WTF? (Again)

Of course the previous coppers arresting the stripper look positively Einsteinian in the intelligence stakes when compared to the complete fuckwits who arrested and fined two teenage girls for using pavement chalks to draw girlie pictures.

How pathetic have we become in the The Land of Dope and Moron when the worst culprits for this title are the very people allegedly serving our needs to keep us safe and crime free.

Has all sense of perspective been totally lost - is there not a senior officer who could have had a quiet word with the twats who decided that this heinous crime needed punishing?

The father of one of the girls has stated that he will not pay the fine and intends to let it go to court in order to show what a waste of tax payers money the whole thing is. For once I'm in favour of this action. Go on mate, waste the money and make the Police live up to picture accompanying this post.

Later, Grocerjack

WTF?

It’s been a bit bloody hectic lately. Too hectic to even moan about stuff.

However, I still have an eye for spotting stories that make my blood boil and here is a typical example

Grampian Police arrested a stripogram for wearing a Police uniform in the street. What a pair of utter tossers the arresting officers must be. What a waste of public money and police time this is. Where is the sense of reality here?

I can only assume that these moronic pricks were wandering around thinking it was all a bit dull and went looking for something top do. How else do you explain the imbecilic actions. And the police wonder why people don’t trust them!

Tomorrow, Grocerjack

He made a mistake, thats all!

Des Browne made a mistake when he allowed the captured sailors and marines to sell their stories on their return to the UK. I agree this might be a bit crass, but frankly I don't have an issue with them making a few quid after getting caught when operating under the orders of "superior" officers. Accepting that my view is in the minority I still don't understand why we have to have the clamour for his resignation? This kind of cheap point scoring politics is exactly the sort of bollocks that distances the puffed up ego of Parliament from the proletariat and the dare I say it, "Bourgeousie" that have to live every day in The Land of Dope and Moron.

In every walk of life people fuck up. The get it wrong. They visit the mystery land of Cockup more often than they'd wish. After all THEY ARE HUMAN. But do they have to resign from their jobs? Is this what society now demands. Make a fuck up and go? A race of automaton like humans who never ever get it wrong? How the hell do you ever learn then? Isn't it a staple fact of our lives that the best lessons learned are often the most painful. In any civilised society shouldn't we be engendering a culture of forgiveness, especially for those who hold their hands up and recognize their error. . And for those who walk amongst us, blessed by the alleged love of an alleged God, don't their religions preach this very forgiveness ethos?

Actually, scrub that last bit. Fundamental God-ism is twisted by the human devotee into a means of oppressing the masses in order to ensure people live to their own twisted and anal ideals.

Anyway, back to Des. Des...mate......fuck 'em. Fuck the Tories, fuck the Lib Dems, fuck the TV companies and most of all fuck the lowlife scumbags of the tabloid hysteria-inducing press (The Sun, The Daily Facist and The Daily Lunatic being the main culprits) who are driving this issue in order to shift print during what is a slow news period. You made a mistake and have publicly apologised and that should be good enough for anyone.

Later, Grocerjack

Bloody blood pressure

I bought a machine to monitor my blood pressure on the advice of my Doctor. Great idea huh? All its done since I bought it has put me into a blind panic as the first reading is always something like 195/105. After 3 or 4 goes this comes down to around 134/90, but apparently the 90 reading is an indicator of potential problems. Oddly enough my resting pulse rate is around 50! I gave up smoking at 40 (I'm 45 now), and generally try to eat sensibly. Once a week I might have a pizza, or a mixed kebab from the local kebab shop. At weekends I might have the odd bacon roll or English breakfast, but generally throughout the week I eat Muesli or Yoghurt for breakfast, salad for lunch with NO meat and chicken or fish and vegetables in the evening (no spuds). I ride an exercise bike every night for 20 minutes on a sweaty fat busting programme with pushes the pulse to 140 and allegedly burns around 600 calories and I'm about to dust down my real bike for the summer. I may even buy a road racer for some early morning road riding (the other bike is better for the evenings when i can go off and on road). I drink once a week on average on a Friday, and yes it is a binge, but I'd be amazed if that was enough to elevate the BP. I think I live a healthier lifestyle than a lot of people my age. Despite all this my battle with my weight is a yo-yo. I seem to have to fight to keep it where it is and yet no matter how few calories i eat, and how much exercise I do, very little seems willing to drop off.

On Monday I have to undergo an ECG, and on the 27th I have a blood test for which I have to fast for 12 hours beforehand. I have a theory though. My Mum had an underactive thyroid gland, and my Dad had high blood pressure. The underactive thyroid, if a genetic tendency exists, might explain the inability to lose weight and the slower metabolism/lower pulse rate, whilst the high blood pressure might be a genetic inheritance over which I can do little except try and mitigate the aggravating factors. Watch this space as the next few weeks will hopefully provide a few answers and consequently some answers.


Thanks Mum. Thanks Dad.

Later, Grocerjack

The Best Ever TV Programme ..........ever?

