10 Top Tips to Scare off the Halloween Trick or Treater Kids
1. Answer the door Naked
2. Wire the Door Knocker to the mains electricity
3. Pour the contents of last nights ‘potty’ out the upstairs window onto their heads (Watski this is one for you)
4. Look out the window with your face covered in clothes pegs
5. Stake the cat out across the front door covered in Tomato sauce or pigs blood if you can get it
6. Offer them real cow and pigs eyeballs as treats – healthy gobstoppers!
7. ‘Seed’ the front path with anti-personnel mines – that’ll make them hop it the little blighters!
8. Invite the Devil into your life and get him to open the door – its worth it in the long run
9. Throw eggs back at them – hardboiled 1000 year old Ostrich eggs!
10. Catch the first one in a foot noose and leave him dangling there over the front door as a warning until the parents/social workers/police and men in white coats come
Happy Holidays….
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
John Peel RIP
Goodbye John Peel (BBC Radio One DJ par excellence) your music allowed me to have my 'teenage kicks' and widened my knowledge of what was going on in the music world. I listened, you taught. Now you're really rocking with the rest of the dudes in music heaven.
Farting - the end of the world is nigh
What is it about farting that’s so funny?
Isn’t it ironic that farting will cause the end of the world as we know it! Not a great apocalypse as described in the Bible, not a huge flaming meteorite from outer space, nor aliens even but farts!
Farmers in New Zealand have to pay a ‘fart tax’ because of all the cows and sheep out there are farting us to death and are being blamed for the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic. My guess is that the rest of the livestock around the world, the farting millions of them also contribute so it is wrong just to blame the cows and sheep of NZ.
So farting is no joke.
Apparently the most popular toy this Christmas is going to be a farting robot! It’s just won toy of the year and was designed by some guy who worked at NASA. Hurrah isn’t it wonderful what technology is used for. Lets not work on useful technology, something that benefits humankind lets build a farting robot! Brilliant! Maybe we could come up with something to stop cows and sheep farting thus saving the world from a hot stinky death! Now that’s an idea - I’ll email NASA straight away! (Damn can you believe it someone’s already invented it – I bet Leonardo is spinning in his grave)
Another thing that worries me about farting (putting the end of the world aside) is fart protocol.
I guess number 1 is don’t fart in crowded lifts or airplanes.
I suppose number 2 is don’t fart in bed holding girlfriends head under covers shouting ‘Dutch Ovens’.
Where would lying in bed with girlfriend/boyfriend etc in ‘spoons’ position be in the protocol list should one let one go into the groin area of the opposite number? Or quickly spin over and play the Dutch Oven trick?
3.Farting in cars is a no no unless, of course, one is on their own.
4. Silent but deadlies are totally antisocial
5. Lighting farts – why?
6. Why do girls tell us they don’t fart? Is it so they will not be held responsible for the ozone layer thing and can blame us men along with the cows, sheep etc ‘cos we’re all brutal animals, for the end of the world?
7. Don’t fart when you’ve got an upset tummy – obvious reasons
8. This is a bit specialised but farting in space could be a problem. A. the capsule is very small with no windows so it’ll be there forever – you’d not be popular with your space colleagues B. Even worse if you’re in your spacesuit. C. If you were out space walking the resultant jet effect could have you the other side of Uranus before you could blink. (I don’t even want to think about the problems in the Russian spaceships – all that cabbage soup!)
9. Farting tunes – why?
10. Gratuitous Farting – it’s just impolite.
11. Don't brag about the 'Fart Art' in your pants unless you're Tracy Emin.
Isn’t it ironic that farting will cause the end of the world as we know it! Not a great apocalypse as described in the Bible, not a huge flaming meteorite from outer space, nor aliens even but farts!
Farmers in New Zealand have to pay a ‘fart tax’ because of all the cows and sheep out there are farting us to death and are being blamed for the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic. My guess is that the rest of the livestock around the world, the farting millions of them also contribute so it is wrong just to blame the cows and sheep of NZ.
So farting is no joke.
Apparently the most popular toy this Christmas is going to be a farting robot! It’s just won toy of the year and was designed by some guy who worked at NASA. Hurrah isn’t it wonderful what technology is used for. Lets not work on useful technology, something that benefits humankind lets build a farting robot! Brilliant! Maybe we could come up with something to stop cows and sheep farting thus saving the world from a hot stinky death! Now that’s an idea - I’ll email NASA straight away! (Damn can you believe it someone’s already invented it – I bet Leonardo is spinning in his grave)
Another thing that worries me about farting (putting the end of the world aside) is fart protocol.
I guess number 1 is don’t fart in crowded lifts or airplanes.
I suppose number 2 is don’t fart in bed holding girlfriends head under covers shouting ‘Dutch Ovens’.
Where would lying in bed with girlfriend/boyfriend etc in ‘spoons’ position be in the protocol list should one let one go into the groin area of the opposite number? Or quickly spin over and play the Dutch Oven trick?
3.Farting in cars is a no no unless, of course, one is on their own.
4. Silent but deadlies are totally antisocial
5. Lighting farts – why?
6. Why do girls tell us they don’t fart? Is it so they will not be held responsible for the ozone layer thing and can blame us men along with the cows, sheep etc ‘cos we’re all brutal animals, for the end of the world?
7. Don’t fart when you’ve got an upset tummy – obvious reasons
8. This is a bit specialised but farting in space could be a problem. A. the capsule is very small with no windows so it’ll be there forever – you’d not be popular with your space colleagues B. Even worse if you’re in your spacesuit. C. If you were out space walking the resultant jet effect could have you the other side of Uranus before you could blink. (I don’t even want to think about the problems in the Russian spaceships – all that cabbage soup!)
9. Farting tunes – why?
10. Gratuitous Farting – it’s just impolite.
11. Don't brag about the 'Fart Art' in your pants unless you're Tracy Emin.
Friday, October 22, 2004
No Sex Please Ve Ar Cherman
I just stole this from some other blog cos I thought it was so funny.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004- A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they're still childless - they weren't having sex. Folks at the University Clinic of Lubek said they'd never heard of a case like it. Doctors subjected the bizarre couple to a series of examinations and found they were both apparently fertile and should have had no trouble conceiving."When we asked them how often they had sex, they looked blank, and said:'What do you mean?'"We're not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate."The 30-year-old wife and her 36-year-old hapless hubby are now being given sex therapy lessons. Stupid people like that should not be allowed to reproduce anyway.- THE EDMONTON SUN
Germans hey! Makes you wonder how the Third Reich got off the ground.
Tuesday, May 18, 2004- A German couple who went to a fertility clinic after eight years of marriage have found out why they're still childless - they weren't having sex. Folks at the University Clinic of Lubek said they'd never heard of a case like it. Doctors subjected the bizarre couple to a series of examinations and found they were both apparently fertile and should have had no trouble conceiving."When we asked them how often they had sex, they looked blank, and said:'What do you mean?'"We're not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate."The 30-year-old wife and her 36-year-old hapless hubby are now being given sex therapy lessons. Stupid people like that should not be allowed to reproduce anyway.- THE EDMONTON SUN
Germans hey! Makes you wonder how the Third Reich got off the ground.
Home By Christmas
‘Prime Minister Tony Blair today promised soldiers of the Black Watch they would be home for Christmas after their Iraq tour of duty – with ministers tomorrow poised to agree a US request for them to replace American troops.’
We’ve heard this one before haven’t we Tony? Didn’t Lord Kitchener once promise that the (1914) war would be over by Christmas? And didn’t that war drag on for another 4 years and cost millions of lives?
I don’t expect that this ‘war’ will cost millions of lives but it will cost lives and it will drag on. One doesn’t even have to be some sort of political or military expert to know that. War today isn’t the same sort of chess game it was in 1914 or even 1939 with massive armies facing each other across the battlefield. This ‘war’ is carried out in the streets and back lanes of towns and cities. It’s carried out in buses and public places across the World as the Americans now know to their cost. You should know this Tony after all those years at ‘war’ with the IRA. And where once the bulk of the casualties were military now the bulk of the casualties are the very citizens, men women and children of said towns and cities. War used to be a spectator sport, with civilians even visiting battlefields to watch the bloody show. Now they are on centre stage. In the spotlight - targets.
Now forgive me for being cynical and getting onto, what readers may consider a popular theme in this blog, anti-Americanism. I have outlined earlier that I am not against Americans per se but have a healthy cynicism about the American philosophy concerning the rest of the world.
So let’s get this straight Tony. The British Government are sending in British Soldiers (a Scottish regiment to be exact) to replace Americans in some of the most dangerous places in Iraq? Just before an American election when perhaps, the body count (1,107) of young American soldiers is maybe getting just a little bit politically sensitive?( Nearly 17,000 service members medically evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan are absent from public Pentagon casualty reports commonly cited by newspapers, according to military data reviewed by United Press International. ) Yep I get it. Your election is just a little bit farther away and of course you’ve promised us they’ll be home for Christmas – just like Lord Kitchener did all those years ago. That’ll be alright then.
Like the song says the average age of the soldiers in Iraq is probably about n n n nineteen. These are kids, our sons and daughters and we place upon their shoulders this terrible responsibility. I hugely admire the British Army (of which I was briefly a member) it is a professional volunteer army. But I don’t want them killed on some dusty road in Iraq for the sake of some misguided American Foreign Policy, a jerkoff President and blind retribution for 9/11.
Let’s get them home now. Let Bush sort his own problems out and face his own electorate and let the American people judge what is happening in Iraq in their name. Let’s not provide Bush with a smokescreen made up of the pyres of our dead warriors.
A very Merry Xmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
War is over, if you want it
War is over now
John Lennon.
We’ve heard this one before haven’t we Tony? Didn’t Lord Kitchener once promise that the (1914) war would be over by Christmas? And didn’t that war drag on for another 4 years and cost millions of lives?
I don’t expect that this ‘war’ will cost millions of lives but it will cost lives and it will drag on. One doesn’t even have to be some sort of political or military expert to know that. War today isn’t the same sort of chess game it was in 1914 or even 1939 with massive armies facing each other across the battlefield. This ‘war’ is carried out in the streets and back lanes of towns and cities. It’s carried out in buses and public places across the World as the Americans now know to their cost. You should know this Tony after all those years at ‘war’ with the IRA. And where once the bulk of the casualties were military now the bulk of the casualties are the very citizens, men women and children of said towns and cities. War used to be a spectator sport, with civilians even visiting battlefields to watch the bloody show. Now they are on centre stage. In the spotlight - targets.
