Wednesday 29 June 2011

Wednesday 29th June 2011

Feeling Hot, Hot, hot...

Well, here I am in Egypt. Day three, if you count Monday as day one, which you would as we came here then. We only got here at about half eight Monday night so you could be forgiven for not classing that as the first day. Anyhoo, we are here until Friday 8th, and then land back in Blighty at 0125hrs Saturday morning.

Tuesday was hot, we saw the rep in the morning and he told us all about the excursions we could go on. Thinking about Camel rides and Snorkelling and Quad bikes, but I'll let you know how they went as we are booking tomorrow morning.
Tuesday was also a day of many firsts for me. It was the first day this year (since the 25th April 2010 to be exact) that I had an alcoholic drink. It was the first time ever I sat in the swimming pool and had an alcoholic drink. It was the first time ever I sat in a swimming pool smoking a cigarette and drinking cocktails too. It was also the first full day I have ever spent in Egypt.

Day two just over (it's Thursday as I speak type, and we have just got back from having a meal at the 'Italian' restaurant in the resort and a few drinks afterwards at the Lobby Bar. The 'Italian' restaurant was OK and I had a very nice piece of Sea Bass, but it wasn't really ITALIAN. I suppose the fact that we are in Egypt contributed to that, but it was nice all the same.
At the Lobby Bar they had a bingo night. Wasn't as good as the ones I used to help run. My old 'charity worker' mates will vouch for me when I say that our bingo nights at the Westwood were the best in Worksop. FACT.
I suppose it didn't help that the numbers were called out in English first, then Russian. Gawd knows how the Dutch and the Scandinavians managed.

I've been weighing meslef on the scales in the bathroom. We have a set of digital scales and they tell you how much weight you have gained/lost since the last time you used them.
As it is "All Inclusive" and food is a-plenty I thought I would weigh myself regularly to see what the the results were (why else?!?).
The first time I was 85kg or something. Fuck knows what that is in proper weights, but it doesn't matter. I gained 0.2kg after the first meal but the last two times I have lost 0.4kg and 0.9kg. Not sure how accurate the scales are, but who gives a shit if they show that I lose weight even when the food is free and plentiful.

Right then, I'll keep you informed as the adventure progresses, but I can't promise when. I tried to post last night but I think the hotel hadn't paid it's t'interweb bill as all I got was a payment request for 920EL. That's only about £92 though, so I wasn't too bothered. I could have paid it meself.............

Tuesday 21 June 2011

Tuesday 21st June 2011

You put your left leg in...

Dysons. They suck. Which is a good thing, I suppose, as they are hoovers after all. Apparently if I said that whilst being in the employ of Mr James Dyson (or whatever his name is) I would get an official warning. Liz brought hers from her old house and has just hoovered dysoned the front room. Every two minutes she was pausing to show me how much shit it had picked up. Which is good, in a way, as it shows it is doing it's job, but it's also pretty gross as it shows that we have had a dirty filthy rank carpet for the past years I have lived here.

Hold on, gotta go check on dinner.

Looking good, wedges are crisping up nicely. Not your shop bought ones, but proper potatoes cut up into wedgy shaped pieces and coated with a secret recipe. I would tell you what was in it, but then I would have to change the name of it from 'My Secret Recipe' to My Recipe' and that would sound shit.
We are have escalopes with the wedges, they are shop bought as I am not sure how to (a)grow quorn, or (b)turn it into escalopes and anyhoo, it's easier just to open a box.

I saw a lorry transporting four phoneboxes along the M62 tonight. Bit extreme for a mobile phone, if you have to carry your mobile phone on the back of a lorry then you may as well just drive to the house of whoever you want to speak with and talk face to face. Unless of course you don't like them and want to leave an abusive message. Then you could write a letter. You wouldn't have the same emotion I suppose, but at least you wouldn't have to drive a truck around.
I wonder if the driver of the truck in question just drives around randomly picking up phoneboxes?

