It's in the Jeans.

As somewhat of a fashion guru, in my own imagination. I was a little annoyed recently when a so called expert intoned on BBC Radio that men over the age of thirty should never wear jeans. Many long standing acquaintances of mine actually believe that I was delivered attired in said garments.

Now I have to admit that my thirtieth year came and went quite some time ago, an occurrence incidentally that my wife insists that I have never fully recovered from, so obviously I must have been offending this member of the Stasi Fashion Police for a good few years.

However I was so incensed with the cheek of this statement that I felt compelled to call a special meeting that evening of the "Men of a Certain Age- Wharfedale Chapter".
Just for convenience this was held at the local pub.

Six of my tennis playing compatriots thus turned out at very short notice, proving once more how supportive, loyal and bored they all are.

I quickly noted that four of them plus myself were sporting jeans of varying styles and was about to vent forth in a tirade against the fashion spokeswomen whose comments earlier in the day had generated this get together when I realised that she may have had a point.
Spicer is six feet six inches tall and out of an act of politeness and friendship I accept his word that he weighs no more than seventeen stone. He carries it in the main well for he is an all round big man, but I realised that evening that he was too all round and big to suit denim.

I viewed Biddercome. He is a short person but not only that, his legs are actually his shortest bit, his dedication to researching gastronomically the full English breakfast for his literary debut necessitated jeans of a fuller nature and to be honest at close inspection they proved a tad un-flattering.

Morgan is a slightly taller version of Biddercome and I noted that his variant of the popular leg wear resembled the bottom half of a plumber's boiler suit and Winston, he is an accountant, I was shocked to discover had actually ironed creases into his iconic symbol of cool.

Thinking quickly I expertly began a heated debate about Gordon Brown , the credit crunch, the escalating cost of fuel, the barmaids low cut dress, global warming and just to keep Biddercome interested Cumberland Sausage.

Thus they never suspected my real reason for the gathering.
As I wound my way back home that evening after several beverages I began to worry and reflected upon my findings. Was the judgement of the Radio fashion expert a universal truism or was it just my friends, but not necessarily me, who looked unbecoming in jeans.

What if it was a universal truism? What would I wear? Could you still buy cavalry twills?

Fate then stepped in as a bus passed by with a poster on its side advertising the "Rolling Stones" new album. There in all his bejeaned glory was Mick Jagger, if faded holey denims were good enough for Mick then they were certainly good enough for me. Thus my wardrobe was saved.

I do have to confess however to averting my eyes from Keith Richards and Charlie Watts, but needs must. Trousers are very expensive.

It's Not a Lie It's a Business Expense!

I have to admit that I am not the easiest person to employ and that is why for many years now I have run my own businesses. I am not the best timekeeper in the world and am often described as not so much laid back as comatose. A friend once sent me a card paraphrasing Kipling, it said, "If you can keep your head whilst all around lose theirs, you probably don't understand how bad the situation is!" He could have had a point. The great corporate machine is not for me but one thing I do really miss with a passion is "the business expense account!"

Now being in sports marketing and also having an interest in corporate entertainment, leisure and travel I am sadly aware that companies expense budgets are not as they used to be in the good old days of the 1970's and early 1980's before Margaret Thatcher introduced pragmatism into the marketplace. In those halcyon times not only was I a Young Turk but I worked for men of vision, men who were not afraid to manipulate an expense sheet and squeeze a claim until it squeaked.


The first of these, Bill Tree, was a man to whom I owe a great deal. He was to mentor me in both business and life, I was a youngster from a mining village and he taught me about food and wine and how to be confident in any company. I was two years out of college and walked out on my job in book sales after a series of fallouts with a particularly nasty bully of a manager. Jobless, I spotted an ad for a Sales and Marketing Representative for a Containerised Shipping Company. I applied and as luck would have it was offered an interview at a hotel about three miles from where I lived. I spent the morning preparing for this important interview by watching England bat against Australia in the Test Match at Lords and then walked, because my company car went west with my resignation, to my appointment. With no knowledge of shipping whatsoever and just a couple of years work experience behind me my prospects were not great.

