FANTASTIC music for a FANTASTIC day !

I was awake at 4am with ideas flooding my mind. My 4am moment. Following that I am gloing to have a mega busy day - It's going to be a FANTASTIC day so can I help you start your day off with some FANTASTIC music.

The late, great Ken Dodd I believe during his lifetime made more people smile than any other person before or after him. Indeed I believe nobody will ever overtake him.

As well as a genius comedian Ken was a great singer so let 's start our day with what was undoubtedly Ken's biggest hit:

My best-selling book right now is A QUIZ A DAY KEEPS OLD AGE AWAY. Yesterday I sold 169 copies.

I am going to in January start writing a new book WHO NEEDS A PUB TO HAVE A QUIZ. I am writing quiz questions for our police, care home residents, NHS and many more.

Time now for another piece of music. This in my arrogant but one hundred percent accurate oppinion is the greatest piece of music ever written;

Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water. Take the music away from the music and you have abeautiful piece of music. Divorce the music and you are left with a powerful poem. 

I first heard this piece of music when I was a student. It was impossible to walk around the student hall of residence without hearing somebody playing it in their room. 

I have tried ever since to live my life like a Bridge Over Troubled Water.

Remaining in the early 1970's and my student days. On Freshers Day at Oxford we all had to attend a boring service where the chaplain preached a sermon on King Lear ! What a diabolical subject for a sermon. A mate of mine act ually fell asleep, we were all brain dead. Then what a change of mood as a group of students read a popem as the benediction. DESIDERATA - desired things. We all took that away and pinned it up in our college rooms. Metaphorically it is still pined up in my college room.

One of my January writing projects will be L'Escargot Albert. I have been men tally composing it ready for my fingers to hit the laptop keyboard on 1st January.

When I was at school French lessons were always an excuse to be silly and mess about. French teachers were always called Frog. Now almost sixty years later, I am not proud of that fact and that my ability to speak French is confined to a maximum of five words.

Those five words I remember from my first French teacher. He invented a character Albert The Snail – l’escargot Albert who had a series of adventures which were always told to the class in French.

I have used the character of Albert, set the story in my own garden featuring those who live there: Nutter Boris the squirrel, Spike the hedgehog, Jeremy the Crowbin, B, B and C three pigeons who like to report the news but infortunately can not see beyond the end of their beaks. Albert's best friend in the garden is Wiggley Woo:

At 4am this morning I awoke with the end of the book in my mind, an ending of love and biodiversity. This book will not be long enough for a paperback edition on Amazon but I do hop lots of people will enjoy the e-book version.

My quiz book is popular, at 4am I came up with an idea for a joke book. Again as a student, in our day there was something called Rag Week.  I can so clearly remember a Birmingham

University Rag Week magazine in which this joke was published:

Puff the Magic Dragon couldn't find a mate

So he frolliced in the autumn mist accustomed to his fate

Then one day he found her, a cracklin' bit of stuff

But he did not know what just to do

That's why they called him PUFF !

Is that politically correct these days ?  I'm not sure but I hope it make you smile and for certain it is going to appear in my joke book. 

Another joke for you:

Why did the chicken cross the road ?

To get to the other side.

No, to collect his old age pension. Do you get it ?

No.

Nor the chicken, he was under sixty-five ?

Correction, sixty-six since the scumbag government raised the age of retirement  !

One final piece of music. People tend to think of me as a bit of a retro pooper and I do admit to being a secret punk rocker but the genre of music I love more than anything is classical.

My favourite piecve of classical music is The Radetzky March by Johann Strauss Senior.  It was commissioned for Field Mnarshall Radesky von Redik. When first performed officers started to stamp their feet and clap in time to the music.

It is written in my will that this will be played at the end of my funeral. People cal clap to celebrate my life or applause to say thank goodness that silly old sod has gone !

