Stewart was an amazing
person - A wonderful husband, a fantastic brother, a loving son and an
adored uncle. He was also a brilliant friend and colleague and will be
missed by so many people. His family are determined that his death will never
be in vain and are doing their part to beat bowel cancer for good. We are fundraising for the Bobby Moore Fund
which is part of Cancer Research UK and specialises in research into bowel
cancer. If you wish to donate to the
fund, you can via https://www.justgiving.com/Geraldine-Smith3
.
If you haven’t already
done so, please read the article which recently appeared in the Daily Record
and learn from Stewart’s story that you must never be complacent. It makes grim reading for us, his family,
even though we were beside him throughout his ordeal, or battle; call it what
you will. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/lifestyle/heartbroken-widow-geraldine-smith-raises-3452997
His wish
was that The Grambler should continue after his death and I have been happy to
oblige. Welcome to The Grambler, the
most ill-informed blog you are ever likely to see. Read on and enjoy…
Before we begin this week’s ramble/grumble/gramble
please take the time to read this article which appeared in Tuesday’s Daily
Mail [What? Your favourite newspaper? –
Ed.]. For once, the paper has it spot on
- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2633287/Why-GPs-fail-spot-bowel-cancer-young-people-like-Stephen-late.html
Right on with the nonsense.
Do you drive a car?
Odd question to ask, I know, but do you?
How fast can it go? Another daft
question, but it is leading somewhere. I
would wager that its top speed is about 100mph.
Am I right? I know I am close
with that because even the smallest cars around these days seem to be capable
of the magic ton. Next question. Why?
Why does any car need to travel at that speed. For a start, it is illegal in most countries
to travel on the road so quickly. In Britain Britain
Any road up, you are perhaps wondering where this is
leading. Am I perchance going to berate
manufacturers for producing goods which cannot be used to their full
potential? I could. Some other time, perhaps.
Am I going to have a pop at the Beeb Beeb Ceeb for
their laddish programme Top Gear? A
programme which is presented by three old youths who think that driving
recklessly and fast is not wrong; or that driving a motorhome off a ski ramp is
clever. Actually, I have no idea if that
has been done or not, but it is the sort of ridiculous stunt that three old men
in jeans might come up with. I could go
on, but I won’t. Not now, anyway.
So what is my gripe?
Not really a gripe or even a grumble.
It is just a statistic or fact that I am going to give you. I asked you if you knew your car’s top speed
capability. Obviously, you know that
because the car’s specification gives this information. What you may not know is the average speed at
which you travel in your car. Many cars
have trip computers which give the details.
Have you ever actually looked at your car’s average speed? I have and I was a little shocked, but more
dismayed than anything.
My car is nothing special. It is barely capable of that magic ton. I have never driven it at any speed even
approaching that figure, officer.
However, I did expect its average speed to be a little bit higher than…what
would you think? Many roads that I drive
have 50, 60 or 70mph speed limits.
Assuming that I drive on or about these limits, what do you reckon is
the average speed of my car over its ‘lifetime’? Would you believe 22? Seriously, 22 miles per hour. It makes a mockery of cars like the Ferrari
F40 (top speed 202mph), McLaren F1 (240mph), Bugatti Veyron (267mph) or the new
kid on the block; the Hennessey Venom GT, an American car which recently
wrested the crown as the world’s fastest road car with 270.49mph. What is the point? Imagine spending your millions on one of
those and averaging 22mph!
So what is the reason for such a low figure? Traffic.
Sorry pardon excuse me?
Traffic. There is just so much of
it, isn’t there. When you travel
anywhere it is always very much a stop/start journey because of the sheer
volume of traffic trying to negotiate the same stretch of road. My car does have a trip computer. It also has engine cutoff. When the car is stationary – say at lights or
in a traffic queue – the engine switches off and a running total is kept of the
amount of time it is stationary. All
very clever and all very depressing. The
time spent sitting at lights, in lines of traffic etc. is often as much as a
quarter of the journey time; that’s the depressing bit. Do you know what is even more
depressing? The fact that the average
speed I quoted you does not take these periods into account. I have checked. So the 22mph figure is actually too
optimistic.
Where is this leading, I hear you ask. Like the car itself, nowhere; other than it
gives me a seamless link to this week’s Gramblerplan diet advice. Ask me how I did last week at the
weigh-in. [Okay. How did you do at the weigh-in last week? –
Ed.] Don’t ask. Anyway, here is this week’s eminently
sensible advice to help you on the Gramblerplan diet. Leave the car at home whenever you can. There.
