Bucko's World

I am at a loss for words. Yes, something has really left me speechless, which for those of you who know me, or read this blog regularly, is perhaps difficult to believe. Isn’t Bucko! the one who always has something to say on every issue? No sitting on the fence or half hearted opinions for him, it’s all black and white and no mistake. But it’s not an opinion on this something I’m struggling to form, because take it from me, I certainly have one of those. No, what I’m at a loss to understand is just why some people do some of the things they do. Not big stuff like murder or devil worship or supporting religious fundamentalism (or, for that matter, West Ham United…) those things are often beyond rational reasoning.
No, it’s the little things. Like painting your house pink and calling it Dunroamin’, or covering it in 100 million candela worth of Christmas lights and a huge Santa’s sleigh every Yuletide, or shopping at Costco, TK Maxx, or perhaps even Poundstretcher (all whislt in full pink velour Sam tracksuit and white stilettos mode no doubt.)
Let’s face it, the only place in the world where a house should be painted any colour other than white is Venice. The only house that should be lit up at any time of year is the Queen’s, and the only time you should shop in any of those establishments is if you are trying to make your weekly giro go as far as possible. Even then, the only "fashion" accessory you should sport is extra dark sunglasses just in case someone you know might happen to see you leaving.
Doing these things is, however, typical behaviour for some people. A very particular group of people; those with absolutely no taste whatsoever.
Now, most of us wouldn’t like to advertise the fact that we do anything that could be considered a little bit chavvy. Buying the 3 for £10 offer at Thresher’s or eating Pot Noodle for instance. But those that have this trait think irony is something Alanis Morissette sang about and that being Low Rent is some sort of badge of honour.

So perhaps that explains why someone would wish to drive around with this as their number plate.













It’s almost like saying "yeah, I wear Mackenzie, read the Sport and think El Paso is cuisine, but I can still drive a 4X4 and shop in Sainsbury’s". I have a feeling that while doing this their tiny minds are occupied wondering whether they've set Sky+ to record Trisha, and when their next French Polish is due.
I don’t really know, but answers on a postcard please as to why you would wish to drive around with as you number plate. Personally, I’d rather have dinner with Arsene Wegner…….

Some folks are just expert at putting their foot exactly where their mouth should be, and often this is why we love them. I have a friend, who, as ever, shall have their anonymity protected from the worldwide masses, and therefore be referred to simply as Mrs C, for whom this is a gold-medal, A-star grade speciality. Please note that at no point during my discourse below do I refer to my friend as being blonde.
Now, when Mrs C and myself worked together we were, for reasons never fully explained to us, sat quite a way off from the rest of our department, and so didn’t care too much about minding our p’s and q’s. Discussions were often broad and bawdy, and the subjects covered would certainly not be those you’d necessarily bring up in front of your dusty old maiden aunt or the local vicar.
For instance, I once had streaming cold and was going through tissues quicker than a teenage boy who’s just received delivery of the Freeman’s catalogue. Just as I’m letting rip with a trumpet call that would have brought down the walls of Jericho, Mrs C looks up and says to me straight faced "Do you know, I’ve been told I’m a really loud blower?"
Or there was the time when we were talking about sun tan lotion and how the new spray-on ones were better than the old bottles of oil, as it meant you didn’t feel like you'd just rubbed yourself down with a sheet of 200 grade sandpaper nor ended up looking like a sugar-coated doughnut by the end of the day. "The sprays are all well and good," she told me, "but I really like creaming down my legs." To this day, I’ve no idea what she was trying to tell me.
There was also the time when we were, for reasons best not discussed here, talking about our favourite expressions for masturbation. We’d had Skinning the Lizard and Choking the Chicken, when my colleague comes out with "I really like bashing the bishop" – just as our boss came around the corner. Imagine a steamed-up-glasses-askew comedy moment and you’re part way there.
I thought these moments were past when we stopped working together, but redundancy and a short break to the Suffolk coast gave us a chance to catch up for lunch. As we’re tooting the toot Mrs C asks me if I’d seen Who do you think you are? the other night. I hadn’t, but the show apparently featured the lovely Julila Sawalha, better known as Saffy from Ab Fab, tracing her family roots around the globe for our general surprise and entertainment.
As she was watching the programme she said to her husband "I’ve always thought she looked a bit Indian you know."
"That would be because her family are Jordanian" her husband replied.
Mrs C gave him a puzzled look and rather tentatively said "Oh, ok, then that must be it."
Now, her husband picks up on the fact that she’s not very impressed with his answer and he asks her why.
"Oh, it’s nothing. I just don’t see how being Jordanian makes you look Indian, that’s all"
Hubby is slightly confused himself now so further explains "coz it’s in the Middle East isn’t it? You know, like Saudi Arabia and all the rest."
The penny finally drops and Mrs C bursts out laughing. "I see, daft cow! You know what I was thinking don’t you?"
Straws that may be clutched at are eluding him and unsurprisingly "Not really" is his answer.
"Well, I was thinking Jordanians were from Newcastle…………"