Now forgive me for being cynical and getting onto, what readers may consider a popular theme in this blog, anti-Americanism. I have outlined earlier that I am not against Americans per se but have a healthy cynicism about the American philosophy concerning the rest of the world.
So let’s get this straight Tony. The British Government are sending in British Soldiers (a Scottish regiment to be exact) to replace Americans in some of the most dangerous places in Iraq? Just before an American election when perhaps, the body count (1,107) of young American soldiers is maybe getting just a little bit politically sensitive?( Nearly 17,000 service members medically evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan are absent from public Pentagon casualty reports commonly cited by newspapers, according to military data reviewed by United Press International. ) Yep I get it. Your election is just a little bit farther away and of course you’ve promised us they’ll be home for Christmas – just like Lord Kitchener did all those years ago. That’ll be alright then.
Like the song says the average age of the soldiers in Iraq is probably about n n n nineteen. These are kids, our sons and daughters and we place upon their shoulders this terrible responsibility. I hugely admire the British Army (of which I was briefly a member) it is a professional volunteer army. But I don’t want them killed on some dusty road in Iraq for the sake of some misguided American Foreign Policy, a jerkoff President and blind retribution for 9/11.
Let’s get them home now. Let Bush sort his own problems out and face his own electorate and let the American people judge what is happening in Iraq in their name. Let’s not provide Bush with a smokescreen made up of the pyres of our dead warriors.
A very Merry Xmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
War is over, if you want it
War is over now
John Lennon.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
Things to do in your office when you're dead
Things to do in your office when you’re dead!
1. Decompose – slowly for maximum benefit
2. Go and haunt Mike da Hat
3. Practise a bit of poltergeisting – ie move paperclips around on other peoples desks
4. Make ectoplasm fill the coffee cups
5. Be entrepreneurial and breed maggots for the fishing industry
6. Make the temperature get really cold despite the heating being on
7. Hang out in the women’s changing room at the Gym – being invisible and all
8. Possess the bosses computer and make hard core porn appear in the middle of important Power point presentations
9. Slam doors loudly
10. Try to get a life
1. Decompose – slowly for maximum benefit
2. Go and haunt Mike da Hat
3. Practise a bit of poltergeisting – ie move paperclips around on other peoples desks
4. Make ectoplasm fill the coffee cups
5. Be entrepreneurial and breed maggots for the fishing industry
6. Make the temperature get really cold despite the heating being on
7. Hang out in the women’s changing room at the Gym – being invisible and all
8. Possess the bosses computer and make hard core porn appear in the middle of important Power point presentations
9. Slam doors loudly
10. Try to get a life
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
I Hate Shaving
I hate shaving. Every morning it’s the same routine day after day after day. First have shower, helps to soften bristles. Fill sink with hot water, smear shaving oil over face and scrape scrape scrape. It’s just soooo tedious. Why can’t someone invent a cream like the ladies use for their legs and bits? I mean they don’t have to shave every day do they? Just smear on some of that cream stuff, wash it off, and let the bit of silk stuff waft down their legs and they’re off. Why can’t I do that with my face?
I admit that on weekends I might let it go and not shave, but my stubble isn’t sexy like say George Michael (not that I’d want to be sexy in that way!). I don’t want to grow a big minging beard. I mean come on. Tell me girls how can you bear to kiss some guy with a beard, it must be eeeeeuuuuuuuccccch! Like planting one on a big fozzy bear! And I can’t see me growing a moustache either. That must be just as bad. Come on girls fess up it can’t be fun can it?
Look I’m not particularly beardist or moustachist I just don’t think they would work on me and I would feel embarrassed should I have to snog someone. (hope’s wife isn’t reading this – dear it’s writers license - really). And what about those guys with the sculptured whiskers, the ones that look like Midge Ure in the 1980’s very precise. I guess one would have to spend hours with a micro cutter every day or at least have a season ticket at a salon somewhere. And goatees are so goaty – nah not for me.
I suppose I could go and live in Turkey. The best shaves I ever had were in Turkey. The barbers there use a cut throat razor (disposable blade) and you get a face massage thrown in too. My face was really like a babies bum and it seem to last for days. Nice lemony oil stuff sprayed on face too. But it’s just a bit too far to commute to and from work. So that’s out.
I can’t even use an electric razor. I know it looks sexy and smart driving to work running that Remington across the stubble but apart from the obvious dangers, electric razors seem simply to bend my bristles and make them grow back into my face! That leaves me with big septic bumps across my face and that’s even less attractive than a beard!
Even these new razors the ones with 4 blades that David Beckham uses are useless. You’d have thought that Dave would have noticed this; they just clog up with cut off bristles. The 3 bladers are the best for me.
I think we need to take a lesson from the girls and get some manly creamy type product invented that we could just smear across our faces every few days and just wipe it off. I guess they would even invent a manly silky thing to waft across our chins that’s not too poofy to go with it.
I mean it can’t be that hard. The cream stuff women use on their legs and near their other bits and armpits can’t be too chemically dangerous can it? I mean our manly chins are made of sterner stuff than ladies armpits we drag cold steel across them day after day.
I draw a line at waxing – I’ll leave that to the girl’s and their bikini lines thanks very much.
ps. Why do girls’ waxing have different names are there different styles? I’m curious.
I admit that on weekends I might let it go and not shave, but my stubble isn’t sexy like say George Michael (not that I’d want to be sexy in that way!). I don’t want to grow a big minging beard. I mean come on. Tell me girls how can you bear to kiss some guy with a beard, it must be eeeeeuuuuuuuccccch! Like planting one on a big fozzy bear! And I can’t see me growing a moustache either. That must be just as bad. Come on girls fess up it can’t be fun can it?
Look I’m not particularly beardist or moustachist I just don’t think they would work on me and I would feel embarrassed should I have to snog someone. (hope’s wife isn’t reading this – dear it’s writers license - really). And what about those guys with the sculptured whiskers, the ones that look like Midge Ure in the 1980’s very precise. I guess one would have to spend hours with a micro cutter every day or at least have a season ticket at a salon somewhere. And goatees are so goaty – nah not for me.
I suppose I could go and live in Turkey. The best shaves I ever had were in Turkey. The barbers there use a cut throat razor (disposable blade) and you get a face massage thrown in too. My face was really like a babies bum and it seem to last for days. Nice lemony oil stuff sprayed on face too. But it’s just a bit too far to commute to and from work. So that’s out.
I can’t even use an electric razor. I know it looks sexy and smart driving to work running that Remington across the stubble but apart from the obvious dangers, electric razors seem simply to bend my bristles and make them grow back into my face! That leaves me with big septic bumps across my face and that’s even less attractive than a beard!
Even these new razors the ones with 4 blades that David Beckham uses are useless. You’d have thought that Dave would have noticed this; they just clog up with cut off bristles. The 3 bladers are the best for me.
I think we need to take a lesson from the girls and get some manly creamy type product invented that we could just smear across our faces every few days and just wipe it off. I guess they would even invent a manly silky thing to waft across our chins that’s not too poofy to go with it.
I mean it can’t be that hard. The cream stuff women use on their legs and near their other bits and armpits can’t be too chemically dangerous can it? I mean our manly chins are made of sterner stuff than ladies armpits we drag cold steel across them day after day.
I draw a line at waxing – I’ll leave that to the girl’s and their bikini lines thanks very much.
ps. Why do girls’ waxing have different names are there different styles? I’m curious.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Breasts - can't look can't touch!
Help I am just a man. I can’t help it. My eyes don’t seem to be controlled by my brain, well not my conscious brain anyway. I know I shouldn’t but they are there. In front of me - asking to be ogled! Yes, you office girls, I am talking about breasts! Your breasts to be specific!
Tell me, when you get dressed in the morning do you have a little debate with yourself. 'Now what blouse shall I wear, this nice one that buttons up to my neck or this very low cut one that shows all my boobs off so when men ogle me I can shout get off you dirty pig for looking at my tits!'
We men know you check out our bulges, but do we make a fuss? No. Do we make them more pronounced than they really are by the addition of a sock or two? No. Do we flaunt them in the office? No. And why not because we would all be up on sexual harassment charges that’s why.
Yes, these are the very same harassment charges if our eyes happen to slip below your nose level to those rounded hillocks of flesh peeping out of your blouses and you catch us looking. Catch 22.
Hint for the office girls/women: If you don’t want us to look cover up!
Now this is the crux of the argument isn’t it. You stick em out, cos you want us to look BUT if you catch us looking then we’re all dirty old men! Letching. Its like Damocles’ sword hanging over our heads, it really is. Shall I look or shan’t I look.
Breasts are a bit like eye magnets, it’s like eating a sugary doughnut, you can’t eat one without licking your lips, breasts are the same, if they’re there on show you gotta look. I think its part of our DNA programming.
But in the office it’s a social no-no. So girls please please please make your minds up if you have the goods on display can I look? ( I promise not to touch) or cover up it’s that simple – isn’t it?
Tell me, when you get dressed in the morning do you have a little debate with yourself. 'Now what blouse shall I wear, this nice one that buttons up to my neck or this very low cut one that shows all my boobs off so when men ogle me I can shout get off you dirty pig for looking at my tits!'
We men know you check out our bulges, but do we make a fuss? No. Do we make them more pronounced than they really are by the addition of a sock or two? No. Do we flaunt them in the office? No. And why not because we would all be up on sexual harassment charges that’s why.
Yes, these are the very same harassment charges if our eyes happen to slip below your nose level to those rounded hillocks of flesh peeping out of your blouses and you catch us looking. Catch 22.
Hint for the office girls/women: If you don’t want us to look cover up!
Now this is the crux of the argument isn’t it. You stick em out, cos you want us to look BUT if you catch us looking then we’re all dirty old men! Letching. Its like Damocles’ sword hanging over our heads, it really is. Shall I look or shan’t I look.
