So the Boss tells me he was talking to Shelley about his artistic nature (It's true the Boss does have a creative side - or so he likes to think!) Shelley then says "You're not about to use the F word" Meaning ME!! Well who is this woman!
Frankie-in-a-sulk
The Boss here, I think Frankie is just a little bit over the top here although he wont like me saying so. Shelley was merely being humorous albeit at Frankie's expense (muffled sob from Frankie at this point) "Hey Frankie what's really troubling you?"
"You don't want to know Boss you don't want to know"
"I am all ears"
Frankie chose not to pass comment on my ears which are rather large and stick out somewhat they have been compared unfairly in my view to Prince Charles' ears!
"Boss you know I went to that new club Psychology last night?"
"No, but.."
"Well there was this gorgeous creature there called Lesley..."
"You didn't Frankie?"
"No but I wish I had...It was so humiliating" (sob)
"Oh Frankie. Why do you put yourself through it"
"What can a poor boy do?"
"You deserve better"
Frankie sniffed, made his excuses and left.
Thursday, 29 May 2008
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
Message to Behr
I have just received this post from Behr with no email address attached so I am replying here
"Hi Bill, I was just reading about your fund raising trip and was wondering how I could go about doing the same. I'm in Israel right now, planning to bicycle from Turkey to the Atlantic starting in August."
Hi Behr,
Sounds fantastic. If you visit wwww.blogger.com and follow the instructions there you will be able to set up a blog in no time at all. Then just start blogging and tell as many people as you can about your blog - put it as a strapline on your emails and tell me and other blogs about it and away you go.
There are websites that will at a price collect donations for you - I chose not to do this. And your blog site can carry adverts - blogger can arrange this for you but again I chose not.
Blogger.com does not offer space for photographs bubt it does offer a link to a site such as flikr.com so that your picture does appear on your blog.
If you have a modern mobile phone you can text straight to your blog - I wish I had done this. 'Help I am in a ditch now etc'. I had hoped to visit cyber cafes or get my backup team to upload to my blog but they weren't having it!
Do email me (william.west@manchester.ac.uk) and tell me more of your plans.
Best wishes,
Bill on bike
"Hi Bill, I was just reading about your fund raising trip and was wondering how I could go about doing the same. I'm in Israel right now, planning to bicycle from Turkey to the Atlantic starting in August."
Hi Behr,
Sounds fantastic. If you visit wwww.blogger.com and follow the instructions there you will be able to set up a blog in no time at all. Then just start blogging and tell as many people as you can about your blog - put it as a strapline on your emails and tell me and other blogs about it and away you go.
There are websites that will at a price collect donations for you - I chose not to do this. And your blog site can carry adverts - blogger can arrange this for you but again I chose not.
Blogger.com does not offer space for photographs bubt it does offer a link to a site such as flikr.com so that your picture does appear on your blog.
If you have a modern mobile phone you can text straight to your blog - I wish I had done this. 'Help I am in a ditch now etc'. I had hoped to visit cyber cafes or get my backup team to upload to my blog but they weren't having it!
Do email me (william.west@manchester.ac.uk) and tell me more of your plans.
Best wishes,
Bill on bike
Frankie says(5): webcam here we come
So Shelley is hosting this party for various members of staff here who are about to have 'milestone birthdays'. Well the Boss asked her if Frankie could come and she said 'No he's too young'. Well get her! I am all of 33 even though I do look much younger in candle light! And as my old friend Stuart used to say 'You're as old as the man you feel'.
The Boss is going very geeky on me and is about to get a sandpit - no not a real one - although that would be interesting and reminds me of an interview I read with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys who had his piano installed in a sandpit in his living room so that he could feel the sand beneath his feet when he played. Hey that might suit the Boss for his piano lessons. On the beach with Rebecca his piano teacher! Mind you Brian Wilson's dog used to do his business in the sand. Yeuch!
Anyway the Boss is also getting into Breeze and Scype and is having a webcam installed. Can you see it - Frankie gets webcam and chats to all his overseas friends and uploads the clips to Youtube and then this producer - who knows Neil Tennant - watches the clips and the next thing you know Frankie's on the next Pets video DJing at Heaven....Hmmmm.
The Boss has asked me to point out that the sandpit is a virtual one and is part of Blackbroad(!) a Virtual Learning Environment, sounds like just the place for me!
