The Edge Magazine January 2021

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EDGE

the ISSUE NO: 288

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H Perhaps H H producing H HThe Edge H H sinceH October’96 H(24 years, H H 4 Hmonths and H H counting) H H might H have Hsomething H H to do H withH that?

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H H H REAL JOY H H theH real H joyHin watchingH Nigella Of course, H H Hkitchen is Htrying to catch H H the cooking in her H H glimpse H H Helusive H saxophonist. merest of the H H H H H H H H H H H PATHETIC H H H H H H H If you don’t read another word of this edition, at H the very H least make H H H you read H SteveH Ward’s sure Hcolumn H on page H H 25H and ask Hyourself H H very this H H question:H Am H I Pathetic?

H H H pertinent H H H H H H H MIGRAINE H H CASUAL

H WORKER H H H I’m lucky in so far as I rarely get headaches and H H never experienced a migraine. But my wife HI became H H H H H H I’ve a ‘Casual Worker’ at Chelmsford’s Hgets them, H H she H H H H pills’ if only doesn’t like H‘popping Royal Mail Sorting Office for all of 4 days last H H H H H H

she can help it. Which is a tough ask when you month. Hey, it was the only time I could spare, H literally H H don’t know H H H H H H H H H H H H what to do with yourself, the what with an early January deadline.

H being H H H H H H H H H H H H H pain soH all consuming.

To be honest, I didn’t think much of it. I spent H SoH if Hany ofH you H readers H H out H there know H H of any H H H H H H H H the vast majority of my time pushing trolleys H H H H H H H H H

natural remedies that really do work, kindly drop around the place, each stashed full of mail, H a line.

H H H H H H H HAPPINESS H H HH H H IS H FLEETING H H me when in my mind’s eye I’d figured I’d somehow H HMy default H H persona H H H H is unfortunately not that of a be putting dependent H H lettersH into H pigeon-holes, H H H chappy.

H HSorry, H H itH isn’t.

H In fact, H H it probaSPIN CYCLE happy but upon their postcodes.

H H H H H H H Hhas H been.

H Which H H sad (because On a lighter note, our Neff washing machine is bly never isn’t I did meet a cracking lass called Louise from H H H H H H H H all Hmade H the same H Hway), it’s just the awesome, particularly when its spin cycle kicks we’re not Billericay though, who wore an array of wooly H H H H H H H H H Hway it is.

H H H H H in. It sounds just like a load of Huey helecopters H hats in the H and H used H toH go to Ha boarding H Hschool H H H H H H H H H H H H H H humming towards the shore, in a scene from I also think happiness, so far as I’m concerned, Lake H District.

H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H Apocalypse Now. Simply scatter a bit of sand is a fleeting emotion; it doesn’t last. I wish it did.

NowH Louise has a Hdegree, used to work for H

H H H HH H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H about the kitchen and chuck a couple of buckets Then again, how is it possible to feel the same American Express H H (near Liverpool H H Street) H for H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H of water and a bit of seaweed on the floor for sense of elation as that experienced immediatemany moons (arranging business travel), has H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H extra added effect. ly after David Platt’s last gasp goal for England travelled yet H H the H world, H H now all H she H couldH get H H H H H H from a was this. HYet sheH told me she’d “applied for over

H H against H H Hthe Belgians H H at Italia’90, H Gascoigne free-kick no less, with and H H H H RING H RING H H H H H 100 jobs” H H in Hthat H time H Hhad hardly H H H received H H H H H H a penalty H Not readers, but if our shoot-out the of aH ‘thank you, H H sure H about you, H H H H landline H H courtesy H H but no Hthank H you’ H H H imminent H H and H aH place H inH the quarterH rings atH home Hafter about reply, let H H 6.30pm, H IH usually look H H alone H an employment H H offer.

H H H finals H atH stake?

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H H H H H all H the time, H H as it Hwas H such H true, unadulterH H tough H Hfor an editor, H H H I,H to Hfind a ‘suitable ated, inH the moment’ opportunity,’ ideally working just Tuesdays and H H H ‘living H H H joy.

H H ! ! ! !!! !

HAPPY Thursdays every week, innit?

H H H H PLACE H H H H H But such H heady feelings cannot possibly last. ! ! ! !

“Happy place.

Happy place.

However, I’ll be honest enough to admit that it H H H

H H H H H H H H H THE EDGE Chelmsford CM2 6XD Turf Moor. Turf Moor.” is something that concerns me; the fact that I no 0 77 646 797 44 shaun@theedgemag.co.uk FFS. longer feel fulfilled.

The Edge Editor’s Column

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My wife actually said to me over the festive period, “Why don’t you facetime Bob?” (I don’t actually know anyone called Bob, but you get the gist of it).

So I immediately looked at her dumbstruck and replied, “What for?”

To which she looked at me equally astonished and replied, “To talk?”

“What about?” said I. And so it went on, neither of us comprehending the other.

Because so far as I’m concerned, and I’m guessing I’m speaking for a fair amount of blokes here when I say that whatever I need to discuss with ‘Bob’ can wait until we have a beer in our hands, or at least a decent cup of coffee.

Yet where girls are concerned, no, it seemingly can’t wait at all, can it?

Let me give you an example of what the wife and her sister sometimes do where facetiming is concerned, for a period of THREE WHOLE BLOODY HOURS (honestly, it’s like watching three episodes of Gogglebox back-to-back). The wife’s in Chelmsford, sat next to me on the sofa, while her sister’s in Cornwall, and we’ll all be watching exactly the same things on the TV, while they’ll just be chatting here and there about whatever they’re seeing, just like peeps do on Gogglebox.

You just can’t make this sort of shit up, can you?

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If Covid-19 wasn’t bad enough, the way we have dealt with it has been proper Mickey Mouse.

Yes, yes, yes, you can site ‘unprecedented times’ until you’re blue in the face, but gut instinct makes The Edge feel that things could have been handled an awful lot better by government.

That aside, there’s a reason we keep on getting spikes and having to go back into lockdown and it’s pretty much due to selfish, ignorant numpties.

“Oh, the pubs are shut, the pubs are shut,” they all moan, in much the same tone as when they want their nappy changing.

Look, it’s simple, you dumb-ass-feckwits. If you’d behaved responsibly when they were open, they wouldn’t have to end up being closed again, would they?

Mind you, The Edge does think that in many cases, numerous pubs have been guilty of not policing themselves anywhere near zealously enough when they were open.

At the end of the day, it’s pretty obvious that alcohol is a ‘mood changer’, and many times a person’s otherwise good intentions will fly straight out the window once they’ve downed a few pints or necked a few fruit-based drinks.

Fact is, it’s like The Edge said way back in April 2020; it’s really down to us, each and every one of us. Government can only do so much and they obviously have to play the cards they’re being dealt. Therefore it really is high time that everyone began to think of themselves as being a bit of a dealer/scoundrel and yes, in this particular instance, you may as well think of yourselves as being drug dealers, because what we’re all capable of passing on is having truly massive consequences which we’ve all seen (although the vast majority of us haven’t seen what it’s like on the front-line of the NHS).

So now, at the very beginning of 2021, don’t you think it’s high time we all knuckled down and each and every one of us got our own house in order, because some of us are clearly letting the side down which is a fact - otherwise we wouldn’t still be in such a pigging mess.

The Edge isn’t liking this whole damn situation every bit as much as you’re probably not, but there really is only one way out of it and it’s going to take fortitude, patience and a not unreasonable amount of sacrifice. But we can now see light at the end of the tunnel, so COME ON!

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We’ve treated any ‘hogs’ that visit ‘Edge Towers’ to a choice of not one, but two hedgehog houses; the basic ‘igloo’ type (above) and the one below, which has a hallway (teehee, it actually does) before you turn left into the living/sleeping quarters which we have filled with straw.

Thing is though, we’ve only got one ‘hog’ in our garden right now and the fussy bugger uses neither of ’em. Well, I tell a lie. He/She (?) uses the one below to eat and poop in, but just covers itself up with leaves beside the house (the house below) to catch a few zeds during daylight hours.

So really, we’ve wasted our money doing what we’ve done, as the spiky lil critters seem to prefer nature, such as snuzzling up under piles of twigs and leaves and stuff like that.

Honestly, Mrs Edge couldn’t believe it when she lifted the lid of the hog house (yep, the roof lifts up so you can use it as a viewing gallery), only to find a load of poop (usually ickle black cigars) in one corner. So she cleaned it out, put some fresh straw in and now she puts its dinner (regular cat food) in a bowl at the back of the hallway. And the little beggar continues to scoff the lot, then goes and has a shit in the corner.

Hedgehogs are the only pets we’ve ever had, but they’re lovely, they need our help (you’ll be doing them a much needed favour) and they cost you not a penny (apart from a bit of cat food). However, we naturally push the boat out and also serve ours some crunchy hog food, which you can buy from pet shops, and when our current ‘hog’ is eating at the back of his hallway, the crunch of his teeth seems to echo a little bit and it really is quite loud. It definitely makes Mrs Edge smile from ear-to-ear, and hey, that’s truly all that matters.

So if you fancy trying to lure a ‘hog’ or two into your garden this spring (sometimes even as early as late March, if it’s a mild winter), then do also have a word with your neighbours, if you have any on either side of you, as they need to be able to move from garden to garden, so you’ll need to make a little entrance/exit hole at the bottom of your dividing fence/s (if you can’t see any other ways of entry/exit in your garden at present). What’s more, you can also buy these cute ickle upside-down ‘U’ shaped things to screw around the hole you make that say ‘Hedgehog Causeway’.

Hedgehogs are out there and they need our help, so also leave them a little bowl of water (that they cannot get marooned in) too.

It’s hideous that they’re fast becoming an endangered species, but there we are.

W CO E KI A ST N L O DL A C IN ND K G

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The Edge 288 new_The Edge 172.qxd 17/12/2020 14:43 Page 8

morning of my 30s telling me to pack an overnight bag because we were leaving at 2pm for a surprise night away, and that he had even sorted out childcare for our 3 very pleasant, yet often quite feral children. I was so surprised I nearly fainted. Dave has never organised anything like this before and it was no mean feat considering what he was up against.

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It all felt very surreal as I packed a bag, our childcare arrived, and we set off in the car. I still had no idea where we were going, until we actually got there. He had booked us a beautiful room in an amazing hotel, complete with sea view, and had even managed to fly completely under the radar financially, thanks to a temporary loan from the Bank of Mum & Dad.

MELLY MOO BAILEY ...when your husband texts you and tells you to pack an overnight bag because he’s sorted out the childcare and is taking you for a surprise night away for your 40th birthday?

I cannot even begin to convey to you what a huge surprise this actually was, and for a multitude of reasons, which I will explain.

I think we can all agree that within most marriages, each person has their delegated areas of responsibility. Things they are good at, or insist upon managing/leading, and are therefore ‘in charge of’. For those of you who follow my column, you will know that my husband is the undisputed ‘King of DIY’ in our household, and he essentially lives to make my every home improvement dream become a reality (albeit sometimes after a degree of cajoling and under duress). Dave is also in charge of, among many other things, repairs, finding lost items and food shopping.

Meanwhile, my main areas of responsibility are the organisation and coordination of all holidays, breaks, and social engagements, as well as the finances. I manage and monitor our account/s, continually swap energy suppliers in an attempt to save a few pounds a year, and tell Dave how much money we don’t have at the end of every month.

With my 40th birthday on the horizon, it’s fair to say he was facing several significant challenges.

The first was what to actually do, plan or organise during a worldwide pandemic, where every week seems to bring new restrictions and where the threat of yet another lockdown, or a higher tier category, hovers like an endless cloud of doom in the background.

While the second was how to execute any such plan without leaving any financial trail (which would undoubtedly be seen by me).

Nevertheless, intrepid Dave overcame all obstacles and sent me a message on the last Saturday

Page 8

I had already nearly brought on a coronary when I unwittingly scheduled the delivery of our new sofas for the afternoon in question. I do recall Dave going quite pale when I told him, but I put this down to the aggravation of having to remove the window in order to get said new sofas in. I never dreamed for one minute his horror was due to the big birthday surprise he had planned.

This was further impacted by me subsequently inviting friends and family to pay doorstep visits, with Dave swiftly uninviting them at his earliest opportunity.

Nevertheless, the struggle was clearly all worth it.

The sense of exhilaration and liberty as we sat in our plush room (which incidentally was teal with shades of grey #bangontrend) looking out across the sea at the sunset, sipped our cocktails, was all consuming.

