York 2017 - Singing In Tune After Waiting Around Pointlessly On Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate

If you trawl back through the archives of Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard (which I just have to be able to bring you this sentence) you will find an account of our last trip to York which was in the summer 0f 2010. Or rather, three accounts. One for each day that we spent there. Actually, let me save you some time. They can be found here, here and here. Almost seven years later we decided to go back there on the occasion of our 18th anniversary. That is to say we have been together for 18 years. We are not married. How are we going to afford weekends away in York if we get married?

We travelled over on Friday morning having booked to go on a walking tour of the city. Footprints walking tours don’t charge you for their services, but they talk a lot about tipping and how it is up to you to decide how much you think the tour is worth. Which isn’t an awful lot as we will see later but first let me tell you a little bit about the hotel.

We stayed in a Best Western called the Monk Bar Hotel. For me this evoked amusing memories of a contestant on University Challenge called Monkman who is fast becoming a cult figure. If you pay a visit to University Challenge’s Twitter feed you will see that their avatar is an image of the intense, slightly scary looking Monkman who represents one of the Cambridge colleges. He’s amusing due to his appearance, his intensity and the absolute sense of betrayal that he feels every time he gets a question wrong. As if he knows better and Jeremy Paxman is just taking the piss.

Presumably the Monk Bar hotel is so named not after the fierce television quiz star but after the area in which it is situated. Everything in that area seems to be known as the Something Something at Monk Bar or the Monk Bar Something. The disabled access room we were allocated (there may be more than one but don’t bet anything valuable on it) was set back away from the main hotel in a different building. Like an outhouse or the outside loo that used to sit in the garden at my nan’s house. Only bigger. And colder as we would find out when we returned from the walking tour to have a rest and get ready to hit the boozers. It also has no parking, something we didn’t find out until we had parked in what looked suspiciously like a car park at the back of the hotel. We were told we’d have to move the car to a car park just around the corner which Emma did, but if you are a wheelchair user driving there on your own then you will benefit from knowing that we had this problem. It will mean that you won’t have to make the mistake that we did before lugging your fat arse and your chair back into your car in order to move the car about 50 yards to a different car park and then have to push all the way back to the hotel to check in.

With an hour or so to go before the walk we went next door for lunch at the Yorkshire Bar & Grill. It actually joins on to the hotel but, this being us, we hadn’t realised this and so went outside to come back in again. Like that clip from The Simpsons of Abraham Simpson walking into his house, taking his hat off, turning around, putting his hat back on and then walking outside again. All while cheerily whistling along to himself. Twelve quid got us two meals (but not the drinks, they are extra) and it was all very nice. We were pretty much the only people in there at 12.30pm on a Friday so it was nice and peaceful too. Very different from Wetherspoons which I love but where you can't seem to get away from the inane chatter of Other People, many of whom try to put you off your breakfast by drinking pints of bitter at 9.00 on a Sunday morning.

We met for the walk on Stonegate, one of seemingly thousands of streets in York which has a name ending in Gate. As well as Stonegate there's Colliergate, Davygate, Coppergate, Deangate, Goodramgate, Fishergate, High and Low Petergate and the brilliantly named Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate among others. Everything short of Watergate and Pizzagate. Our guide was Matt, a young looking and incredibly posh-sounding chap who it turned out was studying at York University. Well that explained the well spoken accent. Everyone else here sounded like Keith Lemon. Matt was slightly scatty I think. The website for Footprints says that you have to book on to the tour either by phone or online, so he has an idea of who will be turning up before we start. After introducing himself he told us that it would be me and Emma and a school party! Just as I started to wonder how I would cope with 30 screaming children running off in different directions and asking 'why are you in that?' the so-called school party arrived. Fortunately, they were all well into their adulthood. What is more, none of them even worked in a school. Matt had no clue where he had got the idea from that they were a school party but I couldn't help but feel a wave of relief that we now wouldn't have to spend part of the tour looking for little Johnny who had broken away from the group and could be in any one of the 276 Gates or tea-rooms that line the city.

Here's another access bit. York is difficult to get around if you have a wheelchair. The first example of this was at Barley Hall, built nearly 700 years ago by monks (monk men?) with seemingly nothing better to do other than pray to their false God. Yet disappointingly, the hall we were actually looking at by this point has only been there for around 30 years after it was rebuilt in the 1980's following that prolific scourge of all things historic, decaying structures. You thought I was going to end that sentence with...that prolific scourge of all things historic, disabled people, didn't you? Go on, admit it. It's ok. Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard is exactly the sort of place where you would find that kind of offensive glibness. If you are a wheelchair user then you will be familiar with the concept that some buildings are just so historically important that they cannot be altered in any way to allow the likes of you inside but it does happen more often than you would think. But mostly buildings are altered in historical cities either because they are becoming unsafe due to structural damage or because they have burned down.

Back at the ranch, the point I was making is that you will have trouble getting around this area due to the uneven paving and the cobbles which are pretty much a feature of the whole of York. Matt told me that his brother is in a wheelchair (at least he didn't say he has a brother who is 'like me' because I can almost guarantee you that he isn't) and that he has trouble with cobbles. I replied that I do too, and that it wouldn't be the first time I have come a cropper if I should hit one or a crack in the pavement and end up sniffing the dirt. Fortunately I managed to stay in my chair throughout which, though disappointing for the humour content of this column, is a good thing for me.

Now Matt had explained to us before the tour started that there was a part of the tour that is inaccessible. This is not uncommon, especially in cities so rich with history and...well....cobbles. Fear not though, he assured us, as we could just take an alternate route while the others climbed the steps to walk along what remains of the city walls. Again this is something we have experienced before and usually takes no more than a few minutes out of the tour for before we meet up again with the group fairly quickly. Not this time. Matt advised us to head to Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate via the arch close to where the city walls begin where he and the group would re-join us for the rest of the tour. It took about 10 minutes to get to Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate and we arrived to find that the rest of the group were conspicuous by their absence. So we waited. And we waited. And we waited. Like the old Guinness advert. We waited there for another 15 minutes on top of the 10 it had already taken us to get there. So that is 25 minutes of a two-hour tour (which is actually only about 1 hour and 45 minutes anyway despite what the website tells you) that you won't be experiencing if you happen to be a wheelchair user. To my knowledge there is nothing on the website about this and actually there is no information whatsoever there about wheelchair accessibility or any other kind of accessibility needs you might have. So it's not great form, really. More than once while we waited we discussed the possibility of giving up on them and going into The Terrace, a pub right across the road from where we were waiting. York apparently has 365 pubs within its city walls and we had only been in one of them to that point, and that was only for lunch. We needed to make a start. And it was just there, staring at us and softly whispering 'come in, have a pint and forget about Matt's loopy Michael McIntyre schtick.'

But we didn't. Eventually Matt and the group turned up all apologies and have-you-been-waiting-longs. The wait wasn't really worth it. Before the rude interruption we had been walking for about an hour so I fully expected another half an hour at least, even allowing for the time we had missed. But that didn't happen. There were only two more stops on Matt's tour, the most memorable story of which had been the one of how catholic women were pressed to death hundreds of years ago if they were caught practising their religion. This meant basically being laid flat out and having a variety of heavy objects piled on to you until your spine literally snapped. Now everyone who has ever seen this column knows I care little for religion but this seems just a tad harsh just for being misguided enough to practice Catholicism. And we worry about Donald Trump. The final stop was Clifford's Tower, sometimes referred to as York Castle. There is a museum right by there but having done it before during our 2010 visit we don't bother again. However, you can read all about that in the blogs I linked to earlier if you so wish.

And so it came to the thorny issue of the tip for the walk. How much was it worth? We forgot to go to the cash machine and so only had a tenner between us anyway, but we actually debated whether or not we should give all of that to Matt following the Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate debacle. Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate-Gate, if you will. In the end the wastefulness that I inherit from my mother's side of the family won out and I just gave a yeah-whatever shrug when we were talking about it. We ended up giving him the tenner. That's only five pounds each after all and there were some worthwhile moments on the tour. Yet anyone who reads this column for advice on access issues in all of the strange places I visit should know that I would probably advise you to look elsewhere for your guided tour of York. Most of them will probably include some sort of alternate route to the part where you walk along the city walls but I wouldn't mind betting that most of them could do better than to have you waiting 25 minutes for them while you contemplate whether you might just be better off getting drunk.

