These Boots Are Made For Walking…and The Law of Attraction — Part One

About a month ago, I was out walking when the thought came to me that I really needed a new pair of walking boots.  My walking boots, more of a walking shoe really, had seen better days.  The sole was beginning to show wear and tear, clearly damaged from years of pounding the pavements and walking country paths.  

I had put in the mileage on my footwear, and it was time for a new pair.  

I knew that a new pair of walking boots would not be cheap.  A good quality pair with a decent hard wearing sole is always likely to cost a little more.  The ones with softer tread on the sole never last that long. I must be a heavy walker — I certainly walk fast, which apparently is good, but not so good on the boot.

The cheaper boots may look good, but they don't last.  As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, and I do like to get a bargain.  That is not so easy in these cost of living crisis times.  Mind you I've always lived a fairly frugal life and when it comes to footwear I've usually managed to find a bargain, either from a charity shop or a car boot sale (flea market in the USA).  I couldn't rely on that happening this time. Would my walking boots hold out until a bargain came along?

So, the need for a new pair of boots was on my mind.

And then something strange happened.  Really strange.

Book Review: Gone Fishing: "What's Your Tomato?"

The first thing to say about this book is that you do not need to like fishing or be interested in the sport of fishing to read it.  As you would expect from the title it is about fishing, but it is actually more about the two men doing the fishing, the British comedians and comedy actors, Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse. 

It is as much about them as it is fishing.  

They share something in common in that they both faced a serious heart health issue. Whitehouse had three stents put in, while Mortimer had a triple bypass.  The book, and the BBC TV show that has now been running for five series, is about their friendship and Life, both before and after having been close to death.  

They are both in their sixties now, an age I know something about. They are perhaps aware that they may be on, as the saying goes, borrowed time, and so they are making the most of it.  Fishing has become a big part of that for them, and I suppose they are fortunate in that they have been able to make the TV series as a job of work.  In five series, they have travelled around the UK and occasionally overseas to fish and ponder life.

Both still have a child-like approach to life, especially Mortimer.  Working in comedy has probably given them the chance to never grow up or be overtaken by the seriousness of life.  Whitehouse is very serious about fishing and its history, and this comes out in the book. While it is an easy read, it does go through the history, traditions and technical side of fishing.  Those chapters are written by Whitehouse, who has been a lifelong fisherman.  His knowledge comes to the fore, while Mortimer is like the apprentice, taking it all in.  

Except that Bob doesn't always take in what he is being told. 

You can see this quite often in the TV series as Whitehouse shows frustration with his apprentice.  “Don't wind” as in winding the caught fish in, can frequently be heard from Whitehouse.  There is an art and technique to landing a fish, and overuse of winding the rod to pull the fish in is not part of it.  Mortimer is always caught winding, his innocent reply is always “I'm not winding” with a cheeky grin on his face. The fish regularly escapes as Whitehouse holds back his disappointment. I'm tempted to say anger, but they remain mates.  Bob is like a child at heart.

So, if it's your thing read the book, but if you don't, you can watch some episodes of the TV series as they are on YouTube.  If you like TV with scenery, a nice view, travel to different places, it's wonderful, calming, and funny.  Funny as in silly.  As Mortimer asks, what's the tomato in your life?  I suppose we all have a tomato in our life, or perhaps we are still looking for it.

 

Going For a Walk: It's Cold Out There.

                                                       

It's almost the weekend, and the weather forecast for much of the UK is indicating a mini heatwave for much of the country.  Various weather warnings have been issued, including the possibility of flash floods.  It will be a bit windy as well. 

The British weather, it's just something we like to talk about. 

Well, recently I have been making an effort to get up early and go for a morning walk. I'm an early bird anyway, but now it's around six in the morning that I am up by, an hour earlier than before.  I'm trying to make it a habit, getting out early, some exercise, the world is just a very different place at that time.  It's still mostly peaceful and quiet.

I've also noticed something else.  It's cold.  It's a brisk type of coldness that defies the fact that we are now in June, summer is here, at least according to the Met Office. The Meteorological summer, that is.  

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/seasons/summer/when-does-summer-start

As I write this it is early afternoon, still windy, but the sun has now broken through.  This morning I was out wearing a heavy coat, now it's t-shirt time.  I had a theory that our four seasons in the UK had moved on by about a month, each one starting later.  

There again it might just be that I'm getting older and that I just happen to notice the cold more.

 

The Writer's Life: Why Are Biographies So Popular? Are They?

I came across an article in The Guardian online that posed the question, “why are biographies so popular?”  I could ask, are they?  

