Sarah Millican and the Bin Man’s Bum Crack

As I lost internet access for a few days this week I’m afraid my daily blog updates have all had to be put into this one posting:

Monday 5 March 2012 – Although I rarely check out my Twitter account, I did last evening and saw that the fantastically funny Sarah ‘The Cake Pigeon’ Millican is on BBC news this morning. So I’m sat in front of the fire, trying for the first time: and positively the last, Heinz Toast Toppers, waiting in anticipation, for Ms Millican to grace the TV screen.

From outside I hear a rumbling, the sound of plastic wheels on cobbles. I look out and see neighbours dragging out their wheelie bins. (Now as I’m new to the area,this is my first indication of ‘Bin Day’; and as the builders have kindly left ours full of rubbish it needs emptying.

Not wanting to miss Sarah’s interview, I decide to take our bin after it has been aired; however I hear the bin lorry trundling up the street, so have no option but to drag it noisily up the alley and out onto the street. Just as I exit the alley onto the pavement I see the bin lorry is already here. I present my bin to one of the bin men, just as his colleague bends down to pick up some rubbish he’s dropped, giving me a flash of the hairiest bum crack I’ve ever seen; honestly it was so hirsute he could have plaited it.

I retrieve my bin and clatter back down the alley with it, locking the back door and entering the living room, just as Ms Millican’s infectious laugh resonates from the TV screen. (The BBC should provide viewers with giggle penicillin).

That’s me set up for the day, interview over and the first song of the day to play is my favourite Italian stud-muffin Tiziano Ferro with Il Regalo Piú Grande, (DJ Daddy mix), which translates as The Greatest Gift; which I believe great comedy is. So thank you Sarah for bringing sunshine into a middle England living room.

The Sarah Millican Show starts on Thursday 8 March at 10 pm on BBC2. You can guess where I’ll be at that time – Yes, chuckling like a loon on my sofa.

The Day the Ad-Men Left their Brains on the Bus

Tuesday 6 March 2012 – I was listening to Sarah Brightman sing ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ (Con te Partiro), when something on the television caught my eye, making me pause the iPod.

What had made me stop the diva mid- F#?

An urgent appeal on behalf of Mongolian horse breeders? A news report about the discovery of intelligent life in Wilmslow? The debt crisis in Budapest?

No. It was an TV advertisement for the popular dog show, Crufts, at the NEC in Birmingham.

Nothing unusual in that I hear you say; well not in the adverts content, however the statement at the end is ridiculous. It says, “Children aged eight and under get in free, if accompanied by an adult.” I just have one thing to say, – how many kids eight and under wake up and navigate the M42 on their scooter to attend the show?

Of course kids eight and under would be with an adult, which advertising moron couldn’t see the stupidity of this statement.

And finally, - should six year old Sam from Smethwick turn up unaccompanied by an adult, how much entry fee would he be charged?

An Epidemic of ‘A’ Boards

Wednesday 7 March 2012 – Today is particularly windy, and as I walk through town listening to ‘Leather and Lace’ by Stevie Nicks, the wind is detectable as it blows across the plastic ear-buds.

I’m almost hit as three ‘A’ boards are blown down the street, heading straight for me. Several pedestrians stop to watch; eager I guess to see if I’ll be struck by them. Luckily for me the wind drops and the boards fall flat just inches from me.

I look up this one street and count 19 of these boards outside shops and fast food businesses, and it makes me think about what would have happened if they had hit me; do these businesses have insurance to cover any accidents occurring?

I understand that in a fragile economic climate, retail businesses need to maximise footfall into their premises; but over the past months these boards have been popping up at a rapid rate. (The chip shop on Cheapside has three of these in an area 50 m sq).

With pedestrian areas becoming crowded with these advertising boards, the pavements space is shrinking, and this in turn means the potential for a member of the public to have an accident is increased. So who will be responsible if this happens, the shop owner whose board it is, or the local council for not putting a stop to this practice.

On a final note, outside a pub on a busy road is a huge ‘A’ board, that is so large that cars turning out of the side street have a restricted view to their right, and people walking along the pavement sometimes have to step off the kerb as they navigate around it.