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My Black Leather Cap

2011-09-09T04:31:00.000-07:00

An interesting subject popped up in a reply to one of my questions in Blogger's 'Discuss' Coffee shop the other day, by a good-willed blogger about gay people potentially ruining marriages. Now, I’m not exactly sure what this means or how it works, but I thought it warranted some proper Internet investigation.

It turned out that there is an underground of closet gays masquerading as happily married men, usually with two children, living in a three bed semi in Woking who are constantly thinking about having an affair with Derek the retired Dentist two doors down. To make matters worse, if I didn’t know that I was gay, then it will be thrust upon me-literally-having hit the midlife crisis phase.

Now, I don’t think I’m gay, but having read a particular article, I'm concerned. It's suggesting I may only find out my true sexuality by chance, when I’m in my 40s and bump into a tanned, carefree and welcoming hunk called Bruce in the lift at Selfridges. I have to take this seriously, if only to stock up on Vaseline.

A midlife crisis can apparently be a catalyst for gay feelings to emerge from, and one day soon I may wake up, look at my wife and wish she was Freddie Mercury. I may also be tempted to wear her clothes and walk around the house dusting everything merrily with the Sound of Music soundtrack on CD in the background. I know I’m stereotyping, but I can’t see it, but then maybe that’s the problem, it sneaks up on you from behind.

A friend of mine had a similar crisis with Porn. Having spent his entire youth trying desperately to find old hardcore porn magazines in the bushes of public places and then discovering the Internet - a hub of hardcore porn 'pop up' activity that jumps out at you without warning while searching innocently for topics on Bush Tucker - he defected to soft porn. I mean soft porn, what is the point!

He was once an alpha male with a highly prized 'Ben Dover' collection but he's now resigned to being turned on by two almost fully clothed girls stroking and petting each other in a bubble bath. Disgusting!

I’m not homophobic, but in conclusion, having subjected myself to some improper images of American motorcycle cops from the 70s and hours of intense listening to the village people and Jimmy Somerville, I think I may have got away with it.

The Food Fight!

2011-04-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

I entered my office for the first time in nearly a year having completed my secondment in Geneva. I was welcomed back with the excitement and dependable lack of humility that could only be expected from my old secret flame - my admin girl.

She is now the ownership of another so when I say old, this is not in the physical sense. In fact, tasting her forbidden fruit was not likely a legal issue (only just) but may have been a moral one. Luckily, I had left my morals in a grubby pub toilet in Southend with Sheila Tamworthy 20 years earlier.

Jenny had raced towards me in full view of all and sundry and given me a big squeezing ‘welcome home’ hug. I had forgotten how wonderful she looked, how great she smelled and how easily my ego could be massaged.

I gave her a fake kiss on the cheek and held my arms astride until she reluctantly let go. Frankly, it would have been more appropriate to have hung a ‘I used to shag this bloke’ banner outside our office building.

Anyhow, I walked on and raised my eyebrows at the world, shook my head in almost authentic surprise and proceeded to my desk as if the incident had never even occurred.
Immediately, I felt a huge disappointment and complete despondency as I sat down at my desk seeing the same corporate bullied faces sat around me.

I had spent almost a year in the sunny backdrop of snow-topped mountains and spent late evenings with wealthy frustrated women of leisure. My weekends were filled with skiing trips to the Alps with the single task of preposterous posing with my pals. This was not Geneva.

I was back in Blighty and as much as I loved England, it meant full-time exposure to my wife. Her unbreakable frigidity would mean such exposure would not involve any kind of sexual intimacy, just the usual unforgiving verbal diarrhoea.

Later that day a text was delivered to my mobile. It was from Jenny. It read, ‘IMU meet me2nite got a ?4U’.

At first, I assumed she had fallen over a disposable waste sack and landed fingers first on her mobile keypad, but this was some sort of teenage text code not understood by anyone over the age of 30.

To hell with it. I arranged to meet her later that evening. We had a drink. We talked. We laughed. It was surprisingly pleasant and no word of exchanging bodily fluids was mentioned. It was just a ‘how do you do’ with a young woman who loved wearing copious amounts of war-paint and looked like she had had a terrible misadventure with a vat of industrial make up.

Later, I offered to take her home and we jumped into my car. I inadvertently stopped in a disused business car park. Aghast, I promised to drive straight to the car dealers in the morning to complain as both front seats gave way. We fell into the back of my car entangled with my show of middle-aged athleticism disguised as an awkward, fumbling 40something oaf.

As the windows steamed up and things became a little warm under the collar I had this bizarre sensation that her face was beginning to melt on me. True enough, as we broke away for a breath, I looked at my collar and then at her. I noticed that one side of her face looked as though she had been involved in a close-up paint ball fight and I had suffered the debris of her injuries. The heat and passion of the moment was literally dissolving her face before my eyes. I was caked in more make up than Boy George.

I jumped up banging my head on the car roof causing an immediate erectile dysfunction and called an end to the food fight. I considered telling my wife that I had popped into Boots on my way home for a make-over but it sounded far-fetched.

Now, how shall I explain this……..

The 'ManBoobs' incident!

2011-03-17T08:04:00.000-07:00

My wife has just joined the gym. Another crying endorsement that she is up to no good. After all, she’s been letting herself go for years.

So why join now, I wonder? A renewed passion for flippantly exposing her body and enjoying 40something sexuality, after all, isn’t it true the female sex drive really starts in the 40s? Well, I’m not seeing any of it.

Now strangely, one of my good pals is also considering admitting himself to his local gym. We had lunch and he explained all.

ManBoobs! I’d never noticed them before, but he assured me he had them. Apparently, they appeared a few months ago during a midnight thunderstorm.

He was awoken by a loud clap of thunder and decided to get up for a pee. Whilst standing over the bowl he looked down to see if he could identify his penis over his potbelly, and then inadvertently shot gunned the entire en-suite with a golden shower as he realised he was turning into a 40something bearded woman.

He says, they have been growing steadily ever since and he’s starting to feel like a pubescent schoolgirl experiencing a hormonal change into womanhood. He’s not happy.

After lunch and a long, awkward but entertaining conversation about how they looked and whether he should go strapless or under-wired, he invited me to have a look for myself. Now he is an old and valued friend, but I was not exactly impressed about ogling the fleshy flab first hand. A description was more than acceptable.

Unfortunately, he insisted. Having become reclusive and self-conscious, he pleaded for my opinion. I reluctantly agreed.

Given our whereabouts, I grudgingly decided that a convenient place for the examination would be in the gentlemen’s toilets, but under no circumstances would I enter a cubicle with him unless the entire vicinity was evacuated by the Police. We checked out the pub toilets looking like a couple of dirty old men and squeezed eagerly into a cubicle. It wasn’t even funny.

Upon locking the door behind me I started to come over hot and flushed and wanted to cry out rape, but I calmed myself down and he unbuttoned his shirt.

They were indeed a fine pair. Milky white and proud. Being starved by my wife of any kind of sexual contact for so long , I was half tempted to cup them up and kiss them but decided against it.

I agreed completely that he should join the gym ASAP or alternatively, start to dress in a tulip flowered frock every Tuesday and Friday.

The unfortunate Cat!

2011-03-17T07:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a spot of bother. Recently I discovered a dead cat in my garden. Painful as it may seem to cat lovers everywhere, I really do dislike all cats and that’s were my troubles began.

As a rule, I am an animal lover, not literally of course, bestiality is a sin. Although a friend of mine did once watch a DVD called 'Animal Farm'. Interestingly, he said he only managed to watch the first few minutes, but he told me all about it. I couldn’t look a racehorse in the face for almost a year.

Anyway, much as I dislike the felis catus, I really wouldn’t wish death on any cat, a surgical operation to remove its anus maybe, but not death. And that brings me nicely onto why I dislike cats so much. Catshit, crap, anal snakes, faeces, butt mud or toxic turds, whatever you like to call them, you will always find some in my back garden of all shapes and sizes, deposited almost daily by one or more of the sixteen (yes, sixteen) cats that live close to my house.

