Monday 1st August 2011 - Rich, Emma & Al are just about to arrive back in Nottingham, & are all feeling just about human again after a much-needed ‘proper night’s sleep’. The ‘Edmund Hilary’ hotel was brilliant, a real throwback to the 1950s. Mealtimes were announced by the thwacking of a massive gong!
Tuesday 2nd August 2011 - Rich is currently sat watching the last night’s episode of ‘World’s Craziest Fools’ with Mr T, as recorded on his trusty Skyplus box… & is half-expecting to see himself and his fellow Three Peakers featured for their ridiculous exploits at the weekend! By the way, if any of you haven’t seen ‘World’s Craziest Fools’, it’s absolute telly gold! It’s on on Monday nights at 10.30pm on BBC3…
Wednesday 3rd August 2011 - Rich is loving the fact that EastEnders is making a statement about reincarnation, by making the great Frank Butcher return to Albert Square in parrot form! For anyone who doesn’t watch EastEnders or hasn’t seen it this week, yesterday’s episode saw the introduction of a talking parrot called Frank that seems to be able to mimic the former car lot king’s entire repertoire of catchphrases – “You pilchard!”, “You doughnut!” etc..!
Thursday 4th August 2011 - Rich, possibly inspired by the new series of ‘Dragon’s Den’ having started on telly, has been looking into how you take out a patent – as he’s thought of an idea for a consumer product that would be a nailed-on cert to sell in its millions! Only snag is is that it’s quite expensive just to get a patent! Anyone fancy investing in return for a share of possible future profits?!
Friday 5th August 2011 - Rich can’t quite believe that the new footy season finally starts tomorrow, and is looking forward to the Steve McClaren era getting underway at Forest for proper. Anyone else find it a bit strange though how NO-ONE ever mentions the fact that Schuper Schteve played for Derby for several years when he was a player?
Saturday 6th August 2011 - Rich is struggling to think of much positive to say about his trip to the City Ground today to watch Forest’s first game of the new footy season – a dire 0-0 draw against Barnsley. It really doesn’t say a lot for a game of football when your half-time cheese & beetroot cob ends up being your undoubted highlight of the afternoon…
Sunday 7th August 2011 - Rich & Em enjoyed an excellent evening of indoor sport yesterday – with various friends & family members descending upon Fisher Towers for an enjoyable fiesta of darts & table tennis. Cheers to everyone who came! Providing you have a reasonable-sized table, it’s surprisingly easy to transform your dining room into a passable ping pong arena…
Monday 8th August 2011 - Rich enjoyed watching the TV coverage of yesterday’s Community Shield match – good to see Manchester’s two footy teams CAN play each other at Wembley without the matching descending into undignified mass handbags. Though having said that, the kerfuffle at the end of last season’s all-Manchester FA Cup semi-final WAS quite funny for Forest fans, in the sense that there was one point during the argy bargy where it looked like David Platt was gonna get decked by Rio Ferdinand..!
Tuesday 9th August 2011 - Rich thinks Nottingham Forest are a bunch of very cruel bastards indeed – letting poor Notts County & their fans spend the best part of 120 minutes this evening thinking they were going to win on their big night out… only to then break their hearts by casually thwacking in a last gasp equaliser, & then beating them on penalties. Still, well played County!
Wednesday 10th August 2011 - Rich is finding all this rioting nonsense thoroughly depressing – however, BBC Radio Nottingham just provided a moment of genuine light relief courtesy of a live interview with Nick Clegg… in which the Deputy PM got all mardy after it was put to him that maybe he empathises with the rioters what with his own teenage convictions for arson! Priceless..!
Thursday 11th August 2011 - Rich was pleased to wake up this morning to discover that last night was apparently trouble-free in Nottingham by & large – unlike Monday night & Tuesday night. Says a lot about the scum who’ve been causing problems that, as soon as there’s a bit of light drizzle, the feckless bell-ends go crawling back under the stones from beneath which they came. Fingers crossed that’s the end of it…
Friday 12th August 2011 - Rich & the wife are at Liverpool John Lennon Airport about to board a plane to Ireland, for a trip to visit their pals Lizzie & Sean in rural County Clare! Very excited, though a bit peeved at being made to spend 50p on a transparent plastic bag to put toiletries in at security, just because the one they were already in was deemed to be about 2cm too wide. Jobsworths!
Saturday 13th August 2011 - Rich & Em are having a lovely time this afternoon partaking in a whistlestop tour of the many sights of beautiful County Clare in Ireland! One of the undoubted highlights of the day has been a good half-hour spent skimming stones into the Atlantic Ocean! Sometimes in life it’s the simple things that cost nothing that bring the most pleasure…
Sunday 14th August 2011 - Rich & Em are back in England after their brief but lovely break over in Ireland, & are both full of idle daydreams about how great it would be to move over there themselves, away from the rat race… maybe running a cheese shop in a little town somewhere? Cheers to Lizzie & Sean for their excellent hospitality!
Monday 15th August 2011 - Rich has spent some of this morning shamelessly reliving his & Emma’s wedding day – having just taken delivery of a lovely leather-bound photo album featuring all the photos taken on the day by the very talented Marc Bowker! The album is one of those ‘design your own’ albums that you can do online – and it looks great! What with the giant bride’n'groom canvass print already hanging in pride of place in the dining room, Fisher Towers may have to be renamed ‘Narcissism Towers’..!
