Music Time Machine

Saw OMD, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, last night at Bradford Live. They were brilliant.

More importantly for my wife and me, seeing acts like this takes us right back to when we were younger, fitter, and didn’t have a care in the world, apart from getting our homework done.

This whole 80s music revival has been a massive bonus for us. We’ve recently seen Madness, Pet Shop Boys, Paul Heaton, Iron Maiden, and a few more besides. Every single show seems to open the same little door back to those carefree days.

Thanks for the music, and for the memories it keeps dragging back with it.

Makerfield v2

Well, it looks like Nigel Farage’s poor attempt to drum up some much-needed positive PR by creating a Makerfield v2 moment in Clacton-on-Sea has rather brilliantly backfired.

With the main parties refusing to play along, and no serious opposition candidates putting themselves forward, with the obvious and glorious exception of Count Binface, this could become a very funny by-election indeed.

Unfortunately, it’s probably not what the people of Clacton actually need.

Sisu

Just watched Sisu and Sisu: Road to Revenge, amazing movies that are wildly entertaining in a brutally bloody, and entertaining gory way.

These are two action movies that have been described as a Finnish, World War II-era mix of Rambo and John Wick, and I find it hard to disagree with that accessment; and I'm sure thatt 82.5% of fans of these movies woukd like Sisu.

How I Decide What To Write In Newsletters

Newsletters aren’t just about finding something to say once a month and hoping people click. At their best, they’re strategic storytelling devices. They help you share useful information with customers and prospects in a format that’s easy to read, easy to understand, and, ideally, useful enough that they’d actually miss it if it stopped arriving.

For me, a good newsletter should tell people something about your industry, your business, your products, or your customers that they wouldn’t easily get anywhere else. It’s about getting your story out into the market, but doing it in a way that gives the reader something back.

If you’re going to mention products, try not to just say “here’s a product, please buy it”. Can you teach people something new, different, or genuinely useful about it? Can you explain where it came from, why it exists, what problem it solves, or why people use it in a certain way? Sometimes the most ordinary product has a decent story behind it, you just have to dig a little.

If you’re struggling for content, post roundups are often a good place to start. They work particularly well for small, local businesses because you don’t always need to invent a big campaign. You can simply pay attention to what your customers already care about.

And if you’re a local business, your local area is your superpower. Locality and community are two of the strongest drivers of relevance in newsletter content, so don’t sleep on them. Talk about what your customers are talking about. Promote the events they go to. Share a bit of local history. Mention the things that make your town, village, city, or region feel familiar to the people reading.

The other useful thing about newsletters is that, with clever calls to action, you can start to understand what your customers actually engage with. Which links do they click? Which topics get a response? Which offers are ignored? Over time, that starts to tell you what kind of content you should create more of.

So when I’m deciding what to write in a newsletter, I’m not just looking for “content”. I’m looking for the useful story. The thing that helps, explains, teaches, reminds, or connects.

And if you’re really struggling with newsletter copywriting, it might be worth talking to a small agency like Yorkshire Writers. They’re the people behind this Digital Garden, so I probably would say that, but still… newsletters are exactly the sort of thing that benefit from a bit of outside thinking.

Watching the Lionesses Grow

My wife and I are both fairly big football fans. She supports Leeds United, and I support Manchester United, which keeps things interesting in our house.

As well as following the men’s game, we’ve been watching women’s football for about years or so. Like a lot of women’s football fans, we mainly started by following England, and we’ve been lucky enough to see the Lionesses play a couple of times.

The game has come on massively since those earlier days. Back then, players like Karen Carney, Jill Scott, Faye White, Ellen White, Rachel Yankey and others were helping to build something that has grown into the game we see today.

At the time, it often seemed to be a game built around long passes, looking to exploit space between the lines, and shots taken from inside the penalty area. There was also, at least to my eyes, a noticeable difference in fitness levels compared with the modern game.

Then came 2012, which felt like a watershed moment for women’s football in England. The game began to develop quickly. More investment came in, standards rose, and for more players it became a full-time job rather than something they had to fit around the rest of their lives.

Today, it feels like a very different sport. There is far more tactical control, aggressive pressing, and a much greater emphasis on possession. The players are more athletic, the movement is more fluid, and the game feels quicker, sharper, more creative, and more powerful. You now see players striking the ball from much further out with real confidence.

