Alistair Coleman2013-06-19T07:42:10-04:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=alistair-colemanCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Alistair ColemanGood old fashioned elbow grease.The Endless War Between God and Chocolate (Chocolate Wins)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29553552013-03-26T09:54:34-04:002013-05-26T05:12:02-04:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/
This time of year, the shelves are stacked with chocolate eggs made by companies that would probably set fire to your face and steal your bedroom furniture given half the chance. And they are the best eggs, with reams of chocolate, novelty mugs, novelty egg-cups and tons of sweets inside. The kind of egg that has small children bowking rich brown vomit all over Easter Sunday.
So, this year, my partner Jane's parents (who are not religious in the slightest) gave us a religious Easter egg. We suspect that it is because it is Fair Trade and not made by certain companies that would probably set fire to your head given half the chance, rather than any misguided attempt to God Me Up.
Being deity-curious atheists and not religious in the slightest, and in the face of a chocolate crisis, we ate it on the Monday before Easter. IN YOUR FACE, JESUS!
And what can you expect from this Fair Trade Jesus Egg in a crowded market of reams of chocolates, novelty mugs, novelty egg-cups and tons of sweets?
Answer: A leaflet showing a man being betrayed by his friend and subsequently executed*, and the taste of disappointment.
God, if you're out there, you've got a lot of catching up to do. Next year, how about a novelty egg cup in the shape of a Grail?
* Stick with it though, you'll love the twist at the end]]>Husband-and-Wife Blogging Team Win Top Comedy Award - In Their Sleeptag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24491522013-01-10T12:36:12-05:002013-03-12T05:12:02-04:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/
Not that that's ever happened to me, not since that unfortunate incident in the workplace canteen of which we no longer speak, but - not to labour the point too much - it's one thing I'm not going to have to do ever again.
My crown as the nation's funniest blog writer - won last year for my increasingly grammatically-incorrect Scaryduck: Not Scary. Not a Duck blog - has passed on to a far more deserving winner in Sleep Talkin' Man, the nocturnal musings of a mild-mannered sleeping Englishman as recorded by his bemused wife.
The site won the award after a vote held by personalised card company TheDogsDoodahs.com, in which six finalists slugged it out for the title. And I'm happy to say the victory was thoroughly deserved.
The blog, run by funnier-than-me Karen Slavick-Lennard and featuring both audio recordings and the transcribed words of her husband Adam, took nearly a third of the public vote from a shortlist of six blogs.
Recent posts include subconscious musings on the Christmas season, why blue dogs are more expensive than pink dogs, and gems inspired by the news of impending parenthood. And you should go and have a look right now, because it's utterly brilliant. And then come back here, obviously.
Thankfully, and to prove that I can still be funny, runners up were the incredible Mark Richards with his well-written Best Dad I Can Be blog, and my own Angry People in Local Newpapers site, which features pictures of angry people in local newspapers. This year I can genuinely say that British comedy was the winner. Because it was. And not me.
Well done Karen and Adam for a superb site that's making a lot of people happy. And therein lies the whole point of humorous writing.
Next week, we look at the green-eyed monster of jealousy, and why it has no place in British comedy.]]>The UK Funniest Blogger Prize - Slight Returntag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22663822012-12-09T19:00:00-05:002013-02-08T05:12:01-05:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/Scaryduck blog earlier this year, I vowed that I wouldn't defend the title. So, here I am, defending my title.
Yes, those charming people at The Dog's Doodahs have got their retaliation in early, and have launched their 2013 Funniest UK Blog award in December. As defending champion, I'm in there with my other site Angry People in Local Newspapers, which is a pictorial guide to angry people appearing in local newspapers, pointing at stuff and generally being angry.
