The Everything's Not Shit Tour: May December Home

I am repeatedly surprised and amazed that so many complete strangers are offering to spread the word about my blog and book. May December Home is my latest stop.

It is remarkable also quite how diverse these various blogs are. It seems that everyone wants to celebrate the nice things in life.

And that is just how it should be.

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: Damian McNicholl

Damian McNicholl is a fellow Friday Project author, his book A Son Called Gabriel is published next year and looks great. He is my host today over at his blog. As a Northern Irish ex-pat living in the States his blog is a fascinating read.

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: Shedworking

The fine upstanding chap that is Alex at Shedworking posted a leg of my world tour and I didn't actually mention it here. Terribly rude of me and I shall make amends forthwith.

Internet Community

One thing the internet has brought back into many of our lives is a sense of community. It may be a shame that this huge impersonal technological beast was the catalyst for this rediscovery but that would be a petty quibble – it is nice to have it back.

Newsgroups, discussion forums, message boards, support sites, chat rooms, blogs, MySpace, social networking, there are a myriad of sites that invite our involvement. We are communicating with large groups of individuals on a daily basis and, on the whole, our lives are being enriched as a result.

On Amazon, other readers will tell you what they thought of the books they bought and you can see what other titles they like to read. On social networking sites people are brought together based on their interests, the music they like, the places they visit etc. Support forums can be saviours. I recently had a problem with my laptop, posted a question on a computer support forum and 6 people quickly responded with suggestions and advice. Two of them kept helping out, offering detailed step-by-step instructions, until the issue was resolved. I have never met these people, I don’t even know their real names. They had nothing to gain from helping out, it was just a nice thing to do.

Sailing By

If you have ever been awake in the wee small hours and listening to Radio 4 then you will know this piece of music. Sailing By was composed in 1963 by Ronald Binge and is played at the end of domestic broadcast schedule each night, just before Radio 4 hands over to the World Service. It has lulled millions to sleep over the years, many of whom were up in arms when it was taken off air in 1993. The natural order of things was reinstated two years later when the powers that be saw sense and brought it back on to the schedule.

First Snow Of Winter

A few years ago I was working in an office in a fairly dull area just outside London. It was an unremarkable day and the clock was ticking slowly. And then it started to snow, a real blizzard. Within a few minutes the car park was full of every Australian, New Zealander, African and South African that worked in the building. They were outside throwing snowballs and building snowmen with huge beaming grins and increasingly red noses. For many of them this was the first time they have ever seen snow. It took me back to my childhood (I am sure it snowed more then) and reminded me of the excitement of the first snow of winter.

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: Mother At Large

Will it never end? I hope not. The world tour continues with a visit to Mother At Large, a fellow Friday Project author.

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: Thriving

And here I am again at the official blog of thriving.org, a lovely organisation that I have mentioned on these pages before.

You can read my conversation with Tessy and find out how I deal with groupies.

Japanese Cool Stuff

The rest of the world looks on in wonder at the weird, wonderful and just plain cool stuff that comes out of Japan. Whether it be computer electronics (it was the country that bought us Space Invaders and almost every other major computer game development since) or green tea flavoured Kit-Kats, robot dogs or manga, Japan churns out the most amazing things. We look on from afar, slightly amused but secretly quite jealous.

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: Girl Friday

I am really milking this thing for all it is worth with an appearance at my publisher's blog. Clare Christian founded The Friday Project in 2005 and has searched the web ever since to find great ideas for books.

Presumably she was having an off day when she signed me.

Anyway, if you nip over to her blog and correctly predict which of a list of ten entries from the book is my absolute favourite then you can win a prize. Lucky you.

Britain's Grumpiest Celebrity: The Vote

Who do you think is the grumpiest celebrity in Britain? Just select from the list below (and you can pick more than one if you want) to have your say. And your vote counts. The top ten in a month's time will all be sent a copy of my book to cheer them up. Lucky blighters.

more at twiigs.com...

Jumping The Queue

Legitimately, of course. You know what it is like. A trip to the supermarket for a loaf of bread or some loo roll and you are stuck in a winding queue for the till behind an old lady who appears to be doing her annual shop or stocking up for a nuclear attack. You start to think of ways you can make a sandwich without bread or alternatives to toilet paper as you really cannot be bothered to wait so long and then the woman in front spies your paltry load and allows you in front of her. Soon everyone else follows suit and, before you know it, you are pocketing your change and waving your thanks to everyone as you wend your merry way full of love for your fellow man (and woman).

