Halo Stickman

Life’s too short, but 3 or 4 months is too long, eh? Supposing you came back and things didn’t work out with the new lady? Big decision to jeopardise a career, especially if it’s one you enjoy – don’t act in haste is my advice. Oooh, I always wanted to be an agony aunt.

Depends on whether or not you want to use them for a reference. I take it you've handed in your notice, rather than they’ve made you redundant.

To be fair, even my mother-in-law looks pretty good from 200 miles away.

I’m not naïve enough to think this definitely would not happen, but I wonder how much it would happen, and for how long. Unfortunately, I’m old enough to remember a time when racism within football was fairly widespread, but whilst there are certainly still racists in every football ground, they are very much in the minority. Nowadays, if someone tried to start a racist chant etc, not only would they be breaking the law, they would also incur the wrath of their fellow supporters – at least I like to think they would. Hopefully, the same would apply if someone tried to start a homophobic chant etc.

If we’re talking about just visiting a city then I suppose it depends on the individual. Personally, I look for a bit of local culture and history, interesting architecture, traditional pubs, nice places to eat that don’t rip me off, some green spaces, waterside frontage, and perhaps some good sporting or other entertainment venues. Plenty of British cities tick those boxes, but I reckon London still takes some beating. I’ve never been to Liverpool, but my son went there with some Japanese friends and had a great time. Apparently, the locals were very friendly – one even bought them all drinks in a pub. Perhaps it was Barry or Pap

Pound notes? You’re optimistic, Huffton. They’re not even legal tender anymore.

I’m no pacifist; I recognise some wars have to be fought. And when the slaughter stops, step forward the pontificating pundits, with their million different prejudices, biases and slants to justify the carnage. Whatever they say makes no difference to me; and it sure as hell makes no difference to the slaughtered. All I ask is that the pontificating pundits don’t glorify war, or minimise the wreckage it wreaks on individuals. Yesterday, Michael Gove became the latest pontificating pundit to enlist the Daily Mail as his mouthpiece. Nearly 100 years ago, the jingoistic journalist Jessie Pope and others used the same newspaper to encourage Britain’s youth to enlist, whilst sending white feathers to the less enthusiastic. Those pontificating pundits conducted their campaign – at a cosy safe distance from the killing fields – under the banner, “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (To die for one’s country is a sweet and honourable thing). Wilfred Owen, a man who actually fought and died in the WWI slaughter-house, penned them the following reply: DULCE ET DECORUM EST Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas shells dropping gently behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime … Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.

No right minded person who knows anything about the terrible working conditions existing before the advent of unions would decry the good work they’ve done – and still do. As I said, I was a member of a trades-union myself, and carried on paying my union subs as a single member long after I was made redundant. But the fact is that in some areas in the 70s, many union officials had become corrupted by power, and many were prioritising their own political agendas over the long-term wellbeing of their membership – let alone the long-term viability of the company paying their wages.

In the late 70s, I was a Labour voting trades-union member. I can’t speak for the coal industry, but in the large engineering company in which I worked the sole motive for most of the union officials was to extract the maximum amount of wages for the minimum amount of work. The restrictive working and demarcation practices were a complete joke; there were blokes getting paid for doing virtually f uck all; and others that regarded getting paid time-and-a-half for reading the newspapers on Saturday morning as simply a perk of the job. Of course, most of us lapped this up – at least until such time that the company became so uncompetitive that mass redundancies were the inevitable conclusion.

In years to come old men will tell their grandchildren about the year we finished eighth… or ninth… or tenth

Agree Without wishing to be complacent, I think it’s fair to say that our excellent start to the season means that we're unlikely to be in a relegation fight this season. On the other hand, recent events mean we're equally unlikely to be pushing for a top eight finish in the Premiership. Therefore, I think we’re ideally placed to give the FA Cup a really good shot this season, especially as most of the teams above us won’t be prioritising this competition. As someone who is lucky enough to have witnessed our 1976 FA Cup success, plus the aforementioned 1977 cup matches against Forest (definitely in my top Saints’ related memories), even a good cup run in a sadly devalued competition would be so much better than just watching the season peter out. It’s a way we can make our good start to the season count for something. I will be very disappointed if we play our second eleven tomorrow.

