Wednesday 31st August 2011

With Easter eggs in January and Christmas lights in June, anything that's barely over's coming back real soon.

Back to the A1 and I had to endure more slow moving traffic. This time it was the Army.

Loads of them too; Landrovers, trucks with guns, Troop carriers and the like. No fucker was going to argue with THEM so we all filed by nice and sedately. They do a good job, but I did wonder where they were going, as they headed South down the A1. Did they know something I didn't? (they probably know loads of stuff I don't, but that's another story).
Why do they always have their headlights on though? All camouflaged and stuff so you can't see them and then they go and light themselves up nice and bright and give the game away. Silly fuckers, it's no wonder our soldiers have to be so good, they never have the element of surprise.

Anyhoo, about ten miles down the road I passed a whole heap of Police riot vans heading North. 'You've got no chance', I thought, the soldier boys are a lot bastard harder than you lot so if your going up there all lairy like and looking for a scuffle then I wouldn't bother, you'll get your collective asses whuped.

What's the collective noun for asses? Not that I really need to know, but I may want to used it for some strange reason in the future.
Everyone knows a flock of Sheep, or a colony of Penguins (thanks to one of the Attenboroughs, can't remember which), and even a parliament of Owls (or Rooks) but what about Peacocks or Ravens? What about Leopards or Weasels? Jellyfish? Iguanas? Pedlars, Deans or Hermits?

Fuck me collectively, I'm boring meslef now so I really pity you lot!

Driving along Dearne Valley Parkway I noticed a few benches dotted alongside the road. Now this aint a quiet country lane, this is a proper busy one. Cars often scream along

three abreast. Now why the fuck would you want to put benches in this sort of location? And, more to the point, why would someone want to sit on them? I did think at first that it may be for the elderly, but then I came to my senses. Why would old folk want to walk along this sort of road when they can get free bus travel? If they walked along the road they may get sucked right off the pavement into the path of a fast moving articulated lorry and squashed and mangled and killed and stuff.

Driving up the M1, heading North, I saw another load of Army vehicles heading South. Reinforcements for the A1 convoy I suppose, doing a delayed pincer movement them probably.

Muster, unkindness, leap, sneak, stuck, mess, malapertness, decanter and observants.............

Tuesday 30th August 2011

Mirror in the bathroom please talk free, the door is locked just you and me.

Now I've got nothing against farmers, quite on the contrary as I think they do a fairly reasonable job what with all the animals they grow

to provide us with food and drink and stuff, but when they drive their tractors down the A1 at thirteen minutes past eleven, when I am trying to get to a meeting, then they really fuck me off.
At 1113hrs, shouldn't they be secretly spraying crops with insecticide or putting up scarecrows or something, not driving down the A1 at 15mph causing road rage and high blood pressure.

And before you say it, I appreciate that Farmer Brown has to get from one field to another, or one farm to another, but why does he have to go down the A1? It's not like he has to stick to the roads, is it? He has the best 4x4 going, I mean how often do you see a tractor stuck in the mud? Never, that's when. It's tractors that pull stupid saps like me out of the mud, but their aint no mud on the A1 Farmer Brown.
And which way did they go before the A1 was invented? Not down the A1, that's for sure. They probably went across fields that are now full of Rape Seed or Corn on the Cob or something.

Oh well, I got there in the end so no harm done.

There was a story on the radio today, probably on the Jeremy Vine show but I didn't hear

it on there as I was in my meeting (sorry Jeremy, I know you read this) but it's the sort of thing he would debate most excellently, about how women live longer than men. It's all to do with how we sleep, apparently. Someone somewhere, probably in a back street school in Sweden, has done some scientific research into how men don't sleep as well as women. Men are more stressed, you see, and they cannot turn their brains off at night. Women, on the other hand, have very little to be stressed about and therefore sleep more soundly.
Sounds like the sort of research that Professor Norton Folgate would carry out, but no, not this time.

And it makes sense I suppose, if you think about it logically (women, look away now).

Men have all the stressful high powered jobs whilst women are used to gentler tasks, like needlework, cookery and taking tea with the ladies.
Men, meanwhile, have to go out into the world and be the providers, the hunters and the gatherers and it's a dangerous world, let me tell you. It's a world full of farmers driving along busy main roads at 15mph. Now THAT'S stressful.

