I’ve been told by people in the know that if I get writers block when blogging, to inform people of ten things they don’t know about me. This gives people further insight into the man behind the words

When I say someone in the know, that isn’t strictly true. It was Frank the trolley guy at Tescos who has never written a blog and to be brutally honest knows absolutely chuff all about blogging! However, I did think it was an idea I could work with, so I thanked him and left him to dint nearby cars with his clumsy trolley collecting!

So here are ten things you don’t know about me, that I’m sure will give a better picture of the man behind the words:-

1) My daughter has a friend called Teapot.

2) He isn’t really a teapot. It’s a nickname.

3) My wife hasn’t got any friends with nicknames of kitchen appliances or utensils.

4) Unless you count her old friend in Birtley called Microwave!

5) I have never been to Wales.

6) Or Moldova.

7) At high school I was voted the person least likely ever to wear a trilby.

8) I’ve never worn a trilby!

9) I need one more stamp on my ticket to get a free Costa coffee.

10) Teapot likes Costa coffee more than tea.

11) I cant count to ten!

A teapot ….. Not my daughters friend though!

There you go hopefully those little minuets have been informative and given you insight behind the person behind the blogs!……… “Yes you’ve confirmed you’re a chuffing lunatic!” I hear you cry!

Sometimes there is a fine line between creativity and insanity! I’ll let you decide which camp this sits in. One thing for sure is I’m going to keep going. I’m using this as a vehicle to help me deal with circumstances in my life that can be challenging at times!

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In yesterdays blog I briefly touched on a particularly disastrous holiday in the early 1980’s to Corfu. I didn’t go into any great detail as I didn’t want to elongate the narrative too much Today I intend to embellish one of the tales I mentioned at a high level.

As I said yesterday, my mate Dave and I, who were 18 and 19 respectively (I think) had a fortnight (minus the night we lost) in a very ropey accommodation in Corfu Town. Here we lived on a diet of toasties, beer and mishaps. One of these mishaps occurred when we hired mopeds one scorching Mediterranean day.

After collecting the mopeds we headed off for fuel, as the tanks on them both were practically empty. At the petrol station I picked a pump and started filling the tank with 2 Star fuel. Dave did likewise at the adjacent pump.

After we both refuelled the mopeds, we paid and got ready to start up the bikes and head off around the island. As I prepared to start mine Dave kick started his and that’s when the trouble started.

Unbeknown to him the spark plug guard was missing and he’d spilt some fuel down the side of the tank. As a result of this when he sparked it up his fuel tank became surrounded with flames. This is obviously dangerous at the best of times. However, when you have a moped alight in a petrol station that really isn’t good news!

Dave attracted my attention to this as I was turned away climbing on my moped! A word that rhymes with duck was shouted, before Dave yelled in a panic “Blow the flames out!”

Now I wasn’t an expert on pyrotechnics, however, I was pretty sure a human wasn’t capable of blowing out a fire fuelled by petrol. I could have been wrong but I wasn’t prepared to test the theory!

So as vehicles on the forecourt beeped to alert the owner I shouted “Run you daft bastard!” and we started running from the station. We hid behind a car about 50 yards away watching the owner running around in blind panic, until he eventually put out the fire with a hose pipe!

With he fire out we sheepishly walked back as the station owner contacted the moped proprietor to come retrieve his badly burnt vehicle! When the owner arrived he wasn’t best happy surprisingly enough! I don’t speak Greek but from his body language and prodding I suspect he wasn’t asking Dave if he could add him to his Christmas card list!

A moped not too dissimilar to Dave’s after the fire!

Eventually he calmed down after the petrol station owner told him it wasn’t Dave’s fault, but his for being stupid enough to not have a guard covering the spark plug!

So Dave was given a replacement moped and off we rode, mightily relieved that we hadn’t been responsible for blowing up half of Corfu!!

It wasn’t the last we saw of the moped owner that day, as I crashed mine into a lamp post racing in the afternoon, rendering that unrideable! I’ll share that tale another time though!

I’m off to get a shower and get ready, laters!

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