lifestylesupportguru

Tag: pub

Good Neighbour Bad Neighbour

Being a Good Neighbour
A very good evening from the Lifestyle Support Guru. Tonight I wish to offer some useful advice on how to be a BAD neighbour or a GOOD neighbour. I have recently ‘acquired’ a new neighbour and I have learned rapidly from this experience just exactly what constitutes a BAD neighbour and felt that you may benefit from my advice so that you can be a GOOD neighbour.

Bad neighbour

To be a BAD neighbour, you must:
1. be blonde, slim and athletic-looking and wear fitted clothing that shows off your figure to advantage. This will ensure that your GOOD neighbour feels totally inadequate.
2. have cleared your garden of all weeds and long grass, installed a nice wooden garden bench, put up a new clothes line and scrubbed the wall at the bottom of the garden of its coat of peeling paint, all within the space of a few days. Again, this will create great feelings of inadequacy in your GOOD neighbour.
3. have a housewarming party which is not too noisy and finishes at 10.30 pm, so that the GOOD neighbour feels guilty for wondering at what time she will be able to complain to the police.
4. fill your bin (which is about four feet high) to overflowing with black bin liners, then, in one bound, leap athletically and lithely on top of the aforementioned bin liners and jump up and down on them in a graceful manner to make sure they fit in the bin. This should be done when the GOOD neighbour has just returned from a hard morning’s shopping and is loaded down with purchases; by now the GOOD neighbour will be contemplating moving to find a more congenial neighbour.
5. enjoy the early evening warmth by sitting on the garden bench with an attractive man and sip delicately from a bottle of water rather than the glass of wine which the GOOD neighbour is contemplating whilst looking up house prices in a more downmarket area.
To be a GOOD neighbour, you must:

Wild Life Friendly Garden

1. be overweight, wear loose clothing as a disguise and have greying hair. In this way, you create no feelings of insecurity in any other neighbours.
2. maintain what is known as a ‘wildlife garden’, ensuring that there are plenty of flowering weeds which are, apparently, attractive to bees. Thus, you are helping the environment.
3. have no parties because you do not wish to disturb your neighbours (and it would mean cleaning and tidying up and the cats don’t like parties, anyway).
4. only leap up and down (athletically or otherwise) when you tread on one of the cats or the drawing pin you forgot to pick up several days ago.
5. enjoy the early evening warmth by going out to the pub where, as far as you know, they don’t sell water. Thus, you are helping the local economy.
You will have gathered from this that being a GOOD neighbour is far less tiring and requires much less effort than being a BAD neighbour. In addition, you are saving energy environmentally because less electricity will be used if you are in the pub rather than sitting at home; added to this, you will also have had some physical exercise because you walked to the pub, although probably not quite as much exercise as jumping up and down in a bin, but with a far more enjoyable outcome.
And now let’s finish with a short chorus of: “Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours…”

Morris The Mole Goes On A Trip.

The REAL Mole

After the excitement of ‘meeting’ Morris the Mole (aka Freddie the Freckle/Neville the Nevus) last week, it fell to your beloved Lifestyle Support Guru to take him on a visit to Sheffield Eye Clinic at the request of Derby Eye Clinic. Sheffield wanted to see him at 8.45 IN THE MORNING! Morris hadn’t even learned that such a time existed, so it was decided to travel to Sheffield the night before. Actually, the idea was to set off during the day and possibly fit in a little shopping, but this excellent plan was foiled from the start because it seemed a good idea to set up a new wireless printer before setting off… (it’s still not working)

Train accident

Upon arrival at the station, we found that the train was delayed because, as it was clearly announced over the sound system, ‘someone has been hit by a train in Bedford’. Now, I know we can all get cross when delays aren’t explained, but the LSG felt that this was perhaps a little bit TOO much information!
Upon arrival in Sheffield, it was rather nice to be greeted by a chap playing a piano in the station foyer (Lara’s Theme from Dr Zhivago) while a drunk sat in a corner watching him with a silly grin on his face and a can of super-strength lager in his hand. Such a welcoming and homely picture!

inebriated

The hotel was pleasant enough, although Morris and I were rather glad not to have been placed in Room 101, which was tucked away by itself in a corner of the corridor. I could swear I heard cries for help coming from there as we walked past…
Since the sun was now well over the yardarm, we decided to venture out to a local nearby hostelry which looked rather cosy and quaint from the outside. Upon entering said hostelry, Morris and I found ourselves in the company of one of the strangest group of people ever seen (outside one or two dodgy pubs in Derby where they have their own alien subculture). Most (if not all) of the clientele AND the bar staff had clearly exceeded the government guidelines on alcohol consumption and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Californication’ was playing on the jukebox, even though the average age was about 60; this was immediately followed by ‘Coward of the County’, with everyone joining in the chorus. Such fun!
The next morning, we got a taxi to the Eye Clinic, being regaled on the way by the taxi driver’s tales of his own continuing eye problems (not really what you want to hear from a driver!) and telling us how Sheffield is ‘a lovely city’, apart from one area where the local youths enjoy throwing bricks at taxis. He seemed to think that leaving Europe was the only solution to this problem…

