Independence for Scotland? It's beyond a Jock!

WHILE the Scots burn their bannocks over the independence issue, Alex Salmond’s ‘Yes’ army seem to think the Sassenachs are in a blind panic over the potential breakup of their precious Union.
Strange logic - I’d have thought it was much more stressful to start tartan oneself up for a date with an unpredictable stranger. Let’s face it, noone has a clue where the Scots will end up if they chuck their Salmond rod in with the Devil they don’t know. The go-it-alone brigade have no idea what lies ahead - apart from a hell of a lot of hard work to build the infrastructure of a separate nation. And there is every chance  they will come a cropper.
All my Scottish friends fear the worst if the breakaway brigade win the day and Scotland floats off into the unknown.
Call it off before it’s too late, Alex. The whole independence thing is beyond a Jock...

From Baird to worse: Text maniacs are killing the art of television

I CAN still hear my  father scoffing at the impact of television on the British public.
“It’s killed the art of conversation,’’ he would moan, echoing the verdict of most 1950s geriatrics on John Logie Baird’s vision of the future.
(To my young brain, every grown-up was a geriatric, even though I had no idea what the word meant).
Killing the art of conversation? I can’t recall discussing ANYTHING significant with Dad over the entire 24 years we were on this earth together. I loved him dearly but when it came to meaningful conversation, he had less patience than a struck-off doctor (oops, that pun only works verbally).
Dad would have been 103 this year, so presumably he’s not spinning in his grave quite as quickly as he would like to be.
He’ll certainly be horrified at the effect of today’s technological jungle on his great grandchildren.
My own grandkids seem to spend every waking moment with their Facebooks buried in a Google of I-pods, E-pads, computers and multipurpose telephones.
All but the youngest are in a 24/7 relationship with at least one electronic communication gadget. And I bet little Buddy has programmed himself  to join them from his third  birthday in December.
‘Computers Have Killed the Art of Television’ disease seems to have affected everyone today between the ages of five and 50.
Symptoms are a total loss of eye contact with human beings, plus an inability to speak more than one syllable every ten minutes.
A  friend of mine topped it all over dinner the other day when he was so engrossed in online games that he fired off a text message asking his other half  to pass the salt.
The bizarre behaviour  that is blighting 21st century society is so reminiscent of my own childhood.
The big difference is that millions of people are now living in their own textoxic world, cut off from the reality around them.
Dad’s fears in the 50s ultimately proved unfounded. When I was 10, he was a seemingly ancient 43-year-old - and the goggle box was revolutionising society.
If, that is, you were rich enough  to afford a stake in Baird and the Beeb.
Dad, being a reasonably affluent businessman, threw good money after Baird and paid an astronomical price for  a flimsy Sobel with a 14-inch scene.
For the equivalent of £2,000 today, the  po-faced triumvirate of Kenneth Kendall, Richard Baker and Robert Dougall would catch the tube into our living room and deliver the BBC TV News in a grainy haze of  grey and white.
The Beeb’s potted programme package was an alliteration of pretty pathetic pap. But nostalgia plays tricks on the memory and  I now accept that The Grove Family was nothing special - just an alternative soap opera to Dad’s bathtime impression of Mario Lanza.

Ryanair v Monarch: The flying pan and the Spanish air smiles

IT'S common knowledge that I'm no fan of Ryanair – and I doubt there's anything the Irish fly-boys can do to change my feelings.
Even their outspoken boss Michael O'Leary admits his company has ‘p***ed off’ too many passengers, which suggests he has finally realised that customer relations is a vital part of a company’s image and consequently its success.
Perhaps he should look at a rival airline like Monarch, who treated me so royally earlier this summer that I felt like a queen.
Ryanair’s business ethic is based on price – which is clearly what matters most to the vast majority of travellers.
They´ll queue all day rather than fork out that extra tenner for priority boarding and a reserved seat.
On my few trips with the O'Leary line, I thought I’d get the best of both worlds by paying for priority treatment. And all went well until I fell foul of their devious handbag scam.My heinous crime cost me a €50 fine. It also lost O'Leary a potential regular customer...for life.
I believe Ryanair  have now relaxed the ludicrous ‘one item only’ rule, which forced women to jam their handbags into their hand luggage.
It operated purely between the departure gate and boarding the plane, at which point the cabin would be hit by gangway gridlock and the mass reappearance of handbags.
O’Leary’s change of heart is no consolation to me.
The way I was singled out and humiliated ranks among the most embarrassing experiences of my life.
Indeed, the abrupt hostility of the boarding steward who fined me is something I will never forget.
I was so traumatised that the easy option, creating space for my handbag by-dumping the Jeremy Clarkson hardback I’d bought in a charity shop for £3, didn’t even cross my mind.So I reluctantly forked out €50 - and forked off into the welcoming arms of their rivals.

