FOR THE RECORD

During my days as an anaesthetised teenager I had something of an obsession with records. No, I'm not talking about the "two turntables and a mic, watch me scratch this beat behind my back" kind of records, but more on the unsurpassed accomplishment exploit type of records.

If I wasn't studying the Guinness Book of World Records like it was my bible, I was coming home to break my own personal records on a regular basis. From trying to break my personal best in the garden pond long-jump, from having vomit-inducing speed eating contests with my friends, I even think I had a string of 20 straight victories in the age old immature game of pencil fighting.

Aren't there certain in things in life that you feel that you do so often that you should hold some sort of record for it ?? Have you ever played your favourite song constantly, visited a store an ungodly amount of times, said a phrase that you have uttered a million times to the point that if Guinness was around documenting your repetitive behaviour, somewhere a pimply kid will be reading about your exploits in a yearly record book ??

Why is it though, however, there is always something that can be measured, always someone trying to get the longest, shortest, highest, biggest, smallest or just the most stupidly useless ?? There are some really cool records in the Guinness Book of World Records, which is great, since when I think of world records being set, I associate it with the Olympics, or these other great events that give inspiration and motivation. However, there are also some of the most ridiculous / stupid / useless records in here too.

You just have to roll your eyes at the man who decided that it would be a significant achievement in the history of mankind to get a car through a gap a whole 1cm narrower than the previous record. Sure, he managed to do it on two wheels, but seriously, if you really want to get through a narrow gap on two wheels, wouldn’t it be a lot easier just to get on a motorbike ??

We also had some poor deluded soul from London who decided to spend his time trying to get into the Guinness Book of Records by eating the most Ferrero Rocher chocolates in one minute. What great figure did he consume, I hear your cry ?? A truly earth-shattering, mind-boggling, truly astonishing total of … five.

Now, I am no expert on the subject and I certainly don’t have a PhD in Chocolate Consumption, nor am I especially fond of Ferrero Rocher chocolates, which basically have all the taste and nutritional value of reconstituted cardboard dipped in the contents of my Nan's old Hoover bag, but I would say that biting a mere five choccies in sixty seconds is a little bit of a pitiful attempt. Unless they had to be consumed through a straw. Up his nose.

Of course, sometimes you don’t even need to go to any effort to be a record-breaker. According to theregister.co.uk, Colin Wells, a workshop foreman for Stagecoach Buses, is ‘the most spammed man in the United Kingdom’, with a staggering 44,000 e-mails reaching his inbox each day. Most of you would seriously think this as a sign that maybe it just might be about time to consider a change of e-mail address, but instead he lets the removal of junk mail consume his life after catching the accolade of having ‘the most …’ and challenging the rest of the world to try and top it.

But why ?! It’s about as pointless as trying to staple custard to the wall and about as much use as an ejector seat on a helicopter !! I don't know, maybe no one else feels this way, but the following are a list of things I feel I have done enough times to garner me a world record, if the good people at Guinness recorded such things;

* Most unconvincing impersonation of Prince Charles.

* Most half-arsed collection of Star Trek videos.

* Most heartless punishment of a pet hamster.

* Shortest attempt at a diet.

* Longest item left unsold on e-Bay.

* Most obviously made-up autobiography.

* Worst reason to avoid watching “Big Brother”.

* Least convincing attempt at building a rocket-propelled pogo stick.

* Least convincing attempt at creating a nuclear-powered, computer-controlled, intercontinental ballistic duck.

2015, AND ALL THAT ...

Last night, Robert Dougall, the former BBC and ITV newsreader, stole my Aston Martin. Other than the fact that I don’t drive, let alone an Aston Martin, and Robert Dougall has been dead for fifteen years, this didn’t seem to bother me all that much. Later on that day though, I was determined to find it, and found myself stomping around in a swampy wood full of mangrove trees and mist.