And why are 'Baked Beans' called baked beans? Are they baked? I understand that 'Haricot beans in tomato sauce' doesn't have the same ring, but why not something like 'Harry Beans' or 'Tommy Beans' or something of that ilk? Surely, if they are not baked at some time in the preparation process, they are contravening the Trade Description Act, or whatever it is called now? I dunno, maybe they are and therefore they are not (if you know what I mean).

Anyhoo, gotta go, dinner's ready and then it's back to the revision.............

Monday 20 June 2011

Monday 20th June 2011

You can lead a rolling stone to a church roof, but there's no use crying over a few omelette eggs.

Just a quick one tonight (fnarr fnarr) as I am currently on a course which culminates in a 60 minute theory test and a five hour practical exam on Thursday and I have revision to do.
Revision at my age? I'm forty fucking two years of age (nearly), and I shouldn't be revising. Still, it's all for a good cause, I suppose. Me!!!

To make it worse, it's 109 miles away, so it's an hour and three quarters each way, traffic permitting.

I only say it is 109 miles away as that is what the sat-nav says. I suppose if I take the corners wide then I could probably stretch it to 110 miles. Or if I cut all the corners I could maybe get it down to 108 miles, or maybe a little less. I have four more journeys (as I am staying in a hotel Wednesday night) to try it out, I'll let you know the results.

Well, back to the revision I suppose. Told you it was gonna be short.............
(I hate this advert......)

Sunday 19 June 2011

Sunday 19th June 2011

It's a dilemma.

You know, I'm going on holiday in a weeks time. Not been on holiday for a million years so I thought I would treat meslef. Fuck me upside down, how bastard expensive is it?
I don't really mean the actual holiday itself, although that was expensive enough, but I had to buy a new camera. I know I didn't 'have' to, but I'm buggered if I'm spending all that money and not having any photos to show for it, so I spent more money to record what I'd spent all that money on.

Then yesterday I thought I had better buy a couple of new t-shirts and stuff. So I went into town and bought a couple of new t-shirts, five actually. And three polo shirts. And two linen shirts (one short sleeved and one long sleeved with buttons to convert into a short sleeved). And a linen suit. And two pairs of shorts. A pair of shoes to go with the suit and two pairs of flip flops. And a sun hat.

Then, of course, you need suntan lotion. At over ten quid a bottle that aint cheap. Two bottles of that, a couple bottles of aftersun moisturiser, jungle spray, mosquito repellent, mosquito repelling plug, paracetamol, Imodium, first aid kit, sewing kit, glasses repair kit, electric plug adaptor, travel iron, washing powder, travel shaving gel, deodorant, shower gel, shampoo.

To top it all, I had to buy a suitcase weighing thing to make sure I hadn't bought so much fucking stuff that my luggage would be too heavy and cost me more money.

Did I say I had to pay extra to make sure I was sitting next to Liz on the plane? I did? Good.

Went to the pictures last night. £15 to get in. For two, so not so bad. Could have paid an extra £2.50 to have the VIP seats, but these just seemed to have bigger armrests. Maybe they should be called the FAT seats. More room to overspill. To top it off, a drink of coke and a bucket of popcorn cost over seven quid.

Fuck me each way over, the World is getting more and more expensive.

Still, took the dog out for a walk to the woods this afternoon, that cost nowt.............

Friday 17 June 2011

Friday 17th June 2011

And the winner is......

Forgot to say, got my replacement camera yesterday. It was actually delivered the day before but this time it was left at the Post Office and not with the next-door neighbour so I only picked it up yesterday morning. Funny really, the first one they send is by courier, but the replacement is just by ordinary Royal Mail. Even more funnier is that the first one took about a week to arrive, the replacement took two days. Do you think they keep a
stock of replacements?
I must say though, I am most impressed with the after sales service by Amazon. No questions (except what is wrong with it) and they send a replacement to you straight away. Don't even wait for the knackered one to be sent back. And, they refund you with the postage, allegedly, although I'm not entirely sure how they pay you. Time will tell, I suppose. So off I went and took some photos. There's one, on the left. Taken in back and white. It has loads of features, but the best bit about this one is that it actually takes photographs.

