Tommy 2.0

...Mistletoe and Wine, Who's watching Michael Heseltine? With his dog on the fire, cos it shat on the tree,  Time to get Anne to make him some tea. No idea what Cliff meant by any of that, but it does make me feel festive. Truth be told, I actually love this time of year. Without breaking into song again, it's time to both reflect and look to the future. If 2014 has taught me one thing, it has to be the hours you can save opening a pizza correctly: For me, pre-2014 pizza delivery always involved scissors, which in turn always involved finding scissors and not running whilst holding them. Little did I know about the other technique, akin to opening a packet of pre-washed baby leaf spinach, until my parents sat me down and pointed out my shortcomings. Whilst this alone provides me with the essentials to make it in the big wide world, there's no point getting ahead of myself. Priorities for 2015 include overcoming my fear of the bell not sounding when I pr

...isn't something to be sniffed at. Just because I wasn't good enough to win it outright doesn't make me sad in the slightest. So when the honour was bestowed upon Internet Enquiries earlier this year, in one of the summer months' beginning with 'J', I was pleasantly surprised. Fast forward to November, a month beginning with 'N' that falls somewhere in the middle of autumn, and we'd finally settled on a location for our victory meal. It was a triple celebration for myself, having of course also won Morsel of the Month in September and having had a haircut in October. The meal itself went off without a hitch. We even found someone with a disposable camera to take a picture of us... The team: circa 1996/97 - 2014 ...I only managed a starter and main myself, but had a lovely selection of cheese and crackers waiting for me on my return home. It's at this juncture I feel it appropriate to plot my 2014 achievements on a line gra

...can often be a harshly overlooked specimen. Walk down any high street in the western world, minus Canada , and chances are you'll pass by a 3 course meal/6 course tasting menu, albeit one made of scraps and other unwanted or misplaced treats. Sadly, the story of these pieces of waste are seldom told. That is until now! Thanks to Russ and Tom, two frontrunners in the world of discarded food poetry, we're starting see a host of young Byron's from all walks of life chart the rise, and often tragic falls, of a whole manner of food stuff. I present to you Leftovers . With a 7 step rule plan to adhere to, you simply find yourself a tragic case of grub in the street, capture the evidence and write the back story, with the aim of satisfying a 120-strong audience. My first attempt, included below for your satisfaction, symbolises the immediate aftermath of a long overdrawn breakup (in tortilla chip form.) Despite being overlooked for August's 'Morsel of the Month'

...charts a young thespians journey, half a decade in the making. But whom? Well, to answer that question I refer you back to the first word in the title...'My'. From humble advertisement beginnings to voice-over work, through charity and live action gigs, what you're about to witness shows the diversity, dare I say genius, that I've sprinkled on an array of roles. Legally, I must say that I don't own the rights, nor will I ever, to any of these pieces of art. Oh, except for the last one, which I conceived, relentlessly planned, shot and acted in myself on the tightest of budgets. Enjoy... 1. Background Filmed during one night in a museum , unlike the lying Ben Stiller franchise, I got my big break in a 'supporting artiste' role. You won't have to keep your eyes peeled for long, as I nonchalantly dominate the picture from 00.04, even if I do say so myself. Fleeting glimpses follow, but don't let that distract you from the real scene stealer at 0

...can only mean one thing, at an average of one every 22 days, 5 hours and 20 minutes, I've smashed the 10 blog post milestone. What a return!* There's a trio of world issues to quickly cover before we get down to the nitty gritty: 1) Conflict in the Middle East - that needs sorting out 2) The Gremlin in the Kremlin - who does he think he is? 3) Depression - it was incredibly sad to hear about Robin Williams last week. My favourite turn of his was as bearded psychologist Dr. Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting I often ponder what my contribution to the world will be; Will it be interpretive t-shirt dancing ? It almost certainly won't be Shredteas . Could it perhaps be the below? A Tommy tickling of both science and business... A while ago now I purchased a Guinea Pig called Jimmyboy Sheridan, a name he'd given himself. I'd heard this particular strand of the pig family were useful to have around when it came to conducting experiments, of which I

...and all you got was this lousy blog post! Count yourselves lucky. Where to start? Well firstly, this has been the best World Cup in living memory. To put that into context, I started remembering World Cup's around 1998. On the horizon are some massive  semis , the hardest of which is probably Brazil's. Given how far each team has 'cum' though, they'll all be looking at their respective ' drawers ' with a big grin etched across their faces. That's enough rubbish cock innuendos for one day! I spent two weeks in  Ceará , the self-proclaimed ' County Durham of Brazil '. It's nickname concerns the geographical location rather than any regional dialect. To be fair, I understood more of what was being said here than the last time I visited the birthplace of modern English mustard in the North East of England. I even learnt a new phrase,  escovar os dentes . No idea why people kept shouting it at me though. Upon my voyage I was accompanied

