Lord of the Dance

This very evening I found myself at Body Pump, which sounds like some sort of deviant practice but is, in fact, a harmless fitness class. It's a mix of weightlifting and dancing so it's well suited for a man with my muscular prowess and natural rhythm.

To be fair, my dancing skills are radical and unshackled from the restrictive doctrines of conventional wisdom on the subject. I steadfastly refuse to be a slave to the beat and recognised dance moves are not my masters. For me, it's all about the spontaneity of flinging my leg in the air and not knowing where it might lead me.

We're a rare breed us natural dancers. I rarely catch sight of a like-minded soul, mostly as we're both caught up in the moment to notice each other, but once, on a surprising holiday in Ibiza (surprising for the fact that it was me, in Ibiza) I saw one chap who flailed past me as I was spinning in the opposite direction. I was impressed. He'd obviously been studying my technique for some time and was keen to incorporate some of my fancy footwork into his own wild fusion. That or he too had knocked back several jugs of Sangria, it's sometimes hard to tell.

Mind you, even when I'm sober as a Judge, the music can take control and I have to be very careful. Tonight I very nearly kicked one chap in the shin and a young lady up the derrière. Mind you she had also adopted a laissez-faire attitude to her backward kicks and came within a whisker of wiping out my gentleman's area with her size 6 Nike trainer. For one moment I saw my testicles' lives flash before my eyes, a sobering vision indeed.

In the end I escaped unscathed and unharmed. Dancing doesn't get harder than this, especially when you throw in a weights bar and some dumb bells.

Maybe next year this freestyle weights dance combo will make it onto Strictly. Until then the motto has to be.....keep dancing!!

Say What You See

Whilst traversing through the world we often engage in brief conversations with all manner of people. Most often they are just polite acknowledgements, a cheery “Good morning”, unless it’s the afternoon of course.

We’ve all trod that fine line around midday where we’ve wished a stranger “Good morning” and you realise you’ve engaged with some clock-watching pedant who feels compelled to correct you that it’s now three minutes past twelve and so it should really be “Good afternoon’, whereupon you pick up a stray tree branch and bludgeon them to death, or at the very least wonder why you bothered in the first place. If you stick to “Hello” you should be on safer ground chronologically speaking.

The recent cold snap has meant that certain people I have encountered have felt obliged to go into more depth and ask my opinion on things, which makes me realise that I need to be more conscious of what I’m wearing. You see I’ve been wearing my woolly hat more often, but it is a hat that bears the logo of Southampton Football Club. Therefore, I have found myself in the past couple of weeks being questioned about the recent sacking of our manager, a certain Mr Adkins, and the replacement with one Senor Pochettino.

The problem is that I don’t have a view. Yes, it was surprising, but it’s football. I’m sure he’ll either be good at his job or he won’t. Yes, I care, even more so after an ale or two, but the rest of the time, c’est la vie.

So, after the initial confusion of being asked “What do you think of the new manager?” whilst I’m scraping ice off the car, the conversation doesn’t really have a lot of legs.

The problem gets worse when people strike up a conversation out of nowhere and with no context. There I was in Tesco, trying to get out with my small amount of shopping as quickly and efficiently as possible by using the self service machine when one of the staff caught my eye and said to me, “I like the food there”. I looked down at my basket full of pizza and ice cream and wondered what in particular had caught his eye when he followed this up with “I was there yesterday lunchtime”.

I’m told that my face gives away what I’m saying so he must have seen a face that said “What on earth are you waffling on about?”

He attempted to help, “Do you work there?”

It was only whilst I was forming the words “Work where?” when I realised I was wearing a polo shirt bearing the name of my local pub. I’d got it for free at their 10^th anniversary bash and had slung it on for my brief sojourn for wine and sustenance.

I put him right but he seemed a little disappointed with this response and I went away feeling as if I’d let him down somehow, despite the fact that I never started the damned conversation in the first place.

Finally, this morning I was approached in the gym by a ruddy-faced man with a bushy ginger beard who informed me that he agreed with me.

