in the day ... 7th march 1933 - the best pub quiz question of all time

I was at a pub quiz a while ago and the chap at the front - the one with the mic and the power - asked the best pub quiz question of all time. 

I think it was the way he started it that got everyone. 

He said, ‘Has anyone played Monopoly?’. The room was full of 20-somethings, 30-somethings, 40-somethings and 50-somethings. You could see everyone in the room sitting back in their chairs, stretching, relaxing, chilling. You could hear the click click clang as people put their pens down and picked their pints up. 


That’s poetic licence. We don’t have 'pints' down here in Oz. We have schooners, middys and, the curse of all beer drinkers worth the name - the very devil itself - the dreaded 'schmiddy'. 

For the benefit of readers outside of Australia a middy is small. Think thimble-sized. In terms of beer, it's hardly worth bothering with. It's gone in a gulp. Less. If you're in a pub and you order a middy, the entire place will fall silent and everyone will turn to look at you. If there’s a TV on the wall, it will automatically mute just as you order your middy. Everyone will then hear the order and heads will shake in unison. If you live Down Under you try not to order a middy. It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassingly small. 


A schooner is OK. In fact, it's better than OK. It’s better than a pint anyway. A pint is too big. I didn’t know that a pint was too big until I came to Oz and noticed that they didn’t do pints. If you're a tippler and you enjoy a tipple, a schooner is the optimum size for a refreshing glass of beer. 

& then there's the 'schmiddy'. 


It's a total abomination. A curse. There it is in the picture looking just like the perfect glass for ... an orange cordial.


The 'schmiddy' lies partway between a middy and schooner. Between embarrassment and perfection. It's slap-bang in beer-drinking no-man's land. It's dreadful. The main reason that the schmiddy is so universally-hated is that when all the trendy bars introduced it they had the temerity to charge the same price for a schmiddy as a they once did for a schooner. You got less beer for the same price, Just like that. How they got away with it I will never know. But they did. 


I’m also not quite sure how they got away with calling it a 'schmiddy' either. It's a dreadful name. They may as well have gone the whole hog and called it a 'Fairy'. You can just imagine your friendly, local, 8-pints-of-lager-drinking, English skin-head walking into The Bulls Head in Romford, Essex and ordering a 'schmiddy of Stella please, guv'nor'. It wouldn't happen. There'd be a brick through the window of The Bulls Head in Romford, Essex quicker than you can say 'schmiddy's a silly name'.

Meanwhile over at our friendly, local pub quiz ... 


We’re all relaxed and cocky cos we’d all been through a decent Monopoly-playing phase in our lives, and we reckoned that the next question was in the bag. It was destined to be a doddle. 'Get it asked and move on, you muppet'. Glances were exchanged within the teams, between the teams, between the teams and the barmaid, between the teams and the chap asking the questions. You could cut the tension with a knife. We were all silent. 


We were all silent Monopoly aficionados. Until he asked the question. 

‘What is the ‘odd property out’ on a Monopoly board?’ 

That was it. 


Well, not quite. He qualified his question. He had to.  Since it was invented Monopoly has been licensed in 103 countries and in 37 different languages. There are literally hundreds of variations, each based on different cities and with different street names, different railway stations, utilities and other bits and pieces. The question was specifically about the original game. The London version. The one with Pall Mall and Old Kent Road and the rest. The one with Mayfair and Park Lane in dark blue, just before Go. If you owned those two posh streets and built a couple of swanky, red hotels on them, you were basically king of the castle. You were, for a brief moment in time, Al-Fayed, Branson, Buffet and Soros all rolled into one. You were rolling in it. ‘It’ was only Monopoly money. But still.

The chap asking the questions, had asked the best question I've ever heard in a pub quiz. He then sat back and looked smug. After a while he trotted off to the bar to order a drink. I suspect he ordered a middy. Or a schmiddy. He looked like a schmiddy drinker. It was a schmiddy-drinker’s question.

‘What is the ‘odd property out’ on a Monopoly board?’

I sat there in silence. My team sat there in silence. The entire pub sat there in silence. We had been stumped into silence. We ran through all the properties. There were 5 of us. Between us we got them all. It’s not hard to list them all, especially if there’s five of you. Getting all the railway stations took a while. 


The smug, schmiddy-drinking, question-asker was back. He asked if we needed more time. We did. He’d never asked that before. He was loving every minute of it.

