Well, that's another year down the shitter.
If 2011 is anything like as bad as 2010 was I'm cancelling my subscription.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Saturday, December 25, 2010
I'm Dreaming Of A Green Spring
Just when I thought we'd seen the last of the bloody snow, it only goes and dumps a dusting on us for Christmas morning.
If any of you are dreaming of a white Christmas, this is the drear, cold, slippery and depressing reality.
Bollocks to that.
Roll on Spring!
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Mmmmm … Stinky Breath
Dammit.
I've become addicted to these little smeggers.
Don't anyone let me breathe near you for the rest of my life.
Sheesh!
Friday, December 10, 2010
Well That Was Fucking Scary
Don't ask me what happened.
A couple of days ago Dear Prudence alerted me to the fact that my blog (yup, this one) had disappeared off the interweb. I tried accessing it but Blogger would not recognise me as owning the site.
I then went through all their "help" options, none of which were any help.
In the end I gave up and mourned the loss of four-and-a-half years of work, writing, photos, relationships with you all, cookery posts, political rants, religious arguments and all of my music.
I have no idea what the fuck happened but mum called me this morning to tell me the blog is back.
For how long I have no idea, so now I've got to spend the weekend copying every single smegging post and burning them onto DVD in case it all goes tits-up again.
Many thanks to Shan, by the way, for offering to save it all for me from her blogroll. What a star.
Anyhoo, I'm back and I'm boring, so look out.
Sheesh!
A couple of days ago Dear Prudence alerted me to the fact that my blog (yup, this one) had disappeared off the interweb. I tried accessing it but Blogger would not recognise me as owning the site.
I then went through all their "help" options, none of which were any help.
In the end I gave up and mourned the loss of four-and-a-half years of work, writing, photos, relationships with you all, cookery posts, political rants, religious arguments and all of my music.
I have no idea what the fuck happened but mum called me this morning to tell me the blog is back.
For how long I have no idea, so now I've got to spend the weekend copying every single smegging post and burning them onto DVD in case it all goes tits-up again.
Many thanks to Shan, by the way, for offering to save it all for me from her blogroll. What a star.
Anyhoo, I'm back and I'm boring, so look out.
Sheesh!
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Okay, Okay, You Guys …
… I grovel apologetically at your feet for having been too busy to blog (and visit) just lately. I've not been over at loathesome Facebook, either. Things have just gone a leetle skeezy of late.
I do intend to get back on the blog horse but until I straighten out my head here are some photos of pretty trees I took on the way to work the other morning. Click on 'em for bigness, as usual.
Enjoy … I'll be back soon. Honest.
I do intend to get back on the blog horse but until I straighten out my head here are some photos of pretty trees I took on the way to work the other morning. Click on 'em for bigness, as usual.
Enjoy … I'll be back soon. Honest.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
More Tea?
I mustn't tell you who sent me this or they'll get into so much trouble. Suffice to say there is at least one sane person left north of the Mexican border.
Click this link and may Shan forgive me for giggling (AT the Tea Party and WITH Jesus).
Click this link and may Shan forgive me for giggling (AT the Tea Party and WITH Jesus).
Monday, November 15, 2010
News From The Real World
This (please click the link) tickled me at the weekend.
I love the Sarah Palin gag.
Newsbiscuit seems to have hit a run of form recently.
Here are a couple more that I liked:
Mythological Weapons
Sports Coverage.
Happy Monday.
I love the Sarah Palin gag.
Newsbiscuit seems to have hit a run of form recently.
Here are a couple more that I liked:
Mythological Weapons
Sports Coverage.
Happy Monday.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Let's Go Play In The Dictionary
Start each day with a poo and a poem and you won't go far wrong.
As a general Rule For Living I suppose that ranks alongside my 'Always live east of where you work.'
Half a century of learning from my own dumb mistakes has given me my own set of rules. As for those two: living east of where I work saves me getting blinded by sun-glare off wet roads on my way to and from the office and starting each day with a poo and a poem clears both body and mind ready for whatever horrors the day might throw at me.
Not groundbreaking, I know, but an accumulation of such nuggets helps me stumble along without bumping into too many sharp things.
This morning's poem (I'll spare you this morning's poo) turned out to be Mandrakes For Supper, by James K. Baxter (am I alone in ascribing ludicrous names to people who insert intrusive initials in their signatures? James Baxter has this morning been variously called Kleptomania, Kniphofia, Kimberley and Knickers and it's his own fault).