Well, this appears to be an ongoing section of the blog as I now wish to add a new way of inflicting excruciating agony on oneself in the simple practice of going about one’s daily chores.
Today I experienced a new one for me. And it involves something as innocuous as a dishwasher and a standard ten-inch dinner plate. Seemingly innocent bystanders in the battle to clear up after dinner, but combined, deadly assassins about one’s person in a manner that seems just so obvious after the event, The but of course hindsight’s 20-20 is a wonderful thing…….
So, there I am tidying up after a bountiful repast. We had a lovely chicken breast stuffed with goats cheese and sundried tomatoes, wrapped in Parma ham and pan fried till crispy, served with wilted spinach, oven roasted rosemary scented potatoes and mushrooms in a garlic, herb and crème fraiche sauce. But you don’t want to know that do you? Perhaps the wine then? A lovely 2003 Old Well Cabernet Malbec from Australia with a hint of blackberry and a definite mocha flavour to the finish? No? So no point in mentioning the apple crumble then, made with Bramley apples the size of your head* from our very own, organically maintained apple tree? Oh dear, you really are a bunch of rubberneckers aren’t you?
So you’ve gathered that we’ve eaten well, drunk well, and are in a hurry to tidy up and get in front of the TV for the rest of the night. I’m doing the dishwasher but not really concentrating as I’m trying to hear the opening bars to the theme tune from Prime Suspect in order to not miss the beginning of the show. And the bloody plate I’m holding just doesn’t want to go into the final space in the dishwasher. I can hear Dame Helen Mirren smoking a fag and know I need to hurry if I’m not to miss out on a "Guv’ner, Guv’ner, Guv’ner" or "you’re nicked you slag". So I shove the plate down but as I do so my right hand slips off it and crashes into the cutlery holder in the centre of the dishwasher. The middle knuckle of my right index finger is lucky enough to make contact with, as it turns out, a rather ironically named boning knife. This, as you can no doubt imagine, does exactly what it says on the tin, and slices through tender the tender flesh right to the bone.
This hurts. Perhaps surprisingly though, not as much as what happens next. In this technologically advanced 21st century utopia we are living in, common and garden plasters are just not de riguer anymore darling. Oh no. The best solution these days to a two inch long gash all the way through your flesh only stopping at the bone is not an Elastoplast fabric or, for those with more money than sense a Band Aid Clear Gel, but an all new, space age, skin friendly spray on plaster. And it hurts like fuck. Plunging my severed digit into pure bleach and drying it off with a sandpaper-coated towel would surely have hurt less. As my lovely wife directs what feels like an acid filled flame thrower at my injured finger I wonder if years spent being a pussy at removing stuck-on plasters from relatively minor wounds has lead to this ultimate torture. As the blood oozing from the surgically precise wound is turned to jelly by the spray, I wonder if the removal of a handful of hairs after an hour of soaking in a warm bath would be preferable to this. Well, for once you’d be right. But we’re not over yet.
See, these new fangled gadgets are not always as clever as the make out to be. Aside from the pain I’m in, there’s a caveat on the spray can that says, firstly, that it might sting a bit (no shit sherlock!) and secondly, and perhaps in the circumstances more importantly, that it is not suitable for deep, secreting wounds.
And so we come to the next morning. My knuckle is covered in a sort of semi-transparent goo formed from blood and spray plaster. I run it under the tap to try and get a sit-rep on the injury. Wow!! It looks fine, just a hairline where the injury was, brilliant, the miracles of modern science etc… And here is where the painful bit comes in. I go to show my wife what a good job the plaster has done and flex my finger to show what a brilliant job it has done. Unfortunately, it is at this point that 21st century science decides to prove itself to be complete bunkum and the cut splits open again ejecting both a fountain of blood from the wound and strangled scream from the man who’s just felt the sticky rendering of a glued-together cut reopening……..
Regular Band Aid anyone……….?