However, this isn't all about self-promotion, and I want to give a fair shake of the stick to my fellow finalists. So, in the spirit of "other blogs are available", here's a run-down of the six fine sites who made the final cut:
Angry People in Local Newspapers: In which one woman, her naked neighbour and a raw sausage on a fork started a website that has taken over my life
Best Dad I Can Be: Wonderfully written site in which Mark Richards talks about life as a father of three teenagers
The Further Adventures of OddBloke: I've been following Oddbloke for some time (though not in a stalky way), and he's always funny. The only blogger on the shortlist bribing potential voters with kittens
Bit Comedy: Does what it says on the tin - bite-sized comedy for quick laughs. An excellent destination to find the best laughs on the net
Sleep Talkin' Man: Hugely popular site about one woman and her husband's late night ramblings. Comes with audio recordings of poor sleepy lie-down comedian Adam's greatest hits. If this doesn't win there's something wrong with the world
Media Attention: Freelance TV cameraman Paul Martin, usually standing in a field and making sure there are moving pictures on (amongst others) BBC South Today every evening. Genuinely funny debunking of the glamour of TV news (Spoiler: There is no glamour)
I'm not in it for the AMAZING prize, so vote for me. (I am in it for the prize. But vote for me anyway. Or any of the others. Your call).]]>ZEMO: The New Fitness Craze That's Sweeping the Nationtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20919532012-11-08T07:45:03-05:002013-01-08T05:12:01-05:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/
It's fun.
It's a party.
Dance yourself fit to the Latin beat in a room full of people in brightly-coloured leggings, and watch the pounds fall off.
That's all very well if you're into that kind of thing. But I'm one of those people who loathes enforced jollity, and speaking as a slightly overweight faded New Romantic, I can't stand the music either. My first and last Zumba class would go down in history as the One With The Axe Massacre, and I am pretty sure that I'm not the only person in the world who feels the same way.
So, what's out there for slightly overweight faded New Romantics, Goths and other followers of slightly depressing alternative music?
Nothing, that's what. There is nowhere - NOWHERE - for fans of the Sisters of Mercy, the Fields of the Nephilim and Joy Division to go along in black, ill-fitting gym gear, Dunlop Green Flash plimsolls and mope around to their least unfavourite music in a darkened village hall, watching the pounds fall off.
And being on the cutting edge of this new fitness craze, I'm the one who gets to give it a name, and I'm calling it ZEMO. Zumba for Emos.
Warm up with a bit of Bauhaus; ramp up the pace with Killing Joke, a touch of Siouxsie; then take a fag break and puke in the corner to The Cramps while the session winds down with The Cure and a few obscure 4AD acts that you pretend you bought on the original vinyl with the art prints and everything. Then it's off to the only local that will serve you for a well-earned snakebite and blackcurrant, the Drink of Champions.
If you're looking for a bit of inspiration, here's the late, great Ian Curtis from Joy Division showing students of ZEMOhow to do it.
Dull, slightly overweight Goths, Emos and faded New Roms: Get along to your local village hall after dark, and ZEMO yourself to a new, slimmer, miserable you!
This time next year, Rodders, we'll be millionaires.]]>The Unnerving Discovery That I am a Terrible Classisttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19919632012-10-23T19:00:00-04:002012-12-23T05:12:01-05:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/
A smug feeling warmed me, realising I had made the correct decision to leave the Thermos flask in the back of the Micra. I have never felt so alive. So middle class.
I like to think of myself as normal (SHUT UP), so I found myself equally annoyed and amused by pushy parents asking money-related questions on behalf of their bewildered, slack-jawed offspring; and also - thanks to Canterbury's location in the backyard of south and east London - nervous, awkward, fish-out-of-water Cockney parents, unsure of how to behave in what they thought of polite society. If only they knew, I thought, subtly lifting a buttock and blaming Cockney Dad on my right.
A fascinating case study (which both Number One Daughter and Number One Ex-wife had forbade me from mentioning, so here it is) surrounds the late arrival of one such family literally into the middle of the Pro Vice Chancellor's welcome address. The pantomime was marvellous, the Pro Vice Chancellor just as awkward as Nervous Cockney Mum, ushering her into a corner for the lecture theatre, where she then proceeded to answer her phone in a bellowing voice, unaware that the ampitheatre-like acoustics of the room meant even the people at the back got every word.
It was, as I gleefully wrote down notes on this joyous spectacle, that I realised that I have become the most terrible classist, something I've been called out on before. And I quote:
Scathing snobbery and classism bubbling under the surface of a barely veiled hatred for the working class. A classic of post-election Cameronian journalism.
Try as I like to defend myself, I find myself guilty as charged. Except, perhaps, the David Cameron bit. It's not that I find myself mocking the working class, for that's from where my family came, it's just that I find all classes unintentionally funny in equal measure.
And so I am a classist. As our society increasingly embraces equality, there are very few -isms left which can be deemed acceptable. Sexism, racism, homophobia, ageism, and quite right, too.
