Where have all the brand new combine harvesters gone?

Isn't it funny. You live somewhere for years and your life assumes a regular pattern. You get up, you go to work, you do the shopping on the same day and at the same place every week. You swear to yourself, when I retire I'm going to break all of my routines. So, here I am, one year and six days after retirement...and blessed if I haven't got into a new kind of routine!

Sunday has become Dump Day. There's barely a week goes by when I don't have a car full of stuff to take to the Cradle Hill Recycling Centre - AKA The Dump. This week it was carpets. I must, of course, praise the generosity of the former occupants of this house in leaving the carpets for us. Sadly, however, those carpets were, shall we say, a little less than perfect, covered as they were in interesting single celled organisms, and languishing in the loft. They were also possessed of an interesting aroma; you could probably use them as an air freshener if you lived at the centre of a sewage farm. I'm hoping that the leaving of the carpets was not an oversight on their part, and that I'm not going to get a visit from the previous owners, asking for them back. I'd have to come clean - something that the carpets would never do, even with a generous dose of napalm - and I would also have to admit to disposing of their interesting collection of damaged house bricks.

That was the dull bit of the Sunday routine. After that was the bit I like best - wandering into town to get the papers. I always go via the beach to see what interesting stuff the tide has thrown up. There wasn't much this morning; some seaweed, a few bits of old rope, some driftwood that wasn't worth taking home to use on the fire...but on the positive side, the sky was a brilliant blue, the sea was sparkling, and I had the place almost to myself. I could quite happily have stayed there all day but, as we have a couple of friends popping in this afternoon, this would have seemed churlish. So, home I went.

As I turned into the road in which I live, I noticed an elderly gentleman, sitting on a low window sill opposite the baker's shop. Nothing remarkable about that, of course. Seaford is full of elderly ladies and gentlemen having A Nice Sit Down; they've got it down to a fine art. But, as I passed this particular elderly gent, he started to sing Where have all the flowers gone? And he sang it in tune with a strongish voice; not in that curious, quavering way that many elderly folk have. He would probably have been around twenty one years old when the song was released. This led me to speculate on what tune, should I be fortunate enough to reach the age of seventy-odd, I myself could sing whilst having A Nice Sit Down on that rather commodious window sill. Mamma Mia, by Abba? Perhaps. Save All Your Kisses For Me, by Brotherhood of Man? Maybe. But, on balance, I think the winner by a short straw has to be Combine Harvester, by the Wurzels.

I love these Old Classics.

Warning No. 2 - Contains nudity, sex and swearing

So if you are easily offended, please look away now.

'Brighton is still very gay and full of balls', it's been said. And it was to Brighton that I betook myself the other day, intending to have a mouch round the shops. And mouch I did, in a very slow and idle manner, rather characteristic of Brighton itself. The short walk from Brighton Station to the North Laine area (one of the more interesting bits of the city) is rather dull, characterised by employment bureaux specialising in the hiring of medical staff, second-hand shops dealing in old banknotes, stamps and model railway bric-a-brac, and rather seedy-looking newsagents selling unpronouncable Polish beers, but the traveller is ultimately rewarded, of which more later.

Just before you arrive at North Laine, and almost opposite the Cuttlefish Organic Hairdressers, you encounter a rather dour-looking building on the way there called The Galeed Strict Baptist Chapel. In what way is it strict, I wonder? Does the minister with his carefully-tonsured chin beard and black stove-pipe hat look daggers at any latecomers as they sneak into the back of the chapel? Or do they take a fierce delight in having the temperature of the baptismal pool close to freezing point? Or does the congregation indulge in an orgy of tutting every time a gaily (without connotation) dressed individual saunters past? In any event, I wasn't about to find out, so I toddled on to the shops.

I suppose North Laine would describe itself as 'trendy'; possibly 'off-beat'. It's certainly that. It contains a myriad of small shops that provide more quirky goods, services and foodstuffs than you can shake a shamanic fortune-telling stick at. Do you want to buy a 'Bananaman' t-shirt? Have yourself tattooed? Get a tarot reading? Toast the fine weather in a glass of wheatgrass with added guarana (I thought that was the stuff seagulls are always depositing on my car...or is that guano)? Or even buy some vegetarian shoes? Then North Laine's your spiritual home. And if you should get the urge to dress as a pirate, a parlour maid, a burlesque starlet, complete with tassels, or even a bumble bee, the necessary items can be found in this small area of Brighton.