Which, predictably, is exactly what we do on Friday evening;

Keystones Scream

As I mentioned York allegedly has 365 pubs within the city walls and we set out with the intention of seeing as many of them as we could over the two nights of our stay. The first of these was just around the corner, literally about a minute's walk from the Monk Bar Hotel. It's called Keystones Scream, which is an interesting moniker if nothing else. Unfortunately its name is just about the best thing about it. It was standard student fair, which would have been my absolute utopia when Emma and I met and for a few years afterwards, but now seems somehow inappropriate. We found a place to sit, a sofa situated in front of a large screen showing the Derby v Leicester FA Cup tie in which even I had absolutely no interest. Behind us the students were playing pool, drinking heavily, chatting loudly and generally being students. Not only that, but Emma said that the sofa she was sat on is what my scouse friends would call 'minty'. What she actually said (because she wouldn't actually say minty, it would sound ridiculous) is that it feels like someone has pissed on the sofa. Not recently. It wasn't wet. But it was tatty and stained. I stayed in my chair but I have to be honest and say that just looking at it did remind me of a brown and white sofa that my mum threw out about 100 years ago. From the outside, it looks a little like this. But really, with 365 to choose from you should probably save yourself the bother of going in;




I don't mean to pick on students. As we know I was one once, and what great times they were. In fact, being in Keystones Scream with all those long-haired idealists brought back great memories. As unattractive as Keystones Scream is it has nothing on some of the absolute shitholes we used to frequent back in my student days in Barnsley. Browns was a particularly gruesome venue but I absolutely loved it. They sold shots of whisky with a mixer for 50p. You don't need palatial surroundings to enjoy that. There were others. We used to flock to The Pheasant which was a short walk from the halls of residence where we all lived for the simple and only reason that it was a short walk from the halls of residence where we all lived. It was an absolute and total dive without a single redeeming feature. Same goes for The Firkin, a loathesome place but a place which could be relied upon to show live football and serve drinks to students at silly prices. It would all end in Hedonism nightclub, a place which was both dingy and smoky (this was before the ban) but which for young people with no responsibilities absolutely and completely lived up to its name. The things that went on. If anyone heard 'Sit Down' by James in any of the pubs I frequent now, and actually sat down next to me as people were fond of doing in Hendonism, I would punch them squarely in the face. How times change.

The Royal Oak

Remember that plan to visit as many pubs as we could in York? This was where it all started to go wrong, but for the right reasons. The Royal Oak is a relatively small place, and when it is busy it obviously seems even smaller. We had to fight our way to the only empty table in the place. It was empty for a reason. Just next to it, on the sofa literally about two feet from where we sat down, a man was setting up his keyboard. I took the opportunity to make a cheap joke about organs on Facebook (standard) and waited for what I thought would be an inevitable deafening from the man once he started playing. We still expected at this point to have one beer and move on. Normally when someone sets up musical equipment close to where you are sat in a pub it means the end of any possibility of conversation between you and whoever you are there with. But then the man, whose name was Adam, started playing and pleasantly surprised us with both his musical talent and his ability to keep the noise down to a level that it was possible to not only withstand but also to hear other sounds. He never touched the keyboard as it turned out. He played an acoustic guitar, all of which was right up my street. I was singing along to The Beatles, Oasis, Crowded House, Mumford & Sons, Jamie Lawson and even a bit of Ralph McTell!

So we had begun to enjoy ourselves to the point where we decided to stay for a few more, at least until Adam finished playing. Not only was the music good and the atmosphere pleasant, there was only an accessible toilet! Oh what joy was this? It meant fighting my way back through the huddled masses enjoying Adam's little sing-along but this was a small chore considering the number of pubs I have been in where wheelchair users can't even get through the door of a toilet. Strictly one and move on territory and even then only if you haven't been drinking heavily since your last visit to the bathroom. Having got through the crowd I had the usual problem of having to ask Miss behind the bar for the key (we had somehow neglected to remember the radar key - again) and then I had to ask her to move a number of sandwich boards which had been stored inside the disabled toilet. This again is a common practice in pubs where there are facilities. It's total lip-service to comply with the law. Install a disabled toilet and use it as a store room. Don't worry, nobody using a wheelchair will actually come in. Well, sometimes they do.

My singing had obviously been noticed by Adam. He told me I was 'in tune' which ranks among the higher compliments I have ever received for my vocal exploits. For this reason, for Adam's entertaining segment and for its commitment to actually bothering to have a disabled toilet The Royal Oak had instantly installed itself as my favourite pub in York to that point. It looks a little something like this;



The Cross Keys

Four pubs out of 365 is not a particularly good effort, I know. But where is the logic in leaving a pub if you are having as good a time as we were in The Royal Oak? You could go somewhere else but you would be doing it for the sake of it and there is a high risk that you wouldn't enjoy it so much. And an even higher risk that wherever you do go won't have a disabled toilet and you will either piss your pants or else spend your time there performing the I Need A Wee Dance that people with full control over their bladder function are so fond of. In any case for every Royal Oak there is bound to be two or three Keystone Screams. So by the time we left The Royal Oak it was well after 11.00. Time for another before everywhere started chucking out. The next one we came to was The Cross Keys which sits at the corner of Goodramgate just in front of York Minster. It's very scenic from outside, but from the inside it is fairly bog-standard pub gear. It started to empty out not long after we arrived which may or may not be a coincidence so we just enjoyed the beer and the peace before ending Friday back at the hotel bar. It was pretty much the only place still prepared to serve us.

Here's a shot of the Cross Keys to end on. I have decided to split the weekend into two entries because this has gone on far longer than I had expected. I hope you will join me for part two....

Not Being George

First of all I have to again apologise for the lack of material on these pages. What time I have had for writing has been spent putting together a series of previews of the new Super League season which starts in early February. You may have seen a few of these springing up on Facebook. To be honest I didn't really intend to publish them on Facebook as they are pretty niche. They're far more popular on Twitter where most people who follow me do so because of my rugby league writings. Most of them don't even know me. But that's no barrier to us being friends. The reason these pieces appeared on Facebook had more to do with my inability to use Buffer correctly. I'm sorry Steve. You taught me far, far better than that.

I went for a Wetherspoons breakfast at the weekend. To my mind this is one of the greatest pleasures in life, but that could just be a reflection of the woeful tragedy that my life has become. But for less than £4 I get a wonderfully unhealthy meal that means I then have no need for food for about seven hours. What is not to like about that? The reason I tell you about my visit to Wetherspoons this particular weekend is that it provided the latest example of my being mistaken for someone else. Oddly, I'm always being recognised by people who don't actually recognise me. It's like being a celebrity with none of the perks. Only the regular hassle they must endure from the general public on a daily basis. Like being Robbie Williams without the sex and drugs.

So as we entered Wetherspoons a man was stood outside smoking a cigarette. He looked at me with a smile and said 'alright, George?'

George? This was a new one. Usually when this happens I'm Lee, Paul or Phil. That's because these are the names of wheelchair users who are friends of mine (the confusion on some faces when they see us together) and who might reasonably rock up at Wetherspoons in St Helens on a Sunday morning. However, not to state the obvious but none of these men look anything like me. They just happen to use wheelchairs which is enough to confuse certain members of the idiot population. After all we're all the same from the wheels up, right? The differences between us are not that difficult to spot but just to recap. All of Lee, Paul and Phil have hair. Lee is eight years younger than me. Paul is five years younger and half my weight. Phil is around 10 years older than me. So we're all different ages, sizes and only I have no hair. And get this. Lee has ONE leg!! ONE FUCKING LEG!! You idiot population. You see a wheelchair and you lose the ability to count legs!

As I passed the man on the way in he made a remark about how I must have been warm with such a big coat on. When he did he again called me George so I thought I'd try again to protest my innocence against the charge of being George. I told him I didn't know who George was but that I felt this cold January day warranted the use of the big coat. Or words to that effect. It didn't convince him. When Emma went up to the bar to order our breakfasts (I could go but it would involve the use of a lift which hardly ever works, often needs operating by staff and would probably evoke memories of that episode of Phoenix Nights where Brian Potter takes his new girlfriend upstairs) she overheard the man telling the friends he was there with that he had just seen George! What the Hell kind of wft-ery is this? Who is George?

To be fair to the man since I don't know George it may well be that he is my doppleganger. There's a fair chance he has no hair and two admittedly useless legs, at least. I hope for his sake that he isn't a dead ringer for me with the added complication of having my disability. Looking like me and having my disability is no fun, I can assure you. Yet the fact that it is possible that George is burdened in this fashion goes some way to explaining why I don't believe in God. Why would he do that to two people? And make them both live in St Helens? Preposterous. If this has happened then it is nothing other than a tragic accident of nature. I suspect and actually prefer to think that it has not happened quite like that. Somehow I prefer to believe in society's staggering ignorance than in the idea that there is anyone else out there who has to put up with being me.

Later that day, having posted a much more brief version of this misunderstanding on Facebook I came across a video there of a wheelchair user swinging and doing pull-ups from a set of high bars and walking along on his hands, all while still strapped to his wheelchair. Yes, he did use straps. Contrary to the belief of some intellectually challenged folk we're not surgically or anatomically attached to eight pounds of metal. I don't sleep in my chair nor do I shower or bathe in it. Heck, I don't even watch Homeland in it. I know, who knew? So anyway having seen this video I shared it (another mention for Steve here, thanks for that) and asked the question about why I never get mistaken for that bloke. I thought that was funnier than the original story of mistaken identity myself but the figures (or likes if you prefer) suggested otherwise. There's no accounting for taste.

Not that taste comes into it if we're all the same as George.

Super League 2017 Preview - Warrington Wolves

The 2016 Super League season was not a classic. Conservatism ruled as clubs climbed over each other to see who could devise the most boring game-plan. It culminated in the most wretched of all conclusions, a Wigan Warriors Grand Final victory. Yet here we are, a month out from the start of the 2017 campaign and we’re all just as excited as ever we were, as if there is any hope that in the intervening months the coaches have all got together over a Christmas sherry and decided to do away with one-out, knees and elbows, third man in dross. Well, it could have happened….

If the excitement level does not change, neither does the structure of my season preview which is below for your delectation. It’s alphabetical so as not to inspire too many angry tweets about why Wigan are last (because Wigan are last….). So sit back with your brew and read on, all the while picturing yourself strolling up to the Totally Wicked Stadium on what is sure to be an icy, wet, horrific night when Saints entertain Leeds in the season opener on February 9. There’s nothing better, is there?



