Spiny Norman loses cherry...

So, a Tory MP wants the humble hedgehog to be adopted as our National Animal does he? A hedgehog! I ask you....mind you, they say a country's symbolic beastie reflects its characteristics, don't they? The Russian Bear - lumbering but scary, aggressive and surly; the American Eagle - keeps out of reach, a circling predatory killer with a beady eye for the main chance; so why not the British Hedgehog - small, a bit slow, easily provoked into a ridiculous defensive pose, overreacts to the onset of "winter", prickly.
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Phil Collins is mulling over coming out of retirement. Fair play to the bloke, it's not like he needs the money, even after all those divorces. As I'm sure you know by now, some wag set up a petition calling on the United Nations to prevent Mr Collins from inflicting his pop ditties on the world, saying "Phil Collins has announced he is 'no longer in retirement'. There is far too much suffering in the world as it is. This must be stopped.", and more in a similar mildly amusing vein.

As the author himself has said it was an attempt at "lowbrow satire" obviously lost on Collins' po-faced fans who, missing the point entirely took to ye interweb in droves defending their hero, with one fine rant in particular by some humourless bloke with a broom handle so far up his arse he was having difficulty breathing, going to extraordinary lengths spelling out why Collins is on a par with Mozart, and how the petitioner should have his testicles speared by Collins' drumsticks. Well, the holier-than-thou righteous brigade have won the day, as the author has now removed the petition saying:

"People who signed this get that it was a joke. Some others didn't. It very obviously wasn't a serious petition. Surely no one could think this was going to be sent to the UN?

It was lowbrow satire, a farcical jest that I shared with some friends...I doubt very much that Phil Collins would give a damn about my musical taste...It's gone now, so people who were annoyed about it and gave their attention to it... may direct their attentions to something of real importance. This petition wasn't that."

Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/phil-collins/89588#W0Mmvdgs42ajLQ2t.99

If I were Collins I would have signed it myself for a laugh, and one wonders if those same riders of the moral high horse would have got so hot under the collar were a similar satirical petition set up calling for Justin Bieber to stop, now.

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After over 20 years, Burwood Towers is no longer receiving TV signals from a subscription service, a change I should have made some time ago to be honest. Several years ago, we switched from Sky to Virgin, partly because of the ever-increasing cost of largely unwatched Sky Sports, which I ditched, and partly because Virgin offered by far the fastest internet speeds in our area. Over the years since we have seen the basic Virgin TV package we subscribed to slowly but inexorably increase in price to the point where our paying £16 a month for the privilege of my watching Sky Sports News on Saturdays, and access to a few other Sky channels neither of us ever bother with was a daft waste of money.

The main attraction of the Virgin TV box was its catch up TV services and its recording capabilities. Now we have recently finally entered the modern age chez nous, and got ourselves a smart TV, we no longer need the Virgin box for catch up services, and the addition of a cheap HD recorder has provided the final piece in the jigsaw. Kudos to Virgin, who only half-heartedly tried to talk me out of returning their box of tricks, they also re-wrote my contract for broadband and landline and gave me a £9 per month loyalty bonus for 18 months - a consumer company offering loyalty payments, whatever next! - making a grand saving of £25 per month on my old bill. Woohoo!

It will be interesting to see how subscription TV adapts to the rise of internet capable TV systems and cheap HD recorders, as I guess folk who are or will soon be suffering at the removal of tax credit payments find they have to cut luxuries out of the family budget. Ultimately this may have a big effect on my sport of choice, and it would be great to see a more level playing field in the Premier League. There are only two clubs who would not be affected by a big reduction in TV money, Chelsea and Manchester City. Most of the rest would go bust and start again, but a few (Man Utd, Arsenal, Spurs possibly) would carry on but be unable to afford to renew massive player contracts or pay ludicrous transfer fees. The effect on world transfer markets would be huge...one can but dream!
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Hello! I Must Be Going....

A Cautionary Tale...

Thursday May 16th 2019, a lovely day. The sun was shining, we were under a mini-heatwave, which at this time of the year meant the temperature was a pleasant 72°F. The weather was of minor concern to Jason, who had just woken to the sound of his alarm clock. Unemployed for nearly nine months, he still got up with his alarm at 7am, as he didn't fancy slipping into the morass of ennui that some of his mates wallowed in. Steve was actually proud of the fact that he never arose from his pit before noon, the lazy bugger.

Jason awoke with a rare smile on his careworn face, for he was looking forward to the weekend, as a £300 scratchcard win a couple of days ago has given him the wherewithal to take his wife out for a meal for...well, he couldn't remember exactly when it last happened, must've been over a year ago. Linda and Jase both liked a curry, and luckily Linda lived in one of the few conurbations where a few curry houses still existed, as the coalition crackdown on migrant workers had led to thousands of restaurant staff leaving the country, some willingly, some not so, rather than put up with constant suspicion and finger pointing, not to mention the steady withdrawal of benefit entitlement.

Since they lost the flat, Jason didn't get to see Linda much now, as he couldn't afford the exorbitant return train fare charged by the new rail franchise to her parent's place 70 miles away. There's half the win gone already...still let's not worry about that, for after he had given his mum a rare £50 there will still just about be enough left over for the meal, that's the main thing. Food prices had shot up since we left the EU two years ago, and he had wanted to give his mum all the money, as things were not exactly flush for his parents either, since their teachers' pensions had been reduced by 25% as part of a "rationalisation" in the last coalition Budget. "No, you take Linda out, it will do you both the power of good" she had said, bless her.

After that initial and uncommon burst of waking optimism, he got out of bed and promptly nearly fell over, the pain in his ankle reminding him that he couldn't put off going to A&E any longer. He had vainly tried getting a doctor's appointment, armed for disappointment as it was well known that unofficially you only got a appointment now if you were usefully employed and at death's door, or could afford to make a hefty donation to to the "Surgery Roof Restoration Fund" as it was euphemistically known. Jason's anticipated kickback came with knobs on as he thought he heard the disinterested receptionist at the other end of the phone suppress a cynical snort as he described his condition. "Try A&E" she had said and brusquely hung up. That prospect filled Jason with dread, as he resigned himself to losing a day and most of a night by spending the now average 18 hours in the desperately overcrowded and frankly dangerously grubby A&E waiting area. The long waiting time and dilapidated state of his local NHS hospital (at least he had one) being the result of the coalition's cutbacks, privatisation, and draconian immigration restrictions leading to hospitals up and down the land being unable get the staff to do the menial jobs, jobs that only the most desperate of the indigenous population would apply for.

Jason hobbled to the bathroom, only to find it already occupied by his Dad. "Fuck" thought our Jase, as Dad never spent less than half an hour in there of a morning. "It's either cross my legs or go piss in the kitchen sink". Oh the joys of living with your parents, something over half of Jason's 30-something generation were now doing out of economic necessity because housing, both owned and rented was way out of reach for the ever-increasing millions in Jason's jobless position what with the huge reductions in Housing Benefit, as well as being an increasingly unrealistic aspiration for those on the average working wage, which was shrinking every month, that and the burgeoning unemployment rates again thanks to the UK leaving the EU.

Jason was ever grateful to his parents for putting up with him and keeping him housed, fed and clothed after his meagre unemployment benefit stopped three months into his current workless state and he lost the marital flat, Linda's low wage not being anywhere near enough to support them both. Jason was thankful they didn't have kids to worry about on top of all that.

Jason's last job was at the local car plant until it announced that owing to the UK's imminent leaving of the EU it was relocating to Lille in France three months prior to our upping anchor and sailing off into the open arms of the Third World. They did offer Jase a position over there, but he just couldn't see himself putting up with all those Frenchies, a decision he soon came to regret, as France would no longer let him in as a now non-EU citizen. Desperation was taking hold for our hero, and it looked like he now had no choice but to apply for one of the hundreds of very low paid hospital cleaner jobs, assuming he's not forced into one on Workfare. Even if he could get paid a wage for it, the minimum wage had been frozen since the election, and let's face it, it was nowhere near what you could independently live on anyway, especially as the powers that be had recently withdrawn the right to tax credit to people living with their parents.

