Hazlaar and the MEG- just ordinary folk!

March 4, 2021

If I thought the press killed my mum I probably wouldn’t invite them into every aspect of my life.

If I wanted to ‘get away’ from that same prying, hurtful, heartless, intrusive press, I would be even less inclined to share my every waking thought with the nearest reporter.

If I were an everyday bloke, former soldier, married to a mid-rate actress, I doubt Oprah would have me or my wife within a mile of her house unless I was there to empty the bins.

If I was a reporter, I wouldn’t be in the lightest bit interested in a c-list actress and her soldier hubby- unless they found something interesting in Oprah’s bins… or had royal titles.

If I were the kind of make-my-own-way, talented, independent go-getter who wouldn’t like living the royal life, with all the obligations and duties that come with it, which were explained in painfully clear detail about a million times by everybody around me until I fully and entirely understood what was involved. I wouldn’t agree wholeheartedly with all of it and then wait until AFTER the massive world-famous, star-studded wedding had only just finished and the gold-leaf confetti was still wafting behind my golden carriage, and my shiny new royal title was safely engraved on my passport for life, before then saying, “This isn’t what I expected! I’m outta here!”

If I were a mere soldier I doubt very much I’d be given the ranks of ‘Captain General of the Royal Marines, Honorary Air Commandant of RAF Honington and Commodore-in-Chief, Small Ships and Diving, Royal Naval Command’ before I’d finished basic training. And if I had them taken off me by the same royal family that gave them to me in the first place, purely because I was royal, I wouldn’t then ‘fight to get them back’ when I stopped being royal on the grounds that I was… “just a bloody good soldier guys! Come on! It’s no WAY fair! I did some proper soldiering and everything! What about Invictus!!! I’ve EARNED those bloody things!”

If I were the kind of red-blooded lad-of-lads military geezer that likes to shag posh birds on Vegas pool tables and dress as Hitler. I wouldn’t be crying into my post-photo-shoot Evian about some perceived slight on the recently-invented good character of my throat-cutting-for-fame wife and her plans for world domination to anybody willing to throw some money at me, while making sure to stoop low enough that my darling dictator wouldn’t have to lift her dear little arm at an ugly angle while holding my nose ring.

If I wanted to leave the Royal Family, I would leave the Royal family. I’d drop all titles and connections. I’d instantly cease to receive any money or benefit that my royal titles gained me. I’d give back anything that being royal had got me (which would be literally everything) and get a job emptying the bins at Oprah’s place. And I’d say no more about it. I’d step out of the limelight, get my head down and start my new anonymous life as an everyday bloke and ex-soldier. I’d look at my paltry income, rent a flat above a shop and explain to my wife that she would now have to earn her fame like anybody else.


 

Gourmet Dismay- Just give me a proper burger, for the love of Ron!

January 10, 2021


I’m a burger snob. I freely admit it. But you won’t find me droning on about age-matured wagyu beef and chunky seasonal relish on a steamed brioche bun. You also won’t hear me slagging off McDonalds like it’s a pedo ring on the dark web. Don’t get me wrong. I will go to great lengths for the perfect burger and good old Micky Donuts is way down the list of preferred vendors, but I’d take one over a gastro pub-gourmet burger any day.

Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Here’s the...


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We’re all ‘Mob Lawyers’ now

January 10, 2021



I remember, as a kid, watching American mafia movies or courtroom dramas where a lawyer would use the most tenuous little thing, reach for some unreasonable assumptions and dive on seemingly irrelevant tidbits to twist the facts to get his clearly guilty client off the hook:

“So, ‘Grandma Parsons’ do you drink alcohol?”
“Err… well, every Christmas Eve I have a nip of sherry to welcome Santa with the grandchildr…”
“The non-existent Santa?”
“Well, of course but…”
“S...


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‘Our American Cousins, They’re Such Children’

January 10, 2021



The line in the title of this blog is from Queen Elizabeth in a scene from Blackadder II. It’s said with fondness, like she was talking about some cheeky urchins swiping apples from an orchard. It always stuck with me because it chimed with my own view of Americans.

This childlike boastfulness can be seen in any American game show where toughness and an iron will are needed.

From silly thrill shows like Fear Factor, American Ninja and Total Wipeout, right up to extreme survival shows li...


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The first time I ever… gave myself an enema

January 10, 2021



Picture the scene. It’s mid 2000’s and I haven’t had a crap for ten days. I’m stood, crossed legged, clenching so hard it’s parting the hair on the back of my neck.

“With Dr. Atkins you can eat what you like and STILL lose weight!”

I was two weeks into the crazy new Atkins Diet. Brad Pitt had used it to get shredded for Fight Club and that was enough for me. I had lost weight, of course, but in those days the diet that would evolve into today’s Ketogenic lifestyle, which is ...


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Pornorama- a Dad’s Dilema

January 10, 2021



I like porn. To deny it would be like Jamie Oliver denying he likes olive oil- the man probably drizzles it on his cornflakes. But, these days my libido has been overtaken by a general air of confusion when it comes to that oldest of the ‘dark arts’ because frankly, I’m not even sure if it’s dark at all anymore!

When I was a kid porn was illegal. No question about it.

Sure, there was ‘soft’ porn everywhere. The kind that jumped out at you from page three of a daily rag, alongsi...


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Stop being so ‘nesh’!

January 10, 2021


Up North we have a saying, “don’t be so nesh!”. It’s what my mum would say if I complained about being cold, or wet, or uncomfortable, or if something wasn’t very nice because it was a bit ‘ucky’ or I was being squeamish. Like a fear of spiders, “They can’t bloody hurt you! Stop being so nesh!” You’d be told to toughen up and ‘get on with it!’ so you did.

I used to hate that expression. I use it every day now… in my head.

When someone is being squeamish, or actin...


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The first time I ever… had sex.

January 10, 2021



Everything in this sad, sad tale is true, and it’s about teenage sex so expect some graphic content and don’t eat before reading. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

“Can I feel your tits?”. Not the greatest chat-up line, admittedly, but as a young lad growing up in Blackpool in the early 80s it became a standard greeting when faced with tourist girls. It worked once. Just once, and it cost me my virginity.

‘Her name was Lola’ but, unlike the girl in the Copa Cabana, she wasn’t a showgirl, she ...


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I am NOT Jeremy clarkson

January 13, 2012
I’m not Jeremy Clarkson. Let me make that absolutely clear. In fact I care not one bit for pretty much everything he says and does and his attitude, which can be summed up as, “Shut the fuck up, hippie, I’m talking,” makes me wish I was a short, black lesbian working-class aristocratic motorphobe, just to be as unlike him as possible.
I have gone to great pains to make the above distinction because I’m about to write some things that might, on the surface, look like they were written...
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Money Games

January 9, 2012

In these times of penny-pinching, belt-tightening and hatch batten-downing we’re all suddenly obsessed with the price of things. Moreover, we’re turning into a population of individual price comparison services and I fear the day when we’re all Pseudo-Russian rodents may soon be upon us. My wife will automatically quote, and compare, the price of diesel at every petrol station we drive by like she’s got oil-based Tourette’s.

Eventually we all end up drawing the...


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