It’s a cool game, Monopoly. We’ve got two sets at our place. I’m not sure why. It’s the kind of game I’m looking forward to playing with Pearl when she’s a bit older. It demands a bit of a strategy, a bit of thought and I reckon it’s not a bad way to introduce kids to the idea of ‘value’ and buying things. Talking of value, the most expensive Monopoly set was made by Sydney Mobell in 1985 to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the game. All the bits and bobs are in 23ct gold, and the coolest thing is that the entire hoard of cash in ‘the bank’ is real money. Real US dollars. Still, only one set was made and it sold for $2,000,000.

To date, more than 250 million Monopoly sets have been bought. Not bad for a humble board game. I wonder how many you have? One ... two ... more?

Monopoly - the world’s best selling board game (not counting chess!) - was officially invented on 7th March 1933.

Of course, you’re still wondering about the pub quiz question aren’t you - the ‘odd one out’ on the Monopoly board. You’ve had a stab and thought ‘Free Parking’ or ‘Jail’ or ‘Go’. Afraid not. There’s nothing 'odd' about those. They don’t stand out. They’re supposed to be there. 

Angel Islington isn’t. It’s an anomaly. It’s not a street (like Pall Mall or Whitehall) or a landmark (like Trafalgar Square). 

Angel, Islington is an 'area' of North London, but in 1933 it was a pub. The Angel, Islington. It's the pub that Victor Watson - the inventor - and his secretary - Marjory Philips - met in when they were out scouting for the names to go on the very first Monopoly board. They met in The Angel, Islington to discuss the names that should be included. In the end they were missing one last street name. They decided to use the name of the pub rather than a street. 'The Angel, Islington' became simply Angel Islington and it stands as the odd one out - it’s the only pub name to be included on the Monopoly board.

I can guarantee you one thing; The Angel in Islington didn’t serve schooners or middys. And it certainly didn't serve schmiddys. It wouldn't have dared.

Happy birthday Monopoly; 79 today!

pip pip

Things that make you go Mmm!

I think there's something called a Magical Musical Moment. A Mmm.


It's not an official term. I made it up. You might call it something different, or you might not even have given yours a name. But, officially named or not, I reckon that a 'Mmm' is that one single moment in your life when you realise how special music is. When you suddenly witness the power of music. POW! You’re hooked. You’re in. Like Flynn. Or someone else.

Mine was at exactly 6.41pm on July 13th, 1985. Live Aid.

I’d liked music well before that. Me and my old schoolmate Chris were Mods in school. Back in the day we both wore green army parkas with woolly lining and a fish-tail at the back. Our parka's had the iconic red, white and blue target painted on them, and we would sit for ages painting 'The Jam' and 'The Who' all over them. Then, when the paint had dried, we pinned loads of badges down the front. 

We thought we were the bee’s knees. The bee’s entire legs. We were too cool for school. Well, too cool to go to school on days when we were kind of required to be there.

I loved The Who, The Jam, and the movie Quadrophenia. All I wanted to do was cruise the streets of my hometown on a Lambretta, or perhaps a Vespa, its poorer cousin. And I wanted heaps of mirrors attached to the side. Heaps and heaps. More mirrors than a scooter really needed. That was in the days before scooters became hip. I was 15.

Then one day, when he was out in his Mod gear, my mate Chris got badly beaten by a bunch of body-boppers. Being a Mod didn’t appeal to either of us after that. Mod music was great, but it wasn't worth a bloody nose from a gang of blip-blip lovers in possession of a piece of lino and a ghetto-blaster. We took our parkas off ... and moved on up.  

& then I went off to University and without any warning the whole 'Madchester' thing happened. Just like that.


Manchester. Madchester. It was crazy.

For about five years Manchester was - music-wise - the coolest place in the entire world. Seattle’s grunge moment would come & Liverpool's had long since been and gone. The early 90's was Manchester’s turn. Madchester. You really had to be there. Or better still, be from there. And I was. Yes!! As the famous T-shirt from 1992 rightly pointed out '...And on the sixth day God created Manchester.' For that short time it felt like he had.

The Smiths, The Stone Roses, The Happy Mondays and, of course, the one and only, the great, the greatest, the quintessentially 'Manchester', Joy Division (who would later become New Order). They were the bands I listened to, watched live and grew up with. Oasis think they were the best thing that ever came out of Manchester, but the truth is that they were the just the encore. (Don't tell the Gallagher brothers I said that).