More music tomorrow but to end today which is going to be a FANTASTIC DAY - something from my YouTube Channel and my life motto: LIFE IS A DISCO SO DANCE !

A quiz for cops

 

Yesterday I printed and laminated lots and lots of our SMILE cards ready to t ake them in the New Year to our friends in the police.

Shops  are publishing their opening hours over Christmas, the police have not published their opening hours - they are 24/7/365.

Only essential retail is open - the cops are open no matter what lock down tier we are in officers will always be on dut y.

To go with the SMILE cards I have written a quiz. You do not need to be a cop to have a bit of fun.

How many can youi answer ?

  Former star of Birds Of A Feather Pauline Quirk plays which TV detective ?

Whose call sign was Z Victor One ?

3.    In which two prisons did Oscar Wild service his sentence ?

4.   Which Tory MP and writer wrote A Prison Diary following a convict ion for perverting the course of justice ?

5.    In a TV series which cop was actually a ghost ?

6.    What was a jam-sandwich ?

7.    Which police choir sang with The Pogues ?

8.    In which year was fingerprinting introduced ? 1901 – 1920 – 1899 ?

9.    Which crime took place at Bridego Bridge south of Milton Keynes ?

10. What role did Albert Pierrepoint play in the British justice system ?

11. 1950’s TV series, what area of London did Dixon patrol ?

12. Who was executed for the A6 murder ?

13. About which crimes did Brian Masters write in his book Killing For Company ?

14. Let him have it Chris: Within which trial were these words used to find an accused guilty ?

15. Who was the policeman in Enid Blyton’s Noddy In Toyland stories ?

16. In which Gilbert & Sullivan opera was a policeman’s lot not a happy one ?

17. In which TV series would you find Detective Inspector Sandra Pullman ?

18. In which village did Agatha Christie’s character Miss Marple live ?

19. Whose wartime policing took place in Hastings ?

20. Edith Pargeter under the pen-name of Ellis Peters wrote about which Benedictine monk detective ?

21. Which American TV detective was addicted to sucking a lollypop ?

22. Who are the fictional, humorously incompetent policemen featured in silent film slapstick comedies produced between 1912 and 1917 ?

23. Sweeney Tod = The ?

24. Which TV series was based at Sun Hill Police Station ?

25. About which notorious gangland criminals did their brother write a book: Me And My Brothers ?

26. Inspector Jack Frost, what was his real Christian name ?

27. In the TV series who was  detective Dalziel’s sidekick ?

28. Serving in Northumberland and City Police who was the Detective Chief Inspector playing the central role in the TV series which ran from 2011 to 2020 ?

29. Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez maintained law and order on which island ?

30. What was a Panda ?

31. Which Labour Party Peer campaigned unsuccessfully for the parole of Moors Murderer Myra Hindley ?

32. Starring in the TV series, who sand the title music for New Tricks ?

33. Who solved the murder on the Orient Express ?

34. At which address did Sherlock Holmes live ?

35. Who sand the original version of The Laughing Policeman ?

36. Who wrote the book 10 Rillington Place telling of John Christie’s crimes ?

37. In which fictional Southern California town is the American TV series Starskey and Hutch set ?

38. I which TV series did John Thaw and Kevin Whateley feature ? (The later previously lived in Wavendon Milton Keynes)

39. In the TV series Frost who was Inspector Jack’s fishy boss ?

40. Which criminal played by Anthony Hopkins appears in the film version of Silence Of The Lambs ?

41. Having also appeared in TV series as a judge and a professional who played The Chief Constable in the 1990’s series The Chief ?

