Humour – Nicholas Walker

Agony on the Ice

Nicholas Walker — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 21:35:01 +0000

It was a sunny day but Samantha was past feeling anything. The garden was very large and she wandered off down to where the pond was, there were chairs there and she was still feeling exhausted, she was flushing the sleeping pills Dr Lewis had prescribed down the toilet every night. There was a large swinging garden chair by the pond but when she reached it someone was already sitting in it. She froze and Alex rose to his feet. ‘What the hell?’ she demanded. ‘I thought I’d drop round,’ he said, trying to find something innocuous to say. ‘I told you to stay away,’ she said, ‘I told everybody I didn’t want to see you!’ ‘I wanted to see you.’ ‘Would you just go? Please.’ ‘This isn’t fair,’ he said. He tried to walk towards her but stopped when she flinched away from him. He spread his hands in appeal, ‘You owe me more than this.’ ‘I don’t owe you anything! We were partners, that’s all. Skating partners and now that’s all over and done.’ ‘We were more than that and you know it. I love you.’ ‘Well, I don’t love you! I don’t even like you.’ She held her head in her hands, ‘Just sod off why don’t you?’ ‘You’re my fiancée, we’re supposed to be getting married, planning our wedding.’ ‘Marry you? I’m not going to marry you!’ it was almost a snarl. She wrenched at the ring on her finger that he had given her, his grandmother’s ring, the expensive one. It stuck and she had to use her teeth and she finally dragged it free leaving her finger bleeding. She hurled it savagely at him and it bounced off his chest and into the flower beds. ‘Now just sod off!’ she said, and she turned and bolted back towards the house.

AutoB of a Short, Fat, Ugly Man: The Making of an Author

Nicholas Walker — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 20:47:29 +0000

I remember another incident much later on with Mr Griffiths. I sort of invented skiving off in about the third year but right back in the first year I stopped going to Geography. I hadn’t done a project as it was homework so as the teacher was very scary I hid in the toilets then I didn’t like to go back the following lesson and the more I stayed away the more the consequences piled up so the more I stayed away. I stayed away until the Fifth Form and then tragedy happened, Mrs Dark the teacher I was staying away from was tasked to write a report on me. She professed to having no idea who I was and I received the long awaited summons to Mr Griffith’s study.

He was standing there reading the report with a stunned expression on his face.

‘Walker,’ he said and now I knew I was in real trouble if he was calling me Walker.

‘Good Morning sir, and isn’t it a lovely one?’ I tried. He gave me a look.

‘You have been cutting Mrs Dark’s Geography lessons since the first year, correct?’

‘Spot on, sir,’ said I with nothing to lose.

‘I see. Well, as far as I can work out that means you have cut somewhere in the region of 348 lessons, yes?’

‘I can’t really help you there sir, I’m not very good at maths.’ I thought it better not to tell him I had recently been cutting Maths lessons as well.

‘Well, Nicknack…Walker,’ he said clutching at his forehead, ‘this leaves me with a bit of a problem. You see if a pupil cuts one lesson, they are made to copy up the whole lesson during detention.’

‘Seems fair enough to me, sir.’

‘Nicknack, shut up!’ he shouted losing it. He took a deep breath to bring himself back under control and after a minute continued in a more level tone, ‘For two lessons they are given the cane. For three they are put on home report.’ He lost it and started to dance around at this point, ‘I don’t know what the hell I am supposed to do about 348!!!’

I couldn’t think of anything to say that would improve the situation at this point. Now he seemed to have some sort of stroke and I watched him anxiously as he leaned over his desk fighting for breath, after all he wasn’t getting any younger. Gradually his bright red colour faded and he raised a trembling hand and pointed it at the door:

‘Go away you horrible boy!’

Like I said we all liked Mr Griffiths!

Autobiography of a Short, Fat, Ugly Man: A Kind of Immortality

Nicholas Walker — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 01:01:26 +0000