Morris The Mole

The return train journey was fairly uneventful, with no announcements of people being hit by trains or other large objects.
A friend texted me to ask if Morris was going be evicted or would we be cohabiting, to which I replied that we would be cohabiting since Morris is a friendly mole (i.e. benign). My only hope is that Derby City Council doesn’t find out and take away my single person’s council tax rebate!

And that was the end of Morris’s ‘awfully big adventure’!

Entertaining The Masses

Tablet Search

A very good evening from the Lifestyle Support Guru! This well be my last post before heading off to the Dark Continent, so I thought I would leave you with a few words about entertaining the masses whilst educating them in Welsh culture at the same time. As ever, I think I may be leading the way where others merely follow.

Occasionally, when I get fed up of writing quiz questions at home, I go to the pub with my tablet (not my tablets) and work on questions there – I like a change of scenery now and again. If there are people around, I sometimes test the questions out on them and here was the latest conversation, which involved a certain little Yorkshireman – who has appeared in previous posts – and three or four other people, all of a similar age. The questions were on children’s TV:
Me: What were the names of the Tweenies?
Yorkshireman: I don’t know, but I can remember the name of the dog. It was Doodle or something like that.
M: Doodles. How did you know that?
Y: I used to watch it all the time.

I then do a little bit of searching on t’internet and find the Tweenies didn’t start until 1999.

M: How old were you in 1999?
Y: 39

Silence from all around as they imagine an unmarried, childless 39-year-old watching the Tweenies. He then lost any further credibility when he was unable to name the series which opened with the line: ‘Here is a box, a musical box, wound up and ready to play.’

Someone else then asked who links the Deputy Marshal in ‘High Noon’ with an underwater TV series (I still haven’t worked out the connection between that and the Tweenies). Much scratching of heads until we are told that it was Lloyd Bridges in ‘Sea Hunt’ – everyone looks suitably puzzled because we’ve never heard of it. I then ask who sang the theme song to ‘High Noon’ and suddenly everyone joins in with “Do not forsake me, o my darlin’” and we are having a jolly little singalong!
It was just like being back home after a rugby match!

Now picture a Sunday night at the same local (which I’ll call the Coach and Horses for reasons of anonymity) which runs a quiz followed by a few games of Sticky Fingers. For those who are unaware of this highly entertaining method of losing money, it’s basically like Bingo but with playing cards. When you are down to your last card (of 13), you shout ‘Sticky Fingers’, just to let everyone else know that you may be close to winning a life-changing amount of money (usually around £30) and, therefore, a prime target for mugging on the way home. Last night a young female had volunteered to take the landlord’s place as the ‘caller’ because he had hurt his arm (no, I wasn’t quite sure how that would affect his ability to call out the cards either, but that’s some men for you…). The young female had imbibed a few Jagerbombs during the evening and was having a jolly time calling out the cards – for example: ‘The nine of spades… oh, sorry, that should be the nine of hearts.’ An easy mistake to make!
Just to make things even jollier, I thought it would be a good idea to teach her how to say ‘sticky fingers’ in Welsh – ‘bysedd gludiog’ – a first for Derby and, possibly, the whole of England! She then refused to accept any calls if they weren’t in Welsh – such larks!

I may try Swahili in a few weeks’ time! Multiculturalism is alive and kicking in the Midlands! Good evening, one and all! Nos da, bonsoir, usiki mwema.

Making Plans For The Weekend

Dungeon

A very good afternoon to you all from the Lifestyle Support Guru! Today I am going to share with you some thoughts on MAKING PLANS and THE WEEKEND, so that you have plenty of time to MAKE your own PLANS before the coming WEEKEND. You will also learn that MAKING PLANS does not always turn out as you expect. As always, the steps are easy to follow:
1. Inform sibling that you have free tickets for Warwick Castle and MAKE PLANS to visit.
2. Sibling decides on the day that he doesn’t really want to visit Warwick Castle after seeing TV ad which included lots of children in it. (We both prefer child-free venues – such as pubs.)
3. Suggest Workhouse at Southwell, Notts, but this doesn’t appeal either. (I think he thought they may well still be keeping children there – see point 2.)
4. Suggest Strutt’s Mill at Belper, which is just a bus ride away. Sibling seems quite taken with this idea, so you MAKE PLANS and invite along a friend as well.
5. Meet friend at bus stop at a reasonable hour (11 am) and he informs you that he has already