WARRINGTON WOLVES

It was so nearly, almost, virtually, closely, well nigh, approaching their year. More or less. As good as. But in the end Warrington Wolves fell short in both major finals in 2016, losing to Hull FC in the Challenge Cup final at Wembley in August before going down to Wigan Warriors at Old Trafford. It was Warrington’s third Grand Final defeat in four years.

None of which will curb their optimism going into 2017. There is much for them to be cheerful and confident about after all, even if it has been a winter which threatened to be dominated by the sudden loss of Chris Sandow. While the RFL looked the other way (presumably glancing longingly at the buffet at the latest executive meeting) Sandow joined a growing band of players who saw fit to walk away from Super League clubs this off-season despite remaining under contract. The former Parramatta scrum-half cited family reasons for his need to immediately return to Australia, where he no doubt expected to be picked up by an NRL club fairly swiftly. That he has not done so yet is largely down to a charge of public nuisance hanging over him after he somehow became involved in a street fight in Queensland.

Sandow left with a flea in his ear from Wolves coach Tony Smith, who has closed the door on a return for the increasingly desperate halfback by adding Widnes' Kevin Brown to his ranks. What else are you going to do when you have been wronged by one of your superstar players than pick on another club? Brown joins the Halliwell Jones Stadium club on a two-year deal and looks set to form a tasty halfback partnership with Warrington’s altogether more sensible Aussie Kurt Gidley. The former Newcastle man was a revelation in his first season with the Wolves scoring seven tries and adding 16 assists to his all around excellence in organising and kicking. He and Brown are an ageing but vastly experienced pair who should still have enough in the legs to cause all kinds of pandemonium in opposition defences when they are on their game. When Brown is on the treatment table, as he has been all too often during his stay with Widnes, then Declan Patton provides one of the better cover options at half that Super League has to offer.

The vast majority of the squad which reached both of those major finals in 2016 has been retained by Smith. Mitchell Dodds made only two appearances for Warrington thanks largely to an injury early in the season and has moved back to Australia with Brisbane Broncos, while the once promising James Laithwaite has struggled to recover from an horrific broken leg suffered at Leigh in a Challenge Cup semi-final in June 2015 and will be spending 2017 with the intriguing and arresting new Toronto Wolfpack outfit. Joining him in Canada will be former Saint and treatment room dweller Gary Wheeler, that after just 12 appearances in the primrose and blue. Prop Ben Evans leaves the side of twin brother Rhys to try to help London Broncos back into Super League.

Aside from Brown new faces include former Saints troubled soul Andre Savelio. The 21 year-old developed a full blown ski jump lip in his last year at Langtree Park yet the decision to allow him to join a main title rival for a bag of grapes and a fruit shoot remains baffling. Never mind, we’ve got Matty Smith back. What? Oh. Helping Savelio in the pack will be Mike Cooper who returns to the Wolves after stint with St George-Illawarra during which he impressed enough to make it into Wayne Bennett’s England team. He will add quality to a front row which already includes the best prop in Super League in the outstanding Chris Hill as well as 2014 Man Of Steel and dummy half nuisance on fast forward Daryl Clark and self-proclaimed enforcer and occasional pundit Ashton Sims. Matty Blythe follows Cooper back to Warrington after spending the last four seasons with the club mandatorily prefixed with the word ‘beleagured’ the Bradford Bulls. Blythe will add cover in both the centres where Ryan Atkins continues to get away with being deceitful and average, and in the altogether stronger second row which is currently shorn of Ben Currie. Twenty-two year-old Currie is one of the best prospects in the English game but faces a lengthy spell on the side-lines after suffering a torn ACL in late September. Still, Smith can call upon Jack Hughes, Ben Westerman, George King, Joe Philbin Sam Wilde and Savelio in that position before he has to shout Blythe’s number.

Warrington’s three-quarter line may not have had any real improvements in the off-season in terms of recruitment but in Tom Lineham, Kevin Penny, Evans, Atkins and Stefan Ratchford there is plenty of pace to trouble an underwhelming list of opponents. Ratchford can also fill in at fullback along with former Wigan man and Scotland international Matty Russell. Between them the pair scored 17 tries last term and contributed a further 14 assists as Smith remained one of the few coaches feeling the need to keep the concept of open rugby league alive. In all Wire scored 123 tries in 2016, seven more than their nearest challengers in that category, while the 858 points they racked up over the course of the regular season and the Super 8s was also a league high. This was helped by an offload count of 288 which was bettered only by a quite suicidal Leeds Rhinos outfit as Smith continued to make his side hugely watchable if laughably brittle on the big days. Defensively they were also top dogs statistically, conceding 553 points (excluding the playoffs) and were the only side to miss fewer than 500 tackles.

So can they, will they go one step further in 2017 and finally make it their year? There is enough in their squad to suggest that they will and with so many options in the halves (heck, we haven’t even mentioned Ratchford’s ability to fill in there) they look set to be among the more creative sides again this year. Yet they are nothing if not dogged in their determination to find ways not to win the big one, so don't be surprised if it is another season of nearly, almost, virtually, closely, well nigh approaching glory for the Cheshire side.

Choking Sam Allardyce In A Chain Bikini

Happy New Year then. I feel abysmal so the first Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard of 2017 is a little more brief than some of its predecessors. For those of you not familiar with my Facebook account I should explain that last night, New Year's Eve, I fell asleep on the couch at some previously unknowable hour of the morning. When I woke up it was light outside but still very quiet in the house. None of Emma, Susan or Roland were up so I thought all things considered I'd better go to bed. I got to the bedroom to find two things of note. Firstly, Moewinckel was climbing all over a blissfully oblivious Emma, which is what he does when he wants his breakfast. Secondly, the clock beside the bed showed that it was 8.30am!! No wonder he wanted his breakfast. It was an hour late and I was only just going to bed!

It was all caused by a whirlwind visit from Helen and Alex. Had it not been for that I would have been in bed just after 2.00. We'd only been in the Springy where nothing unusual or goutrageous took place. Even the karaoke was standard. Bang average. So the upshot of all this was that I didn't get back out of bed until around 12.30pm. I haven't stayed in bed till that time since I was about 14 years old. At that age your dad would tell you that the day had gone and you'd be left scratching your head wondering how that could be a bad thing. Or he'd say the day was wasted while you struggled to conceive of a way that it could have been better spent that didn't involve Kylie Minogue.

But now of course I am old enough to understand that time is precious. Never was this more boldly illustrated than in the space of two chilling days across the season of forced fun when 2016, that crazed celebrity killer, took both George Michael and Carrie Fisher. I get that referring to 2016 as the worst year ever as some do represents a gargantuan lack of perspective. Yet did it really have to rob us so many icons? Following David Bowie, Prince, Muhammad Ali and Ronnie Corbett were these two treasures. You can say what you like about what George got up to in public toilets it will not change my view that he was one of the finest vocal talents the UK has ever produced. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never tried blasting out Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me, which of course I haven't because I only ever do the Elton John bit.

As for Carrie Fisher well.....put simply she defined the childhood of millions. She apparently wrote books on how to deal with mental health problems as well as the odd screenplay alongside her acting. But Christ's bowels....she was Princess Leia. I'm as partial as the next man to Natalie Portman, Daisy Ridley and Felicity Jones provided the next man isn't George Michael, but none of them come close to Fisher's role as the original and best female Star Wars hero. And yes, Disney will no doubt try to convince us that Rey makes far more use of her Jedi powers in episodes yet to come. But I bet they won't free themselves from slavery by choking Sam Allardyce while wearing an iconic chain bikini. That's Leia wearing the bikini. Sammy The Hutt in such revealing garb would be absolutely revolting. Fisher on the other hand is quite literally unforgettable.

Apparently she had finished work on Episode 8 before her untimely death which means there'll be no need for the kind of CGI jiggery and indeed pokery that goes on in Rogue One. But I wonder, as I'm sure most Star Wars fans will, what their plans are for Leia in Episode IX. They have the technology to include a character with a very significant role without the need for the actor who played the character to continue taking in oxygen. Yet some take the view that too much CGI is irritating and so it may well be that they'll have to write Fisher out of the story.

And then we may all have to endure Princess Leia's death all over again.

Christmas Shopping With A Disability - Looking Longingly At A Ben Sherman Jumper And Shoving People Out Of Your Way

Done your Christmas shopping? I went on Tuesday night after work. I boxed the whole thing off in an hour, mostly because 60% of the people I buy for just want money. All of which just left me with two presents to buy. This greatly reduced the stress level for me but it seems not everyone has been having it so easy this festive season.

The BBC are reporting that shops across the UK are missing out on as much as £249bn because their stores are inaccessible to disabled customers. This figure is apparently the combined spending power, or thereabouts, of the disabled community in the UK. My colleagues would have you believe that £248bn of this comes from my Disability Living Allowance but I would like to take this opportunity to refute that allegation. I don’t spend all day with those clowns for the fun of it. Anyway, naturally enough Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard is compelled to comment regardless of the fact that I found the Christmas shopping experience fairly painless this year. I’m not just here for myself, you know?