As Jason limped downstairs towards the kitchen, his bladder by now tripping the light fantastic and praying his Mum wasn't in there, Jason fretted over the circumstances that have led to this coming day out at the hospital. If only the bloody council would fill in those potholes instead of wasting their money on that immigration processing facility, then I wouldn't have tripped while crossing the road last week, he pondered. He could forget suing as that was now a legislative minefield that only the wealthy could afford to negotiate. Still, it could be worse, his mate Dave had been in prison for nearly four months now on suspicion of an unspecified terrorism-related offence, simply because some lackey frightened for their job at PC World found some writings on Arab sponsored militant Islamic groups on his computer when he took it there for some routine maintenance. The fact that Dave was doing a thesis on Middle Eastern politics didn't seem to have any effect on his case, and now we were no longer part of the EU Human Rights Act, the State could do whatever it liked if the "T" word was bandied about enough. They wouldn't even allow visitors, the bastards.

Thankful to arrive at the kitchen to find it empty, Jason stood on the footstool and blissfully relieved himself into the kitchen sink, as he ruminated some more on his unfortunately brainy mate. Dave had always been a leftie, and was forever banging on about justice and equality and other subjects Jason couldn't give a toss about, let alone grasp, but Dave always made him laugh and always got his round in, that was what really mattered after all, eh? Smiling at the memory, Jason recalled that Dave once tried to physically stop him from voting "Out" in the EU referendum by unsuccessfully attempting to lock him in his flat on that fateful Thursday. Fuck, that really tested the friendship that did! For all that, it was slowly dawning on Jason like a sunrise through the thick sulphurous fog of his prejudice-clouded brain that he along with many thousands of other dimwits voting for UKIP in droves back in 2015, thereby giving Farage's poisonous little cabal a big say in the current Tory/UKIP coalition, and then voting "Out" in the EU Referendum were possibly the two biggest mistakes he had ever made in a voting booth...apart from that time he voted after an afternoon session at the pub and threw up all over the ballot box, but that's another story.

Stupidland

Mornin' peeps...

eBay, despite being weighted far too much in favour of the buyer is nonetheless very useful for gettring rid of accumulated clutter. Just lately I've sold a keyboard, a guitar amp, a hi-fi amp, and a CD player. As these are all bulky items they were all listed as "Collection Only", and all four items were duly picked up from chez moi by the buyers. One guy even came all the way down from Cheshire!

It seems however, that people who read books are not capable of assimilating the simple instruction "COLLECTION ONLY" - now stated in capitals for extra clarity. B and I are decluttering some of our book collection. I am selling the Game of Thrones box set (7 blockbusters in a box), and B is selling the True Blood box set plus 6 other True Blood books, some hardback, as a job lot.

Again, as these are bulky items they are clearly marked "COLLECTION ONLY". That has probably sunk in by now, eh? The other instruction to note is "cash on collection only, please". The other day I get an email from eBay telling me I had sold the GoT box set...Woohoo!...briefly. The buyer had ignored my instruction to pay cash on collection and paid by Paypal, and I am more than slightly perturbed that the buyer resides in West Lothian, Scotland. 

The next day she sends me this delightful message "hello, i ordered the game of thrones book box set and didnt realise it was a pick-up from northhampton, there is no way i can ever pick the books up, so i would like my money back please" (sic, a lot). Note the indignant tone, as if it's my fault she didn't read the instructions properly, or indeed, at all. Of course, I wanted to reply along the lines of "Yes, of course I will refund your money, no problem. Next time open your bloody eyes and read the fucking instructions, ya daft bint", and I did...but omitting the last sentence, diplomat that I am.

After that I re-listed the Got sale and amended the other sale currently running with "COLLECTION ONLY" now in the sale heading as well as in the instructions. This morning I get this priceless piece of stupidity in my eBay inbox "Are you sending to Estonia? If yes, then how much will it cost? And from Estonia I can pay for the goods only with paypal". I am still composing my reply...does anyone know how long donkeys have to stay in quarantine at customs in this country? He can send the cart on by FedEx, no problem.

By the way if any of you fine folk are interested, here are those two auctions. Send me a message and I'll take them off eBay, and, don't forget YOU HAVE TO COME AND GET THEM... :)

Game of Thrones books

True Blood books

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It would be remiss of me to exclude myself from the stupid-o-meter, and I will now lay myself open to ritual humiliation. Most of you will know that B has gone through treatment for a serious illness, and now all is well as she is well down the road to recovery. The two of us need a break, so I headed off to Expedia and booked a week in Jersey, just the ticket. The only direct flight from Birmingham leaves at daft-o-o'clock in the morning so I took the more civilised option that leaves in the afternoon. This one flies to Jersey via Guernsey. In the flight details I notice that the turnaround in Guernsey is only 15 minutes.

Sez me to B "How on earth are we supposed to get off one plane, collect our luggage, and get on another in 15 bloody minutes?"... 

In the yoof vernacular that is a massive fail, is it not? Have no fear, I did award myself fuckwit of the day for that one!
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I can't find me slippers, I think they must be in the fridge...see ya

Chicken Hammock

I'm only posting this here in order to blow the cobwebs off Brouhaha, a blog that is in danger of ossifying I've neglected it so much...

Bugbears of Modern Life #12: The Delivery Window

You know the kind of thing: "Thank you for ordering our Orgone Accumulator from us here at The General Synod. It will be delivered by our couriers, Surly Truckers Ltd. Now please choose a delivery window 8am-12noon, 12noon-4pm, 4pm-8pm" so you have to hang around for the allotted 4 hours waiting for the thing to turn up. As we live in Warehouse Central, that usually means right at the beginning or end of the window.

Last week I ordered a new mobile phone from that nice Indian company, Virgin Mobile. The usual message about delivery, but get this; have you ever come across a delivery window that runs from 7am to 9pm? That's not a window, it's a bleedin' yawning chasm. Donning my never far away Victor Meldrew persona, I'm straight on the phone to Mumbai. Yes, I know it won't do any good, but it might make me feel better.

Having torn "Julie" off a strip for the ludicrous time gulf offered by Satnav Dichotomy Ltd, she attempted to placate me with "Well, they will send you a text before delivery", which is something I suppose. It's not her fault, so I apologise for being an arse and hang up.

They better not send me a text at 6:45am, I'm thinking, and this morning I do get a text, but at a far more civilised 8:07am. The text said "Your goods have been dispatched"...can you guess what's coming?..."they will be with you before 9pm".
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The Trip to Italy was rather good. Loads of self-referential humour, but Coogan and Brydon carry it off brilliantly. Particularly liked the Michael Caine impression competition, and the Batman pisstake.
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While we're on telly, it's all a bit shit really. I probably spend half the time I did a couple of years ago watching The Box. Daftest thing I'm watching at the moment is an ultra convoluted Norwegian suspense drama by the name of Mammon, on More 4, another channel with "4" in its name getting into Scandi-dramas. Why is it that so much stuff is coming out of that strangely wonderful part of the world? I suppose when it goes dark for most of the winter, you either have sex or write, and industrial strength contraception aside, as there doesn't seem to be a Scandinavian population explosion, it must be the keyboard tapping that takes up their time. Or seal punching.
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Tomorrow sees my team's biggest game of the season. Win it and we are in the driving seat for 4th place in the Premiership and qualification for the preliminary rounds of the Champions' League. I added that apostrophe, being a grammar nerd, admittedly one who seems incapable of spotting his own mishtakes.

As Everton have a habit of bottling big games, most annoyingly against their lovable neighbours, I very much doubt we will win, aside from the more logical footballing factors, which I will not bore you with here.  Of course, you're not allowed to put such heresy into words on fan sites, they accuse you of being negative rather than the pragmatic beastie that you are. They wouldn't understand "pragmatic" anyway. In the few months I've been a member of the Everton Facebook group I've quickly learned to dumb down my language, as my first posts saw accusations of "poncey words", and of me being a "posh cunt". I should realise by now that showing that you actually paid attention in class is a heinous crime in this fuckwitted country of ours. These same dumbasses think that having "belief" and "faith" is enough to outplay a team that spend more on haircare products than we do on wages.