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: Sarah Salway

The hospitality of fellow bloggers has been one of the most heartwarming things about my virtual book tour and today I am being hosted by the author Sarah Salway. I have been on my best behaviour. Hope you enjoy it.

Don't forget, if you would like to host a leg of the tour just drop me a line at stevestack@hotmail.co.uk.

Taiwanese Notebook Slogans

Not just Taiwan actually, this is a trait of notebooks all over the Far East. Manufacturers of stationery in this part of the world like to put cheerful happy slogans on notepads, and they tend to do it in English. All of those listed below are actual slogans from notebooks and pads, I am not making any of them up.

Whatever you write on them is bound to be bright and happy.

The earth gave me dream and one lovely racoon, I know I was the luckiest man alive.

Hopes me to open the eye form the morning, goes to sleep until the evening, one all is all day fills happiness and the hope.

May the lucky star keep shining on you. A smile walked with a friend contains only a hundred steps.

If you want, I’ll be the wind for your stifling heart.

In this peaceful time I say your name, the wind answers and smile.

Owning this is one of my greatest enjoyments.

Wishing you a day that begins and ends on a delightful time.

The good mood is a vitamin pill for the soul.

There appears to be no commercial reason for doing this, they are just there. Beats a trip to Rymans any day.

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: Three Beautiful Things

The Three Beautiful Things blog shares much the same philosophy as my own, only it is far more poetic and inspiring than my effort. So it makes me very proud to be able to stage the next leg of my ongoing world domination tour at the site.

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: Caroline Smailes

Caroline Smailes, author of the remarkable debut novel In Search Of Adam, is the host of the next leg in my world tour. She has posted up a series of emails we sent each other on the subject of happy things and sad things.

Read all about it at her wonderful blog.

Poppy Day

There are only a handful of people walking this earth who fought during the First World War and every year that passes leaves us with fewer survivors of the Second. In today’s cynical and materialistic culture it perhaps wouldn’t be surprising to see the younger generation ignore Remembrance Day but given the numbers of teenagers and children who wear their poppies with pride we can be safe in the knowledge that, even when all those brave men and women are gone, we will remember them.

The Archers' Theme Tune

Tum ti-tum ti-tum ti-tum
tum ti-tum ti ta tum

Even if you don’t listen to The Archers, or even Radio 4, you can probably hum the opening bars of the theme tune. One of the most instantly recognisable pieces of music in contemporary culture, it has heralded the start of this agricultural soap opera since it began in 1950. A particularly joyful ditty, Billy Connolly once suggested it should be adopted as the UK’s national anthem.

The original composition is called Barwick Green, written by Arthur Wood. It is taken from his suite My Native Heath where it features as a maypole dance. And perhaps that explains the enduring appeal: to have a jaunty country tune explode onto the airwaves immediately after a depressing news report can put the supposed ills of this world into perspective.

Letter Writing

Sort through your post on any morning, throw out the junk mail, put the bills to one side, and what are you left with? Probably nothing. As little as ten years ago, your postman would have been delivering letters, not Boden catalogues.

If you are unfamiliar with letters, they are a form of communication involving the written word. Normally an individual would write down some thoughts and news onto sheets of paper using a pen, pop it into an envelope and send to a friend or relative, or anyone else they cared to correspond with. It was a bit like an email, only slower.

I am a staunch defender of the internet but there is one big drawback: people hardly write letters anymore. Finding a handwritten letter on your doormat is as rare as a four-leaf clover or spotting a red squirrel anywhere other than the Isle Of Wight.

Email and instant messaging has made communication quicker and easier than ever before and has removed the need for letters at all in many cases. This is a real shame as there are few pleasures more personal than writing a letter, or receiving one for that matter. We must all know at least one person who would appreciate a short note through the post, if we all wrote one after reading this entry then we would be passing on a small piece of friendliness.

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: I Beati

Now this is quite exciting. I have been offered a residency at the inspiring I Beati blog. I will be appearing regularly there between now and Christmas. I hope to see you there.

Oh, and next Monday I will be guesting at the Three Beautiful Things blog, so mark that in your diaries.