*Unless you are John Merrick.

Answer me a question. Do you ever think clothing can be cursed?
I can hear you now –"Ah, Bucko!, what the flip do you think you are talking about man? Wasn’t it the great philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche* who remarked that only the highest living form, created in God’s own image, may possess a soul, and therefore emotions such as anger, love or, indeed, that metaphysical conundrum that we do, in times when logic and circumstances run against all normal parameters of explanation, call luck? Clothes are inanimate objects bereft of soul and purely functional in their exsistence, and therefore cannot have human attributes attached to their being. To suggests otherwise would be foolhardy in the extreme and counter to all natural thinking on the matter, and to broach such things could be seen as the raving of a madman."
Well, of course you would say that, wouldn’t you?
But look, have you never owned a coat, which as soon as you walked outside in it, got shat upon from a great height by the world’s previously most constipated bird?
Or a pair of shoes which, the second you put them on, seemed irresistibly drawn to the biggest, juiciest, steamiest dog turd in world?
Or perhaps a pair of gloves that everytime you put them on, forced you to leave your house under cover of darkness and lurk in the shadows waiting to squeeze the life from the next worthless soul who happened to surf the random tide of fate into you clutches? Errr………….well, maybe that’s a more limited example than the other two but you get my drift…..
Despite Mr FWN’s assertions, I’m starting to think that certain apparel in my wardrobe is, in fact, possessed by some of these characteristics.

Let’s take exhibit A)

This is a T-shirt I went to great lengths to own. When the band Rush came over here to tour last year, for the first time in ages, I wanted a souvenir. This proved difficult as I wanted the shirt in Large, and due to the popularity of the "natural" colour, it had sold out by the time I’d queued for three hours for it. No worries, the internet could help. A quick scout around secured the shirt, but for the astronomical sum of £40. This is the most expensive item of clothing I own. But it’s got to the point where I dare not wear it.
The first time I wore it managed to cover itself in chocolate ice cream. No amount of rubbing could get it out, in fact it made it worse as it simply helped grind the Belgian Dark Chocolate chips in it further into the nap. This has left a rather obvious, to me at least, stain on the shirt that even the best biological efforts of Lever Brother’s has failed to remove. Fortunately the "natural" cotton colour of the shirt is a sort of beige shade and so it didn’t stand out too much.
Then I wore it to a party. The red of a good Argentine Malbec and the amber nectar of a decent aussie larger left me just a crème de menthe away from leaving the place looking like a set of traffic lights.
And then there’s been the exploding curry incident. No, I wasn’t stupid enough to wear the shirt while cooking the curry, and I had a big napkin ready for when I sat down to eat it, so all bases were apparently covered. Or so I thought. Unfortunately the luck of the shirt had other things on its mind. As I went to remove the lid from the bubbling pot of Lamb Madras I’d lovingly prepared for my tea, the bastard thing refused to budge. So I gave it a bit of welly and let me tell you, the bugger came off then. But with a wet pop and a shower of curry sauce in the process. Turmeric, chilli and coriander issued explosively forth all over the by now rather shabby looking T-shirt. My wife’s best efforts with all that resides under our kitchen sink have failed to made any dent in the kalidescope of coloured stains which have changed my once stylish reminder of a great night out into a stoned hippy’s tie-dyed dream. It now resides quietly in the back of the cupboard.