Wow. After 8 weeks or so of following the second series of Life on Mars we at last reached the conclusion. Am I any the wiser? A little I suppose, especially when you read the writers comments here. Fascinating stuff. But as has been pointed out - the series was truly on that was taken over by the fans. To this extent there are web sites dedicated to the show, not least of all The Railway Arms site which is truly an experience, especially when you read some of the wilder theories about the programme.

Previous readers will know that I am a big fan of the BBC. I think it returns fantastic value for money, especially when "multi-channel" means "multi-ad break". If you don't know what I mean then try watching the excellent Heroes on the Sci-Fi Channel - 40 minutes of TV stretched to an hour, that's 1 minute of ads in every 3. It completely fucks up the viewing experience. Wait until June when its on the Beeb, ad free. It's a slow burner but worth it.

Back to Life on Mars though. Despite the writer explaining the ending, the fans are still putting forward their own theories. I am no different in this respect. I found the ending both enigmatic and satisfying and although I do take the writers points, I rather prefer to think that Sam's awakening into 2006/7 was part of the dream from the coma that has put him in 1973. It may well be that Frank Morgan did operate but that the operation didn't revive Sam, but even in his comatose state the event of the operation filtered through, just like the messages from the medical team and his friends and relatives. When he chose to jump of the roof at the end, this was done as part of the dream within the dream inside the coma and his way of returning to a place where he felt real and alive. That's my theory anyway, and it's one that leaves a smile on my face, from a programme that has simultaneously thrilled, entertained, amused and touched me at every turn. As TV goes this is one of the all time classics and will retain it's cult and iconic status much as The Prisoner, Star Trek, Doctor Who etc have.

The red herrings and the references throughout to the Wizard of Oz (Frank Morgan was the name of the actor who played the original wizard, Gene often call Sam by the name Dorothy, the last episode had Somewhere Over The Rainbow in it), and to the marvellous Bowie track from which it took its name were all part of the mystery and the fun. In Gene Hunt, the BBC have created one of TV's greatest ever characters, politically incorrect, mildly racist, very sexist, heavy smoking, heavy drinking...a refreshing change in these days of safe, homogenised, sanitised and anodyne behaviour. Amongst this lies the fact that all of the actors in this were utterly superb, each making the character they portrayed seem real and human. For this programme alone the BBC Licence fee was worth every penny. I await the Gene Hunt sequel, Ashes to Ashes with great anticipation.

Gene Hunt: I think you've forgotten who you're talking to.

Sam Tyler: An overweight, over-the-hill, nicotine-stained, borderline-alcoholic homophobe with a superiority complex and an unhealthy obsession with male bonding?

Gene Hunt: You make that sound like a bad thing.

Later, Grocerjack

Yes.....but is it Art?

I’ve talked about the language of Management Gobbledygook Bollocks Talk (MGBT) many a time before. I’ve often maintained that in the world of Management it’s used as a form of academic snobbery in order to underpin a clique. The normal people aren’t allowed to join this clique or club. Membership as stated previously is by invite only.

It’s the same in other worlds as well. Information Technology dresses its clique language in the elaborately woven dress of acronyms, also known as TLA’s (three letter abbreviations). I’ve heard some ridiculous ones in many places and it makes you wonder what came first – the acronym or the proper name. So insidious are these clique languages that the use of the acronym now pervades the entire English language. So much so that even numerical parts of the language such as dates are affected. After all we now refer to 9/11 instead of September 11th for example and how often do you hear the phrase “twenty four seven”. I too am not immune to this creeping malaise because I’d never get through a day at work if I didn’t use or understand MGBT. I am also a golfer, a sport renowned for its mystifying use of terms
such as Birdie, Double-bogey, fade and draw amongst many others.

But nowhere is the language bastardised into a mystifying clique language more than the world of Art. Here, it is taken to new extremes of pretentiousness and academic snobbery all designed to baffle and bemuse the average art punter like me. Now don’t get me wrong I am not dismissing Art per se – in fact I love all aspects of Art with the exceptions of the ridiculous, such as brick walls or unmade beds. Even some of the Classic painting are best described as …shit. The question “But is it Art?” occasionally needs the answer to be “No! of course it fucking isn’t…it’s a urinal you pompous twat” .

Now read on good people for a prime example of utter pomposity, anally retentive academic
snobbery and utter delusion. The exhibit is a glass of water on a shelf and ….get this…..was
lent to The Tate from a private collection! I am about to become an artist and make loads of
money from spouting utter garbage that explains utter garbage. Dunno why I didn’t think of this before.

Artist : Michael Craig-Martin (born 1941)

The Exhibit – An Oak Tree (1973)

While this appears to be a glass of water on a shelf, the artist states that it is in fact an oak tree. Craig-Martin’s assertion addresses fundamental questions about what we understand to be art and our faith in the power of the artist. The work can be seen as an exploration of Marcel Duchamp’s declaration that any existing object can be declared a work of art. In his accompanying text, Craig-Martin provides the questions as well as the answers, allowing the simultaneous expression of scepticism and belief regarding the transformative power of art.

