The Time Bubble

Since my book has been published, I have had a few more letters coming through from people who have read the chapter entitled Jay's Dilemma's. I've also been getting a lot of feedback from people on all of the money saving tips I've been giving you over the past year. From baking your own bread and hams, to how to get money off your shopping bill, collectively I must have saved you, my loyal readers literally thousands by now. It's no co-incidence that some of these problem page letters coming through deal not only with your sexual problems, but also your financial predicaments. As a (self-proclaimed) expert in these areas, I feel it only fair that I should offer you my help. And good help it is too - with my tips not only will you be saving money, but you will also be getting laid! It's a win-win situation! So here are three letters I have received, and my advice to the writers. Dear Jay, I am a 17 year old A Level boy at a local sixth form college. M...

The end is nigh(?) I've just got back from another fun packed day out with the kids - Zoomania, Morrisons and McDonalds. For once, they really behaved and played well, and absolutely loved going on all the frames and down the big slide at Zoomania, with no whingeing at all. And they didn't even complain when I said it was time to go. Perhaps finally we are getting somewhere, or maybe we just got lucky this time. It has to be said that McDonalds in Aylesbury has the worst designed car park I have ever encountered. Absolutely ludicrous and I am amazed there are not major road rage incidents there on a a regular basis. Who knows, maybe there are. And on the subject of roads, why are we spending billions on this HS2 nonsense, when major roads such as the A41 are in the terrible state they are. This road is literally crumbling, it is littered with potholes all the way back to Bicester. I am sure that the roads were not in this state back in the hey day of my career, when I ...

I still get emails from Friends Reunited imploring me to go and look at their site, but I never do. In fact it amazes me that it even still exists. Now it was a great idea when it started, about 15 years ago, but has been massively blown away by all the social networking sites that have come since. Asking me to go and try and talk to anyone on their site is about the equivalent of trying to sell me music on wax cylinders. Seriously, why bother? If there is anyone in the world who still uses Friends Reunited I'd be amazed to hear from you. Now why am I talking about Friends Reunited? Well last night was retro in every sense of the word. Allow me to elaborate. Now on bank holiday weekends, I no longer run my karaoke night at the White Hart, instead I put on a retro disco. This weekend it was a pure 80s night, which went down an absolute storm. The pub was packed to the rafters. However, when it came to my regular Sunday night karaoke people - well none of them were there. That...

Half term is rolling round once again, and I am really looking forward to the week off for all of us. The last few weeks have been incredibly busy for me - six discos in May alone on top of the karaoke nights. This included two weddings, the second of which is this Friday. These require a lot of preparation. This is not to mention the book launch and everything else I have been doing. But next week, Claire is off, I am off (other than Sunday 1st June) and the kids are off, so we will of course have lots of things to do. One thing I am looking forward to, which is a kid free day (sorry lads) is going to see the new Star Trek movie. On Wednesday the kids will be off to grandparents for 24 hours, giving us some adult time, a rarity. We will make maximum usage of this time, beginning with a trip to Oxford on Wednesday afternoon to see the film followed by a meal in the evening. I asked on facebook about 3D films, because believe it or not I have never seen one. The responses ...

Every now and then, dear readers, I like to give YOU - yes that's you personally, something back as a reward for your dedication. And today is one of those days. You may be aware (and if you are not, where on earth have you been for the past two years?) that I have more than a passing interest in "ham". That is ham as in lovely mouth watering pink stuff made from a pig, not hamming it up like some third rate clone of Tony Blackburn in my Sunday night karaoke show at the White Hart, just to clarify. Now I have been experimenting again. I like experimenting ;-). In fact for the past few years I have tried all manner of ways of cooking ham in order to get that fresh from the deli, a quid a slice, perfect finish that you get when you have it sliced for you at Sainsbury's. I have all the gear, even the faithful old Andrew James slicer, which I swear by. And I don't mean expletives when I slice bits off my fingers after fancying a few slices late at night after a ...

