My weekend began under the stars and ended under the stars. On Friday the Ladyfriend and I dined al fresco in Mick and Diane's garden. They had taken advantage of the summer washout by buying an amazing bar-b-q in the sales. It's called The Grand Canyon and as you can imagine by the name it's a formidable size. I'm afraid that I got a bit 'tight' and was hard pushed to put one foot infront of another on the way home. I checked on saturday and hadn't disgraced myself anymore than usual. A good time had by all.
Last night I was peering up at the night sky for the much promised meteor shower which was very much a damp squib. I didn't see one. We were told to look east but my little compass (which came out of a christmas cracker) was behaving eratically and so we were running from one side of the house to another in a fruitless search for the falling stars!
The Ladyfriend pulled the curtains and buggered off to bed sending - what she calls crap but I call my treasures (bits of wood, pebbles, old silver spoons etc) - crashing from the window sill to the ground. It's a bit creepy staring out into the garden at that time of night. You have to have the lights in the room turned off too and I didn't want to do it on my own so I packed it in too.

DIB DIB DHSS

I absolutely love this (From the Daily Mail)

They came here from all corners of the globe to celebrate 100 years of Scouting.

But it seems some of the youngsters at the World Scout Jamboree were prepared for more than just a fortnight of fun.

As thousands from 162 nations enjoyed the activities at Hylands Park in Chelmsford, Essex, 13 of their brethren disappeared.

Nine Scouts from Bangladesh and Uganda never arrived at the campsite, while four from Sri Lanka and Nigeria vanished during the 12-day event.

Police say there are no suspicious circumstances and believe the youngsters may be planning to stay in Britain illegally.

Can't wait for the 2012 Olympics.

I've posted my Amsterdam pictures click here As I said, they aint no great shakes but you may as well see what ya been missing. I've also uploaded a video to my You Tube channel click here of some Amsterdam buskers which are worth a look. Buskers these days are so much more sophisticated than they used to be. Gone are the days of blind accordian players* in pissy smelling underpasses shoppers are used to Philarmonic Orchestras in shopping malls.

*When I was a youth I would take the bus to Slough for shopping and there was always a blind accordian player there. He did a good trade but he gave me the willies as I was never quite sure if he was blind or not. He's since moved on to Henley and fingers his miniature organ outside Waitrose.

The new Jamie Oliver series was on last night and I must say the whole family enjoyed it. Even the Ladyfriend's mum was enthralled and put down her wordsearch book when he came on.
By and large I loved it and predict this year's new garden 'must have' will be a pizza oven. I want one already, the neighbours will just love the smell of burnt focaccia ruining their washing.
We also gave the gardener ten out of ten who, like most of Jamie O's friends, will end up with his own show. Ah, I'm only jealous.

I was going through my photos of Amsterdam to put on the site last night and I'm having trouble choosing between them. Not because there are so many great pictures but because there are so few! Half of them are out of focus! Damn that Amstel beer.
Never mind, there are only so many picture of drag queens that one person can have in 'my documents'.
I'm in training at the moment. At work there's a rounders game in the offing and I'm not in match winning shape. Things could get messy. I've not played rounders since school but I have fond memories of it. I'm team captain with enormous responsibility on my shoulders...time to get a sports bra.

Wow what a weekend. Amazing. Amazing Amsterdam. It started badly, we were on the Sleazy Jet flight from hell full of junkies and stag weekenders (whatever happened to stag nights?) now, I'm no snob - well actually yes I am - but these people were beyond chav, it was 3pm and they were pissed and they were cheering and jeering whilst the trolley dolleys were trying to demonstrate the safety instructions. It makes me shudder.
But Amsterdam Pride was just the best thing ever and I have already started my penny jar to fund next year's. I too was pissed at 3pm on the Saturday, singing and dancing along with a Shirley Bassey lookie likey who was as good as the real thing (well, I thought so at the time). She sang all the hits perched on the end of a canal boat it was magic. We were having such a good time - the ladyfriend and I - that we ended up on Belgian telly. It's funny how you know all the words when you're tiddly but I couldn't sing a whole verse of "This is my life" now if you held a gun to my head.

My favourite cook on the telly at the moment is Tamasin Day-Lewis she's just like sooooooooo posh but 'dangerous' if you know what I mean? There's something about her that makes me think 'rehab'. Her hair looks as though it hasn't been cut since she left finishing school and she has this chubby woman friend called George. Her food is wonderful though. She aint no barefoot more Barberfoot but I'm strangely drawn none the less.
The Ladyfriend and I are off to Amsterdam tomorrow for Pride, can't wait. We are staying right in the heart of the street party bit so we are quite excited. Photos on Monday. Ciao.