Future appearances include trips to see Caroline Smailes, Clare Christian, Damian McNicholl, Mother At Large and Sarah Salway. Dates to be confirmed asap.

This is all rather fun.

Last Page Of A Good Book

Ideally we are talking well over 600 pages, perhaps pushing a thousand. Something epic, a tome which has taken weeks and months to complete. Think The Iliad, think Ulysses, think Proust. The sense of achievement, the depth of knowledge and poetry you have absorbed, the selfish pleasure at actually having completed it, is immense. You can keep your marathons and your cross-channel swims, give me Don Quixote any day.

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: Phat Beats and Shiny Paper

And the tour bus moves on to the really rather attractive and delightful surroundings of the Phat Beats and Shiny Paper blog. Eri, my host, has done a wonderful job of sprucing up my Q&A sessions and making it look darn interesting. I hope you can pay it a visit and I am pretty sure you will bookmark her site once you do.

Onwards and upwards.

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: Blooking Central

OK, so not strictly a tour date but I make an appearance at the Blooking Central blog today. Call it an impromptu acoustic set if you like. A bit of busking.

The Everything's Not Shit Tour: Writing In A Vacuum

So, the virtual tour is off and running with a Q&A session at Jon Mayhem's blog. Do pop over.

What Happens On Tour Stays On Tour

I am going on tour.

In the coming days and weeks the Steve Stack roadshow will be appearing at a variety of blogs and websites. I shall be spreading the word that life is really not all that shit after all.

If you are interested in hosting a leg of this momentous tour then drop me a line!

Harold & Maude

A 20-something young man with an obsession for death. A woman pushing 80 with a thirst for life. They meet. They fall in love. They end up in bed together. You know, the typical rom-com.

Harold & Maude was released in 1971 and was a commercial flop but in the nearly 40 years since then it has been elevated to classic status. The US Library Of Congress selected it for preservation in 1997.

If you have never seen this film then get off your backside and do so soon, it will change the way you look at life. If you have then you are probably smiling right now at the thought of it.

Do Me A Favour

As of yet, no one has reviewed my book on Amazon. I know that the book is selling quite well and that quite a few of those sales are through Amazon.

Do me a favour, if you are feeling charitable, pop on over to my book's page on Amazon and stick up a review. It would be nice to see what people think of it.

Thanks. Happy Sunday!

Journey Home

The greatest journey on earth is not the Trans-Siberian Railway, or trekking across the Himalayas. Nor is it being pulled in a sled by huskies through the Arctic wastes, or to the Galapagos and its isles of wonder. The greatest journey on earth is the one that takes you home. Simple as that.

The Sound Jelly Makes

Onomatopoeia is a wonderful concept but no word has been invented that can adequately describe the sound that jelly makes when it comes out of the mould, or when the first spoonful is dished out.

Thlurp!
Schlorb!
Floomp!

See, it can’t be done.

Good Hair Days

We hear a great deal about Bad Hair Days but these are, thankfully, few and far between. It is their scarcity which ensures they are remarked upon. Which means that the majority of days must be Good Hair ones. We should stop and celebrate that once in a while in our own small ways.

Signed Books

STOP PRESS. How about this for a Christmas present? I will personally sign a copy of my book with any message or dedication that you wish and send it to you, or a chosen recipient, with free postage. You can make the message as pleasant, rude or insulting as you like. 'Cheer up you grumpy bastard' may be one way to go, 'Merry Christmas my miserable husband' may be another. It doesn't have to be rude, of course, but if it is going to be then have fun with it!

There is a Google checkout button below which enables you to pay safely by credit card. The price is £9.99. Just specify when you order what message you would like me to write. Or email me at stevestack@hotmail.co.uk if you prefer.

Britain's Grumpiest Celebrity: The Nominations

Your blogger needs you!

In the coming weeks I am going to conduct a poll to find Britain's grumpiest celebrities. Anyone who visits this blog can nominate a celebrity, politician, or well-known person they would like to see on the list and I will then set up an online vote to determine the winner. I was thinking of having about 30 celebs to choose from and then the Top 10 would each receive a copy of It Is Just You, Everything's Not Shit for Christmas to cheer them up a bit.

So at the moment I am just seeking nominations. Please leave a comment with one or more suggestions and then I will set up an online vote. All in good fun, of course.