Even if we did win, and by a series of miracles thereafter eventually finish 4th, you can guarantee that "The Shite" as they are affectionately known, would steal our thunder (again) by winning the bloody thing. We'd never hear the last of it. Come on, Citeh!
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Haha...the word "blog" is not in blogger's spellchecker!
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Your window has now closed.

Anesthetise me, now...

Gawd, was 90s UK indie music dull, or what?

We found this out, or rather had long forgotten memories of "meh" rekindled last night. You remember the Malt Shovel Music Quiz on Monday, the quiz that never was? Well, The Fucktard Brothers and P went to the damn thing on the correct night last night.

The quiz is hosted by a shambling tribute to every Working Men's Club MC there ever was, and his soma-inducing style has in the past made us say that we would never go to one of his quizzes again. But that was General Knowledge, this is Music, so what have we got to lose? Three hours of our lives we'll never see again, that's what. To think we paid £2 per person for the privilege, too!

We started off well enough, playing our Joker (meaning double points) on the first round, a musical general knowledge thang where we got ten out of ten. The next round, a missing words from titles of tunes thing, we got eight out ten. So far so good, although we were already struggling to stay awake, to the point where round three, the place where our rapid decline started in earnest, has been entirely erased from our my memory already...ah...got it; food related song titles and artist names...or was that round two?

Anyway, this third round we scored a miserable four out of ten. Then....music, at last! The first of two rounds, played from a cassette deck (no, really) was name the musical from the tune. None of us know much about musicals, but I'm not complaining, specialist rounds are to be expected, and it gives teams lagging in other areas the chance to catch up. I believe we got four of them.

The last of the two actual music rounds was "Groups". That sounds a bit more like it we thought. It wasn't anything like it at all. Trying to identify a group from a too short snippet of a song, cut short before any hookline comes round, is difficult enough. This is compounded when all the groups concerned were taken from the same genre, and mostly from the same time period. My opening sentence says it all. One dreary Razorlight was followed by another ennui-inducing Starsailor, to the point where IT ALL SOUNDED THE SAME.

Two points illustrate the sheer anodyne whiny vapidity of it all. One - standing out like a stream of bat's piss when all around is dark was a song by The Verve, taken from their recent utterly forgettable Fourth album. At least this one ventured outside the 90s. Two - we failed to identify Bonio's dulcet tones on a U2 song near the end, because by then we wanted to bite the MC's face off.

And, yes, had the round been twenty second cut-outs of prog rock classics, I'd probably have got them all, but it would honestly give me no pleasure to watch everyone else in the room becoming more and more pissed off.

If you're going to do a Groups round, by all means bung in one or two highly eclectic tunes to sort the men from the boys, but making most of it unrecognisable by leaving out hooklines of songs unknown to most in the room is pointless. Vary the genre for fucks sake, and throw in a few popular things that most will know, otherwise folk will just lose interest and not come back again. More than one team left before the end.

This may read like sour grapes because we didn't win, but coming third in an enjoyable and involving quiz would have been no problem at all, believe me. This was about as enjoyable as being forced to listen to an endless loop tape of prosaic and dishwater-grey UK indie....err...

Out of the eight or so teams present only half got more than half marks. We came third with 80 points out of a possible 120, there being two points per correct answer. The winners got 86.

Wombat Omnishambles will not be returning to a Malt Shovel quiz of any variety while it is hosted by this sack of lard who is to quizzes what Hot Spot is proving to be to cricket. Worse than useless.

Wastes Of Space in Time Travelling Omnishambles

A 30 minute programme to announce the new Dr Who? I know TV schedules are poor in the summer, but come on; this makes Countryfile look like must-see TV. Good result though!

This was inevitable, and you've probably seen it already, but it's worth repeating: .



Ooh...sweary! I have often thought of hanging a sign in my office that reads "Come the fuck in, or fuck the fuck off" :)
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Spam scams from Nigeria, land the morally suspect opportunist, have not really changed much over the years, but "Harry Black wants to give you part of his Lottery winnings as charity" did make me laugh. If anyone falls for that, they deserve to have their bank account raided until it is sore.
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Butterflies are magnificent and beautiful creatures as well as performing an important role as pollinators. Apparently due to a combination of successive appalling summers and the increase in pesticides they have been suffering a rapid decline in recent years. This year however, the budlea outside my office window has been swarming with large and small whites, peacocks and tortoiseshells in particular. It must be down to the glorious summer we are having, for once.

There is a National Butterfly Count here in the UK this year, so my stats have been winged (ouch) off. However, holding a count in a rare example of a "proper" summer may well give skewed results, methinks.
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Talking of wastes of space...

Last Thursday while stood in the bar of the very fine drinking establishment that is The Malt Shovel, Phill and I cast our eyes over an advert for their Music Quiz the following week. We thought we'd give it a go, having never experienced a quiz of the musical variety in this venue, and so this Monday, Phill, P and I turned up all expectant, and probably wassname.

Monday was the 5th of August. On reading the same advert again, it said, clearly too, the quiz was on Thursday 8th of August. Considering I'm an accountant (allegedly) it seems I can no longer read numbers. Phill has just set up a publishing company where he is, amongst other things, editor-in-chief. It seems he can't read words.

The conclusion is that we are each 50% of an idiot. P was by turns exasperated and amused at our thorough uselessness. :)
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I met a record collecting legend today. Back in the late 60s and early 70s there were many UK bands without record labels who made private pressings of albums that were either given away or sold to their usually very localised and very small fan bases. The print runs were never more than 99 copies to avoid Purchase Tax, the forerunner of VAT. All of these have been collectable over the years, but the jewel in the crown, for no discernable logical reason, other than it looked and sounded great, is Dark Round The Edges by Shoesville's very own Dark.

The album has recently been given a deluxe reissue, and Dark's guitarist Steve Giles, who some of you who reside in these parts may remember as the Giles in Giles Photography of years gone by, visited my office today and loaned me some examples of the new lavishly tooled reissue for a soon come review by moi in my other guise as the very pale reflection of Lester Bangs. Steve's a lovely bloke; we chatted about all things Dark, and I even managed to correctly guess the street name from the photograph on the front cover (see above), taken in Steve's then living room. First guess, too! A prize of an unripened banana to any Shoesville residents who can do the same.

The review will either be on DPRP or Astounded by Sound! in the hopefully not too distant future, if any of you read that nonsense.
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England 2 English weather 1 Aussies 0 - Ashes retained. Wahey!
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"No, it's my pet bishop"

Some pictures...

Is it my grubby little mind, or...how the blazes did this get past Advertising Standards? Mucky girl!
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On the day of the birth of Prince George Anaconda Flange-Triptych D'Steel Wheels Windsor-Battenburgcake or whatever the tyke's name is, I along with what I suspect was actually a majority of the populace were more than slightly annoyed at the meeja feeding frenzy over this non-event, and took little or no notice. I did laugh when they referred to "The crowds outside Buckingham Palace", which must have numbered...ooh...tens.

Entering into the spirit of the occasion, starting early in the morning on the day of the Second Coming, I posted a trio of bon mots informing the world (well, my 14 friends on Farcebook, at any rate) that there was a "Woman, Pregnant", and later a "Woman still pregnant", and when finally the Goddamn Miracle Of The Gilded Getoutofmyfuckingsightyouuselesswasteofspace Shouting At Husband Spectacular happeneth; "Woman gives birth", elaborated with "Ginger afterbirth eats nurse!" This is of course essential information that everyone must be endlessly informed of until they die of ennui....zzzz....

It seems no less than lawyer's friend Mr Ian Hislop has nicked my joke, judging by this billboard, snapped yesterday.