I momentarily considered the many ill-informed and downright illogical beliefs I hold and wondered which one it was he might agree with. Could it be that he agrees that the universe is just a small particle of dust, like the sort that catches your eye at home when it passes through the sunlight streaming through the window? Maybe he agreed that it’s possible to be trapped inside a dream (it happened to me, but that’s another story)? Or could it be that he agrees that if you drink beer after drinking spirits it will sober you up?

Then I realised that the hairy fellow was looking towards my torso and wasn’t necessarily admiring my newly emerging abdominal muscles that are presently involved in a gruesome and fruitless territorial battle with my stomach, but was in fact staring at my t-shirt, which bore the phrase ‘Running Sucks’.

So, the lesson here is, I need to look in the mirror before I leave the house to remind myself of the talking points that may arise from my choice of clothing and prepare more interesting responses than, “Er…yeah”.

The alternative of course is not to go out, or at least not when sober.

Festive Wisdom

So there it went, faster than an Austrian out of a balloon, the Christmas holidays have zipped by and we are now in the most miserable month of the year, January. The month that generates the most divorces, unwise career moves and (in some cases) suicides is upon us. Happy New Year!

However before we embrace the gloom and realise that going cold turkey on booze and chocolate on the 1^st January is a stupid idea that rarely pans out beyond the first couple of weeks I am taking a quick look back at the important things I learnt during the brief festivities.

Indulge me a little if you will, it’ll put your mind off the fact that the back pain you’ve noticed is in fact your liver screaming for mercy and that the shaking is just a craving for even a Strawberry Cream from the now empty Quality Street tin.

So, in no particular order:

      1.    When it comes to presents I’m still a kid. Out of all the sensible presents I received, the ones that I keep coming back to are the remote controlled helicopter, the yo-yo, and the magic trick where the bug disappears. All of these things took me back to being 8 years old again. Joyful.

      2.     When it comes to presents, sensible is the best way forward. OK, so there’s a balance and I get equal joy from socks and shirts, and slippers, and smellies, and beer. Lots of beer. I think it comes down to the fact that it saves me from buying them myself. You know, that self satisfied feeling when you consider that you won’t have to buy any shower gel until at least March. Wonderful.

      3.     Invite less people for Christmas dinner. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely to have the family over, everyone coming together and laughing and eating and singing, and……well, no that’s not the reality is it?

I mean, in a larger house where we had a staff of chefs, butlers, and housekeepers maybe, but the cold hard reality is that I am usually to be found outside freezing my arse off on Christmas morning, cleaning garden furniture so that it can be brought into our comparatively modest lounge so that everyone can sit down. Of course by the time I get inside my efforts are rewarded by the fact that everyone have sat themselves on the nice chairs and I’m perched on a stool at the far end of the room wondering where all the sprouts have gone. We didn’t do that this Christmas.

No, this Christmas it was just the present and future Mrs Haywards for dinner (the latter of whom was entertainingly hungover) and it was easy and blissful. Yes, we saw family later at the outlaws’ house and that was great, but not having a houseful for dinner at Chez Hayward meant that I didn’t get frostbite and I could gorge myself on sprouts until my heart’s content.

      4.     Biscuits are the new Milk Tray. The previous Christmas we received, from numerous sources, about twenty-three boxes of Milk Tray. As welcome as they were we didn’t really know why we received so much Milk Tray in particular. I guess there was an offer on, although amusingly every box was of a different shape and size. This year, not one offering of Milk Tray emerged from underneath any shiny wrapping paper, although we did receive biscuits. Many tins of biscuits.

Initially I thought this to be curious, as I’ve never been bought biscuits in my life. Then I realised the genius of it. Biscuits do not suffer at the hands of the New Year purge. They are acceptable to keep so that I am now well stocked in biscuits until at least the middle of February when I deign to consider the Custard Cream or anything with fruit in it. Beware, because if I don’t know what to get you next Christmas I will be following suit and buying biscuits, by the droves. So, if you’re not a friend of the shortcake finger then tell me now. That’s not a euphemism by the way.

      5.     Rock Lobster is a very long song indeed. 6 minutes and 50 seconds to be precise, which I hadn’t realised. You see, as I mentioned, we saw family later on Christmas Day and one of the younger members dragged me off the sofa to play on Just Dance or Let’s Dance, or some such Wii based dancing game. I perused the options available and realised quickly that I am less au fait with current chart hits then I had realised. I therefore plumped from something I knew of from back in the day.