bus stop

washed his windows, made a bacon sandwich, walked into town and back and put some washing out. (At this point you feel worn out and consider going back to bed – the walk to the bus stop was exhausting enough.)
6. On arriving at t’mill, you wait for the guide while friend starts talking about an ‘articulated python’ for some reason and an image of a large, jack-knifed snake on the M1 comes into your mind. Sweetly, you enquire, ‘Do you mean a ‘reticulated python’? and friend says they’re the same thing. Sigh and hope guide turns up soon.
7. The three of you have a tour round t’mill with Barry the tour guide, who is absolutely delighted to find that your companions have a genuine interest in the engineering aspects of the weaving machines, although he couldn’t answer the question ‘Why do they go backwards and forwards?’. (WARNING: do NOT visit places with machines if your companions work in metallurgy or on the railways and you personally have no interest in engineering, other than the essentials such as knowing how to use a corkscrew.)

reticulated python

8. Before returning home, you make a small detour via a little micropub (well, I suppose a micropub will be small, by definition!) that has been recommended by some other friends who also have an interest in real ales (I choose my friends carefully!). Inside the pub, as a feature, is what looks like an old, small motorbike; friend, after examining it closely, confidently declares to all and sundry: ‘That’s either a Raleigh or a Dennis Hughes.’ (as I thought he said at the time). With an air of triumph (not the motorbike manufacturers, ha ha!) he turns to the barman who promptly tells him that it’s a Mobylette from France. Sad face from friend. (For those who know about motorbikes, friend didn’t say it was a ‘Dennis Hughes’ but an ‘NSU’. Still no wiser, but at least I know my reticulated pythons from my articulated ones! Or maybe he meant Kaa, the ‘articulate’ python in the Jungle Book?)
9. Finish the day off by going to a local Chinese buffet where friend attempts to pour a glass of wine while the top is still on the bottle. As I said earlier, I choose my friends carefully!
So there you have it, dear followers and acolytes – PLANNING a weekend is easy; it’s actually following the PLANS that’s difficult! You have all of Thursday and Friday to MAKE YOUR OWN PLANS!

Embarrassment At The Pub

Wet and cold

A very good (but wet and cold) evening from the Lifestyle Support Guru!
I realise I haven’t offered any advice recently, and I know that many of you rely on such advice to help you negotiate your way safely along this treacherous pathway that is LIFE. I had originally intended offering some words of wisdom on ARTY-FARTY matters. (Sadly, predictive text changed that to ARTY-FATTY , which is probably a more accurate description.)
The original advice was to include a warning about ice cream vans and how they might be driven by psychopathic maniacs (courtesy of Stephen King’s ‘Mr Mercedes’) and how some people think that the Merchant of Venice is Shylock. Ha! I know better! (And I’m not showing off – that’s another story altogether!) However, since arriving in the pub (simply to gain inspiration, you understand), I have realised that life in the pub is much more interesting, valuable, fun and, as you will learn, EMBARRASSING for the LSG!

EMBARRASSING? FOR THE LSG? Yes, and I am sad – nay, distraught even! – because of it. My

woman and purse

reputation is tarnished. It was when I ordered my drink at the bar and reached for my purse to pay that I realised I had – for the first time EVER! – left my purse at home! Horror! I knew exactly where I’d left it – next to the china elephant piggy bank and the little yellow pot with an Alzheimer’s Society pin badge in it (rather ironic in the circumstances) on the mantelpiece.

But what was (almost!) even more EMBARRASSING was that the bar staff have been perfectly prepared to give me credit all evening because, as they said, ‘We know you’ll be in tomorrow.’ Needless to say, I didn’t bother traipsing all the way back home (a long trek – all of 5 minutes on a slow day), but took advantage of their kind offer – 3 bottles of wine, seven packets of crisps and five ham rolls later, I am having a lot of fun for someone with no money!

karaoke

In addition, I have also had free entertainment, courtesy of a little Yorkshire woman who thought the pub might wish to listen to her rendition of ‘Don’t Cry For me, Argentina’. The reasons for this were never properly explained. On top of that, her brother also felt compelled to entertain the pub in his own way, offering a selection of (Yorkshire) jokes for everyone’s amusement (apparently). I have now realised that, should I wish to spend much time in Yorkshire, I will need to have a sense of humour bypass. (Only joking, Yorkshire!)
So, there you have it – an evening in the pub offers value for money in so many ways. Care in the community! Who needs ART when LIFE is so much more FUN?
Have a lovely (soggy) weekend, dear followers!

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