A car then tore by. My car. Robert Dougall was at the wheel. Four people were leaning out, shouting and leering drunkenly as it tore through the foggy evening. The roof had been cut off and the seats replaced with tatty old deckchairs, the exhaust was hanging off, the pretty alloys were gone and every remaining panel had a massive dent in it. Then, without warning, it veered off into the undergrowth and crashed. I raced over to find a bloodied Robert Dougall trying to extract himself from what was left of the driver’s seat, covered in bruises and cuts and laughing hysterically. Then, without warning, the alarm clock went off, I put my trousers on, then I had a cup of tea and went to the shops to fetch some milk. Puzzled as hell.

I’m told reliably that, when we dream, it is the result of an active mind not shutting down properly, and this explains a lot recently. Regularly, I can fly, and it’s something soaring over Birmingham staring down at the massed ranks blissfully ignorant of me. I have played table tennis against myself and lost, engaged in conflict with a Baywatch helicopter in Red Dwarf’s ‘Starbug’ and fought a battle against a giant robotic Charlton Heston with the aid of the cast of “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet”. I have also won the Albanian Grand Prix driving Herbie, and flew over London in Dangermouse's Mk III flying car with Kevin Keegan in the passenger seat. As well as this, America won a contest where other countries just gave them points for no apparent reasons, and Britain came 54th, as usual. These are the sort of dreams you have after washing down a wheel of brie and a whole quarter of edam with a pint of Benylin and rum. I think I would like to have met Sigmund Freud, who probably would have deduced I was stark, raving mad.

And this year, he would have had good reasons for assuming so, because this is of course my last blog of what has been a year where a hell of a lot has happened. To be honest, unless you got married, engaged, or won a Ferrari filled with Maltesers and vodka in a radio phone-in, it’s unlikely to have been a year you’ll remember fondly. It was filled with huge, grim events. So is every year, of course, but in 2015 it seemed there were fewer light moments to offset the enveloping dread. And everyone has just seemed so angry, all the time. A whole planet, gritting its teeth. Hundreds protesting. Thousands marching. Millions waiting to attach their internalised rage to a hashtag at a moment’s notice. Celebrity deaths by the bucket load, war, the so-called refugee 'crisis', Jeremy Clarkson, Kate Middleton had another baby (why is this world so fertile and set my seed never gets sown ??) Isis. Syria. Gaza. Economic meltdown in Greece. It's a wonder that Billy Joel hasn't released a sequel to "We Didn't Start The Fire" yet.

We also had a General Election which proved nothing more than confirming politicians are less popular than Rolf Harris in a Veterinary Surgeon's practice. With the exception of Nigel Farage, who isn’t in the House of Commons, and Russell Brand, who isn’t even a politician. And speaking of politics, we have the horrifying prospect of Britain being led by Jeremy Corbyn, a man who rides a bicycle to work in shorts and probably has vegetables growing out of his arse, and America being led by Donald Trump, who looks like he's smeared superglue on his bonce and spent an afternoon breakdancing on his local barbershop's floor. We could all use a lie-down more than a knees-up. With so many horrific stories around this year, it's no wonder we were side-tracked by baking, selfies, bombings, massacres, murders, more celebrity child abuse cases and high-profile deaths. One after the other, after the other, after the other, no wonder "The Great British Bake Off" is so popular …

… and that's only what's happened in the NEWS.

This year, the company I work for moved offices, I went to Wales, Slough, Loughborough and London twice where I met Benedict Cumberbatch and Peter Capaldi, amongst others, got my heart broken by a young woman who not only blew me off on my own birthday after I asked her for her hand but subsequently buggered off to Norway to be with her hairy 17-stone woodcutter boyfriend (after wearing out the batteries in my sonic screwdriver with her cleavage !!), saw my nephew start school, saw my brother-in-law set up his own business, saw my cousin announce she was having another baby, saw my sister-in-law actually have yet ANOTHER baby, got to put my arm around the goddess that is Jenna Coleman, drank about 300 pints of Guinness and about 50 bottles of whiskey, and travelled to a lot of places with a lot of people.