Anyhoo … His poem:
Mandrakes For Supper
Memory feeds us on a prison diet
Of bits and scraps. 'Remember Mr. X-,
That simple solemn man, so deathly quiet;
'And Sally Z-, compounded of raw sex
And circumstance' - 'Ah yes, her corn-gold hair …'
A land where roams Tyrannosaurus Rex,
The giant lizard, calloused by despair -
In Nowhere I received my education
(If memory can be trusted) mooching there
Like Dante's ghost, among a faceless nation.
The white antarctic Gorgon was my mentor:
Her cloudy arms, her eyes of desolation
Sisterly gazing from the whirlwind's centre,
Received, embraced my naked intuition.
The town of Nilburg too I shrank to enter
(If memory serves me right) and wept contrition
For indistinct all-but-committed crimes
In gelding-rooms and caves of parturition.
Yet undeniably I laughed at times
With those who shared my headless hullaballoo:
Fogeaters, Dwarfs, Green Quims and Paradigms.
Cellars of Nilburg! how I hated you,
Your Ixion wheels, hot frogs and icy toads,
Your existential climate where I grew
Into an adult Mandrake. (Memory loads
My plate with mushrooms.) But I woke at length
And left you, travelling light by mountain roads
To elsewhere; drank at desert wells; gained strength.
I don't know why I like that quite as much as I do. Perhaps the quirky rhyming rhythm, perhaps the freewheeling imagery or the playfully obsessive gallimaufry of punctuation, but more likely my childish word-glee, born of a love for Anglo-Saxon poetry that revels in such words as 'Fogeaters' and capers with the joy of 'hot frogs and icy toads.'
I do love to play with words and this poem set me up rather nicely for the day.
For the year, in fact as I am (according to my calendar and birth certificate) fifty-two today.
Oh, frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Or perhaps that should be: 'Oh, bugger! I've wasted another smegging year.'
Either way, I'm off for a swim in the River Lexicon with Fogeaters, hot frogs and icy toads.
Care to join me?
As a general Rule For Living I suppose that ranks alongside my 'Always live east of where you work.'
Half a century of learning from my own dumb mistakes has given me my own set of rules. As for those two: living east of where I work saves me getting blinded by sun-glare off wet roads on my way to and from the office and starting each day with a poo and a poem clears both body and mind ready for whatever horrors the day might throw at me.
Not groundbreaking, I know, but an accumulation of such nuggets helps me stumble along without bumping into too many sharp things.
This morning's poem (I'll spare you this morning's poo) turned out to be Mandrakes For Supper, by James K. Baxter (am I alone in ascribing ludicrous names to people who insert intrusive initials in their signatures? James Baxter has this morning been variously called Kleptomania, Kniphofia, Kimberley and Knickers and it's his own fault).
Anyhoo … His poem:
Mandrakes For Supper
Memory feeds us on a prison diet
Of bits and scraps. 'Remember Mr. X-,
That simple solemn man, so deathly quiet;
'And Sally Z-, compounded of raw sex
And circumstance' - 'Ah yes, her corn-gold hair …'
A land where roams Tyrannosaurus Rex,
The giant lizard, calloused by despair -
In Nowhere I received my education
(If memory can be trusted) mooching there
Like Dante's ghost, among a faceless nation.
The white antarctic Gorgon was my mentor:
Her cloudy arms, her eyes of desolation
Sisterly gazing from the whirlwind's centre,
Received, embraced my naked intuition.
The town of Nilburg too I shrank to enter
(If memory serves me right) and wept contrition
For indistinct all-but-committed crimes
In gelding-rooms and caves of parturition.
Yet undeniably I laughed at times
With those who shared my headless hullaballoo:
Fogeaters, Dwarfs, Green Quims and Paradigms.
Cellars of Nilburg! how I hated you,
Your Ixion wheels, hot frogs and icy toads,
Your existential climate where I grew
Into an adult Mandrake. (Memory loads
My plate with mushrooms.) But I woke at length
And left you, travelling light by mountain roads
To elsewhere; drank at desert wells; gained strength.
I don't know why I like that quite as much as I do. Perhaps the quirky rhyming rhythm, perhaps the freewheeling imagery or the playfully obsessive gallimaufry of punctuation, but more likely my childish word-glee, born of a love for Anglo-Saxon poetry that revels in such words as 'Fogeaters' and capers with the joy of 'hot frogs and icy toads.'