On came 'Rock Lobster' and off I went, expending all my energy in the first minute, not realising that there were still another six agonising minutes of swaying, and hopping, and jumping to go. Given this was early evening and I’d been drinking since 10am (well, it was Christmas Day) I’m surprised I could even move and more surprised still that all the peanuts and crisps and cheese from the night before didn’t bring on some sort of snack food based seizure.

Suggestions that “I do another one” were ignored as I sweatily resumed my place in some comfortable furnishings and enjoyed my father-in-law’s interpretation of 'Jailhouse Rock', which should have scored many marks for enthusiasm and entertainment but lost a shedload for technique.

So that, as they say, is that. All of Christmas in a nutshell. I can now hibernate for at least eight months until I see a hint of tinsel in a shop or the merest suggestion that Noddy Holder is about to announce “It’s Christmas!” through a shop’s PA system.

Now, in the meantime, what the hell am I going to do with all these un-drunk bottles of Mulled Wine and Advocaat?

Terry....is Vexed

I have a crime to report but I don’t know who to report it to. The police are probably not bothered and Nick Ross has long since hung up his crime(watch) fighting cape. Yet this criminal behaviour is happening now, this very minute, somewhere. When I say somewhere, I mean Facebook.

Technically it isn’t a crime in the strictly legal sense of the word, although come the revolution when my followers rise up and crush the normal state of affairs then things will change. In Hayward’s Britain, alongside new and harsh penalties being dished out to individuals for the offences of noisy children inside pubs after 7pm, slow moving HGVs in the fast lane, and being in any way involved in the production, broadcasting or viewing of ‘Geordie Shore’, I will include a very important social media no-no.

The crime to which I’m referring to is that of ‘friends’ hinting at something in their Facebook status that they never intend to spill the beans on, or at the very least without other ‘friends’ having to go through the long and tedious charade of pretending to give a damn and having to ask them what it is that they are not making explicit and to check that, whatever minor catastrophe has befallen them, it has not left them harmed and/or bereft.

You know the type of thing I’m talking about. You see it all the time. If I were to do it I would put something like ‘Terry is angry’. Well, Terry probably is angry but that’s because he’s just spotted some friend or associate announce that they are ‘pissed off’, or ‘sad’ (accompanied by sad/teary faces).

I guarantee that when I post this blog on Facebook I will find that, within two or three posts either above or below, one of my friends will have unwittingly done this very thing. If it is you then you should hang your head in shame.

Not as annoying but still within the boundaries of criminal behaviour are those that announce they have had a good or bad day/news/trip to the shops, without explaining what it was that made any of these things good or bad.

In essence I’m referring to anything that involves another person having to ask the question “what’s up?”, or worse still “what’s up hun?”. The linguistic abomination that is “hun” should, all by itself, automatically become a criminal offence punishable by public flogging, but that’s a whole other matter.

However, for the main offenders of this heinous act of self-important attention seeking there will be a substantial prison sentence and a lifelong ban from using any kind of communication tools available to you, up to and including talking, sign language, grunting, and whimpering.

We are neither small children nor are we chimpanzees with only rudimentary abilities to indicate we‘d like a banana or that we’ve soiled ourselves. We are all intelligent, literate, right-minded adults who should be choosing to use this glittering social media forum to entertain, educate and inform our friends about the amazing, and wonderful, and terrible things that occur in our lives.

Feeling sad? Tell us why. Help us to empathise. Feeling happy? Share your joy and bonhomie. Nothing to say? Well, for the love of God, if you feel compelled to say something then at the very least try to make it funny.

I have to stress that this kind of behaviour doesn’t happen on Twitter, or at least very rarely, probably due to the overall design of the thing. If you post similar sentiments on Twitter you are likely to be met with a deafening silence which does no good for the soul of the individual seeking love or pity.

In that respect, it is in some ways more impersonal but it forces and encourages wit and imagination, more so than lazily tapping out a few self-regarding and humourless short words to a bunch of friends and family and school friends you haven’t clapped eyes on for 20 years on Facebook.