Bill was Marketing Director of the company and he interviewed me along with the MD a lovely gentle man in his sixties called Andy Holding. I felt that it went pretty well but I'm not sure that I would have been offered the post if Bill hadn't at the end asked, if by any chance I knew the latest score in the Test Match. An hour later having dissected John Edrich's century and the promising, frighteningly fast but erratic bowling of Australia's Jeff Thomson and England's prospects for their winter tour to the West Indies I had the job.

It turned out that Bill was a cricket fanatic and both he and his brother Jim who was General Manager of the company were exceptional players. The company was expanding rapidly and after a relatively short time working in Liverpool I was very swiftly promoted to Regional Manager for the North East with my own office and staff in Leeds. Not long after taking this post I got a phone call from Jim Tree. His tone was serious "Bill's asked me to ring you. It's about your expenses," he said. Immediately I assumed that I had overstepped the mark and then he added "They're not high enough. You're making the rest of us look bad. Take Dee out more." He never had to tell me again.

For several years I entertained clients royally at Headingley and Old Trafford, at York and Chester Races, at Elland Road and Anfield before sadly the company closed due to its Middle Eastern owners withdrawing their funds with the escalation of the troubles in their native Lebanon.

My wife and I then moved to live in Bath and I came under the wing of an even greater artist in the field of business expense sheet manipulation. I was Regional Sales Manager and Andrew was my immediate superior. He would visit us in Bath and Dee and myself would join him for dinner at 'The Hole in the Wall' in George Street and 'Harvey's' in Whiteladies Road Bristol, establishments that even twenty years ago cost 50 per head, you may have noticed the lack of an actual client on these occasions but both Andrew and myself felt that they would only be intrusive.

The company we worked for was an early pioneer of the fitted appliance market. A huge German conglomerate, they threw money at the UK Division in a successful attempt to quickly establish themselves as a market leader. Expense claims that now would get laughed out of court wafted their way over the North Sea to be passed without quibble. Petrol used to be bought with Shell cards and no one ever checked mileage against purchases. Rumour has it that one salesman in deepest Wales did a deal with his local garage and actually bought his wife a car over a period of time on his petrol card. We took Dealers on trips up the Nile and to Las Vegas. We hired out the Orient Express and whilst with them I even flew on Concorde and have the bed socks to prove it. We organised massive exhibitions and product launches. On one such occasion at a top hotel in Stratford upon Avon we were encouraged to invite wives and girlfriends. Over a three day period we were close to drinking the establishment dry. We had corporate suits to wear for this event and Andrew liked his so much that he ordered two.

I remember those men of vision with great fondness and reflect upon those happy times when binge drinking was not frowned upon but was just called a business lunch. As I listen to the doom and gloom on radio from Mr Gordon Brown about the credit crunch and ring out my company tea bag for its fifth outing of the day I regret that the Golden Age' of frivolous spending in the name of commerce may never be seen again.

To Be or Not To Be a Doggy Person.

I was out for a walk recently across the famous moor close to where I live, I realise that me walking, will come as a surprise to most people who know me, but according to my heart surgeon I am supposed to do it to aid some vascular do dah or something. So during the three quarters of an hour a month that the rain stops, I usually venture out. On this particular day I was sat on the first available bench, which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, contemplating the runners and riders in that afternoons hunter chase at Wetherby when Offenbach loomed into view.

He had with him two dogs. I was quite shocked, they were obviously new acquisitions. Now Offenbach is a wealthy eye specialist and a pretty pedantry being, so I never actually saw him as a doggy person, with all that walking in bad weather, muddy paws on the furnishings and especially the pooper scooping. However I suppose a black Labrador and a West Highland terrier do enhance his country gent image. We chatted for some time whilst the dogs slavered all over my trousers, covered my raincoat with mud and left a nice urine smell on the legs of the bench. I thanked him for their attention and he then moved on.