42. What was the name of the special police major crimes task force operating at the behest of the governor of Hawaii ?

43. On which fictional Caribbean island is Death In Paradise set ?

44. Which car features in the TV cop series Life On Mars ?

45. Which dog attracted the attention of Sherlock Holmes ?

46. Which amateur cleric detective did G K Chesterton write about ?

47. In which Cambridgeshire village did Detective Inspector Keating and Rev Sidney Chambers work ?

48. Private investigators Frank Hathaway and  Luella Shakespeare solve cases where ?

49. Starring Raymond Burr what was his character who was confined to a wheel chair ?

50. Of all fictional TV cop series which is claimed to be the most true to life ?

Let's be festive

For the first year in a long while I have not published a music advent calendar on YouTube, I don't know why 1st December justr came and went. A bit like the reast of 2020 The Year That Never Was.

So can I today share some of my Christmas favourites ?

Somebody give me a nudge in November 2021 and remind me to start my YouTube Advent Calendar. What tier will we all be in then ?  One thing is for certain we will not be out of the pandemic, not by a long way. I wouldn't mind betting trade negotiations will still be going on with the european dictatorship.

November 2021, with Google Blogger have sorted out the mess they have made with this bit of social media ? I doubt it. Google admit it is a mess but couldn't care less about we cust omers, we users !

So what shall I play  as our first bit of Christmas music ?  I am a bit of a secret punk rocker so let's have The Pogues and A Fairy Tale Of New York.

As part of our ONE MILLION KISSES project I have written a Quiz Fior Cops. I will be taking ciopies tiogether with our SMILE CARDS and boxes of New Year sweets to the police station in January to wish all a Happy New Year. 

What's the next song ? How about a bit of Country. Jim Reeves and A Mery Christmas Polka.

Now specially for my LEONITES here is Mr Abbott's favourite piece of Christmad music. He used to sing this as he danced down the corrissor in his black cape. (Well he did in my imagination)

That was a bit  of fun wasn't it ?  NO, it was a LOT of fun.

Change the mood again. Here is the most  beautiful recording of the most beautiful carol ever written.

I defy you not to have a tear in your ear as you listen to that beautiful rendition.

I have always said that German is the best language to listen to any song in, there is something about its tone that makes it special. Here's is something in that wonderful language:

Dating back nearly forty years the most listened to pice of Christmas music is, of course, Do They Knmow It's Christmas:

Christmas 2020, how many people round the world know it's Christmas ? I have enough food in my home to last until Christmas 2021 and longer. How many people can say the same ? The whole world needs feeding.

Something more I am always saying. If you feed a person's belly that does not stop them being hungry. You also need to feel their minds but even then they are still hungry. Only when you also feed their heart with love will the hinger go away.

This yerar feed the belly of people you know, feed their minds and feed their hearts with love.

Now I am going to play something from Boney M. Why am I playing this ?  Because I like Boney M and I like the song, so I need any other reason ?

I have already played Silent Night and I have said that German is the most beautiful language when it comes to singing. Here is Silent Night sung not only in German but alo in five other languages.

Now here is something special. Here is something VERY special. Those who know me will know just whyb this is so special. Special - Incredible - Fantastic - Beautiful - Amazing. No matter how many Chrsitmases come and no matter how many will go this will always be so important to me.

In  three days tine it will be Christmas. Yes it will be. One week it will ne New Year.

QUIZ for cops, NHS, Teachers, Care Homes and Granddad

I have had one of my 4am moments again. My head is exploding with ideas so I have just had to get out of bed and open the laptop !

Yesterday I printed off fifty of our SMILE cards, laminated them and prepared a small opackage to drop into the Dreamsai food box in Morrissons tomorrow. I am inviting Dreamsai to purt these into their parcvels of love in the New Year.

Also yesterday I brainstormed a quiz - A QUIZ FOR COPS which I will type up, print out and deliver to Milton Keynes Cop Shop on Monday 4th January 2021.

See if you can answer some of the brainstormed questions on the left.

WHOSE CALL SIGN WAS Z-VICTOR-ONE ?

WHAT DETECTIVE DOES FORMER BIRDS OF A FEATHER STAR PAULINE QUIRK PLAY ?