That is evidence enough  that low fares alone do not create happy customers.  A blend of good value and   good service is much more effective.
As a Ryanair passenger, I felt like a pauper. Now I travel by royal ascent with Monarch and feel like a princess.
I pay a little more for my seat, but the fear of falling foul of petty rules has gone. The cabin crew last time I flew were a perfect example of what customer relations are all about - and why Monarch are my No.1 for flights to and from the UK.
Cabin chief Vicky Toll and her colleagues were so happy and helpful that I did something I have never done before. I wrote and told their bosses.
The special treatment began early in the flight as the pre-booked hot meals were being distributed. I was hungry and ushered Vicky over as she passed my aisle seat halfway down the cabin.
“I presume it's too late to book a meal now,’’' I said to her.
“I'm afraid so, madam,’’ smiled Vicky. '”But I can get you a hot baguette if that helps’’.
Within a couple of minutes I was tucking into a tasty toastie.
The ‘can't do enough to help’ attitude persisted throughout the flight, with Vicky’s infectious enthusiasm rubbing off on her colleagues Jacqueline, Lyndsey, Nadia and Paul.
Now I'm not saying Ryanair's service is bad. But I suspect the O'Leary book of cabin-crew commands places customer satisfaction some way behind flogging scratchcards and that irritating jingle informing us we've landed on time.
What the jingle doesn’t say is that the schedule invariably allows at least half an hour more than the flight actually takes.
Ryanair ostracised me for life by hitting me with that €50 fine for an ‘offence’ which has since been removed from their rulebook.
Until last year, women travelling with Ryanair were not permitted to carry a handbag as well as hand luggage from the boarding gate to the plane.
With only one piece of hand luggage allowed, I jammed my handbag into my main case, making it marginally too wide to fit in their entrapment rack. Cue bad-mannered Ryanair agent to relieve me instantly of cash.
Ryanair supporters argue: ''It serves you right if you didn't abide by the their rules.''
My response is that the prime reason for that handbag rule was to raise money to subsidise low fares. Every woman needs a handbag. And what better than to make her squeeze it in with everything else at the best place for an easy-money scam – namely, the departure gate?
Unfortunately, Ryanair saw sense €50 too late to prevent  this old bag and her luggage winging off to a rival.
And I feel fine about it.

MANCHESTER'S GOLDEN OLDIES TOP 10 - WORLD EXCLUSIVE

 (Compiled by Choock Bury)

1.  The Green Green Grass of Hulme – Tom Jones

2.  Oldham River - Paul Robeson

3   Irwell Always Love You – Whitney Houston 

4 .Tulips From Urmston Dam – Ronnie Hilton

5  Sunny Hyde of the Street – Frank Sinatra

6.  Bat Out Of Hale – Meat Loaf

7. Whitefield Pretty – Natalie Wood (West Side Story) 

8  Your Cheetham Heart – Ray Charles

9 Have I Told You Blackley that I Love You – Rod Stewart

10. From Rusholme With Love – Matt Munro                                    

OFFICIAL WARNING: DEATH CAN DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH

Have fun while you can, 'cos none of us is getting out of this alive

LIFE experts reckon young people don’t even think about their own mortality until they reach the age of 35.

That’s their funeral. When they get to my age, they’ll think about it 35 times a die - sorry, day.
With respect to the doom-mongers, I refuse to let the thought of dying get me down half an inch, let alone six feet. Let's face it, there's no point being too serious about anything because none of us is going to get out of this alive. 

Death is arguably the most sensitive issue in life - but losing someone special is something we all  have to deal with it at some point.
I just wish I had the courage to laugh in the Grim Reaper’s face and ensure that I go out in a blaze of glory.  (Heaven help me if the Reaper really does exist!).
The funeral scenario gets a whole lot worse as the years roll on. Your body starts to creak and you wonder if the tickle in your throat is about to escalate into a coffin fit.
It’s time to stop choking and start  joking.
And that's easier said than done  when your own Biblical D-for-Death appointment is little over 100 days away.
It's a grave thought but, going on Old Testament  chronology, my funeral plan will explode into action on October 10, when I’ll be celebrating my three score years and 10 at my daughter’s home in Manchester.  OK, to be strictly accurate she lives in Bury...hell, that’s ominous.
If I do actually pop my clogs on the big day, I guarantee the shock will kill me.  So I’m hoping the Big Boss will grant me a bit of overtime instead.
Say 30 years in perfect health to take me through to a Lord’s  century?
 I'm dying to know what lies beyond the grave. Absolute believers like Jehovah's Witnesses predict that God’s Kingdom will soon replace the  increasingly  rotten society we live in today.
The dead will be resurrected and put to a loyalty test,  while the wicked and disobedient will be destroyed.
It’s a case of ‘Vote for the Jesus-God coalition and live forever in an idyllic world’
I guess that means you’re a dead cert for 10,000 years hard Labour if politics sends you to sleep and UKIP when you should be voting. Only consolation is that you’ll inevitably serve your time Clegg-less. The goodies live happily ever while the unfaithful push up daisies for the rest of their deaths.
Chain gang, here I come.

