Coincidentally, not only was yesterday (May 1st) ‘World Naked Gardening Day’ it was apparently also ‘World Arrested For Indecent Exposure Day’. A lesson learned to my cost when finding out buying lawn feeder from a garden centre can’t be classed as horticultural maintenance.
My shame exacerbated further by foolishly undertaking the naturist act of procuring grass fertiliser during a cold May day. They say a handy horticultural tip is to never expose bedding plants to frost; an advocacy which is equally relevant which regards male genitalia.
Footnote – Quite obviously, the above prose relating to my arrest for indecent exposure on ‘World Naked Gardening Day’ is fictional. The rozzers never caught me, I legged it out of the garden centre toilet window and remain a fugitive from justice.
Seriously, though, GJ Strachans’s enjoyed a productive few days staining timber in his aforementioned garden.. Consequently, the pergola and four fence panels now freshly spruced in preparation for the upcoming summer.
Had sporadic rain showers not made unwelcome tarries over this part of West Yorkshire this weekend, I’d have managed to undertake further timber TLC. Precipitation, though, fleetingly deciding to ‘press my buttons’ by inhibiting any real sustained run with my brush.
Frustrating, yet with forecasts predicting even heavier rainstorms through the week, I had to make the most of the times when showers abated. When cloudbursts did postponed staining, yours truly utilised the white space to prep a beef casserole for Sunday evening’s scran, in addition to random social media trawls.
Talking of social media, this Bank Holiday weekend many elite UK sports clubs and sporting media outlets are boycotting the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram et al. This action a stand against racist, homophobic and vitriolic trolling aimed at professional sportsman by the more toxic of our number.
Whether this strategy bears fruit only time will tell. There has to be a greater appetite, though, for social media companies to filter out the filth some guerriers clavier feel a need to peddle from the comfort of their bedrooms.
Talking of sport, as I pen these observations the Manchester United versus Liverpool football game has just been postponed after the former side’s supporters broke into the ground, protesting about the US owners of the club. The catalyst to this misdemeanour their signing up to participate in the ultimately doomed European Super League.
This poor man’s version of Trump supporter’s January storming of the Capitol in Washington, a PR disaster for fans who until todays misguided shenanigans had, in recent weeks, held the moral high ground over self-serving owners of twelve European ‘soccer’ teams. In particular, the now failed league’s proposed strategy of following America’s elite league model of banning relegation for founder members.
Now, though, this section of misguided football supporters have handed a PR boost to the Glazer family, who own Manchester United. Not only that, but the selfies they took undertaking their illegal act, as with the Trump cult followers who stormed the Capitol, has made the boys in blues task of prosecuting them a darned sight easier.
Protesting is fine, especially in the case of football’s now cancelled European Super League is fully justified. But if you’re gonna break the law (which I’m not advocating) don’t bloody publicise your misdemeanour on social media.
If today’s stormers of Old Trafford are like Trump’s Capitol halfwits, I suspect they won’t be such a Bertie Big Bollocks when the local constabulary come calling…… In fact, if it’s as cold as it was for me on ‘World Naked Gardening Day’ they’ll be more like Bertie No Bollocks!!