At this point, I'm afraid I have to express a rather childish delight in the variety of greetings cards to be found in North Laine. Clearly at some point, a group of tanked up students got together round a table littered with lager cans and empty KFC boxes and said, 'Now, what can we do to offend the maximum number of people?' and came up with a variety of ideas: a doctor, white coated and stethoscoped, exclaims, 'Here's my diagnosis - you're a wanker.'; another card notes, 'You're a genius! Pity you're such an arsehole...'. There were many other cards of an equally diverting nature, but I would blush to repeat them here...

Having had my fill of North Laine, I took a walk across Old Steine, past the Victoria Fountain and War Memorial with its sadly green and stagnant pool of water, and into St. James' Street, Kemp Town. Now, Kemp Town, the brochures will tell you, is home to Brighton's gay 'community'. I'm afraid I have always felt rather uncomfortable with the notion of splitting the population into separate 'communities' - The Bengali Community, The Chinese Community, and so on - it's something the media does all the time, and creates the assumption that every member of that 'community' thinks/feels/acts in the same way. Clearly not so. Within the 'gay community' (which makes up around a quarter of Brighton's population) there must be Conservative and labour gays, lesbians who like a drink or who have chosen to be teetotal, gay men who collect stamps, spot trains, hate Judy Garland. Anyway, be that as it may...

Kemp Town has a village feel. Most of the shops are small independents; the cafe, the barber, the Bona Foodie grocers. I wasn't sure whether this latter shop was Italian owned, or whether this 'Bona' was Polari for 'good'; Polari was a kind of slang devised and used by gay people in the 1960s, when homosexual acts in private were still a criminal offence and gay people needed a means of communication that excluded 'outsiders' - rather like cockney rhyming slang. A good example of Polari can be heard on Round the Horne, a 1960s radio programme in which comedian Kenneth Horne would converse with two gay men - Julian and Sandy - who dusted their conversation liberally with Polari. In my naivety (be fair...I was only ten years old!) I just though Julian and Sandy were two men who spoke funny. Sadly, I didn't meet either Julian or Sandy in Kemp Town; but I did encounter some curious incidents. I saw a woman carrying an English bull terrier. Then, moments later, I saw another woman carrying an English bull terrier. At this point, I thought 'perhaps it's some kind of fashion statement. Either that or there's a ban on dog leads'. But my latter thought was confounded moments later when I saw a gentleman out for a constitutional with another gentleman...on a lead. I saw a newspaper bill-board with a headline one could only find by the coast: 'Body found near crazy golf course'. And, in a gay greeting card shop, another of those cards that Brighton seems to specialise in: 'It's not homophobia - everyone hates you'. Many of the shops were flying rainbow flags; and this, coupled with the area's quietness after the roaring traffic in Old Steine, meant I felt as if I was in some small independent country; a kind of gay Vatican City within the City of Brighton. But without the Swiss Guard or the nuns.

Nor were there any nuns in Brighton Museum. But there was a pair of breeches (fifty two inch waist) belonging to the Prince Regent (later George the Fourth), worn during his sojourn at the palace better known as the Royal Pavilion. Apparently, 'Prinny' had a hatred of the new-fangled trousers that were becoming fashionable around 1810; so much so that he banned trousers from Court until 1815. It's believed that Prince George's dalliances with sundry ladies was emulated by his hangers-on at the Brighton Court, which led to Brighton becoming a magnet for those intent on affairs, sexual encounters and 'dirty weekends'.

The dirty weekend has become a bit of a standing joke; all rather Max Miller or Carry On. In less enlightened times teenagers would turn up at Brighton B and Bs on a Friday night, claiming to be 'Mr and Mrs Smith', but very rarely fooled the Dragon in the shape of the Seaside Landlady. Back in the 1930s, men who wanted to divorce their wives would rent a room in a Brighton boarding house, and pay a chambermaid to 'discover' them in bed with a prostitute. These days, the dirty weekend is all but defunct. One academic noted that 'people no longer come to Brighton for a dirty weekend; they move to Brighton to have a dirty life'. Interestingly, Brighton Museum also has a small glass case that details the Dirty Weekend. Amongst the treasures it contains are a couple of telephone box 'flyers'. The first features a buxom young woman exhorting us to 'lick my melon's'; clearly a crime against punctuation. The second exclaims, 'Transexual - tits and tackle - twice the fun all in one,' which I'm afraid rather left me lost for words. Not a common occurence.

I was still deep in thought when I arrived at the entrance to The Lanes, Brighton's jewellery and antique corner. But all this changed when I saw an elderly, bearded gent, sitting on the pavement, surrounded by little bits of origami that he was trying to sell for a few pence. I was both pleased and surprised to see him. I thought his business had folded.