Since we started producing smaller versions of ourselves nearly 8 years ago, we have only ever had one other night away together, so this epic event was truly revolutionary on all levels.

We reveled in our haven of total peace and luxury, where for once, our time was completely our own for a precious 20 hours. There were no arguments to referee, no books to read, no puzzles to do, no bums to wipe, no meals to cook and clear up, and no endless lists of things to do.

We could also have conversations without eleventy billion constant interruptions, which in itself was unnervingly unfamiliar. It really was a little break away from reality, and for us that was absolutely priceless.

Although Dave clearly returned from this trip heralded by all who knew about it as an absolute hero, he was brought swiftly crashing back down to reality when upon arrival at our home, he had to rescue our 7 year old daughter who had managed to somehow lock herself in the bathroom, by breaking down the door, and then swiftly repairing not only the smashed door, but also a large chip in the bath enamel caused by our feral tiny versions of ourselves.

Mel & Dave stayed at The Roslin Beach Hotel in Southend, and is it just me, all of you MALE readers out there, or is Dave starting to get on your tits as much as he is mine?

Signed, The Edge Editor!

The Edge 288 new_The Edge 172.qxd 17/12/2020 14:43 Page 9

Etiquette.

We’re kind of talking about good manners, right?

For instance, I might well hail from the north (not my fault; I never had any say in the matter), but I do always open doors for ladies, and if I am walking with a lass, I always, always, always walk nearest the road, and it irritates me no end when I see other guys not following suit, as it’s such a given; something you ought to have been taught as a bairn.

However, let’s talk about another form of etiquette that is one The Edge has no time for whatsoever, and that is the etiquette of receiving gifts (pertinent as there was a lot of that going on last month).

Now, not last month, but a fair few months before, Mrs Edge was on the receiving end of a flowering cactus. Only an ickle thing it was (spiky, but little), probably costing just a couple of quid (but we all know ‘it’s the thought that counts’) and she nourished it and looked after it until months later, it did what it had promised to do all along; it started flowering.

Now, at this early juncture, are there any of you reading this that can immediately twig what the problem might be here?

Correct. It started flowering in the wrong bloody colour.

Now some of you will immediately ‘get’ where The Edge is coming from here, while many of you, I strongly suspect, won’t have a Scooby’s. Which is the fact that we clearly think out the colour schemes of the rooms in our house, and what they 100% are and are 100% not is an accident, or a mish-mash. No, apart from the wood on the floor, anyone who knows anything about interior design - if you want to be a little plummy about it can clearly see what we’ve done at a glance, and ‘magenta/dark pink/however you want to describe it’ simply doesn’t figure.

Now do you see where I am coming from, because said flowering cactus was a gift and, heaven forbid, what if the person who gave it to Mrs Edge one day comes to visit us (because we might hopefully all be able to start doing that once again in the not too distant future) and naturally she’ll be wondering where it is.

And does etiquette decree that we really have to poke up with crap like that?

So, out of etiquette, your editor took it upon himself to try to politely explain to this ‘bestower of gifts’ that, now that it had (eventually) flowered, it was, how did I put it? Ah yes: “No longer fit for purpose”.

Shock! Horror! You didn’t?

Oh but yes, I did. I simply, intuitively thought, that by way of factual explanation, that said ‘bestower’ would completely understand my motives.

It’s just that at ‘Edge Towers’, we simply don’t do ‘magenta/dark pink/ however you wish to describe it’.

No, of course it didn’t go down well. But why didn’t it, that is the crux of the matter? Because to my mind, and probably my mind alone, not enough thought or consideration had been put into the purchase of said gift, bearing in mind the considerable and considered thought we have put into our chosen colour scheme at ‘Edge Towers’.

In short, it just doesn’t fit into our colour scheme.

Thus, quite frankly, there is now an elephant in the room, on both counts.

Not in itself, as it were. After all, it was always supposed to flower magenta/dark pink/however you wish to describe it.

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Secondly, if you are in the position of needing to wear Tena pants, I think it’s safe to assume that light-coloured, tight-fitting clothing is probably the last thing you’re going to risk wearing, regardless of how effective the manufacturer’s claims are.

However, my biggest gripe is the fairly recent addition of a floral print to make them look ‘pretty’.

There is an old saying that ‘you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear’ and this could not be more true in this particular case. They are what they are and are obviously an essential item for some, but ‘pretty’ they will never be. And if you did happen to ‘get lucky’ whilst wearing a pair, I’m fairly sure a few flowers when you strip off isn’t going to disguise the reality of what you’re wearing on your nether regions (although I’d hazard a guess that ‘getting lucky’ has probably been off the agenda for a good few years at this point).

Whilst I understand the need to make products appealing to the market, there are some things that you simply cannot disguise. For example, Tena incontinence pants. The advert is bad enough itself, showing a pair modeled by a woman who is a good forty years off needing to wear them, as she smooths down her tight fitting clothes to prove just how ‘discreet’ they are.

Only let’s be honest; it is essentially an adult nappy and is most definitely NOT going to be invisible under a pair of tight, cream coloured trousers.

Andrew Eley’s EDGE MOVIE AWARDS 2020 At the start of last year, cinema was looking strong. January and February, months often reserved by studios as a dumping ground, gave us a return to form from Guy Richie with The Gentleman and awards favourites 1917 and Parasite. Meanwhile, both Bad Boys For Life and Sonic the Hedgehog shattered box office records, while The Invisible Man had audiences gripping their seats in sheer terror.

Then, just as things where about to really ramp up, we all know what happened and cinemas were forced to close their doors.

And yet movies have continued to endure, offering us all some much needed entertainment in the strangest of years that was 2020.

So, as we enter what will no doubt be another topsy turvy year, I present to you ‘The Alternative Edge Movie Awards 2020’.

Best Lockdown Movie: Host Made during lockdown itself, this is a jumpy 60 minute thrill of a ride. It’s simply about a Zoom call from hell, as five friends invite an online medium to try to speak to the dead, with dire consequences. It's relevant for the time, has some natural, witty banter, plenty of seat jumping scares and uses the Zoom conference call idea most effectively. Host is a movie that I'd say works even better when viewed on a laptop, at home, in the dark, on your own.

But that’s if you’re brave enough?

Best Surprise: The Invisible Man I had written this off as a quick cash grab from Page 10

So, who are Tena pants being made pretty for, if not for someone else’s eyes? The only person they need to appeal to, in my humble opinion, is the person wearing them and quite frankly I doubt the addition of a few daisies is going to make them feel a whole lot better about themselves. Surely if the designers feel the need for change, then making them in plain black would be far more stylish (and practical), don’t you think? And whilst we’re on the subject, what about equality? If we’re putting flowers on them to allegedly ‘appeal to women’, where are the men’s version? I haven’t seen any advertised anywhere. I’m sure, given half-a-chance, guys would be rushing out to buy them if they had ‘Superman’ emblazoned over the crotch.

Don’t get me wrong, this rant is absolutely not criticising anyone who has to wear Tena pants. Far from it, as my inability, since having children, to jump, jog, sneeze, cough, laugh or pretty much do anything without having to cross my legs (a recent Covid test was the ultimate challenge) means I will sure as hell be sporting them one day, if I’m lucky enough to live to a ripe old age. All I’m saying is

Universal, using the Invisible Man name to sell a cheap horror flick. Yet it turned out to be one of the best films of the year, full of tension, thrills, a great soundtrack and some quality performances to make a terrifying horror flick.

Movie That Deserved Better: Onward This Disney/Pixar animation was always going to be a tough sell, as two elven brothers embark on a quest to bring their dead dad back to life for one day, in a kind of kids version of Weekend at Bernie’s. Arriving in cinemas a week before lockdown, family’s stayed away in their droves, but those that did see it most likely left shedding a tear or two, as the story delivers a powerful emotional punch.

Luvvie Award: Mank This is one of those films that is being highly praised by critics and will no doubt get lots of award nominations, yet will almost certainly leave audiences feeling frustrated.

Told across two timelines, we observe Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) attempting to write the script for what will become the cinematic classic 'Citizen Kane'. This is a technically well-made film, smartly directed and has assured performances. The problem is it is just so very dull. It took me four attempts to finish it after falling asleep on several occasions.

‘Mary Sue’ Award: Mulan A ‘Mary Sue’ by definition is ‘a type of female character who is depicted as unrealistically lacking in flaws or weaknesses’ (see also Rey in the recent Star Wars trilogy). I mentioned in the last edition of The Edge that far too many films now promote the idea that kids and young adults don’t have to work to achieve anything.

that no amount of floral print is going to convince me that I’m wearing anything other than what they really are - which is incontinence pants!

But this product is far from the only one trying to disguise its reality. For years designers have been trying to make tampon packaging look like it’s something other than what it really is. Yet sadly, it makes no difference how many pretty colours and patterns you print on the wrapper. When you open your handbag to get your purse out and accidentally drop one on the floor of the local take-away (my friend has suffered this actual fate on more than one occasion), everyone knows it wasn’t a packet of Fruit Pastilles concealed in there.

On the subject of awkward moments, you can always rely on your kids to create them for you.

One particular incident springs to mind when I was waiting for a prescription in Boots. My eldest daughter decided to start reading the posters around us and asked me what they all meant. The flu vaccination was fairly easy to explain, as was the one about diabetes. Only then we reached the third poster. She couldn’t read that one by herself, so began to (loudly) spell it out. “Mummy, what is E.R.E.C.T.I.L.E. D.Y.S.F.U.N.C.T.I.O.N?” Now I’m all for being as open as possible with my girls - they know babies aren’t brought about by storks and neither do they come out of your belly button - but at the same time, I tell them a kind of age-appropriate truth. As they get older and ask more questions, I gradually add more information.

But as they are currently aged just five and eight, we’ve not got as far as erectile anything just yet, never mind it’s dysfunction.

Through the muffled giggles of all those around us who bore witness to this particular episode, I have never before been more relieved to hear my name called out to collect a prescription in my entire life, not to mention being able to leave a particular question unanswered!

Well, Disney are at it again as they strip the source material, including their own 1998 version in which Mulan had to train to become a great warrior, yet instead just give her magic Chi abilities to single-handedly save the Chinese empire, because, you know, girl power and all that.

Biggest Let Down: Bill & Ted Face The Music I suppose, after such a long wait, I shouldn’t have expected this to be much cop, although I truly couldn’t believe just how terrible it was.

There isn’t a single funny gag while tumbleweed actually blew across the screen when I saw it. It would have easily gotten my nomination for ‘Worst Film of the Entire Year’, but hard as it is to believe, something else came out that managed to steal its thunder...

Least Funny Movie of 2020: Borat Subsequent Moviefilm This 'comedy' is nothing more than a 90-minute rebuff of the Trump administration, which in itself seems like a lazy target. The original was a simple 'fish out of water' story as Borat went looking for his idol, Pamela Anderson, where as this time we have an uncomfortable story of Borat trying to give away his 15-year-old daughter (played by 24 year old actress Maria Bakalova) to, at first, Mike Pence, and then Rudy Giuliani, which makes for highly uncomfortable viewing at times, as scene after scene fails to raise a laugh, instead making the viewer cringe at what is unfolding on the screen. Ultimately a comedy that isn't funny and is simply controversial has failed in its attempt to deliver satire and comes across as just mean spirited rubbish.

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where Springfield Road beat Essex Charities F.C. in a game full of goals, drama, fun, sin-bins and even a sending off, all in the name of ‘Connie’s Cause’, and the the club was truly born.

The idea now is to play a game every month to help raise money for the club's main charity partner ‘Chess Homeless’ and also support other charities along the way.

THE WORLD OF YAN Well, it does for the boys of Springfield Road F.C. Him at ‘Edge Towers’ told us columnists, no, demanded us, to try to write something positive to kick-off 2021 in the right way, in the right spirit, so’s we can all try to put a rather unfortunate and somewhat bizarre 2020 behind us at the earliest opportunity.

So what could be more positive than writing about some of the good things that people are willing to do? Which takes us back to the magnificent boys of Springfield Road F.C. The footie team was only set up in March of 2020, just before ‘you know what’ happened, with the original intention of it being a six-a-side team to play on Monday evenings as a way of how shall I put this - ‘shaking off the stresses of a day’. But it was also a great way of allowing colleagues to get to know one another outside of the day-today working environment.

The team then found out about a colleague's daughter who had a serious illness and needed to raise a substantial amount of money to go to the USA for treatment, as such was only available to her over there, and not back here.

So, all of a sudden, from being a 'stress release' six-a-side team, the boys were able to try and put their love of football to good use and raise some money for a truly great cause.

