“Why on earth did come to make such a ludicrous decision?” I hear you all cry.

Well you see, Morrison’s have an air hose that actually works and therefore aids me with my ongoing denial that I have a puncture, despite the evidence of a three inch nail that suggests that I am perpetually lying to myself. In my heart of hearts, I know that sooner or later I am going to have to visit Micheldever Tyres only to be informed all the others are nearly as bald as my head, resulting in the parting of approximately £350.00.

So Morrison’s it was and after a confusing battle with a trolley that I was trying to detach with the aid of a pound coin, I wandered into the store and proceeded to meander around like Stevie Wonder finding his way out of the Hampton Court maze.

Morrisons: Thrilling

Anyone reading this who lives and works alone, will know that it is not long before conversations start with one’s self, so as I walked aimlessly around saying “Where’s the cheese, where’s the cheese, where’s the cheese?”  fellow customers could have been forgiven for thinking that I was on day release as part of the Mental Health Act.

When I finally found my bearings, I began to quite like Morrisons; it is strange how your personal perceptions work because I have always been of the opinion that the yellow livery in the name makes it look like a cheap place that would offer nothing more than the simmering potential for violence that I have always enjoyed on rare visits to Asda, Brighton Hill, a supermarket that is twin linked with the Basingstoke & North Hampshire accident and emergency ward.

I was particularly impressed with the vegetable department that had pipes blowing cold air on to them. The fish market and bakery were pretty impressive too, but despite my best efforts, I failed in my quest to find any banana milk shakes for my youngest son who would not hold back with his bitterness towards my failings. The brutal truth is that he will have to man up and learn to spend the weekend suffering with orange Innocent Smoothies as a poor substitute.

The rest of the trip was generally without incident as I spent my time sagely nodding at people I vaguely knew whilst I made my way to the till to be served by a lovely elderly lady who had obviously suffered the misfortune of having her dentures fitted by someone who had been trusted with her on his maiden outing as a dentist, only proceeding to embark on a debacle resulting in the fitting molars and fangs that were all arse about face.

Then it was time for the original reason for my trip and my heart filled with unnecessary warmth as the air hose was lacking the ‘OUT OF ORDER” sing that is now obligatory at Sainsburys. At 10p a minute I decide to throw caution to the wind (or should I say air) and put forty pence in the machine and do all my tyres. This somewhat maverick decision was abruptly ended as I approached tyre number four and my time ran out and I was left to rue my lack of a further ten pence piece in my pocket.

So that was it all done and if anyone from Sainsburys is reading this, you have just lost out on £52.41 all because you have a crap air hose. Yours may be free but that is no help if it doesn’t carry out the simple task of releasing air. I will continue to use Morrisons for as long as the Sainsburys air hose is broken or at least until my tyre finally explodes on the M3. However my calculations are that if I use the Morrisons air hose another 250 times, I would have spent enough money to buy a new tyre. I must take some time out to look further into the economics of my predicament.

As I left the store with my shopping and three inflated tyres, I couldn’t help thinking one thing.

What a tragic individual I have become.

The extreme right wing of the Tory party seem to care; they seem to be stuck in a somewhat bizarre place where buggering children or asphyxiating on oranges whilst clad in suspenders appears to be acceptable but a homosexual marriage is abhorrent; What is actually taught in Eton sex education classes?  I have no idea but there appears to be some in the educated elite who are confused by what sexual practices are acceptable in the 21st century.

In an alleged free society or democracy, the assumption, or at least my assumption, has to be that people of any sexual orientation should be allowed to get married to who they want just as long as it is consensual and over the legal age limit. That has to be right doesn’t it…Who else’s business should it be?

Of course under a media storm, this has all turned into something of a political hot potato for David Cameron because the common consensus was that the modernisers in the party saw the legislation of gay marriage as a huge signal to centre right and indeed, centre left voters (of which there are many) that Conservatism is moving into the 21st century.

What he or they didn’t reckon for, was the voices of the nutters on the far right, UKIP and the procreation evangelists who seem to spend their whole lives nose poking and dictating to intelligent adults about how they should conduct themselves. These attention seeking minority groups are now causing a real nuisance and could, at great expense, bring the government down.

What was meant to be a vote winning smokescreen over more important current issues such as the economy, tax evasion and the rapidly approaching American/Israeli blitz of Iran, has been become a political minefield. Like the populist New Labour law on fox hunting, it will cost a bloody fortune but hardly change anything to the daily lives of the masses and do nothing to correct more serious political  issues at stake.

The whole situation gets even more confused as it would now appear that as part of the deal for passing legislation on gay marriage quickly, civil partnerships are to be abolished. Why not just leave civil partnerships as they are and open them up to heterosexuals as well?  They aren’t doing anyone any harm are they?

