Rik Mayall, Noble England and the World Cup

Rick, Rick..this is the voice of your conscience speaking. You killed Neil, didn't you....

I certainly wont have been the only one to shed a nostalgic tear or ten this week. A seemingly innocuous Monday that turned itself on its b'stard head and robbed us of the gorgeous, utterly irreplaceable Rik and left an entire generation shocked and gutted.
From Mad Gerald, Shut the bloody door! Rick, Neil, Neil, orange peel, Flash, Woof! to Richie, It's not a girl it's Eddie. It's not a girl it's Eddie,VD,VD,VD. He gave us a whole secret language to share and laugh.
I saw him several times over the years; standup at the Royal Court and many Bottom Live at the Liverpool Empire with Ade.Total joy, happy days.
"Foxy Stoat Seeks Pig."
(By the way, you two, have you tried Googling or Youtubing 'Bottom Hole, Digger, Burglary' etc. Of course you have! ) Cue kick in the knackers.
So, as England marches masochistically towards Saturday night, we grit out teeth, watch the riots and pray that we get a half decent ref. But I wont hold my breath. If last nights farce is anything to go by, we may as well pack our bags now and save a few quid.
Meanwhile, in the event of Rik not returning to us in the guise of Dannii Minogue as a topless go-go dancer in a bar full of mirrors, let's back his 'Noble England' for the charts on Sunday. If nothing more than to hear his lovely voice again.

GAS MAN!!!!!!!

God Bless and thank you Rik .XXXXXXXXXXX

Spooky Room!

Our box room was haunted.
No, it was. Honest.
Small, creepy and full of junk.
My sister and I were convinced that the weird scary stuff that happened in that Victorian semi radiated from that hub, that evil heart of the house.
There were the Prague marionette puppets that hung from our shared bedroom lofty ceiling. A grinning clown and a green witch straight from the Wizard of Oz. ( Clownie and Witchy-Poo, named with the creative genius that comes with childhood.) Strangling each other by night and all tangled up in the morning. There was the distinctive rustling of skirts we heard from the dark confines of  'under the duvet'. Televisions coming on in the night. Creeping footsteps creaking across the landing. Wolf shadows on the wall. A plate sized giant spider that terrorized my little brother by running up his leg. It hid till the end of Starsky and Hutch when it decided to jump and attack us as we went upstairs to bed. The animal lover that I am, I subsequently bashed it with my shoe and put it down the drain in the garden. Beware Liverpool, it's still down there somewhere.
We blamed it all on that little room with the old brass doorknob at the top of the stairs.
So much so, that, enterprising budding little Alan Sugars that we were, we decided to open our 'Spooky Room' to the general public.
Advertising flyers designed and placards with directing arrows in our hands, we sat patiently by the kerb for our first punters. Needless to say, we were a flop.
Some years later, in my slightly more grown-up adolescence, I was awarded my very own bedroom.
You've guessed it. I inherited the Spooky Room and no amount of pink paint could eradicate how pitch dark it was in the middle of the night.

P.S.Some people say there is no such thing as coincidence. Look below...

We put on Cloverfield from our planner, randomly. Look at the clocks. Goosebumps!

Coming soon...

New for 2014,


Introducing Bister...

Zombie gnomes, Walking Dead Monopoly and socks

See ya 2013...welcome 2014!


And so I wake out of hibernation, smash the sodding alarm clock, shoot dat damn wabbit and sit down to a warming plate of bunny curry.
7 Christmas shows, 6 tummy bugs, 5 family rows, 4 turkey breasts, 3 bottles of Baileys, 2 steaming hangovers and a bra that was meant to hold 3. ( if you have kids and do the panto you might get some of that!)

T.F.F.T! Bah humbug!

Only joking.

Christmas is well creepy, though. It makes you feel incredibly mortal, another year passing. Yet, at the same time you feel part of a bigger picture; a cell in the body of time.
Is it just me, when you 're wrapping the presents, dressing the table, cooking the food or making the beds, it feels like all the relatives of Christmas past are surrounding you, watching you, judging you?

"I never did it like that!"
"What's she doing now?"
"I'd have loved a microwave."
"What's M+S?"
"Well I never! Cauliflower cheese and Yorkshire Puds? And why is the gravy in a packet?"

We lost our beloved Nan this year. It was strange but not as sad as we anticipated. She has just joined the echelon of Christmas Dinner hostesses were, one day, (not too soon, I hope) I will be in the queue watching my great grand-daughter, tutting,

" Why the hell is she making duck a l'orange and spaghetti?!"