First up my gaffer insists on listening to Chris Moyles in his office, every time I go in there he says I moan about the guests he has on. He claims I 'have a problem'.
Secondly, I was at Forest last weekend and moaned to my mate about Gary Lineker appearing in the match programme promoting the Nottingham Sport Relief Mile. I think my words to him were "Why is this jug-eared Leicester c**t in my Forest programme?" to which he, quite rightly I suppose, replied "Jesus, it's for charity, calm down."
Thirdly I spent some time at my sister's house at the weekend when that Redknapp Thomas Cook ad came on the telly. That really got me riled up, to which she said "Are you all right? It's not worth getting stroppy about." Again, I guess she's right.
I think I can make a list of the people I've moaned about either on the internet or to other people in my day-to-day life over the past couple of weeks:
- Larry Lamb
- George Lamb
- Anvil
- Judas Priest
- Burke Shelley
- The entire cast of Married Single Other
- Graham Norton
- Jonathan Ross
- Alan Carr
- Fearne Rotten
- John Terry
- Frank Lampard
- Robbie Savage
- Nigel Clough
- Wogan
- Mark Owen
- Sue Perkins
- Kerry Katona
- Steve Claridge
- Martin Samuel
- Patrick Barclay
- Lady GaGa
- Florence off of Florence and The Machine
- Louise and Jamie Redknapp
- David Beckham
- Cheryl Cole
- Simon Cowell
- Amanda Holden
- Totimoshi
- Tom O'Connor
- Mike Dilger
- Jay Rayner
- James Martin
- That other prick off of Saturday Kitchen
- Lesley Joseph
- Lee Westwood
- Marcus Brigstocke
And they're just the ones I can remember. Perhaps I ought to stop wasting my time thinking about people I don't like and start concentrating on the people I do like. The people I do like are the sort of people who like Mastercrafts. I love Mastercrafts, have you seen it? It's not a very rock 'n' roll TV show I'm afraid, but it does feature Monty Don. A few years ago Monty Don might have appeared in that list above. That was until I saw him in a series where he let the local smackheads come and work on his smallholding, on the condition that they didn't bring any of The H with them. My opinion of him immediately changed from 'huh, another TV gardener' to 'hmm, what a patient and tolerant gentleman.' Anyway, Mastercrafts is a programme where three people each get the chance to try out different crafts each week, like carpentry, stonemasoning (?) or farriering (?). That's ordinary people, not so-called celebrities. And there's no grand prize, the prize is that you get your work exhibited somewhere, or you get six months work experience. This week's was particularly good on weaving. A bit of a dry subject, eh? But made a bit less dry by the fact that I totally fell in love with one of the ladies doing it, the improbably-named Holly Berry. She reminded me of a girl I used to go out with: made her own clothes in the way that art students do, always looked like she'd just got out of bed, a bit whey-faced, very good with her hands (she, me ex, knitted Van Gogh's Sunflowers for an end of year exhibition at college, it was very good), likes Tracey Chapman etc. Mastercrafts is a bit like a long soak in the bath - not much happens but it's extremely satisfying. It's nice people doing nice things.
And, in the spirit of Mastercrafts, I'm trying something new tonight when I go for my first drumming lesson. Some have already scoffed at the idea of drum lessons. Let them scoff is all I can say. I don't have much in life to look forward to or get excited about at the moment, so I thought I'd try something new to get enthusiastic about, and I'm very enthusiastic about this. What's wrong with self-improvement and picking up a new skill? I'll report back later in the week after I've find out if I'm going to be the next Buddy Rich or the next Meg White.