HE WAS IN THE SWEENEY, MINDER AND NEW TRICKS. WHO IS HER ?

I make regular visits to Oakgrove School taking SMILE CARDS and tubs of sweets for the staff room thanking the teachers for the amazing work they are doing during these hard times. I plan to write a QUIZ FOR TEACHERS which I will take in on Monday 18th January, one the school has settled into the new regime and the covid testing programme.

Come on you teachers reading this. WHAT WAS ROSLA ?  And WHAT WAS ITA ?

Four AM moment - my head is birsting with questions to add to this quiz.

I keep say ing this but my heart bleeds for our TEENAGERS who are going through the hardest time of all during the pandemic. I am going to write a quiz for them: THINGS TO ASK YOUR GRANDDAD. If a kid is not able to see his grandparents then I want to encourage a bit of letter writing with questions like;

WHAT WERE DRAINPIPES ?

WHAT WAS SHORT BACK AND SIDES ?

YOUR GRANDDAD MAY BE A BIT TOO EMBARASSED TO TELL YOU BUT ASK HIM WHAT WAS S.W.A.L.K ?

Every week across 2021 I will be sending SMILE cards to different wards on our hospitals: NHSsmiles.com The first will be sent out on Monday 4th January. With these, every week, there will be an NHS QUIZ. A couple of quetions:

WHICH DOCTORS WORKED FROM ARDEN HOUSE ?

WHAT WAS THE NUMBER OF THE EMERGENCY WARD ?

WHAT SO THE LETTERS M A S H STAND FOR ?

Have you ever read Jules Verne's novel AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS ? I have in my head some silly, fun geography quiz questiins we can send to residents in care homes along with our smile cards.

Now obviously sending these kisses of love and smiles during 2021 has a cost. This appeared in my e-mail inbox this morning:

Printer ink is my single biggest expenditure. For 2021 KISSES and SMILES I think I will need

to dip into my pocket for about £100 and then another £50 for postage. No problem, I will do that and use my book roy alties to help cover things.

One of my most populat books right now is A QUIZ A DAY KEEPS OLD AGE AWAY. It is not a story book but a collection of one thousand quiz questions I wrote during the pandemic to keep my Mum (92 years old) and my Dad (95 years old) activie in their minds. CHECK IT OUT.

I am thinking that as we send out quiz after quiz to different people blowing kisses and making smiles these could be gathered together in a new book: WHO NEEDS A PUB TO HAVE A QUIZ.

I guess I am going to have a load more 4am moments in order to come up with 1,000 different questions for that book.

Yawn !

We now need BIGGER kisses

Get your kisses ready.

The plan was to look at the support being offered as of Friday 18th December then decide how to proceed with NHSKisses ready for 1st January 2021. I was intending to share today my thinking that everything go ahead but not asking the hospitals to do anything as pressures on them was building. I would write the books and try to draw support around me.

Then everything was turned upside down yesterday.

Throughout there has always been the message PROTECT OUR NHS but with the current wave, the new strain and a very uncertain start to 2021 it is clear that we have NOT protected our NHS.

The last thing any hospital can now do is to work with a writing project trying tio raise finds for its work. Having slept on things I want here today to put forward a new strategy, a new and wider strategy but a much nore simple one.

At the centre will remain our NHS and hospitals. I have picked out thirteen with which I have a particular connection. Anyone at any tine can add a hospital to the project.

I will write a minimum of one million words in a minimum of 24 books across 2021. A personal target, however is 30 books and one and a half million words.

Every time I publish a book I will make a personal donation to a hospital and will invite supportes to do the same.

However, there is more, far more, to support than money. In addition to giving money I want our kisses to pick out and show love to individual people at all levels worjing in the hospitals. This can start with our SMILE card and move to some gifts of love such as bozes of chocolates, cakes and other goodies.