I do love to play with words and this poem set me up rather nicely for the day.
For the year, in fact as I am (according to my calendar and birth certificate) fifty-two today.
Oh, frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Or perhaps that should be: 'Oh, bugger! I've wasted another smegging year.'
Either way, I'm off for a swim in the River Lexicon with Fogeaters, hot frogs and icy toads.
Care to join me?
Thursday, November 11, 2010
An Anthropologist Writes
The Office Children™ are wary of eating anything that includes traces of vegetables, fruit, meat or fish and insist on buying their lunches from the chemical waste department of Smallville's dodgy supermarket.
This cess-pit of salmonella and out of date, plastic-wrapped horror is situated next door to an organic food store and right opposite a lovely local bakery but The Children have never dared venture inside either emporium through fear of not knowing what actual food looks like and so accidentally buying a lunch of squid-ink pasta, unbleached flour, rollmop herrings and molasses.
As a result of their unwise purchasing decisions (usually of out of date stuff to save a few pennies) they regularly spend afternoons moaning in pain and running back and forth to the bathroom for sessions of arse-gravy mayhem. This happened to poor Jason yesterday after he ate what the plastic wrapper claimed to be a 'chicken tikka' baguette, and prompted a theory from Mike that rather appealed to me.
The theory posits that the supermarket starts the week with a display of 'chicken and mayonnaise' baguettes, any unsold examples being re-labelled 'chicken tikka' by Wednesday when they've become suitably aromatic, and by Friday the remainder are sold as 'mixed cheese'.
On a slightly more palatable note, Jase brought in a cafetiere last week (a French Press to you Colonials) as he was rightly sick of the powdered 'coffee' the office provides and had been driven crazy by the aroma from my own yummy coffee each morning. He brought in a nice organic fairtrade coffee ('I didn't know what to buy so I asked the lady in the shop, who sold me the most expensive stuff') and followed my directions as to how much to use, then he put the kettle on. Holding up the cafetiere he asked 'Do I put the milk in now?'
After I'd finished laughing I felt quite touched at the innocence of today's 'yoof.' Raised on pre-packaged microwave meals and junk food they panic when confronted with a vegetable, a cut of meat or (God forbid) a fish. In Jason's case, he had only ever known powdered 'instant coffee' and was left helplessly confused by his cafetiere.
Having made his first cup, however, he went coffee crazy, with the result that he spent most of the day running to the bathroom to enjoy the inevitable emetic effect of real coffee on a digestive system that had never encountered it before.
I have decided that the only way I will survive life with The Office Children™ is to regard the experience as anthropological research. I feel not unlike Jane Goodall with her chimps.
The experiment continues.
This cess-pit of salmonella and out of date, plastic-wrapped horror is situated next door to an organic food store and right opposite a lovely local bakery but The Children have never dared venture inside either emporium through fear of not knowing what actual food looks like and so accidentally buying a lunch of squid-ink pasta, unbleached flour, rollmop herrings and molasses.
As a result of their unwise purchasing decisions (usually of out of date stuff to save a few pennies) they regularly spend afternoons moaning in pain and running back and forth to the bathroom for sessions of arse-gravy mayhem. This happened to poor Jason yesterday after he ate what the plastic wrapper claimed to be a 'chicken tikka' baguette, and prompted a theory from Mike that rather appealed to me.
The theory posits that the supermarket starts the week with a display of 'chicken and mayonnaise' baguettes, any unsold examples being re-labelled 'chicken tikka' by Wednesday when they've become suitably aromatic, and by Friday the remainder are sold as 'mixed cheese'.
On a slightly more palatable note, Jase brought in a cafetiere last week (a French Press to you Colonials) as he was rightly sick of the powdered 'coffee' the office provides and had been driven crazy by the aroma from my own yummy coffee each morning. He brought in a nice organic fairtrade coffee ('I didn't know what to buy so I asked the lady in the shop, who sold me the most expensive stuff') and followed my directions as to how much to use, then he put the kettle on. Holding up the cafetiere he asked 'Do I put the milk in now?'
After I'd finished laughing I felt quite touched at the innocence of today's 'yoof.' Raised on pre-packaged microwave meals and junk food they panic when confronted with a vegetable, a cut of meat or (God forbid) a fish. In Jason's case, he had only ever known powdered 'instant coffee' and was left helplessly confused by his cafetiere.
