The mind wonders about Hi De Hi.

This started a while ago when I fell in love with the old TV show called Hi De Hi.

For those who don't know, it's a fictional holiday camp where you follow the entertainments team over 2 seasons and all of their goings on. It's hilarious even to this day. It had a charm about it, an innocence if you will.

I became bored for some time on Grindr and changed my entire profile to be that of Peggy Ollerenshaw the chalet maid. Yes you'd get men wanting sex (she was played by a very young sue pollard so they can't be blamed) but some people got the joke and would inbox me asking how my day was, usually I'd reply with some random statement saying about Mr fairbrother and how he was going to get me another interview to become a yellow coat. Some people however didn't get the humour, they thought Peggy was real. They actually thought I was a cleaner working on a holiday Park in Clacton-on-sea (a place which doesn't exist).

Around that time I gave my mind the freedom to wonder, what ever happened to the characters after the last episode when they all went their separate ways, knowing yellow coats were a thing of the past. Here's where my mind took me....

Maplins Holiday Camps. 

Maplins is no more, unfortunately. For about 3 years after the yellow coats left people would return, but they stopped coming. The first season with no yellow coats was awful, people just didn't know they weren't there. They'd ask the staff "where is Ted?", but nobody really knew. The parks did change though, self catering became their way, meaning the dining hall sat empty for a year or so, until Joe managed to get some cheap arcade games, he stuck them in there and encouraged everyone to try their luck. Entertainment wise, well day time became dull, there was the pool and a little bit of a park, but that was it. In the evening the new head of entertainment would introduce the band and the dancing would begin, only to be interupted by an act at about 9pm. The acts might have been comedy or a singer, but nothing amazing.

Joe eventually after 4 years sold Maplins for a pretty penny, the new company kept the branding and even brought back the yellow coats, but by then the damage was done, people weren't interested in what they saw as "old" fun and the parks soon closed their doors for good.

Ted Bovis. 

The man, the Legend. He gave most of his life to Maplins, certainly helped the company and site out a number of times over the years. Ted went from strength to strength after leaving, he released an LP of "holiday hits" which went down a storm and even became number 1 in the UK charts. He presented a TV series on a Saturday night for about 2 years and he thought everything was great. He did go back to Maplins, once a week in its final season as a special guest. He would often remark about how things used to be at the site and how it could never go back to how it was. Ted went on to have a new wife and the two of them toured an act together until their dying days.

Spike Dixon. 

Being the funny man for 2 long seasons took its toll on Spike. He left the company feeling sure about his future, only to find out that it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He married April which was lovely, but after 2 children and calling time on his comedy career his marriage fell apart and he went back to the usual 9 to 5 job. He always wanted to make people smile, many say he was the highlight of the office day, which he liked, because it hid his deep depression which he developed after becoming bored of his routine but finding no way out.

Peggy Ollerenshaw. 

Ah Peggy, there's nobody quite like her is there! She did indeed stay on at Maplins right until the company closed its doors, I think with the hope that she would once again become a yellow coat, but alas, she never did. Once the company closed she returned home and began taking any work she could. She did eventually find her path in life however, she worked in promotions for various companies and could often be found on high street corners shouting about special offers and getting into trouble for trying to get everyone involved in what she was doing. She was always great for business.

Yvonne / Julian. 

They left Maplins with their eyes on the prize of a new start in Australia and they really did do it! They made their way over and set up a dance school, teaching people the art of the ballroom dance. They kept their grace and professionalism at all times, they even won some awards, not for dancing, but things like "dance school of the year" and such. Those certificates are still shown today in the family home, as they have since both retired from dancing and now they merely rub shoulders with the rich and famous.

Glad / Clive. 

That famous voice of the announcements at Maplins and he, the squadron leader both went on to... Well actually they just ran the zoo at his father's estate. They did introduce new things like rides and tours etc, but nothing could get in the way of their love, it was always cute seeing the two of them together. They eventually retired in Wales and enjoyed walks around the countryside with fresh fish and chips.

And that's it. That's as far as my brain would wonder. It never happened as above, that's all what my brain thought of. The show however did become a musical on stage shows, but is best remembered for being on TV. The cast have since had several reunions and in one they even returned to the site where they filmed the show, it's now a housing estate, but do you remember them really tall trees by the pool? They're still there to this day! 

The show will forever be, in my eyes, one of the best shows ever made. I'd love for there to be a modern version, but I think I might be alone in that.