Contrary to popular belief, eight out of ten cats don't actually prefer Kit-e-Kat. They really don't give a fuck as long as they get fed.
But apparently, they are not too keen on Kit Kats.

I hear Brucie is to get a knighthood at long last. How old is Brucie now? He must be about 400 years old. Almost old enough to know the Templar Knights in fact.

Not long now till I go on me holipops. Going shopping tomorrow to get stuff like clothes and shit. I went online today to reserve seats on the plane as me and Liz rather fancied sitting next to each other on the first and last days of our holiday. Thirty fucking quid. Thirty bastard fucking quid just to make sure that you and the person who have, between you, paid a hell of a lot of money to go somewhere sunny and keep a load of bastards in work, can sit together on the plane. You would think that, as part of the hundreds and hundreds of pounds (and I am not talking about a couple of hundreds, we're talking four figures) you would automatically sit together.

No wonder I haven't been abroad for fourteen years.............

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Wednesday 15th June 2011

Hip Replacement eh!?!?!

I saw, on Farcebook, that Blackberries have voice control. Not the fruit (obviously) but the
phone,successfully manufactured by 'Research in Motion'. It was on a status put on there by my stalker, so I was stalking the stalker if you like, but anyhoo it was to say that if you get bored and want a laugh, then try it out. I'm paraphrasing there as I can't remember exactly what she said and I can't be arsed to look, to be honest, but you get the gist.
So I looked for the way way to do it, thinking it would be useful for when I was driving. Health and Safety and all that shit. But could I find it? Could I buggery.

My stalker (I can't tell you her real name, as she is anonymous), who I will call Shazza, told me it was the little button on the left of the phone. BIG problemo, I don't have a little button on the left. I have three buttons on the right but these either alter the volume or turn the camera on and operate the zoom.

The only way I could find out to do it was to do a search for 'voice' and then select 'voice dial' and then speak. That involves either tapping the screen or pressing the keys seven times prior to speaking.
Not very Health and Safety friendly methinks. It's easier, and probably safer, to pick up the phone and dial.

Liz is uploading photos onto Farcebook. She didn't know how to do it. So I showed her. You have to do stuff like click a button that says 'add photos' if you want to add a photo, click another that says 'publish album' if you want to publish an album and stuff like that. I had to show here a few times, but she has finally got the hang of it, after uploading around 200 photos.............

Tuesday 14 June 2011

Tuesday 14th June 2011 pt 2: A sad true story (allegedly)

The following was sent to me by a bloke who has, since he turned 40, tried to run more miles than Wile E Coyote's adversary.
Apparently it is true, at least Blokey says it is, and I have no reason to dis-believe him.............

