Sorry to practically repeat the heading but I think I’m a bit worried. Of what, you may ask. Well, at this precise moment, two things. Every day, I learn of the death of somebody well known (whom I admire in some way) or within my various largish groups of friends, acquaintances and/or family in various parts of the country. Quite a few of them were of a life span currently the same as (76 years) or less than mine. Does this mean it’s nearly my turn next? Or a signal that I’m an upstart in the lack of death department? Please don’t tar me with that brush – I don’t mean to be.

The other worry is the deterioration of my memory. Doctors have reassured me that this is nothing to worry about and part of the normal ageing process. I am not convinced and am often enraged when I can’t recognise the photo of John Wayne on a Pointless picture board. That’s not a particularly good example, actually, I’d always recognise John Wayne but you get the picture (even if I don’t). Memory’s a strange thing, isn’t it? You stand in the kitchen, realise that what you need at this moment is located in the garage, then enter the garage wondering what the f**k it was you needed. And this shortcoming is afflicting someone who can vividly remember lying in a pram outside his Nan’s house when he was a gorgeous little one-year-old baby!

So, should I be worried? I don’t think I’m scared of death, as long as it doesn’t hurt. I would feel extremely sorry for my family and friends in case they missed me and bitterly regret not having been able to do things my body prevented me from doing for so long. As for the memory thing, I can’t bloody remember what I was going to say about that.

I’m still a bit worried!

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Supporting data

Those who have shuffled off this mortal coil from (and including) 20 March 2025

• Eddie Jordan, 76
• George Forman, 76
• Andy Peebles, 76

I’ll apologise in advance (that’s not one, by the way).

A policeman and his daughter lost in an early round of “Pointless” two days running; he was so inept, it seemed as if he’d wanted to fail. Looked like a cop-out to me.

My uncle dropped his hearing-aid over the side of a boat while he was on a trip to Luxor in Egypt – he went deaf on the Nile.

When Blackburn Rovers signed a player called Formica, I did wonder whether he might help them to the top of the table.

I once played golf with a bloke who used to move his ball to make his shot easier when it landed on rough or uneven ground. “Windsor Rules” he would say whilst doing it. Now I know what the term Preferred Lies means.

If I had a company in Marlow or Aylesbury that supplied wooden slatted storage frames, I’d call it Buckingham Pallets.

I said to a friend the other day that I liked that Dean Martin song The Answer To The Eel Question. What the hell is that, he asked. I’ll sing it, I said. “That’s a hard one, I feel, what’s the name of that eel? It’s a moray…”

Is ‘bee-hive’ a buzz-word?

What’s an Arab’s favourite crisp flavour? Sultan Vinegar

I went to the zoo yesterday and saw a baguette in a cage. The keeper told me it was bread in captivity.

I was given 4 Es and LSD last night…it was an awful start to a game of Scrabble

You may remember I moved home from the small market town of Ringwood, on the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire, approximately 225 miles in a generally north-westerly direction to Winsford, a small town in Cheshire.

Now, one of the distinct advantages of this location is that the length of the journey to a certain football stadium in postcode district M11 will have had a significant chunk shaved off it. We can expect to leave the house, have a leisurely 10-minute drive to Altrincham Railway Station which is also a Metrolink terminus, board a tram and, with just one change, arrive at the stadium tram stop around 35 minutes later. There are a number of other alternative methods of travel but I won’t bore you with them; better than 8 hours, though, eh? A pox on the A31, M27, M3, A34, M40, M42, and M6. I have excluded the M6 Toll from the curse – it’s rarely problematic.

If you weren’t aware, a lot of Cheshire’s industrial history revolves around the mining of salt and, if you’re currently watching ‘Great Canal Journeys’ with Timothy West and Prunella Scales on Channel 4, you would have seen them recently visit the Lion Salt Works, near Northwich, not far from where we’ll be living.

The salt industry certainly affected our conveyancing process and specialist mandatory environmental searches were required to be carried out. When we received the enormous bundle of results, I must admit we were quite worried for a while about the proximity of mineshafts – both working and derelict; at one point, I had a telephone conversation with a lady from the Cheshire Brine Subsidence Compensation Board who very helpfully emailed me some useful information, including the fact that no claims had been made since about 1861. I replied, paying her several condiments. Salt of the earth, in my opinion. Sorry, I couldn’t resist it.

During a conversation with my then Chief Executive on the salt mine issue and potential subsidence, I found his advice not to jump up and down and only move around the house and garden on tiptoe very encouraging! I shall of course follow it implicitly.

Anyway, we moved in to the new house on Tuesday 20^th November and, so far, there has been no evidence of mineshaft instability.

I would like to congratulate the person who prepared the small cheese roll I bought in W H Smith at Manchester Piccadilly Station recently. They somehow managed to balance a standard cheese slice on one of its edges (or possibly gripped it in a vice) and slice it in half downwards. Then they put about 1mg of butter margarine in their mouth, swilled it around and licked one half of the inside of the roll very, very quickly. Then, after carefully but expertly shaping and positioning the cheese so that none of it showed from the outside (so you couldn’t see how little there was), they stuck a price ticket on it (£3.99) which made me laugh, until I had to fork out the equivalent sum because (a) I was hungry and (b) I have to be careful what I stuff my dodgy insides with these days when I’m due to embark on a longish journey.

A masterpiece of retail skulduggery; I reckon the boss of W H Smug and Sons drives a beaten up old yellow Robin Reliant.