Sunday 28 August 2011

TOP 3 NON-PREMIERSHIP ADVERTISING HOARDINGS w/e 28-08-11





I make no apologies for re-posting Rotherham's vacant advertising space.
What more do they have to do?!
Play-off finalists last season, top of the league & unbeaten, moving to a new multi-million pound stadium, and home to the Chuckle Brothers.
Why will no-one advertise at their ground?


ADVERTISE HERE: TEL 0114 223834 - Rotherham Utd

COLCHESTER SKIP HIRE: RECYCLING FOR THE FUTURE - Colchester Utd

THE FIREWORK EMPORIUM - Ipswich Town

Monday 22 August 2011

Just Another Bit Of History Repeating (Part III - 1984)


Lyme Regis. August 1984.

I'd only agreed to come, if they'd agreed to driving-lessons.
I had no reason to doubt them.
But fuck, I was bored.
The last-minute deal, summer holiday-plan, resulting in Spain, or at worst Greece,
had been hastily replaced by a safe, home-fires vacation, in Blighty.
Mum & dad had grown up with the blitz and bombs, real ice-cream and bicycle rides in the country.
Abroad was still very foreign.
And it was safer therefore, and ultimately more enjoyable, on home shores.

Dad was constantly on edge with regard to the Middle East.
He'd spent a lot of time there, peace-keeping on behalf of the rest of us.
Mum, having worked in the Benghazi Library in the 60's, was equally sceptical.
After the shooting of WPC Fletcher, and the Libyan Embassy siege,
dad, Thatch, mum and Ronnie Reagan all went a bit gung-ho
(the latter taking it all a bit too far, a couple of years later).

So, I was stuck in Lyme Regis in 1984.
And I was horny.
Lots of doublespeak, and very little sexcrime.
Mum & dad were still a bit edgy with the new-age business crowd, taking over the tea-shoppes with their arty things, and their homegrown produce.
I was intrigued by the fat woman with no bra.

Daily, we enacted a favourite routine;
a walk, a cream tea, back to the caravan for a pretend shower;
pub, another pub, fish & chips and back to the caravan again.

An English family holiday, prior to the concept of 'stay-cation'.


I tried to get pissed on the shandies my father proferred.
I made roll-ups from the ash-trays I dutifully offered to empty.
I wanked in the caravan-park toilets, and I wished I was at home.
Or in Torremolinos.

The telly in the clubhouse bar was full of Arthur Scargill and the police and disturbances.
The jukebox in the games room was playing 'Two Tribes' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
The formica tables were littered with cockle-less polystyrene cups, and grubby pots of Saxa white pepper and malt vinegar.
And I was a mess.

I was emphatically in-tune with Billy Bragg, the miners, the GLC, and Red Ken, and the Smiths and CND & everything.
I bought The Clash's 'Sandanista' and voted in a Smash-Hits Reader's Poll concerning Nicaragua.

But I just wanted to have sex.
Lots of it.

With every girl I fancied.
(And quite a few I didn't)

And there wasn't any of either, in olde worlde Lyme Regis.
Just pickled eggs, warm beer and fossils.

In the morning, I stuffed a pound-note into my jeans, and walked to the campsite shop.
I bought a copy of the Sunday Mirror to find out exactly where Libya was.
And a copy of TitBits.


Sunday 21 August 2011

TOP 3 NON-PREMIERSHIP ADVERTISING HOARDINGS w/e 21-08-11




Bit of a slow week.
The missus' been ill, and I had to do a Joe Pesci on a rabbit.
Unless someone complains, I ain't gonna feel guilty.


ASHWORTHS: MENS & KIDS SPORTSWEAR - Accrington Stanley.

CHINA ROYAL RESTAURANT - Scunthorpe Utd.

CAPITAL TAXIS: 43-43-43 - Exeter City.

Friday 19 August 2011

More of a man than Philip Larkin (Warning:contains disturbing images)




Today I killed an animal knowingly.

In 1978, I claimed to have shot a sparrow with my uncle's air-rifle;
but on reflection I clipped its wing at best.
I was 11 years old.

I am now 44, and I have never killed, or attempted to kill, another animal knowingly.

Until today.

Today, I bludgeoned a rabbit with a piece of metal scaffolding.