Exhibit B)

A pair of Levi’s finest sand coloured jeans. Very nice. Wear them to work on a Friday and no one can say for certain they’re jeans and send you home, and all because they’re not blue. Woo-hoo, one over on The Man!!!
The first time I wore them, the tomato sauce from a sausage and egg torpedo from Benjy’s squirted from the bottom of the bun all over them.
Then, having washed them so much to try and get that out they’d virtually gone white where the sauce had been, I got on the train with a Copy of the Metro. By the time I’d got to Cannon Street the full colour photo and football-scandal headline were no longer residing on the back paper but had taken up residence on the front of my jeans. At least on the way home I could do the crossword on them.
And then they caused a full cup of coffee to be knocked off my desk and into my lap. I don’t even drink coffee at work.
Still not convinced? Well let’s fast forward to last weekend. I’m to cook for the evening and the missus is going to watch Antiques Roadshow. (Remember, every time they say "veneer" you have to have a drink.) "Right," I think to myself, "enough of this cursed bollocks, I’m wearing the T-shirt and the jeans tonight. I’m a enlightened soul of the 21st century, and don’t believe all this 12th century cursed hocus pocus, and no mistake!" Have I mentioned I was making Italian? Have I mentioned it needed tomato sauce? Need I mention that in lifting the pan to tip the sauce on to the spaghetti that the handle was hot, twisted in my grip and deposited the contents of the pan over both the devil’s own T-shirt and his accursed trousers?
That Nietzsche**, he knows shit, doesn’t he?

*no, it wasn’t…………………………

** Who the fuck is he anyway?

Belisima Signoras

And this is an ugly one! Honestly, Italian women are just fantastic looking. They start ‘em young with the most beautiful dark haired, dark eyed, dark skinned children, who seem to, much younger than over here it must be said, bloom into gorgeous young adults. Having endured a bunch of 13 year old girls flirting with one unfortunate young chap on an hour and a half bus journey up the amalfi coast I can vouch for there ability to turn boys into jelly.

And then they reach adulthood and the girls just get better. Sexy, sultry and with come to bed eyes, the local males are powerless before them, and soon end up snared. I can think of worse ways to go. But there is a terrible downside to all this sexual magnatism. There is, it appears, something in the Italian diet that has an adverse effect on the ladies and turns them from smouldering Sophia Loren look alikes into screaming banshee like creatures who beat the unfortunate men into submission, stop having sex with them and causes them to complain endlessly about all and everything. All whilst gaining 50 pounds and losing all their teeth.








Actually, they end up looking like this.....







Be warned this food is called wedding cake……………….

Italian style

The Italian have this in spades. From their famous and desirable couture brands – Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana, Moschino to name but a few – to their beautiful cars, their fantastic shoes and whole sense of design Italian style is something we all aspire to. But we get it wrong so often in the other parts of Europe, and indeed the rest of the world. So here is a handy guide to how it should, and shouldn’t be done:







Italian couple out shopping












British out shopping













Italian lady with a child











German Frauline with a child















Italian lady out for a walk













Americans out for a waddle












Beautiful slim Italian ballerina












Fat Ugly Russian ballerina (not according to me - she was sacked by the Bolshoi for weighing 109 lbs)




The Rossoneri

Imagine you decide on a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon to pop down to your local park to watch a spot of footie only to find when you get there that 2,000 rabid fanatics had beaten you to it and decided to spend the whole afternoon chanting in unison, setting off enormnous flares and are seemingly able to jump up and down in perfect synchronisation for the entire length of the match. Welcome to park football Italian style.