My back garden is a poo party playground for every one of the blighters. Do they shit in there own backyard? No. Every morning they take it in turns to get together after a slap up fried breakfast and with the Daily Star under one arm they proceed to my garden and back the big brown Bentley out of the garage and onto my lawn. Funny? Not.

Now back to the dead cat. My wife knows I have a dislike of all cats and so do my neighbours and if I see one in my back garden I would happily challenge a fully drugged up Carl Lewis to beat me in a 100m sprint to it. Therefore, I felt sure I would be blamed for the abrupt demise of pussy.

The most annoying mog of all is a scruffy, smarmy ginger thing, no doubt imaginatively named, Ginger. After creating a suitable intestine sculpture he waits at the bottom of my garden and smiles Cheshire style until I get about 6 feet away. He looks at me when I approach calmly but deadly, Kung Fu style, and then says to himself "whatever", and jumps effortlessly up and over the fence. To make matters worse as I retreat defeated, he always pops back up onto the top of the fence again and laughs, I can’t hear it but I know he is. Bastard.

The deceased feline had been impaled on a metal spike left upright in my garden. Dangerous I know. I was dismantling my old shed and the offending scrap metal was chucked safely or so I thought, over to the edge of my garden near some rotten fence panels. Now, my guess is that Mr Shitcake was coming over for his daily dump, the fence panel gave way, and his sphincter squeezing days were over.

I’d say he’d been there a couple of days. He was starting to smell a bit nasty. It was unpleasant but how was I going to remove him from the spike, which incidentally was also attached to a 4ft piece of wood. I had to slide him off somehow. It might be a tad embarrassing walking around to my neighbours with a dead cat swinging from side to side while impaled on a metal spike attached halfway up a plank of wood and asking, "Hi, don’t suppose this is yours?".

At that moment I heard my wife walking up the garden, obviously wondering what was going on. Although I was completely innocent of any calamitous cat crime, I nervously kicked the wooden plank that was attached to the spike that was attached to the cat, into the bushes. I turned my back to it, and smiled. I knew what she would immediately suspect. Unfortunately, it was a poor effort, the wood was indeed now hidden but the cats’ head was poking lifelessly and I dare to say, amusingly, out of the side of a conifer tree. "What the hell is going on". She asked. I screwed up my face for a minute.

After convincing her that I had not in fact, chased the deceased around our garden with a rusty 2ft spike attached to a large plank of wood shouting "come here you little bastard", I explained what I thought had happened to the unfortunate moggy. Even though the mistrustful way she looked at me made me feel like I was lying, I could tell that she believed I wasn't intelligent enough to make it up and accepted my story.

She recognised the cat and we bagged it up. She made me take it around to our neighbours to explain all. It was a sorrowful affair and they said they would break the news to their ten-year-old daughter later that day. Soon after, my neighbour turned up at my house to thank me for bringing the cat over and said his daughter had taken it well and he would make it up to her. "How", I asked. He smiled, "We’re getting her two".

Arsehole!

The Gym Experience!

2011-03-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

I have been blessed with a metabolism that can dissolve and dispense with all but the most defiant of fat laden Cheeseburgers and the best the Colonel and his secret recipe can throw at me. I have spent my life carefree in the knowledge that my arteries may well be clogged up with copious amounts of sludge and bad cholesterol but from the outside, I almost look like I jog every other morning. Almost!

This was until recently. My body has starting to reject me. I have been in denial for a year or two but now I have to consider defeat. So I am going to have to do something soon about my steady expansion or turn into a pot-bellied middle-aged member of the British obese society that I see each time I visit my local Town Centre.

For now.......I’m holding out. If I stand shoulders back and breath in deeply, I can just about pull it off. I have tried this several times and the rewards of looking briefly toned only marginally outweigh the hours of pain and debilitating stomach muscle aching I suffer later.

So, the Gym it is. I ordered a pair of tight-fitting vinyl white shorts, a shuttlecock for genital enhancement, a sleeveless slightly off-white vest and a thick black moustache. I could'nt wait.

Upon arriving to sign up to physical greatness I was invited by a male assistant to view the body sculpturing paraphernalia. I was quite sure it worked fine but he insisted on showing me exactly how to use everything.

As I entered the Gym and looked at all the NASA inspired equipment I suddenly noticed I was being eye-balled by a weary looking assortment of Gym enthusiasts already hard into their sweaty, panting -and for some- fruitless work-out routines.

I wondered if I would be accepted into the World of the over-eaters.

I passed the weightlifting area which was strangely cordoned off from the rest of the Gym and watched curiously as troubled looking men who no-doubt had posters of the Governor of Californian on their bedroom wall, chewed on whole pieces of steroid and pumped iron. I admired the vanity in action. These guys had veins on their biceps the size of my arms. Nice!

I decided I was more interested in cardiovascular fitness and was immediately drawn to pretty young female strapped to a strange leg-spreading contraption.

She was resting slightly backwards while she pushed the extremely lucky foam covered metal bars open with her legs, while at the same time exerting deep sensual and pleasurable breathe- in my opinion. This was indeed an excellent visual experience. This was my kind of Gym. I became transfixed but was hastily dragged off by my concerned assistant.

He led me to the changing rooms and showers and said, ‘Off you go’. I enquired, ‘Now?’ He looked surprised. I had suddenly became a little bashful.

How was I to know if I could actually use half of this gear? I was terrified I would sit down on the leg extracting pleasure machine and not be able to open my legs without causing myself a hernia. What if I couldn’t lift those weights and the whole Gym fell about laughing? I was suddenly having second thoughts and visions of humiliation flashed before my eyes.

I changed into my 118118 uniform, attached my moustache and briskly walked into the Gym again. I eyed up the equipment holding on to some in a masculine fashion and looked inquisitively, like I was inspecting it’s suitability for my particular work-out regime.

Then I moved on to the next one and then the next. Having now visited most pieces of gym equipment and inspected its appropriateness and ruggedness, I proceeded back to the changing rooms showered and headed home.

You know........... maybe I have a few more years left yet!

My wife and shaun the Scaffolder Parts 1,2 & 3

2011-03-16T04:38:00.000-07:00

Part 1

I’ve just turned private eye. It’s exciting, dangerous and I’m not sure I want to know the results of my investigation.

If I am going to leave my wife, then it will be me that has the affair, walks out with a canoe under my right arm, or leaves my clothes on a beach at Yarmouth.

But, it’s my wife, that’s acting very suspicious of late. Texts at all hours, quick trips to the local shop that take longer than a weekend in Devon and thongs! Yes. Thongs! I didn’t know my wife had any let alone wore them.

Having discussed this with a couple of close pals, apparently this is a classic hallmark of an affair in progress. In fact, the only thing lacking to confirm this is a fully re-invigorated sex life-well I never really had one in the first place so I can rule that one out.

And that brings me nicely onto the point that concerns me the most. I’m told that affairs start with an explosion of sex while the messy things like who gets the kids and the CD collection comes a long way down the line. Well, my wife having explosive sex is about as likely as the Pope buying Asian Babes magazine.

So, here lies a quandary. If my wife is having explosive sex on Shaun the Scaffolders pole, I need to find out.

So, my newly found love, the Internet, has turned up a few tantalising pieces of undercover 'Simon Templar' gadgets that will come in handy. Having decided on the appropriate piece of equipment I set about a plan.

So here it is, have you ever seen such a thing? It’s a SIM card reader, that once inserted into a PC, will read the last 20 deleted texts from a mobile phone. Fan-friggin-tastic.

The excitement quickly turned to fear while reading the instructions.

In order to read the sordid texts between her and her hip-hanging tool belt lover, I would need to do the following without anyone noticing: find the offending phone, remove the SIM card-taking off the battery cover and place into a USB device. Then, take this to the PC, insert, and perform a 3-minute program that reads the SIM and places the info onto my computer. Then, remove the SIM from the PC, return to the mobile phone and replace the battery.

WHAT! That is a 20-minute operation that even the SAS would turn their noses up at. My wife and her mobile phone are attached like Torvill and Dean. This will take some planning, but having recently watched a re-run of 'Steven Seagal' movies, I had an idea…..

Part 2

It was 7am and the sun was shining fiercely through my bedroom. My wife was as ever, putting on the slap and getting herself ready for another triumphant day at the office, a simple 50-minute transformation!

