Three men walk into a bar...

Each are carrying a folded plastic bag
one is from John Lewis
one is so tightly folded I can't see where it's from
the third is a loosely folded orange bag from Sainsbury's

One of the men says:
"Are we on tonight then gents?"
"Yes, it's us tonight."
They order a round of drinks.
"Are we ready then gentlemen?"
And they all head off into a back room somewhere.

A couple of minutes later, another group of men
arrive wearing various items of white - shirts, trousers, caps, jumpers, jackets
but nothing matches
they order pints and stay in the bar discussing
last night's match and their more recent
game of bowls

they are totally unaware that in another room
three men are 'on'.

Home cooking

I'd quite forgotten how delicious
the taste of raw egg, sugar, flour and butter
is when you run your finger
around the mixing bowl

and now the house is full of the aroma
of freshly cooked
cup cakes

and I have to wait
for them to cool

Train train train

I've never had to stop at a
level crossing before

today

Swineshead Bridge level crossing
put an end to that

cold cloudy cider
foggy thoughts come to mind
what happened that night

A vist to the Film Archive

1431/69 is a bad can
apparently
but no sign of Vinegar Syndrome
which
apparently
is a good thing

Sunny days

The man on the radio said that rain would
dominate again today with only East
Anglia getting away with some fine
weather

it's funny what a difference twelve months
can make to the way you feel about
the weather

Mary Whitehouse lives....

I met man who wants every swear word
banned from TV
when I challenged him
he used the word
'gratuitous'
so do you want them banned or not
'context'
so that's a no then
'I'm not back peddling'
and walked away
no doubt thinking that he'd made his point
well

Soap opera

For a few days I've had trouble
with the soap in the shower
it's too small to handle properly
but too big to throw away

The solution was easy
swap it with the much larger soap bar
in the sink

this morning the soap in question
went on a ceremonial fly past
out of my hand
past my ear
into the toilet

A year and a day

I'll never stop missing her
but now the only way is onward
until such time
as others miss me

Ute Lemper

Up to eight minutes past eight
last night I hadn't heard a note
from Ms Lemper so I wasn't really
sure what to expect

I'd be forgiven for thinking I'd somehow stumbled
across the Eurovision Song Contest as a packed
Theatre Royal vibrated to a selection of continental
favourites all sung in their native tongue

She can belt out a good tune
She can spin a good yarn
She knows how to get into the hearts of her audience

I wasn't sure at first
but slowly my heart melted
Ute Lemper is pure showbiz

Now living in New York she bragged about her love
of Berlin where she was brought up
and perhaps my only criticism would be that we
didn't get enough Berlin as we raced through Paris and America
and tangoed in Argentina

The previous night Philip Glass had produced
magical sounds from the piano
that same piano Ute was draped over
in her black sparkly dress
while all around me men drooled

Then Mack The Knife, Cabaret and All That Jazz
and she was gone
So douze points for Ute Lemper

and that's just for rolling her Rs

Philip Glass

Just back from seeing Philip Glass
in Norwich
his hands wouldn't look out of place
in an episode of Wallace and Gromit

I'm fascinated with the way pianists
use their hands
some hammer
some caress

Mr Glass tends to leave his left hand
rolling around the middle of the keyboard
while his right goes off chasing notes
or gently teasing them out of the keys

I appear to have let
my mind wander
I'll see if I can get
it back