There was a time when you couldn't have a sitcom without a comedy camp character, and there were even one or two that bordered on outright racism. While Mr Humphries is fondly remembered, the past is exactly where he should stay.
It wasn't terribly long ago that you could get a decent laugh just by saying the word "chav". And now - we learn - Chavs have feelings, too, although we're unlikely to see a Chavstock benefit concert down the local Equalities book shop.
It's a wonder comedians can even write gags these days, as somebody, somewhere is bound to be offended and get some previously unknown pressure group sending you pointed emails. In fact, I think we may even have passed that particular event horizon if the current fashion for 140-character puns on Twitter is anything to go by.
What we need is a new target. A social group that doesn't mind being laughed at. A social group that craves the attention. A social group that's crying out for new material.
Clowns.
They want to be mocked. They want to be laughed at. They want custard pies in their faces and to be biffed round the back of the head by planks of wood, and by jove, we're going to give it to them.
Clownism is the way ahead. Give those red-nosed, big-footed gits what they deserve.]]>Homeopathic Clothing: Because Making Stuff Up is Easier Than Sciencetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19444922012-10-06T03:53:43-04:002012-12-05T05:12:01-05:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/had come in a taxi.
But then, the team that was doing nowhere except to the old Division Three did something extraordinary. Reading Football Club went to the old Wembley Stadium, and returned home with the ludicrously-named Simod Cup, beating top-flight Luton Town 4-1 in front of 67,000 people. Within a fortnight, crowds were back down to three men and a dog, the dog coming along to support the away side.
Not being allowed to keep any items of the cup-winning players' kit for posterity, the club historian instead bottled the water that was used to launder said kit, and ate out for some years on the fact that he possessed the actual blood, sweat and manly juices that contributed toward Reading FC's (until then) greatest triumph.
What the man didn't realise was that he had the very distillation of gladiatorial triumph in those old pop bottles, which diluted, shaken, diluted, shaken, diluted, shaken and served up in pill form to the Reading Football Club of today would make them completely and utterly invincible.
In short: Homeopathic Victory, backed up by 100% genuine SCIENCE*. Not just any old science, this is capitalised, all-bold SCIENCE that requires neither absolute truth nor peer review.
I say this because, in a recent investigation into where lost socks go, one of my stalkers said they always assumed they were dissolved by the washing machine, instead of simply skipping into a parallel dimension as proven by genuine SCIENCE*.
He may or may not be correct, but it stands to reason that any water from a washing machine contains the very distillation of clothes, which diluted, shaken, diluted etc and served up in pill form can only mean one thing: HOMEOPATHIC CLOTHES.
Instead of getting dressed in the morning, you just take one of these tiny sugar pills which contain the homeopathic memory of your best jeans and T-shirt combination, and you are all ready to hit the street, HOMEOPATH STYLE!
Of course, some people (for example officers of the law, those with some sort of high-fallutin' education) might say that you are buck naked. They are dead wrong, for you are clothed from head-to-toe with the proven SCIENCE* of Homeopathic Clothes, and no jury in the world would ever convict.
My suggestion to Reading Football Club's new owners is that to mark 25 years of their Simod Cup triumph this season (and also to kick-start my mail order homeopathic clothes range), they should play on the date closest to the anniversary, which just happens to be an away match at Arsenal, in a specially-designed homeopathic football kit.
Mark your diaries. Match of the Day that night will be a positive treat.
* No SCIENCE at all]]>Like a Clown Car Crashing Into Another Clown Car - Tragic, but It's Only Clownstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19224002012-10-02T19:00:00-04:002012-12-02T05:12:01-05:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/
Back in the 1990s when I was some sort of feckless idiot, I was a member of the high-IQ organisation Mensa. I know what you're thinking, but the stark truth is that they know how to throw a good party, and I have yet to apologise to forthright TV critic Garry Bushell-On-The-Box for making off with his umbrella after a boozy Mensa evening in a rainy London.
After several years of membership, I was asked if I would like to take a more active role in running the organisation, and went to a few committee meetings and subscribed to their door stop-sized "internal politics" newsletter.