It’s been brilliant to watch that growth over the years, and even better to feel that women’s football is no longer tucked away in the background. It is properly part of the football conversation now, and rightly so.

Come on Lionesses.

The Lines That Stuck

Some lines don’t just stay in the programme or film they came from, they somehow escape into real life.

My wife and I do this all the time. A line from a sitcom, a film, or some daft bit of telly will work its way into our everyday language, and after a while it stops feeling like a quote. It just becomes something we say.

So this page is a little collection of those lines. The ones that stuck.
One thing I have noticed as I've started to compile this is that we misquote virtually every single one of them, but we don't care, still still think they are funny, perhaps funnier *not*

"Green it were!"
These words were uttered by the late, and very great, Brian Glover. It comes from an episode of Porridge, where Brian brilliantly played the dim-witted Cyril Heslop. The full, and correct, line is "I read a book once, green it was!", but we’ve changed it a little. So quite often at home, when we mention the colour of something, we’ll end with "Green it were!"

"Mickey Pearce lives on the Nyerere Estate"
This one comes from Only Fools and Horses, in the episode Yuppy Love, which is also the one where Del falls through the bar. Cassandra has dropped her friend off on a posh street, and Mickey mentions that it’s going to be a bit of a culture shock when she drops Rodney off at Nelson Mandela House. So when Cassandra gets back in the car, she says she’ll now drop Rodney off at the Nyerere Estate.

Rodney quickly corrects her: "I don’t live in the Nyerere Estate! Mickey lives on the Nyerere Estate. I live near it. I’ll show you."

We tend to use this one whenever someone has slightly misunderstood where something is, or what someone has said. It’s one of those lines that doesn’t really need much explaining in our house any more.

"Hag!"
This one is from Hot Fuzz. Sometimes, as a daft put-down, my wife or I will call the other one "Fascist!", and the reply is always "Hag!"

In the film, Sergeant Nicholas Angel is trying to check into his hotel while the receptionist is doing a crossword. She suddenly says "Fascist!", then explains that she’s looking for a seven-letter word meaning a system of government categorised by extreme dictatorship. Angel correcting her with the word "Fascism", then he looks at her and utters the word "Hag!", explaining that it means an evil old woman, considered frightful or ugly, one of the answers for her crossword.  It’s childish, obviously. But that’s probably why it works.

"Oh Really!"
This is one that I thought came from a Fawlty Towers episode where the inept builder Mr. O'Reilly was brought in by Basil Fawlty, much to the dismay of poor Sybil. I thing she changed "O'Reilly" to "Oh Really", so now whenever we hear the name O'Reilly, we always respond with "Oh Really!".

"What did I say, Roy?"
Another one we use a fair bit comes from The Fast Show, from the sketches with Roy, played by John Thomson, and Renee, played by Caroline Aherne.

The basic set-up is usually Renee talking to some poor stranger about a random subject, before suddenly turning to her brow-beaten husband and asking, "What did I say, Roy?" Most of the time Roy just repeats what his overbearing wife has just said, but every now and then he says something she really doesn’t like.

The line we always quote is Roy saying, "You said you could shit through the eye of a needle." In our house, the reply has somehow become, "I didn’t, you lying bastard!" Which may not be accurate, but it makes us laugh more.

"Unaccustomed as I am"
This one is from Blackadder S3 E4, "Sense and Senility", the one where the actors try to teach the Prince Regent how to deliver a speech.

As part of the lesson, he has to stand with his legs wide apart, in an apparently heroic stance, before delivering his first line with a great big ROARRRR. His speech starts, "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking…"

We use "Unaccustomed as I am" as a daft little intro before we start saying something. It doesn’t really need to fit. That’s probably why it works.

"My love, my love"
That last one reminded me of this one. If I want to say "my love" to my wife, I’ll usually say it as "my love, my love", in a slightly Spanish accent.

It comes from Blackadder S1 E4, where Edmund is talking to the Infanta, with the hilarious Jim Broadbent as the interpreter, Don Speekingleesh.

The Infanta says, "Estas el verdadero amor de mi vida, amor mio, amor mio!" to Edmund, which Don then translates as, "You are the true love of my life, my love, my love!" in his pidgin English.

"But it’s Slater"
Every time someone gets mentioned who is called Slater, my wife and I will usually reply with, "But it’s Slater."