 DEAD-CERT TOP TEN OF GOLDEN OLDIES 

1. Going Underground – The Jam
2. Skull Of Kintyre -  Poor Yoric
3. The Hippy Hippy Wake - Swinging Blue Jeans
4. The Funeral Is Over - New Seekers
5. That's Death – Frank Sinatra
6. Grave On – Buddy Holly
7. When You Walk In The Tomb - The Searchers
8. Hearse Of The Rising Sun - The Animals
9. The Road To Hell - Chris Rea
10. Good Mourning - Judy Garland

Nurses for curses: The smelly side of Spanish hospitals

THE elderly holidaymaker was clearly in need of of a nurse. “Senorita, por favor,” whined the old man from Madrid repeatedly in increasingly desperate cries to the night nurses. In the dark hours of a Saturday evening, I had joined the occupants of the thinly-populated observation ward at Torrevieja Hospital after throwing a wobbler in an El Raso bar last month.

Actually, it wasn’t so much a wobbler as a daze in Rayz. Apparently I passed out as we waited for the bar quiz to begin and was unconscious for five minutes.

Amid fears that I’d had a stroke, the hospital medics decided to carry out a CT scan the following morning. By the time they did it, the ward staff had blown my brains out with their attitude to the poor Madrileno.I have nothing but praise for the hospital doctors, who were all knowledgeable, friendly, polite and sympathetic. Exactly the opposite, in fact, to most of the nurses.

The three girls on night duty ignored the increasingly agitated calls of the Madrileno, burying their heads in paperwork for at least 10  minutes as if to say “WE are in charge – we’ll come when we have nothing better to do.”

It wasn’t as if the patient was an irritating whinger who’d been giving them unnecessary hassle. Until then, he hadn’t uttered a sound all night.

The trio seemed to have forgotten that nursing is about caring. They gave the impression that they had no interest whatsoever in the patients as people.

I was merely No.31, the number above my bed, as I was to discover several times during the 18 hours I spent on the ward. My first personal trauma came when I asked a passing nurse, who smelt even more of garlic than her colleagues, if I could go to the loo.

‘’No es posible,’’ spelt out Ali Oli Breath, producing a bedpan and thrusting it into the bed beneath me.

Pardon the toilet humour but any woman who has used a bedpan will know how difficult it is to do a water-tight job. Ali Oli Breath didn’t even check and moments after she disappeared with the used pan, I discovered that the sheet I was lying on now had  liquid assets.For 15 minutes I wriggled about trying to park my backside on a dry bit.

Ali Oli Breath eventually condescended to change my sheets – her accompanying ‘tut-tut’ hardening my resolve to let my bowels explode rather than attempt to make the other stuff hit the pan.

I’d already experienced an uncomfortable ride being wheeled to and from the X-ray department by a Morticia Addams lookalike, an expressionless zombie whose long black tresses I found both hairy and scary.

I never got close enough to establish whether she was a member of the Ali Oli family. But at least Thing kept his fingers out of it and didn’t pop in to lend her a hand.

The worst deprivation of all was being denied food for my entire stay.

I eventually became so hungry that I threatened to rip the cannula out of my arm and discharge myself unless I was given something to stop my  innards rumbling.

“Just go and ask the doctor, PLEASE! ”, I barked at Ali Oli Breath (Day Staff) when she insisted I still remained on the No Food list.

Yet  I’d by now been told by the doc that I could go home once my BP dropped to an acceptable level. Why on earth would I be starved when I was due to be discharged within a hour or so?

There was no logic to Ali Oli Breath kicking up a stink. She was making her own rules….and sure enough, the duty doctor took my side.

If the tortilla hadn’t tasted so good, I swear it would have ended up adorning Ali Oli’s face.

Spain's soaring success: A private word about AENA

I’M getting to like AENA – and not only for the successful and efficient way it runs Spain’s airports. 

It also makes an impressive case for remaining outside the grip of the privateers.

The Rajoy government is bent on selling off AENA, which is responsible for all but a handful of the country’s airports.

Among the exceptions are controversial white elephants like Castellon, Ciudad Real, Lleida-Alguaire and now the deserted Corvera, where £200m of investment has yet to reap a centimo in return.

The argument for a public  AENA is convincing – particularly when its workers and supporters put their case so politely (UK trade unions please note).

When I flew from Alicante to the UK last week, around 30 pro-AENA actiivists were demonstrating on the main concourse.

Neatly but casually dressed, they were scrupulously well-behaved as they paraded up and down to a chorus of megaphone chants. 

Their message – delivered via leaflets in English and Spanish – made it clear who they blamed for the untold woes of Spanish aviation.  

In a word, it was civilised. 

Like many of those on the concourse, I initially took the 30-strong  party  for football fans. They were in fact workers from airports as widespread as Bilbao, Madrid, Palma, Malaga and Tenerife. 

And their message? ‘‘AENA is a public company that does no cost anything to the citizens. Not funded by the State Budget, but with rates and economic activity that is generated at airports.

“In Spain, the airports managed privately or individually by autonomous communities have been a disaster.’’

Last year, AENA made a net profit of €715m, according to the protesters, yet the government wants to privatise it.

This, say the workers, would reduce investment, leading to airport closures, increased fares, and reduced quality and safety.            .

I have mixed feelings about trade unions,  legacy of 30 years on the receiving end of print industry jealousy.  But I’d rather enthuse about the way the protesting CCOO workers conveyed AENA’s  viability  to passengers and airport workers.