As someone has already said to me; try and sue him, just try! :)

Now, let's be clear on this, I'm no Republican, as it is fairly self-evident that The Royle Family bring in more in tourist income alone than the £40m or so they cost the public purse every year. Just ask any Japanese or American tourist, at least those over 40, or in other words, the ones with the money, why they're in London, and I guarantee you one of the items on The Itinerary is to go and gawp at Jim Royle in Buck House so they can send the pics home of Uncle Jim-Bob keeping his over-stuffed gut out of profile in front of said Victorian pile. I will admit there probably aren't many Japanese blokes called Jim-Bob, and why they seem equally obsessed with our bunch of undeserving privileged Germans is beyond me, given that they have their own version of royalty and attendant daft outmoded class system back home.

Digression is my middle name...no, I ain't no Republican, but the saturation coverage given to this rather common natural phenomenon was enough to get me to seriously consider joining the ranks of the revolutionaries, until some bloke fronting a Republican group appeared on BBC Breakfast to rightly criticise the Beeb's OTT coverage. I have never seen such a determined miserablist, well, not since I saw Joy Division at a wrist slicing ceremony in Accrington in 1978, at any rate. What do these dour sods do for fun one wonders?
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It's a summer of sporting triumph for Team GB (especially the Siff Iffricun branch). Dull Scottish bloke wins tennis match, which was actually rather good considering how he stuffed the favourite against probably even his own expectations. The British & Irish Lions won a dwarf-throwing competition Down Under. It's always good to stuff the Aussies, especially on their own turf, but I paid no attention, as Rugger is a sport that breeds indifference in me like no other.

Then we had another Afro-Brit, this time Kenyan by way of a Siff Iffricun education, winning Le Tour in spectacular fashion. And, he did it on a bicycle, would you believe!

Of course, the real action is ongoing with our stolen Siff Iffricuns showing those Aussies how it's done (again) in the crikit. Having appropriated some of South Africa's finest sporting talent as our own, it is ironic that the real tests of how good we are both at rugby and cricket will probably come when we play...South Africa!

Oh, and we didn't win The Open Golf wassname, but golf is merely a right wing talking shop and an excuse for a piss up that is only played by odious salesmen and middle management types, masquerading as a sport, and of course a waste of good countryside, so I care not a jot.
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It's no longer unbearably hot, so I'm off to put some clothes on and clean that nasty stain off the carpet.
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Finally, finally...I know most of you consider, perhaps rightly, who knows, that most of the music I bang on about in my other list of scribblings is akin to a choir of Ornette Colemans playing kazoos, but if you like yer rawk, you cannot fail to like this righteous racket. If you do find this unpleasant you really need to take your ears to the doctors...



Ifangyewandgudnite.....

Hops are good for the brain

Last night the light switch in our kitchen broke, it had been on its way out for some time. After purchasing the replacement double switch from the local DIY emporium I struggled to make any sense of the minimalistic wiring diagram included. You see, the switch that fell apart was archaic, and probably made of bakelite. And its internal structure was completely different to that of the new replacement.

After much head scratching i managed to get one of the two sets of kitchen lights working, and figured I'd have to take up the offer from my upstanding next door neighbour, qualified spark, and all-round decent bloke that he is, to fit the thing for me.

However before that a trip to the pub was in the offing to watch the Cobblers get utterly humiliated at Wemberlee by Bratft City FC. Two pints later and half way through the second half we leave the Cobblers 3-0 down and without a prayer.

On arriving home I looked at the cryptic wiring diagram again and had a "What if?" moment. Whereas pre-beer I would have been loathe to try it in case I fused the house, post-beer it was no problem. The "What if?" moment proved to be the solution and now both sets of kitchen lights work fine (he says, touching wood and looking for black cats).

Proof, if any were needed, that beer is good.
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On the way to our local independent DIY shop, that goes by the name of "24 hour party people DIY" (not), as I shambled along the residential street that runs parallel to the main drag where said emporium is located, walking towards me were two very smartly dressed young men, probably in their twenties, one of whom was holding a bunch of leaflets.

Yes, they were indeed Jehova's Witnesses, and as we met one says to me "Good morning sir, have you heard the word of the Lord?" Now, not being the sharpest knife in the drawer where instant repartee is concerned, I normally would have said "No", and walked off.

But, apropos of nowt at all I quipped "What? Jon Lord has given rise to a religion already? Well, in that case all I can say is I much prefer the Mark 2 version, and In Rock was a classic album." The two chaps look at each other nonplussed, and crossed the road to avoid me as fast as their little legs would carry them without actually running.
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When I arrive at the DIY shop I am greeted with the sight of marketing genius at work. In order to compete with the DIY superstores the small local shop has to be a bit creative.

Your average DIYer in the UK is a bloke, and probably over 40. What do 40 plus year-old blokes like? No, not that you dirty minded reprobates...beer! To the left of the counter is a display showing evety type of bottled ale currently produced by local micro brewery Nobbys. Of course I bought some, but only the one bottle. I was only buying a light switch after all, and as I said to the man behind the counter it would probably be unwise to go home to the wife having spent more on beer than on the object of the shopping trip!

Marketing genius though, don't you think?
...

On the way home from the shop I passed a Polish couple obviously in love, holding hands and talking animatedly to each other of their nuptial plans...or not, as I couldn't understand a word. The thing that made me notice them was that he was wafer thin, almost translucent, whereas she was really quite fat. It was almost as if she had siphoned all the phat out of him.

I'll get me coat...
...

This has been brought to you by the sheer power of believing really hard...and Harvest Pale and Copper Dragon, and as such may well be full of grammar and spelling errors. So be it.

Universally Challenged

Things we learned at the Lamplighter pub quiz last night:

1. "Stinkfoot" is not a brand of camel.
2. The collective noun for arseholes could well be "a pucker".
3. Adopting a thick Yorkshire accent and regaling the nearest young lady with "Ey-oop darlin'...are you into t'Canterbury scene?" might not work as a chat-up line.
4. Daft Punk are terrible, gay or not.
5. £41 - see, those doubts and misgivings were entirely wrong.
6. This morning, a slight headache.

"It's no use getting haughty with me Alan, your feet do smell baaad...and tell Steve to get his head out of yer arse"

This has been brought to you while munching on a crab paste sandwich.

Behind you!

My conspiracy radar went into maximum twitch mode this morning when the news on BBC Breakfast informed me that Canadian authorities had arrested two guys who were planning to bomb a passenger train en route from Toronto to New York. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the image of bomb-waving terrorists being arrested by some blokes in bright red on horseback crosses my mind and makes me smile) admitted that their plan, such as it was, had barely got beyond the "What if?" stage, or at least that's the impression you got from reading between the lines. Good on the Canucks, you may rightly think, they've shown the FBI how it's done and actually nipped an atrocity in the bud.

Then they have to go and spoil it by suggesting connections to that handy terrorist suspect coverall, Al and his Quaedas, an not just that, but the I-ran branch. I have long suspected that while there may be an organisation of that name, the word "organisation" is in itself highly questionable. More like a bunch of extremists who all like the idea of blowing up a few Westerners now and then, who occasionally meet in cafés to drink very strong green tea and smoke the pipe and rant at each other about the Yankee infidel through their beards.

Back in the USA the FBI are, or it seems were, as they've gone very quiet on the subject, desperately trying to link those two bastards in Boston to AQ, or at least they were before they were caught. Once it turned out their suspects were a) beardless and b) white they knew that they were probably looking at home-grown nutcases. The gnarled old cynic in me would suggest that the Yanks are praying that the suspect who survived pegs it in hospital, for, once both of them are brown bread, they can link them to whoever they please with no comeback.

Also, have you noticed how American nutjobs who gun down school children are never linked to AQ, oh no, they're just lone wolves that no amount of gun control would stop, at least not while the NRA are paying for the Senators' holidays. On the other hand as soon as anything explosive and larger than a bullet is involved, it must be the fault of those pesky Islamists.

Anyway, I've drifted off topic slightly. Not only do the Mounties link it to AQ, but AQ "in Iran", a country with no known connections to AQ, and a country where the Yankee military-industrial complex sees the next killing, literal and metaphorical, being made. Yeah, let's leave North Korea alone, they might actually cause us some damage should we invade, but I-ran? Bring it on! Yeah, right, whoop, whoop. It's called "preparing the ground" and if they repeat these spurious allegations enough times they'll convince themselves it's true. It worked in I-raq, did it not?