This comes from the Only Fools and Horses episode "Class of ’62", where Slater comes back to Peckham because he knows his estranged wife, Raquel, lives there.

At one point, when Raquel tells Del that Slater used to be her husband, Del reacts with utter disgust and says, "But he’s Slater!"

Yeah, I’ve noticed this is another one we’ve changed slightly to make it funnier for us. That seems to be a running theme.

“Oh, you did, did you?”
This is one of those lines from The Vicar of Dibley that we churn out fairly often. If one of us says we’ve done something, the other will invariably reply, “Oh, you did, did you?”, or "You did, you did?", or something similar.

The line comes from the 1996 Christmas special, The Christmas Lunch Incident, better known to everyone as the one with the sprouts.

The actual exchange goes:

Geraldine: Ah! I’ve heard wonderful things about your cooking, Mrs Tinker.

Mrs Tinker: ’Ave you?

Geraldine: Yes, I have.

Mrs Tinker: ’Ave you?

Geraldine: …yes, I have.

Mrs Tinker: Oh, you ’ave, ’ave you?

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no parking is allowed in the top field!”
This is another of those lines from The Vicar of Dibley that has found its way into our regular vocabulary.

In the scene, Jim Trott is asked whether parking is allowed in the upper field. Clearly exasperated at having to announce it yet again, he takes to the PA system:

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no parking is allowed on the upper field. OK?”

It still makes us laugh, even though, as usual, we’ve tweaked it slightly over the years.

“They’re only doing it now!”
This is another of those lines from Only Fools and Horses, this time from the 1996 Christmas special, Time on Our Hands (you know the one). We tend to use it when someone does something, usually does something we don't expect.

In the episode, Uncle Albert mixes up the coffee and gravy granules. As the family begin pouring coffee over their Christmas dinner, Del turns to him in the kitchen and says:

“They’re only doing it now. They’re only out there pouring Maxwell bleeding House over their lamb noisettes and veg!”

“The dirty bastards!”
This one comes from The Catherine Tate Show and Janice and Ray, the Yorkshire couple who are permanently disgusted by modern life and almost everything they hear about.

In one sketch, they’re talking about a couple who use shiitake mushrooms in their cooking. Naturally, this is enough for Janice and Ray to declare them “dirty bastards”.

Ever since, whenever we hear someone mention mushrooms, or any slightly unusual food or ingredient, one of us will inevitably say, “The dirty bastards!”

The Jolly Boys Outing

I’m a child of the late 60s, so like a lot of people my age, I grew up on a fairly heavy diet of 70s and 80s sitcom telly. Blackadder, The Young Ones, Yes Minister, Red Dwarf, Only Fools and Horses... the sort of programmes you didn’t just watch once, you absorbed them.

Most of them have episodes I can still watch over and over again, even when I know every joke, every pause, and every look to camera before it arrives. But with Only Fools and Horses, there’s one episode that I could probably watch on repeat all day, every day, and still not get bored of it.

The Jolly Boys’ Outing.

It’s just so watchable. Partly because John Sullivan knew exactly how to tell a story, partly because the plot gives everyone something to do, and partly because the acting is so good that even the smallest lines land perfectly.

The set-up is simple enough. The regulars from The Nag’s Head go on their annual coach trip to Margate, only for the whole thing to go spectacularly wrong when Del’s dodgy Albanian car radios explode and blow up the bus. The boys end up stranded overnight, Del runs into Raquel again, and the whole thing becomes less of a sitcom episode and more like a little comedy film.

 

Prior to the coach exploding,  Mike and Trigger are helping Harry (driver) up the steps, he's a little worse for wear" after their stop off, at the halfway house.

Trigger turns to Mike and asks "What d’you think’s wrong with him?", Mike in his usual dry wit replies "What do I think? Well, snow -blindness would be my bet, Trig.", Trigger immediately responds with "Yeah? I thought he was pissed."

Then later, after their coach has exploded, all the Jolly Boys are outside Margate Railways Station that is closed because of a train strike and they have realised that they have missed the last bus home and everyone is shouting and blaming each other, Uncle Albert tries to calm things down in the only way Uncle Albert knows how:

Mickey turns annoyed to Dels Uncle Albert "We’ve had enough of your stupid stories for one day. Albert!", "Oi, oi, oi! Watch it! He’s a war hero, he’s got a right to speak!" butts in Del. Albert continues, "I fought for free speech!" ... "Shuddup!" Del shoots at Albert.