Monday 29th August 2011

It was Four Tops all night with encores from stage right.

Monday night and it feels like a Sunday. Had quite a quiet weekend, all in all.
Didn't do much on Friday as it was pishing down all day so just mooched about round the house.
Saturday came and we took the Jezebel for a nice walk up to the woods. She worried me all the time we were out as I had visions of her stitches splitting and her entrails spilling out. Silly mare would probably have ate them if they had, so they wouldn't have gone to waste. As we were in the woods she did her usual and found an old plastic bottle to play with. All's well that ends well though and we all made it home in one piece.

We went to an 'Event Day' at Bolsover Castle on Sunday. It was advertised as a chance to 'Hear the sound of clashing swords at Bolsover Castle this bank holiday as our battling barons show off their skills in the tournee ring. Children can take part in a mini battle of their own and the hobby horse joust is sure to keep them entertained. Visitors will also get to meet a variety of medieval folk including an executioner, herbalist and Spicer as well as our brave knights'.

Well, when we got there the children had just finished their mini battle but there were no fatalities. Quite glad I missed it really, it was obviously a fairly boring battle if no one was killed. They need to sharpen their swords methinks.

Didn't see many Knights floating around, to be honest, there were five blokes and a couple women but they did quite well playing several roles each. Weren't really convincing as a full scale battle though, sort of lacked authenticity, what with there being only seven of them.

I think the castle needs more work too. I appreciate that it is a bit run down, and that's part of it's charm, but when you pay eight and a half quid to get in you expect to see more than a load of empty rooms. One room wasn't quite empty as they hadn't fully cleared up after a recent wedding. They had a load of fake feathers left on a table and some of the name things for telling people where they have to sit.

Funny, when you go to a wedding, the organisers always think it is a good idea to put people together 'to get to know each other'. Well I think that's bollocks, I would rather sit with people I know and have a laugh, not have to endure the awkward silences that always occur. And then if you want to talk to your wife / husband / girlfriend / boyfriend / partner / lover etc you feel the need to whisper so you don't annoy or offend anyone else at your table.
I always find the best way to break the ice is to fart really really loudly and then stare at the person next to you (the OTHER side to your wife / husband / girlfriend / boyfriend / partner / lover etc). It's a talking point.

Today, we went to Clumber Park. It's a National Trust site so, as I am old and a member, it's free to get in. We took the Jezebel again, as her stitches are

still stitched up, and she seemed to enjoy it. She had a Mini Milk, which went in about two gulps, so I was glad I didn't buy her one of the more expensive ice creams like the one I bought myslef and Liz. They had the waffle cones, and I thought they may make her a bit hyper, and I didn't really want that.
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I really don't want the whole entrail thing, especially not at home, it would make such a mess.
Mind you, when she had her pups there was no mess. Well there was but she cleared it all up.
With her tongue.
She ate goose shit today too. I'm sure the antibiotics she is on is increasing her appetite.
Not that eating goose shit has anything to do with that, as she always does it whether she is on antibiotics or not.

Thursday 25th August 2011

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?

I was driving home from work today, as I do every time I go to work, when I drove past a bus stop not far from my house. At the bus stop was a queue of elderly folk, all past the age of seventy I would say. It may not seem very funny to you, but it made me laugh. And why did it make me laugh, you are probably asking yourself? Well the bus stop where they were all queueing is right next to a Funeral Home and it looked just like............

I thought they were just being extremely well prepared. Either that, or the home had a special offer one today.

Went to Stratford yesterday. We are building a hotel on the High Street, just in time for the Olympics I suppose. I was going there with one of our Site Managers who lives in Walthamstow. His postcode is E17, sounds like a name of an Eighties band to me. Anyhoo, I park my car on his road, as there was no permit restrictions there, and we got public transport to Stratford. First leg was on a bus. A double decker it was. Now the last time I went on a double decker bus was when I lived in Somerset and we went out for the night. We were in a small town out in the sticks and we missed the last bus home. This was because the last bus was the one that took us there in the first place.
Well, it was too far to walk, but fortunately we were in the town where they parked the buses at night, so we decided to steal one. It took us ages to get a double decker out of the parking bays but we had to have a double decker as we all smoked and you could only smoke on a double decker, and then it had to be one the top deck. It wasn't allowed on at all on a single decker and we didn't want to get into trouble by smoking on one if we had nicked one of them.