Now you may have spotted that I am not a dog lover. My wife and I have had three cats, at separate times, throughout the duration of our marriage. These three creatures have kindly allowed us to wait on their every need over that period and in the case of the first two even gave me the added bonus of paying out huge vet bills but at least they have never required me to yomp miles over a frozen moor in sideways sleet, at ungodly times of day and night whilst requiring me to scoop their poop.
In the past I always felt that you were either a dog person or not a dog person and I would definitely have placed Offenbach in the latter. However he is the third of my friends of late to make me review my past convictions on this matter. The other two also have far greater reasons to not be in the dog loving camp.

Barry is a native of the town where I have lived for almost twenty years, he is my age and an ex rugby playing backpacker who twice circumnavigated the world before returning home to marry and raise a family. In his youth he courted a very straight laced daughter of one of the towns many respected upper middle class families. One day he called to see her at the elegant Victorian Villa where she lived with her parents. He rang the doorbell and her mother answered it resplendent in twin set and pearls. She left him standing in the doorway whilst she went along the hall to collect her daughter. At this precise moment the family's pet Jack Russell terrier torpedoed toward the open door leapt into the air and wrapped its jaws around Barry's testicles and there it hung. My friend folded into a silent scream like the Munch painting whereupon the dog dropped off and calmly trotted out of sight. The mother and daughter then reappeared to see their visitor standing there clutching a damp crotch, mouth open and eyes streaming. The look on their faces implied that explanations were a waste of time so he limped out of the girl's life forever. She apparently went on to marry a merchant banker and the mother, thereafter, forever crossed the road if she ever saw Barry in town. Sometimes she had the Jack Russell with her and Barry swears that it always grinned smugly at him. Now if that is not reason enough to shun anything canine for the rest of your days I know not what is, but recently Barry went out and purchased a Scottish terrier, go and figure.

The other friend confounding my theory is a magazine managing director and publisher who works in London, lives in his native Cambridgeshire, boats around the North Norfolk coast and regularly visits my part of Yorkshire where he worked, resided and unfortunately for him and his family became friends with me and mine some years ago. Whilst visiting us a couple of years ago he was subject to a very unfortunate incident at our most prestigious local hotel. Guy had, by default, recently inherited a dachshund named Molly from his parents and this new addition had accompanied them on the trip. The dog was taken for a walk on the moor by her new owner and upon returning to the hotel the two of them were unexpectedly confronted in a corridor by the hotel managers Great Dane. Now, as unlikely as this seems, the Great Dane took an amorous interest in Molly. Guy swept the little dog up and made a bolt for his room with the randy brute in pursuit. He thumped desperately on the room door and Sally, his wife, answered, assessed the situation, snatched the dachshund from him and slammed the door closed. A sexually frustrated Great Dane in a confined space is not what a five foot eight English graduate needs. Luckily however the hotel Manager arrived just in the nick of time, the wedding plans arranged but the nuptials not quite concluded. I think that Guy and the Dane have stayed close and still exchange cards on Valentines Day. Again my thoughts would have been to get that dachshund adopted as fast as possible but not only did Guy keep it but when it sadly passed away he replaced it with two Yorkshire Terriers. This being the only saving grace in my eyes the fact that he goes for such manly breeds.

So it would seem that a none dog person can in fact become a dog person at some stage of their lives, but until mans best friends can learn how to scoop for themselves, then I am afraid that I for one am not for converting.

Welcome Back My Old Friend Pinot.

I read a quote some time ago from Henry Youngman the English born comedian who was better known in the United States of America. He is said to have stated that when he read about the evils of drinking, he gave up reading.
For a few weeks recently, through some medication counter-reaction, I myself was obliged to abstain from the demon alcohol and during that period, whilst I didn't give up reading, I found that I never actually wrote anything and was also a right old grump to boot.

My theory therefore is that great writers must need a little jungle juice from time to time to stimulate their creative talent. Now I hesitate to include myself with such alumni as Dylan Thomas, Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Truman Capote and Edgar Allen Poe but they were all outstanding literary giants and the odd tipple never did them any harm. Well not withstanding early death, suicide, hospitalisation, arrest and madness but let us not be picky here.

