Now there’s a man who knows what he likes, and he likes what he knows.
There once was a Scotsman called Warren
Who kept treasures galore ‘neath his sporran
How the ladies would wilt
If he lifted his kilt
But he much preferred boys, tanned and foreign
Pizza, cricket, gardening and dogs…farewell to summer!
More rambling words…
These memories, like trinkets long discarded, out of reach
And though I search elusive they remain
With faded paint, and gold hue once so bright now dim
Ensnared with such a wonderous pull now seems like pointless whim
You held it in your hand, I think, though cannot be so sure
For memories aren’t always believed
And where I saw it last slips through cold, frail grasping fingers
And names once tripped from sparkling tongue, now only in fog lingers
Instinct pricked, elusive elements of something once so sure
This certainty, now possible or maybe
I search, I know it’s to be found, so close, so very near
This trinket, bauble, well loved toy, that now seems oh so dear
AB
Theo and I wandering the local area with camera in hand
Well, in just a few days my doggo will be 2 years old. Ive not written about him much on here, so thought id post a few photos to celebrate the last year or so.
I regularly say that I don’t want a dog, and did not ask for one. I was convinced that I would not have to walk it or pick up the poo, and like many before me I fell for those lies.
I don’t mind though, as it turns out he is quite wonderful company and a lovely dog with a great temperament and a love of hot buttered toast.
He is mostly trained, though his recall is rather iffy, and should you dare to eat in his presence he will do his best to drool all over you until you lose your appetite and give him whatever you are enjoying.
Oh, poor thing lost his balls a few weeks ago so waiting to see if that changes him in any way. So far it hasn’t…which is good as he’s mostly perfectly imperfect.
Anyway, like kids, I’m sure everyone thinks their dog is the best. I shall shhhh…
Happy dog day!
C is for…
So, turns out I have prostate cancer. I wrote about it first here…
There is so much reading you can do on the matter once you find out you have the big C. Stuff on diet, treatment, research, oh the list goes on and on. Websites, forums, books, articles, pod casts. Its never ending.
I’m just saying you can. I’m not saying that I did. Fuck that.
I really don’t want to dwell too much on it really if I am honest, it isn’t going to get me any time soon, and I don’t need treatment yet and people live with it for decades so why fill my head with thoughts on the matter. That is my way of looking at it anyway.
Oh, I saw this nice specialist for a follow up a while ago, he had a tie on and an office and certificates on the wall, and things are settled and no worse than they were and Ill go get checked out every 6 months and maybe have another MRI or a biopsy. So it all seems very much in hand. My head isn’t in the sand, I just feel like it’s best left alone for now, you know?
The only thing that bothers me from time to time is the thought that it can spread or maybe I’m open to some sort of secondary cancer, but I mean what’s the chance of that. Hmm, you know there is probably a statistic for that. is the chance of that is probably well understood. Well, I still don’t want to know.
Probably more chance of me dying from eating too much cake or not getting enough exercise to be honest…
F…Screw you Frogger!
You can read the genesis of this A-Z here.
Now onto F!
Oh how bountiful is the overflowing goodness that is the list of arcade machines that start with the letter F that I remember playing!
Flying Shark, Frogger, Final lap, Final Fight, Fire Shark…ok so with the exception of Frogger maybe not household names but these are some of the games that I played a lot of. I bloody love vertical scrolling shooters and games like Flying Shark still float my boat to this day. You don’t really get a lot of games like that now, and to be fair its hard to improve of some of those that came out in the eighties such as Xevious and terra Cresta…to this day they remain perfect to me.
Pretty sure most folk remember frogger. Do you remember how hard it was though? Such was its bastardry that your 3 lives could be gone in less that 30 seconds. I kid you not. It may have good memories but just you try to play it today. You’ll realise how hard it was. Cross the road and you think youre doing great, then onto the logs, thinking yeah I got this.
No you don’t, ok. You don’t got this. You don’t got shit. Frogger got your 20 cent piece and you are going to be feeding it more if you want any sort of reward. Frogger was unforgiving and brutal, and don’t you let nostalgia tell you otherwise!