Anyways, digressing back, we got the bus to the train station where the tube ticket cost me £7.40. When I realised that we were only going one stop, I also realised that the fucking ticket man and ripped me off. Unless he thought I wanted a ticket to get to Stratford-on-Avon. The twat.

When we finally travelled the one one stop to Stratford, we re-surfaced and the Site Manager I was with, to avoid any potential embarrassment I shall call him 'Dom', led the way to the site. As 'Dom' was a local man, I duly followed as we traipsed along the High

Street.

We did see a HUGE crane, a bit like the picture but in red. In fact we saw it twice, as we soon realised that we were going the wrong way. We found this out when we could see Tower Bridge approaching so we thought we had better turn back before we went too far. Dom tried to absolve himself of all blame by saying he didn't actually live around here, but fuck me all through the streets of London, he oughta know the way around somewhere that is only a one stopper away, even if it does cost £7.40 to get there.

Me stalker is back, she had a good holiday by all accounts and now is back to normality.
Happy Days, and welcome back.............

Tuesday 23rd August 2011

I was accused of having a memory like a Goldfish the other day.

This was obviously a reference to my sometime poor memory, but it got me thinking.

Why do people think that Goldfish have a memory span of ten seconds? Is it just a presumption as the majority of them swim around in a small bowl, and if they had longer memories then they would go mad? Or has some sort of scientific survey been carried out?
I'm thinking it is the former, as trying to carry out a scientific survey with a bunch of Goldfish would be crazy.

Unless, of course, the survey was carried out by a fish.

Let's face it, a human wouldn't be able to do a survey, as I doubt many humans can speak Fish. And, I would imagine, even fewer can speak the Gold dialect.
So a Goldfish carrying out the survey would be the obvious solution.

But this would, in itself, be slightly problematic.
For a start, how would the Goldfish doing the survey get around to all the other Goldfish that it wanted to question?
One way, I suppose, would be to hang around Fun Fairs. You always get a bunch of Goldfish hanging around them. And they could enrol other fish, the ones that get won, to continue the survey on their behalf, if the homes that they go to already have a fish in residence.

In this day and age with all kinds of communication available, they could send back the results by many different ways.

The biggest problem, however, would be that the Goldfish asking the questions would quite possibly forget what he was supposed to be asking.
And then he may forget why he was asking them.
If he didn't forget what or why and managed to make a note of all the necessary answers then he would almost certainly forget where he was supposed to send the results (unless he sent them really really quickly) but then he would probably forget who to send them to.

If he was smart, which we all know he won't be otherwise he wouldn't be a fish, then he would have remembered to write down the email address of the person he had to send the results to, that's if he could remember their name. But then he would have to remember where he put it whilst he carried out the survey.

But, and it's a big but, if he remembered what questions he had to ask, and he remembered why he was asking them, and he remembered where he had to send the answers, and he remembered who he had to send them to, would it be any good?

Cause I bet the Goldfish who commissioned the survey would have forgotten all about it and gone to the Fun Fair for a ride on the dodgems or something.

Friday 12th August 2011

There'll be white cliffs over.....

Well it's been a long time. Not really, it's been about five days but a lot has happened in the last five days.
There have been loads of riots, in case you hadn't noticed, and I went Go-Karting yesterday. It was fucking A, I came third. I would have finished first but I wasn't as fast as the two who finished ahead of me. It's funny though, we were racing for half an hour and it don't half make your arms ache.

Have been watching Torchwood. I reported earlier (reported, what a pretentious twat), I mentioned earlier that I thought it was too Americanised, and I still do but I have to admit that I still like it. Bizzarely, the BBC iPlayer thingy on t'interweb wouldn't let me watch it for a couple of nights. The sound and vision was all out of sync and I was hearing the audio before the action but then again as the action happened. Headfuck happened. But every cloud has a sliver of a lining as I watched Shooting Stars instead, and that was fucking hilarious.