You can almost smell the testosterone from here, and that's just Hilary Clinton. Thank gawd for John Kerry that's all I can say.
...

I have a t-shirt that bears the legend "Twatter - because no-one wants to know what you had for breakfast", an article of clothing I can no longer wear in public as I've joined the ranks of Twits, hypocrite that I am! Purely for promotional purposes you understand, as it is indeed true that folk do seem to like telling each other what they had for breakfast. What is that all about?

The promo thing is for my music scribblings and I'll hold my hands up and admit it actually seems to work.
...

Do not feed the animal

Sorry about yesterday, let's start again...

Firstly apologies for yesterday's dull nonsense! This is what I should have written about...

On the eve of Good Friday, Phill and I ventured to The Lamplighter for their Easter Beer Festival. Phill has already described this in great detail, but, like him, as soon as we arrived a righteous need to get really quite drunk descended on this ne'er-do-well.

If you've not read Phill's report, and you really should, three pints in the charming Zoe joined us. She would have liked to have joined us physically too, as her description to me in French of what she would like to see happen to us made all too clear.

Me, I understand enough Français to glean the words "wet", "lick", "hard" and a few others depicting various states of moisture and erectness. The fact the plural form of "you" was used made it obvious that she wanted us both at once.

Flattering as it may have been to have been on the receiving end of some "draguer par une nanette" who was less than half my age, it was also mildly terrifying for this settled old boy! Appropriately given the language used, and despite having no desire to go for a pee, having a bladder the size of a small planet, I took the French option, and ran away...to the loo.

Being somewhat inebriated, after a few seconds of standing in front of the urinal with nowt happening, I momentarily forgot why I was in the gents, wondering why I was standing there, JT in hand with diddly happening. A lovely visage, I'm sure!

Then I remembered so I stood there some more. Phill claims I was in there for three hours, but, if you know him, he is somewhat prone to exaggeration. It was probably only two.

He's older than me, you know...

Of course, the best bit of the evening was Zoe thinking I was three years younger than him, and that he looked like Rick Mayall. Deny it as he might, he does, although less so as he gets older I'll admit, he's more like Albert Steptoe now.

" 'Arrold, do I keep me teeth in?"

Pished though I may have been, I kept my wits about me enough to stop Zoe having Phill taking any pics of me and her!

It was all rather a good laugh, I have to say. :)

Mowing for Colbert

Today I mowed the lawns of Burwood Towers for the first time this year, as, for the first time in what seems like forever the freezing Easterly wind that has sent temperatures plummeting to well below average for ages finally abated to become merely a chill breeze.

After the mow came a lounge about in the sun, sat on the bench at the bottom of the garden. When the breeze slowed to barely perceptible levels the temperature in the sun was, ooh, all of 14C, a good 10C higher than it's been for a long time, and very welcome, too.

While sitting there basking something felt wrong, and I soon realised that it was up there, in the sky. The prevailing wind direction in this country is from the South West, which means that while sat on said bench you can gaze up at the clouds and mostly watch them going straight up the garden towards the house. Sitting as we are under this interminable region of high pressure that was centred over Scanddinavia and now sits on top of us results in looking up at the sky and seeing clouds coming at you from the North. All quite odd indeed.

It's all down to that pesky jetstream buggering off to Spain for the winter. No doubt it will be sat over us in a couple of months, or the monsoon season as it is now known. Can we have our summers back, please?
...

Today is also Grand National day, and those nice people at Sky gave me a free £10 bet which I invested wisely/wasted each way on Colbert Station, ridden by AP McCoy. That's £58.20/£10 to spend on beer/I never missed in the first place, then. Delete as appropriate after the race is run.
...

Our council, the glorious institution that is the NBC, or No Bollocks Continuously, has entered into a PFI with Balfour Beatty in order to erect some rather groovy new street lighting in out area. This probably means we will all be paying for it for many years through our Council Tax. But, looking on the bright (arf!) side, gone are those scourges of all urban areas that illuminate with that awful palid orange glow, and in their place are some low energy white light monsters, twice the height of the previous incumbents.

B and I have been watching the progress of their construction with increased bewilderment. Work started in the week before Easter and in the first two or three days, all the holes were dug, the new poles erected, the old ones dug out...and then nothing until yesterday, when the old ones were switched off and the new ones switched on.

There is no sign yet of the old ones being taken away, we will wait to see if this happens as indeed it should, strange working patterns notwithstanding.
...

There's a County Council election coming up. As I get older I have become increasingly alienated from mainstream politics, as all three main parties pay lip service to the electorate, seeing only power as the goal. This sad state of affairs is probably even more pronounced at local level, as councils of all sizes have always attracted little Napoleons in droves. Suffice to say I will be voting Independent if there is one or Green if there isn't. We're all going to die.

Aceeed!

B bought some oranges t'other day. Well, I say "oranges", but I reckon it could be the start of another food mis-labelling scenario. Fair enough, from the outside they look like oranges, but once the skin has been peeled and you bite into the flesh of a suspiciously pale looking segment...Cheeereeest on beeeek (no idea if they're Siff Iffrikin, jist gissin) are they tart, or what?

Methinks they are actually lemons. Some cunning fruit wholesaler has seen the increasing disparity in the orange/lemon futures market in favour of the former and got his slaves to stuff lemons inside orange skins. You think I'm joking...Actually, I do like it tart, and once I've got over the shock they are rather fun in a citrus-masochistic stylee, although the wince stays with you for a good half hour after consumption.
...

I have a friend who, while we were discussing the lead actor's performance in the cult classic The Wicker Man did not understand my referring to the guy as Ewar Woowar. I'll let him off for he is young, and I am old.

While we're on thesps, I've a joke about Anna Hathaway, but it's a bit rude... ;)
...

Mathematically, it was Spring on 1st March, but since when did the weather pay any attention to that? It's not really spring up here until the sun heads northwards over the Equator on 21st March (or 20th depending where you check it). Anyway, the last couple of days have indeed been Spring-like and in the direct sun it actually felt warm for the first time in ages. Marvellous!

I took advantage of this by having a roaring fire in the grounds of Burwood Towers this afternoon, combusting old bits of branches that have fallen from our 100+ year-old pine trees. You could've melted steel in it, such was the heat.
...

We're off to London tomorrow to see Phill's current least-favoured musician Steven Wilson at the Royal Festival Hall. Bet you're glad I didn't get you a ticket now, eh?

Anyway, apart from the gig itself, highlight of the day will be meeting up with two DPRP colleagues who up to now have been mere ciphers at the end of email or Facebook messages. 

Jez is the mad fool who volunteered for the Editor's job at DPRP and as such is the poor sod who has to unmangle my garbled syntax, and Alison is the polar opposite of me in the prog style of choice department. Mr Wilson is probably one of very very few musos who could have brought us together. It's going to be interesting chewing the fat. Bring it on!
...

Those Siff Iffrikins...they're all a bit mad, are they not?

Horse Mythology

In the words of Robert Plant, it's been a long, been a long lonely lonely time for my two readers as this is my first nonsense of 2013. so, HAPPY NEW YEAR to ya!
...

Of course most of you will know that just over 4 weeks ago we lost Molly to the great back garden in the sky. Molly, The World's Loudest Small Ginger Cat had been in charge at our house for over sixteen years, and we miss her badly. Our house and garden is still infused with her spirit, and we both talk to her every day, a habit I can't see changing for some time.
...

In the world of pub quizzing, Team Squonk has switched allegiances from The Vic to The Lamplighter, and to be honest about it, the main reason is money. Our place in an almost guaranteed top 2 every week at The Vic had slipped somewhat over the tail end of last year, and our decision to switch pubs was made all the easier by the increasingly down-at-heel vibe of The Vic.