So counter-reaction defeated and armed with a bottle of Bulgarian Pinot Grigio, £2.99 special purchase from the Co-operative, I resettled at the keyboard. I sipped half a glass and though I began to feel a little perkier the screen annoyingly remained blank. At that point my teacher friend Simcock rang to complain about a new boy who had recently arrived in his class and obviously did not cut the mustard. I gathered this from his comment that somewhere in the rural wastelands of Britain "some village was missing its idiot".

By the time he had rung off, the bottle of wine was more than half empty so surely some resulting literary masterpiece would swiftly germinate. Sadly not, however I did take a call from Biddercome who in writing his own epic "The Full English Breakfast" had hit a wall on how best to grade black puddings. The route of a writer is a tortuous one. Having sympathised with my cholesterol bound friend I noted that the wine had almost gone and not a word to show for it on my pc.

Luckily I had "special purchased" more than the one bottle so glass replenished I tried again to recover the lost muse only to be interrupted by Spicer ringing to ask me to record some programme for him whilst he was away on one of his many jaunts abroad. I didn't take too much notice of where he said he was going, it was either rafting up the Amazon, the Chechen Khan Province of Mongolia or Tenerife, I forget.
Fat Al my Scottish friend then rang me to reopen the wounds of Murrayfield and no sooner had he rung off than Canute, my so called business partner, rang from Mexico to tell me what a great day he had just experienced, horse riding along a sandy beach as the waves lapped the shore and the sun dipped into the Gulf of Mexico. I had earlier returned from a day watching horses, trained by our clients, disappear into a murky drizzle at Uttoxeter, with the added bonus of betting on the one that fell when three lengths clear at the last. Still someone had to go to Mexico.

The second bottle of Bulgarian had now been drained and to be honest I no longer cared whether I was writing or not, however one thought did occur to me, was it the booze that I had needed to rekindle my writing endeavours or did I just need to change my phone number so that I could get the odd two minutes between inane phone calls to actually jot something down.

I decided whatever the reason not to push any further at the barred door of inspiration that evening and contented my self with studying the Racing Post for the next day's runners and riders at Carlisle and it would have been rude to the good people of Glenfiddich not to sample a tot of their amber liquid whilst doing so.

You Know That You're Having a Bad Day When You Get Shot Before Lunch!

As I passed through the security checks at both Doncaster Airport in the UK and Faro Airport in Portugal, on my recent holiday, the alarms went off. Obviously my worldly positions, phone, watch, belt, coinage and anything else remotely metallic were already sat neatly in a plastic tray so the security staff, with more good humour in the Algarve than in South Yorkshire, it has to be said, methodically checked over my boots, shirt and jeans. They tousled my hair, either in a touching display of fondness or perhaps to see if it contained a weapon of some kind, I prefer to think the former, and then shrugged and sent me on my way.

Now I could have explained that it may have been the piece of metal embedded in my right leg, the result of a shooting incident, that caused the machines to react, but that could have labelled me as a possible undesirable and delayed me getting to duty free.

This foreign body in my right calf is there because some years ago my wife was doing some work in Skipton, a pretty little market town in North Yorkshire that advertises itself as "The Gateway to the Dales"; we in our household now refer to it as "The Badlands". It was a Friday shortly before Christmas and Spicer's wife had ordered him some state of the art DVD player from a store in the afore said town and asked us if we would mind collecting it as we were going there anyway. My wife went into the store to sort out the paperwork and I went to collect our car from its parking place. As I walked past a public house called The Cross Keys' I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my lower right leg. Now strangely, as it had never happened to me before, I knew immediately that I had been shot and screamed this fact out to an old couple who were walking by. I assume that she fainted not through my language but the sight of my blood. Having ascertained that there was no more lead flying in my direction I took out my mobile, propped my self against a wall and called the police. "Right Sir you say that you have been shot" said a very polite voice on the other end of the line. "Yes officer" I replied equally politely, just as my mother had brought me up. "Right could you bob round to the station and report it" says he, "No officer I suggest you come to me!" says I, this time perhaps a tad less polite. "Right Sir good idea. We'll have someone there shortly" he concluded And bless them they did.
It was obvious that the shot had come from the public house and the police soon established that the landlord's teenage son was the culprit with a powerful air rifle. He had damaged half a dozen cars, various road signs and me.