I waited downstairs in the study for the moment to show its sorry face and it came like clockwork. She will dry her hair at exactly 7.30am and that little job will take about 10 minutes-on and off.

The key was this; while she is drying her hair she cant leave the room, it’s a military operation getting her blonde Medusa locks just right and feeding the snakes, but not as big a military operation as mine was going to be.

First blast on the blower and off I went like a missile, darting upstairs and then rolling from a high altitude parachute jump into bedroom number two where she charges her mobile. With one swift movement the phone was in my hand. The blower stopped.

This is where it could all go horribly wrong. While she is drying her hair, it's impossible to be in two places at once, but….

Off it went again and trembling like an alcoholic looking for whisky at a bottle bank I took off the battery and released the SIM.

I was behind schedule due to the trembles, but the battery was back on. Phone looked normal. SIM in hand. I was starting to sweat slightly but took an unhurried walk back down to the study like I didn’t have a care in the world.

Blower on again. I dashed to the PC and fiddled endlessly with the stupid USB thingy. I was panicking-it wouldn't go in. Took a deep breath and it was good to go. Ran the program. Downloaded the info. Hey presto and back upstairs.

The dryer turns off and her door opens on the landing as I walked up the stairs looking like I’d been on a ten mile hike (I should have trained for this first). "Have you seen my….....are you OK...….are you having a heart attack?" I’d bet she’d love that. 'Mouth to mouth? - Oh not right now darling.'

I appeased her and the conversation stumbled as it usually does, and she goes downstairs. I had only seconds to get the SIM back in and the battery back in place before she came back up again.

Then I remember, I left the bloody computer screen on with the program results still showing, and she was just about to walk past it and immediately win in the divorce courts on the grounds of harassment, paranoia or both. I could only do one thing and call her back upstairs before she could see it, but only to find me with her SIM card in one hand and the battery in the other and looking more suspicious than a Muslim wearing a rucksack.

I called her urgently. She comes back up. I slot everything back into place with milliseconds to spare. My heart was pounding out of my chest and I fell exhausted to the floor in a red faced sweaty heap, hands trembling uncontrollably. "Oh my god" she said, "you really are having a heart attack…….."

Part 3

Unbelievable!

Having faked a heart attack and risked certain death, I found nothing. But I’m not convinced……

'The Tandem Jump'

2010-11-29T02:28:00.000-08:00

I recently took a promotion and it’s taking up all my time.

Admittedly, I now have a tongue the colour of a chocolate brownie dunked in a full fat latte, and I’m embarrassed to say it, that's how you get places. If you haven’t yet sold your soul to climb up the corporate ladder, then you wouldn’t understand what its like to lick the arse of a fat, old and incontinent senior executive at an investment bank in order to obtain notability.

So, promotion and pay rise in hand, off I went to Geneva in Switzerland to help the rich and deceitful invest and hide wealth. Now, Geneva is beautiful, for many reasons. Mostly, because I am free (temporarily) from my wife of many turbulent years, but also because I can ski which I love and drink excessively, which I love even more. Primarily though, I am here for the rich and attractive women.

I have a plan you see. When I say rich and attractive, this actually has only one singular meaning. Rich women are attractive. Physically, most are as appealing as sand swept ice cream on Bournemouth beach, but that’s not the point.

In my new role here in Geneva, I meet many highly unattractive but more importantly, very rich divorced women. Now, if I need to explain my plan further, then you are reading the wrong blog. This plan though, is a story for another day.

My new boss in the land of tax evasion, hypocrites and rich female divorcees is a French/American adrenaline junkie called Raymond and he wants me to make the most of my free time as a singleton in Geneva - whether I like it or not. He loves nothing more than trying to kill himself each and every weekend. 'Work hard - play hard', he says. What a cock!

So, he gave me what he said was a choice. Bungee or skydive. The only choice I could see in this scenario was do I have a coronary at 10,000 ft above the Swiss Alps or while tied to a fat brown rubber band strapped carelessly to my ankles.

I told Raymond that I was busy washing my hair for the remainder of my secondment to Geneva, but he is one of these guys that is incapable of understanding or accepting the word - no. Such a word often used by my wife of an evening when I have a hard-on.

He also has an annoying tendency to throw his arm over your shoulder while leading you to someplace you don’t actually want to go to, often, in the opposite direction to which you were travelling. You know the type.

I made my decision (which incidentally was to sit in front of the TV with the Swiss equivalent of the Daily Mail). Next thing, I find myself 10,000ft in the air with a thin lipped, square chinned, tanned Dutch guy called Dirk strapped to my back. He carried out his in-flight checks which happened to include making sure my helmet was strapped up correctly.

Ok, let’s think about this for a minute. I was about to be tossed out of a plane at 10,000ft with a 15 stone Dutch playboy tied to my waist. I was going to reach speeds of up to 120mph at terminal velocity while falling out of the sky like Pan Am flight 103. If my parachute didn’t open, would I be thinking, 'thank god I’m wearing a helmet'?

So Dirk, whose constant facial expression was that of a playful and excited teenager, said in his big deep Dutch voice, "You’re gonna love this, it’s gonna be the best experience of your life, just relax, I’ve got ya!"

Excuse me! You’ve got me! So, what you mean is: if the chute doesn’t open I can be reassured by the fact that not only am I wearing a nice bright helmet, but 'you’ve got me!' What are you – Spiderman?

If I had to jump out of plane by myself it simply wouldn’t ever happen but Dirk was pushing me from behind like an opportunistic bum bandit on a crowded subway train and I was going where he was going - like it or not. Problem was he was heading for the bloody door which happened to be wide open, wind swept and led to some big open space of nothing but brown stained boxer shorts and fluffy clouds.

Suddenly, I realised that I loved life, I believed in the God Almighty and I was a yellow bellied coward and I wanted out, but it was no use. Dirk was in control. I was strapped to him like a lifeless puppet and suddenly I’m looking down at 10 acre fields the size of an ant’s eyeball. "Hang on", he shouts. "This is going to be incredible" and the little git pushed me out the door.

Holy shit…….!

The 'Dinner Party'

2009-12-18T13:59:00.000-08:00

If you happened to read my last post you may be wondering how I ended up, (living it up) in Geneva. Well, here goes:

Ok, I thought formal dinner parties had been resigned to repeats of tacky 70s sitcoms, but they are back. Not so long ago, my boss, a spectacled economist who underwent a triple personality bypass some years ago, had been told to promote me. Great news eh!

Well, as you might expect, its not been as clean cut as all that. In my world, you don’t just apply for promotion; you also have to be sponsored. Yes sponsored.

This involves sucking up relentlessly but graciously to a dribbling, pee smelling corporate pensioner, preferably a corrupt non-executive who has been around the block, who isn't wholly with it, and sits in a position of some authority.

Assuming you are successful at wiping his backside and spring-cleaning his ancient wrinkled purple bell end, you will be able to count on the old fart to put in a good word.

So over the last year, I have sold my soul to the devil and helped Mr old timer take care of all his unpleasantries and also help hide his infidelity with clean shaven jobless young boys. Thus, resulting in my boss wanting to come over to my house for dinner to discuss my formidable future.

I had a pre-arranged a mutual agreement to a suspension of hostilities with my wife. Although, I was not convinced I could trust her because I'd recently admitted to tearing out the final three pages of the book she was reading at the time. The very same one she had on order for nearly two months. She was not a happy bunny.

My boss-Mr Personality, turned up at nineteen hundred hours, as he likes to say. As far as I am concerned anyone who uses the 24-hour clock in everyday conversation and is not in the armed forces is a complete cock.

My wife agreed to cook dinner and she was keeping to her end of the bargain nicely. I even thought I caught a glimpse of a smile, but maybe she was simply clenching her buttock cheeks until she got back to the kitchen. Either way it was going better than I expected.

We had some drinks, but my boss was holding out on me and was evidently not going to let any hint of my promising prospects out until the very end.

We sat down to soup-French onion. I raised the spoon towards my mouth and just as it approached my lips I caught sight of my wife. She had that look of satisfaction I hadn’t seen since our second date in the back seat of a Vauxhall Cavalier 14 years ago, and she raised her eyebrows. Oh shit!