So, music has always been there for me. I’m sure that many of us could put a soundtrack together for our lives (there’s probably an App that does it for you in 30-seconds flat) ... our first kiss, our first love, our first broken heart, our first drink, our first 'one-too-many' drinks. I'll let you into a secret ... I can’t hear George Michael’s Careless Whisper without drifting back to one of those 'firsts' - and no, it wasn’t my first drink, that was Duran Duran's Rio.

But my Magical Music Moment - my Mmm! - the moment that the penny dropped, when it all suddenly made sense, when I realised the beauty, the power, the...well...the everything, was Live Aid. Not the whole thing. It went on for days - well it felt like it anyway. It kind of did. Live Aid started in London at Wembley Stadium. There were 72000 people there. But it also took place simultaneously in Philiadelphia in front of 100,000 people, as well as at venues in Germany, Australia and a host of other places. (Phil Collins famously played in London, and then hopped on Concorde to Philly to play there too. That was when Concorde was still flying ... and Phil C was still fairly mobile). 

The gig


Status Quo opened Live Aid at 12.02pm. They did 'Rocking all Over the World'. Say what you like about Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt, but opening Live Aid with that song was perfect. 


Then The Style Council did their thang (The Jam had split-up two years before, and Paul Weller had formed TSC. He still walked on water in my book. My parka was still hanging in my wardrobe).

& then at exactly 6.41pm my life changed. 


Not outwardly. It wasn’t a religious experience or anything like that. But something happened and it made a difference. It mattered. Inside. In my head. 


Freddie Mercury happened. 

I wasn’t a huge Queen fan. I’m still not to be honest. I don’t mind some of their stuff. I own a few albums - mainly Best Of’s - and I listen to a few songs here and there. A Winter’s Tale is a really nice Xmas song.

But on July 13th 1985 at 6.41pm Freddie Mercury sang 'Bohemian Rhapsody' in front of 70-odd thousand people at Wembley Stadium and I was totally, completely, and utterly blown away. Musically-speaking It was the best thing I had ever seen ... It was magical. It was a Kind of Magic! 

It was my own personal magical music moment. My Mmm!

In that one single moment, that one song, that one performance - all 7 minutes of it - I understood the power of music. Not in a political sense - although I suppose Live Aid did have a huge impact politically. It was more the power of music to have an impact. I can’t even say exactly what the impact on me really was. It doesn’t matter. It just hit me. Like a brick. And things were different afterwards. The world - my own little world - had tilted a little on its axis.

Freddie Mercury died of an HIV-related illness (AIDS) on 24th November 1991. 


I feel the same way about Freddie Mercury dying as some people feel about Elvis or John Lennon or Kurt Cobain or Michael Hutchence. You didn’t need to be a Lennon fan, or even a fan of The Beatles, to know - instinctively - that when John Lennon was killed it was a really sad day. Imagine what might have been. Imagine what he might have written, how he might have performed. After 8th December 1980. Imagine. 

I think the same thing about Freddie Mercury. All from that one very special seven-minute moment at Live Aid

If you’ve never seen it, here’s a link to my Mmm! Even now It sends shivers down my spine like only a good 'Mmm' can. It goes on a bit. It’s a real pity that Freddie didn’t 'go on' just a little bit longer. 


I feel privileged to have seen him strut his stuff on stage at Wembley. RIP Freddie. 

I wonder what your own personal Mmm! is?

have a super sunday

pip pip

friday I'm in love. ps I'm also an addict

i don't care if monday's blue 

tuesday's grey and wednesday too

thursday i don't care about you

it's friday, i'm in love

hello my name's dave and i'm an addict!

I tried to give up coffee once. I lasted 2 days. After 48 hours without 'the bean' I cracked and ordered a cappuccino. With a double shot. I also popped to Coles and bought a packet of chocolate-covered coffee beans. Just to be on the safe side.

I'd had a banging headache since 10am on the morning I gave up. The headache went away when I was about halfway through the packet of choc-covered beans. I finished the packet anyway. Just to be on the safe side.

I swore I'd never do anything as silly as giving up coffee again.

For what it's worth, I don't smoke and don't really drink that much (those of you who know me or have seen me dancing naked on a table in the middle of a pub might beg to differ). So coffee is really my only vice. Having said that, I've always found those people who smoke 40-a-day and then say, 'yeah but I don't drink, so smoking is my only vice' a bit odd. It's the 40 a day that'll kill you, mate. The fact that you don't drink whilst puffing your way through that lot is neither here nor there! Ha ha.