This then gave two of the original founders of the club, Deeks and McCarthy, the idea that maybe Springfield Road F.C. should become a full-time registered charity football team?

Well, their first game ended up being a very successful night at the home of Witham Town F.C., www.theedgemag.co.uk

Only it's not just through football that these guys help raise both cash and awareness. Oh no, there’s far more to them than that. For example, on a freezing cold night at the end of November 2020 they did a ‘Sleep Out to Help Out’, once again in aid of the Chess Homeless charity, and managed to raise £1,200 due to their efforts, as well as donating all of the brand new tents and sleeping bags etc. used on the night (paid for out of their own pockets) to Chess to pass on to those very much in need who sleeping rough on the streets of Chelmsford.

The team will also be participating in a half marathon in the name of stamping out homophobia in football in February.

Games have been arranged thick and fast in 2021, including one against Sands United on the 22nd January and a potential barnstorming match versus Palmers F.C. on 5th February.

Both matches will be played at the club's home ground, which is also the home of Heybridge Swifts F.C., which has been made possible thanks to the generosity of their fantastic owners who wanted to partner up for such a good cause by allowing the team and fans full use of the ground and facilities, even including the bar (happy days).

Hopefully, as restrictions lift, the club really can push forward with different fundraising events and keep doing positive things for many great causes.

For more information about events, or if you would simply like to make a donation, become a sponsor, or even want to play for the club, you can find the team via the following; @Springfieldrdfc instagram Springfield Road FC Facebook Springfield Road FC @roadspringfield twitter Or email Springfieldrdfc@outlook.com Where you can, please spread the word, get to games, make some noise and help Springfield Road F.C. make a difference.

Happy New Year and a very healthy 2021 to you all.

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WE ALSO REPAIR CARAVANS!

theEDGE

The Edge reckons it probably is.

Personally speaking, if I ever ‘pop to the supermarket’ without a belt around the waist of my jeans, I am definitely in danger of flashing some crack to their customers.

Men’s bodies just aren’t the same as women’s. We don’t have waists smaller than our hips. We’re kind of straight up and down, hence gravity takes its natural course and our pants tend to slip south.

Add to that the onset of ‘MAS’ (middle-aged spread) whereby the belt needs to be fastened nearer to the groin in order to better cater for the inevitable gut that has started to hang above and it’s all a rather depressingly slippery slope.

And last month didn’t help, did it?

Whatever happened to having a decent metabolism and being able to eat (and drink) whatever you damn well please?

Not to mention being able to (still) fit into 2020s clothes.

Cows are helping to power Britain, as renewable gas, made from manure, has been hooked up to the National Grid for the very first time.

Jeez - what took them so long? And pray when can we run our own motor vehicles powered by our own natural gases?

The biomethane made from cattle manure and straw is producing enough energy per hour to power the annual gas consumption of ten homes.

Cow waste is sealed into tanks without oxygen, where it is broken down by naturally occurring micro-organisms into biogas, before being used to help heat homes and cook meals. Farmers are increasingly rushing to exploit the value of their cow’s waste product in order to help provide green energy - although it has always looked brown to The Edge’s eyes.

And there’s good money in it for farmers who have a herd of around 3,000 cows, which is thought to be the ideal size to produce sufficient manure.

The chappy who is head of ‘gas systems’ at the National Grid says: “Alongside hydrogen, biomethane plays a critical role in achieving net zero carbon emissions and this innovative project is a step towards a future transition to a low carbon economy.”

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TrainingSpaceLtd

www.training-space.co.uk NAVIGATION ROAD, CHELMSFORD, CM2 6ND Page 12

(Behind C&C Autos)

Meanwhile, cow dung patties are selling like hot cakes in India.

The patties, which are basically cow poop mixed with hay that have been dried in the sun, are mainly made by the womenfolk in rural villages and are used to fuel fires. But online retailers, including Amazon and eBay, are now reaching out to the country’s ever increasing urban population, feeding into the desire of older city folks to harken back to their childhood.

In India, where Hindus have long worshiped cows as sacred, cow dung cakes have been used as a means of fire for centuries, whether for heating, cooking or Hindu rituals. Across rural India, piles of drying cow dung are ubiquitous (which means there’s loads of it, readers).

Many folk apparently find the ‘peaty smell’ of dung fires most pleasant.

Dung cakes are also used as organic manure.

However, your editor recalls once picking up a cow dung frisbee in the New Forest (almost flat, it was) and back-handing it, with plenty of wrist action, in the direction of the missus where it actually grazed her calf.

As you can imagine, readers, she was extremely not amused.

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With more and more people choosing to train at home, rather than at a commercial gym, there’s no better time than now to plan and build the home gym of your dreams.

Returning Store Manager Aran and his team at the Chelmsford Fitness Superstore showroom are excited to welcome you back in-store (right next door to a canteen, opposite M&S) and are ready to help you find all the kit you’ll need to hit your fitness goals from the comfort of your very own home.

Of course, sticking to an exercise routine is easier said than done, but investing in some quality home fitness equipment certainly takes the hassle out of enjoying a healthier lifestyle. You want to feel confident that you are purchasing the best equipment available, no matter the price range - products that are premium, reliable and functional. Helpfully, the Chelmsford store (one of the largest of its kind in Europe) is packed full of equipment to suit your every need and budget. Whether you’re a fitness fanatic or passionate about powerlifting, their range of cardio machines, strength equipment and functional accessories is sure to house the perfect product for you. Plus, with exclusivity on several products and brands (including renowned names like Schwinn, Bowflex, Powertec and more), you’ll find equipment you can’t buy anywhere else in the UK. Fitness Superstore pride themselves in providing an unbeatable in-store shopping experience and offer a premium service from start to finish. Every visitor to their Chelmsford store is greeted by the expert and fully-trained team who go the extra mile to ascertain your goals and requirements before helping you select the right equipment that supports you and your training lifestyle. While you’re there, you’re free to browse the unrivaled range of products at your leisure. Want to get to grips with a certain machine before you purchase? No problem. Just hop right on and put it through its paces. All of the equipment on show is available to try before you buy (and is sanitised after every use). Should you have any questions, their staff will always be on-hand to assist you.

Whether you’re fitting out a new build, looking to transform a garage, convert a spare room, or completely renovate a building to accommodate your fitness goals, the design and layout of your home gym is just as important as the equipment you choose, and Fitness Superstore’s gym planning service does exactly that, creating an aesthetically pleasing and functional layout for you that will maximise the space you are working with. What’s more, it’s a FREE, no obligation service!

They also offer a variety of finance packages to help spread the costs and make the most of your budget, so you don’t have to compromise on what you know will help set your training area apart. Interest-free monthly payments ensure you can purchase exactly what you want without a financial headache.

So why not stop by the Chelmsford store soon to kick-start your New Year’s resolutions and make 2021 your fittest year yet.

www.theedgemag.co.uk

When the first Wonder Woman movie hit the screens back in 2017, it took many audiences by surprise, reports The Edge’s very own Barry Norman, Andrew Eley. It was a rollicking period set adventure movie that established the then fairly unknown Israeli actress and model, Gal Gadot, into the iconic role, wowing fans across the globe to the tune of nearly a billion dollars. Much expectation has therefore been placed on the shoulders of this much delayed sequel, but can lightening strike twice?

Wonder Woman 1984 starts with a terrific opening scene, set on Wonder Woman’s homeland of Themyscira, in which a very young Diana Prince competes against her fellow Amazonians in a thrilling chase, which immediately draws the viewer into the action which will one day (soon, hopefully) no doubt elicit more than a few gasps from the audience. It’s a thunderous opening sequence that makes you feel that this movie is truly going to be something special indeed.

Soon after, we see a grown up Wonder Woman facing-off against a group of clumsy robbers in a shopping mall who are trying to steal some valuable artifacts from a jewellery store. This scene definitely has the feel of some of the early Christopher Reeve Superman movies, only to me it also felt more Superman 3 than the much-loved 1 and 2 versions, clearly setting the tone that this is a much more comic like affair, rather than the gritty and grounded original.

The plot, so much that there is, centres around a classic movie MacGuffin, in this case the dream stone, which is able to grant anyone their deepest desires and wishes, though naturally at a cost. All the main players make a wish with various consequences, including failed businessman Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal) who has an insatiable appetite for money, and dowdy scientist Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig), who wants to be like her new found friend Diana, only to later crave yet more power, or in her words, “Become an apex predator.” Ultimately she becomes Cheetah, one of Wonder Woman’s most famous comic book villains.

After initially being granted her wish, Barbara morphs from being a bookish nerd that no man gives the slightest attention to, to wearing high heels and ultra figure-hugging dresses to become the centre of male attention. However, the way men act around her seriously does give us blokes a very bad name indeed, as they leer, wolf whistle and even try to grope her. I’ve honestly seen better behaviour on a night out in Bar & Beyond, if truth be told. Not all men are sexual predators and to my mind it comes across as the worst case of stereotyping of all.

Diana’s love interest is Steve Trevor, who (spoiler alert) died in the original, yet manages to make a reappearance (I’m sure you can figure out how). Together they team up to try to stop Maxwell Lord making even more wishes as he increases his power and influence, leaving an inevitable trail of destruction in his wake.

There’s plenty of spectacle to witness during this movies hefty 150 minute running time, but after such a great beginning, it all feels somewhat scattershot and unbalanced throughout. Wonder Woman’s greatest power is not her strength, or lasso of truth, but one of convenience. She always appears to be in the right place at the right time, has access to anywhere she needs and even develops new powers that she unveils as the plot requires (see invisible jet). Nor is Maxwell Lord a compelling villain, being neither ruthless nor clever enough for the viewer to believe he would ever be that much of a threat. Thus the much awaited face-off between Wonder Woman and Cheetah is all a bit of a let down, as it takes place in so much darkness it is hard to see what’s going on.

The real shining light in this movie is, of course, Gal Gadot, who is so impossibly beautiful, charming and courageous that you simply can't take your eyes off her. She really does embody the physical presence and charisma of a goddess on earth, while those crazily long legs in her Wonder Woman outfit don’t hurt either.

Yet after an awfully long wait, WW84 unfortunately feels like a bit of disappointment.That said, after a year with very little to show in the way of blockbusters, it's a still a ‘must see’ movie on the big screen, if you can get to a cinema anytime soon, as it’s been such a long time since we’ve been able to lose ourselves in a caper of this size and scope.

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YOU HAVE TO THINK TWICE BEFORE ADMINISTERING THIS KIND OF MALARKEY NOWADAYS...

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So I’d popped downstairs to make myself a brew before needing to fill this last space of the mag (yes, this one here, the one you’re reading right now....because you don’t start at 1 and finish at number 32, you know. It’s all a bit of a jumble....a jigsaw puzzle, if you will), only I honestly didn’t know what to fill it with.

Seriously, you try writing 287 previous editions, having a crazy early deadline to meet, and a plain white half-sheet of A4 staring at you, as if to say, nay goad: “COME ON, THEN?” So like I say, I went downstairs to make a brew, not necessarily because I wanted one, but there’s only so long you can stare in defeat at a computer screen without needing a breather.

Anyway, while the kettle was boiling and I was retrieving the milk from the ’fridge (too much detail?), I spotted a brand new jar of Freshona Pickled Gherkins, a proper 670g worth (although only 360g drained weight) and I was very much immediately: ‘Mmmmm, come to Daddy’.

Only the bastards wouldn’t open, and I do mean seriously wouldn’t budge.

Which in turn lead me, as such naturally would, to contemplate the fact that maybe, just maybe, at my age, perhaps I’m starting to lose my grip (i.e. strength)?

Case in point, the very day before I attended my regular Monday morning ‘Combine’ class at Training Space (see page 12), which is a bit of a mixture of strength and aerobic, thus the name Danny decided to coin.

Only then I stayed on to do an extra bit of bench pressing on my own, only I failed on my final rep and the bar ended up trapping me down against the bench, like some sort of a ‘Well, I’ve been in better situations’ scenario-type-sandwich. And there was only Christian, upstairs on the mezzanine doing a ‘live’ podcast class, in the building.

“Help!” I feebly wailed, as I proper bruised my ribs trying to get the damn thing off me. Followed by (when I knew I couldn’t get myself out of such a precarious predicament) “HELLLPPP!” with my last bit of gusto.

So I suppose you could say that, as I was struggling to open a jar of Pickled Gherkins, I was contemplating whether indeed ‘the end may indeed be nigh’ on a slightly more than cursory level.