Breasts are a bit like eye magnets, it’s like eating a sugary doughnut, you can’t eat one without licking your lips, breasts are the same, if they’re there on show you gotta look. I think its part of our DNA programming.
But in the office it’s a social no-no. So girls please please please make your minds up if you have the goods on display can I look? ( I promise not to touch) or cover up it’s that simple – isn’t it?
Monday, October 18, 2004
The Big Issue
Can somebody please explain to me how it is that Big Issue salesmen/women in this fair city are better dressed than I am?
For my international readers let me explain that The Big Issue is a magazine that is sold on the street by homeless people. It is a charity that helps them get on their feet. Each BI is only £1 and I believe for each one sold the seller gets a cut. Thus enabling them to earn a little money onto of their state benefits I would guess.
In this fair city in Sunny Devon when I go into town during lunch time I notice that the BI sellers all are wearing designer kit. I mean I am in a job, got a career, professional qualifications and I can’t afford the stuff they have on.
I’m talking Berghaus jackets, I’d love one of them, me. Levi jeans, Animal trainers (or Nike or anything which costs about 100 quid!) (My trainers cost me £15 in a sale – what does that say about me). Track suit tops and hoodies with the big designer names splashed across the front. Probably Calvin Klein pants (knickers) too.
I don’t want to be patronising or anything but is there a special charity shop that I don’t know about that sells this stuff? I do haunt the charity shops for my ebay stuff but I have never ever ever seen a berghaus jacket in one. Maybe it’s because these guys are homeless, maybe they spend the night in the doorway of said designer charity shop to get the best bargains as the open first thing.
Anyway I am fed up of them. I’ve run out of excuses so I don’t have to buy one. I mean it’s a new concept in selling isn’t it. Retail with menace! Big Issue Guv? No thanks mate just bought one down the road. God Bless you Mate! No thanks. Robbie Williams article inside…Sorry No I er just got one. Wot this one mate? Yes I think so Go on mate It’s me last one. Er Ok here you are. Said seller then runs off to the nearest off license/pusher/glue seller/McD’s for their daily fix stopping only to score a brand new Helly Hansen jacket from the charity shop.
Actually I haven’t got that much of a downer against Issue salesmen/women, at least they are doing something what gets me more is the proliferation of beggars in this City/country. Do these people really expect me to give them something when they are sitting there cuddling the 2 litre bottle of White Lightning (strong cider). Or making their dog look pathetic by wrapping it in a blanket! Come on get a job! I did and look at me…
Sigh…..
Please send all donations to my Paypal account. email address available upon request
Go on mate it’s me last one….
For my international readers let me explain that The Big Issue is a magazine that is sold on the street by homeless people. It is a charity that helps them get on their feet. Each BI is only £1 and I believe for each one sold the seller gets a cut. Thus enabling them to earn a little money onto of their state benefits I would guess.
In this fair city in Sunny Devon when I go into town during lunch time I notice that the BI sellers all are wearing designer kit. I mean I am in a job, got a career, professional qualifications and I can’t afford the stuff they have on.
I’m talking Berghaus jackets, I’d love one of them, me. Levi jeans, Animal trainers (or Nike or anything which costs about 100 quid!) (My trainers cost me £15 in a sale – what does that say about me). Track suit tops and hoodies with the big designer names splashed across the front. Probably Calvin Klein pants (knickers) too.
I don’t want to be patronising or anything but is there a special charity shop that I don’t know about that sells this stuff? I do haunt the charity shops for my ebay stuff but I have never ever ever seen a berghaus jacket in one. Maybe it’s because these guys are homeless, maybe they spend the night in the doorway of said designer charity shop to get the best bargains as the open first thing.
Anyway I am fed up of them. I’ve run out of excuses so I don’t have to buy one. I mean it’s a new concept in selling isn’t it. Retail with menace! Big Issue Guv? No thanks mate just bought one down the road. God Bless you Mate! No thanks. Robbie Williams article inside…Sorry No I er just got one. Wot this one mate? Yes I think so Go on mate It’s me last one. Er Ok here you are. Said seller then runs off to the nearest off license/pusher/glue seller/McD’s for their daily fix stopping only to score a brand new Helly Hansen jacket from the charity shop.
Actually I haven’t got that much of a downer against Issue salesmen/women, at least they are doing something what gets me more is the proliferation of beggars in this City/country. Do these people really expect me to give them something when they are sitting there cuddling the 2 litre bottle of White Lightning (strong cider). Or making their dog look pathetic by wrapping it in a blanket! Come on get a job! I did and look at me…
Sigh…..
Please send all donations to my Paypal account. email address available upon request
Go on mate it’s me last one….
Hello my name is Doctor Rob and I am an addict.
I am not proud of that statement but yes I am a blogger. I need my daily fix as I am sure you will understand. I have come here today in order to try and get some help, support, understanding, and if I am honest some sympathy.
It can’t go on. I need to blog every day and once is never enough. I keep doing it and doing it. My life’s a mess, my work sporadic, my computer is my only companion and bloggers my only friends.
It all started so harmlessly. I chanced upon the blog world through an innocent google search at work. Damn google it’s just so efficient, it draws you into the murky underground of life, shows you the dirty underbelly of information transfer. It took just one hit. Then another and I could feel myself getting hooked.
First it was OK just a bit of light relief at work. You know how it is, you spend all day in front of a computer, eating biscuits and coffee, trying not to sneak looks at the office girls legs. You get bored ok BORED!! Then you discover the blog. Just one hit and I was hooked
Then maybe a bit later another and another, until you’re hooked. Whole days disappear. You move from one link to the next getting deeper and deeper into the blog world. And do they care these bloggers? No! They post little comments that sneak into your brain, they’re like paedophiles offering little children sweets. Come here they whisper…come to my site…..see what I’ve got for you. DAMN YOU ALL!
They sucked me in and now I’m hooked, yes I’m an addict. Now I’m even blogging myself. I fought it at first, tried posting once and sort of failed, but the urge was too great and now it’s got me completely in its power. I visit these sordid sites posting my own inane comments hoping people will visit me to feed my monkey.
My day usually starts with the hard stuff, we call it ‘Ian’ this hit can last up to 15/20 minutes if it’s a good blog, later I may need a little ‘Californian’ just as a pick up, but as I come down from that I try a little Zen to mellow out. A little later if I get too edgy I have a shot of Watski to add an odd perspective to my day. And after lunch a touch of Canadian stuff works wonders. Cat is a real upper. I do try downers but man they bum you out. Get real guys try some humour!
I need help. This is a plea – what are the twelve steps? I only know the first 3.
Step one - you find a girl to love
Step two - she falls in love with you
Step three - you kiss and hold her tightly
I need the next nine steps
Help me please I don’t know how long I can go on like this…….
I am not proud of that statement but yes I am a blogger. I need my daily fix as I am sure you will understand. I have come here today in order to try and get some help, support, understanding, and if I am honest some sympathy.
It can’t go on. I need to blog every day and once is never enough. I keep doing it and doing it. My life’s a mess, my work sporadic, my computer is my only companion and bloggers my only friends.
It all started so harmlessly. I chanced upon the blog world through an innocent google search at work. Damn google it’s just so efficient, it draws you into the murky underground of life, shows you the dirty underbelly of information transfer. It took just one hit. Then another and I could feel myself getting hooked.
First it was OK just a bit of light relief at work. You know how it is, you spend all day in front of a computer, eating biscuits and coffee, trying not to sneak looks at the office girls legs. You get bored ok BORED!! Then you discover the blog. Just one hit and I was hooked
Then maybe a bit later another and another, until you’re hooked. Whole days disappear. You move from one link to the next getting deeper and deeper into the blog world. And do they care these bloggers? No! They post little comments that sneak into your brain, they’re like paedophiles offering little children sweets. Come here they whisper…come to my site…..see what I’ve got for you. DAMN YOU ALL!
They sucked me in and now I’m hooked, yes I’m an addict. Now I’m even blogging myself. I fought it at first, tried posting once and sort of failed, but the urge was too great and now it’s got me completely in its power. I visit these sordid sites posting my own inane comments hoping people will visit me to feed my monkey.
My day usually starts with the hard stuff, we call it ‘Ian’ this hit can last up to 15/20 minutes if it’s a good blog, later I may need a little ‘Californian’ just as a pick up, but as I come down from that I try a little Zen to mellow out. A little later if I get too edgy I have a shot of Watski to add an odd perspective to my day. And after lunch a touch of Canadian stuff works wonders. Cat is a real upper. I do try downers but man they bum you out. Get real guys try some humour!
I need help. This is a plea – what are the twelve steps? I only know the first 3.
Step one - you find a girl to love
Step two - she falls in love with you
Step three - you kiss and hold her tightly
I need the next nine steps
Help me please I don’t know how long I can go on like this…….
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Fieldwork
Hello I'm not blogging very much over the next couple of days as I am actually having to do some work! I am out doing fieldwork. I dunno why I'm calling it fieldwork because none of my time actually involves being in a field! Most of the time I am in a car slogging up and down the Motorway and highways and byways of sunny Devon. Actually it was sunny dorset today.
I am doing focus groups in schools. Trying to get 16/17 year old kids to tell me what they think of my Universities advertising posters. (crap was the overarching response I think) But obviously that's not a technical term so I need to come up with some suitable sociological claptrap that suggests the same.
Anyway thats one down and 5 more to go plus some mature students. Nothing but thorough me...
I am doing focus groups in schools. Trying to get 16/17 year old kids to tell me what they think of my Universities advertising posters. (crap was the overarching response I think) But obviously that's not a technical term so I need to come up with some suitable sociological claptrap that suggests the same.
Anyway thats one down and 5 more to go plus some mature students. Nothing but thorough me...
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
Dr Pepper - Whats the worst that could happen
I've just had my first Dr Pepper. What's that about then? It's not peppery at all, no mention of pepper in the ingredients list, according to said list its just fizzy coloured water. See another example of how those sneaky Americans are stealing our money, tastebuds and effectively our minds.
Then under the list the can asks me a question. I quote 'What's the worst that could happen?' But it doesn't give the answer. So now I'm confused. Is this some sort of threat from the bad guys at coca cola inc or just some random rhetorical philosophical musing of the guy who designed the cans paint work. Probably somebody who took a little too much acid in the 60's, I think he probably designed the drink as well.
