Grow Hair Fast!

I got into the office today after a full week on the road to find this attached to my coffee mug.

"Grow Hair Fast!" it says and on turning it over it reveals a strangely attractive person...

No idea who may have perpetrated this deed at all, but you may remember that on losing a yoghurt, the first place she looked was inside her boots...

Cor! The yoghurt! Wonder what happened to him???

2007 Review

2007 was the point at which I decided to stop writing web pages from scratch and start to use some of the new tools that were becoming available.

This blog and the others listed in the column to the left are the result of that, as are the 1100+ photographs at my Flickr account.

The original websites still exist though, a legacy that started in 1996, with the first web page about Blackpool.

I'm not sure how many photographs I took in 2007 because I throw out mercilessly, anything blurred, uninteresting, too dark/too light or that duplicates too closely another photograph. I do know that I kept 1401 photographs on my hard drive, some of which will have been donated by friends. Together with previous years and the odd photo filched from the Internet or scanned from books makes up 15,734 images at full screen resolution.

You can add to that a further 37,886 photos at smaller resolution that I have included within the 4,085 web pages, all of my own creation that exist on my hard drive.

That makes the 500 or so web pages available from my online index pale into insignificance. However the previously mentioned Blackpool pages alone include 886 photographs on 103 web pages. Each of the holiday web sites have around 200 photos included. All in all, there's a few hours reading material on the website!

In 2007 I started this blog, originally known as John's Place until I decided there were just too many Johns in the world for this to allow people to find me easily. Even with the current name there are so many John Burkes that any friend looking for me would probably find it hard to find this blog. The web page though is normally No.1 listed on a search for John Burke at http://www.google.co.uk.

See - shown up as a liar, I've just looked and I've dropped to No.2! Happily though four of my pages come up within the first ten entries. There's an incredible number of John Burkes listed, many of whom are interested in music and/or showbiz. One makes Northumbrian pipes and another, probably my favourite, performs in German circuses with a troupe of sealions!

In 2007 I created 357 blog entries and ceased to publish the monthly web page updates which I wrote for 10 years. The first monthly update appeared on my website in May 1997 and the final one in May 2007 when I realised that all I was doing was trawling the blog for material for the monthly update!

Anything is fair game for the blog. A colleague losing a yoghurt in the office at the end of October started a series which is still ongoing and which has generated so much interest and suggested storylines from others that I was amazed. One person said they were going to write to yoghurt manufacturers Danone about it. I'm not sure whether they did or not but if so then the manufacturers have stayed aloof, probably wisely!

Another entry that created quite a bit of interest was the entry following an email from Blackpool's Margot Carey about the remains of the box where her father used to keep a telescope on the North Pier. Margot contributed several interesting memories of Blackpool and is still in touch.

The two ladies we met on our cruise, who I called Cissie and Ada on the blog have also kept in touch and were much tickled at their new names. We received Christmas cards signed "Cissie and Ada" and whilst Ada realised straight away we did receive one message from Cissie that finished "Which one am I?" Come on, flower, that one should have been obvious!!! They spent a week in Blackpool during one of the worst weeks for weather in October and we went down to the hotel a couple of times to have a drink with them.

The band I play in, Creeping Bentgrass, had a record number of gigs during the year and since March have been featured every month in the downloadable Sounds Special feature on the Billy Fury website. The site is superb and there's a whole host of friends there for anyone with an interest in Billy Fury.

Fellow Blackpool-based musician Les Cotton was instrumental (sorry!) in getting one of my solo songs featured on The Strawbs website. Thanks Les for your help with that!

I found somewhere on the Internet to store music and you can now download a selection of Creeping Bentgrass and solo tracks and older stuff from my music web page.

Then finally at the beginning of December we finished the band's third CD album which after a year and a bit of having the working title "Already Plastered" has been released with the title "Right On The Line". We feel it's our best yet. It took so long to make we're starting the 4th straight away!

So, here's to a new year full of blog entries. I hope you, the readers, will contribute, suggest, send photos, get in touch and most of all, provide lots of the ideas and anecdotes. I seem to have a bit of a reputation now with one person from the next office saying "Watch what you say - it'll end up on his blog!", but it's all in fun and what better way of remembering those one-off spur-of-the-moment things that happen or are said that would otherwise just be forgotten about?