Having made his first cup, however, he went coffee crazy, with the result that he spent most of the day running to the bathroom to enjoy the inevitable emetic effect of real coffee on a digestive system that had never encountered it before.
I have decided that the only way I will survive life with The Office Children™ is to regard the experience as anthropological research. I feel not unlike Jane Goodall with her chimps.
The experiment continues.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Life With The Children
As those of you who have been subjected to my rants on the antisocial network will know, one of the side-effects of my move from Metropolis to Smallville has been that I have inherited three young and unruly children. Jason, Matt and Craig are 23, 24 and 25 years old, though I can never remember who is which age as they all behave like hyperactive two-year-olds. If nothing else, sharing an office with them has reinforced my belief in the wisdom of not breeding.
I am used to a spacious and quiet office (or working from home with classical music playing softly in the background) but now find myself crammed into a room the size of my former workstation with three idiot children and a ramshackle tangle of prehistoric alleged ‘computers’ that sound like vacuum cleaners and are about as useful for my 3D work.
Over the past half-century I have managed with some difficulty to rid my life of the sheer fuck-awfulness of four particular circles of Hell, namely: football, television, ‘popular’ music and junk food. Inevitably these are the four main topics of conversation with the Office Children. Oh, and boobs. A good half of each day finds them ‘perving’ (their term) photographs of women on Facebook for ‘boob action.’ The rest of the day is taken up with arguing about football, raving about crap celebrity television and singing (ear-buggeringly badly) along to execrable chart hits.
Today (and bear in mind that the morning is only half over) we have had football, moaning about the shit office heating, eBay crap and the idiot family who turned up last night to collect Matt’s old sofa in a compact car full of kids and let their screaming brats run riot in Matt’s flat while they discovered the sofa would not fit in their car before asking him to deliver it for free, last night’s celebrity TV, Craig’s’ lucky’ shin-pads, who in the office is the biggest bell-end (Nick from the back room), strippers, football, video games, the ’shaggability’ or otherwise of the women in the local shop, burgers, last weekend’s binge-drinking sessions and just how much Matt vomited, football, boob-perving, football, Craig’s sister, what they would do if they won the lottery, why the only piece of classical music Jason knows is the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and what that tells us about him, bad pizzas, moaning about the office computers, arguing about the smegging X Factor, bitching about old girlfriends, a waste-paper fight, hobbit jokes (Craig is a hobbit; honestly, he could pass for Frodo in an identity parade), football (I hate fucking football), Parisian hookers, the worst kebabs available locally and football.
All of this has been accompanied by the most excruciating, out of tune falsetto singing by the tone-deaf trio to a selection of shit-awful chart crap, rap songs, bad Elvis film songs, thrash metal and farmyard noises from iPods and YouTube. Add to that a bout of belch-tennis (thank God they’ve not yet started their regular rounds of ‘fart-tennis’ that would gag a rat) and the usual graphic descriptions, comparison and rating of their most recent poos.
Only one of them has ever read a book (Craig, who managed to struggle through the first Harry Potter tome but got no further). Matt does appear to follow the celebrity scandal magazines but he’s probably just looking at the pictures. Jason plays bass in a thrash-punk band but is the first to admit he only knows three notes.
There’s an old Larson cartoon depicting Satan leading an elderly man into a room filled with banjo players, saying ‘and this is your room, maestro.’ I am beginning to wonder whether I dropped dead of a heart attack running for my last London train and have found my eternal resting place here in this cramped and freezing room filled with shrieking idiot children (currently belting out Queen songs and revealing their opinion that fat-bottomed girls make the rocking world go round).
And it’s only Tuesday.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Boner
Boehner?
Really?
The new Speaker of the House of Representatives is called Boehner?
You've gotta be fucking kidding.
Really?
The new Speaker of the House of Representatives is called Boehner?
You've gotta be fucking kidding.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Duck! Here Comes The Next Recession
Well, the results are in and we're heading back to the stone age.
Yay for free market irresponsibility.
Yay for boom and bust cyclic recessions.
Yay for environmental disasters.
Yay for religious fundamentalism and the Christian Taliban.
Yay for teabaggers.
Yay for Big Oil.
Yay for fucking up health reform.
Yay for the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
America has spoken.