What on earth has happened to Jamie Oliver? I saw his enormous face staring down at me from the magazine stand this morning, he looked like Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson. What a bloater! My Oliver swingometer has swung his way to the good in recent years what with his fish pie recipe and his jars of pesto being sublime but it's certainly wavering now. Take a look at the front of the Radio Times and you'll see what I mean. Poor old Jules, waking up to that every morning. A fat tongue is one thing but a ballooning face is certainly another.

I've been looking at the amount of rubbish that I am producing and have to say that the bulk of it isn't absolutely all my fault. In an age when tossing a jam jar into a bin is tantamount to murder and not recycling newspapers carries a life sentance it's very hard to move these days without the risk of ending up on crimewatch. Every day I seem to attract my own body weight in refuse. If it doesn't come home in my shopping it is pushed through my door, leaves my body in a different form than it came in or is produced just by cleaning myself. I'm afraid the climate will just have to change without me as I'm sick of spinning the plates. I've reams of paper waiting for shredding and then what do I do with it? Give it to a hamster!
The ladyfriend and I had to visit the municipal dump at the weekend which to me is a bit like visiting people you're not all that keen on - you don't look forward to it but you enjoy it when you get there.
It's a very nice dump, they run a tight ship with different sections for this, that and the other. In a corner they have this Aladdin's cave of unwanted treasures which they have hoiked out of the skips. I've often drooled over these items. They have hundreds of golf clubs, chairs, tables, garden gnomes and the like. They also have a vast collection of skis which just goes to show how well the economy is doing.
This weekend they had a massive chandelier which must have come from a huge house - a little 70's in styling - but a thing of beauty all the same. The men had suspended it and it sparkled as it shook gently in the wind. It certainly injected a bit of much needed glamour as we tossed the garden clippings away.

tuppence a bag

I'm not having much luck with the birds. They are a fickle bunch. Before I went on holiday I was being eaten out of house and home. I had more than two in a bush I had a veritable Quality Street tin of varieties, finches, sparrows, crows, tits, robins but two weeks away and I've a lawn fall of peanuts going begging.
I know what's happened, during my break in the sun they've f*cked off to the neighbours garden, I've seen his nutbags swinging from the vantage point of my bedroom window and there's nothing I can do about it.
The pheasants have been loyal god love 'em, they've stuck by me a fact that I shall remember come the glorious 12th.

I'm like sooooooo loving YouTube, I was on it for hours last night. They've got videos of Barbra Streisand, Liza with a Z and Judy Garland! Fantastic. I've stuck a little movie of Verona up if you want to click here and see it, it's no great shakes but it's a little soupcon of my holiday. I have also stuck up my photos atlast click here.
I must apologise for not being much of a chatty cathy lately, I've lost it a bit since we got back. I'm out of the loop when it comes to social commentary and very rarely catch the news. I have been confining myself to the kitchen this week and have also been drinking heavily, the only enthusiasm I can muster is when I knock the wife around a bit....

There should be a decompression chamber for when people come home from their holidays, I feel ready to fall asleep at the drop of a hat. I don't know if it's coming home to all this water but my little battery light is flashing red for danger. Anyhow, I'm cooking risotto tonight - a little taste of Italy - a reminder which I am hoping might lift me spirits.
Lake Garda was great, the hotel though became known as "Eagles Nest" to the Ladyfriend and I as there was such a high proportion of Germans staying there. They're funny buggers, they know how to occupy a beach, every morning I would awake gripped with fear that there would be no sun beds left. We would have to wade our way through their terry towelling which had been placed neatly at 4am and try and find ourselves a place without the whiff of sausage.
There were also rather a lot of pale Oirish children which would stay for a few days and then go off (I expect they were on their way to Rome to see their new Pope)they would run up and down on the way to use the water slide and I'm not kidding at one point I thought I was in a scene from Angela's bloody Ashes.
We left the compound often though, and took in as much of the Italian atmosphere that we could (before we went back to the hotel and our Eva Braun suite) we took a trip to Verona, the Dolomite Mountains and took boat trips around the lake. When we dined out the food was like a religious experience, I've never eaten pasta like it. The little towns were stunning, the buildings were jaw dropping and fig trees grew out of cracks in the pavement like weeds. Highly recommended.