Journalists were the favourite targets of the Bolshie bullies who intimidated Fleet Street until the Warrington-Wapping revolution of the mid-1990s. The printers earned more than journalists, legacy of their ‘down-tools’ militancy, but it rankled that they could never put the might of the pen to the sword.

Ultimately,  the printers were hurled en masse onto the scrapheap  by  Rupert Murdoch and Eddie Shah, whose newspaper empires were being bled dry by the militants. 

Shah showed his own credentials by launching a new low-budget tabloid daily, The Post, and closing it within three months.

A quarter of a century tlater, The Post’s staff writers and sub-editors are still waiting for our contracted severance pay.

We’re more likely to get a cheque from the Shah of Persia than from Eddie.

AND THE PLANE TRUTH ABOUT AIRPORT PARKING CHARGES...

YOU don’t need to look far to appreciate that customer satisfaction is massively important to AENA.
And that Britain’s privatised airports care only about lining their shareholders pockets with as much of Mr Average’s hard earned as possible.
Park in the short-stay at Manchester  to make a pick-up and if the flight you’re waiting for is delayed,  it could cost you £20 or more.
My daughter was fleeced for £15.60 when she collected me from Terminal 2 last Wednesday. And the noose is tightening still further, with ever-tougher measures to prevent people making sneaky pick-ups outside the terminals without paying.
Contrast that scenario with Alicante airport, where vehicles are regularly left unattended in the pickup zone for what seems like hours.
I prefer to take take the safe option and use the official car park. The most it has ever cost me is around €2.50, which is roughly what the fare SHOULD be.

Unless you are a greedy British fat cat, that is.

Kitty Kitty Gang Bang: The cats' chorus which says 'fur cough' in any language

I DREAMT last night that I was a lost moggy wandering among the street cats of inner-city Manchester.
I was the only one with a tail.
These guys weren’t Manx cats. They were Manc brats. Street fighters with a bit of Irish in them, like comic legend Korky the Kat.
They spent most of the dream  singing Mewchester United songs dedicated to their troll model, Catty from Cork. I think he's the sourpuss-in-boots that all Mew-nited fans idolise. The one that humans call  Roy Keane.
The only subject the dream cats wanted to miaow about was furball.
I heard so much of it that the pun cushion that used to be my brain is under threat from a cat’s chorus of chants about Alex Fur-gone's son, or whatever his name is.
Personally, I prefer to remember the days when Denis Paw was top cat around those parts.
Anyway, my street-cat dream (more of a nightmare really) was triggered by a desire to spend more time with my family in the UK.
I have to decide whether to take Tom and Dick, my twin black gatos, with me to England – or try to find a new  home for them here In Spain.

Tom and Dick: Would they settle in England? 

They have no language problems here, but Keith, my cousin's moggy in Manchester, reckons they’ll need to be wary of the locals.
Otherwise they might find themselves missing an ear or an eye. Or walking on anything between one and three legs.
Keith’s local street-cat clan call themselves the Kitty Kitty Gang Bang.  They are certainly no Pads Army - apart, perhaps from scabby tabby  Fur-Gus, who has all his limbs but is perpetually legless.
Keith (who is not a boy, by the way), says things have changed for the worse for local felines over the last 30 years.
She recalls: “In my great-great-great-grandparents’ day, the Manc cat community had some fur-midable role models. I mean, who can forget the likes of Moggy Thatcher and Geoffrey Boycat?’’
These days the only ‘greeting’ the Kitty Gang give to strangers consists of a two-word description of a hair ball.
All I can say is that it sounds very much like 'Fur cough'.
The real nightmare begins if that smattering of local lingo does not have the desired effect. The smattering becomes a battering and the ears and legs start to come off.
That clinches it. The boys are staying in Spain.

The Spain drain: 90,000 reasons why Brits are NOT fleeing in droves

SPAIN'S statistical revelation that British expats have been returning to the UK ''in droves'' came as a real eye opener.The Daily Telegraph jumped gleefully on the figures and off we went on a 'bash the Spanish dream' campaign for the umpteenth time.
The blind were leading the blind again.
Within a couple of days, a film crew from BBC TV's The One Show were charging around the Costa Blanca seeking sob stories of debt and despair.It all kicked off when statisticians in Madrid announced that 90,000 Brits abandoned their sunshine dreamland last year in a desperate hunt for the joys of pure English rain and rust.
The Daily Telegraph’s typically boring appraisal suggested the economic crisis, lack of work and failing health among the elderly were to blame.Even the BBC, the world's primary bastion of broadcasting correctness, didn't dispute the figures – which suggested the Costas would be just about empty now that Easter has come and gone.
Doubts grew among local cynics when it was established the numbers had emerged from local town halls. And, more specifically, from the Padron office.As far as the UK media was concerned, 90,000 was 90,000 and that was that. Fact. 
Padron me, but who monitored the ex-expats on their way out? Where were the Spanish bureaucracy’s red-tape records revealing who exactly had left the country? For heaven's sake, half the Brits with homes in Spain  aren't even on the Padron. And the other half couldn't tell you why it exists at all.

Joe Crowley: Numbers game

As for how many actually have gone home (if indeed the number of Brits in Spain isn’t increasing), we all have our own views.
One Show presenter Joe Crowley repeatedly threw the figure of 90,000 at me during an hour of filming at my home in El Raso – and I repeatedly chucked it back.

