The musical parody of Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines by Al Yankovic is a fun reminder to us all about the value of literacy. I’ve no objection to people cutting corners with their grammar on social media – but I do think it’s important they know how to use it correctly in the first place. I’m starting to get the hang of text-speak myself – if I’m pressed for time I occasionally substitute “u” for “you” and sometimes I substitute “No way!” for anything which would normally be a 5 page rant.  I’m also  trying to brush-up my vocab by working my way through Mr Blobby’s Guide to the ABC. I am up to the letter F. Which is handy as I find f-words invaluable. You see I like to keep up with the times. I know you lot think I’m an old stick-in-the-mud but I’m actually a forward-thinking and liberal

Yep, it’s that time of year when I double my intake of painkillers – the school holidays. So that means I am not around so much merely because every time I settle down to do some writing I get a request for food. You see the problem with teenage sons is they never stop eating. It’s okay for you parents of girls because they are almost always watching their weight but try adopting three sons and then you’ll know real misery. As soon as I’ve washed up from one meal and sat down with a coffee a Young Master appears from nowhere with one of the three following questions: “Have we got anything to eat?”  “What’s for tea/lunch/breakfast?”  “Have you been shopping yet?” Now since I like to look on the bright side of things, I am consoling myself that Young Sam is still away at college completing his MA

And so it’s time for my last five positive thoughts: 1. I am really hoping that some of you folks out there will rise to the challenge of setting me some new topics to write about on my blog. It can be ANY topic you like – except religion. Even I don’t go there – it’s too easy to upset folks. Which I probably do anyway but it’s only the zealots who want to burn you at the stake that you have to worry about. And I’m still too young to be roasted. (Just.) 2. I am hoping if I get some good topics and I write some entertaining posts, I’ll include them in my next book. So please leave a comment or email me via my contact page if you have a topic you’d like me to get my tongue around. 3. This is the cover to my next

It’s a quickie again. Five positive thoughts: No 1. Tomorrow I am pretty sure I am going to be less tired. No 2. Tomorrow the sun will be shining. No 3 . Tomorrow I will going swimming. No 4. Tomorrow I will make a salad. (Hopefully) No 5  Tomorrow I will not drive into a concrete block. And yes I didn’t see it.

Wow, I’m on my third post in three days. Okay before I go any further, I just need to inform you that I had a really, really bad bout of insomnia last night. I’ve only have had 90 mins of sleep so I’m like the walking dead and I may crash out at any moment. If you hear about a woman found sleeping in Tesco’s meat aisle on the six o’clock news – that’ll be me. Yep, so if this post is full of typos and gibberish and is even more incoherent than the norm you’ll just have to forgive me and put it down to sleep deprivation. I’m going to deliberately follow that laborious method that drunks use when there try to convince everyone they’re not drunk (talking and walking really slowly to try and prove they’re still capable) by methodically studying each word before I press “publish”. However,

I have been challenged by an old school friend, Jacqui Crowe, via Facebook, to come up with five positive thoughts for five days. That’s pretty tough going even for the eternal optimistic like me but I am going to try my best. Now just for a bit of background information, Jacqui and I went to a state school and were in many of the same classes and played in the school hockey team together.  Our hockey team put the fear of God in those posh girls from the private schools. They were no match for us because girls who have survived the terror of state school toilets have NO fear. We were hard, ruthless and, even though some of us had furry pencil cases, we had a reputation as being near invincible. Think Britney Spears in her gym-slip with with a flame-thrower and a bazooka and you’re just about there.

If you have a teenage son, you’ll probably appreciate this. I know I do. Ho hum.