Submission

I have finally given in. Chucked in the towel. Thrown my hand in. There are many things I want to do with my life and yet I am getting nowehere with any of them. And if I'm truthful that has been the story of my life. Always starting things but never finishing them. Getting disillusioned halfway through something and just quitting. It is the disease of the modern Englishman. Unlike our US counterparts who from a very early age are programmed to believe that winning is everything, achieving goals are important, that you can achieve what you want, we are programmed to believe that taking part is suffcient. That being a good loser is the mark of honour, to graciously accept failure. Well, thats my life in some ways, so last week I finally succumbed.

I wrote a LIFEPLAN.

Yep a fucking LIFEPLAN. After all the shiot I take about plans at work I have finally accepted the US Psychobabble Cock and started a lifeplan. I almost feel ashamed.

So, why do it. Well, the Mysterious M and me had a one-to-one last week, or a chat as we used to call them in more sensible days. He told me about some American bloke who wrote out 500 things to do before he died. Apparently by writing them down and then putting down the actions needed to achieve them you increase yuor chances of reaching those goals by 80%. In fact you are apparently around 90% likely to achieve the goal if you write it down, and how to ge there. West Coast hippy bollocks I thought. B ut then he told me the guy was now 86 years old and only had 6 things left to achieve! He has a book about it which he is going to lend me. I parked my cynicism in a little box and locked it in a safe at the back of mind and thought.." fuck it..what can you lose"

So, Jack will try the plan. I will attempt to reach every goal on there during this year. I will of course let you know as each one is achieved WHEN I have done it or failed pathetically, but in essence I have set targets for my golf, my weight, my teeth (crooked since 10 years old), my money (as in savings), my job, learning the guitar (yes Strings...again), re-learning French and a few other bits to go on there as well. Watch this space as Jack tries to work the plan.

On a separate note, heres why I don't drink lager. Or more accuartely lager and wine. On Saturday the Big Telephone Company kindly took me to see Chelsea play Crystal Palace. Now I am not one of the famous "prawn sandwich" brigade villified by resident Manure FC psychopath Roy Keane , but they have taken me before and I have always behaved reasonaby well considering my passion for Chelsea.. On Saturday it was a balmy 22 degrees, and a perfect cloudless sky sat over Stamford Bridge. A great atmosphere was enhanced by the buzz that people gain when the weather is betetr. It's like coming out of the long dark and cold tunnel of winter into the garden of spring. The only blot on this blatant bit of freeloading is that they only serve two beers inside the ground. Budweiser (the insipid yank piss, not the Czech glory beer) or Boddingtons (or Imperial Leather as I call it). No Guinness. None. Not a fucking drop. So, I went for the Budweiser because it looked nicer and you got a full pint, unlike the Boddingtons "pint" reaching two thirds of a glass which presumably was poured from a can. Several pints later the game started...oh and I'd managed a glass of Rioja...OK two glasses....OK....who's counting because I certainly wasn't. The game went pretty much as planned, with The Mighty Blues recording a 4-1 win. At 90 minutes my £5 on 3-1 at 10-1 was looking good but the bastards went and scored in the 92 minute to remove a £50 bonus being added onto a buckshee day. Still £20 lined Jacks pocket for correctly guessing that the marvellous Frank Lampard would score the first goal.

So it was still a profitable day. However during the first half I had to nip to the loo twice and on each journey I slugged another quickie of Rioja down. Ditto the second half. Half time was accompanied by another Budshitter...and a glass of Rioja, and after the game I managed another pint and another glass of wine before staggering down Fulham Broadway to Mr and Mrs Chelsea's magnificent horseless carriage. I don't remember the journey home, nor much of the evening, bar embarassing Teenager in front of Mini-Me and his mate...who I taught to shake hands properly instead of the wet weedy one he had. I apparently also had a chat with Mini-Me's dad about football, but as he is a Southampton fan that pretty much excludes him from any worthwhile chat or opinion about football. All of this fuelled by more Rioja (errr....yeah that'd be my favourite squashed grape tipple then). I know I was daft enough to insist on going to the pub on Saturday night to make up for a Friday night in babysitting. What I drank in the pub was Guinness but I don't imagine it was too much.

Cue Sunday, and the hangover I haven't had for a good year or so had completely taken control of me. The last time it was this bad it had been bought on by on by...yup...drinking the piss that is lager. I can't blame the wine, but I can blame the lager for filling my system with god only knows what chemical shite. I might as well have drunk Diesel. So Sunday was more or less spent bed ridden, my memory of a pre-booked game of golf with The King completely erased. I resisted the urge to puke until the inside of my body was on the outside and steadily re-hydrated with filter water and lemon juice. Some cheese on toast stayed down and come 6 I was starting to feel human again, and the pounding chemical induced headache was at last subsiding, but in effect it was a lost Sunday. All for a few glory hours of free booze and free football in the glorious spring sunshine.

Never again? Yeah...until the next time of course.

Later, GrocerJack