Love and kisses,
Frankie
The Boss is going very geeky on me and is about to get a sandpit - no not a real one - although that would be interesting and reminds me of an interview I read with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys who had his piano installed in a sandpit in his living room so that he could feel the sand beneath his feet when he played. Hey that might suit the Boss for his piano lessons. On the beach with Rebecca his piano teacher! Mind you Brian Wilson's dog used to do his business in the sand. Yeuch!
Anyway the Boss is also getting into Breeze and Scype and is having a webcam installed. Can you see it - Frankie gets webcam and chats to all his overseas friends and uploads the clips to Youtube and then this producer - who knows Neil Tennant - watches the clips and the next thing you know Frankie's on the next Pets video DJing at Heaven....Hmmmm.
The Boss has asked me to point out that the sandpit is a virtual one and is part of Blackbroad(!) a Virtual Learning Environment, sounds like just the place for me!
Love and kisses,
Frankie
William in the rain
Hi,
It rained and rained this morning then it eased a bit but once I was out there it came on full again. It was so bad I could hardly see out of my rain drenched glasses. But my waterproofs worked apart from the space between my trousers and cycle shoes - I wasn't wearing my overshoes unfortunately and of course my cycle shoes are now soaked through.
It reminded me of the dreadful day before I reached John O'Groats on my LEJOG bike ride last August. That day it blow as well once I reached the North of Scotland. Sometimes I was blown sideways, sometimes I was blown backwards and once or twice the wind was behind me! It was the worse day of the ride.
2 nights ago it rained and rained all night and I lay awake and remembered the night before I reached Edinburgh again on the LEJOG. I had just avoided rain and then it rained all night, more of a storm. The next day was over 70 miles through very lonely roads, no garages, shops or houses for miles for hours but no rain. Lunch was a bacon sandwich made up at my B and B and a cereal bar and water. I enjoyed the cycling it was my final day and I reached Edinburgh ahead of time.
I have to say how glad I am to be alive and fit as I am. I guess we all fade out as we get older maybe it makes dying easier. I would rather go in my sleep but who knows. meanwhile I cherish life and the people in my life.
Best to all,
Bill
It rained and rained this morning then it eased a bit but once I was out there it came on full again. It was so bad I could hardly see out of my rain drenched glasses. But my waterproofs worked apart from the space between my trousers and cycle shoes - I wasn't wearing my overshoes unfortunately and of course my cycle shoes are now soaked through.
It reminded me of the dreadful day before I reached John O'Groats on my LEJOG bike ride last August. That day it blow as well once I reached the North of Scotland. Sometimes I was blown sideways, sometimes I was blown backwards and once or twice the wind was behind me! It was the worse day of the ride.
2 nights ago it rained and rained all night and I lay awake and remembered the night before I reached Edinburgh again on the LEJOG. I had just avoided rain and then it rained all night, more of a storm. The next day was over 70 miles through very lonely roads, no garages, shops or houses for miles for hours but no rain. Lunch was a bacon sandwich made up at my B and B and a cereal bar and water. I enjoyed the cycling it was my final day and I reached Edinburgh ahead of time.
I have to say how glad I am to be alive and fit as I am. I guess we all fade out as we get older maybe it makes dying easier. I would rather go in my sleep but who knows. meanwhile I cherish life and the people in my life.
Best to all,
Bill
Wednesday, 21 May 2008
Grace says shush
So, on the way to School with Grace today and there I was signing Dire Straits' 'Money for nothing'- because the chords were in yesterday's Guardian - when suddenly Grace says 'Shush'. I couldn't get her to explain why but I guess she was embarrassed by me. "Now that I am old I will embarrass my children..." I might have guessed when I embarrassed her recently in Clarks' shoes shop by pretending to dance.
But this is the girl who I taught to sing in the bath - Yellow Submarine (complete with alternative version chorus of 'We all live on bread and margarine' and the daft Lennon stuff int eh background - mashed potatoes, cabins etc) and 'Octopuss' garden' and a truly inspired drunken cat howling version of 'Show me the way to go home' that had to be heard to be believed. (Ask Sheila if you doubt it!) Then there was the business I taught her of strangling yourself with the shower attachment (as mike) whilst singing 'Magic moments' (This messing with the mike was copied from 60s star Dave Berry - remember him??) Then Sheila got Grace to sing Singing in the rain using the shower attachment as a mike and then Sheila turned the water on. Grace thought this was fantastic!