I want to extend the Smiles and Kisses to care homes. We have our quiz sheets we can send to residents. I will set up the books You Never Grow Old With Rock And Roll - Swinging Through The Sixties and Life Is A Disco So Dance into paperback format so we can give these to residents.

I have been getting my Mum and Dad (95 & 92)  to write doen some of their memories. IF we can build a strong relationship with a care home or two we can ask residents to write their own memories.

This is a year long project so we will simply start with the SMILE cards and move forward as opportunities and invitations permit.

Sending SMILE cards to families with a child sick in hospital, families in countries round the world did not get off the ground then the first lockdown brought an end to it all.

Unlike the SMILE card which are anonymous these cards have simple messages of love - KISSES - written on the rear.

Every month we will send cards to a different hospital round the world. Anyone can take cards for their family to sign and I will be putting different people on the spot asking their families to sign cards.

Last time round I invited both The Mayor of Milton Keynes and The Mayor of Newport Pagnell to sign cards. BOTH trashed the love, failed to respond and binned both the blank cards and the reply envelopes I sent to them. Milton Keynes Citizen and BBC Three Counties Radio also showed their lack of love. The list goes on with business having 

their HQ in Milton Keynes: Domino Pizza, Santander Bank, Network Rail and Argos. I asked EVERY High Commissioner and Ambassador represneting a country within the project to sigbn cards. Again each and every one of them TRASHED the love, binned the cards and the reply envelopes.

This time I will not waste time on those who spend all their time playing to the gallery. That is not love and we do not need their kisses. We need REAL people with REAL love. People like you.

While the NHS remains at the centre of everything, I want to invite people to throw kisses to other people who are going the extra mile to support society in these hard times, times which are going to get harder during 2021.

We have some amazing people and amazing organisations doing some amazing things. Let's blow kisses to them all.  We do not need to replicate what they are doing but to show them love with SMILES and KISSES saying THANK YOU.

Yestraday I spoke about my best friend Doggie Jake and his part of the 2021 writing project - Jake's Doggie Blog. Within his blog I am going to give Jake a little job to do. Before I quit playing music on the radio I broadcast a DISCO OF LOVE. From this a local pet supermarket donated FIVE HUNDRED tins of dog food to be given out at a food bank distribution centre.

If a family is struggling to feed its members during these difficult times then this included it doggie.

In the New Year Jake will be taking a tray of dog food to the Food Bank distribution centre at The Frank Moran Centre.

Jake will be inviting your doggie to contribute to DOGGIES IN NEED. Please be generous so Jake can write a big chapter in his Doggie Blog.

Doggies blow kisses you know. So do pussycats.

The books will remein at the centre of the project as will our NHS. For every book I write and publish I will, make a donation to a hospital. I will be inviting you to do the same.

It does not matter if what I write is rubbish or genius, the target is to beat the world record of Barbra Cartland. HOWEVER, I am not looking for personal applause and to be chased by the media. In early 2022, if I have beaten the reciord we can then get it added to the Guinness Book of Records. Right now the books are to genrate the kisses and smiles.

I want to sell books, lots of them, but not to fill my pockets. EVERY SINGLE PENNY of royalties, 70% of the cover proce for an e-book, will fund kisses and smiles - from putting stamps on enveklopes to post SMILE cards to giving a box of chocolates to ward staff in a hospital.

Publications I have planned for JANUARY 2021 include: In Search Of The Leons. Retro Eighties. L'Escargot Albert. Quadrilogy.

Aliens In Time. The Bridge House. In Search Of the Leons and The Bridge House being republications.

Will you spend a few pennies to buy an e-book ?

While I am not going to refuse support from the media such is fickle and with its own agenda, particular the BBC. 

Something I often say is THE WAVE OF LOVE FLOWS IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. We are all having a hard time but it is for our teenagers that my hear bleeeds more than any others. They are having the most important and formative years of their lives ripped apart. I want anyione and everone to use THE SUNSHINE SMILE

CREW to promote what we are doing but I want to invite teenagers to take charge.  I will, be approaching one specific school in the New Year to take the lead then trying to roll it out to others. Do you have teenagers in your family who could help ?