It’s not that the guilty parties are bad people. They are usually perfectly lovely people in the flesh but put them in front of Facebook and suddenly they are possessed by their inner demons and become immune to the norms of social behaviour. Quite rational individuals feel suddenly compelled to hide behind a status of incomprehensible hints and riddles.

So, as a plea, before my forces march across Westminster Bridge and surround Parliament, I urge you to stop and think before posting. Exercise your brain for a few seconds longer. The rest of us, well, if we spot this behaviour we need to resist the temptation to type out the usual bland and predictable responses and, instead, type the words (in capital letters) CRIME SCENE - DO NOT CROSS.

This simultaneously admonishes your friend for their crime and tells others to steer clear. That way I won’t have to come and burn your house down, so it’s for your own good really.

Hayward FM

According to a report last week, the sales of DAB radios have dropped more than expected, yet radio listening is at its highest point for years. This is of course due to the fact that radio can be accessed everywhere from TVs to phones to toasters. This is bad news for those companies that have thrown their lot into making those retro-styled DAB radios and great news for every tin pot local radio station in the country.

Personally speaking, I don't actually listen to a great deal of radio 'live', unless I’m in the car. I download a lot of podcasts, most of which are scaled down versions of radio shows, or even whole shows, so that I can listen to them at my leisure. The only conscious radio-based routine I have is to put my Sky Gnome onto Radio 4 first thing in the morning.

For those not in the know, the Sky Gnome is a random piece of kit that Sky doesn’t make anymore. It’s essentially a wireless speaker for the Sky box so you can take audio from the TV wherever you go in the house. Technology has overtaken it but it was a pleasingly designed pyramid that’s remained quite hardy and enduring over the years. Anyway, I digress.

So, Radio 4. You see, I can’t cope with music or chirpy DJs first thing in the morning. The last thing I need from my wireless is a 12 year old bellowing at me in estuary English and offending my tender early morning eardrums by playing a Nicki Minaj song at me. For my older readers, Nicki Minaj sounds like a cross between Eminem and Lulu, just with less swearing and Irn Bru.

What I can cope with is John Humphrys or James Naughtie arguing with a politician. No up-tempo beats, just a couple of old men bickering with the world, like more well informed versions of Statler & Waldorf from The Muppet Show.

Give me an hour of that first thing in the morning whilst I’m making a cup of tea and coming to terms with being awake and I’m set up for the day.

Once I’m in the car I can be a fickle listener. Sometimes it’s Radio 2, occasionally Radio 1, and on occasions Radio 5 Live, as trying to listen to that station on the move reminds me of picking up foreign stations on short-wave radio back when I was a kid.

As you can see I mostly stick to BBC stations so that I get my money’s worth out of the licence fee. However, when the present Mrs Hayward is in the car, we have to listen to dreaded commercial radio stations, usually Heart.

“The best music variety” they say. I’m not sure how they can justify that as, whenever the car radio is forcibly tuned to their frequency, the same 5 or 6 songs seem to be playing on a loop, usually current chart based hits. Mind you, twice in 12 hours I heard the same Erasure song from the 90s the other day. Is that what they mean by variety?

The news reporting is also lacking some of the journalistic integrity that you’d expect. I know the BBC has come in for some flak lately, mostly from the same newspapers who merrily print stories without any kind of evidence and then quietly settle out of court later, but even they can be trusted to provide proper news. Heart however prefaced a story on their news on Wednesday by announcing that due to the recession (which I don’t think we’re in anymore, but that’s a moot point) that shopping lists are back in fashion.

Excuse me, what? Shopping lists are back in fashion? When were they out of fashion? And when were they in fashion the first time around? Shopping lists aren’t even a fashionable commodity. They’re just shopping lists. They’re practical items like food or buses or hammers. No-one sees fashion models clutching shopping lists and, if they did, they wouldn’t go, “Look, she’s got a shopping list, I must get myself one of those bad boys this season”.

As far as journalism goes, it’s sloppy. Just like those people who refer to things as being a ‘trademark’, usually in the context of something like ‘There’s Rolf Harris with his trademark beard”. It’s not a trademark, it’s a beard, or a hat, or a personality trait, or just some shit clothes they wear, but not a trademark. Being an Intellectual Property lawyer, this upsets the present Mrs Hayward no end.  At best they mean a hallmark, but that in itself probably upsets goldsmiths.