I missed its head and neck with the first blow, and it squealed.
(Rabbits don't make noises in everyday life)
I broke its back, before despatching a blow to the head, and rendering it unconscious.
I continued to batter it repeatedly, in order to ensure the swiftness of deaths, that a man of little skill could best administer.

And tonight, I know I will have nightmares.

Of the thousands of rabbits that burrow and forage the grounds of Geldeston Hall, only a small percentage are blighted with myxomatosis.
But it's in the summer months when these poor, ravaged creatures are at their most apparent.
Grazing the lush verdant pasture at dusk, within the safety of the numbers from their warren, it's hard to distinguish the weak from the plenty.
It's only when they scatter, in flight and in fear, that the diseased are exposed.
Oblivious to sight or sound, blinded and deaf to approaching danger, these half-dead lagomorphs dribble on grass with no sense of impending mortality, or anything other than cruel raison d'etre.
Myxomatosis makes zombies out of rabbits.

Today I had to 'poo-pick' my wife's horses' field.
With a radio blaring out Test Match Special, and a determined stride, I entered the field with purpose and a desire to be done as soon as possible.
Rabbits scarpered and crows flew away.

Except for one.

I knew immediately that Benjamin Bunny was a myxi-case.
Oblivious to my grumblings and the trundling of the wheelbarrow, BB continued to nuzzle the nettles that littered the shallow hollows, that discredit East Anglia's claim to 'flatness'.
On closer inspection, BB had only half a face.
No cheek. No chin.
Tumours covering the remaining flea-bitten fur.

His eye complete in its decay, the lower jaw was exposed and his rotting gums were bleeding and raw.
The rest of BB's afflictions are too painful to describe, let alone endure.

I left the field and sought about procuring a weapon that would bring an end to BB's suffering.
A pile of builders' scaffolding poles provided the implement that would bestow upon me the title of 'God' for the next five minutes.

When I had finished, and was sure that the suffering had ended, I scooped up the carcass and dumped it with the horse-shit on the compost heap.

The right thing had been done.
I was shaking and I was numb.
But I was sure the right thing had been done.

I then went home and cried.

For BB - RIP.

Monday 15 August 2011

A Little Bit of History Repeating (Part II)

Springtime in Hampshire.

A tiny glimpse of sunshine, and a chance to dry out my karate shoes.
Mum said I couldn't have tukka boots because they were too expensive.
Everyone I knew had tukka boots.
My decision to rebel lay solely at my mother's door.

With the teenage yearning to fuck anything that moved, in a small town where the village-green offered little opportunity, and after the coldest winter 'on record', I was left with the ability to do nothing more than watch the recently created TVS, whilst dreaming of MTV and the girls out of the Human League.
To me it was still the same old shit.
Pipkins, irregular Schools Progammes and Fred Dineage.
All that had changed was the livery, and the 'greed-is-good' mindset of its owners.
Unemployment had hit a post war all-time high, and the Saatchi-Tory claim that 'Labour Isn't Working' appeared to be coming back to haunt them.

A philosopher once said: "Man does not normally wish to fight.
If you want a man to fight, make him feel he is under attack"

And somewhere in the South Atlantic, a scrap metal dealer was bringing out the man in Margaret Thatcher.


Yateley. St.Peter's Churchyard. March. 1982.

I understood Paul's rejection of me as a friend.
With me only home from boarding school during the holidays, our relationship was strained.
He had other friends around him, and I was becoming increasingly more 'strange'.
It was Paul's dad that told him to be wary of me.
With my badly applied make-up, my flasher's coat and girls' school cardigan, I didn't really fit in.
And if I was honest, this was exactly what I wanted.

Bizarrely, the older kids from the village-green didn't have a problem.
They knew I was weird, but they liked nothing more than interrogating me on subjects such as 'life in a dormitory of 20 boys', over an illegal Pernod & black in the Dog & Partridge pub.

Paul didn't come to the pub.
A year younger than me, Paul was yet to get the awkward bum-fluff and forced chin-stubble that I had developed.
With cheap foundation stolen from my sister, and a red greasepaint stick, stolen from backstage-drama, acting as a substitute for blusher, I hoped I would resemble Philip Oakey.
Later in the year Don't You Want Me would become my lament for Paul.