There are now estimates flying around that the whole process of something that 95% of the population are pretty much apathetic about, could cost the tax payer up to £4billion….That’s nearly enough fill in all the potholes in Hampshire!  Joking aside, if the Government and the opposition wanted this bill passed quickly without huge cost and political embarrassment, why on earth wasn’t it included in the Tory election manifesto…Or was it?

Sadly, the whole debacle gets more ridiculous as the Tories opposed to gay marriage say it wasn’t in the election manifesto, whilst those in favour say it was and point to the Conservative’s “contract for equalities” which clearly includes the prospect of changing the law to rename civil partnerships as marriages. It needs sorting out quickly otherwise it will be a financial and political disaster.

Personally, I have known quite a few homosexuals who are friends of friends as well as working alongside them on occasion and I can’t really say that their sexuality has ever had any deep effect on how I go about my daily life. Conversely, I have also worked with people who are rampantly anti-gay and are in constant need to be graphic about their heterosexual exploits with their wives or girlfriends or both.

If I am entirely honest, I find these individuals more disturbing than any homosexual I have met, probably because I rarely feel in the frame of mind to gain any interest or indeed, sexual thrill, from a conversation about someone’s wife getting a semi-consensual rogering from a middle-aged fat bloke with 10 pints of lager swilling round his gut. Never yet has a homosexual bragged to me about his sex life, probably because the vibe of non interest coming from me is just as clear as it should be to the repressed heterosexual.

Here is how my life generally operates; it is fundamentally the same sort of life that is held by my chosen peer group and many people who are reading this post. I work, I own a house, I like sports such as football and cricket, I spend time with my kids and girlfriend and enjoy socialising in pubs or restaurants.  That’s about it really and when I check through that list, I really can’t find any employment or pleasure that would be taken away from me as the result of gay people getting married.

In fact as a heterosexual, I really cannot find anything anywhere that should stop a gay marriage taking place apart from the religious theories from evangelists that marriage should always be the first step on the ladder to procreation and that should be its sole and only purpose.

Really?

Does that mean that tens of thousands of divorced people like me, who don’t want more, or indeed, can’t have more children, should be banned from marrying for the rest of our lives?

Or is that different?

The flat battery was self-inflicted as well, courtesy of leaving my ignition on at the cricket club on Saturday afternoon but as much as I try, it is hard to go for an unenviable hat-trick and blame myself for a slow puncture. What is ironic about all this is that on Friday night I was engaged in a long conversation about cars and their development since the collapse of the industry in the 1970′s and 80′s.

Let me get this straight, cars or motorbikes and how they operate, is something that has been totally alien to me since childhood and discussions about them have always been constant source of emasculation. My Dad was one of those blokes who had a hoist in the garage to lift engines out with and such was pitiful build quality of anything made by British Leyland, it was a hoist that got regular use.

It was something of a shock to me on Saturday to turn the ignition on my car only to hear silence, but back when I first started driving, a car that started first time, particularly on a cold morning, was cause for a minor celebration. My Austin Maxi, a beautiful piece of British engineering if there ever was one, had so many quirks that if a stranger was to attempt to drive it, the chances of getting it going were near on impossible.

As I recall, depending on the air temperature, the choke had to be pulled out about three quarters of the way and you had to wait 3.4 seconds before furiously pumping on the accelerator as if your life depended on it. Failure to carry out this task resulted in the flooding of the engine and a half hour wait before the process could be repeated.

As a bit of additional fun, my Dad had discovered that the brushes in the starter motor would tend to stick, so it would often need a light tap with a hammer, something that made for a highly embarrassing incident if you stalled at a junction or traffic lights.

In fairness, the starter motor issue was not unique to the Maxi, a chap (Mick Dolan) who I played football with, had a Vauxhall Viva with the same issue, which was, quite remarkably, solved by me. As I tapped his starter motor with my now resident car hammer and his Viva burst in to life, Mick congratulated me as if though I had just split the atom.

Sadly, that was and still remains my only ever mechanical success and whenever people discussed pistons, tappets and injectors I drifted off in to a world of utter confusion. I still don’t know what tappets and injectors are if I am honest, though I am not sure that they still exist in modern cars that are essentially a Microsoft operating system under a bonnet. Words like piston have been replaced by equally confusing ones like converter and diagnostic, which to me is something of a relief, as my lack of knowledge of cars is now more widespread, with even some practical people holding their hands up and admitting they have no clue how they work.

To pick out my most humiliating mechanical failure is not easy but I think it dates back to owning a moped when I was sixteen. This thing was called a Honda CB50 and it went wrong as regularly as I fell off it, which on average was about once a week, twice if I was really in the mood. My friend Gavin, had decided that it would be a great idea to put a bigger carburettor (whatever that is) on it, thus taking its maximum speed from 38mph to 55mph in an instant.

