Bad taste

What better to get rid of the bad taste of beer from a dirty D***y pub, than a few at possibly the second best pub in the world, the Lion in New Basford.

The Bass was off, so a few pints of Batemans XB & good company made my insides happy again.

Oh yes.

Lucky Col's Review of the Year

Here goes .....

It's been a strange year. After a sustained period of downs & downs over the past few years, I looked forward to a better time this year. That lasted about 2 minutes into the New Year celebrations when it was made perfectly clear to me that it was going to be a bad one. However, what started badly has ended up better than I ever expected, and will continue to get better & better. I just have to make sure that the important people around me are included in that upturn.

But, enough about me, what have we all learned this year.

January

If a barmaid pours a pint over your new shoes, then says she'll buy you another one for the trouble; she won't. And on my birthday !

February

There IS a 4:30 in the morning as well.

You can't get on the London Underground with a car-park ticket. (Fortunately it wasn't me looking like a clown while 2,000 inpatient cockneys all pile up behind)

March

60%, 70% & 80% all mean the same thing. Nothing.

Every single Johnny Cash song is about breaking up in one way or another.

It's still possible to make classic television (Life On Mars) and there's still some good bands coming through (The View / The Pigeon Detectives). However, there's still s**t television (X Factor) and some s**t music (anything from X Factor)

April

Even if you're at your absolute lowest, following years of unrelenting & unmitigated s***e, pain & heartache, even when you're left with virtually nothing, not even your pride, there's always someone eager to kick you while you're down.

But on the up side, beer has fewer calories than Orange Juice.

May

Forest 2:5 Yeovil. The realisation that Forest CAN actually get worse. As it stands now, I don't think they can get any lower. Which inevitably means they will.

June

There are no limits to how far the British public will shove their heads in the sand to avoid the bleedin' obvious. Most of Yorkshire under 10 foot of water, what could possibly have caused that ? The British public decided in their wisdom that the cause behind this was Rihanna being #1 for so long with a song called Umbrella. Nothing to do with global warming, then ?

Britain doesn't have talent.

Sitting watching Derbyshire getting hammered at cricket in the sun is a fantastic use of a whole afternoon / evening.

July

While the rest of the year saw more turmoil than, well, the same turmoil as the previous 5 years, I knew all year what I'd be doing on July 27.

August

Things that have been round the corner for years can prove to be the best things in the world.

The walk from my house to the BPitW takes roughly 20 minutes, and not the hour and a half I gave it, just to be safe.

September

While sportsmanship is still alive & well, Forest are still capable of shooting themselves in the foot when in a winning position.

Identical twins, formed when one fertilized egg splits, are the only people in the world with identical DNA. Possibly the only serious thing I've learned all year, but I doubt I'll ever get to seriously use it.

It's never a good idea to write your name on the wall of the building you've just burgled. F**k-wit.

October

Mushy peas are STILL the best vegetable in the world.

The Beer Festival just keeps getting better and better.

Clams can live for over 400 years when left alone. Who knows how much longer they could live for if they were just allowed to just get on with their lives in peace instead of being dredged up.

November

Teachers "In Service Training" days always fall on a Friday, just after pay-day. Go figure. What are the odds on that ?

Steve McClown is a tactically inept, clueless half-wit. Fortunately, he's now an unemployed, tactically inept, clueless half-wit. The FA are to have a complete "root & branch" investigation into what went wrong with the last appointment. In summary, the FA publicly approaching one coach, only for him to very publicly turn us down and then offering it to someone else on a very much second-choice basis. Glad they haven't done that again. Do you want the job Jose ? No ? OK, then. Mr Capello, how about you ?

The Police ARE allowed to board a train, shoot someone in the head, lie about the circumstances to cause confusion & fear AND then get away with it. And they say terrorists are a threat.

December

Getting kicked in the face really really hurts.

The NYPD doesn't actually have a choir. It does have a pipes & drums band, as described here. You see, I don't just make this rubbish up you know, there's an element of research to this rubbish.

Having everything taken away from you makes you realise that what you're left with is a whole lot more.

Border crossing

It's not very often I venture into the disease ridden urban wasteland down the A52 for a night out, in fact, last night was the first time in 38 years.

There's no coincidence that the powers that be built the M1 where they did, the farm instrument wielding in-breds from D***y, intent on finding out what a proper city looks like, pick up their burning torches with their webbed fingers intent on storming Nottingham, only to be scared off by the bright lights & the wheeled metal beasts 'blocking' their path.

But a works outing to a curry house in the worst city in the world meant I had to swallow my pride & my inoculations and travel down Chris Rea's "Road to Hell".

The food was alright at The Shalimar, although whoever decided to extend a very popular restaurant but leave it with one toilet needs shooting. A couple of beers after in the Waterfall and my duck was broken. I feel unclean.

I just hope it's another 38 years before I have to return.

"Why are you looking at me, what have I done ?"

On a roll

After spending a year as the same grade in the Korean art of Taekwondo, I've now passed three gradings in the last six months now making the colour of my belt an attractive blue colour.

Both my boys passed last night as well making it a clean sweep. Very proud.

Tastefull

Hat tip: Never Trust a Hippy

Just before you completely redecorate your house from IKEA, just think how well it would age.

In 30 years, it could look as bad as these.