Read it a few times, it does work I assure you…
A landscaper with uncontrolled hard on
to a customer did beg her pardon
He could not spare her blushes
When he worked with her bushes
Pitched quite a tent in her wild lady garden
Up north!
Where: Halifax, West Yorkshire, England
When: 23rd of August 2022
Why: To go and see how low the water levels are.
With: Me, my youngest Thomas, Mrs Afterwards and Theo the dog
So just a quick ride out towards Ripponden, maybe twenty minutes away. We’ve had an uncommonly warm summer and have water shortages in places, and the water levels on Baiting’s reservoir have dropped significantly. So much so that the old pack horse bridge – long ago submerged is now visible. We grabbed an ice cream, wandered around the reservoir, commented over and over on how low the water levels were – and then went down onto the old bridge. Then back home as it was rather warm out and being English I don’t really like being outdoors too much when its sultry…
A rather yummy 8.5 on the pizza scale!
I recently bought an Ooni pizza oven, which you can read about here. When I did the post it was suggested that I add a subject to the blog of the pizzas I do, so here you go. This, is that…
Still going to work through the format but lets do it this way:
Base – Shop bought Pizza Express ready rolled. Pretty good and nice and thin. Makes a big one you can share too so great for when you have guests – which we did.
Sauce – I made my own marinara with tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, oregano and salt and pepper.
Toppings – Pastrami and Roquefort cheese
Cheese – Roquefort and Mozarella
Verdict – It works. Really works. Roquefort is a blue cheese, so salty and strong, and the sweet sauce balanced it up nicely. Base was super crispy, so it was just one of those pizzas where you want to keep shovelling it in because it just tastes and feels great in your mouth. And cutting back on the mozarella meant it wasn’t too oily or dripping with cheese, so I felt like I was almost having diet pizza – which meant I could eat twice as much!
It pass the morning after test? What’s that, I hear you ask.
When it comes to pizza a good test is just what it tastes like the next morning, cold, with mayo or salad cream. Well, it was really good. The saltiness and the vinegar of the salad cream were a perfect blend and the pastrami was still rather good cold.
All in all, a top pizza and one I shall make again- though next time I will add sun dried tomatoes too to balance out how strong the Roquefort is…
Tricky limericky
Once a lass from the banks of the Humber
Who did quite shocking things with cucumber
What she did with a squash
Made you wince and say gosh
But oh how you’d kill for her number
A disappointing 4/10 at best.
I recently bought an Ooni pizza oven, which you can read about here. When I did the post it was suggested that I add a subject to the blog of the pizzas I do, so here you go. This, is that…
Still going to work through the format but lets do it this way:
Base – 75p LIDL base, average at best but carries a heavy load if you so choose, not too thick, an ok crust and handy when you forget to make dough, or are in a hurry and don’t have 26 hours to spare to prep a proper full on epic dough.
Sauce – Green pesto
Toppings – chicken, Anchovy wrapped capers
Cheese – Feta and a little Mozzarella
Verdict – Bloody hell, that was as dry as a post menopausal, cat loving, God fearing, lube lacking, bake sale supporting, kids-these-days hating old maid. If I’d topped it with talcum powder and old sponges it would have been more moist. Next time there’s a flood Ill whip up a batch and they’ll happily serve if we run short of sandbags. I’m surprised sand didn’t spill out of it when I sliced it up.
Ok, so I’m not saying it wasn’t edible, it was, I had coleslaw and salad with it so I was able to get it down, and I think it needed the sweet peppers I could not find. They would have lubricated it quite nicely I imagine.
So no, on balance I wont make it again…I liked the pesto and chicken and feta individually, and will put anchovy on anything, but together it needs reworking. Plus it was a tad anaemic looking too. It was hard to tell the difference before and after really.
Did it pass the morning after test? What’s that, I hear you ask.
When it comes to pizza a good test is just what it tastes like the next morning, cold, with mayo or salad cream. Turns out that it was actually much much better the next day. After a little moisture had crept into the crust and the salad cream had made the chicken less cardboardy it was a far more pleasant snack.