To get the ball rolling here are a few I have thought of already:

Gordon Ramsay
Jeremy Paxman
John Humphrys
Peter Allen
Sheila Hancock
Janet Street Porter

All nominations very welcome!

Inbox

I am delighted, and not a little proud to report that I received this letter in the post last week. I have sent copies of my book to many of the people featured and hearing back from this particular individual was a great thrill. I will kid myself that he is keeping his copy in his loo.

Sir David Attenborough

Sir David Attenborough is worthy of two entries in this book - one for his remarkable body of work and another for the wonderfully soothing effect of his voice – but I shall combine both here.

He has been broadcasting on television since 1954 and his career since then has spanned 20 separate series, with a 21st currently in production, and countless individual documentaries. His perceptive, empathetic and enthralling commentary to each of these programmes has been one of the major factors in their enduring quality and generations of children and adults have grown up listening to his voice. He has informed, educated and delighted an entire nation.

Discovering Water

There is a sudden rush of pleasure when you accidentally come across a stretch of water. You are out walking through the countryside and find a pond or stream that you weren’t expecting, or better still a lake or river (although if it is the latter then you really need to hone up your map reading skills). I was once walking the grounds of a stately home and found a waterfall, a good 30 feet tall, that I had no idea was going to be there. Magical.

Lenticular Stuff

When I was a child I used to have a lenticular ruler. A 12 inch strip of flexible plastic with pictures of dinosaurs. When you moved it from side to side the dinosaurs raised their heads, walked to the left, munched on some leaves or attached an unwitting victim. It would keep me amused for ages and it is a proven scientific fact* that males of all ages are magnetically attracted to anything that displays a lenticular effect.

Technology has since taken lenticular engineering to new heights and it isn’t just rulers nowadays, oh no, you can get huge advertising billboards that appear to move as you walk past them. You can usually spot these from a distance due to the number of adult males moving repeatedly backwards and forwards in front of them.

The way lenticular images work is by splicing two or more pictures together and arranging them in sequence behind a screen of prisms (usually just shaped plastic). The prisms refract the light so that the viewer can only see one complete picture at a time, but as the object moves through the field of vision, the other images slowly appear and create an animation effect.

*Of course it isn’t, but I bet I’m right.

Dunking Biscuits

Forget the cure for cancer or life in outer space, what scientists really need to be spending their time doing is working out the best method for dunking biscuits. And thank god they have.

Or should we? Whilst I rejoice in the idea that some boffin somewhere has wasted thousands of pounds of research grants calculating the precise formula for dunking perfection – the world needs such whimsy – it turns out that their findings are completely useless.

Get this; Dr. Len Fisher from the University Of Bristol ran not one, but two separate experiments into the Physics Of Biscuit Dunking. The first was on method, the second on flavour. Here’s what he found:

The ideal way to dunk a biscuit is to do so horizontally. By this, he means literally lowering the biscuit flat into liquid so that only the underneath is dunked. You remove it and quickly flip it upside down so that the undunked half supports the wet portion.

As for flavour, the best drink to dunk in is milk (hot or cold) and not tea or coffee. A good milk drink increases the flavour by a factor of 10. Apparently he also worked out that dunking in lemonade reduces the flavour. No shit Sherlock.

Both of these results are, as you are no doubt aware, utter tosh. Dunking biscuits is always to be done by dipping the biscuit vertically, immersing half of the solid into the hot liquid, and then rushing the whole thing to your mouth before it drops off. And the only drink worthy of dunking into is a nice cup of tea. You don’t need a fancy degree and a white coat to work that out.

Church Bells

I don't care what religion you are. The sound of church bells on a bright spring morning is a joy to the ears.

Hotel Breakfasts

Not the room service ones, they cost more and you get a finite amount. I am talking about the breakfast buffets in the restaurant. Typically these comprise a range of fruit juices, yoghurt, cereals, muesli, fruit salad, croissants, Danish pastries, toast, cold cuts, bacon, sausages, beans, scrambled egg, hash browns, tomatoes, black pudding, mushrooms, tea or coffee. And here is the thing – you can eat as much as you want. Take a plate, fill it up, and go back time and time again. Go about the task properly and you won’t need to eat again for a week.

Pyramid Tea Bags

The single greatest engineering feat in the history of tea and cake.