America is dumb and angry.
America is headed straight to Hell in a handcart.
When will they ever learn?
Yay for free market irresponsibility.
Yay for boom and bust cyclic recessions.
Yay for environmental disasters.
Yay for religious fundamentalism and the Christian Taliban.
Yay for teabaggers.
Yay for Big Oil.
Yay for fucking up health reform.
Yay for the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
America has spoken.
America is dumb and angry.
America is headed straight to Hell in a handcart.
When will they ever learn?
Monday, November 01, 2010
Happy November
I've run out of WTF Monday photos, dammit.
They will probably be back, but I'll have to build up a stash of them first.
In the meantime, in (dis)honour of the US mid-term erections, here's a poem by the splendid Roger Mc.Gough, whose poems guided me (and made me giggle) throughout my childhood and teenage years.
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee, I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
Happy November, people, and always remember:
Those who desire power are by definition those least fit to wield it.
That's where modern democracy falls down.
Use your votes wisely.
They will probably be back, but I'll have to build up a stash of them first.
In the meantime, in (dis)honour of the US mid-term erections, here's a poem by the splendid Roger Mc.Gough, whose poems guided me (and made me giggle) throughout my childhood and teenage years.
The Leader
I wanna be the leader
I wanna be the leader
Can I be the leader?
Can I? I can?
Promise? Promise?
Yippee, I'm the leader
I'm the leader
OK what shall we do?
Happy November, people, and always remember:
Those who desire power are by definition those least fit to wield it.
That's where modern democracy falls down.
Use your votes wisely.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
An Immature Adult Replies …
Katherine came up with a quite wonderful post last Friday: 'Truths For Mature Adults.'
It was so good I felt compelled to reply, so here goes: Katherine's words are in italics, my replies are not:
Truths For Mature Adults
1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately PUBLISH your computer history if (when) you die.
I do like that "if" in there, Katherine; it reminds me of Woody Allen wishing to achieve immortality not through his work but by not dying.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
Ah, but that's the moment when the FUN part of your brain kicks in and compounds the error with a totally outrageous lie.
3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
Me, too! Hand me that pillow; I'm off to Snoozeland.
4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.
Absolutely! Sarcasm is the highest form of wit, only derided by those without the wit for sarcasm.
5. How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
You have to wait for the elastic to perish and use a really hot iron. Or be a pedant like me and use freshly ironed unfitted sheets and learn to make hospital corners. Just feel that thread count. Mmmmm.
6. Was learning cursive really necessary?
Yup. I long for the day when all the keyboards die and we have to start writing properly again. It pains me as I get older to find more and more people telling me I have beautiful handwriting. EVERYBODY should have beautiful handwriting! No excuses. Go buy a really good fountain pen and get to it!
7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
Map Quest Shmap Quest. Those things take the fun out of getting lost.
8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
They do. At least the ones we get over here do. They'd be even more fun if they were like the ones in Mexican newspapers, with photos of the scene. Yay!
9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
Me neither. I don't think humans are designed to live much past forty. It's like our warranty runs out and all the parts keep failing. Sigh.
10. Bad decisions make good stories.
Darn tootin! They make even better stories if they're somebody else's bad decisions. Nothing quite hits the spot like schadenfreude.
11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.
Usually just after the first cup of coffee when I look at my desk and think 'Sheesh! Is it time to go home yet?'
12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.
I'm still ignoring blu-ray. In fact I'm still ignoring television. Books and radio rule my world. Woohoo!
13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.
Word? Hahahahahahahaha! Never use a Microsoft product. I never have and life's just dandy.
14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
I don't have one of those new-fangled phones that store numbers so I never answer mine at all. If they've anything worth saying they'll leave a message. Better still, write me a letter. And your handwriting better be beautiful!
15. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.
Hahahahaha! I assume this is an advert for a crap jewelry chain, Katherine?
I'll go with the beer any day. Expecting someone to kiss you in exchange for a chunk of metal or a shiny rock is kinda stone age. 'Hey, buster, I can get metal down at the scrap yard and I can pick up rocks off the ground. Gimme a beer and pucker up!'
16. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.
Wow! You still have ghettos in the USA? Cool!
Though isn't that taking retro-chic a little bit too far? Did the Civil Rights movement not really happen over there? Did nobody read that bit in your Constitution about being 'equal?' Apparently not. Hey ho.
17. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
There's a fine line betweeen them? Uh-oh. There ought to be a high wall with razor wire on top, otherwise I'm in big trouble.
18. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?
As many as it takes to get the idiot to speak slowly and clearly. Take them to one side and suggest elocution lessons. Make it their problem, not yours.
19. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!
Right on. Jerk drivers are why we evolved a middle finger.
20. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
I WISH! And when are you people in the colonies going to learn that pants are pants and trousers are trousers (and vests are vests for that matter, not waitcoats - sheesh)? Only Superman wears his pants on the outside.
21. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
Me, too. No matter how much we need to know the time, as we get older our minds cease to care.
23. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!
My alarm clocks are sensibly yet distressingly positioned in the far corners of the room (including my spiffy mosque alarm clock - woohoo for the 5:30 call to prayer). A snooze button is just another way to get in trouble for being late to work.
24. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.
Yet we've still not come up with the ass-guard, to protect where most men's brains really are.
Many thanks and profuse apologies to Katherine for my abuse of her great post.
It was so good I felt compelled to reply, so here goes: Katherine's words are in italics, my replies are not:
Truths For Mature Adults
1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.
I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately PUBLISH your computer history if (when) you die.
I do like that "if" in there, Katherine; it reminds me of Woody Allen wishing to achieve immortality not through his work but by not dying.
2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
Ah, but that's the moment when the FUN part of your brain kicks in and compounds the error with a totally outrageous lie.
3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
Me, too! Hand me that pillow; I'm off to Snoozeland.
4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.
Absolutely! Sarcasm is the highest form of wit, only derided by those without the wit for sarcasm.
5. How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
You have to wait for the elastic to perish and use a really hot iron. Or be a pedant like me and use freshly ironed unfitted sheets and learn to make hospital corners. Just feel that thread count. Mmmmm.
6. Was learning cursive really necessary?
Yup. I long for the day when all the keyboards die and we have to start writing properly again. It pains me as I get older to find more and more people telling me I have beautiful handwriting. EVERYBODY should have beautiful handwriting! No excuses. Go buy a really good fountain pen and get to it!
7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
Map Quest Shmap Quest. Those things take the fun out of getting lost.
8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
They do. At least the ones we get over here do. They'd be even more fun if they were like the ones in Mexican newspapers, with photos of the scene. Yay!
9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
Me neither. I don't think humans are designed to live much past forty. It's like our warranty runs out and all the parts keep failing. Sigh.
10. Bad decisions make good stories.
Darn tootin! They make even better stories if they're somebody else's bad decisions. Nothing quite hits the spot like schadenfreude.
11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.
Usually just after the first cup of coffee when I look at my desk and think 'Sheesh! Is it time to go home yet?'
12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.
I'm still ignoring blu-ray. In fact I'm still ignoring television. Books and radio rule my world. Woohoo!
13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.
Word? Hahahahahahahaha! Never use a Microsoft product. I never have and life's just dandy.
14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
I don't have one of those new-fangled phones that store numbers so I never answer mine at all. If they've anything worth saying they'll leave a message. Better still, write me a letter. And your handwriting better be beautiful!
15. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.
Hahahahaha! I assume this is an advert for a crap jewelry chain, Katherine?
I'll go with the beer any day. Expecting someone to kiss you in exchange for a chunk of metal or a shiny rock is kinda stone age. 'Hey, buster, I can get metal down at the scrap yard and I can pick up rocks off the ground. Gimme a beer and pucker up!'
16. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.
Wow! You still have ghettos in the USA? Cool!
Though isn't that taking retro-chic a little bit too far? Did the Civil Rights movement not really happen over there? Did nobody read that bit in your Constitution about being 'equal?' Apparently not. Hey ho.
17. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
There's a fine line betweeen them? Uh-oh. There ought to be a high wall with razor wire on top, otherwise I'm in big trouble.
18. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?
As many as it takes to get the idiot to speak slowly and clearly. Take them to one side and suggest elocution lessons. Make it their problem, not yours.
19. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!
Right on. Jerk drivers are why we evolved a middle finger.
20. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
I WISH! And when are you people in the colonies going to learn that pants are pants and trousers are trousers (and vests are vests for that matter, not waitcoats - sheesh)? Only Superman wears his pants on the outside.
21. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
Me, too. No matter how much we need to know the time, as we get older our minds cease to care.
23. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time!