Q: To begin with, could you describe this work?
A: Yes, of course. What I've done is change a glass of water into a full-grown oak tree without altering the accidents of the glass of water.

Q: The accidents?
A: Yes. The colour, feel, weight, size...

Q: Do you mean that the glass of water is a symbol of an oak tree?
A: No. It's not a symbol. I've changed the physical substance of the glass of water into that of an oak tree.

Q: It looks like a glass of water...
A: Of course it does. I didn't change its appearance. But it's not a glass of water. It's an oak tree.

Q: Can you prove what you claim to have done?
A: Well, yes and no. I claim to have maintained the physical form of the glass of water and, as you can see, I have. However, as one normally looks for evidence of physical change in terms of altered form, no such proof exist.

Q: Haven't you simply called this glass of water an oak tree?
A: Absolutely not. It is not a glass of water anymore. I have changed its actual substance. It would no longer be accurate to call it a glass of water. One could call it anything one wished but that would not alter the fact that it is an oak tree.

Q: Isn't this just a case of the emperor's new clothes?
A: No. With the emperor's new clothes people claimed to see something which wasn't there because they felt they should. I would be very surprised if anyone told me they saw an oak
tree.

Q: Was it difficult to effect the change?
A: No effort at all. But it took me years of work before i realised I could do it.

Q: When precisely did the glass of water become an oak tree?
A: When I put water in the glass.

Q: Does this happen every time you fill a glass with water?
A: No, of course not. Only when I intend to change it into an oak tree.

Q: Then intention causes the change?
A: I would say that it precipitates the change.

Q: You don't know how you do it?
A: It contradicts what feel I know about cause and effect.

Q: It seems to me you're claiming to have worked a miracle. Isn't that the case?
A: I'm flattered that you think so.

Q: But aren't you the only person who can do something like this?
A: How could I know?

Q: Could you teach others to do it?
A: No. It's not something one can teach.

Q: Do you consider that changing the glass of water into an oak constitutes an artwork?
A: Yes.

Q: What precisely is the artwork? The glass of water?
A: There is no glass of water any more.

Q: The process change?
A: There is no process involved in the change.

Q: The oak tree?
A: Yes. The oak tree.

Q: But the oak tree only exists in the mind.
A: No. The actual oak tree is physically present but in the form of the glass of water. As the glass of water was a particular glass of water, the oak tree is also particular. To conceive the category "oak tree" or to picture a particular oak tree is not to understand and experience what appears to be a glass of water as an oak tree. Just as it is imperceivable, it is also inconceivable.

Q: Did the particular oak tree exist somewhere else before it took the form of the glass of water?
A: No. This particular oak tree did not exist previously. I should also point out that it does not and will ever have any other form but that of a glass of water.

Q: How long will it continue to be an oak tree?
A: Until I change it.

Later, Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with
a Pict (well if he can do it…..)

This weeks phrase

A toughie this week, which runs to next week due to the day off on Monday.

"I have some ideas I'd like to stir-fry in our think-wok"

Phew.

Later, Grocerjack

Too old for this shit

Friday - a drive to Goole for a stopover en route to friends who live in Dunbar. 250 miles.

Friday Night - a skinful of Magners

Saturday - drive the rest of the way to delightful restaurant/hotel - 250 miles. All on a Macdonalds breakfast and the worst petrol station sandwiches I've ever had.

Saturday night - a lovely meal, in a lovely place, , loads of Magners and some red wine. No memory of going to bed.

Sunday Morning - no breakfast as clocks went forward and we slept in. I fucking hate this bollocks of moving clocks. Leave them on BST and be done with it. Fuck the Scots - if they want a separate time zone then let them get on with it.

Sunday - drive back 500 miles in one hit. Hellsbells slept for 98% of the journey.

Monday - forced to grovel to The Master for day off as I could barely move through tiredness.

Is it any wonder the likes of Keith Richard and Steve Tyler all live cleanly now they're older? At some point the body tells you very quickly that although the candle can be burnt at both ends, once you're in your forties it can only be done infrequently for short periods of time. In my case, 2 nights of drinking required 2 days of laying on a settee, drinking squash and watching TV.

Later, Grocerjack

A Challenge

Every week the team will now give me a phrase or buzzword which I have to slip into the weekly management meeting. The one who makes the suggestion will donate £1 if I manage to get it into the meeting. If I fail then I donate £1. It's silly isn't it! This week the phrase was one immortalised by Alan Partridge....."Back of the net".

Too easy by half, but it appears the tricksters in my team are already thinking up more fiendish phrases that sound like MGBT (see posts passim). Could it be "drop this into he Thought Tombola" next week? Watch this space as I attempt to bamboozle the Stepford Managers in the F Band Plus Club with some utterly made up MGBT and see if they spot the charade or whether they think I'm serious. I wonder how many of the faux-MGBT phrases actually get to be in common use.

