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,
Warning: You might nod off while reading this blog, so make sure you’re positioned safely, and that the area around you is free from hazards. In order to protect your safety, I’d better make it just a little bit steamy, just in case. Ah! Now you’re interested . . . .
Anyway, are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
Welcome to GhostOfClayton’s Twice Fortnightly blog. Allow me to introduce myself to new bloggees. I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses. I deal my own deck,
I'm not even going to begin to suggest that this blog is twice-fortnightly anymore. Everything in life starts with enthusiasm, but soon becomes the norm, and then turns into a chore.
Anyway, three things need to be reported on. Firstly there's my recent annual skiing holiday to Avoriaz in France. Non-skiers will not be interested. If any loyal followers to this blog are skiers, they're welcome to comment/contact me and I can tell them all about Avoriaz, snow conditions, ice conditions, cloud
I just can't understand why wind turbines cause such controversy. OfClayton Towers is located right on the southern edge of the sleepy little village of Aquis-of-the-Romans. It's next to a field, on an escarpment top facing over the Vale of York (an almost totally flat area stretching to the west as far as the eye can see), so although it�s unlikely to be the site of wind turbines, it wouldn�t be completely out of the question.
If I were to make a list of all the things I wouldn't want place
So, it�s that time of year where most of the population of England get together in order to burn an effigy of a Catholic. This has caused me quite a bit of bother this year, all due to a chain of events that can be traced unbroken back to the sad passing of OfClayton Snr. a few months ago.
Those of you who, like me, are now effectively orphaned will know that the first big task, once the funeral is behind you, is clearing your parents� house of a lifetime�s worth of accumulated clutter. When
HP Sauce � turns a sandwich into a manwich
Now, I�m not one to do celebrity product endorsements (you have to be a celebrity to do that, for starters), and I�m certainly not in favour of the creeping product placement we seem to be experiencing nowadays. But I do like HP Sauce. Those who don�t know what HP Sauce is (this equates to no-one in the UK, and probably practically everyone anywhere else), are now asking �what is HP Sauce?� Basically, it�s the proprietary brand among a collection of pr
You may have noticed that I didn’t publish my twice weekly blog on Thursday. That’s for two reasons. The first (and probably most pertinent one) is that I had a blog up my sleeve saved in my e-mail drafts, and when I came to look for it, it had gone. Shame. It was a dang good one that explained what a ‘Snowclone’ and an ‘Oxford Comma’ are. The second reason is that, as a responsible blogger, I feel I should talk about the recent events in Paris. Such a weighty subject clearly deserves more of my
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
Christmas is now behind us, and the time has come to put away the decorations at OfClayton Towers. It's also time to consider those in society whose Christmas has been a distressing time for one reason or another (we shouldn't consider those who have been determined to have a miserable Christmas because they're nothing but a Grinchy old Scrooge (like me, for example). I'm not really talking about the desperate masses in sub-Saharan Africa that Bob Geldof became so passionate about in the eightie
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
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
. . . so stop reading now if you're likely to be offended or are under 18. I haven't been this cross since my "I'll stick to buying only one cake" blog entry. Here's the story:
The Ghostmobile is due for its annual MOT test by the end of the month (for anyone not familiar, the MOT is a sort of safety inspection that all UK motor vehicles must undergo each year, otherwise, they�re not allowed to travel on the country�s road network). Most motor vehicle owners dread this time of the year, due
You�ll be needing a little historical background for today�s story, so here goes.
As the Allies started to gain the upper hand in World War II, they started to plan out their strategy for following a retreating army back to Berlin. Any wartime leader with any sense would dynamite bridges as they retreated over them, and the assumption was that the retreating Nazi army would do the same. So the stickiest problem for the Allies would be getting tanks in sufficient numbers across the Rhine. To
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
Today is Christmas Day, so I've obviously planned my twice fortnightly blog really badly. It's traditional for those addressing a group at this time of year to offer up an appropriately festive greeting, and so I offer the following to you, dear readers.
1. Christians. “Merry Christmas.” (I bet you’re mortified at what your solemn religious date has become)
2. Observers of non-Christian religions. Sometime around now, I’m sure you guys have your own particular it's-past-the-mid-winter-so
That first frost of Winter
As I write this, it�s November 19th; a date that is etched into my memory as the anniversary of my only significant car accident. It was back in 1986 or 87, I think. I was very young, very poor, and (if I�m honest) very stupid. I was also a typical Yorkshireman - tight-fistedly eking out the last traces of tread from my tires, getting that last few hundred miles, until you could all but see your reflection in them It was a long time ago, but I still remember it well.
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
I need a little break from doing research, so here I am, blogging. If you read my last blog, you�d know that I shall be doing a �gig� in The Big Apple in May. Doing tours for the first time is always a frustrating experience. You can�t give �oh, it�s my first time� as an excuse to a group who have each parted with a significant wedge of cash. You need to arrive knowing the place like the back of your hand, as if you�d lived there all your life, having made friends of all the contacts long before
Back in the UK now.
After a long and tiring day on Saturday spent on the French TGV, the EuroStar, and then the East Coast Main Line, I had one day's rest . . . which I spent doing laundry, shopping, ironing, cutting the grass, etc., etc.
On Monday I found that I had agreed to do some voluntary work for one of the RSPB reserves that line the Humber Estuary. An interesting day. The reserve own a flock of Hebridean sheep
which require regular maintenance, and today was the day the
Picture caption: This stuff about dressing up at Halloween? It's for the kids, isn't it?
DocOfLove's recent blog entry got me thinking about Halloween, and just how much it has changed over the past dozen years or so (in the UK, at least). When I was a kid, my parents used to say, "it's Halloween tonight," make a silly ghost noise, and that was about all the notice anyone took. Then, a Charlie Brown cartoon was aired showing Charlie and the gang dressing up in diabolic costumes, and knocking
I haven’t blogged for a while, and I’m now back in the UK until February, so I thought I’d give it a go.
In a New York State of Mind
On the 5th October I bade a fond farewell to New York City and returned to these shores. It was an interesting goodbye, because this year I’d seen much more of New York State; it’s always good to see a place in context, rather than just living in the little bubble of the city. The reason is that I’ve been doing a new tour, and I’ll tell you a little about i
Warning: This blog contains a few mild swear words. They are all used gratuitously, and are by no means required by the context. I just felt like using them.
Hello everybody. Welcome to the GhostOfClayton Twice Fortnightly Blog (twice-fortnightly until I can no longer be arsed). Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
I had a toothache this week. Not too painful, but sufficient to make chewing on the right side of my mouth an uncomfortable experience. It went away the next day,
Hello, and welcome to the GhostOfClayton twice-fortnightly blog. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.
Laid low by a humble curry
On Friday night, I scraped the ice from the GhostMobile in order top take Mrs OfClayton and a few friends for a meal out. We battled our way through the snow, out of Aquis-of-the-Romans, and down the Ermine Street, to a pub in the countryside, and a very fine night was had by all. I chose the chicken curry, which was delicious, followed by bread &am
Some trivia for you
Hello, and welcome to the GhostOfClayton twice fornightly blog. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin. . . .
The club in our village runs monthly quiz nights during the 'off-season' months. Each month they have a different 'guest host' (a bit like Have I Got News For You? does, since Angus Deayton's little 'ahem' adventure with a prostitute and some cocaine.)
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I do the Christmas and Easter ones, and I've made a start on
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