Interesting discussion with good points made on all sides. Whilst it’s obviously wrong for script writers to go unaccredited, sadly, this is something that occurs in all walks of life. People will be awarded gongs in the New Year’s Honours’ List largely because they are the public face of organisations with plenty of other people working hard and unaccredited in the background. The phrase: ‘OBE – Other Buggers’ Efforts’ springs to mind. However, having said this, script writers like Eddie Braben needed performers like M & W, Ken Dodd and Ronnie Corbett every bit as much as they needed people like him. But, at least Braben was credited for his efforts. One of the main problems comedy script writers face is the fleeting nature of their genre. All art-forms suffer from the second telling/viewing/hearing syndrome, but none more so than comedy – no joke is as funny the second time round. And, whereas Shakespeare’s plays, Dickens’s books and Bacharach’s songs can be performed by various artists throughout the ages without losing their cachet, the same is rarely true for jokes or comedy sketches (although one of M & W’s most famous sketches – the Breakfast Sketch – was originally performed by Benny Hill). For this reason, creators (rather than just performers) of plays, books and songs have a better chance of being remembered than creators of comedy. Another problem with accrediting comedy writers is the fact that most jokes are simply reworking of gags that originated from some random bloke down the pub, or even some random bloke on SWF. Have you heard the one about …

I’ve never had Christmas dinner at a pub or restaurant, but I would absolutely love to! Don’t get me wrong, Mrs Stickman makes a lovely Christmas dinner for which we are all truly grateful. Unfortunately, she seems incapable of making it without using every damn piece of cookware, crockery and cutlery we own. Takes me till Boxing Day to do the bloody washing up

The Morecombe and Wise show was the highlight of Christmas TV viewing when I was young; indeed, for many, those shows were the highlight of Christmas full stop. Now, if I watch a re-run of those shows, I find them quite dated, although no more so than Monty Python etc. As regards to who wrote the script, my family were laughing too much to give that a second thought. Actually, we probably thought it wasn’t scripted at all: Eric seemed to be adlibbing most of the time. Of course, we now know that wasn’t true: even the apparent adlibs were carefully scripted and rehearsed over and over again. A scriptwriter called Eddie Braben (who died earlier this year) was responsible for much of their material. Obviously, he deserves huge credit, although I doubt whether his material would have been as funny performed by people without M & W's superb sense of timing and delivery.

Down the pub at lunchtime – couple of pints, nice meal, rain outside, good spot in front of the wood-burner – when for some mad reason, instead of my normal Lamb’s navy rum, I ordered myself a Malibu. That is definitely not a wintertime drink – if it has to be drunk at any time, it’s got to be summertime. Got me thinking – what is the best wintertime drink, and what is the best summertime drink? Or, is there a good all-year-rounder? What will you be drinking on New Year’s Eve?

Interesting stuff, especially regarding Sempill – thanks for posting, BTF. Thankfully, times have changed regarding attitudes towards gay people. Perhaps the same can’t be said regarding the Establishment’s preference for looking after their own?

It’s tragically ironic that a man who played such a major role in defeating Nazism should end up being chemically castrated by his own country. Disgusting episode in our history.

Probably the schmaltziest film ever made – yet still gets me welling up every damn time I watch it. Number 1 on the Essential Christmas Viewing list?

If a mother consents to a 45 year-old man having sex with her 14 year-old daughter, surely that mother is guilty of an offence herself? I suppose proving it is the problem.

Barnett says that golliwogs are nostalgic rather than racist. Choudary and Bakri refuse to condemn the slaughter of Lee Rigby by people claiming to be ‘soldiers of Allah’. One of them is ordered to undergo diversity training.

The most irritating small-talkers are barbers, especially those that can’t cut hair and small-talk simultaneously. One old boy took over forty minutes to give me a trim – every time he opened his mouth he stopped cutting ffs! I resolved that if I ever went there again, when asked how I wanted my haircut, I would answer: ‘In total silence, please.’

Read every single Biggles’ book when I was a boy – don’t see those in libraries these days. Also, Conrad’s N*gger of the Narcissus was one of our exam books at school in the early 1970s. Times change.

Thanks, Dimond – seems like sound advice, though too late for me as I moved from that house some years ago, and I’ve never experienced similar problems in subsequent houses. I recall that I did actually have one vented ridge tile (as you say, I probably could have done with a few more), and adding the soffit vents certainly made the attic quite draughty, necessitating an upgrade to the lagging around the tank and pipes in the attic.

Then you must hand it in – there’s no place for nostalgia in Britain (nor, of course, race-hate)

On a related note, some years ago, we replaced our single-glazed windows with double-glazed, and also had our cavity walls insulated at the same time. House was a lot warmer, but when I went up to the attic, I thought the roof was leaking – it wasn’t, it was condensation dripping from the roofing felt. I fitted soffit vents to increase the ventilation in the roof space, which helped but didn’t cure the problem completely – we ended up having to leave the bathroom window slightly ajar all night! It was a small house and my children were quite young at the time, so I guess we were creating quite a lot of moisture – showers, washing machine, breathing etc, though never daft things like drying washing on radiators. I suppose water vapour has to condense somewhere, and I’ve often wondered where it would have condensed if we’d had our attic floor insulation increased in thickness preventing the water-laden air rising up through the ceiling. Mate of mine got over a similar problem by running a dehumidifier day and night – he reckoned he collected well over 2 pints of water every day.