I had no idea at the time, but I was riding my chuck, I mean luck. And, sure enough, back in London the programme editors chucked my footage into the bin. No complaints there, because I had no wish to be part of a programme dispensing misleading ‘facts’
.Personally, I believe the Spanish dream is as vividly exciting as ever for the vast majority of Brits.The economic situation is also looking up - and had Joe spoken to local estate agents rather than voiced-over empty streets and For Sale boards, he’d have been put right on the resurgent property market.
The reality is that, against a backdrop of cranes and construction workers, a new building boom has begun.Phill Smirke of The Property Shop is one of those professionals who insists the housing market is on the up.He also maintains that, far from being forced to sell and leave the country,  expats whose homes have plummeted in value since 2007 could well recoup every centimo by 2019.
Admittedly, the lack of work remains a killer for young families, but most of the Brits settle here when they no longer need a job.And while supermarket shopping can be as costly as the UK, where in England can you enjoy a three-course Chinese meal for a fiver?
 In a country where a couple can dine out seven days a week for 100 quid (with a bottle of  decent wine thrown in), it  makes no sense that 90,000 would flee
.One person who knows the REAL story is expat Phil Hughes, who works with the Guardamar del Segura council. He revealed: 

''Every council wants people on the Padrón, the list of residents from which the local government receives money from Central and Regional government for healthcare, education, major roads etc. ''So for 10 years at a time, we add as many people as we can. ''People leave but they rarely ask to come off before doing so. Therefore, when people like me are asked to 'conduct a census of foreigners' by the National Statistics Office (INE) every 10 years, they find  that a huge amount of "residents" have been dead, moved, or simply never actually lived in the houses in which they were registered for many years.“So, every 10 years, local councils with a "transient population" will have a jolt from the INE. It's just that this year, we are on the back of the worst financial crisis in memory, and so the figures appear to be a sudden event when in fact, it's the result of a 10-year 're-adjustment'.
''In the UK one would conduct a written census. Here, let's just say it's 'less than thorough'' The figures quoted are just plucked out of the sky. The reality is absolutely a whole lot worse, but over the last six or seven years, not just 12 months.''

Ultimately, The One Show took a non-confrontational line in their broadcast, but stuck to the figure of 90,000. A vox pop  of expats produced predictable comments, which left my friend and neighbour Marjory Norris suitably unimpressed.
Like me, Marjory – who has lived in Spain fo 12 years - believes the expat community is growing  rather than shrinking.''It was much ado about nothing,'' was her verdict on the  One Show broadcast
Not quite an example of the blind leading the blind, then
.More like the bland leading the bland..

Is Judge Judy part of America's Clown Prosecution Service?

The following questions and answers are from a book called Disorder in the Courts. They are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and published by court reporters who struggled to keep a straight face while the exchanges were taking place. I'm guessing the whole scenario is pure American American...our friends across the Pond always have been a been a law unto their Gucci sweats, whatever they are...

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning? 

WITNESS: He said, 'Where am I, Cathy?'

ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!

_
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.

ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.

ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.

ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget..
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his
sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the 20-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's 20, much like your IQ.

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shitting me?

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid

ATTORNEY: She had three children , right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a
new attorney?

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death..
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a
deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

ATTORNEY: Doctor , how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral...

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 PM
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Are you qualified to ask that question?

And finally . . . . .
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No..
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you
began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practising law.

Picking the bones out of life as an expat

LIKE most expats, I came  to Spain to enjoy the sun, the sea and a peaceful retirement.
And in the main I have achieved my every desire.
Occasionally, however, my  Mediterranean voyage has hit a stretch of choppy water.
It’s like air turbulence on a plane - you just wish it hadn’t started and pray it will go away.
This week’s shenanigans involved an email exchange with a stranger who had made an instant judgement of my character - and got it all wrong. Either that or I'm not as nice an old Grumpy as I thought I was.
Anyway,  fur and feathers flew through the ether and the ensuing email war got so out of control that I was ready to commit a Midzimmer Murder.
Then, suddenly, we both realised how stupid it all was - and the tidal wave of turbulence vanished in an instant.
The bitter foes are now the best of enemies with an upcoming coffee date on the agenda.
Oops, better not say coffee - it's been banned from my diet. On doctor’s orders.
Dr X wants me to sup green tea instead - and who am I to argue with a man whose past patients include Royalty and Hollywood superstars?
While chiropractic is not everyone’s cup of tea, the influence of Dr Xavier Dutey-Harispe seems to be having a positive effect on my Parkinson’s. So much so that I was positively bouncing when I left his Algorfa clinic on Tuesday. I felt 10 years younger than when I went in - and ready for a real knees up rather than pretending to play knee-ball as part of my exercise therapy.
I believe the combination of chiropractic, acupuncture and a caring practitioner is definitely working. And Dr X, a Basque from Biarritz who counts Royalty and Hollywood stars among his past patients, has convinced me that with his facilitation, my body’s own healing powers can reverse the increasing weakness in my  (left) writing hand.
I know this all sounds like a plug for Dr X - but, those who practice the skill insist that chiropractic does not CURE anything - it just clears the way for the body to complete its natural restoration process.
Meanwhile, the doctor and his assistant Catherine Estall believe there is a lack of knowledge in the general community of what chiropractic actually is.
Dr X also emphasises the caring side of the relationship between practitioner and patient. Unlike the cold, formal relationship between most GPs and their patients, he is a great advocate of hugs and kisses.
I don’t want other victims of Parkinson’s to think chiropractic or acupuncture will necessarily help them.
No two people have the same symptoms and we all have our own preferred treatment and medication regimes. But I personally have a  great belief in positivity and good humour as a therapy for ill health.
Now I also have physical evidence that the X Factor is actually triggering my creaking body to revive itself.
Carry on at this rate and I’ll soon be joining my good friend Marjory at her line-dancing classes.
Problem is, I'd fall off.the line.