The Honda CB50: Not suited to larger carburretors

As I raced off down the Pineapple straight near Brimpton, I was really impressed to see the speedometer approaching 50mph, then suddenly there was a huge bang and I shuddered sideways into a nearby ditch with my leg resting on the exhaust pipe that was now as hot as the surface of the sun. I can’t say that this masterstroke of Gavin’s didn’t work but it was a piece of engineering that was not to last long.

I gathered up the debris and took it home to my Dad, who without a manual, started piecing it back together bit by bit, with the re-setting of tappets apparently being a really tough task. The poor sod spent the whole day working on it as I looked on helplessly while he tutted, mumbled, and mildly celebrated a breakthrough with an AHA! Or “Got the bugger.” The tension was unbearable, it was like watching complex brain surgery, I just felt that one false move and the bike was dead.

However, my Dad made nuclear bombs so he wasn’t to be beaten by a motorbike and as day drifted into night he gave me the news that he had cured it, the bike was mended. In my tender years I regarded this as a heroic achievement; all what I needed to do was put the spark plug in and I would be off and running again, ready for my next crash. Why he allowed me to carry out this task is still beyond me, but he did.

As I tightened it, something didn’t feel right but I carried on regardless. Then it happened, it spun really quickly…I HAD CROSS THREADED IT!!! All those hours of work had been wrecked, what the Hell was I going to say to my Dad? How could I explain that I was such an imbecile? In total panic I wrapped the thread in masking tape and rammed the spark plug in to the engine before my Dad was alerted to the mess I had made of his work.

“Go on then Bob…Start her up then.”

I was nearly crying as I kicked the starter pedal and sure enough out popped the spark plug with the masking tape flapping around it. There is a first time for everything and this was the first time I had heard my dad say “What the fucking Hell….? Entirely understandable I suppose; it was a hideous moment of black comedy.

So at least with modern vehicles I don’t have to go through the process of mechanical humiliation anymore, it is all part of my history that I can now laugh at. Or so I thought before I got caught speeding the other night. The copper, a decent bloke I might add, was taking on my explanation that the car was new to me and agreed that with modern cars you can go quickly without realising it.

“I do understand sir, modern cars can be quick but when you are on a clear run, you really need to keep an eye on your speedo…two litre is she?”

“Yes”

“What horse power has she got?”

“Gumph!”

By the time they were all sixteen, many of them were approaching six foot and pumped with competitiveness and a raw edge that made me and the chap (Mark) who helped me, proud that we had done our bit by helping to develop these scrawny 10 year olds into competitive sportsmen. It was a great period of my life that I will always look back at with fondness.

Then that was it. It was all over…The kids were suddenly young adults. Six of them moved smoothly into senior set-up whilst others drifted away to pursue amongst other things such as college and the female of the species; I was in effect redundant. For several days after our last game, I felt really flat. The cricket team, the players and the parents had all become an integral part of my little life in north Hampshire and in a flash it was gone, goodbye, for keeps, forever.

My former team at under 13 level

I thought I must have had some sort of mental deficiency to feel that way, but after speaking to parents who have been involved in sport and reading more and more about the human coping mechanisms required to cope with the demands of retirement, I began to realise what a bizarre effect it can have on an individual’s mental state. No matter the level, the thrill of sporting success, for many, is hard to replicate.

So, what on earth must Alex Ferguson feel like right now? Like him or loathe him, Ferguson has had a career like no other in football or indeed any other sport. He took over the reins at Manchester United before I had met my first girlfriend and before I had even registered my first ever job or vote.

During his tenure, United emerged from the shadow of Liverpool and amassed 38 trophies and outlasted no fewer than the 26 managers that have passed through the gates of Spanish rivals, Real Madrid.

After 26 years of obsession, aggression, self-inflicted paranoia, vicious rows and ruthless dictatorship accompanied by bitter defeats and ludicrous last gasp victories that only come with the refusal to accept defeat, Ferguson will find himself waking up in just over a week, with a vacuum ahead of him. How will someone of his nature learn to deal with that? In fact, how does his successor, David Moyes, deal with that?

I always thought that Ferguson would do a Jock Stein (the former Scotland manager) and keel over on the touchline, allowing his complex mind to find an empty room in the sky to start an argument in; it is to his huge credit that unlike many sports people (boxers are a great example) he decided to quit right at the top after reclaiming the Premier League from his “noisy neighbours” Manchester City.

What will be interesting for me (because I am like that) is what follows his departure. Will Ferguson find a way to satisfy his desire for competitive combat or will he mentally crumble into a shadow of what he formerly was? Roles as an ambassador and a director await him, but will that be enough to motivate him in the years ahead?