At The Lamplighter, a pub where things don't run out and the loos are clean - not something that should be a plus point, but sadly in this case it is, not to mention an actual choice in the beer department -  after last night's victory we have so far entered 11 quizzes, winning 8, second in 2 and fourth once. Nay bad at all!

The only drawback is that the quizmeister is not the redoubtable Mr Hollis, but you can't have everything now, can you?

The bulging Team Squonk kitty was reduced on Saturday by a team meal at the rather wonderful Golden China restaurant, and that is what it's all about after the fat lady sings at the end of day...or summat.

Best quiz team name from last night: "Taking The Pistorius" - Marvellous!
...

The world of work, especially for my closest friends is just too depressing to talk about, so I won't.
...

Before entering the dystopian nightmare of the daily work grind, we are woken by my alarm, and to keep me awake I instantly switch on the TV and BBC Breakfast. It's depressing enough to be no longer greeted of a morn by Molly demanding food followed by the delectable smile of Sian Williams, demanding...whoops, daydreaming again...but on Monday morning the misery was compounded by discovering that Bill & Co were on strike over proposed BBC staff cuts.

As I refuse to indulge in any news channel that the dreadful Australian-American and his godawful family have anything to do with, it meant dipping toes into the celeb-infested waters of ITV's Daybreak. I have to say that the 20 minutes or so that we endured that morning had to be some of the dumbest lowest common denominator and low-brow  shite passing itself off as news it has been my misfortune to view since...well forever, really.

OK, I'll admit that BBC Breakfast has its celeb slots too, but they keep theirs back until about 8:45 when all but the pro-slackers have already left the house for the office/factory/callcentre/whatever. Damn you, NUJ, let Bill go back to work, now!
...

Is it just me or do you find that reading articles online, in blogs mostly, where the writer has opted for white text on a black background, nigh on impossible? After a few sentences I find it becomes increasingly hard to focus and I give up. On the rare occasion that the I read the thing through to the end, when I look away I can still see the lines of text before me, imprinted on my retina.

White (or sometimes yellow - slightly, but not much better) text on a black background might look "cool" or whatever, but what's the point if it's unreadable?

It is just me? OK, it's been two years since my last eye test, so I'd better get it checked out, then.
...

Most of you will know that I'm one of those weird chaps who DOESN'T DRIVE. If cars had been around in the Middle Ages I would probably have been burnt at the stake, the fire lit by a ranting Jeremy Clarkson lookeylikey, playing The Firth Of Fifth on a lute. Anyway, being a permanent passenger has meant that over the years I have experienced the driving of many of my friends, family and colleagues as they ferry me about, lucky people that they are. I've probably sat next to more drivers in, say, the last 5 years alone than most drivers sit next to in a lifetime.

Therefore, I reckon that gives me a unique position from which to judge the driving standards of others, more so than drivers, whose actual close observation of other drivers is probably limited to only that of their partner.

About twenty five or so years ago my regular gig going companion was a guy called Padraig (name changed to protect the hopeless) who back then qualified as the worst driver I'd ever come across. Not only did he appear to have a need to drive ascloseasthis to the car in front's tailpipe, regardless of speed, but he had an annoying habit of setting out on journeys with an inadequately filled tank. This last folly once caused us to run out of petrol in the arse end of nowhere somewhere near Norwich. Idiot.

Having many moons ago lost touch with Padraig, nowadays the title of Worst Driver In Shoesville has long been in the grasp of my business partner. Again a name change to protect the blind is needed, so we'll call him Hale (see what I did there, those of you that know?). Hale passed his driving test in Ceylon. Yes, I know it's not called that now but he passed it so long ago it probably was still a colonial outpost when he paid the "examiner" the bribe...err...test fee.

Hale tootles along at 25mph everywhere without seeming to be the slightest bit aware of other road users. I've lost count of the number of near misses at road junctions suffered while sitting next to him, the latest of which happened late yesterday afternoon.

Approaching a fairly large junction near one of Shoesville's few remaining jewels in its crown, the rather nice Abington Park, there are clearly painted instructions on the road. The left hand lane is marked for ahead and left, the right hand lane for bearing right only, towards Wellingborough. The left hand lane always has a longish queue approaching the junction, and Hale always pulls out to the right hand lane to creep to the front, later to cut in to the left as we're going straight on. I always assumed he was aware that what he was doing was technically wrong and somewhat discourteous, but yesterday proved that seems unaware of this obvious instruction, too.

As he nonchalantly pulled in to the left, a loud "PAAARRRRP" from the driver he'd just cut up made Hale, a religious man not given to swearing, come as close as I've ever heard him in over twenty years to cursing. Although clearly in the wrong, he dissed the guy for blowing his horn! I knew if I had pointed out the error of his ways it would have been like shouting at Lemmy in a wind tunnel, so I didn't bother, but the Worst Driver In Shoesville gong shows no signs of changing hands anytime soon.
...

If you had really planned to murder someone, would it not be a good idea to wait until you could actually see your intended victim before pulling the trigger? Just saying...
...

While we are on the subject of dubious legal shenanigans, where the gorblimey did they find that jury for the Vicky Pryce trial? You know her, surely? The LSE educated leading economist, later to become head number-juggler honcho at such minor institutions as KPMG, the DTI, and Exxon, to name a few, who claims she was cowed by her stuffed-shirt of a hubby into accepting his speeding points...alledgedly, with knobs on.

Anyway, you're probably all aware of the mind-bogglingly dumb 10 questions those twelve model citizens asked the judge, but the published list omits No.11: "Dear Mr Judge - If I eat too much at lunch and have a desperate need for a number two, once in the facilities do I sit facing the cistern or facing outwards?"
...

A mini-feature on that parade of the instantly forgettable that is the Brit Awards this morning informed us all that Johnny-come-lately Robbie Williams, who won a Lifetime Pie Eating award or somesuch, had won his first Brit before most of One Direction had progressed beyond a sperm/egg collision scenario. Made me feel quite old, that did...

Also, it has to be said that if Emilé Sande, Ben Howard and Mumford & Sons are the best of British popular music, we may as well give up now. At least, as far as I can tell, none of those bland examples of stunning mediocrity use Autotune, and they do write their own choons, mostly. Me, I'm furiously ambivalent about the whole shebang. Time for a new punk revolution, methinks. Fangyewandgudnite...

Fuggy heads, Xmas gaucheness

Well, we all entered the new Mayan era unscathed, Jupiter's still there, and then we got through Xmas Day and we all survived! Woop-de-woo or summat. I've been quaffing the Glenfiddich and if this makes less sense than usual then so be it.

Right, this might make ya smile. It's a good job Suzi has a sense of humour, that's all I can say. Some months ago she wanted me to get her a compiliation of chill-out pop music called Keep Calm And Relax. The album cover is the logo on a plain background in the style of the wartime slogan "Keep Calm And Carry On". This particular compilation was available on Amazon so being a lazy sod that's where I went to get Suzi's Xmas Prezzy rather than brave hoardes of dribbling fools in HMV.

You know when you look at something on Amazon it lists similar items you might be interested in? Well, the cover pic for this particular CD is identical in layout to two other CDs of almost the same name. Let's just say I ordered one of the three. The CD arrived, I wrapped it up, gave it to my friend and forgot about it.

I suppose you can see what's coming? On Xmas day I get a text from Suzi saying "I hope you've kept the receipt". I didn't twig, so I called her. She said she had unwrapped it, put it on the CD player, and, rather than the calming tones of Just The Way You Are by Bruno Mars caressing her ears, she gets the nerve-jangling wail of an air-raid siren followed by White Cliffs Of Dover or similar. I had bought her "Keep Calm And Carry On" containing "Over two hours of favourite wartime music".

We both laughed a lot. B laughed a lot. I am an idiot.. :)
...

Was Dr Who good? You see, I've no idea, as that programme has become the next best thing to a dull football match guaranteed to put me to sleep. I reckon I watched about 10 minutes of the Xmas day episode before succumbing to the land of nod. Merlin, that's far better in my book; give me sword'n'sorcery nonsense over kiddies cod sci-fi bollocks any day of the week.