Apologies: I could read when I was three. It’s not unnatural, some children just seem to teach themselves to read, we think it’s by a process of copying adults and interpreting pictures. From the age of about six I was reading a book every day, that is finishing a book every day…a practice I have continued all my life. I’m not saying I read War and Peace in one day but I tend to finish an average sized adult’s book most days. When I was eight I was reading James Bond and books by Alistair McLean and Neville Shute. Mind you I was still reading all the children’s books as well, still do now: Bunter, William, Jennings, The Famous Five and all the others. I read all the heavy stuff in my teens and now regret wasting so much of my time digesting crap like Wuthering Heights and Tom Jones…give me a break. There is nothing in those old fashioned dirges that you cannot find ten times better in a modern book…literary insight my ass. Most of them were written by middle class virgins who knew nothing of life and the only reason they got published was because there were so few people writing during the last century. I took a year to read: The Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire, then there was Boswell’s Life of Johnson both of which were okay. Then there were all the Nordic folk tales and stuff like that. By the age of fourteen I had read the whole of Kingswinford Library half a dozen times. Then when I was thirty eight I was at Exeter University and a professor told us we should read the Aeneid if only in translation, I had always avoided it like the plague because it was in Latin. But I knew about the Aeneid from the Bunter books so I read it and wasn’t that impressed but while I was reading it I had a kind of revelation: I was reading words written by an ordinary bloke some 2000 years ago! A living, breathing man who maybe had just had an argument with his wife or had an upset stomach or was just feeling ticked off with the world. He was communicating with me over huge scans of time and appearing on my page as alive as he had ever been…the thought took my breath away, anything I read or indeed wrote was not limited by the mere lifetime of a man, it could go on forever…it was a Kind of Immortality!

Autobiography of a Short, Fat, Ugly Man: Tears in the Rain

Nicholas Walker — Sun, 15 Aug 2021 00:39:21 +0000

The final book in this series takes Nick right up to the time he had a breakdown and ran away around the world on the QE2. The eight years he was married to his beautiful second wife when he was to learn just how disarming looks can be.

The Way To Wimbledon

Nicholas Walker — Sun, 09 May 2021 00:29:52 +0000

Penny gritted her teeth. She had lost the first set and was 4 – 5 down in the second. This new girl only had to hold her serve to take the match. But Penny had been there before, there was no way she was going to let this tournament slip away from her. Her opponent, Moira Lloyd-Roberts, was waiting placidly at the base line as Penny took up her position, standing well back, praying that just for once this remarkable service would break down. Moira served, the ball dipped over the net, hit the very inside of the service court and was gone. Penny blinked. She had hardly seen it, let alone got around to playing a shot. ‘15 – love,’ said the umpire. Penny trooped over to the other side but the same thing happened again and it was the third service before she even got her racquet to the ball. She returned it cross court and, as usual, Moira waited on the base line and just pushed it back over the net. Penny came charging in and volleyed and Moira lobbed it beautifully over Penny’s head into the very back of the court. ‘Out,’ shouted the girl who was the line judge on Penny’s side, but she wasn’t in the best position to see because there was only one line judge per side. Penny relaxed and waited for the score to be called. The umpire cleared his throat. ‘No, the ball was good,’ he said. ‘40 – love.’ ‘What?’ demanded Penny. ‘It was called out.’ ‘The ball was good,’ the umpire repeated. ‘Play on, please.’ ‘It looked out to me and I’m nearer than you,’ Penny protested. ‘At least play a let.’ ‘The ball was good!’ the umpire said, this time more sternly. Penny marched over to him. Moira was still standing behind her base line, idly bouncing a ball on her racquet. ‘Now listen here,’ Penny said angrily. ‘You can’t do that now. It makes it match point!’ ‘I can’t take into consideration what stage the match has reached,’ the umpire said. ‘Now, if you don’t play on I’ll have to award a penalty point.’ ‘A penalty point? On match point!’ Penny stormed. ‘Why, you, you…’

Defeat of the Kraal

Nicholas Walker — Fri, 07 May 2021 00:32:16 +0000

Lorrinda banged her staff of office on the ground to bring everyone to order and everybody fell silent, even the Probationers stopped whispering among themselves impressed at the seriousness of the occasion. ‘Kimba,’ said Lorrinda in her serious voice, ‘you have made the complaint, step into the ring.’ Kimba drew her sword, laid it on the ground and stepped forward into the sandy circle facing the five council members who were sitting on a half-circle of rocks which had been covered with sheepskins. ‘Who is it you wish to make a complaint against?’ said Lorrinda. ‘Tom,’ she said clearly. ‘Step into the ring please Tom,’ said Lorrinda putting the please in because it was Tom. Tom laid his sword of office on the ground and stepped in alongside Kimba. He gave her a smile but she wouldn’t look at him. ‘Name your complaint,’ said Lorrinda. ‘Well, as you all know we’ve been tasked to find any mines or quarries still working,’ said Kimba. ‘It hasn’t been easy, all the Kraal have retreated into the Citadel and we have been out for weeks!’ She took a look around at the huge circle of staring eyes and took a deep breath her anger driving her on: ‘My party finally found a mine right up in the North, twenty miles away or more…it was perfect, just what we had all been looking for.’ ‘Yes, we all know this,’ said Lorrinda. ‘What’s your complaint?’ ‘Well, Tom and Jessica are leading a party against them tomorrow and they have refused to let me even come along…not to lead it but to even come along!’ she thrilled. ‘They are not even taking my group!’ ‘We can’t take your group if you’re not there to lead them,’ sighed Tom, ‘they won’t respond to me as they do to you…we are taking our own groups because it is safer.’ ‘Well, let me lead them in then!’ snapped Kimba. ‘You can come along. My group knows exactly where the mine is and we’ve thoroughly reconnoitred the whole area. It should be us!’ ‘Are we really going to do this?’ demanded Tom. ‘There isn’t a person here who doesn’t know why we won’t let you go.’