Like the male colleague who responded to the usual January greeting with: "Oh my God, I've spent all Christmas sneezing my baubles off..."

To be continued...

On the Tenth Day of Christmas...

On the tenth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me

Ten librarians feasting
Nine things nostalgic
Eight chefs a-swearing
Seven glasses brimming
Six tomcats spraying
Five old things
Four annoying birds
Three French men
Two turtle gloves
And a pro-biotic yoghurt in a tree

DS Soundtrack Torture

I'm being driven mad...

Whoever invented these electronic games must have been some sort of extremist sadist! If you play them they drive you mad, yes, but if you are an innocent bystander then they are far far worse!

If you have two or more people who have synchronised them to play a single game then oh boy...!

Bad enough when the little tinny tinkle tonk noises drive you barmy. Worse when there's a musical soundtrack playing the same annoying little ditty over and over and over and over and over and... whoops... nearly fell for it...

These two have tinny little voices coming out which today keep shouting cheerfully every two seconds "Happy New Year!"

I think I'm going to go out in the rain and look for a lost yoghurt to stamp on...

On the Seventh Day of Christmas...

On the seventh day of Christmas

My true love gave to me

Seven glasses brimming
Six tomcats spraying
Five old things
Four annoying birds
Three French men
Two turtle gloves
And a pro-biotic yoghurt in a tree.

Three Wise Yoghurts

Dan One, the pro-biotic yoghurt was spotted yesterday taking an active (what else?) part in the Nativity.

The stamina of this yoghurt given that he must be well past his sell-by date is truly amazing.

It possibly has a lot to do with the fridge-like conditions in Blackpool at the moment!

On The First Day of Christmas...

On the first day of Christmas
My true love sent to me...

A pro-biotic yoghurt in a tree.

Have a great Christmas and 2008 everyone!

Festive Cheer or Something Else?

Is it merely the time of year and the festive temptations?

Or is it the first sign that the yoghurt is turning bad?

Consorting with bottles of wine. Fraternising with boxes of chocolates. Doing ...erm... unmentionable things with sugary confectionery...

Not the sort of thing you would expect from a supposedly healthy foodstuff!

What happens when a yoghurt goes bad? Does the probiotic turn antibiotic? Will the active ingredient go dormant and inactive? Will the strawberry turn to mush? Will the sourness turn sweet? ooh... Dannon!!!

Yoghurt Carrying Baggage

Just when you think it's all gone quiet Dan One pops up again!

What on earth does a yoghurt need with such a lot of luggage? Is he thinking of touring the world?

Is he going a bit doolally as he goes past his sell-by date?

No, please don't worry that I'll upset him by saying this - by now he must have a pretty thick skin...

Bath Time for Yoghurts

Dan One must be well past his sell-by date now, but is still keen to take care of himself.

He's having a daily bath and squeezing every last drop of water away by putting himself through the mangle to get dry.

He obviously owes his longevity to his pro-biotic nature and is still fit and active whilst all around, lesser goods like turkeys and certain brands of mince pies are dropping like flies! (Although, you'd think that the mince pies with rubber in would bounce if dropped...?)

Anyway December is now on us - that season of crowded supermarkets and ill-will to fellow shoppers as they grab the last non-exceedingly bouncy mince pie that you had your eye on. If you head for the supermarket this month, watch Finding Nemo first - especially the scene with the seagulls...

"Mine!" "Mine!" "Mine!"

Yoghurt on Tour

Ah, it's so nice to see a yoghurt enjoying itself!

Here's Dan One still obviously enjoying his bus tour - with included Thames river cruise - of London.

Big Ben, Tower Bridge... who knows where he may turn up next?

Somewhere close to you perhaps?

Meanwhile elsewhere, a librarian was heard to mutter "Thank God I didn't lose my underwear!" What a strange thing to say... Perhaps this merits further investigation...

Sightseeing by Yoghurt

Aha! I knew it!

That ransom note was a diversionary tactic by some scheming get rich quick merchant!

The yoghurt has been spotted enjoying its time in London, doing the sights and sounds of the capital city. Clever of it to get a bus really - with no legs it would take ages to be casually kicked around London by passing feet...

I hope it manages to stay out of the way of any sweepers and road cleaners!