I think I have the answer to the question 'What's the worst that could happen?' yep I could buy another can of Dr Pepper. It sucks!
I hope the bad guys at CC inc arn't reading this otherwise I might get a visit for dissing their drink - sorry guys.
Then under the list the can asks me a question. I quote 'What's the worst that could happen?' But it doesn't give the answer. So now I'm confused. Is this some sort of threat from the bad guys at coca cola inc or just some random rhetorical philosophical musing of the guy who designed the cans paint work. Probably somebody who took a little too much acid in the 60's, I think he probably designed the drink as well.
I think I have the answer to the question 'What's the worst that could happen?' yep I could buy another can of Dr Pepper. It sucks!
I hope the bad guys at CC inc arn't reading this otherwise I might get a visit for dissing their drink - sorry guys.
Super Furry Animals
Oscar Wilde once said "The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable."
From my point of view Oscar got it right. It is an unspeakable act of violence carried out by unspeakably nasty vicious bloodthirsty thugs. These are the very same people you will see filling the churches on a Sunday in the rural parishes. Piously saying their prayers with hands dripping in blood just like Pilates. Yet they continue to claim that this is a harmless sport and a natural part of country life.
Of course it’s not a natural part of the British Countryside; in fact you’d be hard-pressed to find anything natural about the British Countryside. The British landscape has been created and shaped by humans over centuries. Indeed Foxhunting didn’t start until about the 1830’s as most hunts believed it to be beneath their status to hunt ‘vermin’. But when they did they almost eradicated the natural British fox and had to import foxes from France, Germany and Holland.
This movement of foxes still happens today which belies the lie that the hunt is vermin control. If it is can someone tell me why fox cubs are moved across the country to areas where the fox population is so small there is no ‘sport’!
This is not sport and I don’t really care if a few hundred people lose their jobs because we are going to ban it. I didn’t see these self same people out on the pickets when the mining industry was decimated, neither were they there when the steel industry collapsed, nor do I ever hear their voices when other industries take a hit in this country. No these people live their cosy lives, on their farms, with their horses. And don’t tell me I am jealous of that and don’t tell me that foxhunting is a classless affair and that many people on the hunt are just ordinary people, crafts people, tradesmen and women. Yes they may well be, but I bet all are trying to catch a ride on the masters coattails, arselickers all.
And what of the fox itself? I read or saw on TV that the fox population controls itself. If the territory is over-populated the vixens will have smaller litters or may not breed at all and if the territory is under-populated then they will have larger litters. When hunters kill foxes during the hunting season (i.e. before the breeding season and the establishment of territories), they are not affecting the size of the breeding population at all, because this is controlled by the number of available territories. As far as keeping down fox numbers is concerned, they are wasting their time.
We will see how callous these people are very soon, we have already seen them dumping carcasses in Brighton, but I will lay money that as the ban comes in they will start killing their dogs and dumping them at Downing St. These people have no heart and are completely as Wilde tells us, unspeakable.
From my point of view Oscar got it right. It is an unspeakable act of violence carried out by unspeakably nasty vicious bloodthirsty thugs. These are the very same people you will see filling the churches on a Sunday in the rural parishes. Piously saying their prayers with hands dripping in blood just like Pilates. Yet they continue to claim that this is a harmless sport and a natural part of country life.
Of course it’s not a natural part of the British Countryside; in fact you’d be hard-pressed to find anything natural about the British Countryside. The British landscape has been created and shaped by humans over centuries. Indeed Foxhunting didn’t start until about the 1830’s as most hunts believed it to be beneath their status to hunt ‘vermin’. But when they did they almost eradicated the natural British fox and had to import foxes from France, Germany and Holland.
This movement of foxes still happens today which belies the lie that the hunt is vermin control. If it is can someone tell me why fox cubs are moved across the country to areas where the fox population is so small there is no ‘sport’!
This is not sport and I don’t really care if a few hundred people lose their jobs because we are going to ban it. I didn’t see these self same people out on the pickets when the mining industry was decimated, neither were they there when the steel industry collapsed, nor do I ever hear their voices when other industries take a hit in this country. No these people live their cosy lives, on their farms, with their horses. And don’t tell me I am jealous of that and don’t tell me that foxhunting is a classless affair and that many people on the hunt are just ordinary people, crafts people, tradesmen and women. Yes they may well be, but I bet all are trying to catch a ride on the masters coattails, arselickers all.
And what of the fox itself? I read or saw on TV that the fox population controls itself. If the territory is over-populated the vixens will have smaller litters or may not breed at all and if the territory is under-populated then they will have larger litters. When hunters kill foxes during the hunting season (i.e. before the breeding season and the establishment of territories), they are not affecting the size of the breeding population at all, because this is controlled by the number of available territories. As far as keeping down fox numbers is concerned, they are wasting their time.
We will see how callous these people are very soon, we have already seen them dumping carcasses in Brighton, but I will lay money that as the ban comes in they will start killing their dogs and dumping them at Downing St. These people have no heart and are completely as Wilde tells us, unspeakable.
Monday, October 11, 2004
Cold Bottomed Women
Why are women SO COLD? Perhaps I should rephrase that. Why are the women who sleep in my bed so cold? Not emotionally you understand but physically.
First off I am not a serial woman sleeperer with. I am simply talking about the women who have entered my life and have slept in my bed for legitimate reasons. I.e. we have been married, or ‘seeing’ each other. (Not at the same time I may add – I am British after all!).
All of these women, (by all, I mean I can count the number I have slept with on two hands) have had, without exception cold hands, bums, feet, legs and noses. What is wrong with women’s circulation? Where does all their blood go?
I know for a fact most of it is involved in and around their brain. That’s because they are thinking all the time. Thinking, he don’t love me, he does love me, my hands are cold, lets see if I can remember everything he has said in an argument over the last 7 years, my bums cold, why has he just moved his foot half an inch into MY space in the bed., my feet are cold, what colour curtains would go in the living rooms as I don’t like the new ones I have just bought, my nose is cold. I could go on but the blog would be boring then.
Even when we go on holiday to some trendy hotspot, there are still bits that are cold. Can the women out there in blog land, California and all parts west confirm to me whether this is a global phenomenon? (I can understand why Canadian women have cold spots, particularly in Alaska.) What about in Australia do the Shelia’s out there suffer from cold bottom syndrome? The answers to these questions may help me choose wife number 4 when wife number 3 gives up the ghost (married in May and still fingers crossed!).
It’s just not fair is it. I get in bed all warm and comfy and then in walks significant other who jumps in bed runs freezing cold hands over my warm body, sticks ice block feet in my crotch and then eventually when those are warmed up turns over and sticks cold bum into my groinal area as we ‘spoon’ together.
She then, on the pretext of being cold steals the entire quilt and takes up 5/6ths of the available bed space. Positioning herself close enough to my body to suck all the heat out of it, but at the same time not close enough for me to get ‘heated’ if you know what I mean.
So I got her an electric blanket. She initially complains and rejects the present as ‘these are only for 80 year old women’. But it still goes on the bed and now it’s set at maximum (it’s only October 11th) so I spend all night getting roasted – but HER BUMS STILL COLD – what’s happening here? Perhaps I ought to contact NASA with this and if they find out the cause they could use the application on the underside of the space shuttle to prevent burn up as they re-enter the atmosphere.
Another week and we’ll have to have the spare quilt on the bed too. What with that and the electric blanket it’ll be like hell. And all this from a woman who comes from a country where in the winter it drops to -30 degrees C. Perhaps that’s it, for all those years living in Ukraine she has stored the cold in her bum and it’s now being released like a storage radiator but in reverse.
I am going outside, I might be some time…….
First off I am not a serial woman sleeperer with. I am simply talking about the women who have entered my life and have slept in my bed for legitimate reasons. I.e. we have been married, or ‘seeing’ each other. (Not at the same time I may add – I am British after all!).
All of these women, (by all, I mean I can count the number I have slept with on two hands) have had, without exception cold hands, bums, feet, legs and noses. What is wrong with women’s circulation? Where does all their blood go?
I know for a fact most of it is involved in and around their brain. That’s because they are thinking all the time. Thinking, he don’t love me, he does love me, my hands are cold, lets see if I can remember everything he has said in an argument over the last 7 years, my bums cold, why has he just moved his foot half an inch into MY space in the bed., my feet are cold, what colour curtains would go in the living rooms as I don’t like the new ones I have just bought, my nose is cold. I could go on but the blog would be boring then.
Even when we go on holiday to some trendy hotspot, there are still bits that are cold. Can the women out there in blog land, California and all parts west confirm to me whether this is a global phenomenon? (I can understand why Canadian women have cold spots, particularly in Alaska.) What about in Australia do the Shelia’s out there suffer from cold bottom syndrome? The answers to these questions may help me choose wife number 4 when wife number 3 gives up the ghost (married in May and still fingers crossed!).
It’s just not fair is it. I get in bed all warm and comfy and then in walks significant other who jumps in bed runs freezing cold hands over my warm body, sticks ice block feet in my crotch and then eventually when those are warmed up turns over and sticks cold bum into my groinal area as we ‘spoon’ together.
She then, on the pretext of being cold steals the entire quilt and takes up 5/6ths of the available bed space. Positioning herself close enough to my body to suck all the heat out of it, but at the same time not close enough for me to get ‘heated’ if you know what I mean.
So I got her an electric blanket. She initially complains and rejects the present as ‘these are only for 80 year old women’. But it still goes on the bed and now it’s set at maximum (it’s only October 11th) so I spend all night getting roasted – but HER BUMS STILL COLD – what’s happening here? Perhaps I ought to contact NASA with this and if they find out the cause they could use the application on the underside of the space shuttle to prevent burn up as they re-enter the atmosphere.
Another week and we’ll have to have the spare quilt on the bed too. What with that and the electric blanket it’ll be like hell. And all this from a woman who comes from a country where in the winter it drops to -30 degrees C. Perhaps that’s it, for all those years living in Ukraine she has stored the cold in her bum and it’s now being released like a storage radiator but in reverse.
I am going outside, I might be some time…….