Now, I've got to be very careful about what I say here, as a few of the people I met in these circumstances could be most charitably described as "precious", while others were - at best - stark raving bonkers, and would write twenty page letters to the newsletter (subsequently published in full) over the choice of biscuits at committee meetings and what would happen to the very fabric of society if Bourbon Creams were ever served again. Minor grudges were held for years, laid out in full-on "He said, she said" fury in the newsletter, which often needed a fork-lift truck to deliver such was its size.
I quickly realised there were three kinds of people at the top end of the group - those who wanted to be in charge; those who had taken a good look at the people who wanted to be in charge, and ran very far away; and those who watched from the sidelines because it was funny. Funny, like a clown car crashing into another clown car - tragic, but it's only clowns. I was in the last group.
Remember, these were people who were in the top two percent of measured intelligence, and have a (quite possibly framed) certificate to prove it.
This brings us back to the original premise: People who say they desire high office not being allowed withing a hundred miles of a committee room. And this also goes for people who say (for example) "I have no desire to be leader of the Conservative Party", when they actually mean "Me! Me! As Orpheus, fair Eurydice and the pantheon of Gods on Mount Olympus are my witness, vote for ME!". Not naming any names.
The only way that this situation can be remedied is by appointing our leaders by lottery (although this gives us an unacceptable one-in-sixty-million chance that Joey Barton will end up as Prime Minister), in which anybody who expresses desire for high office should prove their ambition through a Big Brother-style reality TV show which I shall call "Locked in the Cupboard Under the Stairs For Six Months and Fed on Scraps From the Bins Behind Nando's", where "sudden death elimination" would mean exactly that.
We'll be seeing much less towsel-haired buffoonery if that were the case, and national discourse would be much the better for it, I dare say.
If there's one thing that Mensa had right, it was the written entrance exam. If you put me in charge of the internet, it would be the first thing I'd introduce for anybody who wants to comment on this article. Not that I want to be in charge*.
* Actually, I do. ]]>Judge Dredd vs My Headtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19055762012-09-22T07:10:41-04:002012-11-22T05:12:01-05:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/
Alas, I am told he is no longer there, but as long as Camberley remains the UK headquarters of Krispy Kreme Donuts, things can never be so bad.
But that is by-the-by, for I was there for the cinema. Dredd is one of the few times that I have paid out cash money to see a 3D movie, essentially because I'm a huge fan of 2000AD (with a much dog-eared, torn and graffiti-ed copy of issue one in a box under my bed), and there are no 2D showings within sensible distance. Three dimensional movies give me a three dimensional headache, invariably leading to very much three dimensional rich, brown vomit in the car park afterwards.
It is usually, seconds after wiping rich, brown three-dimensional vomit from my face with the back of my hand, that I realise I have to drive home with my real-world depth perception well and truly destroyed, and it is time to call a taxi. Thanks, Hollywood. Thanks a bunch.
However, you have to hand it to the makers of Dredd, for they've made the 3D an essential part of the movie, as the illegal drugs that play an essential part of the plot slow down reality, enhance awareness of bright sparkly things floating around, and make people getting shot in the head at close range look all the more sickeningly beautiful. And there are a lot of people getting shot in the head at close range, and I think the sparkly things floating around were - mostly - their teeth.
Dredd 3D is also the first three-dimensional movie ever made to avoid this scene, required by law of all films of the genre:
SCENE: HALL OF JUSTICE. DAY. Dredd is seated, feet up on his desk. Judge Anderson enters without knocking.
Judge Anderson: "Hey, Dredd. When this case is all over, care to join me for a spot of fishing? I hear they're bitin' down by the Mutie Canal!"
[Judge Anderson waves a fishing rod at the camera for several awkward seconds]
Dredd: "Not right now, rookie. Can't you see I'm busy?"
[Anderson picks up a feather duster, and starts dusting. You know, toward the camera]
...hence the 18 Certificate.
Movies in 3D are fine for people whose heads can stand the experience without having to spend the next twelve hours in bed with a bucket nearby. For the rest of us, I'd be obliged if the producers offered a near-equivalent alternative where actors are employed to re-enact the film on a stage for the benefit of paying customers.
We could call this new development "going to the theatre". I don't know about you, but I think this could catch on.]]>Alistair Coleman is the Best Person Ever, also Something About Emma Watson Kardashian Swimsuit buy Viagra Cialis Weightlosstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18959512012-09-19T05:31:25-04:002012-11-19T05:12:02-05:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/
Sadly, I've had to throw in a few words which represent the bottom half of the Internet in a vain attempt to SEO myself up, and this is probably the result of this selling of my soul, and why we're not allowed nice things.