I'm going to the VW Festival at Harewood House on Sunday and I really can't wait. Liz is under strict instructions not to let me buy a car. Hopefully I'll win one, but if I don't I may have to buy one to cheer myslef up.
I'll put a link up for it so you know where it is and go along.
The first Beetle I had was a beaut. It was a cream colour and was in showroom condition. Well as showroom as a car of that age could be. It really was a nice car. I drove the twenty or so miles home with a grin in my face so wide it you would have thought I had a coathanger in my mouth.
It was five o'clock on a Saturday afternoon when I picked it up, I remember my mum following me home, watching me as I drove my dream car.
Unfortunately that was not just the first time she saw that car but also one of the last as I wrote it off at nine o'clock that evening.
Four hours. Four Fucking Hours. Not long to own your dream car. Icried for almost as long as I owned the car.
The following Friday I went out and bought another one. A right dog, at least one dent in every panel, but I loved it all the same. Had that one for about six months and it was great. Happy days.
That was back in 1987, it's about time I had another one.............

Sunday 7th August 2011

Shake what yo momma gave ya.............

There must have been trouble around here this afternoon, the police helicopter was floating around. Wonder what they would have thought had they seen me taking the photo on the right?!?

I keep typing the wrong keys. I used to have a netbook, with a 10" screen, and the keyboard was exactly the same width as the computer. When I say I USED to have a netbook, I'm telling a bit of a fib as I still have it. I've loaned it to Liz on a long term loan until I can find something better to do with it. Like give it to Liz. Anyhoo, I now have a big laptop. And when I say big, I don't just mean it's bigger than the netbook, it's fucking huge. The screen is 17.3" and the keyboard has the number pad to the side, like a stand-a-lone keyboard. This means, however, that the keys are all to the left of where they once were. Well they have always been there, but they're not what I've gotton used to and you know what I mean.
The bloke in the shop told me that he could do a deal on the software and the deal would include a wireless mouse, a memory stick and a bag. Trouble was, the majority of the bags they had were for 15.6" laptops, so they had to find me a more expensive one. I had to pay a little extra for the bag, but I got the smaller bag as well so I'm gonna sell that on ebay or something.

Went shopping with the boys on Friday. It was quite good fun, although a tad expensive. I had birthday presents to buy for the pair of them and one of the things I bought them was a football shirt each. We were in the West Ham shop (we were in Lakeside in Essex at the time) getting a shirt for the younger one when elder son said he quite liked it. The bloke in the shop found it quite funny when I pointed out to the hapless eleven year old that he was an Arsenal supporter!
Got him the Arsenal away shirt, which is quite nice, to be fair. I wouldn't wear one myslef, but they look OK on someone else. From a distance. For a short period of time.............

Saturday 6th August 2011

Never felt more like singing the blues.

It seems like I forgot to mention that in order to follow me on Twatter, you have to have a Twatter account. Well I say I forgot to mention it, I didn't forget I just thought it pretty fucking obvious that you would need one. It's like asking you to be my 'friend' on Farcebook without you having a Farcebook account. It wouldn't fucking work, would it.

I wouldn't normally be so cruel, but I know my stalker is in Scotland at the moment, and I'm pretty sure they don't have t'interweb up there yet. It'll be ages before she sees this, and she'll be all loved up anyway so she won't care. [Hope you are having a great time stalker]

Anyhoo, back to Twatter. I don't only have four followers anymore, I have six. SIX. Some bird from Winsconsin who will probably be deleted for being a sex-pest [apologies if you are not a sex-pest, but people who have URLs under their profile name that include three Xs and the word 'images' usually are] is one of them and the other one is only some bloke called Jeremy Vine.

Not really some bloke called Jeremy Vine, it only bastard well is the REAL Jeremy Vine.
This probably makes me eligible for the next series of Celebrity Big Brother.
Come to think of it, seeing as Davina isn't presenting it, maybe I could. Unless Jeremy is, of course.
Apparently Davina couldn't present this series as she is not pregnant, as she has been for all the previous 44 series. It's no wonder she has to dye her hair.

Gotta say, Up the Gas, and Fuck the City, as Bristol Rovers won today and the shit team from south of the river got hammered. I won't dwell on it, Liz is getting pissy.............

Thursday 4th August 2011

Whaddya know? Jeremy Vine joins Twatter and within a couple of days he has over 26 and a half thousand followers and he has written jack shit. Absolutely naff all. Nothing against the fella, I'm one of his 26 odd thousand followers, but my point is, I have been Twatting for some time now and I have 4 followers. Not 4 hundred, 4 thousand or 4 million, but 4. Just 4.

Yesterday morning Mr Vine had 200, now over 26000.
And I write loads of stuff, ok mostly shite, but at least it is marginally entertaining.
And I now have a 'Follow' button. It's up there at the top, on the left. All you have to do is click it. It don't take long.