Oh, and the chap who said, 'Brighton is still very gay and full of balls'? It was poet Samuel Rogers, speaking in 1829.

Warning - Reading this may produce eye strain

The scaffolders turned up out of the blue yesterday to take down the superstructure that has covered the house for the last three months. Mrs. H and I were just returning from a trip round the shops and a sneaky lunchtime drink, when we noticed scaffolders swarming all over the front of the house. Sadly, they didn't take it all down; there was insufficient room on the lorry to carry it all away. But they've promised to come back later this week and remove the rest of it. I won't hold my breath...

Despite the recession, I would imagine that scaffolding companies probably don't do too badly. Our burgeoning Health and Safety culture means that most traders will refuse to do anything above first floor level without scaffolding. Time was when roofers would scramble up a ricketty ladder, run up the tiles and onto the apex of the roof, whilst eating a cheese sandwich and smoking a roll-up. But all that's changed. Perhaps we should start advertising for native Americans (or, more specifically, Mohawks from the Kahnawake reservation) to do the high stuff. It's said they were employed in the USA to build skyscrapers as they had no fear of heights, although it's more likely that hopping around steel girders hundreds of feet up was just an opportunity to display the same sort of bravery they exhibited at ground level.

In the UK, Health and Safety legislation has more or less put paid to the old-time tradesman's ability to take calculated risks. Way back then, workers like the common or garden roofer knew instinctively what was safe and what wasn't. He wore the right gear for the job; knew how slippery or otherwise the slates or tiles were; and had a good enough notion of his ability to climb or balance. But now, the law decides what is or isn't safe, and ensures that you or I have to stump up huge amounts of money for scaffolding whenever we want so much as a tile replaced. But I'm not complaining.

So, how did Health and Safety take over the world? How have we wound up with a world where bags of nuts display the legend 'contains nuts'? Where a teacher is forbidden from putting an Elastoplast on a child's grazed knee in case the little treasure is allergic to it? And where a police force that shall not be named (oh, alright, Northumbria Police!) is planning to dispose of its £200,000 fleet of motorbikes because the police officers riding them are "particularly vulnerable to collision"? I'm really not sure, but the Health and Safety gurus would probably say that 'It's all about protecting the public'. So, if we are only now living in a world where we are well-protected from hazardous chemicals, poisonous foods and unguarded machinery, how the hell am I still here? Let's look at the evidence...I'm 54 years old. When I was born in 1955, polio and whooping cough were still common. At school I rubbed shoulders with kids who had measles and chickenpox (and managed to catch both simultaneously), and took part in rough playground games. I ate and drank things that were far less strictly quality controlled than foodstuffs are now, and totally failed to wash my hands. I travelled on buses and trains, literally surrounded by 'strangers' who hadn't been checked out by the police. And I'm still alive.

But I'm only joking. I'm grateful for Health and Safety legislation. It means that the water I drink is unpolluted, that my food is mercifully free from rat droppings, that my gas boiler won't gas me. But, watching Seaside Rescue last night, it struck me that we are still unprotected from the biggest danger of all - ourselves. Seaside Rescue regularly shows RNLI lifeboat crews, lifeguards and Royal Navy Air Sea Rescue risking their lives to save members of the public who have put themselves in danger through their own stupidity, be it climbing crumbly cliffs, surfing in dangerous conditions, or putting to sea in imposibly small boats with no lifejackets, navigation equipment or skill in sailing. What amazes me is the professionalism and good humour exhibited by the crews as they rescue the umpteenth moron from a situation in which he has placed himself (or, indeed, herself). Don't they ever get irritated by it, like I do? Do they ever think, 'Oh no. Not another dopey townie who thinks he's Bear Grylls!'?

And another thing...the RNLI is funded entirely by voluntary subscription. Its lifeboat crews are all volunteers, who will put out to sea in all weathers. To the best of my knowledge, they have never refused to turn out, no matter how dangerous the conditions are. So why is it that paid members of the emergency services on land failed to prevent a man from drowning in 18 inches of water? Because the 15 foot embankment he had tumbled down after being hit by a car was deemed 'unsafe'...So, if you witness an incident at your local pond or stream, don't call the fire brigade or police; ask for a lifeboat.

So, what the hell am I on about? Not for the first time, I'm unsure. Perhaps I'm trying to say that I do not subscribe whole-heartedly to Health and Safety culture. After all, I've managed to live through six decades, most of them health and safety free. I've taken (and survived) calculated risks, both at home and at work, and maybe a couple of times I've done things that were stupidly dangerous. But I've never done anything daft enough to warrant a trip on an air sea rescue helicopter. So, how do we promote safety for all without burdening society with yet more laws? It's simple. It's my belief that every child, as soon as it is old enough to read, should be handed a laminated card bearing a single word - 'THINK'.