My thinking is to give this important part of our society something positve to do, something they can puit their minds to within the chaos. So ething they can tell their own children and grandchildren about.

My next blood donor session will be 15th February. The pandemic crashed TEEN HERO MK recruiting 17 year olds to sign up as donors. Sending KISSES TO OUR NHS I want us to encourage as many people as we can to become donors.

Are you a blood donor ?

There's a lot there but it is simple. Each day I will write a diary page here on Google Blogger which monthly I will publish as an e-book then at the end of the year put everything into a paperback, the paperback which will end this project.

If this project is going to work we have to keep everything simple and easy, easy to engage other prople to bring in  their support.

Between now and Monday 28th December I will put everything into a revised website NHS KISSES. 

We can then hit the grpound running at one second past midnight on Friday 1st January 2021.

WILL YOU RUN WITH ME ?

BOOK FIVE - Jake's Doggie Blog

 

Do you have a doggie best friend living in your home ?

On 1st October 2013 Jake came to live withg my family. Life today without Jake is unimaginable. Jake the dog, Jake the dog, there's no one quite like Jake The Dog.

When Jake came to live with us he started writing a blog on-line. Although it only  lasted for a short time I do have the original text. Pronbably in Februrary Jake will work with me to take that text, add to it and produced a book for our NHS KISSES project.

Jake actually appears within the planning I am working on for a January story L'ESCARGOT ALBERT.

Jake the dog - Jake the dog - there's no one quite like Jake the dog.

Jake is busy recalling as many of his memories as he can. 

Memories which include his fame on YouTube:

Jake is a rescue dog so for him this piece of music is a bit special:

Within his blog I am going to give Jake a little job to do. Before I quit playing music on the radio I broadcast a DISCO OF LOVE. From this a local pet supermarket donated FIVE HUNDRED tins of dog food to be given out at a food bank distribution centre.

If a family is struggling to feed its members during these difficult times then this included it doggie.

In the New Year Jake will be taking a tray of dog food to the Food Bank distribution centre at The Frank Moran Centre.

Jake will be inviting your doggie to contribute to DOGGIES IN NEED. Please be generous so Jake can write a big chapter in his Doggie Blog.

Finally here's a picture of Jake with his birthday present from last October:

BOOK 4 - Aliens In Time

In the early part of the year I started writinga book ALIENS IN TIME. As I began putting my plot around the characters I realised this was going to be a sh ort story rather than a book,  After 7,230 words I felt the plot was getting too complicated for readers to follow so I set it aside.

The thinking is that I will keep the plot and the characters but rewrite much of the original text as part of our 2021 NHS Kisses peoject.

The story line ventres rpound THE GARWOOD THEORY. Doctor Garwood was the head of my college where I trained as a teacher. In my st ory he is  a professor of quantujm mechanics. His theory is that germs carrying dissease are actually aliens travelling through both space and time. Measles, Smallpox, Bubonic Plague, Tuberculosis, have all been brought to Planet Earth by aliens in time.

Garwood has two students, freshers, who he quickly spots as geniuses and brings them right into the heart of his reserach. There is Arthur who likes to be known as Art:

And there is Freddie:

Not part of Garwood's department but joining the team is Mandy who is studying micro fossils:

These are pictures I nicked from the internet to help me visualise and build characters. The photographs will not be included in the story.

I began writing this story in early February when the pandemic was new. It comes into the story but it is way, way short of the situation we are living through now at the end of the year. I  am pondering just how I will adapt the st ory line to accommodate covid-19.

My wish it to finish this story which I think will end up round about 12,000 words.

As I said yesterday, I am looking forward to 1st January and starting writing, for now I am researching all kinds of bits and pieces for my one million words.

Tomorrow I will tell you about another book.