Pyramids

The single greatest engineering feat in the history of mankind.

Watching Television Sideways

This almost always means you have managed to convince your parents that you are sick and they have plonked you on the sofa with a glass of Lucozade and some dry toast. A whole day of television awaits you, all of it viewed while lying down. Some of the best days of my childhood were spent in this way.

Cancelled Meetings

You are snowed under at work, your inbox is full of unread emails and messages with red exclamation marks next to them, you haven’t had time for lunch and you have a meeting you don’t want to go to starting in half an hour.

Then a miracle happens. The boss’ PA calls to tell you that, for reasons you are too giddy with excitement to hear, the meeting has been cancelled. Suddenly your whole afternoon opens up before you like a beautiful summer field full of daisies. You feel like running barefoot through the car park and jumping for joy. Well, sort of.

It Has Arrived!

Oh. My. God.

It is finally here.

Hot off the press is the actual finished copy of my book.

It is real. I haven't been imagining it at all.

I am quite lost for words.

Almost.

I have no idea how the book will fare with the general public but I hope it strikes a chord with some and proves to be at least mildly popular. The bookshops seem quite keen. Asda, Smiths, Waterstone's and Borders have all ordered it for their Christmas promotions and The Friday Project are printing 30,000 copies.

I hope they don't get them all back.

Wish me luck.

As a special thank you to the regular readers of the blog I have three spare copies that I would love to sign and send to anyone who enjoys my witterings. Just drop me a line at stevestack@hotmail.co.uk and it would be my pleasure to send you one.

Although if you also want to buy it in the shops it will help keep me in biscuits.

Rubber Band Balls

Starting them off is a bit tricky but it is worth the hassle as no one actually needs a whole packet of rubber bands for legitimate office use so you've got to find something to do with them. With a little bit of patience and more time on your hands than you know what to do with you can wind rubber bands around each other and slowly create a monster. The largest rubber band ball in the world, as far as I can work out, was made by John Bain and its stats are as follows:

• Weight: 3,120 lbs
• Height: 5 ft
• Circumference: 15.1ft
• # Of Rubber Bands: 850,000

Now that man can die happy, knowing he has created something truly wonderful.

Sharpening A Pencil With A Knife

Perhaps it is the way it harks back to older and simpler times but for some reason sharpening a pencil with a knife, rather than a dedicated pencil sharpener, is curiously comforting and satisfying. The beveled, grooved finish; the tapered point; the shape of the lead - all of these things are unique when you whittle. OK, so you can't have competitions with yourself to create the longest unbroken pencil shaving but the pride in a job well done, and one you have crafted with your own hands and caveman skill, is pleasure enough.

Naps

There is a period of your life, between the ages of 5 and 35, when naps play no part in your daily routine. Outside of that they are little oasis of calm that punctuate the day. I am looking forward to reaching my sixties so that I can have even more of them.

Free Hugs

One afternoon in 2004, at the Pitt Street Mall in Sydney, Australia, a young man walks up and down holding up a sign saying simply FREE HUGS in big black letters. After prolonged initial scepticism he eventually persuades someone to give him a hug and than a chain reaction unfolds with dozens of complete strangers hugging him, and each other. The participants are eventually removed from the mall by security men but they fight back with a petition and end up with 10,000 signatures demanding the right to free hugs.

The whole sequence of events was filmed by a video camera and then set to music. The resulting clip was uploaded onto YouTube and within weeks had been downloaded over 10 million times. It became an internet phenomenon and inspired similar campaigns throughout the world.



The individual who started it all, he goes by the pseudonym Juan Mann, has since set up a charity called Free Help which tries to bring together people who need assistance for a variety of problems and those able to help for no charge.

The Free Hugs campaign shows how one man standing in the middle of a shopping mall with a piece of cardboard can spread his message around the world. To do my little bit, I will ask you to hug the next person you see. Go on.

Reasons To Be Glad

I am honoured to have been asked by the nice people behind the Thriving website and blog to judge a photographic competition. Called Reasons To Be Glad it has been inspired by Isabel Losada's book of the same name and is designed to celebrate the things it life that are bleedin' marvelous.

More details to follow but rest assured I will keep you informed.

Oh, and the guy behind Purple Ronnie is another judge so I am in illustrious company. Just hope I am up to the task.