I’d come this far and I had to go through with it. The laden spoon passed uneasily between my lips. It was French onion soup with a quadruple dose of extra hot chilli powder. I took it down like a man knowing that I had at least ten more slurps to go.

When done incinerating my upper palette and talking embarrassingly like a teenager who’s ball's were ready to drop, I made off to the kitchen and speedily drank half a pint of sour cream.

She entered soon after; obviously she didn’t want to miss any of the distress. "You’re so f**** funny", I muttered, hoarsely. "Very", She replied. "Hope you’re looking forward to my homemade chicken Kiev."

Bitch!

The Sherbet Effect!

2009-10-03T01:34:00.000-07:00

Over at the village pub last night, my good pal Dave said he had a great idea about how to sort out my marital problems once and for all. This sounded great.

We had a chat. After being subjected to some rigorous psychometric questioning and four pints of Guinness later, it was made clear why I was still married to my wife.

Firstly, I would like to see my dearest children more than once every millennium. Secondly, I didn’t want to hand over all of my wages, pension or any other spare change I had hidden behind the sofa, for her to use to keep her latest baby-faced boyfriend in cheap gold jewellery and a turquoise shell suit. And finally, I didn’t fancy the idea of climbing up Big Ben in a Spiderman outfit with a 10ft 'Dads have rights too' banner.

Now, Dave unashamedly fancies my wife. I’ve absolutely no idea why but it has something to do with sherbet.

He tells me that as a child he loved the stuff. So much so, that he would blatantly steal money from his Mothers purse to buy a packet of the diabetiese inducing yellow gunpowder, every single day.

His friends were enormously jealous of his sudden and fortunate sherbet ownership.

Unfortunately, after a few weeks of continuous consumption he became sick and confused. He was taken to the Doctor and ordered to give up the candy and repay his parents £4.90. He was also grounded for three weeks for being a thieving little scumbag.

Even though he was now completely sick of the sight of sherbet, his friends, who either didn’t have the pocket money or were not petty villains, were still desperate to dip their dirty wet fingers into his paper bag.

Now apparently, the moral of the story is this: you always want something you can’t have, especially from someone who has it, but doesn’t want it…. Puzzled? Me too!

It turns out that it’s me who is now feeling sick and confused and its my mate Dave who wants to dip his wet liquorice stick into my sherbet, i.e. my wife.

So his plan went like this: I go away on business for a few days-lucky me. But before I go I set up a hidden camera in her bedroom. Dave pops round while I’m away to check all is well and she isn’t cutting up my double cuffs. He throws a compliment or two, slag’s me off and gets a couple of Gin and Tonics down her.

He then sweeps her off to the bedroom, hits the record button while she is undoing the bolts to her chastity belt, and then bangs her senseless. All in HD.

I return home, inadvertently finding the offending material and get a quickie divorce on the grounds of adultery with my betraying best mate. "It’s a win/win" he says delighted. "I get laid and you lose the wife but get to keep the kids and cash. Taa daaaaa!"

We both laughed aloud and nodded our heads knowingly. It was funny, but in my opinion it was also deeply flawed.

On the other hand………

The land of 'Weed and Women!'

2009-09-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

A while ago I was kindly invited to leave my midlife crisis behind and attend a stag reunion in Amsterdam. Bizarrely, I never actually attended the first stag event, but due to some dropouts and a thoughtful friend, I took over a vacant plane seat and a hotel room to the city of weed and women.

I had never been to Amsterdam. I have travelled across Europe and spent many a compromising night in a Prague bar as a student. My gap year was an experimental study on eastern European culture. I decided to concentrate on a select few topics to make my experiences more intense: Beer, brothels and the Bolsheviks. In that order.

It turned out we were doubling up on the rooms and I was sharing with a hippy from Goa who was unable to start or end a sentence without using the endearing term: 'Man'. "Hey man, thanks for letting me share the room, man". Idiot!

My pal, who had invited me, owns a legal firm in London-the very same 'git' who kindly introduced me to my wife-and I was surprised at his association with an ageing flower power panderer who had just returned from a long spell of semi consciousness in western India.

I met my friends in the hotel bar-entering to rapturous howls of laughter. "How’s you’re roomy?" they asked playfully. "A bit chilled your hippy pal" I retorted. My good mate Dave reassuringly put his arm around my shoulder and shifted me towards the bar while explaining all, accompanied by continued chuckles of amusement.

It turned out that the hippy turned up at the hotel without a booking and had no association with the stag reunion whatsoever. While I had gone to unpack, my 'mates' had generously sold the other bed in my room to him at a discount price. Nice one.

Having got over the fact that I was sharing with a Hawaiian shirt wearing pot pusher who was probably going threw my personal possessions at that very moment, we headed for the bright red lights of town.

The great thing about Amsterdam is that everything is very orderly: black girls in that part, big girls in this part and Bangkok chick boys in the other part. Choose your preference and dont forget to stop at the cash machine on the way.

But no matter what direction you go, someone acting suspicious will undoubtedly approach you, normally wearing a dark jacket, continually sniffing, bloodshot eyes and with a common disjointed question. "Need something?" they ask. "Eh?" I will reply, perplexed. "Something, I can help you with?". Well, I could do with someone removing a roadie from my room. Now, I like beer and I have a right hand substantially more muscular than my left but I just never got into drugs.

The other remarkable thing about Amsterdam is the ability to urinate in the street at your leisure. Across the district you will find green metal meshed pillar-boxes where your head and arse remain openly on view to the general public. You can stop and take a leak while talking to passers by about the weather. Now this is a novelty when away from home and drunk, but would it be the same if you were a local?

With your cock in hand and pissing into a metal bucket at 2oclock on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, along passes your Dentist. "Hi Danny, nice day Ja? See you tomorrow for that root canal". Bizarre.

In short, Amsterdam was brilliant and just what I needed. But the choice of either a having sex with 'Stefana' who had already entertained twelve sweaty beer-bellied builders by 11am or a young man from Thailand who had recently sold his penis on the internet to a paedophile from Wigan, did not appeal.

Still, the hippy didn’t pinch my wallet - just my fags. Bloody hippies!

Oh Jenny - Whatever next?

2009-09-11T03:53:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back I was out clubbing with my admin girl. An experience that left me both hot and cold. Having exchanged make up and saliva at the bar, I left the club rather promptly for two very good reasons:

1.It was almost in full view of all her work mates. Now, If you work in an office with hordes of over-imaginative twenty something women then you will know that the rumour on Monday morning will start out like this, "Oh my god, did you see who Jenny was kissing" and by the 10am coffee break, it will have transformed into this, "You’re joking, he actually gave her one in the ladies toilets". So, I had to cut my loses and get out before my promotion prospects were abruptly halted by the rumour treadmill.

2. I’m married of course! I would have taken great pleasure in dragging Jenny off to a female cubicle to show her my one-eyed panty python, but in fifteen years of torturous marriage I have never cheated on my wife. I’ve thought about it more than once and came close a few times but there is also two very good reasons why I haven't:

Firstly, my wife works for one of the largest law firms in the UK, and having been caught in the act, she would have bled me dry until I was left with only 3 buttons, a set of cufflinks and a cardboard box to keep me warm at night.

Secondly, how do you have sex with someone else when you have only ever had sex with the same woman for nearly 18 Years. Frankly, it’s a performance thing. My wife would take it like a true Convent girl. Lay back, think of England, and hope it would be all over quickly-it sometimes was.

Furthermore, even though she has two arms, two legs and facial expressions that during the day seem to work perfectly well, during sex a hormone must be released that incapacitates her, making her body incapable of moving or showing any sign of emotion. A few times I have had to stop and check her pulse just to make sure she hadn’t slipped into a coma.

Now it may well be that I am so catastrophically bad between the sheets that she temporarily flat-lines due to boredom or maybe she was born with the sex drive of a ninety year old bedridden Granny. The trouble is I don’t know. Put bluntly-I am too scared to find out!