A Sinister Turn of Events

A missive has been received!

This ransom note came to me yesterday from an anonymous source.

It appears that a person or persons unknown - well that's what they think anyway - is attempting to cash in on the misfortune of others by threatening to "blow away" the missing yoghurt.

The fact that the weapon depicted looks suspiciously more like a hair dryer or drill than a gun and the fact that my photofit picture has been used rather than an actual photo of Dan One - who is an English yoghurt rather than the American version that I found for the photofit - leads me to think they haven't really got the yoghurt at all and he's probably still safe and well and enjoying his travels somewhere!

Anyway: 20p!!! Do they think I'm made of money???

A Yoghurt on the Edge

Rejected by love, bereft of even the briefest of brief encounters, our lonely yoghurt contemplates life without spooning.

As the murky waters pass by, he contemplates the meaning of his pro-biotic nature and his special relationship with the active bacteria of life.

But anyway, I've a train to catch so we'll leave him there and see where he gets to next time!

A (Yoghurty) Brief Encounter

Maybe it should have been in black and white, this photo...

To our amazement we spotted the yoghurt on Carnforth Station - the location for the famous film Brief Encounter, starring Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard.

Very strange, I thought, but then I read the DVD cover more closely:

"Noel Coward's sensitive portrayal of what happens when two happily married strangers meet and their acquaintance deepens into affection and love. It is the story of two people, thrown together by a chance meeting over a yoghurt..."

Well, would you believe it!!!

And look, later we spotted the yoghurt, surprising unsuspecting women at random, desperately trying for one last romance before passing his sell-by date...

Silly old romantic Dan One. Not so much Dan One as Don Juan!

Frozen But Not Yog-Hurt...

I think some of our fears about the yoghurt going bad as it was out of the fridge may come to nothing.

This morning I spotted him stuck tight to the back window of my hired Volkswagen Golf!

I think he may have had enough wandering as when I got home tonight he hopped out of the boot where he had obviously stowed away and legged it down the road before I could apprehend him.

The librarian may be relieved to know that he is back in our neck of the woods and appears (from the speed of his getaway) as active as ever...

Flight of Fancy

Dan One the runaway yoghurt is certainly evaluating all possibilities for making a clean getaway!

Here he is evaluating the possibilities for stowing away on a flight out of Heathrow. What a co-incidence that I am at a two-day symposium nearby and was on hand to spot him!

After several days from the fridge, he still shows no signs of any untoward fermentation - we had all been concerned he may have been hitting the bottle but obviously he has other plans. The recent cold weather will be doing him good anyway.

Meanwhile back in the library up in Lancashire, a librarian is due to make a dramatic appeal to the public...

The Librarian's Nightmare

A lost, lonely and pining yoghurt nestling under a newspaper for warmth, trying to get some sleep under a sheltering bush...



An innocent gardener, humbly going about his daily chores...



The tragic consequences...



Let's hope that this scenario remains merely a dream!

This blog entry uses clever make-up and simulation techniques - no bacteria were harmed during the making of this blog. From the yoghurt anyway... I might have trodden on a couple that were on the path... but I was keeping a careful eye open for them so it's not really my fault... honest.

ClOse EnCouNterS oF tHe YoGhuRt KinD

This is getting ridiculous...

I'm starting to see yoghurts everywhere now! In fact, yesterday when I switched my phone back on after running a workshop in London I had a voice message from someone claiming to have seen Dan One, the runaway yoghurt.

Look, this may just be a joke to you, but up there in Lancashire, a librarian is lying awake all night staring at the ceiling wondering what might have happened to him!

Someone else reports seeing a "family pack" as though that's a suggestion he may have found happiness.

Let's be realistic about this though - he's been out of the fridge for a week. By now he might not only be active, he may be getting reactive!

Yoghurt Goes Thirsty In Windermere

It seems that Dan One the yoghurt has made it to Bowness on Lake Windermere.

No doubt thirsty after all that travelling - even for an active yoghurt, Myerscough to Windermere is a long way - imagine his distress to find the drinking fountain was dry...

If he sups from the lake we can only hope he doesn't get washed away or, even worse, punctured by a curious duck!

Members of the public are asked to be vigilant but before approaching him with bravado please remember... he's pro-biotic and could go off on one!