Tour du monde I

Zut alors! as they say in the old language of the land of my fathers - it seems that Monsieur Thomas has been somewhat lax in keeping up with 'ze bloggings'. Quelle un idler!

I have travelled far and now reached Greenland (or 'The Emerald Isles' as it is known hereabouts) and am familiarising myself with 'Garlic' - the local lingua Celtisme.

I have many tales to tell, a pocketful of strange coinage to distribute to the needy orphans on my return, (don't bring the charitable works up again, will you?), and a 'clippe sur la bonce' for the errant Thomas.

Fait les bonnes temps roule, mes supplicants!

On vacances

I have made a sudden and irrevocable decision to quit the country for an indeterminate period and travel the world.

I would like to put on record that this is in no way connected with a petition currently being circulated by my rivals. This scurrilous document demands that I immediately hand over funds I have raised from others in good faith. It claims the funds will allow a group of undeserving urchins to pay a visit to the seaside and enjoy their first experience of a holiday.

I make a practice of never discussing my charitable work, although I should point out it was A BLOODY LONG AND DESPERATE TREK I UNDERTOOK AT GREAT PERSONAL RISK TO MY OWN LIFE AND LIMBS to raise that money. I am sure no one begrudges me the few measly pence I made out of this effort. It's not as if I even had the money long myself as I had to make my regular Club bar bill payment.

So, off I go globetrotting. I am reluctantly forced to leave the upkeep of my blog in the hands of that rapscallion Ben Thomas. He has assured me he will be posting regularly with all the wit the half-wit can muster.

So, ciao, mes Freunds!

Cricket, lovely cricket!

Great news!

I hear my cricket team have beaten those scoundrels and bounders from the Audit Commission! That’ll be the second time this year that the Gareth ‘The Cad’ Sully has had to slink home with his bails whipped off.

A lot of people find cricket a confusing game, and some even go so far as to call it “boring”. I think that it’s a game which rewards effort, and rewards should be earned and not attained without a bit of the old elbow grease. I gained my extensive knowledge of the game by simply going along to my local ground and listening to the comments of my fellow spectators. Occasionally I would ask a question, but it all fell into place eventually. So I say three cheers for our national sport!

Anyway, my lads – under the captaincy of Sam ‘Spiv’ Oestreicher - really spanked the arses off the Commission lads and by the end of the day we were eight goals to the good.

Fantastic stuff. Pimms all round, I think?

My Lurve Techniques

I have to be honest: I wasn't born with my powers.

I learned most of them at the knee of my Great Grandfather, Sir Colin Derrig, who was a celebrated philanderer and rogue. He was an enormously popular figure in his day, having a similar standing to that of the Tichborne Claimant. There is no denying he was much beloved in his time by laydeez of every shape and size and orientation.

I merely mention this as I was clearing out the attic at Maison Derrig the other day and stumbled across a reel of film.

Almost virtually decayed, I have had it restored to the best condition I can afford and present it here for all you students of Derrig Power.



I can only salute the old man for his stamina and good looks, which I have so obviously inherited.

Hallam: A Star High In Seventh Heaven (or, H.A.S.H.I.S.H)

Pictured here yesterday in special Yorkshire Day sunglasses.

It's not often one has the pleaure of hosting a hippy-dippy-trippy-glam-rock-groupie-cum-witch in Club Derrig, but we are fortunate to have a neo-pseudo-type one in Jools "Smoking, Snorting, Shooting, Spelling" Hallam, whose rare visits leave my many worldly-wise guests wondering just what the hell was going on.

Laying claim to having entertained the bongo drummer out of T.Rex, the second drummer in the Glitter Band, the bass player out of Slade, the guitarist out of Roxy Music, the Sweet, and most of Wizzard on one night of their all-star glam reunion tour in 1981 (13th May, Doncaster Alhambra), she insists her memory for individual names is far less important than her recall of their poptastic credentials.

She has an amazing recall for sordid details and can recount a lengthy and shocking tale for each of the notches on the heavily-scarred broomstick she is never seen without. This detailed recollection is all the more surprising as she has never knowingly turned down any substance offered her (save a Twix, once, her reasoning being that if a Mars Bar was good enough for Marianne it was good enough for her.).

