Birthday honours

We are slightly out of sorts, we are, by the concept of Sir Bruce Forsyth. Nothing against the man, please understand me, but not an easy one for my household to get its head round. We are actively outraged by the idea of Sir Tom Jones and the cold grim reality that in five or six years' time it'll be Dame Lulu.

I've long argued that it's more than time that Nicholas Parsons got a knighthood. The Small Object of Desire objected on the grounds that Peter Shilton hadn't got one for "being lovely." Even she had to admit that he couldn't have one before Gordon Banks. We agreed to disagree, eventually, over the merits or not of Sir Nobby Stiles.

John Inman and Roy Barraclough should both be made Dames of the British Empire for their services to pantomime.

As should Jeremy Paxman.

Tramlines of the mind

My dad used to work in Norbury's Printers in Old Trafford and although that, and all the other small factories that lined Elsinore Road, have been gone this past twenty years it still seems strange to see the place converted into a tram depot.

It's a changing world and I'm conscious that I'm slowing down. The first signs that the world was getting a bit fast for me came in the aftermath of the bomb in Manchester. All of a sudden, my lovely old city with the Lino a bit tatty round the edges was having facelifts and makeovers and whatnot. These days you can't move for designer doodads and footballers' danglies. 

Then they decided to turn the Pomona Docks into a small Manhatten skyline of empty offices and renamed part of Salford MediaCityUK. Where once was the U.C.P. tripeworks now there are sharp young men tweeting in CamelCase.

It wasn't all better in Th'owd days, no of course it wasn't. But I could keep up with it all.

On hearing the first fieldfares of Autumn

It's been a long week and I found myself waking up at twenty to ten. The Small Object of Desire was already awake, which was even more unusual.

"Hello you. Do you want me to make you a nice cup of tea?"

She said, snuggling up to me.

"Yes please," I replied.

"This is the bit where I usually go back to sleep, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yes."

"It's good to be predictable."

An hour later, I'm fighting the urge to put the kettle on.

Stuff

Apologies for going quiet again. Some time this weekend I'll get back to that post I'd half written before my mum took bad (she's fine, thanks, but still in hospital eating grapes). Between that, work and my natural capacity for insomnia The Small Ibject Of Desire had started enquiries with her veternary friends as to the appropriate dosage of horse tranquiliser.