"My 9 year old went away with the Cubs for the weekend just gone, and I have to say I was horrified by what I saw when I dropped him off and by what I heard when he got back.
I saw Scouts turning up not with neatly packed rucksacks and sleeping mats, but wheeling brightly coloured suitcases. Pillows strapped to the outside and a mother in tow clutching a bin bag full of duvet.
I saw a van, a shiny new van I might add, being piled high with luxuries the like of which I have never seen at a Scout hut. There were deep fat fryers, giant garden games, microwave ovens and even a portable television FFS.
When I dropped him off, they asked me for 3 quid for him to spend at the shop. The shop? What shop? Surely you're going to be in a field for the weekend? Where's the shop requirement? He's already got everything he needs, I know it because I helped him pack. He hasn't got half the stuff on your 'list' though, because I fail to see why he would "need" 3 pairs of shoes and 4 jumpers when he is only away for 48 hours. He also doesn't have shampoo and shower gel, because why on earth would he need a shower? I EXPECT and HOPE that he comes home wet, stinking and covered in mud. I'll be asking questions of you if he doesn't TBH
But of course I was disappointed, he came home smelling fresh with spotless clothes
and full of tales of chicken nuggets and chips for dinner and of small 3 man tents put up by the Leaders. He was also full of cake, because you stupidly asked each kid to bring a cake. So they did, but with the parents not wanting to be outdone by each other, they all ended up bringing enough cake for the whole troop. Result? He ate 7 cakes after lunch.
It just isn't Scouting, well not as I know it anyway.
I know the Scout Association has to evolve to survive. It must feel it has to offer modern luxuries on camp to even stand a hope of dragging it's members away from their Playstations or XBoxes for the weekend, but come on! You can do better than this! I understand that things can't be the same as when I was a Scout, the days of being dropped off in a field with three matches and a string of sausages are long gone - but surely we can do better than this?
At least encourage them to look the part. Ban the suitcases and duvets, if you have enough money for a spanky new van and mini bus, you have enough spare cash have a stock of rucksacks and sleeping bags, even if the parents can't afford them themselves at least then they can borrow from your supplies. Get rid of the microwaves and the depedency on electricity, it can be done I promise you. I have spent hundreds of nights under canvas both as a Scout and holidaying with my family and not once have I resorted to electricity.
You don't NEED deep fat fryers. Educate them on fire building and wood chopping - you'll just have to accept the risk that some of them will put the skills to ill use. Break them into groups and let them cook for themselves. Of course some of them will poisen themselves, but who cares? It's all part of the learning experience and they'll know better for next time.
If my kid came home saying he spent 6 hours throwing up undercooked sausages that he'd cooked himself, I'd be proud of him - at least he had the opportunity to try. Just as I would if he said he'd had no sleep the first night because it took them 11 hours to put their own tent up and the boy in the next sleeping bag wet himself. Brilliant son, next time hopefully you'll get it done in under 10. Lets hope so."

Tuesday 14th June 2011

Someone once said "Lasagne, the World's most perfect food."

Another warm one today, the sun was out the sky was blue, and I was stuck in my office. I would have said it was a hot, but did I tell you I was going to Egypt soon? It's fuck off hot there.

I have been thinking about a new tattoo for a while now, and I was sitting at my desk the other day when my eyes rested on a wooden box I have sitting just by the base of my monitor. It is a box that my Dad bought in Jerusalem when he went there with me mum on their honeymoon and he gave it to my Grandma. I got it when she died and I think it may be made out of wood from a tree that Jesus once touched. Or at least walked by.

At this juncture, I must just add that I am half way through a pizza. But more of that later.

Anyhoo, back to the box. The box has a pattern of crosses on the lid. A large cross in the middle with a smaller cross in each quarter. So I used this and adapted it into my own design. At least I thought it was my own design as I was sitting there drawing it. I was quite pleased with it but thought it lacked something.
So I went to a tattooist for some advice. The tattooist thought that it needed filling with something as I had just done the outline. I am in two minds as to whether I should leave them as outlines or not but I thought I would not rush into anything. When I got home a started to modify. I sort of 3D'd the centre cross and I was reasonably pleased with the result but it looked somewhat familiar.
For a long while I couldn't put my finger on it. Couldn't think why it looked familiar. I racked my brain, but it didn't come to me. So I went for a smoke and, fuck me sideways it fell on me like an anvil in an old cartoon.

Needless to say, I aint getting it done now. I like smoking, but not that much.

I thought I would try my hand at a bit of proper journalism the other day. I thought I would do a survey, a proper one, one that people would find interesting. So I googled 'things people think of'. It brought up 'About 1,730,000,000 results' in '(0.14 seconds)'. All of them were crap so I decided to to a survey on the number of Men's sexual partners. Next question was "where to start?". I chose Wales, and there was my biggest mistake. You see, in England's biggest county it's very difficult to get a true picture.
I asked about twenty men to count the number of sexual partners they had had, and every last one of them fell asleep whilst doing so.

I'm on the ice cream now. And, by the way, it was Garfield. Not the cricketer but the fat cat.

I have a funny story to tell, not my own but one that was sent to me. Supposedly true (I have now reason to think why it wouldn't be) but I'll have to tell you tomorrow.............

