Sunday 1st January 2012 - Rich & Em are now into day three of their break in France, and is pleased to report that they have been very much immersing themselves in French culture. Yes, New Year was seen in last night by watching Jools Holland’s Hootenanny on the telly… while tonight, plans are afoot to watch the cheery spectacle of Pat snuffing it in EastEnders!
Monday 2nd January 2012 - Rich nearly fell off his chair with shock at hearing the news that’s just wofted its way over to France from back home in Nottingham – namely the fact that Forest, after umpteen games without a goal, finally managed to stick the ball into the onion bag this afternoon in their match against Ipswich… & not only once, but THREE times! Well played Reds, & in particular Marcus Tudgay – not only for scoring two of the three goals, but also for bringing continued amusement to Forest fans through his amusing resemblence to the ‘Compare the Market’ meercat!
Tuesday 3rd January 2012 - Rich is enjoying another gloriously lazy day in France, with today’s exertions having consisted of no more than a leisurely walk around a lake, & a trip to Lidl to stock up on supplies! Anyone else find Lidl highly amusing? The ‘middle aisle’ is brilliantly random – at what other supermarket is there a genuine risk of coming out with a Spanish guitar & a boiler suit, after you only went in for bread & milk?!
Wednesday 4th January 2012 - Rich has just finished his second book of the France trip. Loving the rare luxury of actually having time to read! Favourite book of the holidays so far has been one written by a friend, Marcus Alton, called ‘The Day I Met Brian Clough’. As is perhaps evident from the title, it’s a collection of stories from hundreds of different people recalling memorable encounters with the legendary former Forest manager – including one from a certain R Fisher of Nottingham!
Thursday 5th January 2012 - Rich enjoyed a very pleasant trip yesterday to the town of Ax – a ski resort in the heart of the Pyrenees! Ended up getting the cable car all the way to the top of one of the snow-capped mountains – & after last summer’s punishing experience otherwise known as the Three Peaks Challenge, have come to the conclusion that cable cars are very much the way forward where getting up & down mountains is concerned..!
Friday 6th January 2012 - Rich & Em are off to the airport this morning ready to fly back to England, their week in France over. Big thanks to Linda & Peter for the tremendous hospitality! It’s always sad when holidays come to an end – however, the blow is softened considerably on this occasion by the prospect of a trip down to Frimley Green tomorrow to watch the opening day of the Lakeside arrows! Let’s! Play! Darts!
Saturday 7th January 2012 - Rich & Em, along with their friends Ed & Andy, are down at Frimley Green at the opening day of the Lakeside World Darts… in fancy dress, no less! If any of you are watching today’s tungsten-tossing action live on the BBC, then look out for the four idiots wielding an ‘R.I.P. Bob Holness’ placard – dressed, respectively, as a parrot, pirate, He-Man, & a Medieval jester!
Sunday 8th January 2012 - Rich & Em enjoyed a tremendous day at the Lakeside darts yesterday! Great too catching up with Ed & Andy. Andy is also a primary school teacher – & amusingly, he has a boy who goes to the school where he works who’s a ‘mini me’ dead ringer for Lionel Richie! Who can guess what Andy says to the child in question whenever they bump into each other around the school..?!
Monday 9th January 2012 - Rich is limbering up for the dreaded return to work today after the Christmas holidays, with all the enthusiasm of someone who’s on their way to the vet to have a much-loved family pet put down. Slightly cheered up however by the amusing news that someone has hacked into Derby County FC’s page on Wikipedia & changed their club nickname from ‘Rams’ to ‘Sheepshaggers’!
Tuesday 10th January 2012 - Rich suddenly has a bit of a recurring theme running through pretty much his entire life – with a change in personnel at work this week meaning that both of the other teachers that he works alongside in ‘Team Year Four’ are now share the same first name as his wife! All in all, it’s just one whole world of Emma at the moment! But it’s all good..!