All this and a football match was served up courtesy of Sorrento Town football club and their local rivals Andria Bat. As Sunday entertainment it certainly knocks spots off a trip up Dartford Heath on a cold and rainy winter’s afternoon, I can tell you.

We had five goals, two punch-ups, a red card, a highly debatable penalty, a goalkeeper carted off in an ambulance and a ref attacked by the away team coach after the final whistle and eventually given a police escort away from the ground. It was fantastic. If only more non league games over here could be like that……..

Karmic Vampires

You may notice something odd when you try to book a holiday in Italy. Nearly every hotel will try to make you go half board. This is not only quite an expensive way to do things, but ties you down to just the one place to eat in the evening – when really you want to be out and about exploring the local hostelries and family run restaurants.

I can only assume the reason for this is the enormous amount of waiting staff they employ in these hotels. At breakfast there must be at least thirty waiters to cover the twenty or so tables, which rather looks like overkill to me. You have one guy who leads you to your table, one guy who gets your coffee, another who takes your order, yet more different ones to bring you the grub and finally another lot to clear the table after you. This must cost a lot of dosh, not only in wages but also in tailor’s fees for the subtly hierarchical uniforms they wear. No wonder they need a bunch of extra money from you up front. We, however, managed to wangle a discount for our room so although we are on half-board, we’re not too bothered about eating at the hotel. Much more the bustling centre of Sorrento for as with it’s crowded bars a suicidal moped riders providing the entertainment for us, but even so, we decide we should eat in the hotel for a couple of nights as it is "free".

And so we come to Sunday night and we arrive at the dining room. The menu looked ok with all the usual Italian bits on offer – risotto, pasta, a veal dish, you know what it’s like. What does surprise us though is the thought that we’ve just walked into an operating theatre, the walls are so white and the light is so bright. And there is absolutely no atmosphere – it’s like a morgue. No music, no buzz of conversation, no shouting Italians or raucous tourists singing away – and definitely no geezer with a guitar to serenade you into the night. It like a retirement home with a whole load of oldies and only a few couples our age in view – perhaps they are all so quiet because they have died. Before I can pull Lisa away and say this looks shit, a waiter has come up and asked us our room number. We tell him and he looks at us accusingly and says “You missed dinner last night” Well, no actually, I didn’t miss dinner last night I just didn’t have it here you knob. It didn’t get any better.

Because we had the cheapest room in the hotel, we had the worst table in the dining room, right by the door. The service was perfunctory to say the least and the food was average. What was worst though was it turned up as soon as you had ordered it and immediately you had finished once course the next was thrust upon you. Three courses and a bottle of wine were tucked away in an incredible 35 minutes. 35 minutes during which the loudest sound you could hear was the clinking of cutlery and the occasional death rattle of a pensioner. Thank god it was so quick, the whole time in there I could feel my life being sucked out of me – perhaps in fact it wasn’t a restaurant after all but we had accidentally stumbled into purgatory………..

More to follow shortly.....

So what do you do the first really, truly, cold and frosty winter’s day for many a long while? Yep, you decide to go for a run. If you’re an idiot that is………

To be honest the training hasn’t been going particularly well this week, mainly consisting of sitting around and making excuses why it is better to stay in and eat biscuits than flog oneself to death. Despite this I find myself standing on the doorstep, lycra’d to the hilt, and noting the one really pertinent fact about the weather today. It’s very, very cold.

Obviously I’d been lulled into a false sense of security by the beautiful blue skies and bountiful sunshine that seem so out of place at this time of the year. It’s only as I move off down the road that I realise that perhaps staying in doors with my feet on top of the electric fan heater would have been the better option. What from indoors looked like a gentle little breeze to keep one nice and cool as you pound the pavement, turns out to be brisker than I thought, and contains a nasty ice-cold knife-edge to it just to make sure you don’t forget it’s there. But it’s too late to go back in now. One of my mental neighbours has been watching me stretching out as I wait, far longer than normal of course, for my GPS to lock on. What usually takes 30 seconds seems to be taking several minutes and I’m in danger of having to make conversation with the twat. After what seems like an eternity the light goes green and so I set off, managing to studiously ignore his gaze and thus having to tel him I think he's a prick.

