Debra Winger

Yep, Anne and I had our annual visit to the infantile morality play that is An Officer and a Gentleman last night, and it was as enjoyable as ever.

Debra Winger remains my favourite actress, even if she doesn't actually bother acting these day. As Pauline Kael puts it, "what she has, she has to her finger-tips".



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The Betfair Forums

Betfair is not for everyone, Frankly, it's a shark-infested cesspit. Every hustler, insider, grifter and chancer pitting their cunning against pros who long ago were banned by bookies for being too good. All innocent sheep wandering in to have a dabble are soon sheared and savaged.

However, the forums are fantastic. For a start they are zinging - the football and racing forums have about 20 new threads a minute, admittedly mostly rubbish but at least it's alive. Also, if you can focus through the "noise", some of the most intelligent clued-up betters provide golden nuggets of information for free. (Yesterday a small posting enable me to back a horse at 50/1 that is now 16/1).

Each forum has a distinctive character. The racing forum is like a wild west saloon, the football one like a changing-room, the tennis one like trading floor, and the politics one will be the place to go for General Election madness.

My favourite though is the "specials" forum, which is more like a lounge bar, with an offbeat conversation about reality TV shows. This month I followed the threads on Celebrity Big Brother and managed to double my money without the chore of watching even one second of the show. Now that's a free tipping service I can get excited about.


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Apostrophes

Or apostrophe's if you're a sign-writer.

Overall I'm inclined to think life would probably be easier for everyone if we just did away with them. However, I couldn't help myself yesterday and corrected the chalkboard outside the Old Bell Inn, which was offering "great bargain's on our new menu's".

Walking on home with a Lynne Truss messiah complex, I then had a panic attack about not knowing what the plural of menu was, nor how to spell it.

This morning the sign looks a bit sad, with smudge marks where some jumped-up twat has been a meddling little pedant. If I'd had some chalk I'd have put them back in...


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Chapstick

Now, I'm not a vain man (just as well I hear you cry), and my grooming products stretch to Head and Shoulders, Crest and Right Guard. If I was a professional footballer I wouldn't have anything to put into those little clutch bags they take on the coach with them.

Except a chapstick each winter, which I currently keep in my jeans pocket alongside my indigestion tablets, and which keeps my lips kissable all winter, which is important when you're such a sex symbol.


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Weekday afternoons at the cinema

I hadn't done this for a long time, and it was a real treat yesterday. Of course, at its best it should feel naughty. To do it properly you need to satisfy as many of these conditions as possible:

1. You should be skiving from work, or feel like you are (sickie, flexi even, or as I managed at Bristol a couple of times, when you're supposed to be in a meeting somewhere).
2. You should be on your own, and if at all possible the only person in the auditorium.
3. You should work your way through a king-sized bucket of salted popcorn
4. Most importantly, when you emerge post-film it should still be daylight.

However, I managed none of these yesterday and still enjoyed myself.


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Severn Valley Country Park

Disused mining area, reclaimed as a country park, in a beautiful valley, walk down to the Severn and meander along up to 6 miles in either direction, catch the walk-on ferry across the river at one end, or have tea overlooking the river the other, and wave at the steam trains as they tootle on by every half an hour or so. What's not to like?


Although not to everyone's taste. A seven year old kid at a picnic nearby us one Sunday had a hissy fit, screaming out "This is a rubbish holiday".


And nearby is my favourite sign - a proper metal road-sign saying:

"Hampton Loade
walk-on ferry only
(sat-nav error)"



Of course, Anne wanted me to entitle this one "in praise of steam trains". She really should have married Mick. Or her brother.



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Light and Bitter

When I used to serve the barrow boys of Peckham they either drank this or halves of Hofmeister.

I'm indebted to the pretty terrible Only Fools and Horses prequel last night for reminding me of this and of what a great drink light and bitter used to be. In the summer we used to switch to light and lager, which shouldn't work but did. Has anyone seen a bottle of Courage Light Ale in recent memory?



All together now:

"We've got some half-priced cracked ice
And miles and mile of carpet tiles,
TVs, deep freeze and David Bowie LPs,
Pool games, gold chains and wossnames
And at a push some Trevor Francis tracksuits
From a mush in Shepherd's Bush..."


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