I rang D, hobbled to the car, drove to the electrical shop, loaded Spicer's bloody hi fi and set off to Airedale Hospital where we spent the next six hours. The pellet was too deep in the muscle to remove, so the doctor suggested leaving it in there and see what happened. What did happen was that it is still in there.

After a quick phone call, Spicer's wife arranged to collect the girls from school for us and being a Friday, Spicer organised a substitute to play for me at tennis that afternoon. Apparently they were well into the second set before Biddercome asked Spicer why I wasn't playing. "Oh he's been shot" the latter stated as though it were an everyday occurrence. "Is he dead?" asked Simcock "No" said Spicer and they then carried on and went to the pub afterwards without giving it a second thought. Bless them.

So as you can see the incident itself was the result of a schoolboy prank but the consequences have ever since been quite interesting. If people only know that you have been shot, and not the actual shooting circumstances, then your life takes on a whole new persona. For instance a few weeks later, against my wife's better judgement, and whilst I still had a pronounced limp, I played in a Law Society golf day as a guest of a solicitor friend of mine. As no one knows much what I do for a living anyway, then an air of mystery surrounds me normally. Mark, who at that time was mostly overseeing house conveyances, introduced me to his lawyer associates as a client who had recently been shot, and suddenly his esteem took a boost in their eyes as they assumed that he must be representing some gangland overlord. We both spent the afternoon being fawned over and wined and dined, one guy even carried my golf bag for me.

On a similar tack Canute, my business partner, and I were recently experiencing a difficult business meeting with a prospective client who was really haggling about our costs. I then received a text; I should actually have turned my phone off but had forgotten to do so. It was only from my teacher friend Simcock, who I had been winding up earlier in the day, he wrote that if I didn't behave that he would get his chemistry students to melt my car. The prospective client asked me if the text was important, I explained that it was from someone threatening to torch my car and surprisingly the meeting was then quickly concluded with us obtaining exactly what we had asked for. I said to Canute that next time we could tell him that I had been shot and we could up the bill by another twenty percent.

On a serious note though, I do realise that many tragedies have befallen families due to gun incidents, even involving air rifles, I really sympathise with people not so lucky as I was and do appreciate that I was fortunate that my encounter was not more serious.

'Celebrity' My Career Path for the Terminally Idle!

I recently became aware of a website and business that offers anyone the opportunity, at a cost, to become a 'celebrity for the day'. Apparently the service provides your own 'star' entourage, jet set lifestyle and even includes your very own intrusive paparazzi, presumably they will make an absolute nucence of themselves to neighbours, friends and family, so at least that is a well worthwhile expense, in my opinion.

This site could be a boon to all like myself who have decided to become a celebrity for a living although having to pay for the priveledge may somewhat defeat the objective.

I am still seeking a suitable subject for a 'best seller', as detailed in an earlier post, with which to launch my writing career. Having shared this trauma with the two brave insomniacs who may have read it I now feel encouraged to impart the anguish that I encountered when I decided to become a Celebrity' for a living.

My two sleep deficient readers may remember that I was encouraged to take up the pen or more accurately keyboard, with spell check, by my tennis playing friend Biddercome's foray into the world of literature "The Full English Breakfast". As I write he still is agonising about the merits of fried eggs above scrambled and whether, because he has a big match forthcoming in the veterans club championships, he should reduce his sausage intake to twenty-four a week.

My own efforts to come up with a subject matter to earn 'Nobel' accreditation thus stalled I decided instead once more on becoming a Celebrity' as the way to earn my fortune and pass the time until the literary muse finally decides to visit me. I have in the past reasoned that being a 'Celebrity' could not be so difficult and perversely you don't even have to be that well known or to have actually done anything of any worth to merit the title, well not in a vast majority of cases anyhow.

We in the UK as I am sure is the case in America and most countries of the World have a glut of reality TV programmes, a surplus of gossipy weekly magazines and a surfeit of trashy redtop newspapers all of which are populated with dozens, neigh thousands of 'Celebrities' that certainly no one of my acquaintance has ever heard of. Surely therefore there is room for one more person to sup at the table of fame, fortune and bad behaviour.