Well, I don't drink anything like 40-a-day. I'm strictly a 3 to 6 cups-a-day addict. Admittedly, on those rare 3-cup days, the first (and often the second) is a double-shot. So please don't be misled by the apparently low cup count.

Australia is - and Australians are - obsessed with coffee. Obsessed. With a capital Ob. It's a religion down here.

So, to throw the cat amongst the pigeons, I'd like to state for the record; no-one does coffee like the Aussies.

That statement will cause a storm of protest from Rome to Romiley (my humble place of birth just to the south of Manchester) and beyond. But I reckon that the Italians love coffee, the Brits drink coffee, the French do strange stuff with coffee (like dip their croissants in it) and the whole of the Middle East doesn't do coffee, it does thick tar that masquerades as coffee. (I haven't mentioned the USA because I just can't bring myself to class a two-litre bucket of brown, flavoured-water as coffee!). But the Aussies really DO coffee.

Getting your caffeine hit is really serious stuff down here. Baristas are the new demi-gods; the cocktail waiters of the new millenium. DJ's were the coolest dudes of yesteryear, then came the cocktail waiter with his fringe down over his eyes and all sorts of shiny silver tools tucked into his pants, but today it's the hot-looking barista who gets into all the good bars and snags all the nice girls who wannabe models. It must be the smell of the coffee on him, or her. A good barista is worth his or her weight in gold. Or coffee beans. And a good coffee shop, when discovered, can quickly become habit-forming. People will detour for miles and for days, to stop at a decent coffee joint. And people get very snobby about their coffee. I will cross the road rather than walk past some places that have served me a bad brew.

There are books telling you where to go to get your favourite fix. They rate all the coffee shops and give them scores out of five. The scores are illustrated by little coffee cup symbols. Get 5 symbols next to your name and the world's your oyster, the girls will be swooning, the nightclubs are yours to rampage through until early morning and the addicted masses will be worshipping at your feet.

Coffee.

It was first brewed and enjoyed in Ethiopia in the 15th Century, and it eventually spread throughout the Middle East before arriving in Italy in the 16th Century. The Pope tried to ban it claiming it was a 'Muslim drink', but he eventually gave up and got stuck in - probably after a decent cappuccino. The first European coffee house opened in Italy in 1645 and the Queen's Lane Coffee House opened 10 years later in Oxford, England. That one's still there today. A 350 year-old coffee shop, no less!!

Even today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - Mormons to you and me - feel the need to prohibit the stuff. Apparently it's 'spiritually unhealthy'. To be honest I've never found that to be the case. I always feel great after one of my six daily coffees. My spirit is well and truly enlightened. Without coffee I'm right old misery guts.

But here's a fact that's worth pondering over your next double shot latte. If Mormon Mitt Romney gets the nod from the American public on Nov 6th 2012, there'll be a President sitting in the Oval Office who will very likely have no moral or ethical issue about going to war with Iran, North Korea or whoever might be out-of-favour at the time, but is, for moral and ethical reasons, unable to knock back a decent double-macchiato whilst making that decision. Go figure!

It's a funny old world, don't ya think?!

With that thought I'm off to grab a cappuccino from Barefoot Cafe to cheer myself up.

Coffee or not, I hope you have a super weekend.

Ps ... a few words about Manchester, Mods, Live Aid & Queen are coming your way on Sunday. That's Queen, not The Queen. I'll leave her - and her funny hats - for another day.


photo by picky. 

in the day ... 29th february 1940 (and a happy leap year)

A snippet of stuff from the past. A little jaunt down memory lane if you like. 

The older I get the more I hear myself saying that awful phrase, ‘back in the day’. When I used to hear an ‘oldie’ say it I would think ... ‘Ah shush about the old days already. Focus on today, mate’. Funny thing is that nowadays I hear myself saying it more & more. C’est la vie!

in the day ... on 29th February 1940 'the best movie ever made' was up for 13 Oscars 

What's your pick for the best movie ever made?

Try to be objective. It's hard with stuff like movies and music and art. But if you sit back and think, 'Ok, what's the best movie that's ever been made?' and you try to remove personal opinion like 'Brad Pitt's hot', 'I didn't mind Sharon Stone crossing her legs that time' or 'those Ewoks were kinda cute', what movie would you choose?