How Granada TV cut my puns down to flies

IT’S Sunday evening, I'm packing my bags to return to Spain tomorrow, and I have a deadline to meet.
OK, D-day is four days away but picking the moans out of life every week is no mean challenge.
In fact, I sometimes wonder how I manage to find something new to write about each week.
Well, the answer is that I don't, which is my excuse for bombarding you this week with some of the contents of Donna's Diary of Diabolical Puns.
Over the past three years. I‘ve filled more than 150 pages of the Courier with my weekly Grumpings. It's been more for love than money, too.
Let’s face it, there’s scarcely enough cash floating around in Spain to pay the rant (pun intended, not a typo), never mind finance a full shop at Merca-Donna.  So I just do a Lidl a couple of times a week.
Either way, I’ll need to  Consum a lot less after my visit to the UK.
How the plane will get airborne on the way back to Spain I really don’t know.  My two daughters stuffed me with so many goodies this past week that I expect to became the first Easyjet passenger ever to travel  from England to Spain by steam-bloat.
I’ve never been quite sure what people make of my verbal twists – or how many fellow pundamentalists (or is that mental pundalists?) are out there in Courier land.  And at what age ‘normal’ children’s brains start to quirk.
Which is why I've never ventured into the world of literature with my bee-utiful  brace of bug-standard books.
Before I tell you more about Claude of the Rings and its sequel Lloyd of the Stings, I must tell you how I got hooked professionally by the pun bug.
I was fortunate to be part of the team of journalists that launched the Daily Star in Manchester inn 1978.
Our first-ever issue was featured on Granada TV’s What the Papers Say. Presenter Bill Grundy was renowned for his sarcasm - and I got the full treatment for the masthead I had written for the Star’s embryo Fishing Column.
‘STAR ANGLING...you’ll fall for it hook, line and sinker’, whined Grundy as I choked on a mouthful of corn on the cod.
Anyway, Claude of the Rings and its sequel Lloyd of the Stings,  tell the story of a fly and a wasp who live cosily in a swarm corner of an airport terminal.
They become friends and are fascinated by the gigantic metal insects that both swallow up hordes of human beings and also poo them out alive.
To quote the words I’m planning for the fly-leaf, they stow away inside one of these huge creatures and end up in a strange country where they don’t speak the wingo.
Their adventures include being rushed to waspital after drinking too much Budflyzer,  having a battle with Spiderman on the web,  and ending up in America where they become the stars of a hit TV series called Swat’s Landing.
Oh, I forgot to tell you. Claude's dad Maurice is a gardener who specialises in cutting lawns. His pals call him Flymo.
Not funny? In that case, I'll buzz off.
Published in The Courier (www.thecourier.es) March 28 2014
 

  

Air today, gone tomorrow - or will Woody Allen and I live to be 20,000?

EVER stood inside a giant warehouse service lift as the rickety contraption creaked and squeaked its way between floors?
Throw in a couple of dithering button pushers, a circuit or two of Liverpool Airport runway and a laid-back wheelchair pusher rumbling you through passport control, and bingo, you’ve arrived.
Unfortunately you’ve missed out just a little. Because the other passengers are all long gone, and the pilot and crew who flew you from Alicante tucked up in their hotel beds.
I was in the process of discovering that for disabled and frail travellers, wheelchair travel can be both a godsend and a penance.
It was heaven to be the first passenger aboard at Alicante - and promptly smothered with Air Smiles by an eager-to-please cabin crew.
But when I eventually met up with my family in a near-deserted arrivals area at Liverpool, I didn’t know whether I was coming or going.
By the time the tiny wheelchair entourage reached to passport control, our fellow passengers had long since headed off into the night.
Nobody in their right mind would WANT to be pushed around in a wheelchair rather than exercise their pins.
But as I approach the Biblical three score years and ten, the reality of existence is beginning to hit home.
I am going to need help more often than not on future flights after my latest ordeal.
I don’t want to die. But imagine where we would all end up if our bodies kept going but continued to degenerate.
Like Woody Allen, I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by living for ever.
Or at least until I look in the mirror on my 20,000th birthday.