Because it was as though the lid was glued/cemented on and I was deffo giving it my best shot, despite the fact I have arthritis in my shoulder (oh don’t scoff, it’s true, I bloody well have).

I think I was in a state of confusion as much as anything else.

‘Is it because they’ve been unopened in the ’fridge since purchase?’

I began to wonder. Like, does the temperature help seal things up?

So I pumped myself up again, did a few back-and-forth paces around the kitchen, put some fresh chalk on my palms and “Grrrrrrrrr!” Same result.

The fecker just would not move.

Only I couldn’t let it lie now, could I? After all, far too much was at stake. It was either me or the Pickled Gherkins. Something had to give.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the wrinkled green carrots.

I started scratching my head and resorted to standing them upside down (so that pretty much only the ultra-sealed lid was submerged) in warm water, yet with veins thereafter beginning to burst through my biceps, the insolent twats still refused to yield.

“Right!” I said to them, all Basil Fawltylike. “You’ve asked for it now!”

And I promptly submerged the whole damn jar in water as hot as I dare, for fear of breaking the glass.

‘Perhaps the gherkins will no longer be able to breathe?’ I considered.

So I dragged them out, dried them off (the jar we’re talking about here), clamped my hand over the lid one last time and “Yes, yes, yessss!” (think When Harry Met Sally) the damn obtuse entry point finally gave way with ever such a silent, unsatisfying pop. Only do you know what I did then?

Do you? Can you guess? Before I bloody well ate one?

That’s right. I swore at them some more, only this time I was succinct with what I called ’em, and nobody likes being called that.

But, you know, if the cap fits...and that particular jar of Pickled Gherkins definitely deserved all it damn well got. While for my part, yep, I managed to fill a half-sheet of A4 out of the proceedings.

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Surely they can’t have been expensive cars, back in the sixties?

A bit of a rival to the humble Mini at the time, your editor seems to recall, with rear-wheel-drive and their ‘engine in the boot’.

But bugger, they seemed to do well on the rallying front whenever I used to gleefully watch ’em on Dickie Davies’ World of Sport on Saturday afternoons, always after the pre-match football analysis and most definitely before the wrestling.

Now I do remember the name Bill McGovern, who I think used to race them around about that time, which means that Paddy Hopkirk (another blast from the past) must have driven Mini’s, which were also ‘a bit special’ when it came to off-road rallying.

Do you know, it’s one thing I would have absolutely loved a crack at,

MINDHUNTER

being taught how to properly handle a motor car off-road, but instead the go-karts at Buckmore Park in Kent are as far as I’ve gotten.

When the back end flips out and they go sideways around a corner, like man and machine in perfect harmony. Ohhh, I’d just love to be able to drive like that. And look at the picture above; it’s as though the front wheels often appear to be going in a completely different direction to where the car itself is heading, yet it’s the skill of the driver trying to keep the motor in tandem with the track.

The Imp unfortunately lost face with the general public during the mid-sixties, due to it being unreliable, because that’s not what you want when you put your key in the ignition first thing of a morning.

‘Cooling problems’, I think they said, which if memory serves was also a trait the handsome Triumph Stag suffered with too.

But it has definitely got a ‘bit of a look’ about it, has the humble Imp,

One of the best Netflix series (two in total, but after an inconvenient break, it appears that series three will eventually follow) The Edge watched during lockdown was called Mindhunter, principally about FBI Behavioral Science Unit agents Ford & Tench, along with their sidekick, psychologist Wendy Carr.

These three characters are all memorable, with each having a certain substance, while the timeline is set between 1977-1981 during the early days of criminal psychology and profiling. Their task is to interview already imprisoned serial killers in order to better understand how they think, with the hope of applying any new found knowledge to help solve ongoing cases. Notorious serial killer Edmund Kemper also has a recurring role as he willingly assists Ford, in particular, and Tench, the latter of whom seems destined to have a heart attack at any given moment.

The character Holden Ford is based on John E. Douglas, the author of the book Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit. Indeed, Douglas has already reportedly served as the main inspiration for the character of Jack Crawford in the novels Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs.

Meanwhile Tench’s character is thought to be heavily inspired by that of Robert K. Ressler, a Chicago-born FBI agent who joined the Bureau in 1970 and is credited with coining the term ‘serial killer’.

Strikingly poised psychologist Dr Wendy Carr is often the voice of reason and logic and is based on Dr Ann Wolbert-Burgess, who along with Douglas and Ressler is credited with writing Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives.

It’s truly fascinating stuff and if you haven’t yet seen it, then The Edge urges you to seek it out.

Netflix is seemingly awash with series, but they’re not all as good as this one. Any you readers highly recommend, please inform this mag.

Incidentally, Rotten Tomatoes reviews Mindhunter with an average score between 95%-98%, so don’t just take The Edge’s word for it.

don’t you think? That dip in the bonnet gives it a sort of a ‘mildly peeved’ air of menace, whereas the Mini surely wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

Of course, another cracking car from your editor’s youth was the Ford Escort mk. I (and later the Ford Escort Mexico).

I honestly don’t know whether it’s got anything to do with ‘rose tinted glasses’ or it hasn’t, but cars back then, and indeed prior, seemed to have way more character than they do today, much the same as the people (yep, it cannot be denied). Names such as the Ford Corsair, the Singer Gazelle (nope, not a sewing machine, but a proper little belter with an excellent grille), and the Austin Allegro.

On second thoughts, probably not the latter, which came much later. www.theedgemag.co.uk

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www.theedgemag.co.uk

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HERE COME THE GIRLS

A Beaulieu Park Wife’s Diary in which names have been tweaked to spare blushes and exposed breaches to Pre-Nup Agreements.

Well hello there, and Happy New Year! All ready to smash this one and make it amazing? I think we all deserve something a little bit ‘extra’ in 2021 and you should all know by now that I am the QUEEN of ‘extra’!

January is always a good month for me personally: Hello Birthday, and whilst I can’t pretend to enjoy the marching of time, I ALWAYS welcome the promise of exquisitely wrapped gifts (thanks to a superior in-house wrapping service and not any origamic-wizardy on the part of the other half), expertly curated by my gal pals who know that Nathan will have exhausted any last shred of creativity in the gift-buying department during December and who offer lots of handy tips for ensuring a ‘no receipt required’ haul. Incidentally (useless fact alert…), did you know that Janus, the Roman god of doors after whom January is named (given it is the ‘door into the new year’), was also called the ‘Two-Faced god’? We know all about that in Beaulieu, don’t we, lovelies??? (Being two-faced that is, not Roman gods and their nomenclature!)

To be honest, I have a good feeling about this coming year; if you believe the ancient discipline of numerology, this year is a ‘5’ (2021: 2+0+2+1=5) and my ‘life path’ number is ‘8’ (although I won’t divulge my birth date which gets me to that universal number, but I will add that Naomi Campbell and Queen Elizabeth (Taylor that is, not the Ma’am variety) are/were also 8’s too - ha ha!)

In short, as an ‘8’, I’m all about leadership, ambition, empowerment and financial security (oh hi there, pre-nup!). A ‘5’ year for everyone universally is about ‘intense transition and great changes’. So apparently this year I’m encouraged to use my natural traits to be ‘daring’ and to ‘try things that I have never tried before’. That all sounds pretty bloody exciting to me - I’ve just got to work out what the hell it actually means. So for now, I’ll ‘change’ things up with a turmeric latte for breakfast for the foreseeable future, rather than my staple skinny flat white.

There are a fair few transitions afoot in BP - lots of the menfolk are hopefully returning to their shiny, little-used City desks (amen to that, I hear their longsuffering wives proclaim) and some are going even further afield. That’s right, Neil and Anna, our resident PDA-ers (some might joke OAP-ers) who decided to ‘put a ring on it’ so late in life that they have every chance of going the distance as they’ll be far too old to get out there and have an office affair (they’ll be drawing their pensions rather than working) have decided to up sticks and move to rural France.

Yes, that’s right, our answer to Dick and Angel Strawbridge are packing up the house as we speak and making plans to convert a 17th Century barn and outbuildings into a B&B. Hardly swapping ‘Beaulieu’ for ‘Le Chateau’, but hey, it’s an impressive pad all the same, complete with outdoor pool, several acres, a pigeonniere (that’s a ‘pigeon house’ or dovecote to you and me) plus cheap but tasty vin rouge on tap…and all for less than the price of a pokey two bed apartment on our fair estate; which sounds like a change worth making to me.

Thinking about it, I’m quite looking forward to the relatively fuss-free option of weekend trips across the channel to visit them both. Let’s face it, they’ll hardly turn down the offer of visitors when it’s just the two of them rattling around the dusty wine cellar, while the promise of a regular top-up of Waitrose sought-after après diner snackettes should seal the deal for a boozy stay in their new home.

Of course, this is all assuming that a post-Brexit-jab-fest has been made possible, but with my current positive mood, I am seeing everything through my new Alessandro Michele for Gucci rose-tinted sunglasses, so “On y va, mes amies!”

So it really just remains for me to say, whatever big plans you have afoot and however you see this brand new year unfolding, I encourage you to ‘be more Neil and Anna’ (without the embarrassing public groping, of course, as that would just be wrong on every level for me to promote); I implore you to go out there and seize opportunities, be bold, be ballsy, and above all, be bloody brilliant whilst doing it!

BEAULIEU PARK HOUSEWIVES

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The Edge 077 646 797 44

The Edge 288 new_The Edge 172.qxd 18/12/2020 12:04 Page 19

Please can ALL supermarkets start supplying the old fashioned, common-as-muck, brown paper bags that village greengrocers used to put our fruit & veg in when they served us (remember service)?

Surely it’s not too much to ask as we try to rid our world of damned plastic bags.

Edge grandad even used to supply freshly laid eggs to a few of his friends and neighbours from the hens he kept in his hen-piece in brown paper bags, when your editor was but a nipper. Not advisable, I wouldn’t have thought, but tut t’internet wasn’t about in the mid-sixties, so he clearly had a problem sourcing egg boxes.

Great rustling sound brown paper bags make too, while it’s always nice to receive a gift wrapped in traditional brown paper, don’t you think?

That’s because to good old days and the good old ways were undisputedly the best, because we instinctively knew what was what way back then.

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Isn’t that what they call it, when filmmakers put a particular piece of music to a scene in a movie?

Well, The Edge has already gone on record for not quite ‘appreciating’ Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of the Joker. But my god, when he’s stood at the top of those stone steps at West 167th Street in the Bronx and the opening bars of ‘Rock & Roll: Part 2’ ring out, that is some amazing sound, is that.

And it’s author?

Gary Glitter.

Yep, the notorious paedo that is Gary (Paul Gadd) Glitter, who is currently seemingly still being held in a cushy prison for sex offenders on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, where he manages to rake in approximately £250,000pa via his songs being played over the airwaves - although not in this country.

But why not, when Rock & Roll: Part 2 is so iconic and we still hear Michael Jackson wailing away in shopping centres?

It’s an odd one, isn’t it?

The Edge in no way condones some of the things Gary Glitter has done in his life, but writing/performing Rock & Roll: Part 2 was a stroke of bloody genius.

RAISE CAPITAL

Those of us who have large thighs might not be terribly proud of them, but it appears they can reduce our risk of heart attacks, strokes and high blood pressure.

The findings add to evidence that there may even be health benefits to being (ahem) pear-shaped.

Researchers have discovered that in overweight people, those with thick thighs had nearly a third less likelihood of high blood pressure, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

Thighs and hips are thought to be much safer places to store fat than around the waist, where it is likely to end up in organs which help regulate blood pressure.

Dr Zing-Zang, who led the study from Shanghai Jlao Tong University, said: “In contrast to stomach fat, thigh fat may be beneficial to metabolism.”

The study looked at 9,520 people in China aged over 40.

There, that makes all you shot-putters out there feel a whole lot better about your build, doesn’t it?

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The Edge 288 new_The Edge 172.qxd 17/12/2020 17:07 Page 20

Back by popular demand!

Happy New Year to you all.

DEAKS

Please God let 2021 be an improvement on 2020. That would be my wish and for that to happen this vaccine needs to be rolled out quickly and efficiently, and of course, it needs to be effective. So many conspiracy theories, so many people saying they won’t take the vaccine. Me? Give it to me now!