It's nearly impossible to answer, but then most really tough questions are. 'Is there a god?', 'is there life on other planets?', 'what's the point of Celebrity Big Brother?' are big philosophical conundrums that don't really have an answer, yet people are only too happy to offer you an opinion.

My favourite film is Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. 

It's a cracker. It's fast, funny, violent (not violent as in sadistic,violent in a silly way), full of great characters, has a great script ... and it has Vinnie Jones in it.  If you didn't already know, Vinnie Jones played for Wimbledon FC, a rather unglamorous football club that managed a few good years in the top flight in the 1980's. Back in the day he was the quintessential 'hardman' footballer. In the movie he pretty much plays himself.

The movie is Guy Ritchie at his very best. After Lock, Stock he did Snatch (a really good movie too) but then it was all downhill. He made Swept Away and cast his famous missus (now ex) in the lead role. Big mistake. Huge. It was dreadful, from start to finish. So dreadful in fact that it swept away a total of 5 Razzies - including Worst Movie, Worst Actress (Madge) and Worst Director (Ritchie). I kinda went off Ritchie after that. He was pipped this year in the most Razzies stakes by Adam Sandler. He managed 11.

But still, hats off to Mr Ritchie. He's made some shockers, but he also made my favourite movie.

But a favourite movie isn't necessarily the best movie ever made. Not by a long shot. Lock, Stock is good ... but it's not THAT good. It's not 'best movie ever made' good.

So, without further gibber-jabber, I'm proud to announce that I think the best movie ever made is ...

(insert dramatic drum roll here)

Gone with the Wind

I know. It's hardly a revolutionary pick. It's not 'off the wall'. It's not some obscure art house movie that no-one's ever heard of, or some French movie made on a video cam. Far from it. The Harris Interactive Survey and The Best In Film survey both voted GwtW their best movie ever. It beat off other crackers like Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Star Wars, Schindler's List and The Shawshank Redemption.  I think that, all things considered, it's right up there; right up in the no. 1 spot. Numero uno.

It was released in 1939. And it was huge. Massive. Literally. It lasted a whopping 3hrs 45mins and even included a fifteen-minute break. It was also the highest grossing film ever made - a record that it held until The Sound of Music was released in 1966. After adjusting for inflation GwtW remains the highest grossing film of all time.

Even before the film was made the book was a huge hit. It won Margaret Mitchell a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and then International Pictures paid $50,000 for the movie rghts. A record in the day. Talking of records, Clark Gable was paid the equivalent of $20million to play Rhett Butler. The entire production cost the studio almost $4million. In 1939! That's close to $100million in today's cash.

& then there is the famous line - the most famous of all lines - right at the end of the movie. Rhett has finally had enough of Scarlett's shenanigans. She pleads with him to stay, asking what she will possibly do with out him. Rhett, exhausted, exasperated, and pretty much over the spoilt brat says, 'Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn' and he walks away. 


The studio were fined $5000 for using the word 'damn'. Times have changed a bit since then!

I'm not sure what you're up to this weekend. If you're at a loose end for four hours and you fancy renting a movie you could do worse than rent Gone with the Wind. It's a bit long, but it's a classic. 


Of course, if you fancy something a little shorter, less classic and more contemporary - something with a bit more edge and with Vinnie Jones - then give Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels a nudge. Either way you won't regret it.

... on 29th February 1940, at the 12th Academy Awards (yep, in 1940 they held the Oscars on the extra day in a leap year), Gone with the Wind was nominated for 13 of the 17 Oscars on offer. It won a whopping eight & was later awarded two additional 'honorary Oscars'. 

It won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress (Vivien Lee). The $20million man, Clark Gable, didn't win. He was pipped for Best Actor by Robert Donay in Goodbye, My Chips. The Wizard of Oz won a few Oscars too. 


1939 was a pretty good year at the movies!

Have a great week. Pip pip.

The very last word must, of course, go to Rhett Butler ... 'You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how'.

Images from rajubutt.com & merely.com

dear mr president ... what's the go with guns?

It's Sunday, so it's confession time. I’ve never fired a gun. 

Not a real life, shiny metal one anyway. I’ve never looked down the barrel at a target or a silhouette of a person, or even an empty coke can, and slowly squeezed the trigger. I was on holiday a few years back and some of my male mates whizzed off to a shooting range on hired mopeds. I wasn’t interested. The sun was shining. The bar was open. And I had no burning desire to fire a Kalashnikov. 