Pudding Club

In 1985 a group of friends, fed up at being offered Black Forest Gateau and defrosted cheesecake at the end of meals in restaurants, founded a society to bring back the great British pudding.

The Pudding Club is based at the Three Ways House Hotel in Mickleton, Gloucestershire and opens its doors to members and non-members alike. Diners will be treated to a very light main course, perhaps a small pasta dish or salmon with new potatoes, but then the real proceedings will commence. Seven gigantic puddings are paraded in front of the assembled guests, followed by vats of custard. The puds will vary from session to session but you can expect the traditional Sticky Toffee, Spotted Dick and Syrup Sponge alongside less well-known dishes such as Sussex Pond.

Diners are allowed as many helpings as they want, but they must finish what is in their bowl before embarking upon a new course. It can be quite a struggle, but it is bloody well worth it.

Always Love by Nada Surf

Rock music and philosophy rarely mix well, but this is a great song with a wonderful sentiment.



I also like this acoustic version.

Guessing Quiz Show Answers Correctly

“1934!”

“Norman Foster!”

“Bananas”

“Magnesium!”

If you shout answers at the screen often enough and with confidence sooner or later you will strike it lucky. It helps if you are not entirely random and try to stay within the general vicinity of the likely answer, but that isn’t essential.

I tried it while watching a recent episode of University Challenge. I got more right than the scruffy looking bloke in the glasses second from the left. I felt like a genius.

My Book's Not Shit (Even If I Do Say So Myself)

I tend to keep the personal stuff out of the blog but I just wanted to let the ever-growing readership know that my publisher has now signed off the final proofs of the book. That means that It Is Just You, Everything's Not Shit, a collection of the finer posts on this blog and then some, will be on the shelves of bookshops and the virtual shelves of online retailers in September. That's just in time for Christmas and I am really hoping that if you like my blog you will feel suitably motivated to buy my book. If I can persuade, I don't know, perhaps twenty people to buy it then that should provide me with sufficient royalties to buy a packet of biscuits.

I am really rather excited. If you would like to pre-order a copy then you can do so here.

Fizzy Feeling

That weird, slightly worrying, but somehow pleasurable sensation you get on the downstroke when swinging in a playground, or driving over a hump-backed bridge. My son calls it ‘that fizzy feeling’.

Monkey

In the worlds before Monkey, primal chaos reigned…

At 6pm on Friday 16th November 1979, BBC2 broadcast an unknown Japanese television show which it had dubbed into English. It was to become the stuff of legend, which is apt given the source material.

Monkey (or Saiyuki in Japanese) was the tale of a Buddhist priest called Tripitaka who is sent on a pilgrimage to India to collect some holy scriptures. On his journey he picks up a ragtag coterie of helpers, a monkey king, a pig spirit and a sea monster, and together they make the dangerous journey, fighting off demons and helping villagers on their way.

The premise was based on an ancient Eastern legend and the show actually stuck quite close to the original story. The programme quickly became a hit in the UK (it had already been one of the highest rated programmes in Japan) and was the talk of the playground and workplace every Monday. For kids the appeal was the pantomime violence and kung-fu moves, for grown-ups the same was true but a few of them also noticed the underlying story as well.

Viewed now, and even at the time, Monkey is an odd concoction. The priest, Tripitaka, was portrayed as a man but was very obviously played by a woman. The voiceovers appeared to be taking the piss, but were actually based on the original scripts and were clearly performed with some affection. The huge helpings of Eastern mythology and Buddhist teachings were highly unusual for prime time family viewing. It was an unlikely success, but a very big one.

The Japanese series ran for 52 episodes but ended after the second season, without the pilgrims ever reaching India. Only 39 of these shows were dubbed for broadcast in the UK. Nearly 30 years on, the show is enjoying a new lease of life on satellite and cable channels as well as being released on DVD. These include the 13 ‘missing’ episodes which have now been tracked down and dubbed by the original UK cast.

…the nature of Monkey was irrepressible!

Playing Sports Against Kids

At a recent visit to my son’s school a group of boys asked me to join in a game of football. Now, I am crap at football. I never played for a team at any level, I cannot do keepy uppy for more than 2 or 3 goes, I have no football talent whatsoever. But these were a bunch of 7-year-olds and I only had my dignity to lose so I thought what the hell.