But I'd make sure the corners were rounded. After all, those laminated cards can be awfully sharp. They'd take your eye out...

If you like a lot of brassware on your coffin, Join Our Club!

Today was a momentous day at Hale Villas (albeit the sign next to the door reads, rather more appropriately, Wits End). I had the nod from Andy the builder that the work on the front of the house is now complete and the scaffolding can come down. Within a day or so, I shall take tea on my newly-refurbished balcony, but for now I contented myself with a small sherry by way of celebration.

A very good friend (you know who you are!) told me the other day that sherry is an old person's drink, which seems appropriate, because there is a lot of chatter about the cost of caring for the elderly at the moment. The government is looking at ways of funding care for an increasingly ageing population, whether it be by taxation, lump sum payments out of retirement gratutities, or some other method. Most old people (those who own property, and can still afford sherry) fear that the home they intended to leave to their nearest and dearest will be sold to fund the cost of their nursing care which, in some cases, seems to run at about a thousand pounds a week. And what happens when the cash runs out? Do they get thrown onto the streets?

None of this is new. The elderly have always had a fear of being alone and destitute. Back in the days before the advent of the nursing or care home, the next stop for a poor old widow or widower was the Parish Workhouse. This doleful place features in the novels of Charles Dickens (especially Oliver Twist), and it is hard for us to understand the abject terror that struck the Victorian elderly at the thought of being uprooted and placed in the workhouse. As a charitable businessman told Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, 'Many would rather die' than be subjected to the tender mercies of the Parish.

Going hand in hand with the fear of the workhouse was a great horror of the thought of a pauper's funeral. Victorians excelled in the celebration (if that's the right word) of death, with plumed horses, mutes (professional mourners) swathed in black, and elaborate and expensive coffins. The pauper's funeral was generally marked by a cheap, re-usable coffin, trundled to church on a handcart, mourners in ordinary clothes, and burial in an unmarked grave. And it was these fears that prompted the rise in popularity of so-called Burial Clubs amongst the working classes.

Burial clubs were often operated from public houses by pub landlords. This wasn't an altruistic public service on their part; they knew that money would be spent on beer for the 'wake' when the death benefit was eventually paid out. The working man would toddle off to the pub, pay his dues (often only a few pence) into the club, and his subscription would be marked up in a register. He could contribute for himself, and for his wife and children, if he could afford it. And, when the sad day came (provided it was more than two years after the start of subscriptions) the family would collect the money, which would help to defray the cost of a decent funeral. Having a respectable send-off was so important to the Victorians that, according to historian Audrey Collins, they were prepared to go without in life so as to be well provided for in death.

Of course, things didn't always go smoothly. Some collectors embezzled the money, so that there was nothing left when a grieving family member went to collect the benefit. Some companies (echoes of modern day here!) tried to wriggle out of paying the money over - in 1836 the Globe Public House Burial Club in Covent Garden refused to pay Sarah Forrest the £5 she was due, because (they said) her husband had died 24 hours before two years had elapsed. She did eventually get her money, but had to go to law to do so. But, most chillingly, husbands and wives were murdering their spouses and, in some cases, their children, to claim the burial money. In 1854 'a prosperous town' which is not named had a working class infant mortality rate of 56%; this is set against the 18% for children of the better sort in the same town, and was four times higher than the child mortality rate in rural Dorset. And the reason - parents were killing their children for the burial money. A few years earlier, in 1851, Essex girl Sarah Chesham was convicted of murdering her husband, her two children and another unnamed party, and all for the cash from the burial club.

In these more prosperous days, there is less likelihood of any one of us being on the receiving end of a pauper's funeral, and as a result burial clubs have pretty well died the death, if you'll pardon the pun. But not quite. Watch any satellite or cable station for more than ten minutes, and you'll be exhorted by some ageing celebrity to buy 'peace of mind' insurance in exchange for a cheap DVD player or some Marks and Sparks vouchers. For 'peace of mind', read 'save your kids from having to stump up the cost of your funeral.' And speaking of ageing celebrities, I've heard of a couple of bizarre variations on the burial club theme, courtesy of a former colleague. One is the Celebrity Death Club, where you nominate a well-known personality whom you believe to be on his (or her) last legs, and pay a couple of pounds a month into a 'kitty'. When your favoured celebrity finally bites the dust, you claim the money that has accrued since the last fatality. The other involves a group of ageing friends in a Buckinghamshire pub, who place informal bets upon which of their number will be the next to die...