Take Michaela. The Beeb’s story doesn’t deem that Michaela requires a surname but what we do know about her is that when she was eight months old she was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy. This is a progressive condition which causes muscle weakness and loss of movement. Michaela uses an electric wheelchair which, she says, is woefully catered for by most high street stores;

“There are many shops where I have a one way system that I can go and if I go any other way I will get stuck.” She says. They are her words by the way, clumsy as they are. I feel that pain though. What wheelchair user hasn’t at one point or another, gone down a tiny aisle to get a closer look at something that has caught their eye in a particular store only to find that turning back from whence they came is not an option? I know I have. Before you know it there are 13 people behind you, wanting to get to where you are. And they’re shopping so they’re stressed and irate. They’ve got precisely 20 minutes to find something nice for someone they barely know but somehow feel compelled to buy for and you, you biff, are in their way.

“It's horrendous.” Adds Michaela;

“I don't have the loudest of voices so if I'm stuck where there's lots of noise, and there's music on, I can't call whoever is with me for help.”

I’ve got to be honest at this point and admit that I don’t have this problem. I have a voice that could cause an earthquake in Edinburgh when I choose to use it. But weirdly I often don’t when I am in shops. I find that just hanging around looking at something for long enough will compel a member of staff to take pity on me and come over to offer their assistance. It’s a good job they do because, while we are on the subject of poor access in stores, 80% of things that I might want to buy are displayed high enough so that I can’t reach them without that assistance. And no, I’m not talking about Razzle. That Tuesday I mentioned I was in Debenhams in Liverpool looking longingly at a Ben Sherman jumper. For once my strategy failed me and nobody came over to help, and I was on my own as Emma had been off work that day and wasn’t compelled to travel all the way to Liverpool to help me buy two presents. Normally I would have bellowed at someone, but this being Debenhams there were a million and one other menswear departments to browse through so I took the easy option and bought something I could reach. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what I eventually bought. We haven’t reached the stage yet, I don’t think, where disabled people buy tat that they hate because they can’t reach the good stuff unassisted. Or have we, you tell me? But the point is that in 2016 I should not have to settle for something else or even bother looking for something else because the first item I like is out of reach. Many people feel self-conscious about asking for help in shops and would rather just not bother. Perhaps this is where the BBC’s figure of £249bn in lost sales from the disabled community comes in.

It isn’t only myself and Michaela who are enduring this struggle. The Beeb say Fiona-Jane Kelly from Hounslow described Clintons Cards and Ryman Stationers as ‘abysmal’ on account of their narrow aisles. I can attest to this too, having been in Clintons on the same day as I visited Debenhams. If you use a wheelchair in Clintons you won’t get five metres without having to apologise to someone for being in their way, or without having to tap someone on the back to get them to move because they have ignored your continued requests to be excused so you can get past. This happens in pubs a lot, and I have physically shoved people out of my way before now. Those bloody crips with their chips on their shoulders. Well, fucking move when I ask you for the 14th time then. They don’t. They just look around at the level of their own eye-line and deduce that there can’t be anyone there because nobody could possibly have the temerity to have turned up in a wheelchair.

At least Fiona-Jane got an apology from Clintons, who said;

“We are sorry on this occasion that [full accessibility] has not been possible.”

Did anyone else pick up on that? They are sorry on this occasion? Have there been other occasions on which they were not sorry? Anyway, sorry really isn’t good enough. Don’t be sorry, just fix the problem.

The report cites similar problems experienced by disabled people in Marks & Spencer, Poundland and Next. And what have we heard in response from the government? Minister For Disabled People (yes, there really is such a thing and I’m not quite sure how I feel about that fact) Penny Mordaunt said;

“We need to let businesses know how dumb they're being and we need inspirational people to help us do that.”

Ignoring the vom-inducing Americanism ‘dumb’ what troubles me most about that is the phrase ‘inspirational people’. Inspirational People? No no no no no no no. It is not ‘inspirational’ to go fucking Christmas shopping. This column hardly needs to explain to you again its feelings on inspiration porn but to hear it from an actual government minister is deeply disturbing. What we ‘need’ is for ordinary people with mobility problems to raise these issues as and when they occur and then for our elected government to do something about those issues instead of always coming down on the side of the businesses. Mordaunt goes on;

“We want to give consumers, and their friends and families, more information about the stores that are doing things well. People will ultimately vote with their wallets.”

The figure quoted by the BBC suggests they will, but many won’t. That figure of £249bn would probably be even bigger without online shopping. Unfortunately not all disabled people will tackle this head on like Michaela and Fiona-Jane. Some will accept their fate and go home and do their shopping on the internet. Which you may not view as necessarily a bad thing. I certainly appreciate the fact that Emma likes to do our weekly shopping online rather than having to wander around Tesco once a week looking for the right brand of soup. But you can’t force that on to people through inaction. To do so is just another example of the many and varied ways that society, including businesses like those referred to by the BBC’s report, are trying to keep segregation alive and well in a supposedly developed country like the United Kingdom. Put simply, if we stay at home and do our shopping via Amazon or Tesco online then retailers won’t have to worry about making their stores more accessible. So my advice to you, my fellow crips, is to get out there as much as you can and force the bastards into making the necessary adjustments. And if they don’t then we shall carry on shaming them in pieces like that seen on the BBC website and here on Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard.

Which may have a slightly lower audience.

The 'Lurking' Dangers Of Social Media

Apologies for writing with such a dark tone again but when you feel like I do it is almost impossible to write any other way. I’ve tried to think of something positive to write about but the truth of the matter is that I don’t feel positive about anything. And when you don’t feel positive about anything then the things that would ordinarily interest you and inspire you have no effect. If I wanted to be a pretentious gobshite about it I would say that feeling low stifles the creative process. But of course as we all know I don’t have a creative process. Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard is a masterclass in absolutely winging it.

One article I did stumble across today suggested that too much of what they call ‘lurking’ on social media can contribute to depression. The theory is that if you are just browsing through what other people have posted it can make you feel envious, as if everyone has a much better and more successful life than you do, which in turn makes you feel inadequate and miserable. It is far more healthy, the study claims, to actually interact with people on social media rather than just idly read through what they have been wittering on about.

There’s a couple of things about this. Firstly, I find it hard to believe that anyone could be envious of the scores of people who pollute social media with their deep thoughts about what they are having for their tea. Who really gives a flying turd? There are upwards of 300 people on my Facebook friends list and it doesn’t appear to me that any of them are having much more fun than I am. They’re just not so pre-disposed to be miserable about that fact as I am. So if I am envious of them it is only of their ability to do absolutely rock all of any interest and still appear blissfully happy about it. I can’t help but feel at times that some of them just haven’t thought it through. But then as we know from previous memoirs on these pages about feeling low I am a world class exponent of over-thinking everything. Perhaps they have the right idea and I could learn from them. Ignorance really could be bliss.

Which brings me to the second point which is that actually, you are surely far more likely to feel depressed reading this sort of stuff simply because it bores you out of your mind. It is not difficult to imagine spending an hour on Facebook or Twitter and coming away with the impression that there is nothing going on in the world. A feeling of ‘is this all there is?’. The news offers no respite, with a shooting, terrorist attack or political crisis every other day, which is perhaps why I have an irrationally insatiable appetite for crap television drama. It’s escapism. Anything but the daily grind of getting up, going to work, coming home and reading on social media about how dull everyone else’s day has been or worse still who has been horribly and senselessly killed and where, before occasionally knocking up some hopefully witty nonsense that 12 people will read, and then going to bed. It’s not an exact science but if you have a better theory of why anyone would sit through an entire series of Quantico then I’d be very interested to hear it.

Of course, the real scourge of a depressed mind is overly positive people. My work is full of these people. Those who actually give a shit about the stuff we do which for me pays the mortgage and nothing else. This is clearly because I’m not where I thought I would be when I hit upon the idea of taking a journalism degree eighteen years ago. For my line of work I might just as well have left school at 16 and sat with my finger up my arse until I started working at Liverpool Community College around a year before I got my present job. It’s a pretty soul destroying thought which stops you from celebrating too much at the successful completion of a mundane administrative task. Others seem to love it and I suppose I envy them for that. But there’s no doubt in my mind that these people are batshit crazy.

Still with work, what about people who enjoy Friday? What’s fucking that about? My piss boils over when someone tells me to cheer up because it is Friday. But I have to smile and nod and agree that yes, isn’t it fucking fantastic that is Friday. No, it’s not. Friday is the same as every other day which may seem negative but by the same token if Friday is no better than any other day then Monday is no worse. So now who’s being negative when they come into the office on a Monday morning? You could die on a Friday just as you could get kidnapped by Jennifer Lawrence on a Monday. That’s all I’m saying.

Yet even the Friday fetishists have nothing on those who insist on making my innards spontaneously combust with their everyday messages of positivity. Talk on social media of getting up and ‘attacking’ the day just makes me want to stick pieces of hot coal in every orifice. I know these things are well intended but to put it bluntly you can’t fucking ‘beat’ Tuesday if Tuesday is a down day and you have a depressed mind so don’t fucking tell me to ‘be all I can be’. Especially not by going to some vainglorious fucking gym where everyone is beautiful and absolutely nobody has ever had hair like Willie Thorne. I’ve never understood the attraction of gyms and I have given them a fair go. I trained regularly in my previous life as an athlete but I’ve never been one of those people lucky enough to actually enjoy it. They say it is addictive but like smoking and drinking it’s something I’ve never been unable to go without. Addicts say you get a buzz and good luck to them if that is the case but I’ve never had it. As far as I can see you get out of breath and sweaty and you stay the same weight. So if you are an overweight biff when you go in you will be an overweight biff when you come out. You’ll just be sweatier and struggling for air. As well as struggling for hair.

