You make a product. It kills a child. You make plastic novelty ducks. The Government bans your duck and closes your factory.

Unless

You make a product. It kills thousands of children. You’re an arms dealer. The Government give you tax breaks and say they’re defending jobs.

Once every four years, I become a football fan. It’s the sporting equivalent of being a salmon and swimming upstream for me. Most of the time watching sport is like watching two people eating dinner. I can’t see the point. It’s like wearing a T-shirt to support whoever has the fish dish, or sitting around hoping it doesn’t go to dessert.

More than anything, what I can’t stand is the disappointment of seeing my team lose like yesterday when England was knocked out of the World Cup. I can only stand that sort of thing once every four years. In fact, the reason I get so disappointed is because I only watch it every four years.

I find myself thinking,  will we win the World Cup in my lifetime? I remember the days when I was young enough to think we would be taking short weekend breaks on Uranus, now I find I’m of the age that doctors are interested in my anus; mainly as the prescribed route for checking my prostate. After my last trip to the doctor, I can’t even look at a Marigold glove without an involuntary clench and a wince. I’ve gone from wondering what the men in white coats will discover out there, beyond the North Star, to wondering how it is that I’m the one being probed.

But back to football, and maybe one day we will win the World Cup again.

Though, I have a feeling, if we do hold the cup aloft, it will be watched by some of our descendants, way beyond Uranus who will one day look at the flickering light that was our sun, and wonder if there is any life out there.

What joy; the beach on a sun soaked Sunday afternoon; ice cream sticky lips tasty to lick after a strawberry cornet; the lure and the lull of the sea lapping up the beach, lapping upon the idle mind; footsteps of strangers in the warm sand, snugly cloistered between anonymous toes; pale English legs turning pink; pink English faces turning red; bare bottomed babies tottering on the sand, playing in the shade of an English beer belly; peace; the sibilant silence of the surf; nature murmuring softly to itself.

Makes me wonder why the stupid bastard downwind is playing a dance track on his stereo, and what are the chances that God would be good enough to have an asteroid land on his car?

Not good.

I’ve never been that lucky.

How peculiar...

Some guy from Carmarthen, after his father had shuffled off this mortal coil, turned his ashes into a vase. Well, not so much the pottery as the glaze. It struck me as being a little strange. I'm a big fan of Elvis, bless him, but I wouldn't want him made into something I can keep my mint humbugs in.

The guy grinds the ash by hand into a fine powder and using a process called copper fuming, mixes it into the glaze and applies it to the pot. I'd be fuming myself it I ended up as a coat of varnish, but that's beside the point; not that I want to gloss over the issue.

The chap's father was a very tall upright man, so the guy made a cylinder because it reminded him of the man's qualities.

Come to think of it, my father in law is a little potty so maybe I'll ring the guy...

Or, maybe not

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a dedicated fan of Elvis has been meeting George Bush in America in the White House.

Koizumi was delighted when Bush compared him to Elvis. He said, ‘Like you, he had great hair. Like you, he was known to sing in public. And like you, he won admirers in countries far from home.'

He failed to mention ‘like you he met a president in the White House who was, quite frankly, a bit of a twat.’

J.J. Gilmour, one of Scotland's best singer/songwriters is on tour in America. Strangely enough, he's actually on tour with Steven Seagal, the actor. Now, I know from the stats on site that there is a very large American readership of the Geetan site. You should... must, go and see J.J Gilmour if he is in your location.

This was how I first heard him

This is the interview he was kind enough to give me