Harry's Blog

Dear Santa,

I've been a good boy this year. Not been too cheeky or nowt like that. So I thought I would send you a list of presents I would like. I've been good, honest.

• Epiphone Tony Iommi signature G-400 SG Guitar
• Blackstar Series One 45 amplifier
• Canon EOS 7D DSLR camera
• Audi R8
• Mute button for children

Thanks

PS If you can't get it all on your sleigh I'd settle for the guitar, or the amp, or the camera.

This is a picture of the Mediterranean Sea. Do you see anything wrong with it? No. Then like me you're likely to be from Planet Earth.

But I think you have to prepare yourself for a shock.

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Come on dads you've seen plenty of Cbeebies.

So the question is...

...Nina or Sarah Jane?

Let's keep this fairly anonymous. There's no need to name names. Let's just say that someone I know, no not me honest, recently had an altercation with a badger.

I say altercation. What I mean is that she. Or he, or it, let's not blame anyone. She, ran over a badger. Ran over or hit so hard with the car it disintegrated. Whatever. The damn thing ran out in front of the car in the middle of the night on a country lane, so what are you to do?

She, or he, or it, braked hard to avoid killing the damn thing. But it had flung itself at the car with little care or thought. Perhaps the badger was suicidal. We shall never know. The following day all that remained was gallons of blood everywhere on the road but no Badger. Maybe it survived long enough to drag itself back to its badger children to say goodbye.

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When I first moved to Northolt last year I did think the place was rather rough. But once I'd been here a few days it seemed a lot more rough than I had first believed.

Because not only was there the unmistakable sound of gunfire heard all day, the locals were so used to this that they wandered around as though nothing was wrong.

Things must be really bad around here, I thought, for people to get used to such high amounts of gunfire.

There's only a bloody shooting club down the road isn't there.

How much of an idiot am I?

Elderly people of Yeading your attention please.

Yes you dear, can you hear me? No I'm not your son. No I've not come to read the gas meter.

It's come to our attention that some of you aren't following local custom when visiting our local stores such as Tesco Yeading.

Please obey the following rules in future...

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If sitting through endless versions of "you don't look fat in that" via Trinny, Suzannah and that ladyboy weren't enough the ad-breaks during these shows are getting even worse.

You can't move these days for adverts for price comparison websites, with the occasional Direct Line ad saying "you won't find our prices on comparison websites".

Yes these comparison sites are handy, but good lord how may of them do we need? Each advert featuring a gormless looking couple who seemingly can't find their collective arse with both hands and instead need to be walked through life by some grinning idiot with a catchy jingle.

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Sean said "ladygarden" on Eastenders the other night. I'd have posted about it sooner but I was still in shock. Can't believe they let that in the show.

Ladygarden.

Great word isn't it?

Say it with me...

Ladygarden.

Mmmmm.

It's late and as is often the case I should be in bed but I'm. It's Friday night - well Saturday morning - and this is the time when I tend to find myself doing pointless nonsense online, either talking to friends via MSN Messenger or just playing games.

I can waste hours in front of a computer just trying out all kinds of silly nonsense. So far this evening I've tried to tackle the thorny problem of my work newsletter. The damn thing is so old that the copyright notice is written in hieroglyphs. Modern email programs such as Thunderbird and Outlook 2007 just show a garbled mess instead of the carefully selected set of interesting reviews and news I have lined up for our readers.

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I see quite a bit of the output of Cbeebies and on the whole most of it is very good. But Bob the Builder is just nonsense.

The talking construction vehicles I can live with. But why the bleeding heck is there an annoyingly-voiced talking scarecrow in the show?

Bob the Farmer would be bound to have a talking scarecrow. But in a show about a construction worker the annoying carrot-faced git is so incongruous and more than a little annoying.

And while I'm at it what the hell's wrong with the sense of scale among Cbeebies producers. None of the construction vehicles in Bob the Builder are large enough to admit Bob or Wendy, instead they have to hang dangerously on the side like New York Firecrew¹. Is this a good example of vehicle safety to teach our children?

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A group of people in Suffolk wants to silence church bells. It seems hours of musical ringing has really got their dander up.

I'm not sure they've gone after the right target though. Musical bells played by a group of people are a rather attractive sound that's as English as can be. It's the sound of the nation and interesting hobby for those who wish to make music with friends in such a skilled and physically demanding way.

On the other hand church bells that ring out at various times of day are an anachronism. They had a point when people used to guess the time of day based on how many of their children had died of the black death, but we've got clocks now. And watches. And mobile phones. And cars. And television. And radio.

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...at how many people read my little blog. Surely you've something better to do with your day. But no, my stats hover around one thousand hits most days.

But what brings you here?

I know friends and family read the site, but that's only going to count for a handful of visits. So too the number of people who read this blog after having a nosy Google of my name to see who their curate was marrying. Again numbers there would be too insignificant to alter my stats.

There's the legacy of the tragic events that befell my family in early 2007. I'm a member of various online communities that supported me during a difficult time - and they would often visit this site and communicate with me using it. Many of those are likely to have bookmarked this place.

In many cases though I expect much of my readership comes from people who have no idea who I am. Instead they Google searched on some topic that brought them here.

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You know I could rant all day here about all manner of things. But the most irritating thing in my life right now is this, which you may have seen yourself if you've small children.

Dammit he got me annoyed. Who? The useless twonk that works in my local Burger King, that's who.

Jo and I were heading out to collect my wedding suit but I hadn't had breakfast yet, so I decided to pop in and get a bacon sandwich and my beloved asked for a black coffee.

Back in a minute, I say, then I get out of the car and enter the restaurant, not imagining the frustration that would await me.

At first all goes well, food is ordered with little fuss.

Mr Soon-to-be-discovered-as-a Twonk rings up the black coffee on the till as a latte, but I assume that's just the way the system works.

But the machine that spits out something like coffee looked like it spat out something a bit lighter than coffee too.

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