I like to read biographies. I prefer the “auto” biography or memoir.  I do read biographies, but I am more inclined to go for the account actually written by the individual telling their own story. 

I feel that sometimes biography is used as a catch-all word that includes autobiography, biography, and memoir.  Here is the Wikipedia definition of memoir.

Going For a Walk: Meeting a Dog Named David

I enjoy a good walk, both for exercise and for thinking.  I find that some of my better ideas come to me, or are developed further on a good walk. Likewise, I try to do some walking every day, several miles a day if possible. Not always possible, but I find it good for the soul when I do.  I always seem to feel better about life after a walk.

The NHS in the UK states that research shows that physical activity can boost self-esteem, mood, sleep quality and energy, as well as reducing your risk of stress, clinical depression, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease.  That's good, especially in times like now.  

My walk this morning was a strange one.  A woman was walking her dog and while there was nothing strange about that, I heard her calling out to “David”.  I thought that David might be her son, hiding somewhere, but no, David was the name of her dog.  Is that a modern trend?

I had to look it up and saw on one site the 10 most popular names for boy dogs in 2022 were, Max, Charley, Cooper, Milo, Buddy, Rocky, Bear, Teddy, Duke, and Leo.  No sign of Prince, which was the name of a family dog that we had way back in the 1960s.

https://www.rover.com/blog/dog-names/

That was a USA listed site.

I found a UK site and Dave was listed number 24.  Prince is still in use by some, listed at 34.  Nice to see that Prince is still in use, although at number 11 is Harry, singular with no Prince title.  

https://www.bluecross.org.uk/advice/dog/wellbeing-and-care/top-dog-names

 

Image by Pexels from Pixabay.

Son of My Father - A Further Extract: The Bully and My Aston Martin

From Son of My Father.

When a friend turns out to not be a friend at all.

I had a friend at school by the name of Colin. Although we were the same age, he was quite tall and a lot bigger than me. I suspect that because of his size no one picked on him at school. We would often play football in the street opposite Number Thirteen. There were several garages with pull down sliding doors which we used as a goal. I’m sure the residents were overjoyed with the noise every time the ball hit the garage door.

Colin seemed a decent lad, but as the saying goes, appearances can be deceptive, as I was about to find out.

One day I invited him over to my house while mam and dad were out, and we ended up playing with my toy car collection made up of Matchbox, Dinky, and Corgi cars. Pride of place was a new car that Dad had just bought me, a James Bond 007 Aston Martin. A quick check on the internet tells me that back in 1966 this cost all of 3 old pennies. I think I was about seven or eight at the time, so I would have got mine in 1967 or 68.

Charity Shop Book Haul: Bargain Hunting for Books

I do like to look for bargains in charity shops.  I recently visited one that I had not been to for quite a while.  They had a sale on their books, five for £1.  Despite the sale being so cheap, I had trouble in finding five that I actually felt I might read.  It always seems to be like that.  A struggle to find the last one. It could just be me.

I came away with the following.

The Timewaster Letters by Robin Cooper (actually written by Robert Popper).  Looks fun and has some good reviews.  Huge bestseller according to the front cover.

Quite by Claudia Winkleman.  Will I ever read Claudia's offering? Is it aimed at me?  Not quite sure.

Peaky Blinders, The Real Story by Carl Chinn.   I've never watched The TV series of Peaky Blinders, but this book might give me an idea of the real past history of Birmingham's gang violence.  Do I really want to know?

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.  Bill Bryson knows how to write an epic book.  A big book.  There again, is 574 pages really enough to cover “everything” that history has to offer?  Well, he does say “nearly”.

Gone Fishing by Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse.  I've started with Gone Fishing, as I have watched the television series on YouTube.  I like both Mortimer and Whitehouse.  Even though it is about fish and fishing, the latter being something that I have never done or felt the need to do, I think I will read it all.  I do like fish though, especially with chips.

So, not bad for a quid in these cost of living crisis times.   Once I have read them, I will probably re-distribute them back to a charity shop or two.    

Book Review: The Kenneth Williams Diaries

What a carry on

 

Remembered for the Carry On films, Kenneth Williams was more than that. An outspoken man, his diaries tell all.

I read the Kenneth Williams Diaries many years ago, and this review is from memory and how I felt about them at the time. As time goes by, memory can often be unreliable, though.

But I remember the reason I read this book. In the 1960s, '70s and '80s, everyone knew about, and probably watched, the Carry On films. Repeated endlessly, especially at Christmas (they still are), it presented the naughty side of British life. Not to everyone's taste, of course, but they were very popular.