There's a great children programme Grace and I used to watch called Mortified about an Australian girl with hip parents who are always embarrassing her. My little girl is sure growing up...
Best to all,
Bill
But this is the girl who I taught to sing in the bath - Yellow Submarine (complete with alternative version chorus of 'We all live on bread and margarine' and the daft Lennon stuff int eh background - mashed potatoes, cabins etc) and 'Octopuss' garden' and a truly inspired drunken cat howling version of 'Show me the way to go home' that had to be heard to be believed. (Ask Sheila if you doubt it!) Then there was the business I taught her of strangling yourself with the shower attachment (as mike) whilst singing 'Magic moments' (This messing with the mike was copied from 60s star Dave Berry - remember him??) Then Sheila got Grace to sing Singing in the rain using the shower attachment as a mike and then Sheila turned the water on. Grace thought this was fantastic!
There's a great children programme Grace and I used to watch called Mortified about an Australian girl with hip parents who are always embarrassing her. My little girl is sure growing up...
Best to all,
Bill
Monday, 19 May 2008
Frankie goes to Barcelona
Frankie here - using the Boss' blog with his permission, well I put loads of papers in front of him to sign including a declaimer about using his blog! Anyway the Boss says I CAN go to Barcelona if I get my act together.
"Well Boss I thought my act was pretty cool already"
(For instance: as I was saying to my mate Steve, "My mother made me a homosexual". He replied, "If I give her the wool will she make me one?")
"I don't mean that sort of act. I'm thinking of student feedback, comments form colleagues etc"
"Oh"
So all you out there email the Boss - or me on my new offsite hotmail address: frankie.says@live.com - say how fantastic I am! I know I am, you know it too but the Boss doesn't... Yet.
Best
Frankie-going-to-Barcelona
"Well Boss I thought my act was pretty cool already"
(For instance: as I was saying to my mate Steve, "My mother made me a homosexual". He replied, "If I give her the wool will she make me one?")
"I don't mean that sort of act. I'm thinking of student feedback, comments form colleagues etc"
"Oh"
So all you out there email the Boss - or me on my new offsite hotmail address: frankie.says@live.com - say how fantastic I am! I know I am, you know it too but the Boss doesn't... Yet.
Best
Frankie-going-to-Barcelona
Friday, 16 May 2008
Frankie says(3)
Hi,
I was horrified to discover that Frankie had abused his position as my PA to both email and blog (on my blog too!) scurellous and inaccurate comments about me and my attitude to Raquel and my behaviour at the Cardiff conference last weekend. Really, I think a period of re-training with Shelley is called for ('Oh, Please Boss anything but that!')If Frankie thinks he wants to go to Barcelona next month let along Hollywood(!) he 'd better buck his ideas up, (Yes Boss!).
I think to really understand Frankie you need to listen to one of his favourite Pet Shop Boys songs - Flamboyant:
Every actor needs
an audience
Every action is
a performance
It all takes courage
You know it
Just crossing the street
well, it's almost heroic
You're so flamboyant
And to put the record straight Frankie wasn't the only one at that memorable gig last Autumn when the Pets played at the Apollo. Although why Frankie had to stand next to me wearing his 'I'm with stupid' T shirt heaven alone knows. ('That was me doing irony Boss' 'Irony, that about as ironic as David Beckham photographed in his underpants!' Frankie shuddered at the image.)
Best,
William
I was horrified to discover that Frankie had abused his position as my PA to both email and blog (on my blog too!) scurellous and inaccurate comments about me and my attitude to Raquel and my behaviour at the Cardiff conference last weekend. Really, I think a period of re-training with Shelley is called for ('Oh, Please Boss anything but that!')If Frankie thinks he wants to go to Barcelona next month let along Hollywood(!) he 'd better buck his ideas up, (Yes Boss!).
I think to really understand Frankie you need to listen to one of his favourite Pet Shop Boys songs - Flamboyant:
Every actor needs
an audience
Every action is
a performance
It all takes courage
You know it
Just crossing the street
well, it's almost heroic
You're so flamboyant
And to put the record straight Frankie wasn't the only one at that memorable gig last Autumn when the Pets played at the Apollo. Although why Frankie had to stand next to me wearing his 'I'm with stupid' T shirt heaven alone knows. ('That was me doing irony Boss' 'Irony, that about as ironic as David Beckham photographed in his underpants!' Frankie shuddered at the image.)
Best,
William
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