I flicked on the TV a while back and caught a bit of one of the Republican Primary debates. (Trust me, catching 'a bit' of a republican primary debate is really catching too much of a republican primary debate). The debate had degenerated into which of the candidates - the ‘Mr President wannabes’ - did the most hunting, and when they had all last been hunting. When they had last fired a gun at an animal in the woods. Seriously, that was actually what they were arguing about! On the ‘suitable to be President' scale ... care factor? Well-below zero. Surely.

I was recently in Hawaii with Picky and Pearl (are you 'in' Hawaii or 'on' Hawaii? I have no idea). It’s easy to forget with Hawaii but, whether you’re in it or on it, you are in fact in the good ol’ US of A. It doesn’t feel like it. I’m not sure what ‘feeling like it’ means when it comes to being in or on other countries, but Hawaii feels much more like a tropical Pacific Island than the 50th State of the Union. 

Well, it’s both I guess, but you get my drift. It doesn’t feel American. Not that there’s anything at all wrong with ‘feeling American’. I love the States and the vast majority of Americans I’ve met in my life have been totally sane, normal and rational people. I recently had a couple of American ladies work on an event for me and they were super. So, I have no issue at all with America, or with Americans.

But, I really do have to ask ... what’s the go with guns over there? Over the USA? 

Guns are everywhere. Not real guns. Well, they might be everywhere too, but if they are I didn’t see too many on the streets of Hawaii. I'm sure they are everywhere on the streets of New York, LA, Detroit etc. In Hawaii it’s ads for guns that are everywhere. Guns and gun clubs. Not only that, the ads are aimed at kids (kids!!) and at families (families!!). Kids that look about 7 or 8 (see the real live ad above) are used to entice you, and your loved ones, to the local gun club. The kids are kitted out in shooting gear, with headphones, protective glasses and...of course...a nice, big, shiny gun. 


The smaller the kid, the bigger the gun, the better the ad! 

Someone told me that it's a Glock she's holding in the ad. I have no idea. I wouldn't know a Glock if one was shoved in my face. Unless of course it happened to have 'Glock' written on it when it was shoved in my face. But I'd have fainted before I noticed the brand of gun that was aimed at me noggin'. Whatever the brand of gun that the sweet little girl is holding in the ad above, the whole thing scares the living daylights out of me. And whilst we're on the ad ... I assume that the 'live fire' line is supposed to attract me to the gun club. Yeah right. There's a bunch of kids with not-yet-developed brains lined up firing real bullets around the place? Woo-pee-do. Where do I sign up?? Grab me a membership form and and a pen. I'm in. 


It's scary.

But if you want really scary there’s always ... Walmart. 


We had a look around one on Hawaii. I was after a running watch. No luck I'm afraid. But guns ... take ya pick. And ammo? Load yourself up. Arm yourself to the teeth. Seriously. No watches to let me time a gentle trot around the local neighbourhood, but if I wanted to shoot that neighbourhood up ... I could go right ahead, fill me boots. It couldn't be easier. If you want a gun and a pocket full of bullets look no further than your friendly, local Walmart. They're all just over there, past the chocolates, turn right at the cuddly toys, toddle passed the tents and you'll see them all shiny and enticing on the back wall. Guns. Lots and lots of guns. A gun for every occasion. (Disclaimer - I'm sure Walmart do ask for ID and a gas bill with your name and address on it before unlocking the gun cabinet and letting you go nuts. At least I hope they do!).

Look, i’m not a social scientist. I don’t even know if you can actually ‘be’ something called a social scientist. I get the impression that social scientists just teach social science to kids who want to be social scientists so that they can teach social science. But surely someone, somewhere has connected all this gun stuff with all the gun-related bad news we see nightly on TV. It seems so obvious. Does a kid of 7 or 8 really need to know how to fire a Glock? Do families really need to pop along to the Royal Hawaiian Shooting Club on a Sunday arvo to let off a few rounds? Family fun, with a gun! Come on. As a great American with a different kind of weapon in his hand, used to say, 'You cannot be serious!'

I know, I know. There’s the Constitution and the the Founding Fathers said that the right to bare arms was a fundamental human right, and so they wrote it down and called it the 2nd Amendment. But surely that was then, and surely this is now. 2012. It's not the Wild West! Wouldn't it be far better if everyone just put down their guns, Walmart stopped selling them and kids stopped advertising them?