My alarm clocks are sensibly yet distressingly positioned in the far corners of the room (including my spiffy mosque alarm clock - woohoo for the 5:30 call to prayer). A snooze button is just another way to get in trouble for being late to work.
24. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.
Yet we've still not come up with the ass-guard, to protect where most men's brains really are.
Many thanks and profuse apologies to Katherine for my abuse of her great post.
Monday, October 25, 2010
WTF Monday - Priapic Special
As the weather has been too crappy for me to get out and about with my camera, I've looted my stock of British Museum photos for today's post.
Click on this to … er … enlarge it and you'll see the sort of thing that is on full display at a child's eye height.
Ah, those ancient Greeks and their funny ways.
All kids deserve an educational trip to the BM.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Bathroom Break
Since giving my beloved Edward Gorey collection a rest from bathroom duty (they are currently vacationing on the landing bookshelves and may send a postcard later) their place has been taken by a ragbag of old poetry books.
For those sedentary moments there is nothing quite like a good poem to inspire both mind and … er … the lower functions.
Anyhoo … while I have nothing blogworthy in my head I thought I might as well share with you an occasional moment from another part of my body: the part that I sit upon and that most people assume - probably correctly - does my thinking.
So here - in defiance of all copyright laws - is what I enjoyed during today's bathroom break: an evocative poem by the wonderful, very Canadian (and sadly departed) Earle Birney.
Twenty-third Flight
Lo as I pause in the alien vale of the airport
fearing ahead the official ambush
a voice languorous and strange as these winds of Oahu
calleth my name and I turn to be quoited in orchids
and amazed with a kiss perfumed and soft as the lei.
Straight from a travel poster thou steppest,
thy arms like mangoes for smoothness,
o implausible shepherdess for this one ageing sheep,
and leadest me through the righteous paths of the Customs
in a mist of my own wild hopes.
Yea though I walk through the valley of Immigration
I fear no evil, for thou art a vision beside me
and my name is correctly spelled
and I shall dwell in the Hawaiian Village Hotel
where thy kindred prepareth a table before me.
Thou restoreth my baggage, and by limousine leadest me
to where I may lie on coral sands by a stream-lined pool.
Nay but thou stayest not?
Thou anointest not my naked head with oil?
Thou shepherdess of Flight Number Twenty-three only
thou hastenest away on long brown legs to enchant
thy fellow members in Local Five of the Greeters' Union
or that favoured professor of Commerce mayhap
who leadeth thee into higher courses in Hotel Management.
O nubile goddess of the Kaiser Training Program
is it possible that my cup runneth not over
and that I shall sit in the still pastures of the lobby
whilst thou leadest another old ram in garlands past me,
and, bland as papaya, appearest not to remember me?
And that I shall lie by the waters of Waikiki, and want?
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
More bathroom break poetry another day.
For those sedentary moments there is nothing quite like a good poem to inspire both mind and … er … the lower functions.
Anyhoo … while I have nothing blogworthy in my head I thought I might as well share with you an occasional moment from another part of my body: the part that I sit upon and that most people assume - probably correctly - does my thinking.
So here - in defiance of all copyright laws - is what I enjoyed during today's bathroom break: an evocative poem by the wonderful, very Canadian (and sadly departed) Earle Birney.
Twenty-third Flight
Lo as I pause in the alien vale of the airport
fearing ahead the official ambush
a voice languorous and strange as these winds of Oahu
calleth my name and I turn to be quoited in orchids
and amazed with a kiss perfumed and soft as the lei.
Straight from a travel poster thou steppest,
thy arms like mangoes for smoothness,
o implausible shepherdess for this one ageing sheep,
and leadest me through the righteous paths of the Customs
in a mist of my own wild hopes.
Yea though I walk through the valley of Immigration
I fear no evil, for thou art a vision beside me
and my name is correctly spelled
and I shall dwell in the Hawaiian Village Hotel
where thy kindred prepareth a table before me.
Thou restoreth my baggage, and by limousine leadest me
to where I may lie on coral sands by a stream-lined pool.
Nay but thou stayest not?
Thou anointest not my naked head with oil?
Thou shepherdess of Flight Number Twenty-three only
thou hastenest away on long brown legs to enchant
thy fellow members in Local Five of the Greeters' Union
or that favoured professor of Commerce mayhap
who leadeth thee into higher courses in Hotel Management.