Nothing can be worse than the existence we are currently living through. I expect by the time I write my next column I might have had one, or both of my doses, so my apologies in advance if I begin to repeat my stories all over again, or I write in a foreign language.

shared the same DNA as my cousin Linda, who happens to be a frequent user of the site. So Linda (who did not know of this little incident in my past) contacted me and said, “OMG! This guy has contacted me asking me if I know his father, called Graham, who has two sons (his half-brothers) called Gary and James. What shall I do?” I immediately checked the flights to Rio de Janeiro, only to find they were booked for the next 7 days, which fortunately gave me time to think. After which I agreed that Linda could pass on my contact details to Jack.

So what can I tell you? I have now met Jack - just me and him - in a pub, at a time when we could still meet in pubs. A second meeting then took place at my home, which was also attended by Gary and James, and a third meeting took place with the rest of the family. A further date was set for over the festive holidays (see what I did there?). So there you have it, a happy ending. Well, for now anyhow (the C-word family get together will occur as this publication goes to print, so we will probably have a big family bust-up, as often happens at this time of the year).

I suppose I had better start thinking up some new stories to share with you in 2021 (no, not yet Shaun. I’m still not quite ready for THAT story)!

Here is my dilemma. On the one hand, there are world renowned virologists, medical experts and Noble Prize winning scientists saying it’s an amazing breakthrough, but on the other, there is Steve from Milton Keynes saying he watches video games and this is exactly how Zombie Apocalypse began. Look, I respect everyone’s view on this, but we cannot go on like we are. I do wonder if the plan is to roll this out to the most vulnerable and those over a certain age and then make it optional to those in less vulnerable groups. The younger generation are quite rightly questioning the vaccine because they are much less likely to die from the virus.

So, Diego Maradona has died. I really struggle to care, if I’m honest with you.

Many people claim he was the greatest player the world has ever seen, and I do agree, he was a genius. But he was also cheating for many of those years.

He cheated England in 1986 and was then sent home in disgrace when he failed a drugs test in 1990. In between, he played for Napoli in Italy, winning leagues and cup finals whilst sticking marching powder up his nostrils. To say cocaine might improve your football playing ability is a bit like saying that Mike Tyson can handle himself. So for this reason, I just do not understand why there was such an outpouring of grief for the guy. The English Premiership observed a minutes silence, or was it another clapping session - I forget as we have so many these days - but why? He cost us a World Cup with his ‘Hand of God’ antics, for heaven’s sake. If the crowds had been present, I guarantee there would have been booing, and rightly so in my view.

I don’t suppose you folks know that the Edge Editor forbids the mention of the C-word in the January columns. You know the one, the one which is often abbreviated to Xmas. Which is a word I personally hate, by the way, because it takes Christ out of, well, you know, the C-word the one I’m not supposed to mention. Anyhow, I do hope you all had a lovely one.

Why do people take an instant dislike to Diego Maradona, you may ask?

Because it saves time, I always reply. He was a cheat, end of story. His pleas of innocence were about as convincing as an ex-girlfriend’s hypothesis that a joint bank account would spice up our sex life. Yeah, right!

I feel I should get back to my story concerning my long lost son, the one that I started to tell you about a couple of editions ago. You will recall, and if you don’t you can recap here: http://theedgemag.co.uk/blog/ that my son Jack, who I had never met, traced me via ancestry.com having discovered he

EDGE Ale

Anyway, now is probably a good time to share a fun story that happened around this time of the year many moons ago. I used to live in Braintree, when I first got married to my ex-wife, and one of my pals lived close by and so did his sister, Elaine. Now Elaine was going away for a three week winter holiday and she asked me if I would pop round to her house every day to feed her cats. They had a cat-flap, so they could come and go, so it wasn’t a big issue. She also had a massive real pine C-tree in her lounge, placed in soil, in a massive pot with tree lights that came on and off on a timer for security.

So every day I dutifully called round for 30 minutes or so, fed and made a fuss of her cats, and everything was fine apart from I increasingly noticed the smell of cat pee. I just thought they might’ve done a wee somewhere in the house, but I didn’t think it was my business to search it out since it wasn’t obvious where it might be. And besides, Elaine was due home soon. So on the day she arrived home, she text me to say she was in a taxi, so I thought I’d pop round to feed the cats one last time and make sure everything was nice and tidy for her return. I’m good like that.

So guess where the cats had been doing their business every day? Yep, in the C-tree pot! Twenty-one days of pee and poo deposited in the soil and, of course, the tree picked THAT very day to finally topple over from its sodden position and distribute itself and all it’s decorations (not to mention the contents of the pot) all over Elaine’s new cream shag pile carpet. And but 5 minutes after I arrived to discover this, Elaine arrived home to find me sat on her sofa with my head in my hands - though more to hide the smell if I’m honest with you.

EDGE

the Page 20

Moving on, every year I change all of my passwords. I know a lot of people don’t bother, but in these days of ever more complex scams, you’re daft not to. I’ve noticed that password requirements are getting all the more complicated these days. They’ve gone from four letters, to six letters, and then eight letters, including a capital letter and a number, and now they even ask you to incorporate a squiggly sign, such as a hashtag or an asterisk. How are we supposed to remember these increasingly confusing passwords? Last year, when asked to pick a new password with eight characters, I used SnowWhiteandthe7dwarfs and whilst I admit it was a bit long, at least it ticked all the boxes and was easy to remember.

Well, I think that’s just about your lot, folks, which should be enough to fill a page in Shaun’s mighty little mag. The secret now is for me to submit this to him just a day before he goes to print so that he cannot insist I change any references to the C-word!

TTFN, Deaks.

Email: gmdeakin@gmail.com Instagram: gmdeakin

The Edge 077 646 797 44

The Edge 288 new_The Edge 172.qxd 17/12/2020 17:07 Page 21

2021 Well, thank goodness 2020 is over. It was a pretty terrible year for most people, from bush fires in Australia, to swarms of locusts, Caroline Flack, the impeachment of Donald Trump and, of course, the Covid-19 pandemic. In comparison, I had a relatively easy ride. I mainly worked from home, wore a mask and eventually got asked to stay at home and watch Netflix.

Despite my relative cushty number, I am looking forward to a time where we can all return to a relatively more normal way of life without living under the fear of constant lockdowns. By the time you read this, I hope that the roll-out of the vaccine will be in full-flow, with no adverse effects, and ‘normal life’ fast starting to get back on track.

Being a long-suffering West Ham fan, I have spent much of the last 20+ years threatening to never go and watch that shower again, but to suddenly have that option taken away from me made me realise just how much I really do enjoy it, despite my protests to the contrary. The thought of a few hours out of the house, a beer, burger and the chance to watch some ‘live’ football seems almost heavenly to me right now.

And don’t even get me started on holidays. The last one I had seemed like such an effort at the time, what with 2 kids under the age of 3 (one of which is currently nursing a broken leg), but looking back on the episode now, it was relative bliss. Yes, the Pina Coladas were cautiously consumed and there was no chance of reading a book through fear of the little ones jumping into the wrong pool, not to mention relentlessly annoying other holidaymakers who were simply there to relax. But a week’s allinclusive in the sun was so much better than this year’s offering of a week spent in Dorset in a rainsoaked tent, while the cost of an ice-cream at the Durdle Door was pretty much the same price as a return flight to Mauritius.

Right now, as a family, we are

trying our best to ‘make do and mend’ and, on most evenings, there are now tons of people crammed into little makeshift tents pitched outside of pubs, ordering scotch eggs, just wishing they could be inside next to a roaring fire instead. Fact is, the natives are becoming restless and despite a passive tolerance to most things, I think the government are walking on ice by trying to put a wedge between Brits and our regular consumption of alcohol. All joking aside, a pub still remains the cornerstone of British society and I am really looking forward to the day that I can meet my friends down the local and discuss, in great detail, the so-called fun we have all had whilst attending relentless Zoom quizzes throughout lockdown.

Working from home has been great and it really has helped so many people create a healthy work/life balance. I know that the government will no doubt encourage us office workers back to London to help save the flagging economy, but I honestly don’t see that happening, at least not on a full-time basis. Business will need to evolve and adapt and I certainly think we will see a boom in local economies (I know my local cake shop is benefiting from my custom).

Billy Hinken There is, of course, a tragic story associated with Covid-19 that will remain for many and that is the tragic and sad loss of lives as a result of the virus. At the time of writing, over 50,000 people have sadly lost their lives throughout England alone. Yes, there have been many mistakes made in dealing with the pandemic, but the fact is this really has been unprecedented.

Therefore the real hope for this year is that our nation gets properly immunised against Covid-19 and that it never rears its ugly head again.

Happy New Year to one and all.

Have a wonderful January.

You too, Hammers!

LOCKDOWN WALKS by local author NETTY CRACKNELL Coronavirus has been one of the most impactful and influential periods in recent history.

With the disease’s reach touching everyday life, from the young to the old, poor to rich, we’ve seen how it can totally devastate, yet we’ve also seen some people’s reliance on positives to get us through this most difficult of periods.

In local author Netty Cracknell’s new book, Lockdown Walks, she shares her lockdown experiences with the reader through a collection of photographs.

These show loneliness, serenity and true hidden beauty during this bleak and unprecedented time.

Many people have recounted that they explored their local areas during lockdown during their once-a-day ‘exercise’ periods and discovered lovely places they never even knew existed.

The author was no exception.

Each photograph was captured within walking or cycling distance of the Netty’s house in Springfield, Chelmsford.

“I purchased my first DSLR camera in 2014 when I was a photographer of weddings, newborns and families,” she says.

“But when I injured my knee in early 2017, it meant I could no longer walk comfortably and I just stopped taking photographs altogether. The lockdown was hard on everyone, but it allowed me to find a new branch of photography and rekindle my former passion.”

A snapshot of an important period of history through the lens of an everyday individual’s outlook is available now.

Price: £14.99 www.theedgemag.co.uk

Page 21

The Edge 288 new_The Edge 172.qxd 17/12/2020 17:07 Page 22

ONLY JOKING! CONE

Owner: "What's that?”

Vet: "It's a cone. There's a lot of swelling around your dog's stitches, so we don't want any licking occurring.”

Owner: "That makes sense (dropping trousers and placing cone over his exposed crotch).”

Vet: "No, no. For Christ’s sake, it goes on the dog.”

KNOCK KNOCK There was a sharp rap on the door.

It was an Amazon driver.

He said, "Hi. Me and the lads at the depot were worried about you because you haven’t placed an order for a couple of days. I was in the area, so I figured I’d better look you up.”

DICTIONARY Son: "What does antiquated mean?”

Dad: "Look it up in the dictionary.”

Son: "Dick shun what?”

Dad: "Oh FFS, just Google it.”

IN-BOX I just checked my emails, only to find it full of the usual offers, such as penis extensions, Viagra, hair loss cures, how to keep your woman satisfied, how to lose weight quickly etc.

I wouldn't mind, but they’re all from the missus.

NEWLY WEDS A newly wed couple check into a hotel.

They get to their room and the guy is all over his new bride, but she keeps batting him away.

"What’s the matter?” he says.

"I’ve read they always put bugs in the rooms of newly weds.”

"What? To make us itch?”

"No, stupid,” she says. “So they can listen in and record us.”

"Don’t be daft,” says her husband.

"Well, I’m locking myself in the bathroom until you’ve checked the room thoroughly.”

Resigned, the guy checks under the bed, all the lights, the phone, goes through all the drinks in the minibar, even the cistern, the shower, but as he’s walking to the bed he feels an unusual

bump beneath the rug. Gently lifting it up, he sees a silver disc, so he whispered for his missus to come out from the bathroom.

"Should we ask for a new room?” he says.

"No,” she says. "That way we’ll have to start all over again. Can’t you just unscrew it?”

So he does and spends the rest of the night consummating the marriage good’n’proper.

The next morning they go down to breakfast and everyone is smiling at them. Men slap the chap on the back whilst women look jealously at the new wife.

After breakfast they go to the front desk and the clerk cannot keep the grin from his face. So the young guy asks the clerk what’s going on.

"Well,” he says, "we’ve had some enthusiastic performances in this hotel in the past, but you’re the first couple to bring down the whole damn chandelier in the room below.”

GIRLS AT WORK The girls at work asked me if I'd tried anal.

I said, “Does sex with the same asshole for almost twenty-five years count?”

JUNK MAIL Browsing through my junk mail folder, I came across this one: ‘Best foods for Arthritis’.

Like, who the hell wants arthritis?

SURGEON They all turned agog and started stared at me in the operating theatre.

"What?” said the surgeon. “Surely I can’t be the only one to lick the knife after using it?”

Q&A Q. What have tofu and dildos got in common?