Our little Pearl is a little girl. This quirk of reproductive fate will probably mean that guns won’t be too much of an issue as she’s growing up. She’s 20-months old now and she’s definitely not pretending that her fingers, the newspaper, or any other inanimate object is a gun. She's too busy pretending everything is a baby. Thankfully. 


I hear that boys like to do 'the gun thing' from a very early age. I've seen boys playing at soldiers and guns and I can't help but think that it's a bit sad in some ways. Of course, in the vast, vast majority of cases it's totally harmless. It's just playing. It has no baring on anything at all. I know that. But still. I kinda think it's a wee bit sad that 'play' needs to involve things that in non-play situations are violent. Maybe I'm just being over-sensitive. Maybe I just need to toughen up. Maybe that's just 'how it is' with boys. Girls have their Barbies and My Little Ponies and boys have their plastic rifles and replica Glocks. And then some of them grow up and want a real one. Just like a girl might want a pony that's not pink when she's older. Maybe that's just 'life'!

What’s your view? Is it really just boys with their toys (their toy guns) ? 

Is it an issue, or am I just shooting from the hip here? Shoot me your view on guns & kids, & kids & guns.

pip pip


(The photo is from google images but it was an ad shown freely all over Honolulu in Dec 2011) 

Friday, I'm in love ... Manly (Sydney's very own Blackpool)

I moved to Sydney on May 1st 1997. It was a Thursday. I'd waited all my life to live in the UK under a Labour Government and I left England on the very day that Tony Blair was elected. I've heard mixed reports about how he did...


Moving to Oz wasn't really a difficult decision. I was working for a big company in London and they offered to transfer me Down Under. I'd never been to Australia, but I’d seen Crocodile Dundee and Neighbours so I pretty much knew the score. Plus I’d had the odd pint of Fosters over the years. So, I knew the beer too. But the main thing was that I was over London. Over it.

I know that the English have a reputation for moaning about the weather, but to be fair to us - to them - the weather is bloody awful for a good proportion of the year. For me it was the drizzle, the fog and the frost. In that order. And that was just your average summer's day! I will say one thing, the English actually don't moan about much in general. It’s a total myth that they (we) are whingers. We're a pretty stoic bunch. But the weather? That's a different story entirely. English weather has the ability to sap all hope, to exhaust all energy, to drain all reason, to fuddle your brain and leave you angry, frustrated and really rather peeved and miffed. Most weekends! Multiply that by 52 - and throw in Wimbledon (it's guaranteed to rain during the Wimbledon fortnight) - and you can go a bit doo-lally in Ol’ Blighty. Things can get a bit unpredictable, with cancelled plans, poorly chosen clothing and lost umbrellas. It’s a very stressful way to live. 

I knew the game was up when I spent an entire day at Wimbledon huddled under an umbrella. Just as I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Cliff Richard appeared in the stands and started singing. Live. Well, as live as Cliff Richard gets. That was it. When the rain rains and Cliff sings, it’s time to call it quits. To pack up and move on. 

So it’s true. And it’s fickle. I moved to Sydney - all 10,600 miles - for the weather ... and also to be by the sea. My whole life I'd wanted to live by the sea. I'd spent plenty of rollicking weekends as a kid in Blackpool (see pic 1) - the closest beach-town to my home-town - to know that the beach and seaside was (is) the place to be. 

Somehow, life has a habit of seeming to be that little bit better - that little bit brighter - by the sea. When I was growing up there was nothing better than a summer weekend in Blackpool, especially when the Illuminations (fancy street lights) were on, and the Pleasure Beach (fancy fun-fair) was in full swing! It was magical.

So, with Blackpool on my mind and with dreams of soft sand between my toes and a permanent stick of rock in my mouth, I packed my bags, hopped on a plane, set off for Sydney and promptly ... lived no-where near the beach. Doh!

I have no idea what I was thinking. I honestly don't. I think I was in a state of perpetual jet-lag. It lasted for 12 years. Don't get me wrong, in the course of those twelve years I visited the beach hundreds of times. I only lived a few kms  from some of Sydney's best beaches. But I chose to live closer to the inner-city - to the city center - than the sea. Even now I can't explain it. I went all that way to be beside the seaside  - and I ended up missing by a good few miles. 

It’s not like the beach is hard to miss. Sydney is full of beaches. Most of them are pretty accessible, close to the action, safe and relatively affordable - at least compared to London.

& then I met Picky. 