Blowing Chunks
Its lunch time here in Sunny Devon and at this great educational institution my lunch usually consist of getting a sandwich to eat at my minging bacteria ridden desk! (note: don’t forget the anti biological wipes next time). So I go to the campus sandwich bar. As a vegetarian my choice is usually limited to cheese, cheese or errr I think I’ll have the cheese today thanks.
But today was different, today they have another choice. Vegetarian Chicken Chunks! Vegetarian Chicken isn’t that both impossible and an oxymoron of the ‘Military Intelligence’, ‘Friendly Fire’ sort? On further investigation it turned out that these Vegetarian Chicken Chunks were nothing more exciting than that delicious fungus Quorn.
But what gets me is that food producers seem to think that vegetarians are so hard done by that all we really want to eat are things that remind us of the things we don’t want to eat. So we get offered lamb flavoured cutlets, beef flavoured stuff, and chicken flavoured slush. And very often stuff one just can’t describe the flavour, probably some Australian outback road kill flavour. (I’d probably try duckbilled platypus quorn just for the hell of it! Would people want koala flavoured quorn – I doubt it)
Come on guys, get with it. If I wanted animal flavoured stuff I’d probably eat the animal. As it is I’ll make do with the ubiquitous lasagne. This is the universal dish that makes restaurateurs, and other food suppliers feel that they have catered for the ‘minority’ eater. What they do is make a big batch of them and stick them in the freezer, so come the day one of us militant eaters enters their hostelry and demand vegetarian food, they can sling one in the microwave and ping, conscience clear. That or a very watery veggie curry specifically designed to make us not want to come back again.
I like quorn and it’s never made me ill. I even like its description as a fungus, what’s the problem there? Look think of it more like the Italians and French do as Fungi rather than you lot out there thinking of the fungus between your toes and the need to buy some ointment. That’s not it. Try it its nice.
But what I don’t like is these quasi meat eating oxymoron’s such as vegetarian meat, meat substitute (is that an oxymoron). I don’t want to substitute meat, I want to eat fruit and vegetables thanks very much and no I’m not neurotic.
I had the eastern quorn which basically was curried fungus in a baguette with some lettuce. Very nice - but with a tendency to fall out and down ones shirt front leaving suspicious dark stains. But my desk is now littered with crumbs and smears of curried quorn so that should keep the bacteria happy for a while then.
But today was different, today they have another choice. Vegetarian Chicken Chunks! Vegetarian Chicken isn’t that both impossible and an oxymoron of the ‘Military Intelligence’, ‘Friendly Fire’ sort? On further investigation it turned out that these Vegetarian Chicken Chunks were nothing more exciting than that delicious fungus Quorn.
But what gets me is that food producers seem to think that vegetarians are so hard done by that all we really want to eat are things that remind us of the things we don’t want to eat. So we get offered lamb flavoured cutlets, beef flavoured stuff, and chicken flavoured slush. And very often stuff one just can’t describe the flavour, probably some Australian outback road kill flavour. (I’d probably try duckbilled platypus quorn just for the hell of it! Would people want koala flavoured quorn – I doubt it)
Come on guys, get with it. If I wanted animal flavoured stuff I’d probably eat the animal. As it is I’ll make do with the ubiquitous lasagne. This is the universal dish that makes restaurateurs, and other food suppliers feel that they have catered for the ‘minority’ eater. What they do is make a big batch of them and stick them in the freezer, so come the day one of us militant eaters enters their hostelry and demand vegetarian food, they can sling one in the microwave and ping, conscience clear. That or a very watery veggie curry specifically designed to make us not want to come back again.
I like quorn and it’s never made me ill. I even like its description as a fungus, what’s the problem there? Look think of it more like the Italians and French do as Fungi rather than you lot out there thinking of the fungus between your toes and the need to buy some ointment. That’s not it. Try it its nice.
But what I don’t like is these quasi meat eating oxymoron’s such as vegetarian meat, meat substitute (is that an oxymoron). I don’t want to substitute meat, I want to eat fruit and vegetables thanks very much and no I’m not neurotic.
I had the eastern quorn which basically was curried fungus in a baguette with some lettuce. Very nice - but with a tendency to fall out and down ones shirt front leaving suspicious dark stains. But my desk is now littered with crumbs and smears of curried quorn so that should keep the bacteria happy for a while then.
Arachnophobia
Arachnophobia
I think my bath has become the earthly portal between the arachnid world and Devon or at the risk of setting off an Orson Well’s type scare - the rest of the world. I mean how else can I explain the numbers of spiders that end up in my bath. And we’re not talking about little money spiders either were talking huge great big ones.
It has to be a portal, something like Arnie uses in Terminator, where he ends up naked and smoking under a flyover somewhere. Otherwise, how else would they get into my bath? I know they are fit looking buggers but I just can’t see them climbing up the drainpipe, especially in a busy family house, people (not counting the teenage boys) having showers everyday. Plus the plug is one of those metal sorts that gets pulled down by a mechanism under the bath. I can’t really see them squeezing past that, especially if the were knackered after climbing the spout and hanging on when the water comes gushing down.
So the only obvious explanation has to be the Arnie type portal. They do not seem to be too bothered by this method of transport and are in the main hairier than Arnie is. I must admit that when I enter the bathroom I am never sure what might be waiting for me. I mean these fairly biggish bastards may just be the scouting party. Checking us out before their mates come piling through the portal looking for lunch.
I try to be good being an anti war - veggie type as you know, but I think it is my duty to protect the world. Look I’m not looking for the Nobel peace prize here (although it would look good on my CV and perhaps I could get a better job) but I am saving the world from a fate worse than Bush.
So think of me each day as I go on my lone crusade into the bathroom armed with nothing else but a water glass, a postcard and my terror, ready to do battle once again. A quick struggle to get em in the glass, a tight fit for some, clap the card on the glass and then quickly out the window. Safe again!
And no I am not a girl thanks very much!
I think my bath has become the earthly portal between the arachnid world and Devon or at the risk of setting off an Orson Well’s type scare - the rest of the world. I mean how else can I explain the numbers of spiders that end up in my bath. And we’re not talking about little money spiders either were talking huge great big ones.
It has to be a portal, something like Arnie uses in Terminator, where he ends up naked and smoking under a flyover somewhere. Otherwise, how else would they get into my bath? I know they are fit looking buggers but I just can’t see them climbing up the drainpipe, especially in a busy family house, people (not counting the teenage boys) having showers everyday. Plus the plug is one of those metal sorts that gets pulled down by a mechanism under the bath. I can’t really see them squeezing past that, especially if the were knackered after climbing the spout and hanging on when the water comes gushing down.
So the only obvious explanation has to be the Arnie type portal. They do not seem to be too bothered by this method of transport and are in the main hairier than Arnie is. I must admit that when I enter the bathroom I am never sure what might be waiting for me. I mean these fairly biggish bastards may just be the scouting party. Checking us out before their mates come piling through the portal looking for lunch.
I try to be good being an anti war - veggie type as you know, but I think it is my duty to protect the world. Look I’m not looking for the Nobel peace prize here (although it would look good on my CV and perhaps I could get a better job) but I am saving the world from a fate worse than Bush.
So think of me each day as I go on my lone crusade into the bathroom armed with nothing else but a water glass, a postcard and my terror, ready to do battle once again. A quick struggle to get em in the glass, a tight fit for some, clap the card on the glass and then quickly out the window. Safe again!
And no I am not a girl thanks very much!
Friday, October 08, 2004
Friends or Enemies who can tell?
Now I know I raised my head above the parapet a little bit when I wrote ‘I Hate American’s’ and I think I was fortunate not to have my Davy Crockett hat blown off! But I have been thinking about this a bit more over the last week or so. I mean I am a sociologist I should have some insight into this stuff, shouldn’t I?
I do really, despite my blogs and comments on other people’s sites see myself as an internationalist. A socialist even, I’d even go as far as a Marxist, in the sense that some of the French Post Modernists were once all unreconstructed Marxists, I have moved with the times and the times have moved me.
I have recently married a Ukrainian Woman. (This dear friend is one of the dangers of the internet, so many women, so little time!) And of course I have visited her home in Ukraine (not ‘The’ Ukraine notice) many times and of course I have met her family.
My first visit there was over the Christmas 2002. This is the orthodox Christmas that happens on January 7th. So there I was in Tonya’s flat awaiting my first meeting with mum and dad. I was scared. I knew very little Russian, apart from ‘Hello, I’ll have a beer’ and I knew they had no English.
So they turn up and immediately Ukrainian mum, Maria, does exactly what my mum would do and that’s dive into the kitchen and start cleaning up and cooking. I and Genady were shoved together alone in the sitting room. He and I didn’t have a common language, but we, as you do in these circumstances, had a conversation.
During this ‘conversation’ Genady told me he had been a Major in the Soviet Air Force and that he had been a pilot flying MIGs. He also told me that during the 1950’s he was shot down by the Americans over the Black Sea. He had ejected safely and then spent two days floating in the Black Sea before being picked up by an American Submarine, taken to Turkey and repatriated.
I thought this was amazing. I mean, I know about the Cold War and all that but the USSR and USA actually shooting down one another wasn’t that almost WW3? It makes you think!
So fast forward Twenty Years and here I am in a Bad Marriage, having returned from South Africa, having emigrated there ( I was Young, Foolish and politically naive, nobody had told me about apartheid, the first I knew of it was seeing the gun toting Nazis policing Jan Smuts Airport when I arrived). It’s the late 1970’s I was unemployed, still only about 23 so what did I do, I joined the British Army – why? I don’t know.
Anyway for the three months I served my country I learnt how to kill people, admittedly it was with a SLR and various other weapons not my hands, (that sounds like a regret but it isn’t, that’s why I left) but the crux of the thing which I have only just realized is that the people they were training me to kill were the Russians!
Yes the Soviets. My new family! They were my enemy, and yours too if you grew up in that era. My wife would have been a child. (She’s nearly 10 yrs younger than me) She was in the pioneers. My sister in law was a member of the Party. My brother in law was in the Soviet Army! My Dad in Law a MIG pilot. These people who I have just spent a wonderful month with in the Crimea and I love were all, 30 years ago and less, our enemy!
Now isn’t that ridiculous!
