Imagine being reduced to high-fiving yourself in the bathroom mirror | Rick Jackson

I’ve been guilty of this for far too long. Why am I my worst critic? Why do I give myself such a hard time – about everything?

I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.

I bet you, like me, don’t see the person everyone else sees.

Beating ourselves up about how we look, feel, act, in fact pretty much everything.

Do you find it tiring being you? Sometimes I’m exhausted being me!

At my gym, after a small-group, instructed work-out, we support each other by giving a high-five. It’s something I didn’t feel too comfortable doing in the beginning.

But quickly I realised the importance of this gesture.

It’s an effective way of congratulating someone for doing their best in achieving their goals. They get a high-five from me and I get a high-five from them.

We stopped doing them during the pandemic and when restrictions on training separately existed, but now they are back and its the perfect affirmation to end a workout.

But who is going to high-five me after a busy day? Who will do it after my breakfast show? Certainly not my boss, he’s still working from home on the Isle of Wight!

What about after a busy afternoon picking up the kids from school, helping them with homework, feeding them, getting them bathed and to bed?

Who is going to high-five me that they’ve survived another day?

The answer is me. I’ve decided to high-five myself; tell myself well done on another radio show or that the kids didn’t kill each other or me!

I know it sounds a bit naff – in fact it’s a little ‘Alan Partridge’ looking in the mirror in his hotel room shouting ‘I’m a tiger’ but it works!

Sadly Sarah wants to know why there are handprints on the bathroom mirror and when I clean them off can I do the toilet and bath at the same time…

Oooooh! You are naughty, but I like you, especially on motorways

The new car is a big hit, even with the missus! It has this N button which stands for Nurburgring, the race circuit in Germany where the car was developed, but the kids call it the ‘naughty button’!

‘Press the naughty on daddy,’ they keep asking. The car stiffens, the throttle becomes featherlight responsive, the steering weights up and the exhaust note becomes ballistic.

I gave it the beans with the kids in the car and they squealed with delight. I didn’t break the speed limit but that didn’t stop the nerves as I saw a police car behind me with its lights flashing. As I pulled over, it sped past. When Sarah drove it to the New Forest. I had to keep telling her to stop pressing the naughty button!

Retro-pong: Just a sniff and you’re straight back to 1984

In the barber’s getting my hair cut this week I couldn’t help but notice among the many hair products on display, several bottles of Brut aftershave also adorned the shelves.

I asked my Turkish barber about this and he said it’s very popular with men who come in for the full wet shave and hot towel treatment.

I had a sniff. It was 1984 all over again. That’s the year I was bought some for Christmas. I was 11! The previous year I’d received Old Spice, which I wore to the youth club disco every Friday evening. Apparently these scents are popular with millennials!

How strange. The expensive big brand stuff is out and retro-pong is in. I wonder, can you still buy Blue Stratos?

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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