Chocolate, she claims, is a sacrament. She can often be found wandering the streets of London drenched in it - and it alone - as if participating in some hippy dirty-protest performance art, and threatening to violently smear herself on unlucky passers-by. Indeed, those who have had the 'pleasure' of visiting "the Old Hallam House", as it is known by pent-up young men locally, will be enchanted by the many shrines to a vast array of chocolatiers that can be found in every room of that cursed building.

There is one good thing to say about Jools, though: she is always very handy on those rare occasions when the whiskey turns too sour or the brandy becomes undrinkable. She merely whips out a candle from some nook or cranny about her person and, whilst whirling on the spot - well, pretty much nearly on the spot - commences an invocation thus:

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!
On Ilkley Moor Bah Tat
On Ilkley Moor Bah Tat
La-la-la-la I believe I can fly
La-la-la-la Oooh - or do I?
La-la-la-la Up in the sky-y-y-y-y
La-la-la-la Right way up high-igh-igh
La-la-la-la Banish those bad spirits - ooooooooooooooh! - goodbye-bye-bye.

She then places all the bottles of "bad spirits" in her capacious carpet bag and leaves quickly. It certainly seems to work. For her, at any rate.

On evenings of the full moon she will hold what she describes as psycho-psychic-psychedelic happenings. These include fortune-telling using either cards, tea leaves, palmistry, a crystal ball, or - until a recent intervention by the licensing authority's Health and Safety fascist goons - the entrails of a freshly-slaughtered goat.

Unable to foretell the next day's weather with almost the accuracy of the Met Office, she is much sought after for advice on picnicking plans.

She is also able - when in a deep, alcohol-sustained trance - to summon forth those from the 'other side' who seem peculiarly willing to help with such mundane matters as where someone has mislaid their keys. Speaking in a voice not her own - one more refined, elegant, and less Yorkshire - she will channel the spirits thus, "Does anyone here know a of Charles who has passed? No? Wait it's....Charlotte.... no....no-one? Wait it's coming through clearly now - Carol?....Carlotta?....Carl? Oooooh, for flip's sake give me clue won't one of you?"

She has yet to reveal to us (although not, apparently, the members of Showaddywaddy) what she refers to as her "famous golden chakras".

Star Spot

My old mucker Braisers has turned up in another movie!

This time he's playing the part of a narcoleptic Mini-me to top lung cancer champion and celebrity sort Anthony Worrall-Thompson.
Party on, Braisers!

(Copyright Col Derrig.)

Me and the laydeez VI

I don't even have to ask and they hold my drinks. Richard Gere's got nothing on me.

My only problem is remembering their names!

Screen Icons (Two)

In an almost unprecedented and certainly unheard of as happening before coincidence, the DJ Mike Read has today been declared completely alive.

Personally I think that popular radio and televison would have died in the 70s without him, not to mention London's Theatreland.

Dear old Tallulah!

A regular fixture slumped at the bar of Club Derrig, Madamoiselle Tallulah "Fizzy-Shenanigans" McGuinness can be relied on for a full evening of entertainment, bawdy stories, and tailfeather-shaking.

To meet her one would think what a charming, if a tad sozzled, bohemian-type cracker. One would have no idea of the sad and troubled life she has led.

I think, therefore, it only right that I put on record her pitiful story, as told to me by her over the course of an extremely long and tedious evening. I was fortunate enough to have a tape recorder with me to capture Tallulah in all her glory, and I have faithfully transcribed her interminable monologue for your edification.

"...and er, yes. What? Ah, yes. Yes! Quite right. Stick another one in there, will you. Oh, go on then, a double. What? Oh yes."

"I was born by the river, in a little tent. No, wait a minute. That was Sam Cooke. Wasn't it? No, I remember now. Playing in the snow with my sled. Old Rosebud....whatever became of it? Wheeee! I used to go. Wheee! Down the hill. Very fast, you know. Ever so fast. WATCH OUT FOR THAT TREE! No, hang on, that was the fat feller - Horse'n'Welles. That Citizen Caned chappie. Oh, yes. My round already? Gosh, comes round like nobody's business, eh?"

"You know, there's no chicken in these crisps. Just the flavour they extract from them. Go through a wringer or similar, I imagine. The rest ends up in turkey roll. All true."

"I had that Pablo Pizzicato paint me once. It was his blue period. Couldn't get the stuff off for days. There I was wandering about like some ancient Brit all woaded-up. Can you imagine? Really? No, surely not! What, still? Well, I must get in that bathroom and have a good old scrub at it. Don't have any Ajax on you I suppose?"