The fine line

There's a fine line between life and death that we don't often talk about.

Like tonight on my road where I live. I live on a corner, down one side tonight there was a community party, 20 minutes of party dances and games, but on the other side there was 2 private ambulances which for those who don't know, they collect dead bodies.

Later in the evening there was 3 private ambulances along with 6 staff, 4 police and the fire brigade, all masked up because of the covid outbreak. 

I don't know what caused the whole crew to turn up for a death, but for a while I felt as if I was in the middle between life and death. Life being the party, people making the most out of a bad situation we currently find ourselves in, while meters away death has happened. I questioned a few times if the party should go ahead, was it disrespectful to whomever had passed away for the whole neighbourhood to have a party, or was it right? Was it a sign that life goes on.

It's a difficult call really, I suppose there's no right or wrong answer. I remember after my Nana had passed away that I had to get the message through into my mind that life does go on. At times I could almost hear my Nana's voice saying "Stop being stupid, it's only me, go and do something". I guess the whole situation in my head over tonight comes down to personal preference.

I like to think whoever it was that passed away knows the party wasn't celebrating their leaving, infact most of the neighbours didn't even know what was happening as they couldn't see anything. Should life take presidence over death, or does death command that life stops, if only for a moment?

I guess that is up to you...

Dropping the N-word on Twitter...

Well, my Twitter became a "fun" place to be over the past few days. Currently I'm still serving a 1 week ban, not for my original tweet (which twitter has no problem with despite it having been reported hundreds of times), but because of a reply I made to one of the hundreds of abusive users which decided to contact me over the past few days.

Where did it all begin?

Well, the tweet basically made the point that the N-word is basically the straight version of Queer, a word which has been used for decades as a derogatory term and how queer hasn't been reclaimed, it isn't a sexuality. 

I still very much stand by this point.

However, a white person using the N-word stirred up a lot of hatred. Several users saw about it being the 1 year since passing of my Nana, and hoped that she was "resting in piss" or "burning in hell". I got told I should be murdered, burned alive, beaten, made disabled and much, much more.

Although hundreds of people got in touch with me over the tweet, thousands of people saw the tweet and didn't bother getting in touch - more than likely because they don't care.

A large chunk of people told me I was a white supremacist and racist for even typing the word, then went on to say I shouldn't use it.

A white person shouldn't use the word.

Let's swap that sentence for a second here...

A black person shouldn't use the word.

Many of you reading that would assume the 2nd one is racist there, but actually, BOTH sentences are racist. It is telling people, based on the colour of their skin, that they cannot use a certain word. However, many people refused to see the racism in the first sentence, some even going as far as saying "it isn't possible to be racist to a white person".

What else did I face? Let's see...

3 of my friends were contacted through Facebook with messages like this...

... You get the idea.

Now unfortunately for her, my friends (a lot of them, not all) are supportive of me and some even agree with what I said.

I had an email to my company email address off someone trying to get me sacked, however, it being a self employed deal meant it was quite dumb of the gentleman to email, because the email just got deleted.

So you can see, people really tried to ruin me, over a word which in truth, caused them no offense or problems. I did report many of the tweets I received (around 200 reports were made) and around 50 accounts had to remove their tweets and faced time out on the platform where they cannot tweet or do anything for a set amount of time.

I think my block list almost doubled in size too, because I am not wanting contact from idiots again in the future.

Anyway, the whole point of this was to explain my side of the story in a way that people can actually read. It isn't racist for a white person to use the N-word. It isn't denying the history of the black community, it isn't being said in a disrespectful manor and certainly isn't causing offense to the majority of people these days.

Oh, the best thing was a tweet that said "he's lost friends because of this", and let me explain why that is funny. So we all know of people who will try to start an argument with you because you hold a different opinion than them, well a friend of mine from years ago called Jakey turned into one of those people. Over the past few months he had tried to argue with me over pretty much everything he could, so of course he was determined that he would fall out with me over this tweet. He tweeted that he was ashamed he had called me a friend for so long, which is where the losing friends tweet came from. Was he a friend? In the past year or so, no, he wasn't. Have I lost any sleep because he's decided to not have contact with me? No. I also think it's him that leaked my Facebook and friends details, which isn't really surprising if true.

The original tweet has been seen around 49,000 times at the time of posting this, it gathered less than 500 responses. I'd say the figures speak for themselves, the majority of people just aren't bothered.

And they shouldn't be, because equality is what we strive for.