I decided to discuss my plans with my tennis playing, I use the term loosely, inner sanctum and did so after one Friday session. Spicer had just returned from two weeks in Egypt, his third holiday of the year, and was looking for a fairly elusive victory, last time he won flares were new on the fashion scene. This day he and I took on Simcock and Biddercome. We won the first set convincingly and were four games to one up in the second then years of supporting Tim Henman took effect and we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. In fairness Spicer did strain his tan during the third set.

Once settled in the bar after the match I ventured to ask their advice about my new career plan as a 'Celebrity', strangely enough they saw nothing perverse in this. They have known me a long time! Biddercome asked if I hadn't become a Celebrity' last year. and Simcock stated that he was sure that there was some TV correspondence that I had received and vaguely remembered that we had discussed it after a few beers some months earlier. I said that Yes this was not the first time that I had taken the title 'Celebrity' and yes there was some television mail but this had in fact been a reminder from the TV licensing people and a communicae from Sky asking if I wished to subscribe to a further '74 unwatchable channels.'

Spicer actually then was quite astute by pointing out that my downfall in the past at becoming a Celebrity' was that the only people aware of my status were the four around the table and my family whom I had felt obliged to inform lest they were door stepped and harassed by the scribe from the Wharfedale Herald'. The big dentist, for that is what Spicer is, big and a dentist, pointed out that this lack of publicity could have been the reason for holding up the lucrative offers of work from programming executives and delaying the public the opportunity of seeing me stuff artichokes with Gordon Ramsey, dance with a chicken for Simon Cowell or go head to head (metaphorically speaking) with Mr Gay UK' and Edwina Curry in a variety of amusing reality TV specials.

Weighing up the implications of the effort needed to gain this added exposure I decided that maybe my decision to shelve the writing path may have been a bit hasty and perhaps I should try harder with uncovering a subject matter for my literary masterpiece. What about a study of this very phenomena "Please Big Brother I want to be a Celebrity get me into Here" I'll add it to the list of possible titles between "Barnsley Football Club" and "32 Recipes for Battered Mar's Bars".

After all working to become a Celebrity' wasn't what I had in mind. Was not being shallow, fickle, untalented and egocentric enough to achieve this goal after all it got Gordon Brown the job of Prime Minister, for the time being at least.

The Way to Cheap Travel Dot Com!

I am still wracking what brain I have for a subject suitable for my life changing writing project so when at a recent winding down session after Friday afternoon tennis doubles the topic of travel came up I thought could this be the solution.A guide to cheap travel, surely it's never been done before!.

Myself and my playing companions had been winding down for quite some time and were on our fourth pint. This being a local beer in the case of three of us, and a ridiculously expensive imported lager in the case of Spicer, my tall bearded dentist friend. The game itself, which I am sure that those of you who do not get out much are desperate to know about, had been a tad one sided.

My teacher friend Simcock was away on half term holiday and forgoing his normal exciting bike trip around South Yorkshire had ventured to his native Cornwall. There he was experiencing the swell of the Atlantic upon fine Cornish beaches, enjoying scones and clotted cream, eating meat, potatoes and selected veg crimped into an exotic shaped pastry and sucking up to an octogenarian aunt who’s will is up for review. Biddercome was in the Lake District deep in research for his book "The Full English Breakfast" desperate to try out every greasy café in Windermere before his remaining two arteries clog up and this meant Spicer and I were joined by Leverite and Offenbach from our pool of ‘players of a mediocre standard with nothing better to do from 4 p.m. on a Friday’.

Offenbach is the recipient of the prestigious ‘Most Expensive Reconstructed Backhand Ever Award’ at the recent star studded ‘Friday Tennis Awards Ceremony’. He is an extremely wealthy eye specialist who, just for good measure, had the sense to marry well. He was this day allotted to the tender care of Spicer who had just returned from a short holiday in Majorca, breaking him in gently for his all out one man assault on the ozone lair which will follow throughout the rest of the year. I partnered the very useful Leverite, another teacher, who is so skinny that when putting the elastic bandage on his troublesome knee in the changing room consequently doubled the size of his leg.

