I love The Jeremy Kyle Show. One of the pleasures of being off work is that on a weekday morning I can indulge myself by watching some quality television – mainly a bunch of chavs being humiliated and yelled at by Jezza.
Nearly every man who appears on this show is
a) unemployed
b) an alcoholic
c) a drug addict
d) a sex cheat
e) all of the above
We then hear how they have been a total bastard to their 18 year old girlfriend and her 9 kids. Kyle will tell them to get a job, ‘put something on it’ and stop wasting the tax payer’s money. The audience will go wild with admiration.
Today’s episode featured a man who had covered his face in tattoos. He had cheated on his girlfriend, pissed off his mother-in-law and worst of all, was on the dole (those tattoos weren’t cheap!). Jezza got angry. You won’t like him when he’s angry; unless you’re a viewer, in which case it’s hilarious.
The next knuckle-dragging thug was a pretty boy who had beat up his girlfriend. The term ‘pretty boy’ isn’t exactly true, although I am sure someone would refer to him as ‘beautiful’, but only if it was followed with the word ‘animal’ and he was in the gorilla enclosure at Bristol Zoo.
Jeremy got angry with him too. The ape muttered something about a previous gambling addiction Kyle once had. Big mistake (although very funny). Any attempt to fight back at Jezza just makes things worse.
Quite possibly the best thing to ever to appear on the show, and indeed the whole of television, is this clip where a WHITE woman and a WHITE man are seeking confirmation over the father of their BLACK baby.
I have various pet hates. Hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs – all horrible creatures that run around, bite and shit. No, seriously, I have nothing against those animals. I do however have a lot of annoyances, most of which I have moaned about on my blog in the past and will continue to do so over the next forty years until I become Victor Meldrew.
I was annoyed today…
I’m off work this week and went into town today to look round the shops. One of the most irritating things about going shopping, is that when you enter a shop, an over excited, over helpful and over exasperating employee insists on pouncing upon you as you enter the door or trapping you in a corner, to make sure you’re OK and what they can do to help.
Go away! I just want to look around the shop in peace. I don’t want to be harassed by some jittery shop assistant trying to sell me something that is normally crap.
Equally, those who follow you around the store staring at you like you’re about to steal things. If I was a shoplifter, I would be trying to steal something of value, not a toothbrush holder!
The most annoying shop in Bath for customer harassment is the cosmetic store, Lush. I really like the soaps and smellies they sell there, but now avoid the shop completely for fear of having to enter conversation with the hyperactive and ridiculously polite people who work there and annoyingly appear to totally love their job.
I was in BHS today, shopping for light bulbs (I’m so ‘rock and roll’). For once, I actually needed some assistance. Was anyone there? Nope. I should have started hanging around the toothbrush holders and pretended to steal them.
Last night’s trip to Kettering was a complete disaster. OK, there wasn’t a major earthquake or volcanic eruption in the heart of Northamptonshire, leaving hundreds dead and thousands more in need of help from The Red Cross. But things were close to that on the catastrophe scale.
We missed the kick off. Not due to going the wrong way, traffic problems or cows on the road; but because the coach broke down en route. I say the coach broke down – one of the tyres attached to the wheel of the coach got punctured on the motorway.
Therefore, we spent over an hour at a service station, eating KFC. That meal of fried chicken would be the highlight of the entire day. We then waited for some mechanic to come and fix the tyre. He was supposed to be coming from Birmingham, but judging by the time it took to get to the stranded party of football supporters, I suspect he drove down from Aberdeen.
We got to the match having missed the first 10 minutes. It would have been nice to of missed 15 as no sooner had we settled into the stand when Bath City gave away a penalty, which Kettering duly converted.
An equaliser for Bath City lightened the spirits, but the feeling that ‘this trip is shit and a waste of time & money’, returned when Kettering scored a last minute winner.
A lovely 3+ hour journey awaited us. Thankfully, no knives/broken bottles/alligators were on the road this time to tear apart another tyre. That would have rounded things off perfectly.
I am a football statto/geek/nerd – whatever you want to call it. I keep a spreadsheet of the games I attend, including goal scorers, crowd attendance, team line ups and other information which is of no interest to the vast majority of the population.
Most of this data is collected shortly after attending the game and is readily available on the internet. However for matches attended prior to my spreadsheet was developed, obtaining some of the information has proved very difficult – most notably the squad details of the away team Bath City were playing. Yes, I admit, it is borderline train spotting on the geek scale, but so what.
After trawling through club websites and even using the internet tool Archive.org to look up web pages no longer in existence, I continued my quest away from the computer and ventured into Bath Central Library – a place I haven’t visited since my school days.
I was hoping that they would keep old issues of The Bath Chronicle, which would have listed the information I sought in their match reports. Haven never required access to old newspapers before I had no idea whether such an archive existed. It does and the newspapers are kept on something called microfilm.
I have never heard of microfilm before or used one of the machines used to read them. I eventually managed to work out how to use one of the machines and read the microfilms I required, obtaining the information. This wasn’t before I managed to break one of the readers. A total accident, but the knob completely snapped clean off in my hands. The machines looked about 5,000 years old, so probably cannot be repaired, unless a caveman can be brought back to life and given a piece of flint and a stone. I’m sorry library-goers!
While using the machine, I remembered where I had seen the readers before – in an episode of The X-Files where Mulder and Scully are looking through past newspaper archives for information on the liver-eating mutant, Eugene Victor Tooms.
You may well be thinking I am a very sad individual for collecting this information, but when you need to know which player Gary Sippetts was substituted for in the game against Hemel Hempstead on 27/01/2007, you know where to come *
* it was John Lawford in the 74th minute.
This blog carries a warning:
Sickness bags are recommended before reading
As the date at the top of this blog suggests, it is Valentines Day. Sadly, I was unable to see my beautiful girlfriend Claire, due to her being in Walsall at uni and me being at home in Bath. Therefore, we were unable to join in with the day traditionally known for loving, spending time together and increasing the share price of Clinton Cards.
Gifts and cards were sent and we will be celebrating ‘Love Day’ this Friday when Claire comes home. ‘Love Day’ will in fact be extended to ‘Love Weekend’ when we’ll go to the romantic county of Northamptonshire to watch Bath City take on Rushden & Diamonds – even the name screams “I love you!”.
Nauseous yet?
It would have been lovely to have seen Claire today, but in our relatonship, every day is like Valentines Day.
Apologies if you have just vomited your chicken tikka masala over your keyboard, but I did warn you.
About Me
So you stumbled across my blog. No doubt after searching for something bizarre on Google. Before you hit that 'Back Button', why not stay and have a read for a few minutes?
If you are after a website which gives advice on how to hack an iPhone X, download the latest Steven Seagal movie, or view nudy ladies, you've come to the wrong place and may now press 'Back'.
However, if you would like a lifestyle blog, written by a 30-something chap, living in Bath (England), feast your eyes on this.
You won't discover how to copy PlayStation 4 games. What you will find is a blog, covering life in the West Country, the highs and lows of supporting two unsuccessful football teams, while sharing a house with a wife and rabbit.
All written by a man, somewhere on the sanity-scale between normal and eccentric.