Listen folks, making comparison between people like Alex Ferguson and youth coaches like me seems and indeed is, in many ways a preposterous statement to make. However, there is a real relevance. I bet that anyone reading this who has coached at any level of sport would have had the same thoughts as what I have had since the announcement of his (Ferguson’s) retirement. Those thoughts being “How is he going to cope?”

At the end of my six years as a youth coach, the Chairman of the club, seeing the vacant look in my eyes, gave me the position of captaining the Sunday team. This season I have become the Chairman, a tremendous honour considering the club has existed since 1849. There is a legacy too, it may not be Fergusonesque, but there are now about 90 kids playing cricket at Oakley now as opposed to 14 when we started it.

However, despite all that and the prospect of a bench with my name on it when I keel over, there is nothing quite like getting together a group of young players who are effectively raw material and developing them into a genuine team over a period of years; it is a fantastic challenge better than any other and great fun too.

I will always remember when our team got well beaten in shameful circumstances at rivals Basingstoke; we sat them down and told them that they owed it to the club and their parents (who drove them all around Hampshire) a response to make them proud. The consequences of this discussion resulted in the rest of the season unbeaten. If I was an American called Todd, I would have cried, but I am English, so I faked hay fever.

Being a Chairman or an ambassador for a club of any stature is of course, something to be proud of but nothing compares to the highs and lows of leading a team into battle, whatever the level.

Alex Ferguson has to deal without that feeling for the first time in forty odd years.

The death of Margaret Thatcher re-ignited passion the other week and whatever side of the fence you sit, it was great to see people embarking on political discussion rather than X Factor results and the size of Jordan’s latest pair of plastic breasts. I saw an interview on Sky News after the death of Thatcher featuring former Housemartins and Beautiful South frontman Paul Heaton and despite being an out and out socialist, he was pining for the days of politics where it was very much a clear cut battle of the red of Dennis Skinner on one side and the blue of Thatcher on the other.

The problem with modern politics is that it has become a career ladder for the likes of sharp suited Oxbridge boys like Tony Blair and David Cameron whilst the mavericks are marginalised and thrown out of the party or dismissed as buffoons; anyone with a skeleton in the cupboard hasn’t got a hope. Tony Blair was quick to marginalise the like of Gerald Kaufman, Mo Mowlem and Robin Cook, David Cameron does just the same with his eccentric Bullingdon adversary Boris Johnson; a constant thorn in the side of the centre right.

As the coalition leader (which really means Tory) Cameron has gambled on moving away from the right wing sector of his party fearing that he would be seen out of touch with the modern era. His liberal stance on gay marriage and the promotion of women in politics was always going to hurt the far right of the Conservative party but he understandably reckoned that they had nowhere to go except the snarling, pit bull clowns of the BNP or the EDL. He knew they wouldn’t do that and he also knew there was no credible candidate who could become a Thatcher like tabloid hero, to fight for the right. Moving to the centre right was where the votes would be won.

Enter Nigel Farage. No matter what I think of him, I can’t help but listen to the conviction of the man who represents UKIP, a party that David Cameron quite rightly tried to dismiss as “Fruit cakes and closet racists.” The problem Cameron faces is that whilst Farage and his party might be a bit delusional, they are promoting an acceptable face to right wing politics, especially to the blue rinse brigade and those who with nostalgia bordering on dementia, recall the Thatcher years as one of the greatest era’s in modern British politics.

Farage: Dismissed as a Fruit Cake and Closet Racist

UKIP have, to their credit, virtually wiped out the rise of the idiots of BNP and the EDL but in doing so they have caused Cameron a problem he didn’t reckon on. Does he try to appease the right or does he stick to his guns as a centre left leader fighting for the same middle ground as the largely unimpressive Ed Milliband? Cameron can count himself lucky that the more media attractive brother, another David (Milliband) was ousted from potential leadership by the Unions, otherwise he would have a major scrap on his hands come 2015.

For what it is worth, in my opinion, Nigel Farage is an unrealistic political leader enjoying his day in the sun annoying the centre right. I don’t even consider him as wolf in sheep’s clothing but Cameron scored a huge political own goal dismissing him; an own goal that will have the eccentric Boris Johnson and the perennially detestable Theresa May salivating at a tilt at the leadership of the Conservative Party. It is a party that could implode if only there appeared a credible alternative with strong leadership.

What the rise of Nigel Farage might do is create the emergence of strong politicians again. Like them or loathe them, the likes of Tony Benn, Michael Heseltine, Willie Whitelaw, Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Margaret Thatcher were in politics for political reasons, not as a step on the ladder to multi-million book deals and conference speaking.

If Farage can, with all his buffoonery, make politics exciting again, then his short career as a fruit cake and a closet racist would have at least been worth it.