A. They’re both meat substitutes.

SEX SLAVE A girl I used to work with once captured me and locked me in her basement for a fortnight, using me as her sex slave.

But one day she went to work and slipped up; she forgot to lock the door.

I thought, "Great, here’s my chance.”

So I snuck upstairs and grabbed the phone.

Half-an-hour later my pizza arrived, and then I went back down to the basement and waited patiently for her to return home.

PULLING A SICKIE I phoned in sick today.

The boss asked how sick I was?

I said, “I’m having a threesome with Susan Boyle and Nicola Sturgeon.”

He said, “Take the rest of the week off.”

ENGINEER Me: "Jeez, what a fecking shit show.”

Sewage Engineer: "S’not my fault. You asked for a guided tour.”

And: "OMG, I can clearly see his testicles."

PLACEHOLDER Sting: "De do do do, De da da da, is all I want to say to you.”

Record Exec: "Cut! Cut! Are they placeholder lyrics, until you think of something else?”

Sting: "Yeah.”

Record Exec: "Got anything in mind?”

Sting: "De do do do, De da da da, Tra la la la.”

ALEXA Boyfriend: "OMG, I love these!”

He leaned in closer.

"Alexa, what’s the weather like on Mars?”

Alexa: “What time is it in Antarctica?”

Girlfriend: "You fecking muppet, Pete. You’re talking to my diaphragm.”

EYE CONTACT My daughter managed to maintained eye contact while stuffing her face with the very last bar from my secret chocolate stash.

My husband said, “Oh shit” and rushed over to pick her up and take her into another room.

But he won’t always be here to protect her.

FACE-MASKS Apparently the boss now insists we remove our face-masks when addressing him.

It seems someone slipped up and actually said "Feck off, you gobshite” instead of just mouthing it like the rest of us.

THE QUESTION IS “What’s the worst thing I’ve ever done?

Why would you assume I’ve already peaked?”

ACUPUNCTURE I wonder if acupuncture can cure pins and needles?

LOOSE What’s with people who wear watches loosely around their wrist?

Noisy wankers!

TASER Well, that could have gone better.

He whined that the spark had gone out of our marriage. So I tasered him.

Hey, before he comes round, does anyone know how many charges you can get out of one set of batteries?

TINDER Ain’t saying my marriage is on the rocks, but when I saw hubby on Tinder, I swiped left.

WOW “Wow, I’m just two girls short of a threesome.

I’d better get to work on that.”

OLD BIDDY A little old lady went to the dentist.

As he tilted the chair back, she put her feet on the arm-rests and pulled her knickers to one side.

"Madam, please!” objected the shocked dentist.

"I’m not a gynaecologist.”

"Calm down, deary,” she said. "I just need you to retrieve my husband’s false-teeth.”

RIPPED JEANS Ripped jeans are clearly bang on trend.

I'm getting lots of positive comments about mine. So far I’ve heard...

"Jesus Christ!"

"WTF, dude?"

All jokes published are supplied by Edge readers. Please send your ‘egg yokes’ to shaun@theedgemag.co.uk

The Edge 288 new_The Edge 172.qxd 17/12/2020 17:07 Page 23

The older you get, your hair starts to grow in all the wrong places.

As a baldie, you think I’m probably happy with any extra I can get.

But no, I’m not. Particularly when ‘the extra’ starts sprouting out of my nostrils and lug’oles.

Hair grows in three stages: The anagen stage (when the hair is actually growing out of your head), the catagen stage (when the hair stops growing) and the telogen stage (when the hair falls out of your head).

Hair typically grows in the anagen stage for two to six years before transitioning to the catagen stage, when the growth stops. A few weeks after the hair stops growing, it sheds during the telogen stage, then the hair cycle starts over again. As men, in particular, grow older, these stages are thrown out of whack because some of the hair follicles will develop a sensitivity to dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a by-product of testosterone, that shortens the lifespan of each affected follicle. That’s why long-term exposure to DHT will eventually trigger full-on male-pattern baldness.

Paradoxically, DHT is also responsible for a surge in ear and nose hair growth (the scientific community fittingly calls this phenomenon the Androgen Paradox). DHT acts like steroids for the hair flowing from our ears and nose, which explains why they grow to troll-doll proportions without regular trimming as men age. Put simply, DHT causes the hair on our heads to fall out, while causing the hair on our faces to go wild.

Why DHT has such opposite effects on neighbouring body parts is still something of a mystery, but at least we’re given a little time to prepare for the inevitable. Once you start losing the hair on your head, you can expect the hair growing from your ears and nostrils to look like the back end of a broomstick just a few years later. So hey, thanks a bunch, life!

But facial hair clearly doesn’t solely affect men. Just look at Eurovision Song Contest winner Conchita (below). Now there’s a bird who ought to shave more often.

There now follows a haphazard list of some of the fastest rising narcissistic treatments both known and undertaken by man...

Hi-tech hair transplants (a la Rooney) Nose job (Tom Hardy) Penile/Ass-hole lightening/whitening Beard transplant (yes, really) Testicle lift (yep, for a cool £3,000...£1,500 per nut) Moob job Question is, which of these is your average perma-tanned, white-toothed, bleach-blonde Essex bloke likely to undertake first?

www.theedgemag.co.uk

Page 23

The Edge 288 new_The Edge 172.qxd 21/12/2020 14:35 Page 24

For starters, let’s hope 2021 will be a hell of a lot better than last year.

I’m actually writing this column in early December, due to a deadline a couple of weeks prior to usual, and thus far, the news is a bit like a Curate’s Egg - i.e. good, in parts!

The positive news is that a vaccine has been rapidly approved for use, while reports are claiming that vaccinations will begin imminently. So hopefully by the time you read this we should be well on the way to protecting Care Home residents and staff, as well as the NHS.

So let’s dispel a few myths, shall we.

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Page 24

Firstly, these vaccinations are not compulsory or mandatory. The UK government cannot force anyone to be vaccinated. Your rights are protected by the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ which has been accepted and endorsed by the United Nations.

This declaration enshrines ‘the rights and freedoms of all human beings’, so if you don’t want to be vaccinated, just say “no”.

Your rights are further supported by the ‘European Convention of Human Rights’, backed up by the ‘European Court of Human Rights’, which has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the EU, so it won’t be affected in any way by any changes to our European status (as of 31st December). And, once again, if you don’t want to be vaccinated, simply say “no”.

However, and it’s a BIG ‘however’, we really don’t know how shops, restaurants, pubs, airports etc are going to respond to admitting people who are, or are not, vaccinated in the future, and that, along with travel, brings us to the equally BIG question about how we identify those individuals who have been vaccinated?

Ther’is been a lot of chat about certificates, biometric passports and smart phone downloads to confirm your vaccination status, while this is coupled with conspiracy theories about government control over your location and where you travel to.

Frankly, this is all nonsense, as over 85% of us own a smartphone (it’s actually nearly 100% in the under 45’s), over 60% of us use some form of GPS in our cars, and similarly over 80% of us own a passport (and by 2023 ALL Passports will be Biometric).

So that, coupled with the extensive ANPR and Videocam network, provides the government with plenty of information about

our travel habits, not to mention everything else we do outside of our homes.

But does it really matter?

The idea of vaccinating enough people is to achieve herd immunity, stop the virus spreading, and reduce the death rate. Be clear, it’s not going to put an end to the virus itself; realistically the Covid19 Virus is not going to disappear, but by vaccinating enough people it should stop it being a problem and we can go back to living a more normal life.

Entry without quarantining into differing countries I’m sure will be based upon everyone’s vaccine status, just as it used to be with Yellow Fever, TB and various types of Encephalitis. Remember, we all happily paid for these vaccinations and the appropriate certificates, so therefore it would be silly not to be vaccinated against Covid-19, wouldn’t it?

Personally, I wouldn’t have a problem with a Biometric Vaccination Visa or a download on my phone. After all, I’ve had to comply with the Premier League rules to even apply for my match tickets based on my season ticket, so is it really any different?

Finally, last but by no means least, there is a rumour flying around that the pharmaceutical companies have been granted immunity against being sued if someone suffers complications form the vaccine. Unfortunately, this is partly true, because what has really occurred is that the government has taken on the responsibility (and liability) of the vaccine and provided the pharmaceutical companies with Government Indemnity, just like the NHS, so instead the Government will accept liability via the ‘Vaccine Damages Payment Act’.

But there is no hidden conspiracy and there is no Big Brother out there watching you.

So let’s ALL get vaccinated and hopefully return to normal life as soon in 2021 as we are able.

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G

reetings once again from San Diego and at the birth of a New Year let’s hope 2021 is a bit better than the bastard that was 2020.

and strangers. See our friends outside only and keep distanced. If we do those four things for six months and have the vaccine shoved into our arms as soon as it is offered, then life will be almost normal by the time the next football season starts. We might even have a full stadium at Spurs to welcome the League Champions.

Indeed, hope is the very least of it. In truth we should be looking forward to the new year with a large dollop of optimism. With various vaccines coming to the rescue at the last minute, like the cavalry in a John Wayne film, there is a great amount to be optimistic about. But…

Incidentally, if Johnson or any other of that cabal of uselessness tells you they are “following the science” again, I hope someone has the wherewithall to ask for the name of a single qualified person who thought the five day Christmas amnesty was a good idea from a scientific point of view.

Yes, there’s always a but, isn’t there? In this case though, the ‘but’ is something we can control to ensure it disappears up its own butt, if you’ll excuse the pun.

What the heck are you on about, you may ask?

Well, this.

First, a little history lesson is required. San Diego is a military town. In fact, it’s a lot more than that now, but that’s another column. For now we’ll concentrate on the fact that there is a huge naval yard here that is home to a large fleet. There’s an Air Force base (used by the makers of Top Gun, incidentally), a Marine camp and a sprawling Navy Air Force place.

That military presence has been here since the early years of the 20th century and as such the city takes it seriously. In a park down by the bay there are innumerable monuments, statues and art works that commemorate San Diego’s combat heritage. It has to be said that America in general does military memorials very well, with the accent on celebrating as much as just remembering their subjects. The San Diego versions are as impressive as any. They cover every conflict from WW1 and WW2 through Korea, Vietnam and on to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Several of the local monuments and tributes are to what is known in the US as The Greatest Generation. This is not a term in general use in the UK, although it probably should be. It refers to, depending on your age, your parents or your grandparents. It’s the generation that fought and won WW2 without complaint. Then they rebuilt the world as a place where decent people could lead a decent life and have a decent chance of improving their lot without fear. All of that rebuilding they did without complaining too. Those people had character. Real character. In spades. It’s no wonder there are so many tributes to them here or that they have acquired that Greatest Generation tag.

Our age groups - the boomers, millennials and Gen Zers, should be extremely grateful that unlike the two previous generations, we have not had a hot war to fight in our lifetimes. No going over the top at the Somme. No doodlebugs raining down on our houses. No threat of invasion.

That lack of mortal peril seems to have made us a selfish and complacent lot. Well, we now have a global and unseen enemy to fight. Covid is our war. It’s our turn to discover some character.

At first we took the pandemic seriously, joined together, applauded the NHS and all the rest.

Then the boredom set in and any character we’d shown so far faded into the mist.

Now is not the time to give up the fight - we have an end in sight and there is even less excuse to show a lack of character. We’ve scraped by for nine months not knowing how or where it would conclude. We’ve followed incoherent rules that were made up on the hoof and were not thought through. And now there are multiple vaccines coming on line we know it’s a matter of months, not years, and it’ll be over. So this next six months is when our character is to be tested.

Compared to our parents’ travails, ours are easy - it would be pathetic of us to fail.

Anyone who has been paying attention knows enough about Covid by now to understand inherently what we need to do. We shouldn’t need Johnson and his cabinet of incompetent nobodies to set the rules - we know them. We don’t need to be prisoners in our own homes, just live our lives a bit differently. Wear a mask all the time we are away from home. Don’t spend time inside with people apart from our immediate household. Keep a distance between ourselves

There’s a problem with those four simple steps though. The boredom mentioned earlier means far too many people want to pretend there isn’t a thing to deal with any more. They want to go maskless, to hug their friends, to go to pubs and generally to do what the heck they like in the name of their ‘freedom’. They are happy to take their chances.

Well, freedom is a fine concept and nobody would argue against it at a general level. But there’s a difficulty when one man’s freedom impacts someone else’s freedom. Your freedom to ignore the virus can result in someone else losing their freedom to stay alive. Just as importantly, your freedom may put an intolerable strain on the unseen NHS staff. They could be at the end of the chain your selfishness began. Out here the news is filled each night with exhausted doctors and nurses, many in tears, having to deal with full ICUs, bodybags by the dozen and a personal feeling of being at the end of their tether. Just help us help you is their plea. It must be the same for the NHS staff over there.