The Way To Wimbledon

Nicholas Walker — Fri, 07 May 2021 00:20:43 +0000

Kicking the Crap Out of the Martial Arts

Nicholas Walker — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 19:37:55 +0000

This book is an analysis of the Martial Arts by a serious scientist and teacher. Nick Walker (Ph.D. MPhil. Dr.Ed. (AU) BA (Hons) (OU) BSc. (Hons) (OU) BSc.Ed (Hons) (Exon) NASM 6th Dan Karate AMA 1st Dan Jiu Jitsu) has been teaching Karate for over thirty years and is the founder and Chief Instructor of Kernow Karate the most successful independent martial arts organisation in the world. He is also a High School teacher and University Professor and is highly qualified in science. He has a degree from The National Academy of Sports Medicine in California and is a licensed fitness coach, a registered weight training instructor and a insured personal trainer. Nick makes his living by writing bestselling novels and now, despairing of all the pseudo nonsense that pervades the martial arts, all the old wives’ tales and nonsense science that damage the sport, Nick has finally responded by writing this non-fiction book so that other instructors who are genuinely interested in the science of the martial arts can bring themselves up to date…to become a Kernow Karate instructor you have to know all that is in this book! Nick takes all the basics and applies basic science to them: the stances, do they work? The Warm Up, is it necessary? What does it do? How to make your kicks and punches more powerful. How to break, how to do the Three Inch Punch, how to stretch. Does breathing matter? How does shouting effect the blow? He then goes on to explore how to improve martial arts moves: how to make your kicks and punches faster. How to make them harder. How to anticipate when an opponent is going to hit you and where. Proper scientific training techniques that the Olympic athletes all use. In the last third of the book Nick discusses the teaching of sport, the techniques and strategies that professional teachers have spent four years of university learning and he shows how most instructors are wasting the majority of their lesson time. He attempts to bring our most researched skill (education) into the martial arts: what is the attention span of an eight year old boy? What is the attention span of an eight year old girl? How best to teach a move…show it? Talk about it? Do it? Read about it? The answers will surprise and probably horrify those of you who are not professional teachers. He shows how to discipline, how to dominate a class without getting them to hate you, how mere body language can freeze an entire room. How to keep the members interested and the kids coming. And lastly, he shows you the dangers of teaching sport: how certain moves can injure a child but not an adult. Long term damage of the body. How to recognise certain illnesses and how to cope with them. How to protect yourself from inappropriate allegations. A serious book, written in a very light hearted, easy to read manner…an essential aid to anyone who wants to become a good instructor.

Dieting is for Idiots

Nicholas Walker — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 20:41:15 +0000

In the last twenty years weight loss has become one of the largest industries in the Western World. In America it is calculated that by the end of 2014 the weight loss industry will be worth $61 billion (Market Data), that is over £40 billion. It is a little more difficult to calculate the amount for Britain because so many companies are based in Europe but overall it is estimated (Metro) that the global market will reach $220 billion by the year 2017. That is over £130 billion! Or: £130,000,000,000! Someone’s getting rich! But it’s not us, we’re just getting fat. When you think about it, it’s a bit odd isn’t it? We get overweight because we buy too much food, everybody knows that, then big companies come along and want to charge us so we don’t buy so much. They couldn’t do that could they? You bet they could! These are a list of the top five companies in the field, see how many you recognize: Nutrisystem, Weight Watchers, Atkins, Slim-Fast, and Beachbody. Now they might well be run by good, kind hearted people who are genuinely concerned with our health and the way we feel about ourselves, but if they are then they sure as hell seem to be getting paid well for it. A more cynical person than me might put forward the theory that it is in these companies’ best interests to encourage us to diet, then to keep on failing so we have to go on buying their products. and services…but, I’ve always been one of life’s innocents.

120 Lesson Plans From Kernow Karate

Nicholas Walker — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 20:31:28 +0000

Kernow Karate was created by Dr Nicholas Walker over thirty years ago and has become the most successful Martial Arts club in Britain. Creating a style based on fitness and self-defence with a strong scientific pedigree Nicholas has started up clubs all over the country which are continuing to flourish to this day.

Constantly striving to create interesting lessons with innovative training methods has added to the success of Kernow Karate.

These are 120 of the best of Nick’s lesson plans which promise to be: the latest in scientific knowledge, very beneficial for fitness, and most of all fun!