Does anyone out there find Miranda funny? If so, please explain. Strikes me she's a reincarnation of Norman Wisdom who I found about as funny as flu. She's probably big in Albania
...

Right, back to the whiskey...hangover booked for tomorrow as I've got to brave going back to the office at some point. wish me luck, and have a grrreat NYE!

Ice Ice Baby

It's going to be a wee bit chilly next week, with Shoesville's maximum temperature in the limited daylight for the entire week expected to be a mere 1C, with predicted night time minimums on a progressive downward scale to a snot-freezing -10C by a week on Sunday. Don't you just love winter?

Then of course, on the following Friday the 21st, the world ends. What I want to know is does it end at the beginning or end of that day? It would be a bit annoying if it was the former as I have a birthday meal booked on the evening of the 21st at the best restaurant in town, the Thai Nam Tip. Oi, Itzamná, let me have my fave scrumptious beef yellow curry before you blast us into the netherworld, ya bastid...

Speaking of restaurants it was good to see that the best (only?) true Indian restaurant in the county was back on form last week, when Team Squonk spent most of its quiz winnings on a damn good nosh at Pooja's in Wellingborough. Phill and I nearly always have the same starter, sharing a Chili Paneer and a plate of Mogo Chips (luvvly chips made from cassava roots), and I have to say that last week's was probably the best I've ever experienced. And the service was unusually quick too. In fact the whole thing was a complete contrast to the utter nightmare of the previous visit, which was so bad it put B and I off the place for months; suffice to say, all is forgiven.

Having spent the last two weeks away from the Vic in a semi-successful attempt at boosting the coffers, next Tuesday we will return and conquer...or more likely come 3rd.
...

Judging by the news in this country it seems that Kate Middleton is the only woman ever to become pregnant, and therefore the also first to suffer anaemia. Bloody 'ell they don't half lay it on thick when a Royal gets up the duff, do they not? Earlier this week while watching BBC Breakfast having suffered over half the previous half an hour on the bloody subject of the posh foetus, we return from the local news to Susannah Reid (gawd she's no fun that woman - bring back Sian!) kicking off with "Let's talk babies". "No Susannah, let's not talk effin babies" shouts me at the telly reaching for the off button. She redeems herself slightly before I get to push the button by saying "Will it be a boy, a girl, or both?" Yes, that's what we want, the first hermaphrodite Royal!
...

Politicians are all slime, well mostly, but Gideon takes the biscuit...well, actually he snatches it from the grasp of the defenceless with one hand while picking their pockets with the other. All in it together? Well, him and his mates are, yes, giving themselves tax breaks they don't need while slashing at the subsistence existence of those who rely on the State for support. Not to mention keeping all his share dividends in megacorps healthy by continuing to let the likes of Amazon ship their profits to Luxembourg. It's bloody embarrassing when we rely the pressure groups like 38 Degrees to shame Starbucks into paying £20m in Corporation Tax over 3 years (mmmm, go a long way that will, doncha think?) while our rulers lie through their teeth about how everyone makes a contribution to cutting the deficit.

We're all going to die, possibly on my birthday! Yippee!

Angels with angles

Some of you may have seen my Monday morning grump on Farcebook about those dreadful homilies tinged with emotional blackmail that do the rounds on the site. You know the sort of thing...

"Re-post this to your status if...the Devil stole your soul and you'd like it back/the angels are blessing you with good fortune as you found a pound coin in the same fold of surplus flesh that you lost the TV remote in last week/your pet iguana is a heroin addict and you need a sign from God. No Parking would be nice/your Auntie Mabel got her left tit caught in a mangle and she'd appreciate being freed (delete as appropriate). If you do not "like" and re-post this, the Bug Eyed Beans From Venus will kidnap you, rip out your septum and use it as a back-scratcher, you evil waster."

...or, in a more craftily subtle version...


"We all know someone who has died a slow bouncy death while bungee jumping off The Shard, don't we? Well if we all sit down and think very hard in the direction of our chosen deity (gurning a bit might help too) then we can alleviate the suffering of those fools who might consider repeating the feat in the future. Pass this on and the message from our thoughts will be amplified and have more chance of getting through. Like this status to enhance thought-power - most of you won't, but a life of bounteous plenty awaits those who do...or maybe you'll find 10p down the back of the sofa."

Firstly, the people who post this trash are either trolls who deserve or a good kicking, or if they actually believe this crap then they have less sense than a Tory cabinet, and secondly the people who do actually re-post it should be tested for evidence of imbecility, and then probably shot. Harrumph.

...

This made me laugh..

Well, he would if he ate that, wouldn't he? If anyone can actually explain the purpose of this advert I'd be delighted to be enlightened!

Fangyewandgudnite....

When people were shorter and lived by the water...

All will be revealed...

Eh?...Whose cologne?...Oh, Michael Owen! Now I understand...

You see, I've always been a bit mutton. I used to blame it on Motorhead, who we saw four times in as many weeks on the Bomber tour back in 1980 or whenever it was. Always down the front, heads bangin' against either Fast Eddie's or Lemmy's monitor, it sure can't have helped the lack of vibrations in the air that make it past my ossicles, down the auditory canal and into my noggin.

But, like I say, I've always been a bit mutton, the first classic case of "Half past three" syndrome I can recall occurring when I was back in seminary school...oh, hang on, that was Jim Morrison. No, I was back in Victoria Infants, Wellingborough to be precise, and as a fresh-faced 7 or 8 year old I was queueing with the other sprogs for my daily helping of what was euphemistically called "dinner" in the school canteen. This usually consisted of some bland tasteless reconstituted "meat" concoction with synthetic mashed potato, a couple of sorry looking peas and/or carrots, all drowned in thick brown gravy-tarmac. Luvvly! This was inevitably followed by a bowl of sweet lumpy gloop topped off with strawberry jam as "afters".

Even after a few weeks of suffering this colon-clogging slopfest I wasn't a fan. Then one day I entered the Dining Hall and I sauntered up to the massive sweaty woman with the ladle, she plonked something onto my plate with the subtlety of a cow vacating its bowels. "What's that?" I asked innocently, and she told me a name I didn't recognise from my then short experience of world cuisine. It smelled foul and tasted worse, a bitter taste bud experience that I can remember chewing on for what seemed like at least half an hour before spitting it out and leaving the dining hall feeling really quite ill.

When I got home that afternoon (Yes, we walked the 3/4 mile all on our own. Weren't we brave?) I marched in to the kitchen and Mum took one look at me with my scowling screwed up face still reliving the vile-tasting trauma of "dinner", and asked "What's wrong with you?" "We had summat 'orrid for dinner" sez me "What was that then?" sez Mum. "It were called Blivver" says I. It made Mum laugh did that!

Well, I couldn't blame that on Lemmy & Co could I? From that day on and for the rest of my school days I took the sarnies my Mum gave me for lunch and ate them in the reprobates' room with the scallies on detention and the poor kids who couldn't afford school dinners. They didn't know how lucky they were! Unsurprisingly I could not stand the very thought of liver for years, and never touched the stuff again until I met B. Ironically we are having Blivver and bacon for tea tonight!
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While we're on early schooldays, probably my most humiliating experience in the halls of academia happened a couple of years or so later. Now attending Croyland Juniors, one day I went to school feeling a tad under the weather. It was winter, bloody cold as I remember, and I had a big jumper on. The longer the day went on, and when you're a nipper school days seemed to go on forever, the worse I felt, until somewhere around lunchtime I emptied the contents of my stomach down the jumper and all over my English text book.

The school nurse took me away and cleaned me up, but she said I might have to wear my coat all day as she couldn't find a spare jumper to lend me. Back in class I was feeling rough, and tried to hug the radiator without burning myself on its blistering surface - you remember those big old iron monstrosities don't you? Anyway, during the break, the girl I sat with, Hazel Smith was her name, asked me if I was ok (no chance of being sent home back then, oh no. You had to suffer, it was all part of growing up) and was I warm enough? "Not really" sez me through chattering teeth. "It's ok" sez Hazel "I've got a spare jumper you can borrow" and pulled a big fluffy pink thing out of her duffel bag. Let's just say my mates pointed and laughed a lot, but sod the embarrassment, it was warm.