Surrounded by small boys, when the ball landed at my feet I was, by comparison, a giant. For a few brief minutes on that greenest of grasses I was a footballing genius. I was Pele. I was George Best. I was Garrincha, Eusebio and Maradonna combined. I feinted left, I dummied to the right, my silky skills dribbled the ball from one end of the pitch to the other. I left the bodies of muddied schoolboys in my wake. I had only the keeper to beat. But then, in an act of utter selflessness, I passed the ball to the only member of my team who had managed to keep up with me, a tiny little chap who looked like he had stepped out of a Dickens novel. Never mind my personal glory I thought, here is your chance to be the hero of your classmates Tiny Tim, the ball is all yours. I timed the perfect knock back straight to his feet.

The little bastard missed, but the glory of those few moments has yet to leave me.

Helping Lost Tourists

They are just so disproportionately grateful when you do. It is as if you have saved the life of their firstborn or told them they have won the lottery. You can almost forgive them for walking too slowly in front of you with their Day-Glo rucksacks and taking ages to find the correct change when you are behind them in a queue to buy a newspaper.

I once told a man from Singapore which train station to get off at and he proceeded to take a photograph of me, note down my address and once he got back home he sent me a thank you card and a copy of the photo. Obviously slightly nutty but heart-warming nonetheless. A decade or so later, he probably still tells his neighbours about the lovely helpful man from England and shows them my photo on the mantelpiece. I wait to see if I am remembered in his will.

Clouds

Floating above our heads every day are the stuff of dreams and poetry. The most amazing sights in nature are just a glance upwards away.

Muhammad Yunus

In 2006 the Nobel Foundation handed the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded. Yunus’ mission is to eradicate poverty from the planet. He firmly believes that every human being has the potential and right to lead a decent life, not matter what their background or personal means.

Based in Bangladesh, his Grameen Bank loans money to the sort of people that no other bank would touch – poor farmers and those in rural communities with no collateral whatsoever. As of 2007 they had 7 million borrowers, 97% of whom were women. They lend small amounts of money at very affordable rates to help people buy the tools to farm their land, pay rents or start their own businesses.

Despite the severe financial hardships of their borrowers, and the absence of any collateral, Grameen Bank has a much lower default rate than any traditional bank in the western world. It is a system based on trust and a desire to help out our fellow woman and man, and it works.

No wonder he is smiling.

Danish Pastries

Ahh, the breakfast of champions. Whenever I start the day with a Danish pastry I raise my mug of tea to toast the good people of Denmark. Although, apparently, I should really be toasting Austrians and Americans as well. In all likelihood, what we know today as a Danish was created in Vienna and made its way to Denmark, and other countries in northern Europe, by some sort of pastry osmosis.

It’s real rise to fame was when it hit the shores of the USA, which it did with great fanfare and huge success. A Danish baker and self-proclaimed ‘patisserie-savant’ by the name of L.C. Klitteng came to America towards the end of the 19th century at the invitation of Broadway restaurateur Herman Gertner. Between them they managed to convert the nation to the wonders of the Danish. To do so they had to battle against the well established French pastries which were popular with the moneyed classes at the time. What ensued was nothing short of a propaganda war, albeit a reasonably friendly, and not to say tasty, one.

In newspaper ads and features across several years the two men extolled the virtues of Danish pastries with cookery demonstrations and tasting sessions, particularly in and around New York. My favourite quote from one of these is as follows:

‘There is a difference between the Danish pastry and the French. The French pastry is eaten daintily and slowly, allowing each new discovery to sink in, and the flavors to blend one by one, until the effect of the whole is an Arabian dream of gastronomic thoughts. But with the Danish pastry – you just tuck a small morsel under the tongue, roll up the eyes, say “Ah-h” as though there were a sky-rocket present, and it fades away and trickles down to the barbed-wire entanglements of the soul, a subtle something that clings like an opium eater’s dream.’

Nigella Lawson, eat your heart out.

Bedtime Stories

When I was a child I would look forward to bedtime and hearing the magical stories my parents would read from books or make up off the top of their heads. It was one of the highlights of my day.

Now, as a parent, I find myself looking forward to my children’s bedtime so that I can read them stories or make some up myself. It is absolutely the highlight of my day.