O nubile goddess of the Kaiser Training Program
is it possible that my cup runneth not over
and that I shall sit in the still pastures of the lobby
whilst thou leadest another old ram in garlands past me,
and, bland as papaya, appearest not to remember me?
And that I shall lie by the waters of Waikiki, and want?
I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.
More bathroom break poetry another day.
Monday, October 18, 2010
WTF Monday - Own Brand Bacteria Special
Hokay, so I'm partial to the occasional tub of Sainsbury's organic yog with my breakfast, but what I had not realised until I read the tub was that Sainsbury's now claim to have their own brand bacteria!
Next time I'm in the store I'm going to ask for some.
How does one buy bacteria, I wonder? By the pound? By the pint? By the yard?
And if I used a tub of their yoghurt to start culturing my own (something I used to do in my green and veggie years) would their lawyers hound me for royalties on their bacteria?
The world gets stranger by the day.
Next time I'm in the store I'm going to ask for some.
How does one buy bacteria, I wonder? By the pound? By the pint? By the yard?
And if I used a tub of their yoghurt to start culturing my own (something I used to do in my green and veggie years) would their lawyers hound me for royalties on their bacteria?
The world gets stranger by the day.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Buy This
This is the delicious little mediæval house where the strange creatures from the previous post live.
It sits right in the middle of Smallville on the pedestrian shopping street and as you can see, it's for sale if you have some spare cash and are in the market for something 14th century.
It sits right in the middle of Smallville on the pedestrian shopping street and as you can see, it's for sale if you have some spare cash and are in the market for something 14th century.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Monday, October 04, 2010
WTF Monday - Smallville Folk Special
Meet the locals.
These fine folk have been appearing in the high street just lately.I'm beginning to get that 'Wicker Man' feeling.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
WTF Monday - Diet Special
Okay, so maybe not everybody at this year's Goodwood was there for the motor racing; the food WAS that good!Though perhaps she should have left some for other people.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Goodwood 2010 - All Cozzied Up
It was indeed spiffy weather for the world's biggest and best fancy dress party.
Lights … Camera … Action!
The lovely Glamcab ladies are back again and ready to transport you.
Or even to dance for you.
I say!What stylish swimwear!
Ding dong!
The day was full to the brim with wonderful hats on beautiful weemen.
And serious hair-dos.
And fab frocks.
And even a parasol or two to keep out the sun.
And some East End folk down by the fairground.
Not forgetting some sage advice.
Even the Dad's Army crew turned up, with a splendid Captain Mainwaring looky-likey.
Breakfast of champions!Free single malt all day every day for whoever might wish to indulge.
Some picnickers brought their own furniture.
While others simply basked in a glorious day of vintage motor racing with that peculiarly English twist that we love so much.
And so we bid a sleepy farewell to this year's Goodwood costume-fest.
See you next year!
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Goodwood Revival 2010 - Paddock Porn
Hokay, the harvest's in, the summer's drawing to a glorious close and it's time once again to head down south to the Goodwood Revival Meeting.
In a day or two I'll post some awesome racing car action and some spectacularly gorgeous weemen all dressed up to thrill, but today it's time to get down and dirty in the paddock with the mechanics and drivers.
In a day or two I'll post some awesome racing car action and some spectacularly gorgeous weemen all dressed up to thrill, but today it's time to get down and dirty in the paddock with the mechanics and drivers.
Laydees and Gentlemen, it's Car Porn time (again)!
Yay!
Holy fuck!I mean, I'm a man and this Maserati gets ME moist.
Talking of which, why not just call your car the Lola Climax and be honest about how it makes you feel?Pretty, ain't it?
Shaguar!
Many millions of pounds worth of Ferrari glory.
Of course, keeping these monsters race-tuned can sometimes be more than a sane man can bear.
Sorry, has anyone got a box of tissues? I've been rendered all unnecessary.
1966, LeMans GT40s.Woo and hoo!
They raced these like maniacs later in the afternoon and did enough damage to the classic Gulf car to wipe out the national debt (photos later).
Oops!
Ooooooooooooo …
Sex.Pure and simple.
A Ferrari-fiddler gets down to some racing foreplay.
Porsche Spyders.Nuff said.
Sweet little red Alfa. What a beauty.
The ultimate Shaguar roadster.
The nearest Goodwood gets to green motoring.
We've tuned 'em up. Now let's race 'em!
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