SEO - if you don't know - is the business of getting you web content higher up on Google (other search engines are available) through clever use of keywords, placement of links, and other stuff that is certainly not evil, according to my not-evil-at-all pal Mark, who runs the not-evil-at-all Improve SEO agency. And he is certainly not evil, at all.
The most obvious symptom of SEO is the growth of the news headline to almost ridiculous proportions, just to make sure it has all the details for when the Google (other search engines are available) web spider comes to call.
While the print edition of your Super Soaraway may have the simple headline "Sex Pervert Jailed", this will be completely lost in a million billion other online news stories about sex perverts. Post not-evil-at-all SEO, the headline would appear on the web thus:
Sex Pervert Vincent Aloysius Volestrangler, 32, of Nosuchtown, Dorset, jailed for nine years at Woolwich Crown Court for spanking a statue of Winston Churchill with a carpet slipper for HIS FILTHY GRATIFICATION
That just about covers all the bases, and includes a bit of gratuitous ALL CAPITALS for the Daily Mail crowd.
The trouble with is approach is that the entire story is told in the headline, and unless there are particularly interesting photographs of poor, dead Winston being spanked, or sordid details of a doomed marriage to the statue of King George III on Weymouth seafront, the job of the journalist might as well be to write blah blah de blah for 500 words, in the tone of voice usually heard by Charlie Brown's teacher.
As a some-time tech journalist, I've been to enough conferences on making money from the internet to have heard a hundred managing directors of websites that no longer exist say "Content is King". This is clearly cobblers, because we've already learned that it is the headline that rules, with the content itself coming a distant last in the King stakes behind a) Elvis, b) Juan Carlos of Spain, and c) Mark King out of 80s funksters Level 42.
Also, I've been to enough of these things to be high on the hockey-stick curve when it comes to Buzzword Bingo.
SEO, then: It's evil, bad, naughty, out-of-order, BUY VIAGRA CIALIS, but necessary.]]>My Search for Britain's Most Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18731502012-09-11T19:00:00-04:002012-11-11T05:12:01-05:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/one throwaway comment, based on a photograph I took last year, about Basingstoke being a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" and an entire tiny corner of the internet goes mad.
I return from a brief sojourn in the smallest room, reading a few pages of my current toilet book, arriving back at my desk to find Twitter shouting "38 new interactions" at me, mostly from people who are saying "Clearly, you have never been to [insert town here]". Most of these towns were in Essex, and the majority of them being Basildon, twinned with Mos Eisley spaceport, the original wretched hive etc.
The fact is, Basingstoke isn't all that bad. We've just about forgiven the place for Liz Hurley, and the council had the good sense to pull down the worst of the 1970s concrete and replace it all with some spanking new 21st Century concrete. My totally unrelated beef with the town comes from an unfortunate episode where a former mayor of Basingstoke and Deane broke wind in my face (with hardly a by-your-leave, I might add), and if that is the kind of trumpy behaviour one can expect from its first-among-equals, then what is the rest of the place like?
I have a rule of thumb for any town's potential crapness, and it is to ask this question: "Can the bus station be used as a set for a zombie apocalypse movie?"
The former bus station in Basingstoke - before it was pulled down - was Zombie Apocalypse Central, the effect was somewhat magnified by a supply of drooling undead shambling about demanding both spicy brains and the price of a cup of tea. I have no idea where they are now, but in all probability they have moved to Reading (twinned with Your Mum) where the old, silently rotting bus station still stands, and zombies are welcomed with open arms in the nearby derelict shopping mall.
The second question I ask is "Have I ever accidentally stayed in a Travelodge there?" That's you, Swindon.
You can publish as many lists as you like about crap towns, but it's all hugely subjective based on where you've actually been. Hull was voted the worst town in Britain in 2003, but I found the parts I saw reasonably pleasant. On the other hand, I'd be happy to see the following year's winner - Luton - leveled and turned into an overflow car park for Watford. Poor Luton.