Remember that study about browsing social media and its potential to make you feel lousy? The previous 1,000 words show that there may be something to it.

Falling Out With Sale Sharks To Fill The Literary Void

Nothing has happened in my dour little life recently. So much so, that Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard's Facebook page is now continually reminding me how long it has been since my last post. Thirteen days, I am reliably informed, so despite the absence of anything funny, annoying or even interesting in my life at the moment I am going to attempt to fill the void anyway.

I have been having fun on Twitter. This started when the world's favourite outrage generator got clogged up with 'discussion' about the Denny Solomona case. For those who don't know and who did not read my blog Denny Pain this is the one about the New Zealand born Samoan who got fed up of scoring bags full of tries for Castleford Tigers and so decided he would go and play rugby union for Sale Sharks instead. Only Castleford did not release him from the last two years of his contract. Despite this, Sale Sharks not only named him in their European Cup squad but also had the temerity to allow him to take the field in an actual competitive game last week.

So anyway I am now blocked by Sale Sharks on Twitter, as from what I can gather are almost all rugby league fans who have a problem with Solomona's disregard for our game. My own offence was to tweet the following in response to Josh Charnley's tweet welcoming Solomona to the turgid borefest that it rugby union;

"As long as he never comes back to RL".

Charnley and Solomona himself were included in this tweet but only Sale Sharks decided it was controversial enough to warrant a blocking. Later that day Twitter was chock full of tweets from those I follow who had suffered a similar fate from the club that can do no wrong. Now their Director Of Rugby Steve Diamond is claiming that Solomona was sacked by Castleford, whereas previously he along with Solomona and his Mr 15% Andy Clarke tried to work it up us by announcing that Solomona had 'retired' from rugby league. Amusingly, having blocked half of the rugby league world for daring to question their morality, Sale Sharks then cosied up to Wigan Warriors for a desperately important training session which neither side could apparently do without whatever the PR implications. Yes, the same Wigan Warriors who are undeniably a rugby league club. So Sale Sharks get on famously with rugby league, so long as you don't mean people who pay to support rugby league, or clubs who refuse to roll over and have their belly tickled whenever some cash-rich union wankers come along to steal their best players with insulting ruses about retirement. The betrayal by Wigan is sickening, but no less than you would expect from that classless organisation.

On a lighter note I also used Twitter to ask Victoria Coren-Mitchell to come to a rugby league game. She hasn't responded yet but the same goes for around 2386 previous occasions when I have tweeted her either in relation to her fiendishly difficult TV quiz Only Connect or to her column in the Independent. The reason for my latest communication with old VCM was her continued insistence on mocking rugby league during Only Connect.



Now, you don't have to be Hercule Poirot to know that I have a lot of time for Victoria. Not that I would need that much time. But anyway I do, but I still wasn't having any of this typically BBC 'isn't rugby league obscure and odd' mentality that we have to put up with every time that utter thunderprick Mark Chapman disgraces our screens. His loathesome feigned interest in our game makes me yearn for the return of Steve Ryder. Which is a bit like harking back to the days of medieval torture instead of modern day techniques like waterboarding but really anything is better than the Wigan and Man United-loving Chapman who knows about as much about rugby league as Victoria Coren-Mitchell. John Lennon was killed by a man called Mark Chapman, you know? I'm just saying. There are parallels between faux-enthusiastic sports presenters and murderous Beatle stalkers.



On which subject (again) it wasn't that she came out and openly said anything negative about rugby league. She wasn't overtly rude about it in the way that John Inverdale likes to be. In fairness Inverdale likes to be overtly rude about everything from female tennis players to five-time Olympic gold medallists, but there is nothing in this world he hates more than rugby league. It was only that for two weeks in a row VCM brazenly used sarcasm to imply that there isn't any reason on Earth why anyone should be able to answer a question on Only Connect about rugby league. As if it was beneath the high brow intellect of the fucking nerds among the Policy Wonks and the Bastard Beekeepers.

So I invited her to a Saints game. Ok so Saints may not be the best place to take someone if you want to prove to them how entertaining and exciting rugby league is but if I had a religion it would be against that religion to pay to watch any team that isn't Saints or playing against Saints. Unless it's an international side but that won't be happening in this country again for a while and besides, international rugby league is treated with the kind of disdain normally reserved for a 2am tweet by Katie Hopkins. Even people who like rugby league get irate about international rugby league, such is the sorry state it finds itself in. So it was Saints or nothing and as it turned out, and rather predictably, it was nothing. Clearly, VCM was too frightened to take up my offer not because of the obvious peril she would be in were she anywhere near me but because she didn't want to be proved wrong about rugby league. Before you know it she would have been addicted to watching LMS take three steps to his right before meekly taking the tackle and/or giving a penalty away, or to the compelling sight of Jon Wilkin talking himself into another 10 yard retreat to compound the decapitating clothes-line he has dished out five seconds earlier.

Don't think Emma would have been that keen on giving her seat up anyway......

Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep

It seems ridiculous to follow a piece about my depressed mind with one with the word 'chirpy' in the title but the contrast was unavoidable as you will see as this progresses.

This story starts with me locking myself out of my house. I dropped Emma off at college on Wednesday night and returned home before I'd realised that she had the only key between us. As we normally travel all the way home from work together we'd forgotten that we'd both need a key and left the other one on one of Moewinckel's scratching posts. Our house has more cat-related furniture than it does wheelchair access features. No doubt Moewinckel would find it easier to get up into our loft than I would. Anyway, Emma had emailed me at work earlier in the day to tell me she had also left her phone at home so having forgotten to take the door key from her when I dropped her at the college I was out of options in terms of getting into my house.

Fortunately, like a character from Carla Lane's 'Bread' I live on the same housing estate as most of my family. My mum and dad, Helen and her boys and three of our aunties all have houses on the block. Sadly auntie Pat passed away in July but her husband, my uncle Phil, still lives there. So I'm surrounded by family which makes being locked out a bit less stressful than it might be for others. Which is handy when you have just bashed out 1,000 words on the subject of your depression.

So over tea me and my mum and dad were talking about someone who they knew when they were young who had recently died. They're at that age now when people they knew when they were young might start to die with more regularity. I've been watching people my own age die since I was about 13 and I don't expect the rate at which that happens to slow now. But however old you are it always seems to shock when someone of a similar age leaves this world. It forces you to confront your own mortality.

The conversation turned to others who had grown up in the Whiston and Prescot area at that time which threw up the name of Lally Stott. He also is no longer with us having been killed in a road accident in 1977, but not before he had written one of the top forty best selling singles worldwide. Stott was the man behind annoying 1971 number one hit 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' which soared to the top of the UK charts when it was recorded by Middle Of The Road that year. Stott's own version had topped the pops in Australia and Italy previously, but it was the Middle Of The Road version which sent his mind-sapping ditty into the stratosphere in terms of physical record sales. Now you might be right in thinking that Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep would clear the floor if it were played nowadays, but the fact remains that it is one of less than 40 records to sell more than 10 million physical copies worldwide. That's an astonishing musical achievement whether you like it or not. To put it in some sort of perspective it outsells The Beatles best effort 'Hey Jude' by some two million physical copies worldwide. If Stott were alive today he'd probably own half of Thailand, such would be his level of wealth just from that one hit.

He'd also be able to confirm or deny my uncle Derek's claim about who the song was written about. You'll remember uncle Derek from my pieces about my granddad's recent death? He's my dad's youngest brother who I haven't seen since Helen's wedding in 2008. He says that Stott's lyrics for Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep are directly linked to my dad. There's no conclusive evidence for this but if we take a look at the lyrics we can see that Derek's theory is entirely plausible;

Where's your mama gone? (where's your mama gone?)
Little Baby Don (Little Baby Don)
Where's your mama gone? (where's your mama gone?)
Far, far away.

My dad's name is Don, and he would have been a young child at around the time that Stott was growing up in the area. Stott was born in 1945 which makes him six years older than my dad but my dad reckons it's quite conceivable either that Stott wrote the song much earlier than it's 1971 release (by which time my dad was 20 and so hardly a baby) or that Stott was drawing on memories of my dad and his family from earlier when he wrote the song.

When you consider that Stott substitutes 'mama' for 'papa' later in the song it offers up yet more suggestion that the song could actually be about my dad and his family. Papa could refer to his father, my granddad, who was hardly ever in one place throughout my dad's childhood. He and my nan were a little on-off, you might say, all of which might warrant the enquiry about where Little Baby Don's papa has gone. No?

Incidentally, if you're scrambling around for the melody you can either YouTube it or you can bring to mind that tune you used to sing to your mates when one of the players from his favourite football team buggers off to Barcelona. 'Where's your Gary gone (where's your Gary gone?). You know the one.....?

Not everyone believes that the lyrics relate to my dad as a baby. Further delving into facts about Stott took me to a website featuring an American named Michael in which he analyses song lyrics. Michael is a teacher from Ohio and rather brilliantly has a partner named Don. Here's a taste of his analysis of the song...

