Warning: In this blog, I do use the word ‘Bitch’ more than once. I’m not a misogynist.
Welcome to GhostOfClayton’s Twice Fortnightly blog. Allow me to introduce myself to new bloggees. I’m a bitch, I’m a mother, I’m a child, I’m a lover, I’m a sinner, I’m a saint. Yes, I stole that. It’s a lyric from Meredith Brooks’ very catchy track, ‘Bitch’. She goes on to say, “I’m your hell, I’m your dream, I’m nothing in-between. You know you wouldn’t want it any other way.” I always feel that the long
Happy New 2015!
Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
It’s traditional at this time of year to have a sort of review of the past year, outlining key events and so on. Since I did bugger-all of any worth whatsoever in 2014, I won’t waste your time. Instead, I’ll tell you what I’d like to achieve in 2015.
As ever, for those that don’t really know me (which is all of you – this blog is kept strictly a secret from anyone I actually interact with, just in case they laugh at me)
The arrival on UNRV of news of, (I lost count of how many), new books, highlighted a problem to me. I'm 46 (or am I 47 now? I can't remember) and it already seems like I have enough books backed up to last me the pitiful few decades I (hopefully) have left before my last ever ride in a big car.
To ease this problem, I�ve been experimenting with "multimedia sensory input", as follows:
Medium 1: Good Old 'Ink and Paper'
Having had to call a temporary hiatus to Adrian Goldworthy's "Ceasar
I was involved in a very bad accident on Friday!
I was taking a group of 20 (plus myself, a representative of our local agent, and the driver) on a bus trip, using a private hire 'coach'. We were about 2 hours out of the city of Shimla (Himachal Pradesh, India), when the bus hit an ox cart and overturned.
I was one of the fortunate ones, coming through the incident unscathed, but it was immediately apparent that many of my group were far from OK. Luckily (if I can use that word) the driv
Hello fan(s) of the GhostOfClayton Twice Fortnightly Blog. The first bit is more of the usual, but the last part consists of me ranting like a Guardianista, so please feel to ignore it if you feel put off or offended by that kind of stuff.
I shall taunt you a second time
Some of you may remember that, a few blogs ago, it was announced at Mrs OfClayton's place of work that the overall personnel numbers in her office had to be reduced by 50%. After a bit of frantic work on complex excel sprea
Warning: The following blog contains strong language, and scenes of a sexual nature.
But first up, more from the iPod:
2-4-6-8 Motorway � Tom Robinson
Woo Hoo � The 5-6-7-8�s (Weird coincidence, given the previous track?)
Up the Junction � Squeeze
This Town Ain�t Big Enough � Sparks
Summer (the First Time) � Bobby Goldsboro
I love "Summer (The First Time)", maybe because it's every man's fantasy first time, eh lads? Mrs Robinson, and all that . . . YOU know what I mean. Whereas,
I had a great weekend, but to tell you why, I will have to tell you a little local history. There is an entertainment venue in the north of England called Scunthorpe Baths. It gained notoriety in the mid 70s following
by Jasper Carrott OBE, a renowned comedian that we never seem to hear of anymore, sadly. Watch the link - you won't regret it.
Basically, Scunthorpe had an old, ornate Baths Hall dating from 1931. Lovely place to swim. The council cleverly realised that on Saturday nights, no
Well here we are once again, that annual midwinter dog and pony show they call Christmas. Bloody hell! And that was swearing. I make no apology, and I will swear later as well.
It�s already a matter of record that I lament Christmas getting ever-earlier (I blogged about it a few weeks ago . . . where were you?), so that�s the first reason for me to curse. Apart from that, I�m not religious, I probably have anti-capitalist tendencies, and don�t have kids, I rarely drink, I�m still on that per
I have been away from the sleepy little village of Aquis-Of-The-Romans for a while, but I returned to find there had been shinanegans aplenty in my absence.
It started one morning at about 3:00am, when many residents noticed a short ring from their phones. They awoke the following morning to find the phone lines dead. Investigation revealed that this was the case for every phone line in the village!
One resident, (probably more than one) went through the lengthy and difficult procedure o
Bashing the Bishop
What do you think to the title? Bit rude? Bit adult? Hey, I can do blogs that�re �edgy�. In fact, there are those in the world that will almost certainly find the following down right offensive. There are those who say it�s high time I did a controversial blog. So here goes:
It may have passed the rest of the world by, but the Church of England had a vote recently on whether or not they should allow women to be ordained as bishops. In the end, they voted against, some
I seem to be back at the point where these are twice fortnightly. I wonder how long that'll last!
Man v. Food
Have you seen �Man vs. Food�? It has been playing almost non-stop on Dave (the UK�s favourite TV channel amongst viewers who have already tried BBC1, BBC2, ITV1 and Channel 4 and don�t really like what�s on them) at the moment. The format of the show is pretty basic. A man who (inexplicably) is not hugely overweight moves from US city to US city, taking on the various �challenge� di
Looking back on it, it was quite a successful weekend, although it started a little badly. Being the wrong side of 45, I now wake up early every day. Lie-ins may not be a thing of the past, but if I wake up after 7:00am, I consider that I�ve slept late. So, on getting up early on Saturday morning, I turned on my PC for my (now seemingly almost hourly) UNRV fix, and Internet Explorer 8 informed me that it was unable to make contact with the site. A quick sanity check confirmed I had spelled U � N
It's Monday, so it's time for my weekly blog, and this week, I have two stories to tell you all. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin . . . .
Limericks
I'm very fortunate that, no matter how bloody awful things get outside it, the stuff going on inside my skull is always pretty entertaining. When my mind is not otherwise occupied, it gets caught up with little tasks and trivia, and I can't seem to stop it. I don't want to seem like some kind of old letch, so I won't dwell
Hello, and welcome to the GhostOfClayton twice fortnightly blog. Are you sitting comfortably, then I shall begin.
It's a beautiful morning here in the quiet little village of Aquis-of-the-Romans, and I'm feeling a little surprised. "Why are you feeling a little surprised?", I hear you ask. Allow me to explain.
The Aquis-of-the-Romans History Society are a very active group, meeting every other month to listen to an expert talk knowledgably about one subject or another. A few meetings ago
Hello, and welcome to the GhostOfClayton twice-fortnightly blog. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
Sorry, nothing Roman this week. There's been a lot of talk (2 comments to my knowledge, which constitutes 'a lot' for the purposes of this blog entry) on UNRV Forum recently about Bucket Lists. For those of you who, like myself, thought the phrase Bucket List had something to do with cheap last-minute flights, it isn't. It is, apparently, a list of things you feel you should do b
Hello, and welcome to the GhostOfClayton twice-fortnightly blog. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
Trivia Answers
Firstly, I know you�ve all been sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for the answers to to last week's quiz questions, so I will keep you in suspenders no longer:
Q1. What was known to the Romans as the Mare Nostrum? (Shame on you if you don't know that one!)
The Mediterranean
Q2. Which modern word derives from the Roman practice of posting
Hello loyal followers, and welcome to the GhostOfClayton twice-fortnightly blog. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.
Technology fails me again
I spent quite some time on Sunday typing out this blog, ready to publish it on Monday. Much thought went into the subtle wordplay, intelligent prose and reader-experience. I checked it over, made changes, was happy with the result. Repeated the check, made more changes, was no more or less happy with the result. I repeated the last pa
Hello, all you out there in Blogland, and welcome to the GhostOfClayton twice-weekly Blog. Are you sitting comfortably? No? Tough! I'm cracking on with this anyway. I haven�t got all day to wait for you to shuffle round and get settled.
High-achiever in the family
OfClayton Nephew 1 of 3 (I'm sure he has a name, but as I mentioned in a previous blog, it's easier to keep track if I number them) has had his name mentioned in the media. OK, so it's only in his college's newsletter, but a
Incidentally, the title of this blog refers not to some drunken adolescent, but the frittering away of one's formative years. It's a phrase often associated with the game of snooker, and is certainly true in my case. more on that later.
A stroke of luck
The day of the Royal Wedding found me staying just outside the oldest town in Britain (which is Colchester). Over breakfast, we'd had the telly on, and inevitably it was wall-to-wall coverage of the lead up to the big 'I do'. This seemed to
Getting on the internet has been very problematic recently, but hopefully I�ll manage to get this blog up posted, just to prove to you all that I�m still alive.�
RIP The-Man-Who-Lived-At-The-End-Of-My-Garden
I rushed home last Thursday to attend the funeral of the man who lives at the end of our garden (he wasn�t a hermit who�d moved in near my blackberry bush � it�s more accurate to say his garden can be accessed via the end of my garden.)� Anyway, I know that no-one who reads this blog kn
Welcome One and All to the GhostOfClayton extremely occasional blog. Are you all sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
I know that, looking at me, you wouldn�t think it, but I�m not a drinker. Not absolutely tee total, but only drink socially and very occasionally. So, on Saturday night, after a very small amount of beer, I found myself quite tipsy. Myself and Mrs OfClayton had been invited round by the brother and sister out-law to watch the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. Di
This morning I found myself in a very strange meeting. In order to tell you why, I'm going to have to give you a little history lesson, so get comfortable . . . there may even be a test later!
The quiet little village of Aquis-of-the-Romans was not always so quiet. During the war, there was much activity in the skies above it, and the drone of low-flying heavy bomber engines would be a regular event. The reason was that the village lies on the top of a steep escarpment overlooking an area of
Heard of Movember? Here�s a quick explanation, but if you�d like more detail, have a look at www.movember.com. Movember is a charitable organisation that hopes to encourage as many men as possible to grow a moustache (or Mo, for short) during the month of November. Mo-vember, geddit? The idea is so that funds can be raised, and awareness made for Men�s Health Issues (or, as a less reputable colleague referred to them, "Bloke cancer, rather than chick cancer"). His misogynism is factually, if not
It has been an interesting and busy week:
Green Lantern
The previous Thurday night � I went to a friend�s house and watched the recent Green Lantern film on DVD. Now, I�m far from a superhero/comic book geek, and most of these type of films interest me only in as much as any mildly entertaining action adventure film might. However, I found Green Lantern to be a wonderful film, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Don�t be put off if these sort of things aren�t your usual cup of tea.
Dee � Eye � E
Chunky, yet hunky!
I am hugely, vastly, monstrously, obesely, humongously overweight! My arse is becoming increasingly more magnificent by the month, and I reluctantly have to admit that my paunch has 'death in service' written all over it (metaphorically, not in the form of a tattoo; that would be odd. I seriously need to do something about this, and the time I need to do something about it is now. I can no longer keep saying Future OfClayton should go on a diet, the fat git! Past OfClayton