...hence my absence from the blogosphere. My tale begins last month, or April as it's more commonly known. I was in front of the TV, in the midst of a lovely bacon sandwich, when Sunday Politics hot-shot Andrew Neil announced my name in reference to the Labour Party (who I'd never heard of). On swallowing my crust I immediately thought to myself...why? Sure, upcoming elections had been in the news but had I missed the memo? Was I involved? Was I unwittingly being ushered into the murky underworld of politics against my will, like so many of the buffoons on the news? Or had I completely misread the situation again, as per one or two of my previous blog posts? Naturally I assumed it was the former. My first port of call was to Google myself to see if this would shed any light. Attention was immediately drawn to a Wikipedia page who's name bore resemblance to my own. The title simply read ' Tom Greatrex '. I hadn't warranted a page before so what had c

...which is insensitive of him to say the least. Free lifts to work are completely out of the window for next few weeks, and whilst he struggles through a simple out patient procedure, I've got to get up 45 minutes earlier to catch the bus. That's 5 whole snoozes on a standard alarm clock. Talking of work, there's been some exciting developments in the past month. I'm now 99% certain that it's Audi who employ me and not Aldi , although the fact both are German still leaves me with that indistinguishable nagging doubt.  Secondly, as of next week, ' Tommy the weird temp ' becomes ' Tommy the permanent ' in a new role. It's a radical shake-up, the likes of which haven't been seen on these shores since March 19th 2014. I am of course referring here to Cliff D'Arcy's use of the term 'biggest shake-up' in a headline about  budgets and pensions . It might just be me, but since my meteoric rise through the ranks of the

...without too much kerfuffle, certainly not enough to warrant a whole blog post. Losing an hour is always disappointing, but had it not been for this intro I'd have forgotten about it by now. It's a far cry from 2013, when the clocks went back. Saturday 26th October was the date and I was in the midst of my tri-annual visit to my parents' house. The 3 of us were sat watching Strictly Come Dancing  when all of a sudden somebody muttered the words that would change the course of my visit indefinitely. "Remember the clocks go back tonight, and seeing as we're flying to Croatia in the early hours you'll have to take care of it!" I assumed straight away they were talking to me. I hadn't arranged to go on holiday and it was the kind of trick they'd pulled before. Looking back, I remember 2 distinct things: I'd have to make my own arrangements for Sunday's breakfast, and... In a ' worse for wear ' state, having raided my parents

...was the strange demand I thought I heard today, as I walked past a rabble of hoodlums on my way to the Co-op to buy a pre-packaged sandwich for work tomorrow. "OK" I replied nervously, without really considering if I either wanted to or had the time. What followed was a more aggressive "Do another fucking blog post!", from a knife-wielding member of the group. It was at this point I realised I had my headphones in and couldn't make out what they'd actually been saying. I quickened my pace, in fear I'd misread the situation completely and they were high and wanted to sexually abuse me. Given that my blog only has 4 followers it is likely they were talking about something else entirely, but the thought of doing another post had been implanted and as I walked a different route home it was all I could think about. I recalled foolishly mentioning in my my last post that I'd review Potdog , the bunless hotdog, and also create my very own alternati

...is Tommy Greatrex then, really? In one way or another I've been asking myself this question all my life, yet still I find myself nowhere near an answer. If, for some reason, you've read either of my first two blog posts* you're probably just as confused as I am. Based on what I've been told at various times in my life, by different people who may or may not have liked me, I sometimes vaguely  look a bit like ' ginger ' and ' not so ginger ' celebrities. Out of all this hearsay I've created a sliding scale that I like to call  The sliding scale of Tommy Greatrex-ness. See Exhibit 1A. Originally existing solely in my mind, the sliding scale allows me to plot my physical appearance and current state of mind twofold: 1) How ginger I feel in myself (flowing from left to right)  2) How stressed I feel with life (flowing from the outside in) To save any confusion, as it can be a bit of a mindbender , the scale can be seen in a physi

...wasn't all that difficult to write, truth be told. Whether or not it makes sense, or can pass the 'Why the hell have I just read that?' test, is another matter. It's the story of a man (me) who was forced to play uncle to two little girls (my nieces) by their mother (my sister) and her father (also my father). The backdrop for this story is the city of Coventry , and the names of those two little girls? Gareth and Rosalita (pictured).* Gareth, named after the brilliant legal mind  Gareth Peirce , herself a  woman , is somewhere between the ages of 2 1/2 and 3, whilst Rosalita, named after a singer maybe, can be aged somewhere between 0 and 1. My dad and I were simply there on a weekly visit, helping out where we could. The day passed without any major incident which I, and probably only I, put down to myself. We spent the morning at the park before having lunch at Coffee Tots . On returning home we attempted to play Elefun Snackin' Safari: The Silly Spri

...but only one until my birthday. I'm going to be turning 27 in just under 9 hours. It's a relatively cool age to be and puts me in such esteemed company as Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. The majority of the day will be spent sat in my mum and dad's house, thinking about  anything other than  looking for a new job. I might even crack open the Scholl Pedicure Foot Spa, including 9 piece nail care set, that I was bought as part of my leaving gift two weeks ago from my first job after university. If my next blog post isn't a review of said foot spa, then my  mum  probably stopped me from using it for fear of getting water on the carpet. Until recently I'd been an Account Manager for the digital creative agency  Nonsense , based in London. After 3 years in various roles at the company, the foot spa came about because I said I wanted one for Christmas to my brother, also at Nonsense, and I think our office ma