Any of your suggestions are also most welcome.

Later, Grocerjack

The Stepford Managers Club

The madness that accompanies working for The Company continues at a fair old lick. In my old job (or “role” as they call it now) I was pretty much bored rigid, working for a propeller headed pedant who was the worst man-manager I’ve ever encountered , or maybe the second worst….the more I think about it the harder the call becomes.

In those days the Management Gobbledygook Bollocks Talk (MGBT) was the language of Process and Planning designed to confuse any listener or outsider by spouting words formed into pseudo-sentences containing no meaning and saying nothing. It’s another section of the trend towards intellectual snobbery and akin to that used in the detestable world of Fashion and to a degree, the world of Art. The proponents of this use it like criminals used Cockney rhyming slang to baffle and confuse those not in the know. It’s a way of saying “I’m better than you because I know this stuff and you don’t” – they believe this then gives them a power over the ignorant masses by excluding them from their clique.

This is how things work within The Company. I have now moved into an environment where boredom is now looked at as a luxury. I never stop attending meetings, writing reports and documents and guiding my team. Whilst I battle away each day to meet The Master’s expectations, all around me the baffling language of the Senior Stepford Managers within The Company continues to grow. The process to becoming a Senior Stepford Manager is shrouded in absolute mystery. The promotion process is not published and if you’re on the band below Stepford Manager grade (“Band F or Above” as its known) , like me then getting there appears to be by magic or witchcraft.

It’s a secret club you know. You can only get in by being a member. Membership is by invite only. The walls of the club are lined with Gold. It’s like Floor 500 of Satellite Five (later Game Station) from Doctor Who in the Chris Eccleston period. It’s exactly the same. Your name is called, you enter a lift and in that lift you attend a Breakthrough Course. This is the point at which your membership is confirmed. This is the point at which any remnants of personality and Individuality are removed. The real you with all your faults, your sense of humour, your EMOTIONS is a withered husk locked in a darkened room. What comes back after a “bodysnatchers” period is the Stepford version of you.

All smiles, always positive, always working late, unable to talk about anything other than work even when outside work and with a skin burn on the side of your face from the constant important mobile phone calls you take.

You are Now Very Important!

But nobody likes you much.

Later, a still human Grocerjack

Work not good for blood pressure shock!

Another thing about this new role is The Master (pictured) keeps on making new demands on what he wants done. Fine as long as you're given the chance to finish something else off first. We have 4 major projects on the go that we're involved in as a team, plus I'm doing a presentation to several hundred people in just 2 weeks, alongside trying to get 3 of new team into higher pay bands.

I ain't used to this! I've been in a soporific job for 3 years and this sudden ramp up in expectation and workload is a bloody shock to the system

Hence, on Saturday morning at my usual game of golf, a pursuit designed to make you switch off from work, I was so wrapped up in thinking about my presentation, the business case for the pay bands and the fact that 2 of the team have decided to leave for pastures new that I smashed my 3-iron into the side of my golf bag halfway down the second hole in frustration at what had been my umpteenth shite shot.

A quick shake of the hands to The King and The Major's Son and I stormed off. 30 minutes of rage induced driving to nowhere finished with me eating a pile of E numbers in the form a MacDonalds breakfast, before coming home to take it out on HellsBells and LittleSis (who had stayed over),

I hereby apologise to both of them publicly for what I can only describe as a blood pressure moment. A fuse blew somewhere and all I can point at is work.

It will not happen again. Some Spock like logic will now be applied and any rants will be extinguished internally. At least that's the aim.....

Later Grocerjack

So What Happened?

Well, the biggest thing you might remember is me changing jobs within the company after 3 and a bit years of working in one of the dullest jobs ever, for one of the most pedantic and uninspiring people I've ever had the misfortune to come into contact with. The Schoolteacher was a pleasant bloke, but not the sort you'd rely on in an emergency, nor have a drink with. No, he was a decent chap but a bit like Captain Darling. With no balls.

So have things improved? Well, if your idea of improvement is being shunted from one Management Gobbledygook Bollocks Talk meeting to another then frankly no. If you enjoy sitting in meetings where people liberally spout Meeting Bingo platitudes such as "evangelising the customer expectation" , " blue sky thinking" , "running ideas up the flagpole" and "welcoming the virgin challenge" then....errr...no. In fact all I've done is shift from working for an uninspiring fuckwit to a mutated version of Reggie Perrins underlings. Yep, my current boss , The Master, is one constant round of "Fabulous", "Positive News" and "Marvellous Achievements" and so on. He reminds me of the Alec Baldwin character that Phoebe in friends once dated who seemed to fill his pants with a load at the simplest of things ("Wow, dontcha just love stairs", "aren't glasses such wonderful things " etc). Alright, it's toned down a bit from that but lets put it this way.....like all people at this level it seems that clarity is a little lost child in a forest of ambiguity in his life. And despite the smile, you can't help thinking he's one of the Branson clan, outwardly nice, but relentlessly ambitious and ruthless underneath.