To make matters worse, how will I remember what to do, where to put it. Will a potential lover call the police if I try to pot the brown instead of the pink - "It was an honest mistake officer, I haven’t done this since 1978!"

Anyhow, I was in the office kitchen a few days after the office 'do' making a cup of tea and in walked Jenny, looking lovely and wearing that cute smile of hers. I smiled back and asked how she was – it’s been strictly business since the tongue-tangling marathon. She was fine and asked me if I had a nice time the other night. I stumbled to get out some words fitting the event so took the easy option and said that I didn’t remember much-the drink you know. She replied, "Yeah, me too, I was so pissed. I can’t remember anything past ten oclock".

Aha! She knew that the saliva exchange took place after ten oclock and was ducking out. I bet she followed me into the kitchen just to get that line in. "Really", I said with a lump in my throat. A German Ace had just shot me down in textbook style and I hurtled towards the ground at breakneck speed, my face on fire with the onslaught of embarrassment. She was a fool, all she had to do was say 'I loved the hot hardcore kissing session we had, you were fantastic baby', and promotion would have been hers for the taking.

We exchanged glances and she walked out of the kitchen. "Oh. I do remember one thing", she said smiling. "You do?" I replied flippantly. She winked at me, laughed and closed the door. Suddenly my spitfire’s floundering engine re-started just before certain impact and screamed upwards. I think I’m on for another night out!

War of the Roses....Part 2 (Return of the Smoked Haddock)

2009-09-10T02:34:00.000-07:00

Having made a life size papier-mache replica of the Titanic from the hole punch dots I had swept out from my car, I decided the right thing to do was not retaliate. That would be childish. Seconds later I changed my mind and set about a plan that would amaze and excite any six year old child.

Fine. I just needed a bit of time to have a think about something suitable. It needed to be crafty and cunning. Nothing too unpleasant, but bad enough to provide me with hours of juvenile sniggering.

Unfortunately, before I knew it, it was 2-0 to Mrs Danzers. Having left my car to buy myself a full fat Latte at a service station, I returned and noticed that I was proudly displaying the words 'dickhead' on my rear bumper, embedded in the dirt. This was war.

My marriage is on and off like a pair of tarts knickers. One minute there is light, the next there is darkness and a few months ago during a pitch black period I strategically placed a large portion of smoked Haddock under the bonnet of my wife’s Audi. It sat perfectly on her engine and was positioned close enough to the air intakes to make her pride and joy smell like Grimsby docks within minutes.

She didn’t know it was me and it was nice to see her fury but not take the responsibility for a change, but this time I wanted her to know. It took her three weeks and two professional valets to clear the smell of rotting smoked fish. It truly did smell.

Panicking for ideas, it was time for the smoked Haddock to return. I took a trip to the supermarket and asked the fishmonger for the smelliest of all smelling smoked Haddock; and make it a large one. I placed the yellow peril in the bag and grinned uncontrollably for hours.

My work that day was affected by the constant deliberation about how I was going to get the horrid Haddock onto the engine. Last time it was easy, she was sunbathing in the garden tanning her orange peel. This time was more tricky.

That evening, I checked the oil in my car and then kindly asked if she would like me to check hers too. “You don’t need too, the car tells me”, she said indignantly. “Let me check anyway, better to be safe than sorry”. It was a feeble line and I felt nervous about my ability to pull it off, but it seemed to work and she agreed.

I checked the area for prying eyes and released the heavy Haddock from my pocket and placed it on the engine, pushing in tightly. I looked around again before closing the car bonnet making myself look even more suspicious than a raincoat-wearing pensioner in a public toilet, and shut the lid.

The night passed slowly, I was nervous and she was visibly suspicious. I considered retrieving the Haddock and trying another day but I had made my bed and I was sleeping in it.

The following morning I watched my wife drive off to work with a painful smile on my face. Did she see me, did she know, would she stab me in the left buttock later when I’m not looking.

I drove to work shortly afterwards and contemplated my fate, almost feeling a tinge of guilt. I was a bad husband.

As I approached work a terrible sense dawned upon me and I sniffed the air and then sniffed again. Oh my god! It was the most awful and overwhelming smell of a freshly cooked extra large portion of smoked fish, now wafting relentlessly through the air.

THE BITCH! She’d switched the Haddock!

War of the Roses....Part 1

2009-09-06T03:30:00.000-07:00

Things have turned a little nasty in the danzers household of late. Not vicious, just nasty.

It seems as though my wife was a tiny bit 'miffed' about my phone trap a little while back. She hasn’t mentioned it, but it’s been awkward at the dinner table. She knows I know she knows, and I know she knows I know she knows. Get it!

She read my text and was caught, but instead of putting up her evil dragon claw, admitting it and taking it like a silver tipped arrow to the heart, she has taken to a form of 'soft revenge'. What I mean by soft revenge is that she hasn’t cut up my Hugo Boss suits or replaced the kidney beans in my chilli with female hormone replacement tablets. No. A revenge that suits her personality: deceitful two-faced and yet cunning like a fox; hence she’s an accomplished Solicitor.

Alas, being a good Solicitor also means that it is more or less impossible for me, the dominant male, to win any argument even when the odds are stacked against her. If I were to find her in bed with the entire English Rugby team performing a sex act that even Lola Ferrari would have been ashamed of, I would still lose in Court on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour, ie: having disturbed her before climax.

I never really argue with her anymore. I have had my time being subjected to torturous interrogation and un-scrupulous cross-examination by a woman trained to make international terrorists whimper, I would simply run away and curl up in a ball in the showing, crying for hours.

OK. I get in my car. Seatbelt on, I start the engine and POW! Fifty billion tiny pieces of white paper engulf me, spewing out of the car air vents like Krakatoa, covering me from head to toe. After the initial shock, I look around dazed, spit out a few bits of paper and experience first hand what it must have been like for those poor souls in Pompeii. I pick up a handful of dust and admire the simplicity yet destructive nature of my wife’s crime.

Hole-punch paper. You know? The tiny bits of round paper that is left over in the bottom of a hole punch. Millions. She must have been a champion hole puncher to have got her grubby hands on this many. Her right hand must be aching more than mine ever would after a night in with a beer and a Debbie Does Dallas DVD.

I can’t believe the trouble she must have gone to. To have collected more tiny pieces of hole punch remnants than is produced annually by a small eastern European Country. Carefully placing it all in my air vents and then setting the climate control to full throttle when the engine is turned on.

Brilliant and calculated. If I didn’t dislike her so much it would have been almost laughable. To make matters worse, as I stepped out of the car and covered the whole County in a huge blanket of white paper snow, I saw the upstairs curtains move. She must have been laughing in her witches’ broth.

This calls for some more Steven Seagal movies......

The Phone Trap!

2009-09-04T01:49:00.000-07:00

Having gone on an office night out a few weeks ago smelling of Hugo Boss and returning smelling of Elizabeth Arden’s Provocative Woman, my wife was understandably a little suspicious - not that she mentioned it.

Given that she had recently been on an 'Mums night out' into town and returned at 3am from a club that closes at 12.30am, I was sure she wouldn’t question me in case it turned into a battle of denials and white lies about where we were and who we were with. Now, her delayed return could have been as innocent as visiting Arash at the Kebab shop and purchasing a large Doner and chips-who knows?

It’s been more uncomfortable than normal of late and apart from the surprise tongue interrogation from Jenny on the office night out, there is no need for my wife to be suspicious. After all, the curious slobbering mouth-to-mouth action was instigated by Jenny not me. I was happily drip-feeding watered down nightclub whisky into my arm when I was caught by surprise. I was the receiver not the giver, which in my book makes me the innocent party.

So, my mobile is being subject to external observation. Someone is reading my texts. How do I know? Having become suspicious of my phone moving around the house without any physical contact from myself, I quickly discounted a deceased ex 'Phones4U' poltergeist and put the blame firmly at the voluntarily celibate bedroom door of my wife.

Obviously my technique at reading texts was technically superior to hers, and if she was going to tamper with my mobile, she could have made it a little less obvious.