You will, I hope, be pleased to hear that I haven't seen fit to buy my own 'peace of mind' insurance yet. I have absolutely no intention of dying, I don't need a DVD player and I've got a full bottle of sherry in the sideboard.

I need to get out more

Ask me if I'm a soap fan and the likelihood is I'll say 'Of course not! What? Watch that rubbish? I've got better things to do with my time!' However, take me to the pub, buy me a couple of pints of Harvey's Best Bitter (brewed nearby in Lewes) and then ask the same question, and you may get a very different answer. Because soaps are not only very popular and successful, but also (in my opinion) extremely well written. My own favourite, were I to have one, would be Coronation Street.

The Street, or Corrie, if you prefer, has been on our screens since the 9th December 1960. Some of the earlier episodes were broadcast live; something that many present day actors would probably baulk at. I remember Corrie in the sixties as a grim, gritty, black and white piece, populated by women in snoods and hairnets, and men wearing cloth caps and waistcoats; a bit like Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar, but without the humour. Back in the sixties the dark satanic mills were still milling away like crazy; this was long before most northern industries closed down, unable to compete with imported goods, and the factories were sold off as stylish apartment blocks.

Of course, there have been a good many changes to The Street over the years; most of the old 'well I'll go to the foot of our stairs' characters have gone, replaced by brash underwear manufacturers, corner shop magnates and serial adulterers/adulteresses. But the scripts remain strong and, moreover, take themselves far less seriously than in the early years. But I can't help feeling that, despite the humour, The Street is more akin to a Greek tragedy than anything else. Sophocles couldn't have written anything better. Back in the old days, Corrie had a proper chorus - Ena Sharples, Minnie Caldwell and Martha Longhurst, three old ladies, holed up with their milk stout in the snug of the Rovers, commenting upon the things taking place in their narrow world. Then there's the way the characters are constantly punished by the gods...sorry, I mean scriptwriters. Eileen finds herself a boyfriend (again); won't be long before she discovers he's an escaped lunatic, a fraudster, or he gets murdered. Jack Duckworth wins a fortune on the horses; his betting slip is bound to go missing, get eaten by a pigeon, or used as loo paper by an elf. And don't even get me started on the misery, mayhem and bloodshed that inevitably accompanies every soap wedding...

I understand that scriptwiters prefer their soaps to be called 'serial dramas' now. I suppose it makes them sound more like serious pieces of work. And some of them are serious. Take Casualty, for example. You can't get any more serious than that. But Casualty is unintentionally funny, because it is filled with (in my opinion) stereotypical medical drama characters, bizarre coincidences that wouldn't be out of place in a Dickens novel, and patients/others who effect such swift about turns in their attitudes and relationships with others it's a wonder their heads don't spin. Set in a hospital in Holby (because the writers couldn't spell 'Bristol') it deals with the lives of the doctors, nurses and patients who are unfortunate enough to either work there, or wind up on a trolley (at which point they invariably go into 'VF', whatever that is, even if they only popped in to ask about an ingrowing toenail). All the stereotypes are there; overbearing consultants, senior administrators banging on about finances and waiting times, loopy doctors, cheery, empty-headed porters, stroppy patients, demanding relatives...

I'd quite like to write a Casualty script. There needs to be a sub-plot running, which later impacts on the main action. There have to be a couple of new characters, introduced early on, who either get killed or maimed and have to visit aforesaid hospital as a result. And someone's life/views/attitude has to be changed beyond all belief by the end of the show. Here goes...

1. A group of hooded teenagers are hanging around Holby town centre, drinking cheap cider and swearing at passers-by. One elderly man (war hero, with medals) remonstrates with them and is floored by a cider bottle slung by one of these ne'er-do-wells. A young and openly gay man challenges the youths and then runs to render first aid to the elderly man, who says, 'Get off me. I won't be touched by your sort!'

2. An ambulance is called to deal with the above and loads up the casualty. As it drives off, it is pelted with bottles and windscreen is broken, putting it out of action. The paramedic's hands are badly cut by flying glass. Another ambulance attends and the crew of the first waits for a breakdown truck.

3. Meanwhile, across town, a plate glass salesman is saying goodbye to his wife: 'Won't be long, dear, I've just got to walk this huge sheet of glass across town. The pond's frozen, so I think I'll use it as a shortcut. It should be fine.'

4. Back at the hospital, loopy doctor has been invited to deliver a lecture on pulmonary embolisms to a group of visiting GPs. She agonises about said lecture to at least six colleagues, all of whom say, 'you'll be fine'. Loopy doctor eventually takes a copy of something she has found on the internet.