I am so glad I was a member of CND and other peace organisations. And I guess it’s this sort of realisation that connects with what’s happening in the world today. Lets forget all this WMD bullshit in Iraq and remember that those ‘terrorists’ we are bombing and shooting, may one day be part of your family. It’s worth thinking about. And personally I like the way Michael Moore thinks about it too. I wish we had an English Version of him. Political Satire in England is just too tame.
I do really, despite my blogs and comments on other people’s sites see myself as an internationalist. A socialist even, I’d even go as far as a Marxist, in the sense that some of the French Post Modernists were once all unreconstructed Marxists, I have moved with the times and the times have moved me.
I have recently married a Ukrainian Woman. (This dear friend is one of the dangers of the internet, so many women, so little time!) And of course I have visited her home in Ukraine (not ‘The’ Ukraine notice) many times and of course I have met her family.
My first visit there was over the Christmas 2002. This is the orthodox Christmas that happens on January 7th. So there I was in Tonya’s flat awaiting my first meeting with mum and dad. I was scared. I knew very little Russian, apart from ‘Hello, I’ll have a beer’ and I knew they had no English.
So they turn up and immediately Ukrainian mum, Maria, does exactly what my mum would do and that’s dive into the kitchen and start cleaning up and cooking. I and Genady were shoved together alone in the sitting room. He and I didn’t have a common language, but we, as you do in these circumstances, had a conversation.
During this ‘conversation’ Genady told me he had been a Major in the Soviet Air Force and that he had been a pilot flying MIGs. He also told me that during the 1950’s he was shot down by the Americans over the Black Sea. He had ejected safely and then spent two days floating in the Black Sea before being picked up by an American Submarine, taken to Turkey and repatriated.
I thought this was amazing. I mean, I know about the Cold War and all that but the USSR and USA actually shooting down one another wasn’t that almost WW3? It makes you think!
So fast forward Twenty Years and here I am in a Bad Marriage, having returned from South Africa, having emigrated there ( I was Young, Foolish and politically naive, nobody had told me about apartheid, the first I knew of it was seeing the gun toting Nazis policing Jan Smuts Airport when I arrived). It’s the late 1970’s I was unemployed, still only about 23 so what did I do, I joined the British Army – why? I don’t know.
Anyway for the three months I served my country I learnt how to kill people, admittedly it was with a SLR and various other weapons not my hands, (that sounds like a regret but it isn’t, that’s why I left) but the crux of the thing which I have only just realized is that the people they were training me to kill were the Russians!
Yes the Soviets. My new family! They were my enemy, and yours too if you grew up in that era. My wife would have been a child. (She’s nearly 10 yrs younger than me) She was in the pioneers. My sister in law was a member of the Party. My brother in law was in the Soviet Army! My Dad in Law a MIG pilot. These people who I have just spent a wonderful month with in the Crimea and I love were all, 30 years ago and less, our enemy!
Now isn’t that ridiculous!
I am so glad I was a member of CND and other peace organisations. And I guess it’s this sort of realisation that connects with what’s happening in the world today. Lets forget all this WMD bullshit in Iraq and remember that those ‘terrorists’ we are bombing and shooting, may one day be part of your family. It’s worth thinking about. And personally I like the way Michael Moore thinks about it too. I wish we had an English Version of him. Political Satire in England is just too tame.
Office Desk Danger - Beware
Office Desk Danger
Public service announcement!
Did you see that programme last night on the BBC about how dangerous your office desk is? The reporter got some Prof over from the US to test his desk, they then compared the findings with swabs taken from the toilets at Glastonbury Festival!
His desk carried more bacteria and viruses than the toilets! Aaaarrrrgh!
Here’s some LINKS to relevant articles And HERE and here here
So when you have that sandwich this lunch time, be afraid, be very afraid and rush out for some biological agent to kill the little bastards off!
I think I'm getting a sore throat!
Public service announcement!
Did you see that programme last night on the BBC about how dangerous your office desk is? The reporter got some Prof over from the US to test his desk, they then compared the findings with swabs taken from the toilets at Glastonbury Festival!
His desk carried more bacteria and viruses than the toilets! Aaaarrrrgh!
Here’s some LINKS to relevant articles And HERE and here here
So when you have that sandwich this lunch time, be afraid, be very afraid and rush out for some biological agent to kill the little bastards off!
I think I'm getting a sore throat!
It’s Training Day, It’s Training Day, It’s T T T T T Training Day
It’s Training Day, It’s Training Day, It’s T T T T T Training Day
So great another Training Day for the Office. A day, when, according to the Office Administrator, we can get together and learn to be a team. Despite the fact that I hardly see any of my colleagues, imprisoned as I am, in the ex photocopier room, in a sort of salaried solitary confinement.
So we all have to clear our diaries and decamp to hotel out of town where we will be trained to be a team, as if we were a bunch of performing seals or monkey’s or poodles or something! And of course the ringmaster in all of this is an Australian! Well it had to be, didn’t it? I mean who else would charge 500 quid a day to get out of their combi and stand infront of 15 or so bored individuals all looking out at the golf course wishing they were somewhere else – even work for instance. I guess, for the Ozzie, its better than serving behind the bar!
So first it’s coffee and Danish at 9:00 everybody standing around trying to make small talk, trying to find a common theme that’s not bitching about being here cos the boss is here too. And he’s jovially moving around each group, staying for just long enough with each group so that we all feel touched by his presence and joviality.
In an attempt to give us something in common, apart from bitching about the job, the last training day was Bracken Bashing. No this wasn’t torturing little bunnies last seen in the Duncton Wood novels, but a ‘fun’ day out volunteering on Dartmoor. The fact that none of us were asked if we wanted to volunteer is beside the point. What Bracken Bashing is, is going up onto the Moor, with some worthy preservation organisation, and with a big bamboo stick bashing bracken, it does what it says on the can! Apparently this is the only way to control bracken, but for the life of me I can’t see why a helicopter and a supply of selective weed killer wouldn’t do as well.
So we spend a few hours bashing bracken which is meant to engender a team spirit, whereas all it seemed to do was engender blisters of the hand. (I did notice that the preservation guys all had thick leather gloves so they didn’t get blisters – I guess they thought that in comparing the size and the severity of the blisters with each other it would be a bonding exercise for us)
So back to yesterday!
For a 500 quid fee Ozzie, got us to pick postcards out a pile that most resembled how we felt about the work we were doing. Unfortunately for me they had none of Alcatraz, or Colditz, or Eeyore. Then he made us shuffle about and get in groups to draw a shield to represent the strengths of the department, all of this peppered by pseudo-psychobabble of the most inane sort.
Then in the afternoon we did the fun stuff – building models out of office rubbish – I mean what? Duh! And then coming up with an explanation that suggested that our place of work was GREAT! And we all worked as a TEAM and in the future we were all going to be more TEAMY, discussing our work day problems with each other and sharing work across the department – yeah right!
I guess the day was successful as most of us (higher echelons precluded) were united in our scorn and disbelief (obvious only done in whispers in corners not being overheard) of the whole thing.
But what wimps are we, at the end of the day Ozzie gets a vote of thanks, boss praises all our good work, we give a round of applause, all smiley smiley. How spineless hey?
But at least it was a day out and we got lunch!
So great another Training Day for the Office. A day, when, according to the Office Administrator, we can get together and learn to be a team. Despite the fact that I hardly see any of my colleagues, imprisoned as I am, in the ex photocopier room, in a sort of salaried solitary confinement.
So we all have to clear our diaries and decamp to hotel out of town where we will be trained to be a team, as if we were a bunch of performing seals or monkey’s or poodles or something! And of course the ringmaster in all of this is an Australian! Well it had to be, didn’t it? I mean who else would charge 500 quid a day to get out of their combi and stand infront of 15 or so bored individuals all looking out at the golf course wishing they were somewhere else – even work for instance. I guess, for the Ozzie, its better than serving behind the bar!
So first it’s coffee and Danish at 9:00 everybody standing around trying to make small talk, trying to find a common theme that’s not bitching about being here cos the boss is here too. And he’s jovially moving around each group, staying for just long enough with each group so that we all feel touched by his presence and joviality.
In an attempt to give us something in common, apart from bitching about the job, the last training day was Bracken Bashing. No this wasn’t torturing little bunnies last seen in the Duncton Wood novels, but a ‘fun’ day out volunteering on Dartmoor. The fact that none of us were asked if we wanted to volunteer is beside the point. What Bracken Bashing is, is going up onto the Moor, with some worthy preservation organisation, and with a big bamboo stick bashing bracken, it does what it says on the can! Apparently this is the only way to control bracken, but for the life of me I can’t see why a helicopter and a supply of selective weed killer wouldn’t do as well.
So we spend a few hours bashing bracken which is meant to engender a team spirit, whereas all it seemed to do was engender blisters of the hand. (I did notice that the preservation guys all had thick leather gloves so they didn’t get blisters – I guess they thought that in comparing the size and the severity of the blisters with each other it would be a bonding exercise for us)
So back to yesterday!
For a 500 quid fee Ozzie, got us to pick postcards out a pile that most resembled how we felt about the work we were doing. Unfortunately for me they had none of Alcatraz, or Colditz, or Eeyore. Then he made us shuffle about and get in groups to draw a shield to represent the strengths of the department, all of this peppered by pseudo-psychobabble of the most inane sort.
Then in the afternoon we did the fun stuff – building models out of office rubbish – I mean what? Duh! And then coming up with an explanation that suggested that our place of work was GREAT! And we all worked as a TEAM and in the future we were all going to be more TEAMY, discussing our work day problems with each other and sharing work across the department – yeah right!
I guess the day was successful as most of us (higher echelons precluded) were united in our scorn and disbelief (obvious only done in whispers in corners not being overheard) of the whole thing.
But what wimps are we, at the end of the day Ozzie gets a vote of thanks, boss praises all our good work, we give a round of applause, all smiley smiley. How spineless hey?
But at least it was a day out and we got lunch!
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
Thong Snooker
Thong Snooker
Here is a new game I just recently heard about. Useful for those of us who work on large educational institution sites and interesting if you are out and about shopping with the wife on Saturday, something to keep both your mind sharp and your eyes alert!