Maybe I shouldn’t be too bothered about this. After all, it’s due to my wife’s poor choice of radio stations that I’m subjected to inane DJs, adverts for local garden centres, and whiny voiced girl rappers. Yes, I’m talking about you again, Minaj.

I’ll just go back to listening to The Archers or Ken Bruce (I love Popmaster) when she’s not around. Perhaps technology will allow for these stations to be hot wired into my brain so I can tune out Heart and tune into something that’s not going to make me want to keep banging my head on a wall over and over because it’s less painful than hearing ‘Moves Like Jagger’ for the 13 millionth time in 10 minutes.

I might try to make one myself. I can call it my trademark radio brain thingy. Right context? Probably not. I’ll give Evan Davies a tweet when he’s next on Radio 4 and see if he can get me a slot on Dragon’s Den.

I’m out. 

Talking 'bout the Car Wash

I confess. I'm bang to rights. I cannot shy away from it any longer. I, Terry Hayward, am a lazy man.



Now this may not come as such a shock for some people. The present Mrs Hayward for one. It's not a universal laziness I must say. It really comes down to the onerous task of cleaning. Especially the car. 



Sometimes I think our car is too small, which is a ridiculous thought, but when I have to clean the thing it suddenly takes on the size and dimensions of a tank.



This is why the last time I actually cleaned the car myself was some time in the last decade. In the intervening years I have discovered the joys of the automated car wash. I think it's because I always wanted my parents to go through one when I was a kid but they, in my opinion, were too tightfisted to take their car through the car wash, instead preferring to attack it with a bucket and sponge.



To young Terry the automated car wash appeared to be like a wonderful theme park ride, where the car would be engulfed in bubbles and buffeted by jets of water whilst I sat inside. I lead a sheltered life. Did I mention I came from the Isle of Wight...?



Of course the automated car wash isn't quite as exciting as that, although there's always the danger that the big drying implement is going to develop a fault and smash through the windscreen thereby decapitating me. I do like that thrill of danger in everyday tasks.



However yesterday, when considering a trip to the car wash, I decided that the inside of the car also needed a bit of a spruce. So I eschewed technology and visited one of those car washes manned by real life people. The hand car wash.



It was a new and exciting experience. Firstly my vehicle and I were ushered forwards into their lair, whereupon some men with limited English escorted me out of the car. They then attacked the inside of the motor with heavy-duty vacuum cleaners, removing all manner of debris and detritus.

Once this was completed I was encouraged back into the car, to drive around to the next stage where two rather large-handed men sprayed waterjets and foam at the car whilst I was left sat inside, wondering if that chip in the windscreen might finally develop into a crack and then smash altogether, cascading glass fragments and bubbles all over me like an S&M foam party. 



Once these burly men were satisfied that their job had been done they beckoned me to go further forwards in the car as they pursued me with their high pressure water jets. I then had to vacate the vehicle again as yet another big man came along and opened the door and nodded to the side. Even more men then descended, I know not from where, with cloths and chamois leather, and they hastily wiped the inside of the windows and the dashboard.



I was impressed by their speed and efficiency. No nook or cranny was left untouched and, before I knew it, it was all over and I handed a crumpled ten pound note to the big man.



Heading away from the car wash I noticed that they'd kindly attached a magic tree air freshener to the indicator stick on the left-hand side of the steering wheel, an unusual place to put it I thought. So now not only is the car sparkling clean on the inside, I also have a faux cedar smell wafting throughout.



As I drove away into the mean streets of Peterborough I realised that my days of visiting an automatic car wash were over. For just a few quid more than the automatic car wash these gentlemen had transformed my motor back to the days when it was nearly new. So much so that I was inspired to go and buy some new mats for the floor. 



I look on it that I'm keeping the wheels of industry turning and doing something to reinvigorate the British economy. Or at the very least the Polish economy. I may be a lazy man when it comes to cleaning the car but I'm a very energetic man when it comes to supporting local businesses.



Well that's my story anyway.