Tuesday 16th August 2011 - Rich has just heard that ‘The Tiger That Came To Tea’ – one of his favourite children’s books books when he was a kid, & a title that’s still ‘in circulation’ today at primary schools – has been turned into a play! It’s currently showing at one of the theatres in London – hopefully it’ll make it up here to provincial Nottingham at some point…
Wednesday 17th August 2011 - Rich had an excellent evening yesterday. First & foremost, another potential buyer came to view Fisher Towers – so good to know that people aren’t being put off by the unfortunate murder that happened the other week just a few streets away. And secondly, the mighty Forest bagged their first league victory of the new footy season, with a 1-0 win at Doncaster!
Thursday 18th August 2011 - Rich & the wife are up in York visiting their pals Ali & Ash! Got here yesterday evening & had a good mooch round the city – a beautiful place, with some brilliantly quirky bars & pubs! The plan for today meanwhile is to get all togged up – Emma complete with fascinator! – & go to Ladies Day at York races! Anyone got any good tips?
Friday 19th August 2011 - Rich had an excellent time yesterday at York Races, even managing to beat the bookie – though the dismal performance of ‘Moustache’ proved that you should never back a horse just because it has a funny name! Also visited York’s Stone Roses theme bar afterwards, & heard a BRILLIANT story about wingnut-faced former England striker Francis Jeffers. Top day!
Saturday 20th August 2011 - Rich & the wife, having set off at the ludicrously early hour of 3am to cunningly avoid the worst of the holiday traffic, are currently about three-quarters of the way down to Cornwall… & very much looking forward to a week by the sea! Staying in a fisherman’s cottage in St Ives with the legend that is Aunty Barbara & Digby – her giant labradoodle! Bring on the relaxation..!
Sunday 21st August 2011 - Rich is lying in bed listening to the sea. St Ives rocks! Excellent news from ‘back home’ as well, what with the mighty Forest having somehow managed to bag a draw in yesterday’s game against Leicester, despite having been 2-0 down with little more than ten minutes left. By the sounds of it, the Reds’ comeback was largely down to Leicester goalie Kasper Schmeichel needlessly acting like a prize tool, resulting in him getting sent off by the ref. Cheers Kasper!
Monday 22nd August 2011 - Rich & the wife have just made an ingenius discovery – the fact that, using a windbreak as your net, it is very easy indeed to create your own beach badminton court! In fact, the cost of the aforementioned windbreak (£7.99) was marginally cheaper than the amount it costs to hire a badminton court for an hour back at the local leisure centre in Nottingham..!
Tuesday 23rd August 2011 - Rich saw a really interesting programme on telly last night about the building of England’s famous Williamson canal several hundred years ago. To enable the canal to be viable, an aquaduct had to be built – & the engineer in charge of the project managed to convince a sceptical Goverment that this would be possible by making a scale model of the aquaduct out of cheese! Genius…
Wednesday 24th August 2011 - Rich & Em went on a guided ‘pirate walk’ around St Ives yesterday evening. Excellent entertainment! Good news from ‘back home’ too, with Forest beating Wycombe 4-1 last night in the League Cup – & new signing Ishmael Miller getting his first goal for the club. It’s certainly never a bad thing to have a striker whose name is mentioned in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’: “Ish Miller – we won’t let you go (let me go!)”
Thursday 25th August 2011 - Rich, ‘thanks’ to the ‘Fatbooth’ app on his wife’s iPhone, has made the harrowing discovery that he’ll end up looking scarily like Chris Moyles if his weight gain of recent months continues! As such, him & Em decided today to quit lounging around on the beach & eating unhealthy food… in order to go on a walk! Currently enjoying a pit stop at the Badger Inn in the village of Lelant, a few miles down the coast from St Ives!
Friday 26th August 2011 - Rich has always tried to have an attitude of ‘each to their own’ when it comes to other people & their hobbies – but nevertheless, is really struggling to fathom those odd few people you see on the beaches at St Ives who seem to squander half their holiday sweeping the sand with metal detectors! Quite tempted to get up early & bury a few tin cans, & then sit back & watch as their greedy excitement turns to disappointment..!
Saturday 27th August 2011 - Rich is sad that his & Emma’s Cornwall odyssy is now officially over. Been a tremendous holiday though, & had an excellent final day yesterday visiting Paradise Park – a zoo-type place just up the road from St Ives that has loads of parrots! Now on the way home & thundering across Bodmin Moor – no sign of any pumas as of yet…
Sunday 28th August 2011 - Rich lent his Forest season ticket to a friend for this afternoon – having thought he wouldn’t make it back to Nottingham in time from his & Emma’s gallivanting to be able to go to the Reds’ game against West Ham. Actually got back in plenty of time in the end – however, not sorry to have missed what turned out to be a dire 4-1 defeat. Quite amused though by Hammers boss Sam Allardyce’s increasing resemblence to latter period Meat Loaf..!
Monday 29th August 2011 - Rich discovered yesterday that, while him & Emma were away on holiday, the 18-year-old daughter from the chav family next door gave birth to a baby. So from now on then, it’s not just the sound of the chavs & their scummy hangers-on shouting at each other at all hours that will have to be put up with – a pair of screaming lungs will also be added to the heady mix. Brilliant. Wonder how long it’ll be before the inevitable Jeremy Kyle special to find out who the dad is?
Tuesday 30th August 2011 - Rich is sat watching the classic 60s flick ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s', having stumbled upon it on FilmFour whilst doing a spot of channel hopping. Had never actually seen it before – finding it hard to take it seriously though, due to the fact that A-Team legend George Peppard plays the male lead! With each scene, keep thinking that BA, Murdoch & Face are going to bust their way through the walls in a tank or something..!
Wednesday 31st August 2011 - Rich salutes his wife for being generally ace – her latest feat in tremendousness being the fact that, touch wood, she seems to have cured him of the painful achilles tendonitis that he’s been suffering with over the last few months. Being married to your own physio officially rocks!