I did mention in my peircings blog that where I work is awash with nubile young ladies (all of age I may add) walking around with their jeans hardly covering their pubic bone. And as said jeans slip ever downwards the ubiquitous thong slips into sight, even more so when the young lovelies bend down to tuck a folder into their bag or do up a shoelace, I often have to stop thinking about parking bikes and simply stop thinking!
But now, joy, something that I can usefully do when wandering around the campus – yes thong snooker!
The way it works is similar to snooker, so for a Black thong on show you score 7 points, 6 for a pink, 5 for a blue, 4 for a Brown, 3 for a Green and 2 for a Yellow. A white is like a false shot so it’s minus 4.
I’ve scored 48 already this morning! Great huh!
I’m not sure how our American friends will fair as their game is pool – but I’m sure you’ll come up with something
Ah happy days……
Ps no 'cue' jokes please
Here is a new game I just recently heard about. Useful for those of us who work on large educational institution sites and interesting if you are out and about shopping with the wife on Saturday, something to keep both your mind sharp and your eyes alert!
I did mention in my peircings blog that where I work is awash with nubile young ladies (all of age I may add) walking around with their jeans hardly covering their pubic bone. And as said jeans slip ever downwards the ubiquitous thong slips into sight, even more so when the young lovelies bend down to tuck a folder into their bag or do up a shoelace, I often have to stop thinking about parking bikes and simply stop thinking!
But now, joy, something that I can usefully do when wandering around the campus – yes thong snooker!
The way it works is similar to snooker, so for a Black thong on show you score 7 points, 6 for a pink, 5 for a blue, 4 for a Brown, 3 for a Green and 2 for a Yellow. A white is like a false shot so it’s minus 4.
I’ve scored 48 already this morning! Great huh!
I’m not sure how our American friends will fair as their game is pool – but I’m sure you’ll come up with something
Ah happy days……
Ps no 'cue' jokes please
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Public Service Announcment The USA is blowing up!
Hi all, apparently the USA is blowing up and it's happening at Mount St Helens. Here's the LINK to the webcam there, it's meant to be good. - Enjoy
Road rage
I will be totally honest here and freely admit that I am not the best driver in the world. I take the odd shortcut; break a few rules and laws here and there. But what really gets my goat is those drivers who have never ever seem to have read the Highway Code. Especially the bit about right of way.
As I understand it as I drive along, the road ahead is my right of way. If someone has to pass a vehicle that is parked on the other side of the road and that involves them moving across the white line onto my carriageway then they must give way to me. Please inform me if I am wrong.
So here in Sunny Devon some of the roads are a little narrow, for our American readers you have to remember some of these ‘roads’ are simply medieval lanes with tarmac! So I get a bit peeved when, as I am tootling along trying not to think about the destination (work), some other idiot, probably doing the same and listening to Terry Wogan, comes screaming down from the opposite direction on my side of the road, barley misses me, coming so close that I have to check my wing mirror is still there, (two replacements so far! Electric mirrors, not cheap even on ebay!) and then flings me a look like I should have been somewhere else. (The look comes between the barely missing me and me checking the wing mirror when we are so close I can see the whites of his/her eye’s)
Or even worse the ‘tourists’ in their new cars who drive in the middle of the road/lane so that the sharp grass doesn’t touch their gleaming paintwork. They don’t worry that they have just forced me into the blackthorn hedge and now my car sports so many zebra stripes down the side I could sell it to a safari park! Why is it also that ‘tourists’ also seem to have forgotten how to use reverse gear? They sit there looking at you waiting for you to move, behind them is a passing place, they would have to reverse about 5 meters I know I will have to reverse about half a mile, around a corner and up a hill before pressing the car against a gate so they can pass – all without so much as a wave a smile or a thank you.
Here in Sunny Devon we’re a laid back lot, most of us, lots of green fields, tress, sheep, and I don’t want to put those of you who live around the world off visiting us, but if you do come. PLEASE READ THE BLOODY HIGHWAY CODE right thanks..........
Here it is rule 139: ‘give way to oncoming vehicles before passing parked vehicles or other obstructions on your side of the road’ the internet is a wonderful thing!
As I understand it as I drive along, the road ahead is my right of way. If someone has to pass a vehicle that is parked on the other side of the road and that involves them moving across the white line onto my carriageway then they must give way to me. Please inform me if I am wrong.
So here in Sunny Devon some of the roads are a little narrow, for our American readers you have to remember some of these ‘roads’ are simply medieval lanes with tarmac! So I get a bit peeved when, as I am tootling along trying not to think about the destination (work), some other idiot, probably doing the same and listening to Terry Wogan, comes screaming down from the opposite direction on my side of the road, barley misses me, coming so close that I have to check my wing mirror is still there, (two replacements so far! Electric mirrors, not cheap even on ebay!) and then flings me a look like I should have been somewhere else. (The look comes between the barely missing me and me checking the wing mirror when we are so close I can see the whites of his/her eye’s)
Or even worse the ‘tourists’ in their new cars who drive in the middle of the road/lane so that the sharp grass doesn’t touch their gleaming paintwork. They don’t worry that they have just forced me into the blackthorn hedge and now my car sports so many zebra stripes down the side I could sell it to a safari park! Why is it also that ‘tourists’ also seem to have forgotten how to use reverse gear? They sit there looking at you waiting for you to move, behind them is a passing place, they would have to reverse about 5 meters I know I will have to reverse about half a mile, around a corner and up a hill before pressing the car against a gate so they can pass – all without so much as a wave a smile or a thank you.
Here in Sunny Devon we’re a laid back lot, most of us, lots of green fields, tress, sheep, and I don’t want to put those of you who live around the world off visiting us, but if you do come. PLEASE READ THE BLOODY HIGHWAY CODE right thanks..........
Here it is rule 139: ‘give way to oncoming vehicles before passing parked vehicles or other obstructions on your side of the road’ the internet is a wonderful thing!
Monday, October 04, 2004
Conkers Bonkers
Conkers Bonkers:
These are some of the more recent scary reports concerning conkers (American readers please follow this link)
BONKERS health and safety concerns have forced pupils to wear goggles while playing conkers at a village school near Carlisle
This month in South Shields, a local council lopped the branches off conker trees to stop children hurting themselves and the trees are to be replaced with a different species.
Schools are banning time-honoured playtime pastimes such as conkers because headteachers are afraid of being sued by parents in the event of an accident
Alarm>>>>The traditional children's party game of musical chairs has been accused of breeding violence
Now is it me being old and boring but isn’t playing conkers a pretty harmless activity, I mean I played it and never ever got injured, well maybe the odd bruised knuckles. And musical chairs breeding violence, excuse me has anyone even asked Charlie Manson if he excelled at musical chairs?
What can kids do today, how can they even enjoy being kids if we wrap them in cotton wool all the time, how will they learn life’s lessons? Like ‘Look before you leap!’ Because I guess leaping in any form is banned.
A recent report stated that children no longer roam out and about and are being reared like battery hens by fearful parents. They sit watching TV, playing computer games and surfing the internet. They are getting obese and unhealthy.
Now when I was a child living in Weston-super-mare we were out till all hours. Playing in the woods, on the beach, we would cycle for miles and miles into the countryside. We played with go-carts we made ourselves out of junk prams and go plummeting down the biggest hills we could find – wot no brakes! We climbed trees; played conkers (gasp) swam in rivers, broke into derelict houses and played on building sites. We used to make fires and try to smoke twigs, rolled up rose petals. We made dens in the woods and had battles with other gangs using guns that fired peas, homemade bows and arrows, and catapults (this all sounds a bit ‘William at Large’ I know but its true!) or we just threw stones at them. We sea fished at night and fished rivers by day. We drank water from the streams and scrumped apples from the orchards. A scrape or graze would be washed under the tap and a plaster put on it. We all had penknives and managed not to either stab each other or ourselves. As we got older we rode motor bikes on rough ground because they weren’t roadworthy (admittedly my broken collar bone weakens my argument here) and even kissed girls with no ill effects. (You pay for that in later life!)
Anyway I think you get my drift here. We live in a society where children are being wrapped in cotton wool and in my view this isn’t healthy, its about time the nanny state and all the nannies out there shut up and let the kids play conkers or musical chairs, climb trees and generally be kids.
These are some of the more recent scary reports concerning conkers (American readers please follow this link)
BONKERS health and safety concerns have forced pupils to wear goggles while playing conkers at a village school near Carlisle
This month in South Shields, a local council lopped the branches off conker trees to stop children hurting themselves and the trees are to be replaced with a different species.
Schools are banning time-honoured playtime pastimes such as conkers because headteachers are afraid of being sued by parents in the event of an accident
Alarm>>>>The traditional children's party game of musical chairs has been accused of breeding violence
Now is it me being old and boring but isn’t playing conkers a pretty harmless activity, I mean I played it and never ever got injured, well maybe the odd bruised knuckles. And musical chairs breeding violence, excuse me has anyone even asked Charlie Manson if he excelled at musical chairs?
What can kids do today, how can they even enjoy being kids if we wrap them in cotton wool all the time, how will they learn life’s lessons? Like ‘Look before you leap!’ Because I guess leaping in any form is banned.
A recent report stated that children no longer roam out and about and are being reared like battery hens by fearful parents. They sit watching TV, playing computer games and surfing the internet. They are getting obese and unhealthy.
Now when I was a child living in Weston-super-mare we were out till all hours. Playing in the woods, on the beach, we would cycle for miles and miles into the countryside. We played with go-carts we made ourselves out of junk prams and go plummeting down the biggest hills we could find – wot no brakes! We climbed trees; played conkers (gasp) swam in rivers, broke into derelict houses and played on building sites. We used to make fires and try to smoke twigs, rolled up rose petals. We made dens in the woods and had battles with other gangs using guns that fired peas, homemade bows and arrows, and catapults (this all sounds a bit ‘William at Large’ I know but its true!) or we just threw stones at them. We sea fished at night and fished rivers by day. We drank water from the streams and scrumped apples from the orchards. A scrape or graze would be washed under the tap and a plaster put on it. We all had penknives and managed not to either stab each other or ourselves. As we got older we rode motor bikes on rough ground because they weren’t roadworthy (admittedly my broken collar bone weakens my argument here) and even kissed girls with no ill effects. (You pay for that in later life!)