Anyway, there are some plus points, the team are good fun although it was to good to be true that they were all happy. Nah, they were just anaesthetised after years of being pushed into the background. So, I'm working on getting them a bit angry and hungry again. I've also come across across 2 of the most power crazed ambitious people I've ever met. People who make The Sandman look like Pooh Bear in comparison. I'm going to have fun bursting their bubbles and writing about them here, the poor wretched souls.

So, less time to write, which means I've got to overcome my problem of being unable to write concisely. As The Master would say in a sickeningly positive manner, with only special people like me able to detect that it's veiled with undertones of something dark "Face the challenge and plan for success".

Vomit.

Later Grocerjack

Dirty Digger vs The Grinning Jumper

Sky vs Virgin in a battle of media giants.







It's well documented what I think of Sky, the money-grabbing useless fuckwits. I've not always been the biggest fan of the Great Leader Murdoch Senior, let alone his egotistical son, Dear Leader. In my eyes, News International have been allowed far too much power through excessive media ownership across the globe, but nowhere more than the Land of Dope and Moron that is the UK. But successive governments of either persuasion have been simply too scared of him and have basically doffed their caps and opened their political arses for a good long shafting.

Branson is a grinning fool, or that's the image he likes to convey. As far as astute businessmen go though he must be a ruthless bastard because we all know you don't get rich and powerful by being nice. Yes, he is a self publicising twat at times but he does seem to realise the value of publicity, even if it makes him look a dick. His appearance last week after the Cumbrian train crash showed at the very least his compassion. Can anyone imagine The Dirty Digger doing similar?

After my own encounter with Sky and my subsequent acceptance back into the NTL fold after eating sizeable slices of humble pie, I was glad to see the Virgin takeover of NTL. Lets face it, NTL had an image problem that would never disappear even if they single handedly removed famine from Africa and resurrected Princess Diana. Their customer service was as bad as Sky's, but at least they didn't send out fuckwits to install equipment. Not to my house anyway.

The new Virgin service has been good. I'm on the £85 VIP deal giving me 10Mb broadband, Sports and Movie channels and free calls to virtually everything, plus the fab V+ HD box which pauses live TV and frankly kicks the arse of SkyPlus very hard. So, we lost Sky One, that paragon of British TV content (sic), with its ad break 2 minutes into the programme and shite such as Cirque de Celebrity, HogFather and Project Fucking Catwalk. As for Sky Two, well as if one wasn't bad enough along came the single worst second channel since the sheer bollocks of ITV2, undisputed king of dismally bad TV. How comes we get to keep any ITV Channel - now there' some shite I'd gladly lose.

Sample ITV2 schedule
19:00 - American Idol
20:00 - American Idol
21:00 - More American Idol
22:00 - American Idol Uncovered
23:00 - American Idol Uncut
00:00 - Idol of America
01:00 - American Twat

Sample Sky One/Two Schedule
19:00 - The Simpsons (US)
19:30 - The Simpsons (US)
20:00 - Lost (US)
21:00 - 24 (US)
22:00 - Lost Again (US)
24:00 - 24 Again (US)
01:00 - Still fucking Lost somewhere in plotless clueless sideshow

We also lost The Sun of the airways, Sky News - how many self respecting journalist could work them is beyond me. Still pay anyone enough and they'll happily spout the Murdoch agenda having had a good mouthwash on a fresh injection of his jizz. Sky Sports news was good, and I will miss that, but Virgin could do a similar channel. I mean how fucking dear can it be to employ some sports hacks and get interviews with managers and sports people?

Sky Travel and Sky Travel extra were the other losses (sic) - oh yeah, key channels in the Grocerjack household! So here's my message to the pair. Well done Virgin, its about time someone stood up to Sky. Long term you've got little hope and a real battle, but thanks for trying. Sky - you really are just a bunch of bullies who can't take any challenge of competition. Kill it at birth, that's your philosophy, just like you did with BSB. Every empire falls though, very empire falls.

Come on Beardy

Later, Grocerjack

Psycho Letter 2

And here's Page 1 - he was found guilty and was fined £3000 and ordered to pay costs. He defended himself because presumably no solicitor would have been stupid enough to defend him, especially bearing in mind his admission to the police that he HAD sent the letter to me and a similar one to the neighbour on the other side of him. His defence was based on the fact that the letters were in fact NOT meant to cause distress or anxiety, nor meant to be threatening. No, his defence was that they were merely "advisory" and part of his duty to act as a good Christian. During the trial he stated that he believed the CPS was an inherently corrupt organisation, that the Criminal Justice system in this country could not be trusted and that the police had mis-handled the case from start to finish.

How to make friends and influence people huh?

