Here Comes the Fun: A Year of Making Merry

Product Information

He knew it and so did everyone else. He was grumpy, increasingly boring, mostly joyless. So, he joined a lawn bowls club. A week later, he doubled down on the doldrums by learning to dance like they do in Bollywood. Although the results were mixed, the author's year of making merry left him feeling undoubtedly ... better. Which invites the question: if fun is such a reliable mood-swinger, shouldn't we be having more of it? I don’t fit in the shirt, which is surely a portent. Problem is there’s only a small one spare, and I’ve got too much spare to be small, if you know what I mean. My warmup is off-the-scale self-conscious. I do some things I remember seeing others do years ago: high knees, star jumps, that sort of thing. The gaffer comes over and says that some of my teammates are genuine veterans. “One of these blokes fought in Vietnam. Another in the Falklands. If you don’t put your head in the way of things they’ll be on to you.”

Although the results were mixed, the author's year of making merry left him feeling undoubtedly … better. Which invites the question: if fun is such a reliable mood-swinger, shouldn't we be having more of it? Food fights, fishing and French cooking - bestselling author Ben Aitken's year of actively pursuing fun Which left just Yigit and me. Feeling a tiny bit lost all of a sudden, and a long way from home, I looked to my young friend for direction. “Cheeseburger?” he said. “Yeah, why not?” I replied. Here comes the FUN!ARE YOU GETTING ENOUGH? Ben Aitken wasn't. Increasingly flat and decreasingly zen, he knew that something had to change. So he joined a lawn bowls club.THE NEW BOOK FROM THE MUCH-LOVED AUTHOR OF THE GRAN TOUR, A CHIP SHOP IN POZNAN AND THE MARMALADE DIARIESFood fights, fishing and French cooking - bestselling author Ben Aitken's year of actively pursuing funBen Aitken wasn't getting enough. Food fights, fishing and French cooking – bestselling author Ben Aitken's year of actively pursuing fun Although the results were mixed, the author’s year of making merry left him feeling undoubtedly … better. Which invites the question: if fun is such a reliable mood-swinger, shouldn’t we be having more of it? We hope you will join us, and Ben, for lots of erm fun really on Thur sday 28th September here at FORUM Books, The Chapel, Corbridge. After this attempt at encouragement, the gaffer then makes the mistake of confusing age with ability and puts me in the centre of midfield – the most dynamic position. After 47 seconds, I feel my right calf muscle creak. It’s not a snap, or a pull, but it’s something. A howl, maybe. A protest.

THE NEW AUDIOBOOK FROM THE MUCH-LOVED AUTHOR OF THE GRAN TOUR, A CHIP SHOP IN POZNAN AND THE MARMALADE DIARIES I’ve not played football for 23 years, in which time my muscles and physique and general sporting ability have grown accustomed to televised drama and burritos. I enter the changing room and am hit by the smell of Deep Heat, which prompts a wave of bad nostalgia. There are some good ideas here and perhaps the issue I have is with the format - it's presented in a linear way which means that we spend 2 weeks on a cruise with the author and that drags the whole thing down. Perhaps he felt it too? I wonder if it had been divided into bigger chunks rather than specific days and months, there would be have been the opportunity to drop some things that didn't work. The bus delivered me to Poznań’s old town. I was instantly taken by the colourful building fronts, the elaborate gables, the engrossing main square. Despite the cold, I stood looking in the windows of shops and bars and wondered at their unsubtle inducements to sample such things as wódka wiśniowa (cherry vodka) and legginsy (leggings). We might not have found a psychic from Poynton or a dominatrix from Davenport just yet, but we’ve pretty much got you covered for all other products and services you might need across Cheshire and Greater Manchester. Just take a look at this little lot…On top of its people and places, a country is a constellation of tiny quirks; a galaxy of shifting bits and pieces that, while neither constant nor objective, nonetheless make a solid contribution to a nation’s impression, its aura, its romance. After a year in the country, I was smitten with the place, and I didn’t want that to change

I hadn't read anything by Ben Aitken before and perhaps I'm not the audience but I really felt he was trying too hard to be funny and by the end of the book, I really disliked him.Something a little bit different for you today, an extract from Ben Aitken’s new book. Ben was born under Thatcher, grew to 6ft then stopped, and is an Aquarius. (His words.)

I’ve joined a veterans’ football team. My partner Megan isn’t supportive at all. She doesn’t, for a start, like the idea of me being eligible. (You’ve got to be 35+.) She asked me not to go. Looked on in despair when I bought the boots and shin pads. “My grandad plays walking football,” she said. “Shall I see if they need anyone?” Sixty-four years since breaking away from the British Empire, the tiny island city-state of Singapore can claim to be the world’s most expensive place to live, after a comprehensive survey carried out by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the newspaper group’s forecasting service.

More Copies for Sale

Ben Aitken’s guides to Istanbul, Haktan, far left, and his young cousin Yigit, far right. Photograph: Ben Aitken Food fights, fishing and French cooking—bestselling author Ben Aitken's year of actively pursuing fun I liked the idea behind this book - looking at different ideas of fun over the course of a way. Except I think the author lost his way halfway through and it meandered a bit too much and turned into a bit of 'I need to try to be funny but instead, I'm a bit of a git' I found that new adventure, for the record. It involved a series of budget coach holidays with people three times my age. But that’s another love story. I fell for the places first. Over the next year, whenever I wasn’t required to peel spuds or bone cod, I skipped town and hit the road. I went north to Gdańsk and the Polish Riviera, east to Warsaw and the lakes of Masuria, and south to Wrocław, the mountains and Łódź, the Polish Hollywood.