Hi everyone. Well, it appears that my blog has brought me to the attention of the wider world. My friend Jo Jo has been joking with me that I'm now a celeb, well hardly. So how did I come to be on Nick Ferrrari's show this morning on LBC? Well it was indeed down to the blog. A few months ago I wrote a piece entitled DIY Dentistry, about how I took my own tooth out due to being fed up with paying excessive dentist fees and also being about to go on holiday and not want to go with the risk of serious toothache whilst away. Lo and behold, the Express, much maligned by me in the past in this blog, ran a story yesterday about this exact same subject. Researchers for Nick's show googled DIY Dentistry and up popped my blog. They rang me up and the net result was that there I was at 8:30 this morning, telling millions of people across London my tooth removal story. Sadly I did not get a chance to plug my book, but even so, it just goes to show the power of the internet. Jus...

You've got to love cake. Is there anyone who doesn't? Fortunately in my personal and professional capacity I come into contact with rather a lot of it. Having a wife and a best friend who live and breathe making cakes there's plenty around, not to mention all those lovely buffets I encounter as a DJ. Speaking of which, I may be in for some treats tonight as I am off to to DJ at a wedding in Chipping Norton, a rare Friday wedding. Perhaps the groom didn't want to to miss the FA Cup Final. So what motivated me to write about cake? Well I rarely buy shop bought cakes. When you are used to home made they are never the same. The one exception is the "Caterpillar" cake which both the boys love, though I expect it would be possible to make one's own which would probably be far superior. On the odd occasion I have had bought any sort of cake in, I have to hide it if Lynda comes around. A few weeks ago she came round one morning and noticed some "Fabulou...

Today I achieved a life-long ambition. Yes - something I have always wanted to do. I consumed an entire pack of Lidl's 300gm Crusti Croc Cheese Balls in one go!!! Now that is dedication!!! Yet another picture of cheese balls Oh - and I also just published my first ever book on Amazon! "Fortysomething Father" is a collection of all the best bits of my blog, various letters and a fair bit of new material that I have collated together to produce a book that follows me through a year in my life. It is not just a blatant cut and paste of the blog into book format. The whole thing has been completely re-written in order to create a narrative flow. Lots of things have been taken out, moved around, personal references removed, a lot of repetition removed (didn't realise how often I'd repeated myself). An enormous amount of time and effort has gone into getting it right. It also required a huge amount of proof-reading. I did not realise how many spelling...

The boys are fighting an awful lot lately. I don't mean full on punch ups but a lot of arguments and battles over toys, with some physical manifestations. At what point does one intervene though? It could be argued that having these disagreements is all part of preparation for later life, and by allowing them to work through these emotions, ultimately they will learn more from it. The main source of disagreement is other toys and other possessions as mentioned. Of the two of them, at present, Ollie is by far the worst. Every time he comes into a room and Jamie has got anything, it becomes the most important thing in the world that he has it. Even if it is something that he never normally plays with and has been gathering dust on the shelf for six months. When I chastise him and try and point out that this isn't fair, he attempts to justify it by claiming that he is sharing. Unfortunately Ollie's definition of sharing appears to be along the lines of "I get to kee...

What a beautiful morning and perfect for the children's May Day celebrations. A complete contrast to last year when the entire thing was flooded out and had to be cancelled. It was several weeks before it could take place. The children will be having a procession from the school to the church carrying little posies of flowers. Ollie will be pleased as his are all yellow. This was a great example of recycling, as they were the remainder of a bunch of flowers that I bought for Claire last week for our wedding anniversary which were still OK, so we cut them up and made a little bunch. I think that is alright, isn't it? Well Claire seemed somewhat perturbed that I wanted to cut up her anniversary flowers at first, but as I pointed out they'd be thrown away in another 2 or 3 days anyway. Waste not want not. Besides I couldn't be arsed to go out again last night and buy any more. I'm almost out of cash this week as it is thanks to the chiropractor fees, and £18 for Jami...