D’ya hear yer man

People often ask me what my philosophy is when faced with a closed door. ‘Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,’ is my motto.

Yer man is back

I hope you enjoyed Jenna and Clint’s efforts in my absence last week.

Now I don’t mind a good slagging, or even an average slagging, but at least they could have spelt my name right. Who is Greame? I’ve worked here seven and a half years and it’s printed in the paper often enough, so you’d think by now they’d know how to spell it. Unless it was misspelt deliberately to rile me. In which case it worked. But what’s the excuse for all the other typos? (Humph - ED)

Jenna will not be writing another column for the foreseeable future. She tried it once and got her fingers burnt... literally.

On Thursday night Jenna gave herself a nasty injury when she scalded her hand and ended up in A+E. She’d been attempting to make a Pot Noodle, but had put too much water in the kettle which had bubbled over onto her unsuspecting hand.

I’m trying to work out which would be tastier - Pot Noodle with soy sauce or steamed hand with second degree burns. It’s a close call.

Counting the cost

We’re told there was a low turn out at the polls yet it’s taken them an eternity to count up the votes for the Assembly and Council elections. My suspicion is that they’ve hired The Count from Sesame Street to oversee the process...

“One hundred and seventy one... Ha, ha, ha. One hundred and seventy two... Ha, ha, ha. One hundred and seventy three... Ha, ha, ha.”

“Excuse me Count, can you check if those are first preference votes?”

“I’m not sure. First preference I think... Ha, ha, ha.”

“And are they for the Assembly elections or the Council elections?”

“Council, no wait, Assembly... Ha, ha, ha. I’ve lost count now... Ha, ha, ha. I’ll have to start again. One... Ha, ha, ha. Two... Ha, ha, ha.”

How to lose a vote

One night last week my Uncle Harold was tucked up for the night when he heard an almighty commotion in the hallway. He got up from his slumber to inspect the cause of the din. Lying on the carpet in the hall was an election leaflet for one of the local political parties. Harold checked the time. 10.45pm. He made two decisions. Number one. He wouldn’t be voting for a political party who went out canvassing past his bedtime. Number two. He would need to get some WD40 for his letterbox.

D’ya hear Yer Godfather

It’s official. I’m now a Godfather. Or for the purposes of this column, Yer Godfather. With this position of great power comes great responsibility. It’s also a good excuse to do Marlon Brando/Al Pacino impersonations.

Myself and Karen became Godparents to Craig and Laura’s beautiful baby girl Matilda Iris on Sunday. I even got a new suit for the service.

I think it may be only the fourth suit I’ve ever owned. I outgrew suit one and suits two and three both fell apart at the seams. Comically, on both occasions they came apart at the seams of the derriere.

With suit four I went for a dark and plain number to maximise the number of shirts that will go with it and the number of occasions I can wear it at.

On Sunday I suspected there would be a lot of children in attendance so I stuffed a few chocolate bars into my inside pocket in case they got peckish. As it turns out there were plenty of goodies for the infants without my supplies so they stayed in my pocket.

When I got home I realised one of the chocolate bars had melted all over my new suit. I removed the offending bar of chocolate and said: “I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart.”

(I realise that joke is aimed at a narrow band of people who are both fans of The Godather movies and chocolate aficionados - let’s hope some of them are reading this.)

Weekly teaser

The answer to the last teaser was: hail.

This week puzzler: How many famous men and women can you name that were born in Lurgan?