So two routes are open to each of us. Go ahead, do what you want, don’t care about anyone else and exercise your individual freedom to be a selfish arse. That is, show a total lack of character.

Or, on the other hand, buckle down, expect six more months of restrictions, but know at the end of it you have established yourself as a person with character. We might not have done enough to have earned the Greatest Generation label, but at least we’ll have avoided being known by history as something much worse.

The Feckless Generation.

DON’T BE PATHETIC! shaun@theedgemag.co.uk

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Edge of the World travel correspondent.

Embarks on assignments in a futile effort to preserve his sense of youth, always acknowledging that he ‘Won’t pass this way again’.

I can’t quite recall why, but some while ago I found myself fascinated by a list of all the English and Welsh towns and cities that have or at some point in history had - ancient fortified walls. For some unknown reason, I then became immersed in devising a continuous cycle route around the country to visit all 59 of them. Okay, I realise the whole enterprise sounds a bit eccentric and qualifies me as an anorak, but in my defence you’ll be relieved to hear that sufficient sanity and Cymrophobia prevailed and I swiftly dismissed any thoughts of venturing over the Welsh border.

Anyway, it all seemed like a good idea at the time. A unique and epic physical challenge that would also indulge my passion for travel, a bit of historical architecture thrown in and countless inviting country pub fuelling stops along the way.

So here’s a list of the towns on the route with some brief observations about a few of the more interesting ones.

> Stamford > Nottingham - Location of Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem which claims to be England’s oldest pub. > Newark > Lincoln - I recall cycling up a bloody steep cobbled hill to reach the historic centre.

The reward; Newport Arch - the north gate of the upper Roman town of Lindum Colonia - now the only Roman arch in the country still open to traffic. > Hull - Across the impressive Humber Bridge to visit the port city of Hull with its 14th century walls. Unattractive city which somehow earned the title of UK City of Culture 2013. Recent excavations of an Augustinian friary have revealed evidence of self-flagellation practices with 60% of the friars’ skeletons showing evidence of a virulent strain of syphilis. > Beverley > York - Substantial portions of the original Roman walls remain, while York also has more miles of intact wall than any other city in England. Boasts more than 200 pubs. > Richmond > Hartlepool - Retains some medieval coastal town walls but is more famous as the location where, during the Napoleonic wars, a French ship was wrecked off the coast. The townsfolk mistakenly identified the only survivor - the ship’s mascot monkey - as a French spy. They subsequently convicted the monkey and hanged the poor creature. > Durham > Newcastle > Warkworth > Berwick upon Tweed - The walls are the only example of bastioned town walls in Britain and were built in 1558. Designed to keep out the marauding Scots. Clearly the inspiration for POTUS 45’s ‘Build the Wall’ campaign to keep out his unwelcome neighbours. > Alnwick - The walls are 15th Century and its castle was the backdrop to a couple of the Harry Potter films. > Carlisle - Heading west to visit the 12th Century city walls of Carlisle, I followed the Hadrian’s Wall Cycle Way which gave me opportunity to get up close to another 73 miles of Scot-repellent infrastructure (started in 122 AD) and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The journey south took me along the coast and at Crosby I was fascinated by the 100 cast iron figures of Sir Antony Gormley’s famous ‘Another Place’ artwork.

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Worcester > Warwick > Coventry > Northampton > St Albans > Oxford > Cricklade > Malmesbury > Cirencester > Gloucester > Bristol > Bath > Ilchester > Langport > Exeter > Launceston > Totnes - Somewhere between Totnes and Wareham, I recall whizzing down a steep hill into the coastal harbour town of Sidmouth, only to be presented with a formidable climb out of the town. On a heavily laden bike the brutal Salcombe Hill (20% gradient) is etched painfully in my memory. > Wareham - Oddly the town didn’t actually feature on my original list. It just happened to be on the route and in travelling through I discovered that it has monumental Saxon earth 'walls' constructed in the 9th century (so not strictly qualifying as fortifications, but who’s checking?).

> Poole > Salisbury > Silchester > Winchester > Southampton > Portsmouth > Chichester > Lewes

City of London - I thought it logical to start the tour from the capital and although little remains of the original Roman walls, these are among the most historically significant as they define the Square Mile of the City of London where I spent much of my working life.

I was waved-off by Roman emperor Trajan as he stands before one of the most impressive intact sections of the wall at Tower Hill. > Colchester - England’s oldest recorded town with extensive Roman walls built following the town’s destruction in AD60 during Queen Boudica’s brutal revolt against Roman rule (the earliest recorded event of the Brexit campaign). This was not my first visit. Oh no, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve gone drinking after work in London, only to wake up totally pissed on the last train at Colchester. > Great Yarmouth > Norwich - ‘Aha!’ The cultural highlight would have been an encounter with Radio Norwich’s iconic broadcaster at The Travel Tavern.

Alas, I didn’t meet the great man, but I did see the 13th century walls. > Castle Acre > Kings Lynn - Walls constructed in the late 13th and early 14th century. Local Facebook subscribers to Chelmsford Remembered will envy the town’s retention of its 1854 Corn Exchange which still functions as a theatre.

Elgar, immortalised in bronze.

Then onto four walled Kentish coastal towns (Hastings > Winchelsea > Rye > Sandwich) that feature in the historical Confederation of Cinque Ports. > Canterbury > Rochester - The final location prior to crossing back over the Thames to be welcomed back by Emperor Trajan after my triumphant campaign.

Total distance - 2,340 miles Duration - 38 days With the visits to Launceston, Sandwich, Berwick and Carlisle I reckon I can now justifiably claim to have cycled to the four corners of the country.

> Chester - Worryingly close to Wales, but it does have walls originating in Roman times which are considered to be some of the best preserved in Britain. > Stafford > Shrewsbury > Bridgnorth > Ludlow > Hereford where I met fellow cyclist Edward

Worryingly, I’ve recently become familiar with the list of the 42 English cathedral towns. Shaun keeps reminding me that he’s desperate for an article on ecclesiastical architecture, so if we’re still denied overseas travel opportunities in 2021, I might have to put some air in the tyres… wontpassthiswayagain@gmail.com The Edge 01245 348256

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The More Things Change

KiNGPiN

It’s no surprise, or secret, that the UK starts 2021 with its financial pants around its ankles.

Unemployment is the highest it has been in years and we are roughly £300 billion in debt.

Oh yes, ‘Happy New Year’.

Somehow, we’ve got to start paying this gigantic deficit and a recent report by a group of tax experts has, surprisingly, said the best way to do this is to tax the rich. Well I’m far from rich, so maybe I am missing something here, but the proposed additional 1% on a £1 million threshold doesn’t seem too punitive, and the estimates are that this could raise around £260 billion over the next few years.

So, by getting the people who can actually afford it to pay a little extra, we could clear the lion’s share of this debt within 5 years. That seems pretty reasonable, right? Well, not if you’re rich. It took approximately 0.5 picoseconds from the report coming out for it to be shot down in flames by other financial experts, namely those who run a ‘free market think tank’.

If you see anything with ‘free market’ in it, then remember that’s essentially code for: ‘Rich people deserve all the money, so there.’ I’ll hazard a guess that this proposed one-off wealth tax will quietly disappear and it’ll be us footing the bill.

Again. As much as I’ve applauded Rishi Sunak over the last few months, I haven’t forgotten he made his millions banking in Singapore, renowned as the most financially ‘creative’ place in the world, by making rich people even richer.

Do I think that Rishi and the rest of Bojo’s circus give a tinker’s damn about us normal people?

Not for a New York second. After the financial crisis in 2008, when the rich lost all of our money, did they pay for it? No, they lost all of our money and then were bailed out with even more of our money to just carry on doing exactly the same shit, while tens of thousands of us lost jobs and homes, and in some cases lives.

Remember when the Panama papers came out and showed how the rich were dodging taxes and squirreling away millions and nothing happened? Remember when the Paradise papers came out and showed more of the same at an even more egregious scale and, oh that’s right, nothing happened?

The world has gone through the biggest upheaval in a generation, and what are we doing now? Are we using this as an opportunity to really try and make positive financial, societal and environmental changes? It doesn’t look like it. It looks like we just want to get back to the status-quo, even if that status quo is 99% of us being rogered by the 1%.

Perhaps I’m being a little disingenuous here though as there have been some changes.

Those changes are that most of the 1% got even richer during the pandemic while the poor lost their jobs and got even poorer. God forbid we should ever try to turn that around, eh?

The Kingmeister reports

years to make some effective, lasting changes in the way we live and work, and the targets of 2030 or 2050 we’re seeing bandied around simply aren’t going to cut it.

Am I the only person thinking that it’s just not going to happen?

The UK likes to trumpet its eco-credentials, but based on where we’re putting our (borrowed) money, I really don’t think we’re ‘following the science’ as it were. They’ve worked out that one of the most effective and cost-effective ways to reduce our carbon footprint is to embark on a massive program of insulating homes. This would also create thousands of jobs at a time when we really need them, so it seems a fairly obvious choice, right?

Wrong. We’re putting a relatively paltry £1billion towards this, while a further £120+ billion goes to HS2 and roads, projects that will create less jobs but much more Co2 in our atmosphere. I’m sure that it makes sense to someone, somewhere, but I just can’t see it.

I get it. Our roads are in a parlous state and I hate being stuck in traffic as much as the next

What’s your point? If you want nice things, you have to pay for them. That’s primary school economics. But taxation has become such a dirty word in the UK that successive governments have been terrified to raise them.

Our public transport, social and health services are all woefully underfunded because we don’t want to pay for them and we’d rather buy cars. It really is as simple as that.

I doubt this decade will see the significant changes many people agree are absolutely vital to combat climate change. If the predictions are correct, then it’s far more likely to be the decade where we collectively write the apologetic post-it note for future generations: “So sorry we’ve left you in such a shitty state. Fact is, we just didn’t want to foot the bill.”

Hey Fatty Boom Boom We’re not allowed to mention the ‘C-word’ in our January columns, so I’ll just say that the wellknown public holiday we’ve recently just enjoyed usually results in slimmer wallets and fatter bellies. While I can’t do anything about the former, I have decided to try to do something about the latter. I’m writing this (in December) where I’m about 6 weeks into a healthy eating regime that will end on 24th December.

During this time I’ve eschewed all forms of treats and snacks and stuck to 2 meals a day (I fast for 16 hours each day anyway, so I never have breakfast) and just have some fruit or a yoghurt for my pudding. Alongside the roughly 2 hours of walking I do with the hound each and every day, I’m pleased to say it has had a noticeable impact.

I feel a lot better in myself and I can fit back into those clothes that I use as my ‘Uh-oh, you’re getting far too porky, Kingpin’ yardstick. I haven’t weighed myself for a couple of weeks, but based on my last weigh-in, I reckon I’m on track to be about 6 or 7 pounds down by the time I weigh myself again on ‘C-word’ eve.

“Well done, Kingpin!” I hear you cry. Why thank you. But hold the applause, please. The point of this little experiment was nothing more laudable than to give myself a buffer zone, so I can spend a few days essentially being a hybrid of the Cookie Monster, Jabba the Hutt and Mr Creosote all rolled into one. And believe me, I’m planning to push the boundaries of acceptable holiday gluttony as far as I absolutely can.

I’ve got 2 weeks left until 24th December and once that final weigh-in has taken place at 7am, I fully intend to enjoy a wellearned breakfast of cheeseburgers, followed by an entire trifle and then (depending on how long I spend on the toilet) I’ll really start going to town. My entire house is going to be full of strategically placed bowls, so no matter where I am, I’ll never be more than a couple of feet away from some Quality Street or Cadbury’s Heroes, enabling me to constantly graze between meals.

I’m sure this new method of dealing with the ‘annual weight-gain festival’ will be frowned upon by those killjoys in the medical profession, but I’ll let you know next month if it was a success....or I can tell you all about the diabetes I’ve just developed.

“Unemployment is the highest it has been in years and we are roughly £300 billion in debt. Oh yes, ‘Happy New Year’.

Road To Nowhere A growing number of climate scientists and ecologists are now saying that this decade is our last chance to make a real difference in stopping the temperatures rising too much in the future. If they are to be believed, that’s just 9 shaun@theedgemag.co.uk

guy, but why on earth aren’t we actually addressing the problem rather than trying to simply alleviate its effects?