We met on Chaweng, the main beach of Koh Samui, Thailand. We were both on holiday. She was living and working in Sydney. We were together in Sydney for a year before Picky went back to Germany to study. We did that whole ‘long-distance thing’. For three whole years. Australia to Germany redefines the ‘long’ in long-distance. When we eventually became a couple in Sydney, Picky asked me why we weren’t living near the beach. I didn’t have an answer. I was mute.

Her question stirred-up all those old feelings. Those weekends in Blackpool at the Pleasure Beach came flooding back. The kiss-me-quick hats, the Blackpool rock, the donkeys on the beach, the striped deck-chairs. The fish & chips. With mushy peas. The lot.

We sold up & moved to Manly beach (pic 2). 

When it comes to the beach in Sydney it really is a toss up between Bondi and Manly. I'm not a 'native' so I don't get involved in the 'Manly's better / Bondi's better' debate. I reckon visitors to Sydney should see both and spend time in both. They are both stunning. Both beaches are terrific. 


But I love Manly and I love Manly beach. 


It's probably just because it’s where I live. It's where Picky and I live and, of course, it's Pearl's very first home. So it’s special.

Manly Beach. 


It's a little slice of picture-perfect paradise. It's the place I call home, the one place where I really feel ‘at home’. You really can feel ‘at home’ in a place. I’m sure you have too at some point, or perhaps you do right now. It might not be at the beach. It might be in the mountains, in the countryside, in the city. Wherever. But there’s no feeling quite like the feeling of being ‘at home’. It’s a unique feeling.

It took me a long time to find my way to the beach. Too long. Or maybe not. Maybe you have to miss something to really appreciate it when you finally have it. Or maybe you just have to meet someone special like Picky. Someone who leads you ‘home’. 

Manly beach. I bloomin’ love it!

Have a great weekend.

Pip pip

Ps ... I've got guns in my sights. I’m taking a pot-shot at the subject of guns and the USA over the weekend. It might be a tad controversial. I’m in ‘one of those moods’. I’d love you to have a read and maybe comment ... particularly if you live or have lived in the good ol’ US of A!

in the day ... 21st February 1958

The very best logos are the simplest ones don't you think? Apple, Facebook, MacDonalds...you name them, their logos are simple, instantly recognisable and worth an absolute mint.

Sometimes we forget how important logos and symbols are. The fact that we can so easily forget about them shows just how important they’ve become in our lives. They’ve just become part of our consciousness. They’re just there. They conjure up memories, moments in time, songs, people. 


Show someone a logo and I bet you get a story! A cross, a crescent moon, a swastika, the golden arches, the apple logo, the ford logo (pity it’s not the ferrari logo, hey?!). 

The peace logo must be one of the most powerful symbols ever created. This might be because it’s not really associated with a brand, a product or a company. It symbolises a movement, a feeling, a desire. It’s not really ‘owned’, so in that sense it’s hard to give it a value. As I type this the facebook ‘f’ logo has a value of about $100billion and Apple’s cute little apple symbol is apparently heading towards being the first ever $1trillion logo. Not bad, hey? For a couple of little designs that were probably created on the back of a fag packet!!

But the peace sign. Wow! it’s universally known and it conjures up a heap of emotions, thoughts and memories.

For me, it brings to mind the 1980’s. That was when nuclear disarmament was the issue of the day, especially in England. I’d joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). They used to organise marches and protests. These were in the days when people marched and protested about stuff they were passionate about. Before Facebook petitions and twitter. One march in London saw more than 100,000 people walk from Blackfriars Bridge to Hyde Park. The Style Council and UB40 played a Ban the Bomb concert in the park. I was there with a few friends and we'd all been taken there by a teacher at our school. I’m not sure that teachers these days would be allowed to take a bunch of their students to a Ban the Bomb concert in a city four hours away. There’d be a few insurance issues, I reckon! Pity, hey...

Anyway, the universal peace symbol is instantly recognisable. It's also really quite   clever. It was designed by Gerald Holten. It’s a combination of the semaphore letters N & D ... for nuclear disarmament. His original drawing of the symbol is on display in the Peace Museum in Bradford, England. 

Just so you know, in these times of brand-protection and mega-lawsuits, the peace symbol isn’t copyrighted or protected in any way at all. It's yours! You're free to do what you wish with it. Pop it on a t-shirt, a mug, or tattoo it on your chest. Go for your life.

The clever chap, Mr Holten, designed it on February 21st 1958. I wonder if the Facebook logo or that little twittering bird will still be around in 55years??  

Peace be with you!

pip pip