Nice Biscuits

No blog claiming to be a guide to all things nice would be complete without this titular biscuit. Named after the French city, they were seen as a posh treat for afternoon tea when they first appeared in the 1920s. Nice is not a brand name and consequently lots of different companies make them all over the world. The recipes can vary but all feature coconut as a key ingredient, tend to have a sprinkling of sugar and, of course, have the word ‘NICE’ embossed on the top.

And if I may be permitted an aside on the word ‘nice’. In my children’s school there is a poster which shows the word being thrown into a dustbin. ‘Nice’ is banned from all composition on the grounds that it isn’t descriptive enough. Many teachers share this view. Enough, I say. There is nothing wrong with the word nice, it doesn’t deserve to be ostracised in this way. It has never hurt anyone. I submit the short essay below by way of protest:

What I Did On My Holiday by Steve Stack

We drove to Nice in the south of France where we stopped off for a cup of tea and some Nice biscuits. We had a jolly nice time.

THE END

Baths

With any combination of the following:

a) a glass of wine
b) a good book
c) bubbles
d) someone else

Fascinating Fact #4

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Play-Doh in 2006 a limited edition fragrance was released which replicated the familiar smell.

Play-Doh

It is not unusual for adults to show nostalgia for some toy or game of their youth, but Play-Doh is probably the only example where grown-ups can get emotional by recalling its smell. Far from the most practical of building materials, it had to be stored in its airtight tubs or it would go hard, so you could never keep anything you made. It was invented accidentally by the McVicker brothers during the 1950s while they were trying to create a wallpaper cleaner. Over one billion pounds (in weight) of the stuff has been sold since.

Cream Teas

Every nation is rightly proud of its national dish but, for some reason, the English can never seem to decide what it is. Fish & chips was long held to be the meal in question but then someone would pipe up and argue the toss for steak & kidney pie. In more recent years it has been claimed that curry is now the national dish which is clearly nonsense. I mean, curry is lovely and a very welcome addition to the national menu, but we really should make an effort to have one stand out meal that isn’t imported.

I would like to put forward the case for cream teas. A nice scone (fruit or plain) with a pot of jam and lashings of clotted cream. It is quintessentially English in the same was as haggis (or the deep fried Mars bar) is Scottish and, I don’t know, leeks I suppose are Welsh.

Historians in Tavistock, West Devon, believe that they have discovered the origins of the cream tea. Apparently, after the Vikings had plundered the Benedictine Abbey there in 997AD the monks relied on local workers to help them rebuild it. To thank the men the monks fed them with bread, clotted cream and strawberry jam. The meal proved so popular that they continued to serve it to passing travellers and the cream tea was born.

Brian Cant

Brian Cant has managed to be an integral part of no fewer than five television shows that are now part of modern folklore: Play School, Camberwick Green, Trumpton, Chigley and Play Away. He was a fundamental, and fondly remembered, part of the early years of millions of children in the UK and around the world. He was, for most of the 1970s, the nation’s storyteller. And that isn't just my view, his has just been voted the best loved children's television voice of all time in one of those polls that mean nothing unless they come up with a result you agree with.

A printer by training, Cant was playing around at amateur dramatics when he was offered a professional acting job and quit work the next day. After some time as a jobbing actor he auditioned for a new BBC children’s show called Play School and there began his stint in living rooms across the land.

Following an early period of heavily scripted shows, Cant got more involved in the production of Play School and ended up writing whole weeks of episodes. These were never live, as many people assume, but recorded a week ahead.

His appearances on Play School landed him some voiceover work for Gordon Murray and Freddie Phillips who were putting together an animated series for the BBC called Camberwick Green. This was such a success that he was asked back to do the same for Trumpton and Chigley. Recording his material in a converted broom cupboard, Cant didn’t get to see the animations at the time and, to this day, has not seen every episode from the series.

Play Away evolved from Play School and was aimed at older children and recorded in front of a live studio audience. During his time on that show he worked alongside actors such as Jeremy Irons and Tony Robinson, both of whom went on to enjoy success with an adult audience, but Cant will stay remembered for his work in children’s television. Still acting today, he appears regularly on stage up and down the country.

Personally I think it is about time that his significant achievements, and his place in the memories of millions, were recognised with an honour. Perhaps a knighthood is out of his reach but an OBE or something like that wouldn’t be too much to ask, would it?