Almost all of the north of England and Scotland is a closed book to me, and my chief experience of many places comes from my years as a rather (cough) excitable football fan, usually running away from the dismal suburb where the football stadium once stood. The lovely city of Norwich scores badly for me, simply because the police made the passengers from the Football Special walk from the station to the football ground in bare feet, an experiment in crowd control doomed to failure. Bangor gets on the list simply because it was closed when we visited.
I spent much of my youth on holiday with relatives in the concrete jungle of Basildon (more specifically the post-nuclear nightmare suburb of Laindon), so my judgement may be somewhat clouded.
My Worst Towns List
Basildon
Luton
Bangor (North Wales)
Swindon
Portsmouth
Basildon
Basildon
Norwich
Colchester
Basildon
I have never been to Stoke-on-Trent, hence its lack of inclusion on this list despite many Twitter followers warning me of its growing reputation, but I am firm in my belief that Match of the Day is aired as a warning for people to stay away. If you live in Stoke, and believe the opposite, I apologise, but Gary Lineker does not lie.
Oh, and Slough.
And Sutton Coldfield.]]>How Many Shoes Are Too Many Shoes?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18411222012-08-29T17:28:33-04:002012-10-29T05:12:04-04:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/
They're quite useful, and some people quite like them. In fact, some people like shoes so much, they will own quite extraordinary numbers.
Of course, there are sensible limits to the numbers of shoes a person can own without being seen as either a bit weird or a cast member from The Only Way Is Essex, a figure which is open to considerable debate.
According to latest figures released by the International Sexist Thought Institute, a Colchester-based think tank dedicated to sexist talk whilst downing large quantities of expensive lager, women own at least (and I quote) "Oooh, an absolute metric shedload of shoes, and they don't even wear half of them."
This is fair enough, some women need loads of shoes, just as men need loads of barely-used bottles of after-shave. I'm no mean after-shave buyer, but I've got enough bottles of the stuff in boxes under my bed to make dozens of wonderfully-smelling Molotov Cocktails should the fabric of our society finally collapse into an orgy of anarchy.
But back to shoes, and the whole reason for this train of thought: How many is too many for a man to own?
After an unfortunate bout of footwear buying, I suddenly went from two pairs of shoes (both of which were several years old with soles worn so thin I could feel the cracks in the pavement) to five pairs, which I feel are an extreme limit for one man. One pair cost me £45 from Debenhams, a mind-boggling sum of money that still gives me a nose-bleed when I think about it, even if they were paid for out of gift tokens which could have been spent on at least four pairs of value-brand jeans. People tell me that others are prepared to shell out even higher amounts for shoes. That's crazy talk.
I also have two pairs of carpet slippers - a totally unnecessary extravagance - one to wear about the house, and the other with a slightly harder sole which allows short errands around the garden and out as far as the postbox down the road without looking like I'm wearing slippers in public. Once, at the age of eleven, I accidentally wore my slippers to school, so don't ever tell me that I do not know about what it means to feel cheek-burning shame.
In the cold light of day, my footwear indulgence looks just awful. Worse than my car history should the day ever come that I am the here-today-gone-tomorrow celebrity in Top Gear's Star in a Reasonably Priced Car:
The £45 gold-plated Debenhams shoes
The discount hiking shoes
The old Shoe Zone paper-thin shoes
The genuine antique Shoe Zone running shoes (last worn for actual running on 13th April 2008)
The funeral/job interview/wedding shoes (worn up to twice a year for the last decade and a half)
The slip-on slippers
The going outside slippers
That's seven pairs of footwear, and I fear society may judge me for this.]]>Military Fitness: Just Say NOtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18170452012-08-21T19:00:00-04:002012-10-21T05:12:12-04:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/
On top of that, there is also the cult-like devotion to the latest fashion in exercise class. Hospital fracture clinics were - once again - filled to the brim with hapless devotees of the Cult of Step Aerobics, as they found that the act of checking out the hot boy/girl on the next step along was a recipe for face-plants and broken ankles, yet the leaders of genuine religious cults did nothing to stamp out this menace. And that's before Zumba swept the planet with a fervour only usually reserved for end-of-the-world cultists. And judging by the outfits these Zumbists wear, the global apocalypse cannot come soon enough.