Of course, nowadays I would have been sent home in an ambulance with a teacher fawning over me in case my parents had the "compo" thought, and even if I had stayed at school me and my pink hairy jumper would have been all over Farcebook or whatever.
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In that same learning establishment I once swapped a mint copy of the 1964 single by The Beatles "Ain't She Sweet" for a bag of marbles and a magnet. It's a charming little ditty, doncha think? Written in 1927 would you believe! The b-side featured Tony Sheridan & The Beatles doing "If You Love Me Baby", as I'm sure you know ;). I was probably never going to rival Richard Branson in the entrepreneurial stakes was I?

O, for simpler times...:)

PS - Oddly, while Googling for the name of the song on the b-side, I came across a worn copy for sale on EBay for £45 (must mean it would be about £100 mint), being sold by a record shop not 5 miles from where I'm sat now. I wonder if it's the same copy?

Cackle, snicker, scratch

Sixteen years, one month, twelve days. That's the amount of time we've lived in our current abode, and tomorrow we become the longest term residents at our end of the road when Mike ups for pasties new. Good luck Mike! It now falls to B & I to dispense the wisdom of elders to the small but friendly crew of neighbours we are lucky enough to be surrounded by.

Well, our elder statespersons' status isn't strictly true, for over the road and three doors down from Mike lives the quite strange Larry who moved in a week before us with his then wife. On the day we moved in Colin, who was helping us lunk boxes about, and I had a cup of tea over there, and that was the first and last time I've spoken to him. You see, it turned out that Mr & Mrs Larry were, and in Larry's case probably still is, quite barking mad. Both of them worked at a local mental hospital, and their working environment must have rubbed off, for they were forever rowing, culminating one night when Larry had locked himself in the bathroom to avoid being hacked to pieces by his banshee-wailing carving-knife wielding nutjob of a wife.

We know this because you could hear it all from our side of the road, and at 3am no less. Not for the first time the police were called. Eventually and inevitably Mr & Mrs Larry split up and she went back to the Isle of Man..."Today I are been mostly biting my lower lip and going "squeeee"..."

You might think Larry comes out of this ok, but his then neighbour made the mistake of asking him how he was and there followed endless visits at all hours, and incessant phone calls. This poor guy eventually split up with his Mrs and left the area. Probably nowt to do with Larry's harassment but it can't have helped!

Luckily for the rest of us for the last few years Larry has worked permanent night shifts so we rarely see him anyway and when we do there is a noticeable increase in walking speed!
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Any of you remember a quite awful AOR supergroup from the 80s called Asia? Well, they released 3 albums up to 1985, split up, reformed in 1992 and have been releasing forgettably bland albums ever since. This year sees the release of their twelfth album and 2012 is also their 30th anniversary. Anyone doing a Google search for it will have to type in the prosaic title they gave it, probably unwisely. You try typing "Asia XXX" into Google and see what you get! :)
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This weekend sees the first Merseyside derby of the season. For once we go into the game way ahead of "t'Shite", as they are known by the more intelligent footy fan, we have a better team, and they don't have a single player I'd have in our team ahead of one of ours. That is why we'll lose 2-0. I hate derbies. Still, at least we'll still finish ahead of them in the table come May next year.
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A bit brass monkey today, is it not?
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Byte the pillow

I've bought a laptop, ostensibly for work but it will probably get far more use at home. I bought it from a guy on EBay for the princely sum of £151, and spec-wise it's not far behind my desktop so a bit of a bargain methinks. I'm typing this wibble on it to test out the keyboard to see how it copes with my Neanderthal typing skills. As you probably know, some laptop keyboards are pants - stand up HP - and the benchmark for workhorse keyboards in business use at any rate has always been IBM (now Lenovo) Thinkpads. A similar spec Lenovo laptop to this one from EBay would have been at least twice the price, and I'm a tight bastard at the best of times, even when I'm spending "work" money, which is essentially mine anyway. So far so good, the keyboard is a lot better than an HP for starters, and is as responsive as a Thinkpad although it doesn't have that "hit me baby, one more time" feel of the Lenovo beastie.

My new toy arrived two days ago and the first thing I did was a thorough virus check, nothing found; then a trawl through Windows Explorer to see what if anything the seller had inadvertently left behind. No donkey or any other porn I'm glad to say, but he did leave two work email accounts on Chrome with saved passwords! Unfortunately he's not in MI6 and neither is he Karen Gillan's bikini line waxer, only a mere golfing instructor. Judging by the subject titles of his work emails, which were largely unfathomable, I think he's also some kind of motivational coach. Anyway, the seller was told of his faux-pas and the email accounts duly got deleted along with the sundry videos of fat blokes and fat women taking practice swings on the golfing range. Oh, he's also into downloading movies from Torrent sites, a couple of those went too, along with a few episodes of Top Gear. A golfer into Top Gear? Whatever next? :)

I don't know about you, but I would have been a damn sight more careful if I was selling a computer on EBay!
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Sticking with the world of pooters, this toy came with MS Office 2010 installed, another saving. At work I still use the 2003 version as Office has become the victim of the "new improved" bug that affects everything these days, and is always a step back from what existed before. I was going to say "nearly always" but I can't think of a single thing that has actually been improved by being "improved", if you get my gist. I know one person who has gone into this subject several times and left a trail of dead longer than a queue to slap John Terry who would agree with me totally.

In MS Office 2003 everything you would ever need was along the top tool bar, but from the 2007 version onwards even simple things like spellchecker are on a completely different tab. If you want to do anything even slightly complicated, like pivot tables in Excel, you need a roadmap the size of Wales to find your way round the bloody thing. Virtually everything about the new version of Office sucks big ones.
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And now for something completely different. The once mighty Team Squonk have been going to pub quizzes for as long as I care to remember. As I've no memory, that may be two weeks or twenty years, but it must be ten years at least, which for me is the problem. Just lately I've become quizzed out; it's nothing to do with our recent downturn in fortune as these things tend to be cyclical; no it's just I've become a bit bored. Added to that is the distinctly down-at-heel Victoria Inn, a pub where they frequently run out of essentials and the state of the pipes is enough to give you a headache the following day after two pints. The only saving grace has been our current quiz master, who I can safely say is the one of the best we've had in all our years quizzing.

So, a break was called for. As this coincided with Mr Quiz's annual two-week foreign beano, we decided to frequent The Lamplighter, only a few hundred yards as the pigeon flies from the Vic as it happens. They have everything the other pub lacks, including toilet paper! Not sure about the quiz master who after we won our first outing there by several points did not appear to be too chuffed with our victory, so much so that calling him monosyllabic would be an overstatement. The turn out that first time was 22 people so we won £22, easily at that.

Slightly embarrassed at our trouncing of the opposition we thought we'd give it one more go for fear of outstaying our welcome. Well that was the opinion of B and moi at least, and how more wrong could we have been! The second outing last Wednesday saw the pub full to bursting including a couple of teams we recognised from past encounters, there being well over 50 people there. It was close between us and the two other teams, and going into the last (music) round we were 2 points in the lead. We got 7 and the second team got 13, which included a 5-point bonus question we couldn't answer, so we lost by 4 points. So much for our over-confidence! At least it makes it easier going back; oh and one more thing, they had Oakham Inferno on, one of the beers made by The Best Brewery In The World. Nice!

The good point was a £10 drinks voucher for next week for coming second, the slightly worrying point is that we've also decided to go to the Malt Shovel music quiz on Monday. We'll have to do better than our frankly disappointing effort at the music round at The Lamplighter is all I can say.

My quizzing appetite has been re-kindled by the change of venue, but I can't say I'm looking forward to returning to the Vic...we'll see how it goes.
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Yes, I quite like this keyboard....

Finally...a goat goes into a Jobcentre and asks the desk-jockey in perfect English for some work. The stunned clerk suggests Billy applies to the local circus. "The circus?" sez Bill, "Why would the circus want a welder?" :)