My plan to catch her out came to me while sat reading the 'Sunday Sport', a paper I had stopped reading when the Broadsheets had reduced to such a size that I could no longer hide it inside the Guardian while leaving the newsagents. My brother, a plumber by trade, left it at my house. He was fixing a bathroom leak, being in the building trade it was obligatory to have a copy on the dashboard of his van, along with a half eaten sausage roll.

Here is the plan. If I receive a text, the first few words of the texts appear before you open the message. Therefore, If I had a text saying, “Meet me later for a threesome big boy” my phone would show, ‘Meet me f…….’ And of course I would open it, read the full message, and reply that I was busy washing my hair. Most importantly, I know if the text had been read because the little envelope is open.

So, I sent a text to myself. Upon looking at the text messages on my phone it read: “I miss yo…..”. Perfect. I left the phone on the mantelpiece in the Lounge and drove to the local shop giving my wife an opportunity from heaven to inspect it.

Returning later, I took the phone and looked at the little envelope. It was open. The text read: “I miss you reading my texts only once a week, why don’t you try it everyday instead!".

I could be a teacher.....Couldn't I?

2009-09-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

Due to the fatigue of my midlife crisis I’m contemplating giving up work to become a Teacher. Obviously, I don’t intend to teach anyone over the age of 10 or anyone that smokes dog-ends behind the bike shed or boys with ginger hair. Not that I have a problem with ginger hair, I don’t.

Admittedly, I am mightily glad I don’t have the same colour hair as that adorned by my neighbours scruffy bedraggled Moggy. An annoying ginger feline, that seems to think that my garden was solely designed to accommodate its backside.

Apparently, ginger hair is a mutation genetically thrust upon some who may have been evil in a previous life. A friend of mine says that they should be entitled to disabled badges, but I don’t agree. In fact, I have some very nice flame haired friends. My wife says she would have never married a ginger bloke for fear of ginger kids, well she would have passed on her frigid gene, and that in my book, is far worse…

Anyway, my midlife crisis brings me to a career stand off. I have a nice house-until my wife gets it-and many of the material things I craved for as a youngster. So, with a bit of money tied up in an Icelandic bank, it might be time for a change.

My lips have become continually chapped from years of sucking up to my boss and agreeing repeatedly with all his dim-witted and stupid decisions in order to have that nice house and those material things in the first place. If I were a woman it would have been tantamount to having slept with the entire Board of Directors.

Teaching does offer some benefits as long as the children are of a certain age. Not so young that they crawl along the floor crying and dribbling, I’ve a Mother-in-law who does that, and not so old that they can answer me back or throw sharp objects at me when my back is turned. Also a class that requires no homework, so that I can spend term time on long spouse free holidays touring the vineyards of France.

In reality, teaching doesn’t pay I know, but I'm thinking of the real long-term benefits over working with smarmy corporate banking cocks. Term holidays every other week, lay-ins disguised as ‘teacher training days’, early evenings, copious tea breaks in the staff room wearing your favourite Hush Puppies and gossiping about little Timmy Taylor’s moustache wearing Mummy and all while smoking endlessly. Perfect!

Of course, things may have changed since I was at school. I bet you can’t smoke until a dense fog engulfs the staff room and the tasty art teacher no longer wears a Mexican Poncho but it’s still worth considering. .

Nightclubbing with my admin girl.....

2009-08-20T00:41:00.000-07:00

It turns out my admin girl does fancy me after all! Well, that’s my guess!

You see, it takes little persuasion for me to be enticed out of the house. Occasions are rare but usually result in me sitting in a boring pub discussing speed bumps or classic cars with a group of dumb-wits wearing tartan caps and a half dead, deaf, blind and equally as dumb, black Labrador squatting next to them.

So, when I was invited out on an impromptu office 'do' by my sweet and innocent admin girl (we can call her Jenny for now), it took approximately half a millisecond to say yes. It fact, I may have actually said yes before her invitation was even complete.

During the run up to the big night out, I felt as though Jenny was glancing at me and smiling willingly. If I caught her eye and she smiled it was not because she was being sociable to her boss, but because my weak-willed and feeble mind had been taken over by a pubescent schoolboy; she was really trying to tell me that she couldn’t wait to see me next Friday….

Friday came and even though Jenny had shown no prior indication of the slightest interest in a middle aged receding middle manager; I was still petrified of what might happen.

I had already decided how I would turn her down but feel great and self-congratulant that she had tried. This of course, would also need to take place in full view of all, so that I could bask in my own glory. The thought of turning down a girl of 26 was almost as satisfying as giving her a good seeing too. Well maybe not……

The evening rolled on and I started to feel a little uncomfortable and even stupid, surrounded by people half my age, dancing mindlessly, drinking small thimbles of blue sticky juice packaged as vodka and women seemingly in their underwear. What's more, I was unsurprisingly, being ignored by the very girl my imagination had assured me had a schoolgirl crush.

I went to the bar to order a whisky and let the reality of my foolish middle age conundrum wash over me. Here I was, in a nightclub full of rebellious teenagers spending a week’s wages on shots of sick inducing multi-coloured spirits and singing to music that had no apparent tune, reason or actual words!

I looked around and some initial relief turned to disbelief when I saw another man in the club about my age. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, tight black leather trousers, and what seemed like Moccasins. His dancing was so admired by these teenage tearaways that he was creating his own private space around him as he gyrated and gestured to every kind of music the DJ could throw at him in a bemusing ‘John Travolta’ style.

He was obviously the nightclub equivalent of the village idiot who really should have been back at home watching Mid-Summer Murders and so should I.

Seeing this was the shot in the neck I needed. My pubes grew back as fast as they had earlier retreated; I threw back my drink and headed for the exit. Out of the blue, Jenny grabbed me by the arm. She was bleary eyed and smelled of cheap perfume but as she smiled I felt bald down below again.

She spoke to me for a few moments but having asked her to repeat herself several times I became bored, agreed and nodded knowingly. “Yes”, I shouted, as if I could actually hear her tiny voice over the twenty thousand watt speaker sat next to me. Then she grabbed me by the back of the neck and slobbered over me.

Not as pleasant as I had hoped and I was now wearing almost as much make-up as her, but this was the shot in the neck that I needed.

My Wife and Shaun the Scaffolder....Part 3

2009-08-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable!

Having faked a heart attack and risked certain death, I found nothing. But I’m not convinced……

My Wife and Shaun the Scaffolder....Part 2

2009-08-12T08:26:00.000-07:00

It was 7am and the sun was shining fiercely through my bedroom. My wife was as ever, putting on the slap and getting herself ready for another triumphant day at the office, a simple 50-minute transformation!

I waited downstairs in the study for the moment to show its sorry face and it came like clockwork. She will dry her hair at exactly 7.30am and that little job will take about 10 minutes, on and off.

The key was this; while she is drying her hair she cant leave the room, it’s a military operation getting her blonde Medusa locks just right and feeding the snakes, but not as big a military operation as mine was going to be.

First blast on the blower and off I went like a missile, darting upstairs and rolling from a high altitude parachute jump into bedroom number two where she charges her mobile, and with one swift movement it was in my hand. The blower stopped.

This is where it could all go horribly wrong. While she is drying her hair, it's impossible to be in two places at once, but….

Off it went again and trembling like an alcoholic looking for whisky at a bottle bank I take off the battery and release the SIM. I’m behind schedule due to the trembles, but the battery is back on, phone looks normal, SIM in hand. I’m starting to sweat slightly but take an unhurried walk back down to the study like I don’t have a care in the world.

Blower on again, and I dash to the PC and fiddle endlessly with the stupid USB thingy. I’m panicking-it wont go in. Took a deep breath and its good to go. Ran the program. Download the info. Hey presto and back upstairs.

The dryer turns off and the door opens on the landing as I walk up the stairs looking like I’ve been on a ten mile hike (I should have trained for this first). “Have you seen my…..are you OK….are you having a heart attack?”. I’d bet she’d love that. “Mouth to mouth? - Oh not right now darling”. I appease her and the conversation stumbles as it usually does, and she goes downstairs. I have only seconds to get the SIM back in and the battery back in place before she comes back up again.

Then I remember, I left the computer screen on with the program results still showing, and she is just about to walk past it and immediately win in the divorce courts on the grounds of harassment, paranoia or both. I can only do one thing and call her back upstairs, but only to find me with her SIM card in one hand and the battery in the other.