"No, listen. Big conspiracy I heard about. Ssshh! Lean in a bit, can't have just anyone knowing this. I am sworn to secrecy. Can't tell a soul. My life depends on it. Gordon Brown. You know him? Big chap, on the telly a lot? No, not all that good at smiling. Ssssh. Scottish. Scottish! Can you believe it? There's hundreds of them. Running the country. An undercover network of them. Yes, me too. Totally shocked. No, I'd never marry one...Oh? Did I? Well, there's a turn up!"

"I do remember my dear old Mum. Played lead tuba in our musical group Superb Cuban Tuba Turbans. We all played tubas. Mum, Dad, and me. All eight of us. What, already?Oh go on then, just a little one. Yes, yes, a little double. Yes, Suburban Tuba Cooper Cubanos - a great little twelve-piece band. All on tubas. You know, there wasn't a place we weren't thrown out of after our first number. Not ready for it, you see, too many closed minds. Ava Gardner, you know? Sorry, Avant Gardner. Oh, absolutely. Or that might have been the Seven Little Foys? James Craggy, eh?"

"Look. LOOK! I bet you can't do this. Watch now. Watch...One! Two! Hup!.......CHRIST ALL-BLOODY MIGHTY. WHAT WAS I THINKING?.....Do you do first aid?"

"OK, where were we. OK. Right. Yes I was at the OK corral, shooting it out with the Clantons and the Earps. BANG! BANG-BANG-BANGEDY! BANG! Real bullets. Whizzing by like nobody's business. LOOK OUT, WYATT! Ooops. No, it wasn't me. No, I wasn't even pointing it at him. Well, I didn't pull the trigger. Not hard. Sorry....Hang on....NOW HOLD ON JUST A DOGGONE MINUTE! That was Burt Lancashire. I wasn't even in the country at the time. Stop confusing me with your offer of drinks. Well, if I must."

"I was in outer space once. That or the Caledonian Road. And I had a hat."

"Hey! Wake up! Here's a thing: I used do that wing-walking. You know, on the wing of an aeroplane. Very dangerous, I can tell you. Need all your powers of concentration, balance, and confidence. Couldn't do it now, of course. Terrible thing - I saw a girl fall off once. GET DOWN! That's what they used to shout at me. GET DOWN! I would wave back, not a care in the world. GET DOWN! THE PLANE CAN'T TAKE OFF WITH YOU UP THERE YOU DRUNKEN IDIOT! The more I waved the more they shouted. Those were the days."

"I ran into this bar once and started singing and dancing. Dressed in buckskins, and waving a gun around. How did it go? Window shopping eyes-a-popping...the best of times, the worst of times. Doris Daze? Why clever you - yes, she was there too! How on earth did you know?"

"Derek Griffiths and Michael Fish? Amazing! Well, you learn something new every day."

"I've got the most tremendous memory for conversations. I can recite word-for-word YES I SAID WORD FOR WORD - FOR GOD'S SAKE PAY ATTENTION WILL YOU! Yes, anything anyone has ever said to me. Absolutely.Word-for-blooming-word."Hello." They say that a lot. And there was one I remembered earlier. Damned if I can...oh yes, here goes, "Get out of the bloody way." Yes, a remarkable memory."

"Did you know, I go out walking after midnight? In the moonlight, just like we used to do? Just walk away Renee you won't see me follow you back home. Keep it up, two, three, four! Oh the aim of our patrol...what? Peter Purves? Once. Up a ladder. Big bandanna he had and terrible acne. Shocking. Oh you naughty boy, go on then. Another one for the road never did anyone any harm. Gosh, you look very tall. Like a giant. What? No idea. Did I fall? Give me a hand up will you? HEY! GET YOUR GRUBBY HANDS OFF MY BOA!"

And there, I'm afraid, the tape ran out.

Unfortunately, Tallulah was able to go on for many hours more.

Screen Icons (One)

R.I.P Mike Read.

I was only chatting to him the other day, telling him how his greatest televisual work had been done in Runaround.

The campaign for the re-release of his version of 'The Ugly Duckling' starts here. You can sign up to my petition to Gordon Brown, PM, here: www.petitions.pm.gov.uk/uglyduckling