So, who am I going to say thanks to for the fact that I am ending yet another year somehow with my sanity still intact ?? Well, no need to name them all here, you all know who you are, thank you, and I love you all very much.

Let's see what 2016 has in store.

Happy New Year everyone !!

SEASONS GREETINGS … AGAIN

Isn’t it amazing at Christmas time ?? You see people indulging to such great extremes. There are sides to human nature which I think sometimes make you question the sanity of certain individuals. For instance, why is it that just before Christmas, you see people buying so much food, you would think that there is a major famine crisis impending. They buy so many loaves of bread you would think they were going to feed an army. Buying so much milk, you would think it’s used to feed a class of school kids for a week. (That is if Margaret Thatcher hadn’t scrapped that of course).

And kids often get through so many selection boxes to send the shares of Cadburys, not to mention several other confectionery companies, though the roof. It is incredible that, in such a relatively short period, how much is bough and consumed. But talking of over-indulgence, did you know that the average person consumes around 7,000 calories on Christmas Day ?? That's enough to make that bloke from 'MAN vs FOOD' stop in his tracks and wince.

Attractive young girls stop male shoppers dead in their tracks as they wander through the department stores, asking if they have a special lady in their life that they want to buy a present for (to which the answer by the way, sadly, is still no !!). Their sole aim is to get you to buy an expensive bottle of perfume or some other item which will cost you a pretty penny. Which they usually achieve by pumping the said products into your face with the force of a blunderbuss, having first seemingly applied it to their own mushes by means of a garden trowel. 

They give you such sweet talk as they look you in the eye and reveal their pearly white teeth. But only the really gullible would fall for their spiel, but then there are those who lean towards the criminally intended, such as those dodgy street sellers or those who exhibit their wares at car boot sales. Believe me, there are characters out there who would make Arthur Daley and Del Boy Trotter look like small-time amateurs in comparison. Even burglars and thieves are probably doing more overtime because they think there is more booty to be found. All thanks to people foolish to leave wrapped presents on their car back seats.

Until recently, however, there was one feature of Christmas that filled me with absolute terror and dread. It genuinely made me shiver with fear whenever it was mentioned. It was the mould on the smoked salmon, the ARGOS sale advert during “Miracle on 34th Street”, the damp log on the fire; the works do. Christmas in Britain these days is almost completely ruined by the nature of office parties. The streets become overwhelmed with people who have drunk more liquid than a thirsty elephant owned by George Best and have managed to completely lose all sense of ability to walk in a straight line. And the atmosphere in every restaurant and pub in the country is utterly wrecked by those who order food not so much for its taste, but for its aerodynamic efficiency.

What’s more, it’s almost impossible to actually get anyone on the phone because they are either finding an outfit to ruin or trying to book an appointment with the hairdressers. There are people out there who put more effort into office parties than the actual family event itself a few days later. A few years ago I decided enough was enough … and decided to get involved in organising one myself. I thought it would have been like helping to organise my best mate's stag do, then I realised that THAT sort of night out – lots of projective vomit and silly hats - is as far likely to be removed from yours as well as mine. We really needed all office party stereotypes removed, and it was almost a bit like asking Stevie Wonder to organise the World Snooker Championship. So we all went bowling instead. And my best mate's fiancé subsequently called their wedding off.

Thus, having subsequently handed responsibilities over to someone who actually knows what they're doing, our last last few Christmas Office bashes have been great, more fun than watching a wombat stuck in a washing machine, a great way to put another year of hard work behind us. And the best bit of all, there was absolutely no snogging or any bottom-photocopying involved. So, now all I need to do is shake off this three-day hangover, go and watch the new Star Wars movie and look forward to a brand new episode of 'Doctor Who' on Friday. Then spend the next week in hibernation.

Merry Christmas Everybody !!