Warning: Get the Cambridge diet wrong and you'll hit rock bottom

I HIT rock bottom last weekend, literally.
But at least I’m still here – and that's more than I expected at my loo-ist point (yes, loo-ist, read on for explanation).
I actually began to bottom out  late on Friday, when my brain signalled an immediate drop-off and I headed for the WC.
Moments later the stable door was open but the horse wouldn't budge. I was constipated with a vengeance.
I spent virtually the entire night creased up on the loo, convinced I had a permanent blockage and fearing I was going to bloat up and explode like a pricked balloon.
I considered calling 112 but the thought of paramedics catching me with my pants down was too embarrassing for words. So I just sat there, cursing the Cambridge 800 diet I had started the previous week, and wondering who would find the 1,000 bits of bloated body I left behind (pun intended, as ever).
Now that it’s all over, I can now laugh at the Weekend of Weak Ends. Or Tight Ends, to be more accurate.
Either way, panic sent in when my bowel and bladder suddenly went on strike. I was so busy trying to force a return to work that it was breakfast time before I had the sense to call my Cambridge 800 consultant Debi Winston.
“Don't worry. You've clearly not been drinking enough water,'' she scolded.
“Just drink and drink and within an hour or two the problem will be solved.''
Unlike her patient, Debi, a qualified senior nurse, knew what she was talking about. And well before midday I was indeed back to my grumpy old self.
My flirtation with the Cambridge 800 diet was always going to be a major challenge. I knew from the off that I would struggle to drink the required 2.5 litres of liquid every day. Or even for one day.
“Just do the best you can,''  Debi had urged when I expressed my doubts. The vital message did not get over to me – that if I DIDN'T pour those 2.5 litres into the well, there would be consequences. And they would not be pleasant.
In the event, what I thought was a decent amount of water over the first few days of  my diet probably totalled little more than one litre.
So I really have to blame myself for the sweat I got into on Friday night. Had anyone seen the bizarre pan-orama,  they might well have mistaken it for a Poo Bare impersonation!
Having told that, I am told that nominations for the 2014 Strain of Britain award are still open.
Not since my argument with a large kidney stone back in the 1990s had I suffered so much discomfort as I did on Friday night.
Common sense should have told me the lack of water meant my system had been unable to break down the high-energy Cambridge products – and consequently everything had seized up.
I know the diet works but it clearly cannot be toyed with. My instinct at the weekend was that the regime was not for me
But now that I have (hopefully) found my way, I owe it to Debi and Co to keep it going.

Can Sarah's Cambridge crew really win me the bloat race?

DIETING is usually heavy going, no matter which way you look at it.
But what do you do when the heavy won't go? Or, to put it more accurately, when you are motivated more by chocolate than the need to lose weight?
In my case, you talk to an expert like Sarah Hawes - and then put your money on Cambridge to win the Bloat Race.
I’m referring to the Cambridge Weight Plan and the Cambridge 800 Plan -  the Spanish subsidiary set up by Ms Hawes.
I’m hoping Sarah’s products will point me the weigh I want to go after making a hash of my attempt to remove the massive excesses of late 2013.
They say the road to hell is paved with best intentions - and two weeks into my 2014 War on Wobble, I found myself stumbling down Devil's Drive.
After losing two and a half stone in the first six months of last year, I thought it would be easy to shed the 10-kilo bloat that cancelled out all but a few pounds of that loss by Christmas.
What I overlooked was that I was motivated a year ago by the accompanying challenge of raising money for my sick granddaughter Daisy’s charity,
Tis time I decided to use the same basic plan of cutting out the carbs and duly  the house of potatoes, rice, pasta and bread. I put a ban on anything fried, vetoed all sweets, cakes and biscuits - and began Donna’s Diet, Part Two.
My only concession was to allow myself two squares of chocolate a day.
Last year, I stuck rigidly to the regime. This time, I peered into the fridge half way through Week Two, l stared longingly at the large milk chocolate bar I had bought that day, and promptly scoffed  the lot. I'd lured myself into the gloom of the Choccy Horror Show - and I needed an expert to help me escape.
I considered joining Weight Watchers; Slimming World, the Atkins Diet, just about every weight-loss programme around. All had their pros; all had their cons. I couldn't try them all (at least not at the same time), so I asked my daughter Hayley, who always seems to be dieting.
“I've found the Cambridge Plan very good for what I need,'’’ she said, “but it would not suit everyone. I'm on the 800 calories a day programme, which is very hard to stick to.’’
Ultra-enthusiast Sarah Hawes introduced Cambridge  800 to Spain in 2011. A former medical representative, she has rapidly built a Spanish empire that already encompasses the coastal regions, Balearics, Canary Islands and Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao.
And she says proudly: “Our Consultant numbers are growing daily and our customer numbers are flying. The product is a quality science-based product and is a complete programme, developed by doctors for the general public. We still have a medical department that helps with challenging medical conditions and have an ongoing clinical research programme.’’
This article is not an advert for the Cambridge Plan - the idea is to chronicle the success or failure of my 2014 Battle of the Bulge.
However, my colleague Ivie Davies, the Courier’s golf correspondent, can’t praise Sarah and Co. enough..
He lost more than three stone  in seven months (see before and after pictures)

and says: “I was able to have ‘normal’ food in an evening and as long as I drank 2.5 litres of water, everything was fine coupled with the supplements.’’
Last Monday, buoyed by the Cambridge emphasis on catering for the needs of clients with health problems, I went to see my local consultant Debi Winston, completed a detailed application form and weighed in at 88.4 kilos - or a fraction under 13st 13lb.
The Cambridge medical team in England quickly cleared me to start the1,200 calorie Plan and I should  get my first fill of products from Debi today (Friday).
Come on Cambridge! This Bloat Race is going to be OARSOME!

