Other Woman News...

Tonight was an all-too-rare night training at hapkido, followed by an hour in the pub with the Other Woman.

I am currently carrying an injury with the excellent name of Foot Drop. I like this because it sounds vaguely Middle Ages. The upshot of this, however, is that I cannot control half of the movement in my right foot, so my hapkido looks even less fluid and graceful than usual, regardless of the lack of regular class attendance.

In the pub, however, it was business as usual and topics covered included:
Oral sex and teddy bears
Meat Loaf and al fresco sex
Bothying and murder
Hollowed-out corpses and sleds
Cadavers and games of Name That Tune

The Other Woman remains one of the people I love most in the world. Few other people would encourage, inspire and create this type of illuminating discourse. Fact.

Happy Anniversary...

Me and the Missus recently celebrated 20 years together.

To mark the occasion, we spent several days in New York and we took the Boy and the Boy's Girlfriend with us. After all, he's he's a big part of our story together and they celebrate their anniversary on the same date, too.

We had a fab time and we did loads: a Nicks basketball game, lots of meals out, Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park, Chinatown... We also headed to Brooklyn and visited Brooklyn Museum, which was an astonishingly good place with a world-class Egyptian collection and some amazing feminist art.

With the demands of my job currently insane, it was good to have some serious time with my family. We created good memories on this trip and these will sustain me through tough work times ahead.

The other thing that will sustain me is the thing that has always supported and sustained me. And that's the love of not just a good woman, but the love of the best person I know. And I've been blessed enough to have her in my life for two decades.

She's smarter than I am, tougher than I am and probably even prettier. She is without doubt the great love of my life and the best thing in it. And I hope she remains so every single day.

American Hustle...

History have done some pretty cool shows in recent years and they have successfully moved away from the idea that the channel only does documentaries about Hitler or UFOs. The pirate drama series, Black Sails, garnered rave reviews, and Vikings has been an international hit and is now well into its fourth series.

Ronnie O'Sullivan's American Hustle is one of the latest shows from History and it looks like it will be very good. 

The premise is simple: snooker champion O'Sullivan and TV pundit pal Matt Smith travel across the USA and visit four cities, namely New York, Chicago, Memphis and San Francisco; while there, they explore the local area, then head to the pool hall and take on the local champions to see if O'Sullivan can transfer his snooker skills to the similar-but-different arena of the US pool table.

The show is part-travelogue and part-pot-athon. It also features a host of infamous characters from the world of US pool, including Earl 'The Pearl' Strickland, 'Kid' Delicious, Johnny 'The Scorpion' Archer, Jeanette 'The Black Widow' Lee and Scott 'The Freezer' Frost.

The four-part series kicks off on Thursday 26 January. O'Sullivan genuinely looked like he'd thoroughly enjoyed the experience when he was discussing it at a press event, too.

Great TV Shows That Nearly Were: Part VI...

This game is slowly developing a life of its own. This happened with another idea I had for a game show, Call My Muff, which I actually made and road-tested with a group of friends while drunk. I really should approach a games manufacturer with this idea as I'm sure it's a goer.

But that was then and this is now, so here are the latest entries for Great TV Show That Nearly Were: 

Gash in the Attic: A team of experts aid money-hungry participants by exploring their lofts and outbuildings in the hope of finding a relative they can pimp out on the streets to raise funds to pay for a holiday or some other such nonsense.

 

Home and a Gay: Aussie soap opera following the folk of Summer Gay, who ironically are a town of redneck homophobes. Their views are challenged, though, when a prodigal son returns home and announces he now likes Borises rather than Dorises.

 

Dad's Barmy: Classic homage to a popular sitcom. This time, the dads in question are all living in sheltered accomodation in 2017. But they're suffering various types of dementia and think they're fighting the Germans in World War Two. It's bittersweet. Probably.

New Old Sayings...

'Beer then wine, you'll feel fine.'

'Beer then wine, then more beer then wine, followed by stout, prosecco, more wine and beer, and topped off with rum. This will make you feel less than fine.'