Return to Stupid

 Bloody bloody bloody

Spending all my time in my man-cave, which is really just a grown-up version of a den.

Well, it's got all my stuff in here. I don't want to share what I watch with M&D and they wouldn't want to watch what I'm watching.

So here I remain, waiting for the day to go by. 

God - still only 1pm. I better go for a walk to town, sit in a cafe and get served by some passive aggressive child, and then come back again.

Did you know coffees cost £3-4 these days? Bloody outrageous.

Might as well stay in instead. You know, cut out the middle man.

Government handouts

My ESA payments have stopped. I now get paid NOTHEENG from the government. Yada. Nil. Zip.

I'm entitled to PIPs apparently. But only £60 a week. I have an ISA which is prohibiting any Universal Credit.

Weird being dependent. It seems 5 minutes ago I was raking in money by the thousand, and then it all stopped.

I was going to go out and do stuff, but my brain said no.

Bloody dole-dosser!

I have always avoided any form of permanent employment for this reason: my avid fear of being typecast. That's what I will tell them at the Labour Exchange.

Look at poor old Harry H Corbett or Bob Grant - highly-trained actors who ended up being cast as Steptoe and Jack respectively no matter what they were in. 

Poor dears.

Oh, and I also had a (late) tax return to do...which I tried and failed to do so I went back to my old accountants and they've done it and instead of the thousands I thought I would have to pay it's only a few hundred.

Trebles all round, as they say!

Dungeons and Dragons (i)

Yet they ran around, those characters, trying on necklaces and opening chests in the middle of corridors without a care or thought.

It's called Tomb of Annihilation FFS. Annihilation! And a whole tomb of it. Death, death and more death. 

'A tiptoe through Gaylord Gardens' it is not.

These days no one takes a hint. Many don't hear sarcasm either, which is really weird. I blame the Americanisation of everything.

I thought it would put the parents' minds at rest

Now I have to do some more forms shit for my Easter stint of DMing for kids.

If there's one thing I hate even more with FTD it's forms. I never had much of an attention span and now it's almost zilch. 

Boring shitty forms.

"I'm not a paedo! Your kids are safe - don't worry!" I will shout. 

And everyone will understand.

Dungeons and Dragons (ii)

My Thursday party all died. Yes. All of them. What's known in the trade as a TPK - Total Party Kill.

Honestly they should have listened to their mums.

'Why do you want to copy them?'

'Well if they all jumped off a cliff, would you?'

Guess what they did?

For essentially that's what happened. To be fair, everyone was tired and getting over colds. No one was at their best.

So we are continuing the last 3-4 sessions of this campaign in a metaverse where THIS NEVER HAPPENED.

They owe me. Oh yes. 

THEY OWE ME.

Tiswas or Swap Shop?

Back in the late 70s early 80s, on a Saturday morning kids had a choice: proper BBC teacher-controlled, parentally-approved BBC or...I.....T....V.....

Now there was a whole punk movement in its prime at this point. And while many of the punk groups weren't played on Top of The Pops because they weren't deemed appropriate, the punk thing was all around. The older kids were all punks, and it was cool.

A lot of middle classed kids weren't allowed to watch ITV. Back then there were only 3 channels in the UK - BBC1, 2 and ITV. 

In answer to BBC's dominance with Swap Shop, ITV decided to go national with a programme that was broadcast only in the midlands on ATV. And Tiswas was it.

Hosted by Chris Tarrant (I know), it had John Gorman from The Scaffold, Bob Carolgees and Spit the Dog (a punk dog ventriloquism act) and Lenny Henry and Frank Carson. 

Everyone got custard pies from the Phantom Flan Flinger, including ALL the guests. 

It was the right programme at the right time - punk TV for kids - total anarchy and mayhem.

But the main reason mine and probably most other dads watched was the lovely Sally James.

Ah. Sally James, Sally James, Sally James...

Wondered why Dad liked Tiswas so much

She was a trained actor, and actually a really good presenter. You could phone in and get your names put on her garters. She could cope really well with stoned rock stars and shy kids all the while having buckets of water thrown over her.

She would dress up as a St Trinian's schoolgirl in stockings, and also came in as Miss Whiplash once. She was always wearing denim waistcoats with nothing underneath so she could do a quick change between commercial breaks as everyone got gunged.

                                                           Proper children's entertainment

Frequent guests were Bernard Manning, Big Daddy and Jim Davison. There was a bloke who would guest occasionally called Norman Collier who had 2 acts, one was where he impersonated a chicken, and the other was his broken mike act which we all started doing in the playground. 

I watched it again and by today's standards it...isn't very good or politically appropriate.

Ah, the 1970s. Where sexist and racist comedians were the staple of Light Entertainment, and also hosted kids' TV. Stan Boardman AND Mike 'This is not a wig' Reid on Runaround.

But Sally James though, eh?

Marvellous.

Facebook Community Sites

A crew is filming in Wells - rumour has it for the sequel to Wolf Hall. The farmer who lets us walk our dogs in his fields has rented part of the field out for the film crew - a large marquee and facilities are stored there.

The Cathedral and Bishop's Palace are being used as locations for filming. No doubt they are charging a good rate for filming there.

Other notable films shot in Wells include Dungeons and Dragons, Hot Fuzz, The Huntsman (no, me neither), The Libertine, Dr Who and countless others.

You'd think people would be used to it by now. The following are genuine posts from the Wells Community Facebook site.

"We never hear how much money is made and where it goes to, for all these films over the years. ,It would be just interesting to see who benefits from these visits"

It's a series of business transactions, numbnuts. Who do you think?

"...some should be given back to the council or whoever can manage it (most probably not the council then…), to spend on a longer lasting legacy or even something in the area that requires it!"

On that basis they should do that with all businesses connected with Wells, then? And who and how much? Sorry - I forgot - you're a RETARD.

"Who gets all the dollars?"

This is Britain you tit. And again, if you haven't figured it out I refer you to the answer I gave some moments ago.

"If we had a more egalitarian society and system it would all be more transparent and fairly distributed within a community but as it is the landowner will reap reward (and may or may not contribute to charity or local good causes) and so get richer and richer. The less well off will not be aware of any benefit to them, but there may be some crumbs if for example you are a worker in the hotel or hospitality trade..but often film crews have their own catering for H&S reasons. Only answer? Communities buy up land and then all share in the rental of it?"

We don't live in a socialist utopia madam and anyway aren't farmers struggling enough? It's his land, he's a generous soul who never complains - give him a break when an opportunity comes his way.

I'm genuinely shocked at how dumb some people are. 

I, on the other hand, am lovely.