Burger the calories, Yankee Noodle Candy has come to Spain

MY 2014 diet is already heavy going - and I’m only two weeks in. Hardly anything lost in the last week...but it’s not my fault I’m only marginally slimmer. Honestly.
 It’s those so-called friends who’ve been encouraging me to join them for meals at disgustingly inviting restaurants - and flatly refusing to take my emphatic ‘no’ for an answer.
Well, I’ve had enough of it so I have made an executive indecision (I’m a Libran).
The idea is to Name and Shame ANY individual or group who lure me into an over-eating session, or who encourage me to join them in filling my face with Chinese, Indian, Spanish, French, English or virtually any other kind of culinary delight. The only group I don’t need protecting from are the burger-the-calories  pot-bellied pigs - or fat Americans as they are sometimes called. As befits an aging journalist with a degree in headline pundamentalism,  my current favourite bathtime songs are I'm A Yankee Noodle Candy and New York New Pork.  Anyway, the 2014 diet started so well with my losing 2.5lbs during the first week. But this last seven days, two Chinese banquets  plus a Sunday special at the Portico Mar (everyone's favourite down our way) have  gutted what was becoming a concerted attempt to hit my goal weight in record time.
Anyway, the Shame Game lurks in wait for those still intent on leading me astray in the world of fine dining. Their only escape will be  to have a large box of chocolates waiting for me at the table.

YOU'RE ten years old, have just moved to Spain with your family, and it's your first day at school. To help you pick up Spanish more rapidly, no English is to be spoken during school hours. Problem is, you know very few Spanish words...and asking to go to the loo is not among them. A dilemma in any language...
The daughter of a friend of mine faced that scenario not so long ago. The poor child just sat there, minding her pees and Q's, until her mother whisked her home in the car ...to everyone’s relief. 

SCRIBBLING IN THE SUN: Twittering and wittering: Mum's dirty washing's online again

SCRIBBLING IN THE SUN: Twittering and wittering: Mum's dirty washing's online again

Twittering and wittering: Mum's dirty washing's online again

MY stepmother blames me for the fact she is not computer literate.
She says I never carried out my promise to give her my old laptop for her 80th birthday - condemning  her to a miserable existence with only her washing and the odd passing train online.
In the six and a half years since I committed that heinous crime, she's repaid me with  a vengeance, As the world and I savour the Tweet delights of  Twittering, the old moaner spends her life wittering. And wittering. And wittering.
She also insists I’ve deprived her of watching the 21st century's answer to Morecambe and Wise. “The ones with the funny names...Google and Skype’’.
The old dear always thought computers were purely a modern version of a typewriter. Then a mischievous pal of mine caused turmoil by telling her that 'Internet' is where footballers must despatch the ball to score a goal.
So much for the wisecracks. I actually have problems myself understanding the remarkable development of new technology over the past couple of decades.
I remember vividly being told of a mind-boggling invention with which people could record TV programmes and watch them later.
My TV memories go back to the piano-top antics of Muffin the Mule, who spent most of his life prancing about in black and white on my parents' 14-inch Sobell  TV.
There was even an alternative to BBC 1 – you could switch off and watch the little white dot fade away  in the centre of the screen.
That Sobell was an apology for a telly, yet it cost the equivalent of £1,000 in an era when £20  a week put you in the top 10 per cent of wage earners.
How times change – not least in the field of education, where the nearest thing to today's 'A*’ ranking was the simple 'A' awarded to students achieving a mark of 80% or more.
The difference was that only the cleverest kids got more than one or two A's. This was mainly because the old GCE exam was considerably more difficult than the GCSE, which replaced it following the levelling out of the English and Welsh system.
I've never understood the logic of the lefties who insist the old Grammar School system did not give underprivileged kids an equal chance. I see it the opposite way.
My secondary school classmates  in South Wales came from all walks of life. The Hand of their Fathers turned to everything from labouring to coal mining, business management, advanced medicine and law.
It made no difference if you were working class, middle class or the Princess of Wales. If you passed the 11-plus you were entitled to a place in a grammar school with its  formidable  GCE ‘O’ and ‘A’ level courses.
If you failed,  it meant at least a year in a lesser school studying for the inferior CSE (Certificate of Secondary Education) – with the chance of promotion to the local  grammar school  if you did well.
My sister Lydia is probably cleverer than I am, yet had to plough the GCSE trail because she was, my Dad’s generation always insisted, “a late developer’’.
From what I can gather, you need rich parents to get into into grammar school today, unless you can wangle yourself the educational equivalent of state benefit.
Don’t tell me that constitutes a more level playing field than the one we used to gallop across at breaktime for our clandestine ciggy in the toilet.
The only injustice was that secondary moderns were generally mixed while grammar schools were exclusively for one sex.
Help! Stepmum’s been line dancing in the garden - and  fell off.