Monday 13 June 2011

Monday 13th June 2011

@uk is a tweeter. He/she has a twitter account. He/she has not made any tweets yet. Not one. Nada, nought, zilch, zero. But he/she has 4830 followers. How is this possible? Is he/she the second coming? Maybe David Icke in disguise.

I bought a camera the other day. Bought it off Amazon and it was a good deal. Well I was
really looking forward to it being delivered. Today, at about twenty to two, I happened to look on the Amazon website and saw, on the 'Track Your Order' thingy that my order had been delivered seven minutes earlier and was at my next-door-neighbour's house. So when I got home, I barely had time to put my stuff inside, visit Paul's house and put the shopping away before I was knocking on the door next door. Batteries in, instruction booklet quickly browsed, I went to take my first photo.

Well fuck me gently, the fucking thing doesn't bastard work does it? Turn it on and the screen on the back turns on. It will record videos and it will zoom in and out. But the fucking shutter button doesn't work. The shutter button, you know, the one that you press to take a freaking photograph, doesn't bastard work. Now a camera that doesn't take photographs is about as useful as a catapult without a schoolboy.
But I have told Amazon that it is faulty and they have promised to send another one in the next 1 - 2 days. So that'll be good, it means I will still have it before I go on holiday.
I got attacked by a bottle of chilli sauce tonight. Envy, it was. I was looking forward to it and it must have realised because as I opened it, it ejaculated all over my hand. It spurted over the kitchen sink too. Shame really as it looked quite nice before I opened the bottle. Had Kiwi fruit in it and everything.

Anyhoo, they say bad things happen in threes. Well I've had my camera and I've had my kiwi fruit chilli sauce. So what next?

I'm watching 'The Whole Ten Yards' on the telly at the mo and, although it's fairly funny in places, I have just realised that I really should have watched 'The Whole Nine Yards' and I would probably be understanding this one a bit better. Things like; why has Bruce Willis gone a bit doolally and what is Matthew Perry doing and who are all the others. Stuff like that. And who ever heard of someone dying after they got shot in the foot?

Anyone know who @uk is yet? Let me know if you do.............

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Tuesday 7th June 2011

Bada boom, bada bing.............

Funny thing, I went to a well known and leading supermarket this evening (Tesco), the sun was shining and the sky was blue, but when I was in there I heard a noise like someone throwing stones at a window. Most people were looking up at the roof, me included, and it turned out it was rain. It was absolutely chucking it down, real proper storming. By the time I had bought me bits and bats it had stopped. As if it had never rained (well, except the ground was wet) and the sun was back out.

Well I booked me holipops today, eleven nights in Egypt in a five star complex, all inclusive with private transfers to and from the airport and everything. Even got a free upgrade to a suite too, so we can really live it up. Happy, happy fucking days. Wouldn't mind learning how to dive whilst I'm over there, but I might settle for a Camel ride. Must remember the hand gel though, cause I've heard they have dirty money over there. Not dodgy or anything, but plain skanky.

I read a review on t'interweb where someone was moaning that they had to tip everyone to get any decent service in the resort, even down to the room cleaners in order to have the room cleaned properly. Now stop me if I am wrong, but in this country we have something called the 'minimum wage' so everyone gets a half decent wage. Over there they probably don't. The room cleaners probably get paid about 27p a week to clean about 400 rooms everyday. Probably.

Now, the going rate for tipping Egyptian bedroom cleaners is 10EP per day. That's 10 Egyptian Pounds. 10EP equates to approximately £1. One of your English pounds. I'm going on holiday for ten days and eleven nights. That's ten quid in total. I'm sure I can manage that and it's probably about a years wages for the poor sap doing the hard work. Let's face it, if I can afford £**** to go on holiday for less than two weeks then an extra tenner aint gonna hurt anyone.

Did you know, or maybe realise, that 'Walk Like an Egyptian' by The Bangles was a hit in
1986?
That's 25 years ago!! What was the name of the singer with the sexy voice? You know, the one that sings about the cops in the donut shop? Susanna Hoffs, that's what it was. Still is in actual fact. She's 59 now, but she doesn't look bad for it. I used to quite fancy her. Looking at the picture on the left, I would say that I probably still do, but the Mrs will probably read this at some point so I'd better keep schtum.