I wanted to know what it was like on the set of the Carry On films. They looked like they were having a good time. And they were the films for which he is best known, but in his diaries, Williams is somewhat dismissive of them. He doesn't hold back.

His own view of them was less than complimentary. 

They were bawdy and full of typical British innuendo. Seaside postcard humour on film. He probably saw them as below him, a classically trained actor. They were a job of work, and they didn't always pay that well. In the modern era, where successful actors are often paid millions, the stars of the Carry On films were lucky to be paid a few thousand pounds a film. In the diaries, he makes it clear how he felt about that.

I don't think he liked them, but took the job because even though they didn't pay much, it was acting work and a payday. He also enjoyed working with several actors who regularly appeared alongside him in those films.

Despite its 850-plus pages, the diaries are just a snapshot of Williams' life. He kept a diary for more or less every day of his adult life. The volumes sat there in his home, and after he died, it was Russell Davies who took on the job to condense them down to the book that we get to read.

I did wonder what it would be like to read all of them, though. Davies probably had to go through a lot of mundane, everyday life entries to get to the good bits. There was so much of it; one 850-page book is the tip of the iceberg.

In fact, Williams was prolific when it came to writing about his own life. Not just his diaries, he also wrote several books, including an autobiography, Just Williams, and Acid Drops. He also wrote Back Drops, which featured pages from his diaries — but not the controversial bits. 

In the world of showbiz, his diaries were well known. Many wondered what he had written about them, more so after he died. The diaries are a sort of confession of what he really felt. On the set of the Carry On films, he would occasionally tell someone, "You are going in my diary." Maybe in fun, maybe not.

Did Williams write them knowing that one day they would be made public? No one really knows. Diaries are, by definition, often very personal, meant to be kept secret. The only person who read his diaries while he was alive was Williams himself.

As he got older, the diaries show his insecurities, especially around his health. His sad end, and the mystery of how his life ended (certainly at the time), is there for all to see. He does occasionally write, "What's the point?” It's almost a cry for help, one that he would never say in public. 

The impression from the diaries was that he felt he was capable of achieving more than he did. And his last entries are somewhat sad — unlike a Carry On film.

But I do think it helps to have seen the “public” face of Williams to really appreciate the other side of his character that comes out in his diaries. He could be a difficult man who would sometimes take an instant dislike to someone. And when he appeared on the BBC's Just a Minute radio show, you could hear in his voice that he lost his temper occasionally. 

If you are expecting jolly japes and all fun and games from his diaries, you will be disappointed. They are of the "warts and all" variety. A fantastic read, though, even the mundane bits. It is a book that I am happy to give five stars to. 

And if I live long enough, I might just read it again some time.

Edited and updated, 06 March 2026 (and sometimes my memory reminds me of something worth adding).

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It can be found here.  Son of My Father

Son of My Father - An Extract - “They Think It's All Over, It Is Now...”

                                           

They think it’s all over…it is now. The famous last words remembered from England's 4-2 victory over West Germany at Wembley Stadium.

I was too young to remember that game, but I do have my own personal football memory from the 1960s. It would have been the late 1960s, and I was playing for the school football team on council run pitches.

Not quite 1966 World Cup level, but I played.

From Son of My Father, a further extract.

I played for the school football team, but it almost didn’t happen. We played on a Council run park that was on the outskirts of the city. The facilities were basic at best, and there were three football pitches.

Boys in the school team or close to selection played on the main pitch. The game was usually between two sides picked by the school football captain and the football coach. I was never picked, probably because I wasn’t a mate of the captain, and the coach hadn’t seen me play. I went and played on one of the other pitches. Pitch number three it was called. I played against boys who were not very good. At that level I was pretty good. I seemed to have a knack for scoring and most weeks, against inferior opposition, I would score several goals.

During one game I noticed that the coach was watching from the sidelines. I thought nothing of it until the following week when, as the teams were being picked for the main game, he pointed his finger at me when it was his turn and he said, “come on lad, you are too good for the other game.” Then he said, “Oh, what’s your name…” I told him, and he replied, “right, I’m playing you up front today. Good luck.”

The rest, as the saying goes, is history. Admittedly not that big in the greater scheme of things, but big for me at the time as no one had ever picked me for anything before. I wasn’t in with the right boys that would ever pick me for their sides, whether it was for games or playtime in the school yard.

I must have done something to impress the coach because when the school squad was picked for the first game of the season, I was on the subs bench. The other players on the team looked at me as if to say, who are you?

And so began my school football career. Was it life changing? Not really, but just to get picked I must have done something right. My dad never watched me play football. It never crossed my mind at the time that he wasn’t there. It was years later when it did occur to me.

That’s just the way it was.