The Ladyfriend and I are home from our holidays and what a swell time we've had. I'll write more for you tomorrow as I'm running a wee bit behind what with coming home on Saturday and seeing Ms Streisand last night, so enjoy this scene of Verona in the meantime.

but i do what i do toodeloo

I don't BELEEEEEEVVVEEEE IT! Liza with a Z is on the road and she aint doing London! I'd be happy to travel as far north as Leamington Spa but the great lady aint coming anywhere near UK airspace! What a disaster.
The ladyfriend and I are off to Italy tomorrow for two weeks so it's some consolation but the ciabatta will stick in me throat knowing that I'm going to miss out on the greatest show singer of all time - I mean WHAT a gene pool!

I've trouble with the feet. They've gone all hard and gnarly. I look like I've been walking barefoot in the bush with Jenny Agutter, it's not nice. So last night I sat watching the telly with my feet in a washing up bowl with all kinds of surfactants swilling about to get them super soft, I even bought a cream with horse piss in it (it says Urea on the tube so I'm hoping it's from Black Beauty and not an African gentleman piddling in a bucket on the minimum wage.)
I'm hoping they'll bounce back, my feet were once a source of great pride to me but, like many aspects of my body, have run to seed with neglect.

People have been harping on about Tony Blair's legacy and I reckon the thing I will remember him for the most is not curing ricketts, the abolishion of clause 28 or creating the homogonised high street but the law that was passed yesterday - The ban on smoking in public places! I've lost count of the times when a 'friend' has said "do you mind if I smoke?" and I've hated every sodding second of it and sitting with a smile on my face when I'd prefer to be ramming an ashtray between someone's puckered lips. It's great news indeed. Clean air. Now the only peasouper you'll see in a restaurant will be the eat with a spoon kind.

I've got trench foot. The Ladyfriend and I went to Louise and Jamie's wedding on Saturday - please click here for pictures - and it rained, heavily. I've never seen rain like it, it fell in Biblical proportions. It didn't spoil a thing mind you. Infact, I've never been to a better wedding. It felt like Carry On up the Khyber as we sat dining in a marquee whilst outside merry hell was let loose. It was thunder and lightening but it wasn't very frightening. It was British stiff upper lip stuff. What made it all the more poignant was that the marquee was erected on a cricket pitch with the lavvies in the pavillion. Between courses I had to answer the call of nature which meant me, a brolly, with my chin up walking barefoot across silly point, you can't get anything more English than that.
It was a bit of a late night - the skin was set like cement on the top of the Ovaltine - so I'll wind up now but if you want to see a bit of wedding dancing click here

Vic just a Minute get in touch, I've lost your email!

On my lunch time walk to Tesco I stepped on something. It made me skid slightly and my immediate thought was that I had happened upon some dogs mess and I would spend the best part of this week trying to be rid of its odour. I couldn't look down and kept on walking, if I had examined my sole it would have been obvious to passing traffic that I had trodden in dog muck and I couldn't have that.
I carried on walking scrapping my right foot slightly. I kept thinking though that it couldn't have been dog muck as the texture wasn't quite right, I decided that it was a mouse, frog or baby bird which in a way was worse.
On my way back from the supermarket I retraced my steps half not wanting to see the horror that awaited me but determined to put my mind to rest. I held my breath at the point of insertion and saw a big old soggy piece of ginger. How odd and how sad that someone's tea had been ruined.

It was the Ladyfriend's mother's birthday on wednesday and as she is advanced in years the only place to take the old girl was the Harvester restaurant. They serve simple fayre there and she likes to suck on Fish and Chips - everything else is too hard. As a special treat we decided to take the car out to Windsor and go to the Virginia Water branch, this was a bad idea, it was packed to the rafters. We don't like waiting so we went back to a Toby Carvery which we passed enroute.
From the outside it looked menacing, CCTV cameras adorned every corner of the building but we were starving so we went in.
Whilst we were digesting God only knows how many strains of growth hormones I watched through the window at a car that had pulled up. A group of boys got out. I sneered at them (I tend to do this with the young a lot these days) but as they came nearer I realised that they were the group Eton Road who failed to win last year's X Factor.
They looked ever so tired and I daresay they had just come back from perfoming in a dive of a gay club in Magaluf. One of them came in and spoke to the waitress. I can't be sure, but I think they asked for a secluded area so that they would not be ambushed by fans. This made me laugh. We left at this point so we will never know if they put on an impromptu concert or not. Bless 'em, this time next year one of them will probably be working there.