The problem is there are too many cars on the road and it really wouldn’t matter if they all turned into electric cars overnight. The fact is,

our infrastructure can’t cope with the sheer number of them.

I also get that none of us like public transport that much, but it must be said that a large part of that is because our public transport manages to be both expensive and shit at the same time.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s travelled by bus, rail or tram in foreign countries and been hugely impressed? This is because those countries have actually invested in their transport infrastructure, while we’ve sold them off and just want to build more roads.

“But Kingpin”, I hear you cry, “those countries pay much more tax than we do.”

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Max Headroom’s

BIZARRE NEWS BIKEGATE

A Dublin cyclist has gone viral after leaving a message behind on a set of railings after stealing back that which was rightfully his.

Passers by in Smithfield were amused by the handwritten note after the cyclist rode off into the sunset.

The pictures quickly went viral on Twitter and Reddit as people reveled in the city centre craic.

Many even applauded the ‘thief’ and pointed out that it was undoubtedly karma doing its thing.

However, not everyone thought leaving the note was a good idea. That’s because it currently remains unclear whether the person who had originally locked up the bike against the railings was the person who had stolen it, or whether they had later purchased it from said thief in all good faith, without being aware they were accepting stolen goods.

"I was absolutely gutted when my bike was stolen,” commented a passer-by, “but I don't know whether I'd do this. Gut instinct would suggest that bike thieves don't usually lock up the bikes they steal. They sell them on. So someone could be seriously out of pocket here.”

FISHGATE A depressed fish recently celebrated its 16th birthday in Finland.

Mikko (that’s its name) fell into a state of depression when the Linnanmaki Sea Life centre were forced to close their doors due to Coronavirus.

The grumpy Grouper had apparently had depressive tendencies throughout its life, mainly due to loneliness, strangely caused by its habit of eating all of the other fish in its tank.

Its most recent pal, a (poisonous) red lionfish (nothing to do with hundreds of pubs of the same name), was also rapidly consumed.

Thereafter Mikko has often been found sulking at the bottom of his tank.

“He misses the people who visit the aquarium,” said a spokesperson for the Sea Life centre. “He seems to really enjoy their company as we have noticed he is much more active whenever he has an audience.”

Throughout Covid-closure, many staff used to take their lunch and coffee breaks by Mikko’s tank in order to keep him company. “He’s more sociable when other fish are around,” said one, “until he decides to eat them.”

BISCUITGATE

Kid’s Reading The Edge is stutteringly up and running again, so let’s keep it going!

Simply email your ickle ones entries* to shaun@theedgemag.co.uk Page 28

A dad has been hailed an ‘online genius’ after sharing his simple tip to reseal a packet of biscuits once the packet has been opened. His video, shared on TikTok, offered a breathtaking solution which racked up 1.2 million views and proves beyond any doubt that the online world is full of truly sad saps.

It was shared with the caption: ‘Dad amazingly reseals packet of biscuits’.

First he cuts off the top of the packet of biscuits carefully with a sharp knife.

Then, after eating a few, he then uses the section he’s cut off as a ‘reverse lid’ (rocket science, right?) by pushing it down in an upside-down fashion onto the remaining biscuits (i.e. imagine this dad’s lid were a plastic cup from a vending machine that he was pressing into the packet arse first).

Sounds obvious?

Well, it certainly went down well (online) where the numpties of the world tend to congregate these days.

“Your dad’s a fecking genius!” commented one.

While another wrote: "Man, your pa is living in 2040. Where has this hack been all my life?!?!"

Meanwhile, others did point out that it really was "quite scary how many people don't already do this", adding they had been using the trick for years.

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MOTCO

Man on the Clapham Omnibus CHICKEN

Fact. MOTCO is not turning into The Edge food column.

My mind started to drift during a long conference call a few weeks back. It is prone to do that after four decades of banking related mush being forced into it. A big upset of 2020 was the fact we did not get to do our Southern States tour of the USA. We have waited a long time to do the trip. Elvis stuff, Nashville, New Orleans and every tourist trap in between. One thing, for sure, I was really excited about was partaking in the consumption of industrial quantities of proper southern fried chicken. In Gainesville, Florida, you have to eat fried chicken with your bare hands. Eating it by any other method is illegal. Now that, my fiends, is a top chicken fact to get your teeth stuck into.

My mind drifted about the humble chicken. It was a long call and the drift intensified.

The chicken is an object of much pleasure, giver of food and an object of comedy.

Let’s be honest, any comedy clip compiler can always put a chicken running along quickly to some funny music and hey presto, you’ve got a laugh. Cheap (not a gag, by the way), effective and guaranteed a snigger. Think also of Foghorn Leghorn, that great big tall bombastic southern chicken with the catchphrase: "That's a joke, ah say, that's a joke, son." Or “Boy, ahh say, boy.” He had a great penchant for mischief and sort of turned the man/chicken relationship on its head, usually with an ACME anvil. N.B. At this juncture I should probably shout out to younger readers that is your Google ‘look up’ this month.

Chickens are one of the most common and widespread domestic animals with a total population of around 23.7 billion as of 2018, up from more than 19 billion in 2011.

There are more chickens in the world than any other bird or domesticated fowl. We are going to need a lot of chips to go with all that chicken and a lot of bread for the soldiers to go with the eggs. The humble chicken is a friendly soul and they generally live together in flocks. Like hippies in the 60s and70s, they have a communal approach to the incubation of eggs and their raising of young. Individual chickens in a flock will dominate others, establishing a ‘pecking order’. So now you know where we get that expression, along with ‘cock of the roost’. In the USA, of course, the cock is called a rooster. But in the best terms of British humour, cock is far funnier, even though rooster is far cooler image wise. Of course, the lady chickens can amuse too,

shaun@theedgemag.co.uk

but would we call them comedihens? It was even rumoured that Beethoven kept chickens, but he got rid of them because all they ever did was ‘Bach, Bach, Bach’ (groan).

The ability to amuse is endless and can be found in the globally accepted ‘rubber chicken’ toy. What situation cannot be diffused by somebody whipping out a rubber chicken? This is normally much to everyone’s astonishment and general total amazement, as though they have never seen one before. Available in all good toy shops, if you can find one. And, of course, online retailers for just £3.99. What fun for such a cheap price (still not a gag).

Oh come on, it’s just a yolk!

As the conference call progressed, I began to mentally wander deeper into the whole chicken scenario. For instance, could there have ever been a day when a chicken was pecking around in a yard and suddenly realised, ‘Shit, I’m a chicken!

I can’t believe it. Spatchcock. Tkka’d. Curried. Fried. Roasted. Whatever will folks do next to love me even more? And why do humans spend so much time philosophising about me? It’s almost an obsession. What came first, the chicken or the egg? And why get so hung up about why I crossed the road?’

Just out of interest, does anyone really know why the chicken crossed the road, aside from just wanting to get to the other side? Maybe it could have been crossing the road to go to the cinema, perhaps to see a chick-flick (sorry). There was a sign at the farm down the roasd from me saying: Baby Chickens Going Cheap. So I said to the farmer, “What do you expect them to bark?”

Such an ‘eggsplosion’ of chicken based stuff to help brighten such a dreary month of the year. I think I have probably ‘layed’ enough crummy jokes on you all for now.

So be good and may 2021 bring you all only better things.

Yours aye,

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was clever enough to outsmart the Nazis time and again. His legacy lives on.

Something else I watched on Netflix was The Crown. My passion has always been history. I used to love visiting castles and my favourite books were always about our Kings and Queens. In fact, our history is much racier and exciting than any Kardashian Twitter feed! Our Queen has done some awful things and The Crown shows another side of her.

TOTALLY TRACIE ANOTHER YEAR BITES THE DUST

It hasn’t escaped The Edge’s notice that a lot of young ladies these days seem to look the same, in so far as they’ll have a rather intimidating pair of eyebrows, fake-tan and ‘exploded’ lips.

Now just where did this ‘look’ originate? Come on, own up?

Is it an Essex ting, or wot?

Add in false-eyelashes, enhanced boobs and you have the perfect ‘quint’...or even ‘sextuplet’ if you chuck in a nose job as well.

Trouble is, while a problem of this ‘look’ is that it clearly doesn’t look very natural, worse still, the people wearing it don’t appear to be all that happy either, as you rarely see them smiling.

What’s more, why would any girl want to look exactly the same as another, as it strikes The Edge as being a pretty (not) ‘production line’ facade.

Bottom-line: All it really is is a distortation of the truth, whilst there’s really nothing natural about it at all.

Jesus, what if Essex guys all wanted to be ‘TDH’ (tall, dark and handsome) like Scott Tracy (below), the pilot of Thunderbird 1?

After all, he looks ‘plasticy’ (probably because he is) and he’s also got a rather large pair of caterpillars on him (eyebrows). Trouble is, he only stands at around 22” high, although all things considered, that’s rather tall for a puppet.

Come on, girls, it’s 2021. At least attempt to crack a smile.

Wow, we’ve made it to 2021.

What a roller coaster of a year 2020 was, hey? But those of us who were lucky enough survived it, so we can officially say we were part of a huge global event. In years to come, kids will ask, “What was life like in 2020 and how did you cope?” Well, 2020 will surely become known as the year of hoarding toilet rolls.

TikTok moonlighting and drinking copious amounts of gin even at 11am in the morning was how I got through it, darlings. And Aldi changed my life. Until Lockdown, I’d never even ventured in there, only then I suddenly found myself rummaging through baskets of cheap crap to find a screwdriver or a frying pan. What’s more, I can honestly say I have sampled rather a lot of their alcohol too and it is actually pretty amazing.

Either that or I’ve turned into an alci who is happy to sip meths.

I’ve also watched some pretty amazing movies. One was Resistance (2020), the story of Marcel Marceau. Perhaps you have never heard of him, but I remembered the craze of those creepy white Periot dolls in the 1980s - the ones with the white faces and a black tear - but I had no idea what they symbolised.

Marcel was a Jewish man living in France and was a bit of an embarrassment to his family. He began miming and painting and was a selfish so-and-so, mainly doing his own thing and dressing quite weirdly.

His brother, meanwhile, was helping Jewish orphaned children by hiding them from the Nazis. But Marcel wanted no part of that, until he saw the first batch arrive in an awful state and the work of The French Resistance underground. So he used his mime skills to calm the children and hide them in the trees.

Awful, atrocious things were done to them, but Marcel became a truly brave person. He smuggled Jewish children across the Alps into Switzerland and helped save thousands of lives. But he never sought any recognition in his life after the war. I truly urge you to watch it. He was judged to be a fool, yet he

Page 30

I once had to share a limo on a 4 hour trip across America with a top lawyer and his team. He was into history and doing a degree on Charles I. He got the shock of his life, to be seated next to some tiny blonde girl, who corrected him and regaled historical dates and events going back to William the Conqueror. As we came to the end of the journey, he recounted that he too had been married many times and mentioned the trials and tribulations of divorce. Being an East End girl, I said: “If I were you, mate, I’d stop studying Charles I and instead start reading up on Henry VIII. You might learn a trick or two.” Everyone sat their looking stunned and for a moment he stared at me intently before bursting out laughing. One of the other lawyers breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Only you could have got away with saying that, Tracie.” Anyway, we became friends, so it pays to know your history.

I have always believed in the power of our Royal Family, but over the years I have started to become disenchanted.

When you look back at the legacy of upset, disappointment and hell reeked upon them all, I wonder now if it’s time to revert to a two term system of a President Elect? The life of Prince Charles, from a small boy, has been tragic, filled with duty, honour and a dangled promise that one day he might be crowned King. Yet he is now quite an old man and by the time he gets there, the younger generation won’t have a clue who he is.

Each generation, another heir is bred to live a life carved out for them burdened by rules and protocol. They are forced to enter the armed forces and attend religious events whether they want to or not, and if they were a ‘normal’ family it would be classed as abuse. Harry has rebelled, yet we all await his inevitable downfall. I kind of think now we are all playing a part in this cruelty, even though the world has evolved. Should anyone be born into a life of wealth and privilege and inherit a ‘top job’ in life, or are we now more civilised and expect our Heads of State to work their socks off to reach the top? I honestly think it’s time for a rethink, yet until just a few years back, I was the most ardent monarchist who queued in The Mall with a flask to see all the big weddings and funerals.

So let’s hope my head doesn’t get chopped off and I’m not immediately imprisoned in the Tower through Traitors Gate. Hopefully I’ll be with you all again next month.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

tracie123@aol.com

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