(Including this one very reminiscent of a house I owned less than 10 years ago. Gulp)

Pot Kettle Black

John Major accuses the governemt of sleaze.

Come again ?

John Major (you remember, the man who was shagging Edwina Currie) accuses someone else of sleaze.

And they say irony is dead.

His reasoning is that Labour's sleaze is institutional while all the tories sleaze was all individuals behaing badly.

It takes to tango, or in John Major's case, it takes two government ministers to agree to start shagging in the House of Commons. Or maybe either John or Edwina were so crap that it just felt like an individual exercise.

Until political parties are solely funded by central government, the type of donations recently highlighted (and let's face it, the tip of the iceberg on all sides) will continue to be sought, back-handers received, palms greased and favours returned.

As it is, as it was and how it shall continue to be.

So thanks for your comments, Johnny, just don't come the holier than thou bollocks when the stains on your trousers are still visible.

Rockin' Rudolph

Getting into the Christmas spirit a bit more now. Not through the lack of trying, you understand, but when you're at work, it's hard to get into it until it's right on top of you, and as much as I hate grumpy, miserable Christmas bashers, I hate work's Christmas do's even more, so avoid mine like the plague.

So spare a thought for the Lord Nelson in Old Basford.

A few weeks back, early November to be precise, they installed a couple of blow up Christmas decorations on their flat roof, one ten foot Santa and a ten foot snowman. Classy.

About a week ago and they'd gone.

Someone in a not too Christmassy type mood had decided that they'd look even better on their roof and took it upon themselves to remove said items, severing the electricity cables at the same time. Happy Christmas.

Still, the Nelson are capable of providing that long since forgotten treat to the late night drinker, the lock-in, so the Christmas spirit hasn't deserted them too much.

A fantastic duck green curry in the BPitW before a very cold walk up to the Nelson for a couple, last orders and then more orders. Nice. The Rockin' Rudolph was going down a treat.

Gorgeous

A nice walk round Rufford Park in the dark on Saturday night.

They've got all their sculptures lit up for Christmas, with soothing music played over the gardens.

A crisp, clear night and a nice cup of hot chocolate all that was needed to appreciate some of the stunning exhibits.

Ear worm #7

I believe in happiness
I believe in love
I believe she fell to earth from somewhere high above
I believe in hollywood
Don't believe that love must bring despair
Cause when I hold her in my arms, I feel like Fred Astaire

How many .....

Kangaroos would it take to beat a shark ?

What if the kangaroo had scuba-diving equipment ?

Or an elastic band ?

Well ?

(From the BBC: Shark 'kills swimming kangaroo')

A hard lesson to learn

From the BBC:

A Canadian man has been shocked to receive a mobile phone bill for nearly $85,000 (£41,000).

Well, that's what happens when you call people 'til 4 in the morning.

He said he normally paid about $150 a month for his phone and used to be notified of high charges.

"The thing is, they've cut my phone off for being like $100 over," he told CBC News.

"Here, I'm $85,000 over and nobody bothered to give me a call and tell me what was going on."

I wonder why.

Ear worm #6

Sad, but uplifting at the same time. Brilliant

Lucky Col is 2

If Lucky Col were a real person, he'd now be argumentative, difficult to keep still and prone to talking bollocks.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm

Belong

I have a problem with a set of adverts that are on at the moment.

Belong. You know who your friends are.

The premise being that a group of people in extreme circumstances (about to make contact with aliens / about to do a Captain Oates near the South Pole) suddenly decide to act like a group of beer-boys on a night out in Magaluf.

Can't get in to meet the alien because one of the group's got trainers on ? No worries, they'll go somewhere else, the alien was probably crap & full of slappers anyway.

Captain Oates going out on his birthday on his own ? Not a chance, if one of them is going out in bad weather, they all are. Even if it kills them.

And the reason they behave like this ?

Carling. Or Belong written in a Carling font.

The message is if you drink the same fizzy, tasteless p**s as your mates, then you Belong. If you don't drink the same gassy, foul drain water as your mates, then they'll leave you outside the slapper-filled alien night-club, or they'll let you take the long walk on your own.

You know what to do.

Buy Carling.

Belong.

To be honest, if your stupid enough to drink something, ANYTHING, simply because all your mates do, you're a f***ing stupid muppet who fully deserves to get a stomach full of s***e, belching your way round Little Britain resorts of a summer, getting into fights with your own shadow and falling over cracking your head open before waking up in a pool of your own sick nursing a headache only fizzy, tasteless, gassy, foul, drain-water p**s can give you.

Your probably the sort of stupid person who would jump off a roof just because everyone else did.

Can't Carling put that in their next advert ?

Somethings are better left unspoken

There are certain things in life that are better off if you don't know the truth about them.

For example, finding out your father isn't actually dead, he's just hiding in a bedsit next door & climbing through a hole in the wall.

I don't know about you, but if that had been me, I'd certainly remember.

But at Christmas time, there is one secret that we all cling to.

The one secret we all tell the little ones, the one secret we all buy in to.

Try and keep this secret away from the little ones, their lives would be less exciting if they knew this one little fact .....

The NYPD don't actually have a choir.



(Apologies to anyone from the West Midlands, but this video contains the word 'Faggot'. Sorry)

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