In fact the full story of the trial is utterly surreal, but too long to put into writing. Just take my word for it, this man is living in a Walter Mitty existence. Even his wife didn't attend - perhaps she knows something. Needless to say everything he accuses me of is utter bollocks, but during the trial he stated that was with-holding a pack of "compelling" evidence of " a litany of bad behaviour, physical abuse, threats , vandalism and trespass" against me, which he intends to use in a civil case. Bring it on matey, bring it on. Interesting to see how much evidence he has of NOTHING, because that's what's happened - in fact words haven't been exchanged for 4 years.

And I have to live next door to this. What a stroke of luck don't you think?

Later, Grocerjack

Psycho letter

Folks - page 2 of the letter I received from Psycho Neighbour in June last year.

See the post above for the first page - just click to see the image - the files are big but that's because I can't work out how to make them smaller.

Later Grocerjack

Changes

Well well, look who's coming back. Grocerjack's had a rest, had a kip and is making his comeback.

In the break I've taken my new "role" or "JOB" as we used to call it, I've been to court with PsychoNeighbour, twisted one ankle, had gout in the other and endured a whole host of other things that have generally proved the maxim that "modern life is rubbish" to be true.

Like the other blog I contribute towards, this site will be a place to let off steam, to highlight the stupidity of people, or technology, to expose the ridiculous wage-slave bollocks I endure in order to keep a roof over my family's head and to expose the general hideousness of life in the Land of Dope and Moron today.

The difference is I want this blog to be .....collaborative....... and not solely down to me. So if you have an article you want posting then let me know - I'll cast a beady editorial eye over it and ....well.....if it's good enough I'll publish it.

Then you can see your writing published in lights for the world potentailly to love you or rip the piss out of you.

Jacks back, and not a moment too soon.

Later, Grocerjack

Decision time.....

Its time to change. I have an idea and honestly when things change you'll be the first to know!

And I promise the nutty neighbour letter will appear at some point no matter where I go. He's been charged under the Malicious Communications Act and will be appearing ina court near me on the 2nd february 2007. I am a witness and so will be there to hopefully see some justice done.

Later, Grocerjack

Why Chelsea will be the Death of Me

Last week I ventured off to my local Doctors surgery for my annual MOT with the clinic nurse. As an asthmatic this involves merely blowing into a contraption that feels like its been made by the Blue Peter team from old toilet rolls and Smartie tubes to ensure that I’m still breathing and that my lungs haven’t been transformed into lumps of strawberry jelly. I also have an annual flu jab as well because you can never be too careful with silly old middle aged asthmatics and their capacity for apparently being super-susceptible to every media “superbug” scare story that shifts a bit more print. Being a normal person I don’t usually inform work of the jab just in case I need to chuck in a “man flu” sickie in order to keep the golf handicap in place. So what’s this to do with Chelsea you may ask? Simple – after this I have a blood pressure reading taken and in one year my blood pressure has gone from 134/88 (good) to 177/116 (catastrophic) and the only thing that’s changed in that year is my “deal of the century” acquisition of a season ticket for my beloved Chelsea. Now I can guess what most of you are thinking. Why make such a huge assumption, and the answer is , to me , fairly simple and obvious.

As far as I can see this is one of those tenuous medical “links” you read about in the press …you know the sort of headline I’m talking about here…..”Being short is linked to midwife’s car being a Mini”, “Gay tendencies linked to parents love of Liberace” or “Supporting Liverpool linked to insanity, homicidal tendencies, bed-wetting, Piles, Halitosis, car theft, having an alleged famous wit etc etc (delete as appropriate)”.

Hmm…maybe there’s something in that last one.

Anyway, I gave up smoking 5 years ago, with some ease, and have never suffered a relapse. I have always exercised in some way or another and the current exercise fad is jumping on my mountain bike and disappearing into the South Downs for a few hours per week, or walking 5 miles with a big bag of golf clubs each week. All of which is way more than HM Nanny State Government recommends for the average person. I don’t eat excessive amounts of red meat or processed food, I never add salt and I drink once a week on a Friday (yeah… Ok I do drink a gallon or more of Guinness on this night out, but I have done this for 20 odd years). My job is not overly stressful, my kids are well behaved in the main and my wife doesn’t nag me too much or stop me from doing what I want, after all I play golf, go biking and have a season ticket for Chelsea…..not a bad life really.

So, this news shook me a bit and I looked for what else could be the cause of such a scary and dramatic change in my metabolism. Try as I might I couldn’t see anything obvious, and even when I sat down to my Chicken Kebab with Salad and Rice in the American Café Bar for my pre-match meal on Saturday I was lost as to what could be the underlying reason for having a heart that’s desperate apparently to push the blood out of its incarceration within the arteries and veins of my body.