I call her urgently. She comes up. I slot everything back into place with milliseconds to spare. My hearts pounding out of my chest and I fall exhausted to the floor in a red faced sweaty heap, hands uncontrollably trembling. “Oh my god” she says, “you really are having a heart attack……..”

My Wife and Shaun the Scaffolder....Part 1

2009-08-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve just turned private eye. It’s exciting, dangerous and I’m not sure I want to know the results of my investigation.

If I am going to leave my wife, then it will be me that has the affair, walks out with a canoe under my arm, or leaves my clothes on a beach at Yarmouth. But, it’s my wife, that’s acting very suspicious of late. Texts at all hours, quick trips to the local shops that take longer than a weekend in Devon and thongs! Yes. Thongs! I didn’t know my wife had any, let alone wore them.

Having discussed this with a couple of close pals, apparently this is a classic hallmark of an affair in progress. In fact, the only thing lacking to confirm this, is a fully re-invigorated sex life - well I never really had one in the first place so I can rule that one out.

And that brings me onto the point that concerns me the most. I’m told that affairs start with an explosion of sex and the messy things like who gets the kids and the CD collection comes a long way down the line. Well, my wife having explosive sex is about as likely as the Pope buying Asia Babes magazine.

So, here lies a quandary. If my wife is having explosive sex on Shaun the Scaffolders pole, I need to find out. So, my newly found love, the Internet, has turned up a few tantalising pieces of undercover ‘Simon Templar’ gadgets that will come in handy.

Having decided on the appropriate piece of equipment I set about a plan. So here it is, have you ever seen such a thing? It’s a SIM card reader, that once inserted into a PC, will read the last 20 deleted texts from a mobile phone. Fan-friggin-tastic.

This is going to be almost as much fun as when I accidentally placed a large portion of smoked haddock under her car bonnet. “I was really pissed off at the time!” She blamed it on someone at work. One of her understudy rivals she thought, jealous of her cold-blooded success.

The excitement slightly turned to fear while reading the instructions. In order to read the sordid texts between her and her waist-hanging tool bag lover, I would need to do the following without anyone noticing: find the offending phone, remove the SIM card-taking off the battery cover and place into a USB device. Then, take this to the PC, insert, and perform a 3-minute program that reads the SIM and places the info on my computer. Then, remove the SIM from the PC, return to the mobile phone and replace the battery.

WHAT! That is a 20-minute operation that even the SAS would turn their noses up at. My wife and her mobile phone are attached like Torvill and Dean. This will take some planning, but having recently watched a re-run of ‘Steven Seagal’ movies, I have an idea…..

The 'Mediterranean Diet'

2009-07-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

I started the Mediterranean diet years ago but I never actually new I was on it, until recently.

This wonderful diet can help treat the onslaught of midlife crisis disease. In fact for a while, usually for a few hours each evening it can dispel all symptoms completely. Most importantly, the so-called ‘Mediterranean Diet’ includes a large intake of red wine, and has been credited with lower rates of heart disease in those countries that drink tons of it.

So, this is not only good news overall, but apart from the odd Bordeaux drinking tramp, I must have the smoothest free flowing arteries in the Kingdom.

I’ve always loved red wine and it’s great to know that the more I drink the healthier I get. The boffins at some small Midlands University, no doubt funded by a California grape-growing consortium, say it appears to interfere with the production of a body chemical, which clogs up arteries and increases the risk of a heart attack. Phew!

Now having entered my forties, this information is very important to me and I’m not about to take any chances with this ‘moderation crap’. Let’s get stuck in and free up those veins.

For me, the benefits of red wine out-way the risks completely. The first glass tastes great and makes my wife bearable and my kids tolerable. By the second glass, the kids are in bed and my midlife crisis disease symptoms are easing away nicely.

The third glass, my veins are almost cholesterol free, my wife is marginally attractive to me and I’m starting to think maybe my boss does have a personality and I should try harder tomorrow.

If there is a fourth glass, and there usually is, it can go either way. I could start chatting happily away to my wife about the day’s tribulations like we were happily married (she needs to be pissed too). Alternatively, and more often, my wife becomes the most annoying creature on the planet (it’s not a huge metamorphosis), I’m suddenly paying for a black sports car by credit card on Autotrader, trying to re-live a time in youth when I couldn’t have afforded one but would have looked a lot less stupid sat in one, and I’m struggling to spell mid-life crisis.

I love drinking red wine and I’m only prepared to stop when the experts say it’s bad for me or I tell a complete stranger that I love them and start crying.

The Aliens Have Landed!

2009-07-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

The village where I live is pleasant, quiet, and low in traffic pollution. Five miles away is the nearest town. It is not pleasant, quiet, and low in traffic pollution. On a recent visit I noticed something peculiar. Aliens had taken over the town. Yes aliens!

The first wave started early in the morning with a few human looking types wearing reflective jackets operating under the guise of council workmen. They were digging dubious holes by the side of the road and this was without doubt the preparatory hideouts or lairs for the incoming invaders. These ‘workmen impostors', were so convincing that they even had lunch breaks spanning hours and left there cones unattended for days under the pretence of ‘men at work’.

Weeks later when their job was finally done, across the town, the aliens arrived, as predicted. Not exactly as advanced as I was hoping and the provisions I had made at home of six months supply of bottled water and canned baked beans may not have been necessary.

With a large yellow square head, one evil eye staring unflinchingly and standing awkwardly on a single leg, the aliens slowly and clandestinely came to life zapping all in their path. They were just like my 'legal eagle' wife, cold and calculated and picked on the vulnerable, those that had money in their pockets but would not bother defending themselves. It was, “the invasion of the speed cameras”.

My local town had surcome to their seductive powers of extracting cash from the middle classes while driving down a dual carriageway, coincidently and without prior warning, re-classed as a 40 mph limit.

The aliens had been strategically placed, not outside a school or a busy pedestrianised side street, but on a main un-urbanised, non-pedestrian thoroughfare into town, on the basis that there was once an accident on that very road involving a horse-drawn carriage and a rabbit in 1876.

Now why would one place a speed camera on a dual carriageway going into town ‘immediately after’ the speed limit reduces from 70mph to 40mph and not in the place where the alleged carriage/rabbit incident occurred? Let me guess!

More bizarrely, one of the other cameras is positioned on the opposite carriageway located just a yard or two before the 40mph increases to 70mph. They are so obviously and unashamedly placed in such a way as to generate revenue-on the pretence of road safety-that it would have been just as easy to place a Council ‘highwayman’ on the side of the road demanding, “your money or you licence”.

Being in the throws of a deep and invigorating midlife crisis I have decided to buy a chainsaw and rubber lined boots.

What a Lovely Boating Holiday!

2009-07-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

Due partly to the recession and partly for the misguided need to be seen to do the right thing, I decided to holiday in the UK. My wife was not impressed. Nor was I when I looked at the choices on offer. Warner, Butlins, Hoseasons. God, we need to move on.

Well, a boating holiday seemed novel, but it is not possible to call a boating holiday a ‘boating holiday’ when you see the abomination that the Norfolk Broads call leisure craft. Built from pieces of old timber picked up from a local farm and built by a Norfolk infant school as a half-term research project.

Only the bow gave it away, the rest was simply a garden shed with double-glazing that floats - just. The broads has a top speed of 5mph but frankly, if you could get one of these floating 60s box-rooms to go that fast, I would happily give you my life’s savings.

I was enticed by the front page of the brochure showing an Ambramovich style super-yacht in gleaming white and black. On inspection of the following pages, my wife, a Solicitor, was drawing up the ‘misrepresentation’ lawsuit papers.

So, we sifted through the brochure and finally chose a suitable Royal blue and white 1950’s reject called ‘Sampson of the seas’ or something. The only ‘few’ boats that somewhat resembled a real leisure craft were booked up until 2025.

The consolation prize was that our boat had a ‘full sliding canopy’ over the ‘saloon’. What is a saloon exactly? Am I boating or in a Western.