And now, emerging from the wings, comes a new horror, known simply as Military Fitness. The fact that this fad has arrived just as thousands of hard-working squaddies have lost their jobs cannot be a coincidence, but people are actually paying genuine cash money to experience what thousands of pencil-thin new recruits fondly remember as some sort of Hell on Earth. My home town of Fleet, neighbouring the former Gurkha barracks at Church Crookham (where every business worth their salt displays the crossed kukris at least somewhere in its logo) and the home of the British Army in Aldershot, crawls with extremly fit men with wispy moustaches and barrel chests (also women, only some of whom have wispy moustaches) looking for a new opportunity in life. And that new start in life comes through what they know best: Shouting at people.
What happens is this: You pay your money, stand in a field, and a man in a vest with a wispy moustache shouts at you for an hour. While this happens, your body is forced into all kinds of unnatural positions known to acolytes of the craft as "the press-up", "the star jump", the "run to the fence and back MOVE!" and - I shudder at the memory - "the burpee". From the safety of my living room, where I can see these dread rituals going on in the school field opposite, it breaks my heart to watch these lithe young ladies in their tight, sweaty fitness gear suffering for their long-term fitness. Then I go and make a sandwich.
Military Fitness is relentless, and I should know. I was once forced - as a relatively fit 18-year-old marathon runner - into taking part in one of these classes back in the day when it was an underground, furtive, but quite shouty movement. Yes, it worked and I lost loads of weight, simply through vomiting up my liver and later shitting out my pelvis. I was a physical wreck for three days, and developed a dislike for wispy facial hair, addressed only in my forties through recent participation in the Beard Olympics.
If I wanted to be shouted at by a huge, aggressive bloke wearing a vest, I'd go to the karaoke evening in a council estate pub and ask if they've got any Justin Bieber. Then, if that were not enough, I'd then try to jump the queue at the casualty department at Frimley Park Hospital.
Heaven knows from where the next fitness fad will emerge. God help us if it's Fifty Shades-a-cise.]]>Camping: Man Versus Naturetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17771202012-08-14T17:13:32-04:002012-10-14T05:12:02-04:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/
The act of loading one's earthly goods into the back, the front and on top of a Nissan Micra to live for a week under the stars in the New Forest is essentially the 21st Century version of providing for your family through your long-forgotten hunter-gatherer skills. For it is nothing short of Alpha Male behaviour to discover that there is 3G reception near the toilet block, and not tell anybody, particularly not your camp enemy.
A camp holiday is nothing without having a camp enemy. In the loose camping tribe that makes up both yourself and the other tents on your site, there will be the camp smug git who is the enemy to all. He is driving a brand new German car with trophy wife and exactly two blonde children with unlikely names. He will have the biggest tent with a massive awning, which will - of course - glow not with gas lantern, but with portable TV. He will push in at the washing-up station and the shower block, and leave all the gates open.
His will also be the tent where you walk your dog up and down, down and up until you get the required result, because he is your camp enemy. Then, you feel guilty, clean it up, and nod good morning when he uses up the last of the toilet paper in the communal john.
It is, although you don't know it, every man for himself in these circumstances, particularly when you find that the village General Store is actually a Generally We Don't Store Anything Except The Daily Mail And Sometimes Jam, and you arrive at the local cafe to find your camp enemy already there, smugly tucking into the last cream tea for thirty miles.
It is at that exact moment that General Store receives an unexpected supply of fresh, no-questions-asked meat, and you may smugly tuck into the last cream tea for thirty miles, before returning to your empty life of numb consumerism and occasional murder*, your unearthly need for Swingball (The true Sport of Kings) well and truly sated for another year.
Such are the trials of the middle classes.
* I do not condone occasional murder. It is a bad thing and against the law]]>Your Author Versus the Fleet Panthertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17551512012-08-08T07:50:34-04:002012-10-08T05:12:32-04:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/
Having fallen victim to Restless Leg Syndrome, each evening before I go to bed I am forced to go for a walk around the neighbourhood else any attempt to go to sleep is doomed to defeat as my legs jiggle about like I am an extra in Riverdance. This exercise - I must point out - is by no means an attempt to stalk the streets of Fleet (officially kinky sex capital of the United Kingdom if you are to believe a recent survey based on credit card receipts found in my recycling bin) for glimpses of naked people through upstairs windows, a view sadly not shared by the local constabulary, magistrates and upset naked people.