So there we go, pizza review number 1. Stay away from the Old Maid!
A sunday quickie
Once a fellow most holy and pious
who’s wife like a desert was dry as
till she found masturbation
with the male congregation
For the larger of girth, had a bias
Heavens…look at those
Turns out I’ve done a one pretty freaky drawings over the years. These were in an old post.
I feel kinda proud.
Ruining diminuitive Japanese poetry one picture at a time
With words does ensnare
and all resistance removes
silver tongued devil
Just a little something before bed…
Kinda inspired by this if you’ve never read it. I think its one of my best…I even did an audio version.
There are things that pass my lips that I so willingly enjoy
A baby cow, a deer, some sheep, to them utensils I deploy
Fried , roasted, dipped in fondue cheese my preferences are wide
I know they’re cute on the outside, but I so crave the meat inside
Loin, flank, short rib, grass fed, food bid, to stop my clothes from spoiling
Oh whip me up wild roaming fowl, salted, spiced post boiling
These things I lust, my lips do quiver in anticipation
I realise it leaves some folk in the most sternest consternation
But they are safe, so rest assured, my menu rightly lacks their cut
For far too lean and scrawny I do find them, they don’t satisfy my gut
And even though you add some veg, add onions or some aubergine in
No thanks, fear not, I’ll have a salad, for I could never eat a vegan
E…oh how you disappoint
You can read the genesis of this A-Z here.
Now onto E!
The cupboard is somewhat bare, and populated with games that I have memories of, good memories, but hardly games that made me steal coins from my mums purse and sneak off to the shop to play.
In many ways they sum up quite nicely those games which were just always about, not the top draw ones, but the space fillers. You could always get a go on them because most kids were keeping the hard earned coins for the ones they really loved.
Elevator Action was ok I guess…up and down you went, evading what seemed to be spies of some sort, probably Russian – it was the eighties after all – in search of stuff behind red doors. That was kind of it. Sometimes lights went out, and other times it would slow down and the agents sped up if you took too long.
Actually it was pretty shit. Not that I didn’t play it a lot though – I still did.
Exerion was in the same mould really. Fly along, shoot things, explode. The machine was everywhere, so you played it. Felt like it was a predecessor to GYRUS, and had this slow cumbersome side to side that left you feeling ridiculously exposed, but an ok distraction on the way home from school I guess!
I put enduro rider in because I remember you sat on a bike and actually had to pull up on the handle bars to effect a jump as you went through the track. We used to play it at Fotis Cafe, but it didn’t last long as I remember it was always out of order. I think, perhaps, because it took a right hammering from kids piling onto it. I do remember mailing a jump though and it felt bloody amazing…Funny what sticks with you isn’t it because I can barely remember the kids being born…
F next, and that will not be a let down!
One from the archives
Once a cyclist of note, name of Mike
Big old smile as he peddled his bike
Look of bliss on his face
For the seat he’d replaced
With a dildo, he really did like!
A rude one about a woman and her need for a particularly large penis.
A cavernous lass, quite pedantic
who insisted on cocks most gigantic
No nine inchers for her
(unless girth) she don’t care
Only upwards of twelve get her frantic
Mostly food, cricket, sleepy dogs and doing garden stuff
meh…it will do…
A lass angry and jilted from Reading
Burst in and interrupted a wedding
Said “Last night this here groom
Took me back to his room”
So the brides brothers kicked the chaps head in
Oh such sadness…
Lets explore the sadness of life through the joy of limericks
A young lad I knew as a senior
he got cancer, I think ’twas leukaemia
the treatment it failed
he got thinner and paled
and then died and his wife got bulimia
My dad was a drunk and a cheat
every weekend my mother he beat
took her cash to do drugs
bringing home sluts and thugs
’till we all ended up on the street
First time we met how I tried
not to love, but I made her my bride
then the marriage it failed
when her sister I nailed
Took her life, overdose, suicide
My dog, my best friend always true
dedicated to me through and through
Drunk, I left the door wide
and she ran straight outside
got ran over and died now I’m blue
A chap that I know who loves choir
had to quit giving up his desire
he could not harmonise
when he lost both his eyes
and his tongue when he fell in a fire
I think I’ll stop there, I’m not sure that I’m trying hard enough to make them sad. Or maybe I should blame the limerick, either way I hope it’s not too inappropriate and I think it goes to show that even the most serious of subjects find some lightness in a limerick.
