2: The Kaftan Returns in a shop near you soon.
With the recent wet weather I must admit that it has been hard to get out in the garden much so we have had a build up of dog poop waiting to be collected and bagged up. I had a good Sainsbury’s carrier bag by the end of my travails yesterday and did wonder what a thief would have thought had I gone for a walk with the bag and they had snatched it from me. I may start walking about with a posh shopping back full of dog poop just in case, as it would make me smile.
Mrs Bob nearly smiled a week before Christmas. I mean, a BIG smile. I moaned at work that no one had celebrated my one year work anniversary so the team kindly / to shut me up, gave me a card and a cake (not sharing size I am glad to say). Then a few days later Mrs Bob held the card up to read out comments from one (female) colleague Mouse along the lines of ‘you have brought light to my life; you are amazing; you make me laugh / live’ etc. “If she wants you she can have you” sez Mrs Bob. I replied tat Mouse, being 23ish may not necessarily want a 53 year old, seriously underweight ex-male model, as he / I was married.
Never say never. Next day in work I went onto one knee and popped the question. In front of colleagues I was turned down, nay crushed. However Mrs Bob is now offering a minimum £10k payment to Mouse or anyone who will take me off her hands. I reckon there is more flex here negotiation wide so if you are a stunning female model who wants some of me, get your financial proposal in. I will only be with you for meals and will be back with Mrs Bob the rest of the time (until we die).
I am of course County ’til I die and we had two great results this last week – 5-1 home to Halifax and 2-1 at Fylde yesterday. I have a lot of games coming up that I will be able to get to so that should lead to a losing streak once more.
Oh dear though, Bob Jnr says Arsenal have lost / wuz robbed by Chelsea just now. It is hard having a Gooner for a son as he gets envious of the success my club Stockport experience year after year. When did Arsenal ever lift the coveted Cheshire Cup?
So my next blog will be some time in 2020 when I can bothered to do it. We may well stay in for it. Mrs Bob will be in bed early and I will stay up watching tv and then calming the dogs when the fireworks start. Both offspring will be out at parties. We were going out on Friday night to see the mighty Slam play but this coincided with Mrs Bob being ill. Here is a pic of what we missed.
If you fancy a proper music pub with decent beer, a great landlady and staff, and on the east side (Romford / Hornchurch then get over any night to The Crown Inn in Romford (Roneo Corner). Romford is one of the few places I like to shop and actually has a dog track still. Essex bloody rocks.
I seem to have digressed. Anyway it will be beer o’clock later to make up for the lack of nights out as Mr & Mrs Killer pop by later for a drink and some erudite conversation. Then work tomorrow followed by shopping for fat-fitting shoes for my paddle shaped hobbit feet. In due course, happy new year My Precious (what is the plural of Precious as a noun?). Ciao.
Bob's World - Pointless musings and vague facts 