"It's a cute...well....chirpy...little song about a baby bird. Or so I thought. Is this a horifically sad song about a little boy named Don whose parents are no longer around? Are they dead? Did they get drunk and stay the night somewhere else? Have they broken up and forgotten about Don?"

Michael's all questions and no answers and well....frankly....he doesn't have the insight offered by growing up in the same small part of what used to be Lancashire with the song's writer, Lally Stott. The accident in which he died occured on Windy Arbor Road in Whiston in June 1977 when Stott was just 32. Reports differ as to whether he was riding a small commuter bike or a Harley Davidson when he met his end but what is not in doubt is that he left one of the most popular if grotesque songs in history as a legacy.

Another Short Memoir Of Feeling Low

I’m not in a good place today. I haven’t been for a long time, if the truth be told. To combat this, what can only be described as depression, I write. A month or so ago I wrote a piece entitled ‘A Short Memoir Of Feeling Low’. You won’t have seen it, in all probability. I didn’t even publish it on Twitter or Facebook because it was just that grim. The darkness had truly descended. It wasn’t a suicide watch job. I haven't got the bollocks for that no matter how shite I feel. But it was fairly negative stuff. Not the sort of thing that regular readers come here for. Regular readers come here in the hope that I have fallen out of my chair earlier that day, or been given money to buy a hamburger by a stranger. Anyway, though I spend most of my time believing that nobody actually reads this shit the fact is that there was a high possibility that people close to me would read it and I didn't want to worry anyone.

Somehow, and I don’t know how since it was only published on Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard (average readership on days when nothing appears on social media – 3) someone found this piece and actually took the time to post a comment. They were very kind about the rest of my work and encouraged me to continue, and said that they hoped I would be feeling better soon. It restored my faith in humanity. They posted anonymously so I suppose I will never know who they are but I thank them for it anyway. I replied to the comment to let them know that but the conversation did not continue. Hopefully they did see it and they do know that I was grateful for their intervention.

There are a number of things which are triggers for making me feel low, none of which are publishable here for all sorts of reasons. Even Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard has limits on what it can and cannot reasonably discuss. The point is that although these things are important to me it is actually my own mind that is torturing me on a now daily basis. Surely everyone has things about their life that they would like to change, things they wish they could do but can’t. How many of those people spend seemingly every waking moment obsessing about those things? That’s how bad it has got recently. Maybe I’m just bored.

Earlier today I was in the lift at work heading back up towards the office, contemplating my misery, when the thought occurred to me that I need to find some way to stop thinking like this because I’m running out of time. I’m 41 years old. How long am I going to live with my condition, added to the fact that I have a couple of kidneys which have been operating at around 30% for the best part of the last decade? Logically I realise that I am wasting whatever time I have left by thinking and feeling like I do but I can’t seem to turn the tide. But logic is a concept that I understand but am increasingly unable to apply. As a result I am equating happiness with changing situations which I cannot possibly change when what I need to do is forget about those things and start to enjoy the good things.

There are plenty of those too. This isn’t A Short Memoir Of Everything Is Shite. I have a holiday in Florida to look forward to in July. Appreciating that a lot of people live their entire lives without doing anything that exciting, this will be my second visit in six years. I’ve also been to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Nice, Marseille, Barcelona and New York since then. Then there’s the small matter of the Robbie Williams gig in June. And the rugby league season starts soon. It’s somewhat masochistic perhaps, but there is still pleasure in my fortnightly fix of The Grind at the soon to be laughed at Totally Wicked Stadium. So the fact that I know all this and yet still cannot lift my mood on this turgid Wednesday perhaps suggests that I am depressed. I mean actually suffering from depression, in a Marcus Trescothick sort of way. He’s a cricketer, for the uninitiated, and to cut his very long book short he had to stop touring with the England team because being away from his home and family caused him to develop a stress related illness. Depression, or something like it.

If I have depression then it really doesn’t matter what is good or bad about my life. It is irrelevant where I am going on holiday, or what I perceive my disability to be robbing me of. Depression has triggers, but it can happen to anybody at any time for no good reason. Perhaps that is what is happening to me. It doesn’t help that it is Christmas which means several occasions on which I drink until I can’t feel anything but negativity and despair and then I go home. Usually without telling anyone but since everyone knows this it’s fine and nobody has to bother looking for me or contacting me to see if I’m ok. I’m just being me. A pain in the proverbial.

Which probably random, unrelated and incoherent thoughts bring me to the end of my Short Memoir Of Feeling Low. I’m not really sure it has achieved anything. I don’t feel any better. Well, maybe a little. It’s allowed me to vent. It takes courage to write a piece like this. A number of you will read it, maybe even not get past the headline, before thinking about what a total and utter crank I am. And you'd be right. I am a crank of the highest order. But I guess it is my blog and if I want to be a crank then surely that's my prerogative. In any case, maybe it has helped someone else out there (people DO read this shit, apparently). If you are one of my readers and you have had or think you have had some form of depression then know that you are not on your own. I’m just as batshit crazy as you are, and for reasons that are too absurd to even admit to in a blog.








































I wish I could live a little more
Look up to the sky not just the floor
I feel like my life is flashing by
And all I can do is watch and cry

Totally Wicked At The Saints

"It's such a pleasant name. I think it's got grace, style and it doesn't sound as though you're giving the club away to the corporate world."

That was Saints chairman Eamonn McManus back in November 2011 when the club's new stadium opened with the name Langtree Park. But you can disregard his words now with the news this week that the once sensibly named venue will be known as the cringe-inducing Totally Wicked Stadium from the end of 2016. Totally Wicked, in case you weren't aware, are a company which produces E-cigs. Some say that these products are a much safer alternative to real cigarettes and that they are useful to those wishing to quit smoking. The argument rages on about whether they really are safer, but since many sports clubs have sponsorship deals with alcohol manufacturers, gambling companies and the like the moral issue isn't particularly troubling. That is until you come back around to that name. Totally Wicked. Not only is it completely, mortifyingly bad but it's hard to shake the feeling that it is designed to attract young people to e-cigs or 'vaping'. It screams children's television presenter with his cap on backwards at you. All of which rather suggests a different intention than helping seasoned smokers to kick the habit.

The deal runs for the next five years meaning that any time that games held there are televised, broadcast on the radio or reported on in the press it will sound like the action is coming from some wretched skateboard park. This does not only apply to Saints home fixtures but also to any international fixtures which may take place there. There's a World Cup in England in 2021.

Defending the decision to sell the club's soul the good folk in charge have pointed out that it's a record deal. What they haven't told us is exactly how much that translates to. Cynics might suggest that this is because whatever amount the deal has raised can never justify leaving the club and the fans open to the kind of ridicule that will inevitably ensue. How long before some wag from Wigan or Warrington comes up with an acronym for Totally Wicked At The Saints....?

And wouldn't any deal with any sponsor have been a record deal? It's likely given that this is only the third time that Saints have sold the naming rights to the stadium. That includes the largely ignored renaming of the old Knowsley Road ground which became the GPW Recruitment Stadium late in its life. But this is different. GPW Recruitment is utterly non-descript name for a company which produces nothing controversial. Totally Wicked, meanwhile, is an embarrassing moniker with a dubious motive in terms of its target audience.

The embarrassments have already started, with right-wing league haters Sky Sports and the Daily Mail among those to present the story in the way that News At Ten used to present stories about cats getting stuck up trees. Sky Sports News presenter Kirsty Gallagher even felt compelled to assure viewers that the story of the name change was genuine as she introduced the report on it. At that I would start to question what the bumbling RFL's thoughts are on the deal. The Totally Wicked Stadium doesn't just embarrass Saints but the whole of rugby league. With a national media already dying to put the boot in to the sport the last thing the game needs is for one of its top clubs to form this kind of association. We are likely to feel the effects of that in that 2021 World Cup. In 2013 Langtree Park hosted Australia as they took on Fiji. Will organisers want the world and four nations champions playing at the Totally Wicked Stadium? Not if they have any media savvy.

Among the bitching from the people who can't accept that their club do anything wrong the only red herring in all of this is that it will increase vaping in the stadium. It was morally dubious of the club to be so quick to endorse the possible benefits of vaping in the announcement of the deal, but vaping has been allowed in the stadium for the last four years. It is hardly likely to increase now, even if the promotion of a practice we still know too little about scientifically is troubling. In addition Totally Wicked had had its logo on the club shirt and has sponsored the North Stand at Langtree Park since 2013. But those things were barely mentioned irrelevances. The renaming of the stadium is a step too far.

It has no grace or style and sounds exactly like you're giving the club away to the corporate world.

Daggers Made Of Cardboard Wrapped In Silver Paper

I absolutely loathe dancing. I don’t think any man over a certain age should engage in any kind of dancing. It’s just embarrassing. It’s just about acceptable if you are a professional (and even then only if you promise never to be Brendan Cole) but most men just look ridiculous as they awkwardly stumble around like drug addled peacocks. Look at Ed Balls. Some clearly saw his efforts as entertainment but I just view it as unwatchable and cringeworthy. The campaign to STOP DANCING starts here, on Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard.

