The Bare Necessities - No it's not Rhianna related

The most surprising thing to me about this week's "incident" in Co.Down with Rhianna shooting a typically raunchy video in a farmer's wheat field and being asked by the farmer to put her clothes back on was that I didn't know that they grew wheat in Belfast.

Anyway , where were we, oh yes..the Bare Necessities.

I don't know why, maybe it was due to the Rhianna's wardrobe malfunction , but I started to think of the bare necessities of life this week. I was born in 1967 , the same year that the Disney classic Jungle Book came out and I have always, always loved that movie and in particular Baloo singing the Bare Neccessities :

I simply loved the movie the first time I saw it in the Adelphi cinema in Dundalk and cried my heart out when I thought that Baloo had not survived the fight with Shere Khan. Back in the "good old days" before video or dvds I then had to be satisfied with the odd clip of the movie shown here or there on BBC Saurday morning programmes - who remembers Swap Shop ?

Years later as a teenager I drew a picture of Baloo on my bedroon wall.

And then in 1993 Disney re-released the movie in the cinema and my then loving girlfriend ( now long suffering wife), Eileen, decided to take me to it as a treat one Sunday afternoon in the wonderful Diamond Cinema in Monaghan town. We were the only two adults in the audience unaccompanied by hordes of sticky fingered sugar rushed screaming children and the only seats we could get were 4 rows from the front. Anyway the movie started and I was completely immersed in the story and , yes, you guessed it, when Baloo appeared to have passed away a few tears started to flow.

"Tell me you're not crying" a mildly amused Eileen asked, a little too loudly.

I was then faced with a row of 10 children who had turned back in their seats to see this "grown up" crying at a cartoon.

" That man's crying" one said to the other.

"Why ?" asked another.

" Maybe he's "special" ?" said another , at which point Eillen couldn't help but offer " Oh , he's special alright."

The kids lost interest in me and turned back to watch the end of the movie. As the lights came up I noticed Eileen walking a little faster than usual and a little further ahead of me too while kids started pointing me out to parents" That's the man that was crying". Thankfully it was a small cinema and a small crowd.

This morning we had a driver from Supervalu call into us here at Brix workwear, Monaghnan's 4th largest, but friendliest work store and he wanted to get a pair of workboots. The pair that he was wearing were cheap and nasty and , as he put it, giving him jip. He wanted the best boots he could get, so we obviously recommended the Haix X21, our own favourite. He told us that the two things that he always spent good money on were " Good boots and a good bed". They were his bare necessities. He felt that if he had those everything else would look after itself.

I'm not sure that I could get my bare neccessities down to two , what about you ?

Up for grabs today is a pair of boots of your choice from Brix for the best answer to the following :

1. What two bare necessities could you not do without ?

2. How much are the fantabulous Haix Airpower X21 safety boots ?

Cheers,

Paul

P.S. Today I've been listening to Mumford & Sons "Sigh No More" , the line "Oh man is a giddy thing" cracks me up.