The advantage of having a full sliding canopy seemed to be, that while you are eating your dinner, you could completely expose yourself to the unpredictable British elements and hordes of other ‘boaters’ who will mock your choice of shed. Furthermore, the thought of having dinner while being ogled and shot at with water pistols by Trevor and Lisa and six smelly kids from a run down council estate, did not enthral me.

The rocking of the boat constantly annoyed my wife, in particular at night. Maybe she thought we would be in dry dock, I don’t know? The overwhelming benefit to this was that while she felt a little sea sick it stopped her talking (or nagging depending on your perspective).

On one occasion I was sent out to try to find some seasick tablets from a local shop. Having found them, it seemed a terrible shame to upset the peace by getting her talking again, so I calmly placed them back on the shelf and returned. “You would have thought a shop next to the river would have sold them” I said apologetically and empty-handed.

What a lovely holiday it turned out to be.

My Wife is a Prostitute....

2009-07-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

I’ve been offered sex!

It was my wife. So, that’s puts some perspective on it. What’s the big deal. How does that make my wife a prostitute?

You see. If you are married and you have been for a while. Lets say, over a month or so, sex becomes a novelty, a treat, £10 found behind the sofa. A hidden treasure chest buried deep underground on a remote desert island only to be discovered after weeks of digging, planning and considerable manipulation i.e. you do the washing up a few times, clean her car and say she looks great for no apparent reason.

So, there you have it-married sex in a nutshell. Hang on a minute! Marital sex is no hidden treasure. It’s a treasure chest alright but, it will only open up and let you touch its little gems when its good and ready and no matter how much planning, scheming and half-hearted compliments (her arse is big after all), that chest will only open up when she wants it to.

I have a view on married sex, it may be warped, but many agree and its based on fact or experience, whichever takes your fancy.

Here goes. Let’s suppose, for a minute, the first scenario:

You get home from work and you’re in the mood for some xxx action. Maybe you’ve been talking to the new sandwich girl at work and you got yourself worked up. (In my experience most sandwich girls I’ve met look like Russian shot-putters, but it’s only a scenario, right). Pack the kids off to her Mothers. A little peck on the cheek. A little make or break compliment, usually about what a great cottage pie she made for dinner, it’s a lie but go with the flow. Agree with everything she says. Pour some wine and BINGO. Nope! She’s not really in the mood tonight. Thanks all the same.

Ok. Let’s take a look at this. Same evening. Same time. Same place. Different scenario:

Pack the kids off to her Mothers. (So good so far). Take her for a nice meal. Her favourite restaurant, she can have whatever she wants. Tell her she looks great at least three times, but not all within 5 minutes, you’re not so sure about the hair, but keep it to yourself. Buy more wine (but don’t get her pissed, nothing worse than having sex with a dead weight!). Order desert. I recommend profiteroles-it works for me. Champagne? Hell why not, you’re on a roll-go for Asti Spumante, she’ll never know. Get a taxi home. Don’t walk–she’ll be knackered when you get in. Another glass of wine when you get back. Another compliment for the road, definitely something about how great she looks and how lucky you are, who knows it might actually be true. Foreplay? That should only take a minute. Off to bed and BINGO. Yes BINGO. Double bingo, if you were twenty years younger.

So, lets look at the facts.

Scenario No1: Spend nothing – get nothing.

Scenario No2: Lets see, meal, wine, profiteroles, Asti, taxi and more wine (the compliments came free of charge). Well, that little lot would have set you back £100.

Conclusion: Would have only cost £50 in the right part of town and you would have still been home in time for the football!

The Funfair and Chavs....

2009-06-28T07:17:00.000-07:00

I’ve been to the funfair, the wife, and two kids in tow. The funfair is great. I love it. But have you noticed how funfair rides no longer take old-fashioned hard cash. Nope. They only take tokens. Now why is that?

Well, lets see. Would you go on a fairground ride that looked like it was built by the Soviets and maintained by an Irish Tarmac Gang? Thought not. But, what about if it was only 4 tokens a ride. Four measly tokens. That doesn’t sound so bad after all.

So, I bought twenty tokens for £10. Sounds very reasonable and I was always fond of those Irish lads with a bit of extra tarmac left over from another job.

My boy was desperate to go on the rollercoaster. My daughter was not so keen but being 2 years older was not about to be upstaged by her sickly kid brother. Me, being considerably older, I was quite happy about being upstaged by two scruffy kids, no problem there. Unfortunately, neither was old enough to ride without the supervision of a suitable blood-rush donor. The wife wants to ride too, what fun!

Strapped to the back of a 40mph rusted cart, built on a track that even Stephenson would have been concerned with, masquerading as safe, fun, family entertainment.

“16 tok’ins please mayte”! Why is it, no matter where you are in the UK every fairground ride attendant speaks with a south London accent. Mind-boggling! Now the token system starts to make sense. Having tokens means that you don’t feel like you are being fleeced for 8 quid for one ride. What do you do with the remaining 4 tokens, 2 screaming kids and nagging wife? Buy more tokens. Brilliant!

Chips! (You don’t get French fries at the funfair). “Freshly cut every day”. You can’t argue with that. Until you taste them. Funfair chips, freshly cut every day, maybe, but not necessarily used for as couple of months. Sour ice cream. Chewy candyfloss. Grab a teddy machine’s, which never quite made it through the quality control checks. Those grabbers! I’ve seen more strength in the fist of an old age pensioner with Parkinson’s. One tiny shabby teddy made by a disabled Korean Grandmother in 1976, cost me £7 in 20p coins.

The most interesting bit about the funfair is the sudden change of clientele at about 4pm. Off go the families for tea and the teenage couples head off for the back seat of a 10 year old Ford Fiesta. In come Dean and Tracy from Mandela House and the White Swan Estate. Dean with his top shirt tied around his waist showing off his beer tub torso, tattoos of his football team logo and an ex called Lisa forever, on his forearm. Not to mention a strut the size of a tall ship in rough seas.

She, with a copper bronze fake tan from Pound Stretcher and ten pounds of McDonalds saturated fat hanging over the top of her two sizes, too small jeans. Nice. My Daughter tells me they are called Chavs.

I love the funfair.

A Secret Admirer?

2009-06-21T07:39:00.000-07:00

One of my admin girls fancies me!

All the signs are there. She has it bad. She smiles when she sees me. Laughs at my crap jokes. Does exactly what I ask of her. Never complains. Always willing. Makes me tea for no reason, she just does it. It’s been going on for weeks. What a girl!

You’re thinking: she’s my admin girl and therefore, is paid to be willing, laughs at my jokes because I’m her boss and makes me tea because she is fishing for promotion. NEVER. If I were her age, 26, I wouldn’t have noticed, she isn’t my type.

When you are 40 something and suffering from midlife crisis disease, everyone who shows a fleeting interest potentially fancies you, and everyone is ‘your type’ and she is……

You have to remember that while at home with the wife, the only attention I get is when something around the house needs fixing or she needs some money for new clothes. Let me clarify, ‘attention ’, doesn’t mean sex. No, No. I’d have to buy her a new car for that or try out my ‘prostitute theory’ as mentioned in another post.

Back to my admin girl: Single. Blonde. A fan of heavy make up, in fact, when she says she puts her face on in the morning, I think she ‘literally ’ does.

In reality, where I occasionally visit, I can’t have an affair with her. a. Because she doesn’t actually fancy me, it’s all a wicked trick of the mind designed to make me feel good. b. She works for me. Never poke the payroll! Oh and I nearly forgot. c. I’m married with 2 kids, not that that has stopped half the population in the past. Why should I be any different?

I have this strange feeling people in the office are laughing at me while I sub-consciously (or consciously), flirt, smile and pretend I’m a fun, happy-go-lucky middle aged guy who never really grew up (sad Muppet in other words). I start laughing at her jokes even when she hasn’t made any. I’m embarrassing myself. Yet, I can’t stop....

Is it possible that a 26 year old would fancy a 40 something openly having a crisis, mentally and physically? She might feel sorry for me and I could capitalise on this. Maybe she’s after promotion. Would I shag my admin girl if I knew it was purely for financial and personal gain-on her behalf? Hell yes. I’m having a mid-life crisis after all!