I've told you about HMV claiming that King Kurt never existed haven't I? Well what I want to know is, who am I listening to right now? Mind you, I have found some stuff on t'interweb but it aint cheap. Or if it is it is second hand and in bad nick.

Going shopping tomorrow with a nearly 6 year old and an eleven year old. I have to buy both of them birthday presents and neither of them know what they want. I don't really know what they are in to (one of the sad facts of being an absent father) so I can never surprise them.
Well I can. Sometimes I sneak up behid them and shout BOO really loud but this normally makes them cry. So I have to stop myslef doing it, in public at least.

Anyhoo, don't forget to go to the top of the page and hit that little 'Follow' button. It won't make you any happier, but it may mean a lot to me.

Fuck, that's cheesey. And I don't mean it. But I still want you to click it.............

Wednesday 3rd August 2011

I know you're antiseptic, your deodorant smells nice. I'd like to get to know you but you're deep frozen like the ice.

I was driving up the M1 today (I think. I know it was today, but it may have been the M40) when I entered some roadworks with a 50mph speed limit and average speed cameras. As I entered the roadworks, the matrix sign said "Leicester 15 miles 15 minutes" which made me think. To do 15 miles in 15 minutes I would need to do an average of 60 miles per hour (60mph = 1 mile a minute, for all you thickies). To do this I have two choices: [1] to drive ALL the way at 60mph but this would mean breaking the speed limit through the roadworks and get a speeding ticket or [2] drive through the roadworks at 50mph and then work out for how long I would have to increase my speed and to what speed once I had passed the roadworks to get the average to 60mph, because as I had been driving under the average for a time I would have to drive for the same distance at the same difference of speed as before but in the positive and not the negative.

If I did that, I would crash. And I probably wouldn't even notice.

I am eating some "White Snowies" and fuck me everywhichway they are noisy. If you don't know what White Snowies are, use the Google button. But use it with caution my friend because you never know what you may find.

Liz's windscreen wipers broke yesterday. We had to get them fixed today. She rang me and asked what I thought the maximum she should pay to have them fixed was. Now there aint a lot I know about cars. I know where the driver's seat is and I know how to sit in it. I also know how to turn the steering wheel and press the necessary pedals at the same time. Who says that it's only women who can multitask?

Anyhoo, I digress. It didn't really matter how much the repair to the wipers cost, they had to be fixed. She needs the car for work and she could hardly ring work every time it rained to say that she couldn't come in today due to the weather, could she?
So it's done, and just in time as we had a thunderstorm tonight.

Can you imagine though, when the first car was invented and made and the first ever car salesman was trying to sell it? "So Sir, you sit here and hold this large round thing. You have to press this pedal, here, and the car will move forward. Yes Sir, by itself. Turn the large round thing, we shall call it the 'Steering Wheel', every time you want to turn a corner and this will turn the two wheels at the front. No you don't have to get out of the car to turn them Sir, they will turn themselves and if you tried it you would run yourslef over. To stop? Should you wish to stop, Sir, just press the left pedal."

Ask yourself this. Would YOU believe the man who told you this if all you had ever used for transport was a horse?

I would recommend a blog to you, but if you go off and read it you may never come back. It's this but make sure you read it once then leave it a fucking lone.............

Tuesday 2nd August 2012

It's good news week,someone's dropped a bomb somewhere contaminating atmosphere and blackening the sky.

I have a dilemma, and this is it. I am entering a photo competition and I do not know which photo to enter. It's a 'Countryfile' competition and the top twelve photos will make up the 2012 calendar, in aid of Children in Need. There are twelve classes and I am going for the "Insects and Spiders" class and my dilemma is, do I submit the photograph on the left or the one on the right?
I originally preferred the one on the left but now I am

not so sure!
I'm sort of leaning towards the right. I actually prefer the right one, as a photograph, but part of me thinks the left one would look better on a calendar.
But I have done a poll on another website, and the overwhelming majority, so far even though it is early days, is for the yellowy one.

Alternately, I could take my camera with me tomorrow and hope I get some pics of some Red Kites and enter one of the other classes!!

Anyhoo, just a short, serious one tonight, please do comment and let me know which photo you think I should enter (and why). No prizes, just the satisfaction of being a good egg.............