I’ve decided that today I’ll do the Chislehurst Pub Run. It’s usually known as a crawl but that wouldn’t be keeping within the spirit of the endeavour, so it’s off at a brisk jog via the Green Chain Walk into the recreation ground and out past the first of the pubs, The Lounge. It’s used to be called the White Horse and then the Penny Farthing, but every time someone gets murdered in there they change the name. I then pass the old geezers’ pub, The Gordon Arms, the hoodies’ pub, The Queen’s Head, before heading out of the high Street and across Chislehurst Common. In the good old days you’d have had the George and Dragon to slake your thirst in also, but that has now sadly gone to be replaced by a Zizzis, whatever that may be. It’s as I contemplate the demise of this pub when a thought strikes me. Why is it that when it is freezing cold, things actually start to burn? My lungs, thighs and face are all burning red raw, and my hands are numb with pain. Walking with frozen feet is bad enough but you try running with them, it’s agony. And why, when cold is supposed to freeze things, do I find the usually quite solid contents of my nose now streaming down my face like a fat kid’s in the school playground? There is snot everywhere and more pouring forth with every snorted breath. I raise my arm to wipe my face but at the speed I’m moving co-ordination isn’t all it could be and I end up whacking myself in it instead. Great. When I do manage to get my hand there I realise too late that one property you cannot apportion to Lycra is any sort of absorbency, so I simply succeed in spreading the snot even further round my face. The fat kid again anyone?

Before you know it though I’m off through the trees and I remember why I love doing this. The trees are glorious in their turning, the sky is blue and the pavement is sparklingly in the winter sunshine. So long as you remember that the reason the pavement is sparkling is due to the thick covering of frost, everything should be fine……if only the fucking cyclists would learn the footpaths are not there for their benefit. It’s bad enough trying to avoid breaking you neck on the wet leaves, tree roots and uneven paving without having to keep a look out for these morons who think that the traffic laws don’t apply to them. Tossers.

Being quite big though does have its advantages and I’m sure he can get the bike mended, and before you know it I’m past The Bull Hotel, a not too bad Young’s Pub, and on my way towards the Courage owned The Tiger’s Head. It’s then just down, across and back up the Chislehurst Cockpit (an actual cockpit, not the name of a pub)and on to my local The Crown (Shepherd Neame), before heading off towards to the cricket club. The trip through the dewy grass has left my trainers soaked so now my feet are really wishing for the electric heater option and so it’s with some relief that I cross the road by The Rambler’s Rest and head down Old Hill past the Imperial Arms, commonly known as the Impy and possibly the smallest pub in England, being more dimensionally challenged than your average porch, and on to the Bickley Arms before turning on to Lower Camden and the steep climb home.

I have now entered what I call the Temperance Area, for between the Bickley Arms and The Royal Eltham in Mottingham there is not a pub in sight. Elmstead Woods is a pub free zone. If I’m going to collapse and receive the reviving spirits that only a good hostelry can offer, I’d better do it now. No chance………It does always surprise me that an area so generally well endowed with drinking establishments has at it’s very heart an area drier than prohibition, it's a real puzzler. This occupies my mind for a while until the pain I’m in comes to the fore once more.

My lungs are now feeling like they’re full of burning fluid and the effort to put my leaden feet one in front of the other is starting to take its toll. I’m convinced I can see a woman walking a cat and then get nearly killed by a hoody hurtling down Elmstead Lane on his skateboard. I don’t think the hug I end up giving him was quite the one David Cameron had in mind………Eventually I turn into my road and receive a cheery wave from Mr Benny Bus man, one of my neighbours. “Oo, had a good run have you?” he asks in mock friendliness as I stagger past. Prizes are on offer for the person who gets closest to my reply – and yes, it did contain the F-word.