5. On the other side of town, a tanker driver is receiving his day's orders. He has been told to take a tankerfull of nitric acid to Holby Docks. He punches the details into a brand new satnav, and is given a route which is set to take him past the Holby Glycerine Works.

6. Back in the town centre, the police spot the youths who assaulted the old man. The youths run off and one of them is knocked down by a car, right in front of the disabled ambulance. The paramedics, being heavily bandaged, are unable to save his life and he dies at the scene.

7. Back to our plate glass salesman. Whilst crossing the frozen pond, he accidentally drops the glass and it breaks the ice, tipping him into the freezing water. He apparently drowns.

8. At the Hospital, loopy doctor is delivering her lecture. Unfortunately, in the audience is the writer of the article she has stolen from the internet. He challenges her and she becomes distraught and hysterical, running out of the hospital, intending to kill herself.

9. Whilst driving past the Glycerine works, the tanker driver has a heart attack. His vehicle crashes through the gate and into the factory. The resulting fireball and huge loss of life sets the scene for next week's episode.

10. Loopy doctor decides to drown herself and runs down to Holby pond. But she sees the plate glass man under water, forgets about her own miserable life, and saves his.

11. Gay man tries to visit the elderly gent in hospital, but the latter tells him to go away, citing his lifelong hatred of homosexuals.

12. Nurse overhears elderly man and engages him in conversation for a few minutes, seeking to explain the error of his ways.

13. Elderly man's eyes are opened for the first time in ninety years. He embraces the gay man as if he were a long lost grandson and invites him to tea.

14. The dead youth is brought into casualty. As he is taken through to the mortuary the heavily bandaged paramedic realises that it is, in fact, her brother's son. She tries to phone her brother on his mobile.

15. We cut to a mobile phone, ringing in the cab of a blazing lorry outside the glycerine factory...

Well? What do you think? Is there a career for me in the heady world of serial drama? Or should I just stick to blogging...?

Everything but the oink

In common with most towns, my new adoptive home has a few charity shops. A couple of them are really rather good; the Oxfam shop in particular has a rather splendid selection of books, whilst the Cancer Research establishment has a superior line in Bric a Brac. And it was in this latter shop that No.1 daughter purchased a piggy bank.

Said piggy bank has a kind of charm about it that can generally be found in china objects made in...erm...China. It has a rather smug, self satisfied look, and eyelashes that wouldn't look out of place on a L'Oreal TV ad. It is also pink and fat, which is the least you expect from a piggy bank. And it only cost her two pounds, which to my mind is something of a bargain. However, one thing does seem a little curious to me. Given that the purchase of a piggy bank generally heralds an intention to start saving money, then why begin your savings regime by splashing out cash on a china receptacle? Cash that you could have put in a drawer, a pocket, an empty jam jar, or even (heaven forfend) a bank? I recently saw a painted earthenware pot called a Terramundi (which is Latin for, I believe 'Land of the World'). It costs twenty quid, comes in several different colours and designs, and, like the piggy bank, you put your spare change in it. However, unlike the piggy bank, you have to smash it to pieces to retrieve your money when it's full. Now, let's look at the logic of this. You waste twenty pounds you could have saved buying a pot that you will ultimately destroy and will not be able to reuse. Then, you use twenty pounds that you have retrieved from the shattered Terramundi to buy another one, and the whole sad business continues, either until the company that makes the Terramundi goes bust, or you come to your senses and stick the money in a drawer as I first suggested.

It's uncertain as to why pigs became favoured as money boxes. There's a suggestion that, in the middle ages, people placed whatever spare money they had (and I doubt there was much) in a receptacle called a pygg jar. In case you're wondering, pygg was a type of orange-coloured clay. Our modern day salt pig is a living reminder of these original pyggs. It's also mooted that the piggy bank was a kind of china representation of the real animal; in earlier times, families kept a pig that was fattened on scraps until it achieved sufficient weight to be slaughtered. The piggy bank likewise hoovered up bits of spare change until it, too, was 'fat' enough to be broken open.

The pig finds its way into quite a few sayings. We use the expression 'pigs might fly' to denote something that's unlikely to happen; we call a stubborn individual 'pig-headed'; and describe someone as 'happy as a pig in muck' when they are in a particularly cheerful mood. And we mustn't forget 'bringing home the bacon', which denotes the act of working to put food on the table. Did I say bacon? Dear bloggy friends, have you any idea how many bacon-related products are out there? Apart from bacon itself, of course. You can buy bacon flavoured dental floss, toothpicks, and even mints, marketed under the Uncle Oinker name. If you should be unlucky enough to stab yourself on a toothpick, then there are plasters amusingly shaped like mini rashers. Time to go to work? Put on your bacon tie, wrap a bacon scarf around your neck and pick up your bacon briefcase. Ah! Lunchtime! I think I'll have a bacon doughnut, washed down with a nice cup of Java coffee, flavoured with bacon and maple syrup...