Myself and Leverite triumphed 6-2, 6-1, 6-1, 6-1. We then had an early bath! The match resembled a confrontation between Manchester United and Rochdale or more realistically Real Madrid and Cleckheaton Women’s Institute. Offenbach at one stage however did hit a backhand volley of such perfect execution that the £20000 he spent to obtain this technique seemed almost worth it. Regardless of the score this would ultimately remain Offenbach’s only memory of the afternoon much like some years ago when playing golf with Spicer and myself he hit a perfect five iron approach shot. "Perfect back swing, perfect contact, perfect follow through" he was proudly heard to mutter. "But the ball is in the lake" said I. This in his opinion seemed totally irrelevant and not a little rude of me to point out.

Back to the winding down and talk of travel. Simcock in Cornwall, Biddercome in the Lake District, Spicer just back from Majorca and Offenbach going the following day on a skiing holiday to Switzerland, the cost of which would pay off the national debts of Turkmenistan and strangely enough I myself had been offered that very morning an opportunity of a cheap holiday to Portugal.

My cousin has a timeshare on the Algarve that he was due to visit later that month, on his allotted dates. Due to some domestic inconvenience he was unable to do so and rang to ask me if I wanted to go in his stead. Obviously I was keen to do so but at first he offered me no discount, however upon me reminding him of the teenage incident when he inadvertently ended up in his mother’s frock and his sisters earrings and high heels he rather generously offered it to me for free. You can’t beat family bonding.

Thus over the following weekend my wife and I began the task of sorting out flights, transportation to the airport and hire car at destination.

No problem with the miracle of the internet. Well not if we had started six months earlier or had a budget the size of Offenbach’s. The budget is a bit of a problem of late due to many of my clients following Gordon Browns monitory policies to the letter and subsequently going bust, add to this hyper inflation especially at Tesco, a bank manager with a humour bypass and some extremely erratic riding from the jockey on the favourite in the 2.15 at Sandown Park the previous Thursday and I found myself embarrassed to the extreme in the ‘folding notes’ department.

We were seeking the budget holiday to end all budget holidays. Obviously I had secured the accommodation for free but as I had no youthful indiscretions, to the best of my knowledge, with which to blackmail the executives of Jet 2 or Ryan Air then we had to trawl through hundreds of web sites to find air tickets, within our meagre means, out to Faro and back to the UK.

In the old days, when I could afford holidays and choice in fairness was more limited, we would pop into a Travel Agent (remember them?) tell them our destination and a week later tickets would turn up at our home, Manchester to Barcelona depart date – Barcelona to Manchester return date, included car parking vouchers at airport, collect Hire Car from 'Euro Nice Very Cheap Little Car Ltd' at Barcelona Airport, all very simple and civilised all I had to do was drive to and from the airport.

Now of course we have the joy of doing it for ourselves on the internet. For the following ten days my wife never ate or slept but after that period she emerged triumphant, if a little frayed, from the study with the holiday arranged.

Departure - Taxi to local station, train to Leeds, train to Doncaster, bus to Doncaster Airport - arrive six hours before departure at airport with no facilities in early hours of the morning - sneak past closed sign and sleep fitfully on 'Costa Coffee' setee, flight Doncaster to Faro, no hire car available, bus from Faro Airport to Faro Station, train from Faro to Portimao, taxi from Portimao station to Hotel.
Spend first five days recovering from journey.
Get Hotel staff to organise a hire car for us from 'Euro Because You Didn’t Book It Earlier We Can Fleece You Ltd'

Return- Drive to Faro Airport, flight Faro to East Midlands Airport, bus East Midlands Airport to Derby station - arrive just in time to miss one train wait 2 hours plus half hour obligatory delay for another, train from Derby to Leeds - pre booked seats taken by chav family enroute to ASBO (Anti Social Behaviour Order) convention, train from Leeds to local station, taxi home.

What could be more simple, or enjoyable?

Thus a few days later we did all of the above and strangely enough it was enjoyable! in a slightly masacistic way.