Wednesday 11th January 2012 – Rich is nervously awaiting the next move of his brother Al – with whom he has embarked on what can only be described as a ‘shit ornament war’! This bitter conflict began when Al made his first visit a few weeks ago to the new Fisher Towers, & took great glee in handing over possibly the world’s tackiest ornament as a sort of joke housewarming gift! Recently gained revenge however on a trip to Al’s house, by smuggling in the ornament & sneakily leaving it in Al’s bathroom! Fully expecting it to mysteriously ‘reappear’ at Fisher Towers at some point soon though..!
Thursday 12th January 2012 - Rich is amused by all the jokes flying around at the moment about a certain TV chef and his much-talked-about moment of madness whilst out shopping earlier this week! Did you hear about Anthony Worrall Thompson getting caught shoplifting some cheese from Tesco? He should have done it more Caerphilly..!
Friday 13th January 2012 - Rich & Em are finally connected to the internet at their new house! May have to give a bit more consideration this time though as to what to call the wireless network. At the last house it was christened, without a great deal of thought, ‘Arsebiscuits’ – which became a bit embarrassing on occasions when it became necessary to call the provider to report a fault..!
Saturday 14th January 2012 - Rich is enduring yet another miserable afternoon of crap football courtesy of Nottingham Forest. That said, as a season ticket holder in the Upper Bridgford End, it’s been nice this afternoon to actually be allowed to sit in one’s own seat – unlike the Reds’ last home game in the FA Cup against Leicester, when the Upper Bridgford was given to visiting fans. Brought some Mr Muscle cleaning wipes to the match today to give Block U1, row A, seat 45 a good scrub – didn’t like the idea of it having been occupied by some six-fingered mouth-breather from a few junctions down the M1..!
Sunday 15th January 2012 - Rich & Em will shortly be off to Lakeside! Sadly though it’s merely the Lakeside restaurant on the A60 between Nottingham & Mansfield… as opposed to the Lakeside Country Club in Frimley Green! Seems an appropriate place to go for Sunday lunch though on the day of the final of the BDO World Darts. Looking forward to watching the action later, & shall be very much rooting for all-round top bloke Tony O’Shea. Come on the Silverback!
Monday 16th January 2012 - Rich is not enjoying the bollock-shrivlingly cold weather that suddenly seems to have hit Nottingham over the last few days! That said, there are few more smug feelings in life than sitting back in the morning & watching your car’s heated windscreen make light work of the frost, while your neighbours struggle to get it off their cars armed with nothing more than scrapers & elbow grease..!
Tuesday 17th January 2012 - Rich has just heard the hilarious news that Hulk Hogan is returning to the WWE ring after 18 years – & what’s more, in Nottingham! It’s just been announced that the horseshoe-moustached wrestling legend is part of the line-up of stars who will be mincing their way through various bouts at Nottingham Arena next Thurday. Actually quite tempted to go!
Wednesday 18th January 2012 - Rich & Em will have been in their new house for a whole month tomorrow! Even in this short space of time, the move has already been life-changing beyond words. Had forgotten what it feels like to actually be able to relax in one’s own home, without the constant nagging worry that ASBO-type behaviour might be about to explode next-door at any time…
Thursday 19th January 2012 - Rich is currently at The Approach – which for those of you who don’t know it, is a bar in Nottingham – enjoying an ‘Evening with…’ event with Notts County manager Martin ‘Mad Dog’ Allen. The guy is clearly mad as a box of frogs but utterly hilarious & a captivating speaker. Would love him to come & manage Forest one day. Or even tomorrow!
Friday 20th January 2012 - Rich is quite excited about the fact that, a mere nine months after getting married, his wife is now finally able to change her name on her bank cards, driving licence etc! Had been advised not to do this until the house move was complete, as apparently a change of name can impact on credit scores. The big question is – should Emma change from being Emma Brown to Emma Fisher… or should she go all posh double-barrelled & revert to the mildly amusing-sounding Emma Brown-Fisher?!
Saturday 21st January 2012 - Rich had a lovely pub lunch up at Matlock Bath today, to celebrate the 40th birthday of his esteemed work colleague Simone Lineker! Was cool to spend a bit of time with the work crowd away from the oppressive pressure cooker of work. Also found an amazing sweet shop in Matlock selling lots of retro sweets. Anyone remember Parma Violets? Seem to recall a craze at primary school in the late 80s of pretending that they were drugs!