The timing, the irritation, the way Del knows exactly where Albert is going before Albert has even got there.

Then there’s Mrs Cresswell, the stern landlady running the guest house where the lads end up staying. She lays down the law with an 11:00 pm curfew and makes it very clear that there’ll be no ungodly behaviour under her roof. 

Earlier when Del, Rodney and Albert enter the Villa Bella  guest house, Del mentions how cold it is, Mrs Creswell responds "That’s the weather.", "Oh is it?" Dels responds, "I don’t know, I’m a stranger round here."

Anyway, the boys end up at the Mardi Gras Nightclub, in the background the club singer is doing her turn, Boycie, Mike and Trigger arrive at the club, when Dels says "It’s good here, innit eh?", "Stunning." replies Boycie,, Del quickly responds with "Yeah, they got a magician, a singer and a comedian. The singer’ll be on in a minute!", I mean the line is funny as it stands, but the singer misses a beat as she glares at Del for insult. Absolute class.

Later when Del and Rodney arrive home from the nightclub at 2am in the morning, Del is about to ring the front doorbell when Rodney, in full panic mode, stops him:

“You can’t ring the bell! You’ll get Mrs Cresswell out of her coffin!”

It’s such a perfect Rodney line. Scared, sarcastic, and completely believable.

Written down, it barely looks like a joke. On screen, it’s perfect. It’s a tiny line, but it’s beautifully delivered.

 

This is probably why the episode works so well. It isn’t just one famous scene or one big set piece. It’s packed with little moments, little looks, throwaway lines, and characters bouncing off each other in a way that feels completely natural.

Some comedy dates badly, and some comedy only survives because people remember watching it when they were young. But The Jolly Boys’ Outing still works because it’s properly well made. The story moves, the jokes land, the characters feel real, and it has that strange comfort-watch quality where you know exactly what’s coming and still enjoy every second of it.

For me, it might just be the perfect Only Fools and Horses episode.

 

Writing this I started to remember the bits that shows that my wife and myself say t each other on probably a daily basis, so as I remember them I'll add them to my "The Lines That Stuck" page.

Noisy Eaters

Noisy eating brings out, what I think, is a very reasonable response. When someone is sat there chewing with their mouth open, talking through food, and making every mouthful sound like a plumbing emergency, I can feel my patience leaving my body.

I’m talking about people who eat with their mouth open, talk with food in their mouth, take bites that are clearly far too big to chew properly, noises that seem to fill the whole room. Once I’ve noticed it, that’s it. I can’t unhear it, I can’t ignore it, and I certainly can’t enjoy sitting at the same table pretending everything is fine.

To me, it’s not just a harmless habit. It’s rude. Really rude. Eating with other people should come with a few very basic rules, and "keep your mouth closed while chewing" feels like it should be somewhere near the top of the list. It’s not advanced etiquette. It’s not silver service. It’s just the bare minimum of not making everyone else experience your food at the same time as you.

Talking with food in your mouth is just as bad. I don’t need to see what you’re eating while you’re explaining something to me, or see your food sprayed all over the table. Finish the mouthful, then speak. The conversation will survive the three-second delay. In fact, it might even improve if part of your lunch isn’t trying to join in.

I know this probably makes me sound grumpy, but I genuinely find it difficult to share a table with people who eat like that. It completely ignores basic table manners, and more than that, it ignores the other people sat around you. I think that’s the bit that bothers me most. It’s not just noise, it’s a lack of awareness.

And yes, I know people have different habits, different upbringings, and different levels of tolerance for this sort of thing. I’m sure there are things I do that annoy other people too. But eating with your mouth open, smacking your lips, slurping and talking through a half-chewed sandwich shouldn’t be defended as personal expression. It’s not quirky. It’s not relaxed. It’s just rude.

I don’t want formal dining rules. I don’t care which fork someone uses, and I’m not expecting anyone to dab politely at the corner of their mouth with a linen napkin (but seeing people wipe their mouth or the back of there hand isn’t nice to see, and don't get me started on people that lick their knife). I just want people to chew quietly, keep their mouth closed, and not make the rest of us feel like unwilling witnesses to the entire digestive process.

Surely that’s not too much to ask.