Collected the latest additions to the collection today, The Seven Deadly Sins. Seven bottles of sinful chilli sauce. They aint too hot, but by fuck they taste good. Well the ones I have tasted today do anyhoo. No doubt they won't last that long, but hey I'll have to buy more won't I?
Gotta say thanks to me old chilli mate Ben for ordering. I say he's my mate, but after seeing his 'new' car today I think I may have to revise my opinion of him. What bloke, in their right mind would buy a green Vauxhall Tigra. And if that weren't friggin bad enough, who would put a little toy monkey cuddly toy thing on the dashboard and impale a foamy head thing on the aerial?

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Friday 3 June 2011

Friday 3rd June 2011

I say, I say, I say...

It's hot today, the temperature gauge thingie in the car said it was 26 degrees and the sky was blue without a cloud to spoil it. And so, what did I see when I was out driving earlier? Some fucking numpty twat driving a convertible with the roof up.
You cannot possibly fathom how much that annoys the shit out of me!
We don't get THAT many sunny days in this country, and you pay extra for the 'luxury' of being able to put the roof down and have windswept hair, so why keep the top up when the sun makes an appearance?
If you don't like the roof down, why the fuck did you buy a rag-top in the first place?
If you aint gonna go topless on days like today, when would ya? Jeez.

And another thing, when the temperature gauge thingie in my car says it is 26 degrees, how accurate is that? The temperature reading is always hotter when the car is stationary and then drops when I start moving. Does this happen because when it is moving the wind cools it down? Is this taken into consideration when designing and manufacturing temperature gauge thingies in cars and does it compensate itself depending at what speed you are going?
I have a black car, a Renault Megane which is very nice but the bluetooth is playing up. Every time I take of make a call it disconnects itself afterwards on the car bit but the phone thinks it is still connected. Confuses the shit out of my phone, and I have to turn the phone bluetooth off and on again to make it re-connect. Anyhoo I digress, does the colour of the car affect the reading of the temperature gauge thingie? I'm going to call the temperature gauge thingie the 'TGT' as I'm getting sick of writing 'temperature gauge thingie'.
If I wear a black shirt I certainly feel hotter on a sunny day than if I wear a white one. My TGT must think it constantly has a black shirt on. Maybe it has got used to it.

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Wednesday 1st June 2011

In the Port of Amsterdam.

I was in the town today and I happened to walk past on of the big cheap versions of a
Department Store.
Can't remember the name of it, Hughes or something but that's not the point. In the shop window there were some mattresses for sale. Memory foam mattresses. And these mattresses were in boxes that were not big enough for a mattress, not unless it was rolled up. Now I have never tried to roll up a mattress but I would imagine it to be quite tricky. Unless, of course, the mattress in question was extremely thin and cheap and shite, which I would imagine these were.
What made me wonder though, what really made me wonder, was that if these mattresses were made from memory foam and they were rolled up in a box, how could you use them? Unless you were a cigar. Surely the mattress's memory would kick in every time you tried to flatten them out.

I suppose they could have the memory of a Goldfish, some say only ten seconds long, but then that would be a bit of a shitty
memory mattress in my opinion. The mattress would forget it's position every time you changed position, and if you were a restless sleeper, one who tosses and turns, it would be a complete nightmare. The mattress would not know what to do and would probably go mad.
And then you would wake up in the morning in a really foul mood and possibly stay in a foul mood all day, so I didn't think it was really worth buying.

We've got "Britain's Got Talent" on the tele, deep joy, and there has just been some street dancers on, as there is every year. Now you have to remember that this is BRITAIN's Got Talent and although I may live in a small village in the North of the country (it aint really THAT far North!) I do travel around a lot, but I have never ever seen any street dancers on any street anywhere. Where the fuck are they all?

I must be walking down the wrong streets, anyhoo I'm off to Reading tomorrow, maybe I'll see some there.............