Sunday 22nd January 2012 - Rich & Em went to the cinema last night to see ‘The Iron Lady’ – the much-hyped new movie about the life of Margaret Thatcher. Regardless of how you feel about the milk snatcher, would say that the film is well worth seeing – with great performances from Meryl Streep as the milk snatcher herself, & Jim Broadbent as her husband Denis…
Monday 23rd January 2012 - Rich hereby salutes his mum & dad, who have given up a lot of time in recent weeks to wait in at the new Fisher Towers in order to take delivery of various bits of furniture & household appliances. Amusingly, the site manager for the housing development that the new Fisher Towers is part of seems to have taken a bit of a shine to Ma Fisher – the other week, he even brought her a present!
Tuesday 24th January 2012 - Rich has not been massively enjoying his job lately, & has been having regular daydreams about jacking in teaching to become a binman or something. However, whenever you find yourself feeling like this, the world of teaching always seems to throw up a little reminder of the fact that it’s actually a pretty amazing job. Yesterday, the reminder was being presented with a lovely homemade cupcake by a former student who is now in Year 6 – complete with ‘RF’ written on the top in icing!
Wednesday 25th January 2012 - Rich is zonked out in front of the telly recovering from his first migraine of 2012 – & can’t help noticing that every single advert on the telly at the mo seems to be soundtracked by ‘lift music’ versions of the indie rock classics of his youth. Current ad for Nivea moisturiser has a version of ‘Close To You’ by The Cure… while the one for Thomson holidays has a version of ‘Where Is My Mind?’ by The Pixies. Really quite enjoying playing ‘name that tune’ each time the ads come on..!
Thursday 26th Jamuary 2012 – Rich today had the one half-day that he gets each week at work where he doesn’t have to do any teaching – time designated to get all of the next week’s lessons planned – which meant an entire morning working in a little office to the dubious soundtrack of the Year 4 kids playing violins in the room next door! Thankfully they started learning a new song today – the last couple of weeks they’ve been doing ‘Everybody Dance Now’, and having to hear it repeatedly was beginning to feel like being a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay..!
Friday 27th January 2012 - Rich is muchly looking forward to 8pm this evening & the latest instalment of his new favourite TV programme – Channel 5′s ‘World’s Toughest Trucker’! The title of the show pretty much speaks for itself – it’s basically truck drivers from all over the world competing against each other in various truck-based challenges. Ten four, good buddies!
Saturday 28th January 2012 - Rich is highly amused to report that, a mere six months after winning their competition to find Nottingham’s scruffiest man, he is featured as a double-page spread in today’s edition of the Nottingham Post! The article is in the ‘Weekend’ magazine that comes with the paper. Slightly mortified to be looking such a chubster in the ‘before’ photo – was still carrying the extra stone in weight when it was taken gained through ten days of all-inclusive eating during honeymoon… honest!
Sunday 29th January 2012 - Rich yesterday spent a second successive Saturday with the work gang saluting a member of the team on the occasion of their 40th birthday – this time, the legend that is Fiona Maciel! The celebrations this time involved food, drink, fancy dress, & a private screening at Nottingham’s Broadway cinema of ‘Joy Luck Club’! Had never even heard of the film before but it was ace. It even had one of the main characters from ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ in it!
Monday 30th January 2012 – Rich was really sad to hear the news yesterday of the death of telly & stage actor Colin Tarrant. Nationally, Tarrant was probably best-known for having starred in The Bill – in Nottingham however, he is remembered for an absolutely mesmerising performance as the great Brian Clough back in 2006 at a play put on at the Playhouse. RIP, fella…
Tuesday 31st January 2012 – Rich went last night to visit the legend that is his Gran, & enjoyed an interesting foray into family history courtesy of some of her old photographs. One of the snaps showed Gran’s parents honeymooning in Skegness way back in the 1930s – with Gran’s dad dressed for the beach in an immaculate three-piece suit & a dapper bowler hat. Chap!