And mum & dad seemed particularly agitated today.

Home from work early, dad depressed the silver cylindrical button at the top of the TV.
The picture rolled and switched from Fred Dineage to Richard Baker;
and as if fulfilling my parents' week-long prophecies out of spite for my holidays, we were informed by the voice of Mary, Mungo & Midge, that we were at war.

Why would Argentina invade a Scottish island?
Who is Lord Carrington?
What the fuck does this have to do with me anyway?
How old is Richard Baker now?
Are you wearing eyeliner?
What are you? A poof?!?

Questions bounced off the artexed ceiling.
A family united in turmoil, embroiled in a battle several thousand miles away.
Mum said 3 Para were already on stand-by.
Dad said 2 Para were better equipped.
I told them that Andy from school's dad was already in Scotland.

"It'll mean more overtime" said mum.
"It'll mean less overtime" said dad.
I didn't care, but I didn't say anything.
"Go and wash your face" said mum.

The churchyard was one person short of the usual habitue'.
Zoe explained that Paul no longer wanted to be mates.
Adam & Jason giggled and said something about pillows.
I lit a crumpled JPS that I found in my overcoat lining, and spat amongst spit, hitting the flagstones littered with butts and Juicy Fruit gum.
I felt nervous, embarassed and flushed.
One by one they walked away.
Zoe stayed, and I asked her what she thought about the Falklands.
"Dunno" she said, grabbing my cardigan and ramming her tongue down my throat.

I walked home alone, hoping the breeze would rid me of the smell of cheap cigarettes and teenage fumbling.
One of the older kids shouted 'homo' and then farted loudly.
His friends, too young to be jobless, but angry, and too pissed to care, grunted in appreciation.

The lights were quickly switched off on my arrival.
I turned on the telly and listened to Fred Dineage bid "a goodnight from all at TVS".
I scrubbed at the greasepaint with Imperial Leather, irritating spots I never knew I had.
I went to bed and dreamt about Zoe.

By the end of 1982, nearly a thousand lives were lost in the Falklands conflict, and many more suffered horrific injuries.
Margaret Thatcher was lauded by the tabloids as the greatest home premier since Churchill.
Ignoring the race-riots of a year earlier, she set about creating a police-state, and systematically destroyed the British mining industry.
Less than 25 miles from Yateley, 30,000 women set up a peace-camp at Greenham Common.
It was to last for nearly 20 years.

I swapped 'homo' for 'pinko', Human League for The Smiths, and make-up for a flat-top haircut.
Mum & dad were both made redundant.
And I never saw Paul or Zoe again.

I was a teenage new romantic
We wore make-up
I had spots
It was shit

Sunday 14 August 2011

IS NATHAN SYKES THE 'NEW' JULIAN ASSANGE?





Has anyone else noticed that Nathan Sykes (The Wanted) and Eric Sykes (Harry Potter) have never been seen on stage, or in a movie, together at the same time?
Although I can't suggest they are one & the same person (there is a slight age difference) it is possible they are closely related, and have been part of a long-standing family feud.
The fact they have the same surname would seem to support this.

The important question is; can we really trust Nathan Sykes?

I'll leave that one up to you.

Saturday 13 August 2011

TOP 3 NON-PREMIERSHIP ADVERTISING HOARDINGS w/e 14-08-11 (New season- New rules)




Let's be honest, it's been a tough start to the season.

The BBC appears to be blurring a lot of the hoardings, with particular interest to the 'local' advertisers, in the higher leagues.

NPower, Coca-Cola, Rainham Steel and Bet365.com appear to be immune to this blurring.

Of course, my failing eyesight may have something to do with this, but even so, this is about how small business advertises on the BBC.
Partially-sighted people need product too.

As a consequence, for the first time in ToNoPrAdHo history, we will be announcing the Top 4 (yes FOUR!) Non-Premiership advertising hoardings on the BBC w/e 14-08-11.

(This may become a weekly thing, depending on vision)

B.LECKEY: ROOFING - Scunthorpe Utd.

GARY FINNEY: GENERAL BUILDER - Aldershot Town.

MIKE LOCK: CONSTRUCTION - Yeovil Town.

GUTTERFIX LtD. - Doncaster Rovers.