I seem to have become a little carried away with the bacon motif. I do apologise. But they all exist, I swear. And don't even get me started on bacon undergarments...

Have you ever wondered what sound pigs make in other countries? Well, not the sound they actually make, of course; that probably doesn't vary that much across the globe (unless, of course, you know differently!) No, I'm talking about the (supposedly) onomatopoeic word we ascribe to their grunting. For some obscure reason, oink oink has become the phrase of choice in this country. But what of the Great Abroad? Croatians would have it that pigs exclaim rok rok. In Japan, pigs go buu; or more properly, buu buu. In Thailand your average prime porker ood oods away to his heart's content, whilst his Vietnamese counterpart goes for ut it. The prize, however, goes to the French for the rather racy groin groin. (Stop press! Late entry from my good friend Punk in Writing in Sweden, where the pigs say nöff nöff).

I think the final word has to go to Sir Francis Bacon. 'Acorns were good until bread was found'. Try telling that to pigs. They love acorns.

Help! I'm turning into a pensioner!

Some years ago, that most ubiquitous of facial preparations, Oil of Ulay, unaccountably changed its name to Oil of Olay. What made this even stranger was the fact that, in Germany, its name remained Oil of Olaz. This change occupied my waking thoughts for at least an hour. Why did they do it? Did they realise how expensive the change would be, reprinting all the packaging and re-shooting the TV ads? I don't think they thought it through properly. What they needed was someone like me. Someone who could step back from the problem, mull it over, look at the pros and cons, and then announce: 'No. Leave it as it is'. Just think of the money I'd have saved them.

I naturally assumed that the change wasn't just some whim. It had to be because Olay turned out to be some filthy word in Farsi, or Esperanto, or somesuch. After all, that's why you'll never see a Foden lorry in Portugal, and why Ford went for 'Capri' rather than 'Caprino' when launching their sporty car in the 196os. Sadly, the best I could come up with was that Ulay was the stage name of a German performance artist of the 1960s and 70s. So, Ulay wasn't the Icelandic word for 'arse'. I was quite disappointed. I rather liked the idea of a beauty product being called 'Oil of Arse'. But a point occurs to me. If (as it appears) that Ulay was called Olaz in Germany due to the difficulties experienced by the Teutonic tongue in pronouncing the former, why on earth would a German artiste give himself a name that was unpronouncable in his own language?

If you look at the blurb produced by the Olay people, you'll see that they make a big thing about The Seven Signs of Ageing. So I looked them up on my ever-helpful computer, and this is what they are:

1. Lines and wrinkles

2. Uneven skin texture

3. Uneven skin tone

4. Appearance of pores

5. Blotches and age spots

6. Dry skin

7. Dullness

Having reached my grand old age, I think I can say without doubt that I have the lot. Especially the dullness. Because there's something about ageing, nay, about retiring, that changes you in subtle ways. You don't notice it at first. You think you're the same person you were when you were working, plying your useful trade and having (in my case) cups of tea made for you without even having to ask for them. So, yesterday, as I sat on my comfy sofa, listening to my hair (especially the hair in my ears) grow whilst I polished off yet another sudoku, it suddenly occured to me that the Olay people had got it all wrong. Yes, I do have their seven signs, but no, they're not really important. It's not just my skin that's changing; it's my personality as well. I'm not the same person I was a year ago. I am undergoing a Kafka-esque metamorphosis, a change which involves seven signs of ageing of a rather different flavour. Listen in...

1. Heightened Fiscal Awareness. As a shift worker of many years, shopping was something usually done at the gallop. This was generally because (i) we needed to do it before I went off to work; or (ii) we needed to do it after I returned from work when the last thing I wanted to do was go shopping. So (as Mrs. H would tell you) I tended to walk a few paces behind her, muttering and mumbling, willing her to fill the trolley and get to the checkout with all due speed. I didn't particularly care about the cost; notes were proffered and change accepted and I couldn't get out fast enough. Now, things are different. No work, so I have no excuse to rush Mrs. H round the shops. The effect of this is that I can now tell you the price of bottled water in all the local shops (36p), the date when Morrisons' discount on chilled Chicken Jalfrezi ends (14th June) and the fact that a very useful cleaning product called The Bar Keeper's Friend is marginally cheaper in Sainsbury's than elsewhere. I have a serious case of this, but it's probably reversible. I need to adopt a trance-like state when shopping and feign indifference to the special offers.