At 15:00 sitting in my lovely seat 89, row V of the MHL I became aware of an almighty crashing sound around me. It was the sound of a gigantic penny dropping as the realization dawned that suddenly I was agitated, nervous, dry mouthed, pulse racing and not a little light headed. I’d usually put this down to nausea caused by a raging hangover from 12 pints of Guinness and a bottle of Rioja the previous night, but now I knew that this wasn’t the case. No, the cause was the 11 men good and true, standing in front of me wearing Royal Blue shirts and shorts and carrying every hope and aspiration for 40 odd thousand fans on their collectively broad shoulders. Prior to attaining this season ticket I had made the occasional journey to The Bridge, via my membership coinciding with sufficient cash to purchase a ticket at some arbitrary area of the ground, or more often by freeloading onto a corporate jolly put on by suppliers desperate to get their grubby capitalist mitts on my employers filthy lucre. And yes, I did string many along with vague promises of business or whatever it took to get a freebie at The Bridge. When it comes to Chelsea I am a scruple free zone. I had spoken to my seat neighbour (seat partner, seat associate, seat buddy…what do you call someone you only got to know through shoulder contact?) about the blood pressure issue and he had expressed concern and suggested that this might be the wrong place to be. I had laughed falsely and loudly in return, but it was a gallows style response. Grim and perhaps laced with the realism that he might be right.

The game started and for the first 15-20 minutes it seemed to be case of “after the Lord Mayors Show” as Pompey showed the more urgency in possession and attack. An aura of mystification descended on the MHL as to how such supremacy over Barcelona could be transformed into apparent casual apathy against former division props Portsmouth. And then came the first rush of blood to my head when Matt “Hacker” Taylor cynically upended Robben. I jumped to my feet screaming at the ref, Mark RottenBugger, to book this cynical spoiler, safe in the knowledge that it was so obvious a yellow was a cert, but to my, and everyone’s amazement nothing more than a cursory ticking off was given. How could this be I asked myself internally, and as it happens externally at full expletive ridden volume? Seat Buddy again joked about blood pressure, but I was already too far gone, ensconced deeply into the ebb and flow of a game suddenly about to swing Chelsea’s way big time. Chelsea woke up and wave upon wave of attack ensued, inspired by the marvellous Robben so obviously enjoying himself as he tormented Noe Pamarot and any other Pompey player who dared to get in his way. Man of the moment Drogba hustled and bustled, running past defenders like they weren’t there. Sheva was smiling as if he knew it would happen today. But what we hadn’t banked on was that David James had been spiked with the same Superhero Goalie drug that we had seen inspire Sorensen for Villa 2 weeks ago, and almost every opposition ‘keeper to visit The Bridge last year. I am convinced someone has invented a drug which changes Clark Kent type goalkeepers into clones of the son of Jor-El for 90 minutes and peddles it en route to Stamford Bridge. Quite frankly James was bloody magnificent. He made 3 saves from Robben each looking like bankers to disturb the back of the net. The save he made from Sheva was utterly world class, to the point where Sheva must have been ready to ask for his P45 in respect of the fact that if that wasn’t going in then nothing was. Yes, he got out of jail for the Drogba push, and was lucky with his seemingly petulant throw to Primus which denied Sheva a stroll-in goal, but he is a goalkeeper re-born under good old ‘Arry Redknapp. With each miss though the diastolic and systolic numbers must have been raised. RottenBugger’s decisions became more and more mystifying, allowing cynical tackles but blowing up for the small shove in order to gain advantage. The only positive was that he dished this madness out equally to both sides. He seemed to have the undying loyalty and devotion of his “assistants” as well, one of them flagging a for a goalkick in front of the MHL after the ball had blatantly hit Primus before going out of play. Half time arrived and the utter domination of Chelsea had yet to produce a legitimate goal. My blood pressure reflected the fact that deep inside myself, and a few others, thoughts prevailed that a repeat of the game in 2005 when a certain David James performed heroics for Man City at Stamford Bridge to give them a barely deserved 0-0 draw might be about to recur. Someone in the crowd joked that Chelsea should present James with an England shirt to wear and that way we’d be 4 up after 10 minutes of the second half.

As it happens we didn’t need it as The Mighty Blues started the second half as they finished the first, quite a rarity to us seasoned followers. Inevitably the goal came after some sustained attacking pressure with Robben, Drogba and Sheva leading the charge, with Ballack coolly controlling the midfield with Essien and the back in form SuperFrank (hit the ball Frank, don’t keep trying to tee it up, the goals will come!). And boy, what a team goal it was. The relief around the ground was palpable, and God only knows what Sheva felt when something finally went his way. His celebration showed everything though, and the crowd responded in kind as well. My blood pressure was no doubt still off the scale but this time it was with sheer joy and relief.

In BP terms I’m damned if things go badly and damned if they go well.