If a journey is walkable, walk it.
For longer journeys, what about using a bike? There you are. Brilliant advice, I think you will
agree. Not only will you be fitter, you
will be better off. [Not if you’ve got to buy a bike, you won’t! – Ed.]
Okay, any birthdays of note this week? Yep.
Born on the 24th of May 1941 was none other than Elston Gunnn (with 3 n’s). No?
What about Blind Boy Grunt? Still
no? All right, how about Bob Landy? Robert Milkwood Thomas? Tedham Porterhouse? Jack Frost? Sergei Petrov?
Lucky/Boo Wilbury? In case you
didn’t know, these are all names used at one time or another by this week’s
birthday boy, Robert Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan.
I’ll let you into a secret. I
can’t stand Bob Dylan. That isn’t quite
correct; I am sure he is a lovely bloke.
It’s not him I can’t stand, it’s his voice. When he starts to ‘sing’…Argghhh! I know that will upset a lot of you good folk
of Gramblerland, but I just don’t like the noise he makes. It is meant to be singing, but it reminds me
of trying to start a car when the battery is a bit flat. He has written some cracking songs, I’ll give
him that. Just don’t sing them
please. Anyway, in amongst all those
great songs there must be a good un to gramblerise. Mr gramblerine man? Like a grambling stone? Grambling in the wind? The times they are a-grambling? Nope.
I’ve gone for this one…
Gram, gram, gramblin' on heaven's door
Gram, gram, gramblin' on heaven's door
Gram, gram,, gramblin' on heaven's door
Gram, gram, gramblin' on heaven's door
Gram, gram, gramblin' on heaven's door
Gram, gram,, gramblin' on heaven's door
Gram, gram, gramblin' on heaven's door
Right on to the
grambling. How did we fare with last
week’s bet. WE WON! WOO HOO!
WE FINALLY WON! GRAMBLER FOR
KING! BRILLIANT! [Please make sure that
exclamation mark after the word king is there when this gets posted. – Ed.]
Here’s what
happened…
Meeting – Time – Horse – Odds
Newbury 3.50 Olympic Glory 11/10
It won.
It won.
It won.
It won.
Uttoxeter 8.50 Forever
Field 4/6
It won.
Not really a lot you can say about horse racing, is
there. Horses race one another. One goes faster than the others. It wins.
Erm…that’s it.
Ironic though, isn’t it? The Grambler has been randomly selecting
football results for two seasons with only occasional success; the first time
he/she/it picks just horseracing…ker-ching!
Can he/she/it do it 2 weeks on the trot (or should I say, at the
gallop?)? Doubt it. We will give it a go, anyway.
Slight problem.
I like to post this before Saturday if at all possible. Friday is late for me. Unlike footy, where things are fixed way
before an actual game, horse racing can alter right up to the last moment. It is pretty much impossible to get accurate
odds until the very day a race is due to take place. Any road up, my point is that, if you good
people out there in Gramblerland wish to have a bet on the races selected by
The Grambler, you will have to move quickly as they all take place today. Sorry.
These races are all due to take place today, May the
23rd.
Meeting – Time – Horse – Odds
Haydock 2.00 Luck of the Game 10/11
Haydock 2.30 Winslow 10/11
Goodwood 2.20 Parsley 4/6
Towcester 8.50 Carnival
Flag 8/13
Pontefract 7.30 Kasb 4/9
If all these donkeys run faster than the other donkeys
in the same race then the Bobby Moore Fund will benefit to the tune of…
£8.60
Fantastic or what.
What. Definitely. Thanks to shi…not very good odds, the amount
we might win this week is a bit piffling.
How exactly does one piffle?
Anyway, will it happen? Two weeks
running? Do me a favour.
Do you realise that we have covered all the usual
rubbish without even a mention of football?
What kind of a football blog is this?
Time to remedy the situation. I
am now going to give you a couple of Stewart’s awful gags from http://rubbertoemankini.tumblr.com another of his on-line pages. Readers of thegrambler.com from way back have
probably seen them, but these should be new to some of our more recent
converts. Hope you like them…
Okay, time for our teaser. Last week I asked what first was attributed
to Everton’s Goodison Park
This week’s footy teaser? Ryan Giggs has just announced his retirement
from playing football having spent 24 years playing for Manchester United. In that time he has made a record 963
appearances for the club. Obviously,
that includes games when he was brought on as a substitute. But which Englishman holds the record for
appearances (albeit with several clubs) without even being brought as a sub? Hmm…Tricky one that.
Think it over.
Happy grambling.