Perhaps this is because I have some very dark memories involving dance. The concept of wheelchair dance fills me with dread to this day. This was actually a thing….a real lesson on our curriculum for far longer than it should have been during my school days. The nadir came when we were forced to participate in something called Indian dance. A lady would come in to the school once a week and teach us some of the most mortifying moves, all carried out to a soundtrack previously rejected by Bollywood. And there were props. Daggers made of cardboard wrapped in silver paper (could even have been tin foil but the memories are sketchy on that one) and topped off with rolled up bits of coloured paper meant to represent precious stones. I’m going to have to stop describing this in any more detail now lest I wake up screaming in the middle of the night tonight. Post Indian Dance Trauma is a very real condition as far as I’m concerned.

Yet despite all of this anti-dancery I do respect the right of other disabled people and wheelchair users to disagree and so participate if they wish to do so. So reading about 54-year-old Frank Walden today rather got my back up. Mr Walden was banned from something called a Jive Addiction event in October because the organisers said that his wheelchair was damaging the dance floor. Apparently the rules of the competition (and others like it) stipulate that dancers are not allowed to use any objects that are likely to cause damage to the dance floor. Cowering behind this ruling, the company organising the event insist that the ban on Mr Walden was not discriminatory.

Unsurprisingly, Mr Walden is suing the company believing, rightly I think, that he is a victim of discrimination under the Equality Act. He has been wheelchair dancing for 15 years after he was left paralysed by an accident way back in 1984. Before that he had enjoyed disco and northern soul dancing, which only makes me want to punch him in the face even more. Have you seen those northern soul dancers from the early 80’s? There is a film about it in which Steve Coogan briefly features. Basically it is just a lot of bobbing up and down on the spot while wearing a look on your face that suggests you don’t actually know where you are. Yet despite my distaste of this practice, Mr Walden is still within his rights to sue the company to my mind.

Not content with trying to stop Mr Walden from embarking on his admittedly berserk hobby, the organisers had to throw a dollop of humiliation into the mix also. He was asked to stop dancing at the Jive Addiction event after someone approached him and informed him that his wheelchair had left a black mark on the dance floor. Quite why he didn’t at that point decide to leave a couple of black marks around the interfering gobshite’s eyes is anyone’s guess. What is more remarkable is that is the first time in Mr Walden’s 15 years of wheelchair dancing that anyone has put a stop to his antics for the heinous crime of damaging the surface of the dance floor.

This reminds me of the time I tried crown green bowling. I was watching the Commonwealth Games event a few years ago and decided, on the loopiest of whims (I have whims occasionally, as my previous entry regarding cutting my own hair proves) that I would have a go at it myself. So I went down to my local club to get the skinny on it. I say local, it was in Southport. Local is such a vague definition. Yesterday I was watching an NFL game between the Carolina Panthers and the Oakland Raiders during which the commentator pointed out that the Carolina coach was experiencing a homecoming as he grew up ‘just 100 miles south of here’. Just 100 miles? That’s from here to fucking Birmingham. It’s all relative I suppose.

So anyway after a 45-minute drive out there I was told that yes, I could have a game no problem, but not in the wheelchair that I had arrived in. They don’t let every day or even sports wheelchairs on their precious surfaces in crown green bowling, so instead you are expected to transfer to quite the most hideous contraption masquerading as a mobility aid that it has ever been your displeasure to look upon. I couldn’t even operate the thing myself. Emma had to push me around on the green which was both undignified and likely to lead her into a state of exhaustion were we to make a habit of playing. We have not been back near a bowling green since.

But at least I was allowed to play, in a fashion. Mr Walden was royally excluded from participating in the Jive Addiction event. It’s only one event but if others take their lead from the organisers of that event then Mr Walden may have to look for a new hobby which, whatever you think of dancing, and furthermore dancing in a wheelchair, is preposterous and wrong. Also, it could have a serious impact on his continued good health;

“I think if I hadn’t found jive dancing I would probably be dead.” He told the BBC.

“It’s very easy if you are paralysed to put on a lot of weight, especially in the winter when I used to suffer chronic chest and kidney infections.”

This is so true. I only have to look at a Tescos Bakewell and I put on three stone. Since my inglorious wheelchair basketball career ended I have become, shall we say, a little portlier.

“With dancing, aswell as getting the exercise, I get out and meet lots of really, really lovely people.” Continued Mr Walden, absolutely not convincing me to take it up even if it will slim me down a touch.

But clearly this is a big deal. A significant part of his life, without which he would not find the same level of fulfilment. Still, as long as your fucking floor is clean, eh? Perhaps the most salient point that Mr Walden makes is about how dancing, as irksome and awkward as some of us find it, offers a genuine level of integration between disabled and able-bodied people. The kind of integration, in fact that something like Paralympic sport does not facilitate, for obvious reasons. Haven’t we moved on from what whiffs suspiciously of an attempt to segregate Mr Walden and others like him from the able-bodied population? Are we really telling him to stick with his own kind lest our dance floors get a little bit scuffed? I should hope not.

The last word should be left to Mr Walden’s lawyer, Chris Fry, who seems to have hit the nail on the head by explaining that;

“If you have a policy which says wheelchair users are not allowed on the dance floor, then essentially you are preventing disabled people from participating in this activity.”

Seems a reasonable assertion.

Denny Pain

It’s the off-season so there isn’t much going on at Saints beyond last week’s kit launch and the belly-laugh inducing news that Matty Smith is 16-1 to be Man Of Steel in 2017. With such meagre offerings on the Saints front we really need to thank Denny Solomona for filling the rugby league void with some of the most spineless, despicable behaviour seen in sport since the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding affair.

To recap, Solomona has been the subject of much speculation regarding his future. Having notched a record 40 tries in Super League in 2016 the Castleford Tigers winger was thought to be in talks with Sale Sharks over a switch to the rugby union side. Understandably Cas were not too keen on releasing their man while he was still under contract and issued a series of hands-off warnings to Sale and any other potential suitors.

Yet Sale did not keep their hands off, instead getting even more handsy in a manner which Donald Trump would have denounced. Their pursuit of Solomona continued and with Sale and Castleford unable to come to an agreement about his transfer, the former London Broncos winger has taken the unpalatable step of ‘retiring’ from rugby league in order to try and free himself of his Castleford contract and so become available to play rugby union for Sale.

We have long since known that rugby union is out to get us. The doctors, laywers and dentists of that moribund sport will never rest until they have sounded the final death knell in rugby league. They have seen to it that union is the only code offered in many schools throughout the UK, but have nevertheless decided that rather than spend their sacks full of cash on developing their own talent they will instead splash it on the best that rugby league has to offer. Witness their shambolic handling of Sam Burgess’ switch to union. Despite Burgess’ hasty return to RL and that of others like Josh Jones they continue to return to this particular well, with Sale also having recently signed Wigan winger Josh Charnley.

On the face of it we can’t complain too much. Rugby league cherry-picked the best rugby union players for decades before the kick’n’clap merchants finally stepped into the present and became fully professional. Men like Martin Offiah, Jonathan Davies and Scott Gibbs graced rugby league after starting out in union and there were countless more who had a huge impact in rugby league. There was also Scott Quinnell. Financially we bullied rugby union into submission to acquire these players and so should probably just grin and bear it now that the boot is on the other foot.

Except. Except that nobody did anything as unscrupulous as to retire from rugby union to get their hands on a lucrative rugby league contract. We do not like those apples. Nor do Castleford, who have already announced that they will be taking legal action against Solomona after he failed to return for pre-season training on November 7. Yet it’s unclear how likely they are to be successful. The best that they can probably hope for is that the court will see Solomona’s under-hand and desperate bid to retire as the callous ruse that it is and force Sale to pay an appropriate transfer fee. It would be nice to think that the court would throw the book at Sale for their part in all of this and hand out the kind of fine that would launch them into financial oblivion. Charnley would be on his way back to Wigan sharpish in that case, but alas it seems unlikely. Players get their way in modern team sports and especially in rugby league. Should Cas insist on holding on to Solomona’s registration he will count on their salary cap without any prospect of him taking the field for them, both because he doesn’t want to and because if they have any sense, they wouldn’t have him back if he crawled back on his hands and knees.

Which brings us to the only rational solution to this new threat to rugby league’s prosperity from the evil empire that is the other code. When Solomona finally secures his release from the Tigers and joins Sale, which will happen whatever the cost to the union club, he should be politely informed that the door is closed on a return to rugby league at a later stage of his career. A lifetime ban. Had we given the same ultimatum to Burgess he may have thought twice about piss-balling around at flanker for a year. Though union offers greater riches for players at the peak of their powers, league continues to offer those players a lifeline when it eventually and inevitably goes boobs up for them and they sidle back towards the Super League or the NRL. How many of the Burgesses of the future would be prepared to take the risk that they will make it in union if they know that a return to league should they fail is off the table? A few less I would suggest.

Now this may seem like a draconian solution to the problem. There will be those who argue that RL should just wear the loss of Solomona and anyone else who tries to go down a similar route in the future, and concentrate instead on developing younger talent to replace them. No player has ever been bigger than the game after all, and in any case as we have seen players who take the RFU’s riches are likely to return cap in hand in the not so distant future. But sometimes a situation is so grave that it demands drastic action. The RFL needs to grow a pair and not allow the game it governs to be treated as a mere stepping stone to union, or as a retirement home for those who fail to shine on freezing afternoons at Twickers. Let them go, but let them know that if they do they had better be successful at rucking, mauling, eye-gouging and farting because if not, they will have to go and get a proper job like the rest of us.

Fuck you, Denny.