2. A Need for Semi-Recumbency. You know they say that, when cows lie down, it's going to rain? Round here you know that, when pensioners sit down, it isn't. Age seems to bring with it this overwhelming desire for 'a nice sit down'. If it's 'a nice sit down with a cup of tea', that's even better. The other day, in an uncharacteristic fit of fiscal abandon I paid a nice Kosovan gentleman to wash my car. Did I go for a walk whilst he was doing it? Did I survey the wondrous hills, the clouds heaped up on high like ragged battlements, or the nearby stream as it chuckled its course over glistening flints? No. I went for a cup of tea and a nice sit down.

3. Consummate Procrastination. Remember the old adage: 'Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today'? This phrase might have been the watchwords for my former trade or calling. Policing demands immediacy. We've all heard stories about the cops turning up two days after the burglar was disturbed, but generally speaking things that demanded my immediate action were acted upon immediately. But now it's more like 'Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow, or preferably next week'. I have (as you can imagine) a whole housful of jobs that need doing. None of them are urgent, so I think they can probably wait until I've finished this post. In fact, next week might be a better time to start. I need to stop procrastinating, but not yet.

4. Stranger Engagement. When I was a child, off to school or about to run some errand to the corner shop, my Mum would say, 'Don't talk to any strange men'. Of course, I always agreed not to, not really knowing what she meant. I do now. They are the strange men (and women, let's have a bit of equality here!) who insist upon engaging you in conversation, having not been properly introduced to you; in fact, having not been introduced to you at all. Their favourite haunts tend to be the checkout queue, the bus stop, the post office; in fact, in any place where it is impossible for you to escape without abandoning your trolley, missing your bus, or not posting your parcel. The conversation will generally tend to feature the weather, the length of time s/he has been waiting, and sundry other topics of a most diverting nature. I was recently stopped by an elderly gent outside the bank, who proceeded to try to recruit me into a retired business peoples' luncheon club. I am as yet undecided as to whether I should accept his no doubt well-meant invitation. I am in the early stages of this sign of ageing, indulging in light banter with shop assistants. No doubt the full horror of Total Stranger Engagement will follow soon.

5. Monomaniac Tendencies. If you get a chance, visit a steam railway. There the retired will be. They'll be wearing little engine drivers' caps, waving flags, selling fudge in the station shop... Why? because of Late Onset Monomania. When you're a child, you develop all-consuming obsessions. It might be about cranes, lorries, particular types of mobile phone; but whatever it is you manage to jabber on about it unceasingly, until your friends' eyes glaze over and your parents threaten to thump or disown you. Then you grow up and put aside your obsessions in favour of leading a balanced life. But what happens when you retire? The obsessive gene switches on again and you devote a sizeable portion of your time (and sometimes money) to train spotting, stamp collecting or genealogy. My current obsession is writing, where I have managed to combine the maximum of effort with the minimum of financial recompense. Would that my obsession were decorating. I have so much of that to do.

6. Professional Purposelessness. Have you ever gone to the corner shop to buy a newspaper, and then, on a whim, just decided to wander about for no particular reason? In fact, for no reason other than that you can? Have you ever gone into a charity shop just to browse the books, or sat down in a library to skim through Practical Woodworker magazine? You have? Then, oh dear, you, like me, have become Professionally Purposeless. When I worked in London there were whole tribes of these PPs. They would meet in Macdonalds for an early morning coffee, and then betake themselves to Uxbridge Magistrates Court, where they would listen to the litany of drunkenness, shoplifting and casual violence that went before The Bench. Their afternoons were generally spent snoozing in the library, and then they would toddle off to their respective homes when it closed, only to repeat the whole dire routine the following day. I have this sign of ageing in a mild form. I sometimes take the long route home from the paper shop via the seafront, but only on a Sunday. I think I need to work at avoiding becoming fully PP.

7. Forgetfulness. I can't remember what I was going to say about forgetfulness.

So there you have it, dear bloggy friends. The Real Seven Signs of Ageing. The Seven New Geriatric Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Now that you know your enemy, you can work at avoiding them, just as I am attempting to do. If you should happen to see me in the street, reading the 'for sale' ads in the newsagents' window (you know - the ones that look like they've been written by kidnappers - upper and lower case letters in the wrong places), or attempting to strike up a conversation with some unsuspecting soul in a bus queue, do me a favour; strike me about the head until I stop.

Mrs. H has just brought me in a cup of tea, so, now that I've finished, I'm off for a nice sit down on the sofa.