Deep stuff indeed
Oh won’t you let me climb inside you
Let me wear you like a skin
And to feel your heart a beating
And to touch you from within.
.
What you see I want to witness
When you hear ill hear it too
When you nap ill snooze inside you
Let me be there when you poo.
.
From your innards i can feel you
As I’m nestled in between
I can feel your pain quite clearly
‘Twixt your liver and your spleen
.
Oh let me crawl right up inside you
Wont you let me show u love
There inside your flesh and sinew
Let me wear you like a glove
.
My desire knows no limits
And my love is absolute
Here its warm and wet and safe
Inside my juicy love skin suit
.
And the 17 sylabbled horse you rode in on.
Loves young tendrils grow
each moment ever closer
And hearts do entwine
So a businessman based up in Libya
from his trip brought home crabs and chlymidia
and a vase from Phuket
from a trans chap he met
and a rash from this lass from Namibia
Bravo Ooni, what clever people you are!
We all know there is a cost of living crisis going on, right? Turn on the news and there is an endless list of reasons to feel like, what is the bloody point. Brexit, Tories, Ukraine, fuel costs, heating prices, covid…oh the list goes on and on.
Well on the upside, and it is a very small upside when compared to the yawning chasm of doom of the downside, our company gave us each £1000 to ease the strain of the burden of the rocketing costs of just being alive.
So what did I do, you ask? Did I put it towards my heating and electric bill, which is about to double? Did I put into savings for a rainy day? Maybe I donated it to those more needy that I am?
Did I fuck. I bought a pizza oven, that is what I did.
I have cancer, as I have written about before, and whilst not the worst type, it has certainly given me more of a ‘French’ approach to life recently. You knwo what I mean. If I was French and I had been given £1000 then I know for a fact that I’d be bollocks deep in brie and baguettes whilst sipping on red wine and contemplated what industrial action to take next.
Yup, so with my blue and white stripy t shirt on and a string of onions around my neck I thumbed my chin to the world and took my pedal bike to the internet and ordered one of these. (That is the last of my French stereotyping I promise)
Oh and how glad I am that I did.
I still need to get a table for it, but I did also pick up a little garden kitchen table this for the prep toop, and with a shop bought dough and a few choice toppings I hooked it up, turned it on, and waited for 30 minutes. It can do a 16 inch pizza apparently, but I am still waiting for the large pizza peel so kept it small to start. Mrs afterwards is away at a spa with her mum and sister and niece this weekend so it was just us boys at home…
The dough was a bit rubbish, but I fashioned a pizza-ish shape and chucked it in and 80 seconds later we had a perfectly cooked pizza! Our Tom thought it was fabulous, and Sam agreed wholeheartedly as he wolfed his down, still somewhat hungover from the night before.
I then played about and made a few more and didn’t burn them too much, especially given it gets to 500 C.
By the time I had fed everyone a few times, including a special one for the dog, it was time for mine I was ready to sit down with a bottle of rose prosecco and my anchovy and Pineapple pizza! But alas there was no pineapple, so it was just anchovies, and my god it was good. Crisp base, delicious toppings and a wood oven taste even though it is a gas oven. They do one with wood but I wasn’t overly fussed by pushing the boat out too much. I was quick and easy.
Oh and I realise you may have thoughts on pineapple and anchovies. Well you’re just wrong, ok. It is a perfect balance of salt and sweet. I do occasionally throw olives on, or I will have Roquefort for the saltiness, but keep your pizza gatekeeping to yourself! 🙂
The kids helped clear up kind of and then disappeared, and I then had a nap in the hut with the dog. I think it was the prosecco to be honest.
Anyway, I am off work this week and imagine it will be pizza most nights…
No wonder I am so fat!
Afterwards 