A Weird Day And A Trumpian Bad Idea - Evidently

Yesterday was a very strange day. It started with the funeral of the granddad I never knew and ended some 18 hours later drunkenly attempting to shave my head with a bic. The impromptu hairdressing was not related to the funeral but can instead be attributed to my appearance on Facebook Live. All will become clear if you stay here for a few more minutes.

The funeral, then. Last week I explained on these pages how I had no relationship with my recently deceased granddad because he and my nan divorced when I was a toddler. Actually, was I ever a toddler? Strictly speaking toddlers toddle, which obviously I never did. From what I can gather it was my granddad's choice not to stay in our lives after his divorce. We saw plenty of my nan. She'd come round on a Friday night and talk for hours, starting every anecdote with the word 'evidently' while simultaneously shouting instructions at fictional people on the television. Hurry up, you fool..she'd shout at Gene Wilder as he chased after the train in Silver Streak. But then, who doesn't do that? No doubt you've spent some time before stumbling upon this column telling Ed Balls to just stop it now. Anyway my nan made the effort whereas my granddad seemed not to.

I wasn't expecting much of a turnout. To my mind a man who doesn't stay in contact with his own children and grandchildren can't be all that sociable and so probably has few friends. The list of people I knew in attendance extended to Emma, my mum and dad, Helen, my dad's brother David and his daughter Chloe. Regrettably there was no sign of my dad's other brother Derek who if you were here last week you will remember has followed his father's lead somewhat in losing touch with the family. He's rarely been sighted since Helen's wedding eight years ago and all David could tell us is that he's tried to reach out to him with cards and letters but without any response. Nobody seems to know if he still lives in St Helens or whether he even knows about my granddad's passing.

Despite all that there were a whole raft of people there who I didn't know. It turns out that my granddad had a new partner and had very strong relationships with her children and grandchildren. The lady delivering what you might call the eulogy complimented my granddad on this, suggesting that he was a wonderful and loving parent and grandparent to those in his new family. As you might imagine this came as some surprise to me. His real children and grandchildren barely got a mention either because the lady didn't know much about any of us or because his new wife wanted it that way. Hard to tell. The thing is that to them, with their experience of him as this fabulous family man, it can only look like it was our decision not to have him in our lives. Which it kind of is after you spend long enough believing that your granddad doesn't want to know you. I barely remember him so I never felt like I was missing out and so had no desire to track him down and chat over tea and biscuits. But I know that my apathy towards him was not the original reason for his absence. He made that choice originally and the rest of us just seemed to end up agreeing with him as a consequence.

So there weren't the usual emotions on display that you might expect to see at a funeral. Instead there was a strange atmosphere. I remember looking straight ahead at his coffin and wondering how it was possible to know so little about a man without whom I wouldn't be here. Quite apart from his other fanily I never knew he spent time in Australia after serving in the forces. I never knew he was a Saints fan. Liverpool FC were a poor second we were told although the playing of You'll Never Walk Alone at the end of the service seems to conflict with that. Either way we had a passion for Saints in common, which might have been interesting had we had a normal relationship. The other thing I seem to have in common with him is a distaste for religion. The funeral was held at Thornton Crematorium rather than at a church and talk of God was kept to a minimum. That's how mine will be when I go. No priests, just stupid anecdotes (maybe starting with the word 'evidently', maybe not) and some music of my choosing. Not You'll Never Walk Alone. Something by Joss Stone. Anyway these things are as much as I want to have in common with a man who was not, from my perspective at least, a wonderful, loving parent and grandparent. I don't want children but if we ever did have them I would hate to think that I would disassociate myself from them and from their children. It's just odd.....

Even more odd perhaps than trying to shave your own head at 3.00 in the morning after drinking enough Budweiser to make Wayne Rooney crash a wedding. This is exactly what I tried to do after a night out in town last night. Paul, Lee and I were in Ice Bar where it is customary to get up on the karaoke and sing a song. It's pretty much all there is to do in Ice Bar when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it. So I did, even though my recent bout of ecoli has greatly affected my ability to con the world into thinking I can sing. That's what it was apparently, ecoli. Not the sort you hear about on the news but a little bug in the water. I've had two courses of leeches and I feel much better but my throat is still a little gunky. So my rendition of Oasis' Stand By Me (not Ben E King's song which I know disappoints you all greatly) was not one of my best efforts. Being drunk however I failed to take this into account and so allowed it to be filmed in Facebook Live. That's basically Zuckerberg's dubious gift of a the facility to make videos on your phone via the social media monster that is Facebook.

The sound of my voice, sub-par though it was, wasn't my problem when I took a look at the video. My hair was. Or lack of it. From the point where it was filmed you can only really see the back of me. To my horror, and don't ask me how I didn't know this, I had a band of quite thick hair at the back of my head but a blinding bald spot that made me look like Willie Fucking Thorne. I knew I was bald but I had hoped that having it shaved regularly at the barbers had gone some way to reducing the contrast between the hairy part of my head and the bald part. 'Evidently' not.

Overwhelmed by this I went straight home and began shaving the whole lot with the cheap razors with which I regularly butcher my face. I had to. Fuelled by my alcoholism I just couldn't stand being out in public at that point. However having never attempted this kind of self-grooming before to do so for the first time under the influence was a quite Trumpian bad idea. It was a bloodbath, according to Emma when she saw the red stains on the pillow this morning. And not only did I hack myself to pieces but I did the kind of job you might expect under the curcumstances. It's relatively even but it'll need another touch-up before I see the light of day again. That's going to be fun. Fortunately I have no real need to leave the house until Monday morning, but I do worry about the fact that I'll have to do it this way all the time now since the trips to the barbers 'evidently' aren't enough to stop me looking like an 80's snooker player.

Maybe I'll get better at it with a bit of practice.

White With A Red Vee

The new Saints home shirt was released today and, in a stunning move the like of which has not been seen since 1994, I have admitted to actually liking it. So much so, in fact, that I may actually fork out some of my barely hard earned to buy a replica of it. You know, to wear out and about in public. Or even at the game when the maddening Grind comes around again in February. Of course, I might not need to buy it for myself since one of you reading this might consider it the ideal Christmas gift. The timing of its release is not an accident, by the way. Despite the usual howls of derision on outrage generators Twitter and Facebook about how some clubs had released their new clobber weeks ago, Saints were always going to get theirs out there in time for the annual jamboree of forced fun.

It sounds obvious, but I like it because it is white with a red vee. It’s always white with a red vee but so often the vee is littered with overly fussy sponsorship lettering or logos or, as in the case of last year’s abominable effort, is too low on the chest to resemble a traditional Saints home shirt. When the 2016 effort was tucked into the shorts the vee was barely visible at all, which just will not do. I started watching Saints in the 80’s when mulleted, moustachioed men rocked the traditional Saints look, the vee hanging low on the chest and beautifully free of any company’s clutter. Times have changed so you are never going to go back to those days of a completely minimalist design hindered only by the club’s coat of arms and/or stick man logo, but the 2017 effort is as close to that as we can expect nowadays. I want Saints to look like Saints, although older fans than me will probably offer the argument that a real traditionalist longs for a return to a design featuring a single red band. For fans my age Hull KR have cornered that particular market now.

Though I won’t be straying into Full Kit Wanker territory and purchasing them, the switch to red shorts adds even more to the new design. Very few biffs look good in shorts anyway. You should see me on my holidays, all trackie pants and t-shirts. No shorts and absolutely under no circumstances no fucking flip-flops. Flip-flops should be illegal. They are an absolute monstrosity. Really there is no excuse for them. Where was I? Oh, yes, back to the kit and the shorts. As many have alluded to the red shorts evoke memories of the 1994 kit, made by a long forgotten company called Stag and featuring a smart red vee with black pinstripes. And red shorts. Saints were a hugely entertaining if not particularly effective side during that season, the first at Saints for Bobbie Goulding who would go on to captain the team to their first league title in my lifetime in 1996. Perhaps some of that entertainment value will rub off on the class of 2017 and we will see Matty Smith morph into a modern day version of the little general, mesmerising defences with his range of passing and his legendary bombs. I know, there is more chance of Smith jumping up and down on Dougie Laughton’s car or getting involved in a race row and being turfed out of the club. Allegedly.

If there is something to moan about (and there always is in this column) then it is the away shirt. Released last week in advance of the home shirt (oh Saints, you tease….) it was met with widespread approval on social media but personally I found it decidedly underwhelming. Blue with a white and gold diagonal sash, it looks like something worn by a mid-table Premier League football team during the mid 1990’s. I made the point that if we see video footage in 20 years time of Saints playing in this shirt it will take us a good 10 minutes to work out that we are actually watching our own team. That design really could belong to anyone in any sport and for me has absolutely nothing about it which identifies it as a Saints shirt. For some that might be a good thing as they look for something different, and there is an argument that if the club is successful wearing it then over time it will become instantly recognisable, like that dreadful blue paint-splash McEwans lager effort from the early 90s. But for now it is….well…..I believe the modern term is meh……

I’m going to leave you with a couple of pictures in case you haven’t seen them and want to decide for yourself. You’ll have the time it takes the club to contact me through their solicitors to ask me to take down these images to make up your mind. About 1,000 years then since the powers that be at Saints are about as likely to read Memoirs Of A Fire Hazard as I am to turn up for work on the first day after the Christmas break wearing the red shorts.

Tweet your thoughts to me @saintbiffy. Or don’t.