Then RottenBugger, in a fit of pedantism and jobsworthiness befitting that of this years winner of the Most Vindictive Traffic Warden award decided a yellow card was necessary for Sheva actually touching the crowd. If this was the case then it begs the questions why the other players in the melee weren’t booked because they all went in as well. It was a display of the kind of killjoy mentality rife in the passion killing FA, who are seemingly hell bent on homogenizing the goal celebrations of scorers to nothing more than nodded and silent acknowledgement to colleagues and crowd. The card defied any logic at all, and worse it changed the mood of the crowd instantly from that of joy to that of anger. Is it any wonder that in the bad old days people used to run onto the pitch? Why not just tick him off? Why not just warn him not to do it again? Did it really need a yellow card? Was it really a worse offence to celebrate in front of your own fans without jumping the barrier than Taylor upending Robben? And if that wasn’t bizarre enough, then Ballacks booking following his first goal was now into the realms of serious mental instability. Ballack (as replays testify) was in contact with the crowd for no more than 3-4 seconds before walking back onto the field of play. As Chris “it’s unbelievable Jeff” Kamara said in Goals on Sunday , he was in and then out. Mark RottenBugger with those 2 decisions immediately wins the Worst Ref This Season Award and it will take some stupendously moronic and pedantic referee to prise the title away from him in my eyes. Again the atmosphere went from joy to disbelief and anger and my blood pressure must have close to bursting point judging by the stream of foul-mouthed expletives leaving my reddened face. In fact it must have been off the scale in all likelihood when Drogba appeared to have capitalized on James’s parry from Frank’s shot a few minutes later. But with an air of inevitability the goal was disallowed. 3 goals disallowed seemed to underline just how superior we were and I can’t remember ever seeing that from one side in any game before. But then talking of “airs of inevitability” a moment after Robben had trudged off the field patently knackered by his efforts, to be replaced by the recovering Joey Cole, Pompey exploited a sleepy Chelsea defence to equalize through the Ashley Cole bullying nemesis of Benjani.

After that the Mourinho mentality of preserving what you’ve got seemed to prevail and for 10 minutes or so I don’t think many would have been surprised to see a mugging occur in the shape of an equaliser for Pompey. Eventually some desire returned to score another and put a much truer reflection on the game, and Drogba’s magnificent strike near the end, which seemed to be accompanied by a marching band and fireworks spelling out the word “GOAL” was interrupted by the Superman theme tune and David James flying through the air at the last second to push the ball away. Remember when Superman caught the school bus before it hit the ground after falling of the bridge? Yeah, you’ve got my analogy then! When the final whistle went I felt the weight of the world fall off of my shoulders and with it the Mercury was finally falling. Whether my blood pressure was anywhere near where it should be I’ll never know. 3 points in the bag and at last a performance, in part , to show the fan what we are capable of. An argument in the car with Mr Chelsea about whether my arrival 5 minutes after him to the car made any difference to the traffic we get stuck in week after week may have either raised the pressure, or have been caused by its apparent elevation. Who knows? I think he was just being a miserable old sod.

To sum up though, I returned to the quacks Monday morning and the first re-test showed the same high levels. Then he decided to conduct the test with me closing my eyes and no chit chat going on between us. 4 times he did the test like this and each time the pressure dropped to around 134/90. Why this should be is a mystery to both him and to me. Maybe I have a subconscious fear of machines inflating something around my arm, or maybe the sight of medical paraphernalia triggers off a reaction due to being reminded I’m likely to be getting closer to an age where things start to lose their, up till now, unswerving reliability. These readings are apparently good for someone of my age (ahem….40-something). Apparently it’s meant to rise under stress and this is perfectly normal. I have a test every month now for 3 months to ensure this is no fluke and it’s heartening to know that my health, whilst maybe not rude, is not about to collapse. But I can’t help wondering if, having mitigated all the major publicised risk factors, visiting Chelsea is good for me or harmful. One thing is for sure, it would be kind of fitting, and I would be happy to finally shuffle off this mortal coil at Stamford Bridge shouting and screaming the boys onto a hard fought victory as long as my family were also there.

And I was aged 88 or over.

Later, GrocerJack

Back Again

I'm back from the golf "holiday" and for my sins it seems gained some extraordinarily high blood pressure readings which are now being monitored for a while - 177/116 for those who are interested, although interestingly enough when the tests were repeated with my eyes closed and no chatting between me and The Good Doctor these all dropped back to 131/90 or thereabouts. The Good Doctor thinks I'm fine but wants to keep an eye for a while so I'll be off to Argos or similar for my own blood pressure machine and then a test each month for the next 3 months.

Time is precious at the moment and so the updates and articles will drop off. To be honest it might be time to do a Casino Avenue (i.e close the shop) and put Grocerjack into suspended animation for a while. Creative juices need replenishing badly and in the new world of proliferating blogs its hard to keep the pace. The trick is to specialise apparently but I'm not that obsessed with any one thing to write about it...even my beloved Chelsea have a few months off each year and besides that I get my Chelsea writing hit from contributing to the Chelsea Blog. I do love writing though and I know deep inside that the minute Grocerjack decides not to "get off his back, go into town, don't let them down" then I'll miss it.

Hence the blog site will not be deleted just yet. I just need time to determine its future and how much I can commit to it.

Later, GrocerJack

And its off to Sunny Devon

Yep, its time for the jolly boys annual beano to Devon for golf and more golf, interspersed with some drinking and eating, with a soupcon of snooker, pool and ten pin bowling. A real boys week.



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Later TigerJack