Be that as it may, every night at around 11pm, just as your average Fleet resident is standing proud and in a state of undress in their bedroom window, I must pound the pavements to rid myself of this impossible-to-scratch itch in my knees and the urge to dance, dance, dance that takes over my feet.
So, it was as I stepped out one clear evening, the full moon of Ramadan high in the sky, and my eyes below first floor level as per the court order that I caught movement in a nearby hedgerow. My evening forays have brought me closer to the night time fauna - the hoot of an owl, the scampering of a fox, the slugs rutting away on the pavement like a the stars of a specialist film I once saw by accident on the internet. Movement in a hedgerow can be any number of things. A gust of wind, a drunk bowking rich brown vomit after a night exercising his drinking muscles down the Prince of Wales, or fast spiky death eyeing my throat like a fat kid eyes the last Pepperami in the fridge.
A cat. An absolutely massive black cat, eyes glinting orange in the street lights, a fearsome growl that I felt all the way to the bottom of my spine. Three, four, no - five feet high, menace seeping from every hair on its black, black body. The creature turns its head to face me and my blood runs cold at what is surely some sort of panther, out on the town for fresh meat. And - at the present moment, the only meat - fresh or otherwise - on this particular street in North East Hampshire is me.
Remembering my classics (Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park II and Jurassic Park III), I freeze. If I do not move, surely the huge animal cannot see me. Unfortunately, this good work is completely undone by my involuntary ejaculation of the words "Nice kitty," which - as final words go - are a pretty poor choice. (In fact, my last words in this instance are more likely to be "AAAAAAAARGH!")
And then... It moved. It moved, one step, two steps towards me, my mouth dry, my bowels turned to mousse, my usually hyperactive legs glued to the pavement, my body frozen in fear.
And then... Everything snapped back into perspective. The fearsome best stepped out of the shadows and into the truth of the street lights and revealed its true form. Its true form as Next Door's Cat That Looks Like Hitler, a nervous little thing with an uncanny resemblance to the late Fuhrer, its hideous growl being mews of appreciation for the meat products that the woman upstairs routinely throws out of her kitchen window into our front garden.
Tonight's special: Half a Ginster's Meat Feast Slice. Mmmm.... tasty.
"Nice kitty."
It fled. So did I.
The Fleet Panther is real. It's just rather smaller, cuter and Nazier than expected.]]>In Which Your Huffington Post Blogger Becomes an Accidental Matchmakertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17364282012-08-03T06:13:50-04:002012-10-03T05:12:02-04:00Alistair Colemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/alistair-coleman/myself and various - excellent - organisations for the best part of ten years now. There have been ups (Two national 'best blogger' awards), downs ("A turd-in-process being squeezed out of the fundament of your own prolixity" being my favourite piece of unintentionally hilarious trolling), and some side-to-sides (being called 'better than Jeffrey Archer', for example) down the years that have made it all worth while.
But I have never woken up at five in the morning for an unspeakably early start at work, flipped open my iPad whilst sitting on the toilet, and squealed with delight.
For there, in my Twitter stream was a message from a regular reader of my (officially) sixth-best British journalism blog Angry People in Local Newspapers, which said this:
"FYI. A man found my blog through your blog and now we are married (and I live in Canada). I owe you a pint."
I know what you're thinking, and you are correct: YES! FREE BEER! My writing has brought me prizes of electronic gadgets and a gas boiler down the years, but none has made me so pleased as this particular piece of news. Admittedly, it hasn't kept my house warm, but you can't have everything.
Also, I am thinking that the reader known as Non-Working Monkey is now living in a state of happy marriage because of some stuff I poured out of my brain onto the internet. Of all the things I've done in my life - bringing two excellent children into the world, chasing a dog off a football pitch, asking the awesome Neil Gaiman to write the foreword to my first book, and the twin triumphs of meeting a current world leader five minutes after the biggest poo of my life aside - my unwitting act of match-making is up there as the most incredible thing that's ever happened to me.
I didn't go into blogging for the cash (send more money), the fame (Agents: Please ask about my two brilliant fiction manuscripts), nor the recognition, but the fact that there are actual real live breathing people out there brought together because of something I wrote will probably have me walking on air for the rest of the year.
Yes, my default position is one of complete misery, I'm on pills for me nerves and I drive my middle-age spread around in a fifteen-year-old Nissan Micra. But, today, in the words of cartoon dog Droopy: You know what? I'm happy.]]>