Anyway I think you get my drift here. We live in a society where children are being wrapped in cotton wool and in my view this isn’t healthy, its about time the nanny state and all the nannies out there shut up and let the kids play conkers or musical chairs, climb trees and generally be kids.
Peaked and Blocked
Peaked!
Oh no! Three blogs in and I think I’ve peaked; maybe I’ve even got Bloggers Block! Where has it all gone wrong? I mean it seems like this is the story of my life! I seem to have peaked too early in every aspect of my life.
Well of course not every aspect, I mean come on ladies stop sniggering, I am more than happy in that department thank you so much. Never had any complaints there! Never needed those little blue tabs if you get my drift! Never had to count down from 100 or think about the English cricket team. I’ll stop now because in the words of the great African Playwright Will Shaka Spear (I misquote) methinks I dost protest too much!
Now in the general area of women, I think I have also peaked too early and thus got blocked. I have been married three times and divorced twice. I think Oscar Wilde would say something like to lose one wife may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. I try hard really I do. Now the current wife is fine, a wonderful woman, but I can’t help feeling that perhaps if I’d held out just a little longer I might have got me a pop star like Beyonce, even Kylie, at the least a minor celeb that would be happy at home with me in Sunny Devon rather than having to go charging all over London just to get their photo taken showing their knickers. There is, after all, a photo machine in the Post Office in Okehampton! You see peaked to early and now blocked!
It’s the same with my job. I once had a great job in Brighton. Happening place, happening job. But it soon also became the wrong place at the wrong time, I’d peaked! I do believe that if I had stayed there I would now be the director of the place earning zillions of pounds, be married to Beyonce live in a big house on the sea front and be friends with Fat Boy and whatever his wife is called. But no now I sit in my office diddling with the computer and sighing loud sighs, but unfortunately there’s no one to hear them.
I did do the three peaks once but that’s an aside!
So have I peaked! I’ve been thinking about this all weekend. I had my 5 year old daughter home with me, thank goodness I didn’t get blocked where she was concerned (see second para above). She is, I guess, the peak of all my performances and makes me quite glad that I don’t live in Brighton earning zillions of pounds dragging an ungrateful Beyonce or Kylie around waiting all those three minutes for the photos to be developed. I mean get a grip!
No I much prefer it in Sunny Devon (a bit rainy Devon this weekend) with Matty doing a spot of sheep worrying by shouting ‘Mint Sauce’ at the sheep! Or showing her what jewels you can find when you open the prickly skin of a conker. Or just having a cuddle. Timmy understands this also (gratuitous name check) as he has a daughter too.
Oh no! Three blogs in and I think I’ve peaked; maybe I’ve even got Bloggers Block! Where has it all gone wrong? I mean it seems like this is the story of my life! I seem to have peaked too early in every aspect of my life.
Well of course not every aspect, I mean come on ladies stop sniggering, I am more than happy in that department thank you so much. Never had any complaints there! Never needed those little blue tabs if you get my drift! Never had to count down from 100 or think about the English cricket team. I’ll stop now because in the words of the great African Playwright Will Shaka Spear (I misquote) methinks I dost protest too much!
Now in the general area of women, I think I have also peaked too early and thus got blocked. I have been married three times and divorced twice. I think Oscar Wilde would say something like to lose one wife may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. I try hard really I do. Now the current wife is fine, a wonderful woman, but I can’t help feeling that perhaps if I’d held out just a little longer I might have got me a pop star like Beyonce, even Kylie, at the least a minor celeb that would be happy at home with me in Sunny Devon rather than having to go charging all over London just to get their photo taken showing their knickers. There is, after all, a photo machine in the Post Office in Okehampton! You see peaked to early and now blocked!
It’s the same with my job. I once had a great job in Brighton. Happening place, happening job. But it soon also became the wrong place at the wrong time, I’d peaked! I do believe that if I had stayed there I would now be the director of the place earning zillions of pounds, be married to Beyonce live in a big house on the sea front and be friends with Fat Boy and whatever his wife is called. But no now I sit in my office diddling with the computer and sighing loud sighs, but unfortunately there’s no one to hear them.
I did do the three peaks once but that’s an aside!
So have I peaked! I’ve been thinking about this all weekend. I had my 5 year old daughter home with me, thank goodness I didn’t get blocked where she was concerned (see second para above). She is, I guess, the peak of all my performances and makes me quite glad that I don’t live in Brighton earning zillions of pounds dragging an ungrateful Beyonce or Kylie around waiting all those three minutes for the photos to be developed. I mean get a grip!
No I much prefer it in Sunny Devon (a bit rainy Devon this weekend) with Matty doing a spot of sheep worrying by shouting ‘Mint Sauce’ at the sheep! Or showing her what jewels you can find when you open the prickly skin of a conker. Or just having a cuddle. Timmy understands this also (gratuitous name check) as he has a daughter too.
Friday, October 01, 2004
I Hate Americans
I Hate Americans.
Now I don’t really understand why I wrote that. It sort of just slipped out. I don’t really think that I do hate Americans. I mean how can I as the population is 294,410,526 as of today the 1st October? If I only hated each person for say 10 seconds each I would have to spend the next 9 YEARs hating Americans. But between you and me I have better things to do with my life (But like Watski I still haven’t come up with a definitive list!).
So I need to analyse my feelings just a little bit more. I mean I quite like the idea of America and thus should quite like the idea of Americans. Look the country was set up as a refuge against religious persecution in Europe and a way for many English people to escape our mad kings. So the idea of the great melting pot that welcomes the shivering masses to its shores strikes a chord with me. I like that. And going back to the 294,410,526 I quite like Americans as individual people. By that I mean all the Americans I have met (with the exception of the immigration officials at JFK) I have quite liked too. We even visited a family in Portland Maine once!
So why don’t I like Americans as a collective then? Well first off they are just obvious targets aren’t they. They are just so insular. What is that statistic about the number of passports per head of population? Blimey the Brits can’t wait to get out of this country – most of them buying houses in France, Spain and all points East and South and not getting on with their new neighbours if the TV is to be believed! Another example is, I sell stuff on ebay, and I am happy to post around the world, provided the buyer pays the shipping (as the Yanks call it). But so many of them buy my stuff and then balk at the cost of the postage, they seem to assume that the UK is a few miles off California or somewhere close where the postage will only cost a few dollars. Never mind that it has to be put on an aeroplane and flown there! Perhaps they still have a pony express I don’t know (although I do get a childish thrill when I get payments from Wells Fargo!)
Okay I am starting to warm to the subject now. For a country that was set up on the notions of freedom from persecution and so on, I really do not get their idea that they can be the world’s police. I mean, apart from sort of helping to end WW2, and this was only marginal as I know for a fact the Russian people seem to believe that it was their huge sacrifices that saw the end of that conflict, what else have they managed to do successfully? Korea? Nah! Grenada? Nah!, That place in Africa with the helicopters? Nah! Vietnam – ah Vietnam, not a loss but a ‘tactical withdrawal’. Tactical withdrawal my arse or ass for my American readers! They lost! It’s their bravado then? Perhaps it’s that that I dislike.
Or their contribution to world cuisine perhaps? The ubiquitous McD? KFC? And now why o why do we have to call Treats MnM’s . And this inevitably leads to big fat trailer trash women with HUGE bottoms and big Fat guys too. And now this cultural deficit is impacting on our women too!
Ok I’ll give them the film industry and some good actors, some marginally good TV programmes and yes I’ll give them some good, if not great Rock n Roll, Blues etc.
But what’s all this red neck stuff up in the Ozark Mountains or wherever, what’s all this white Aryan nation stuff? All this gun ownership, the paranoia that someone’s out to get them. So lets waste them first before they waste us. Baloney! (more bad food!)
And I’m not even going to mention their (mis)use of the English language. Like you know- whatever!
Hating Americans is sort of complicated, it’s not like hating the cat or the next door neighbours. It’s like a general sense of uneasiness that they are out there waiting to come and get us. Like a damp fog across Dartmoor in winter, if you get my drift. I don’t really have time to hate Americans, not all of them anyway. So maybe like most people George W will have to do, unless you readers can come up with any more likely candidates? Whatever!
Now I don’t really understand why I wrote that. It sort of just slipped out. I don’t really think that I do hate Americans. I mean how can I as the population is 294,410,526 as of today the 1st October? If I only hated each person for say 10 seconds each I would have to spend the next 9 YEARs hating Americans. But between you and me I have better things to do with my life (But like Watski I still haven’t come up with a definitive list!).
So I need to analyse my feelings just a little bit more. I mean I quite like the idea of America and thus should quite like the idea of Americans. Look the country was set up as a refuge against religious persecution in Europe and a way for many English people to escape our mad kings. So the idea of the great melting pot that welcomes the shivering masses to its shores strikes a chord with me. I like that. And going back to the 294,410,526 I quite like Americans as individual people. By that I mean all the Americans I have met (with the exception of the immigration officials at JFK) I have quite liked too. We even visited a family in Portland Maine once!
So why don’t I like Americans as a collective then? Well first off they are just obvious targets aren’t they. They are just so insular. What is that statistic about the number of passports per head of population? Blimey the Brits can’t wait to get out of this country – most of them buying houses in France, Spain and all points East and South and not getting on with their new neighbours if the TV is to be believed! Another example is, I sell stuff on ebay, and I am happy to post around the world, provided the buyer pays the shipping (as the Yanks call it). But so many of them buy my stuff and then balk at the cost of the postage, they seem to assume that the UK is a few miles off California or somewhere close where the postage will only cost a few dollars. Never mind that it has to be put on an aeroplane and flown there! Perhaps they still have a pony express I don’t know (although I do get a childish thrill when I get payments from Wells Fargo!)
Okay I am starting to warm to the subject now. For a country that was set up on the notions of freedom from persecution and so on, I really do not get their idea that they can be the world’s police. I mean, apart from sort of helping to end WW2, and this was only marginal as I know for a fact the Russian people seem to believe that it was their huge sacrifices that saw the end of that conflict, what else have they managed to do successfully? Korea? Nah! Grenada? Nah!, That place in Africa with the helicopters? Nah! Vietnam – ah Vietnam, not a loss but a ‘tactical withdrawal’. Tactical withdrawal my arse or ass for my American readers! They lost! It’s their bravado then? Perhaps it’s that that I dislike.
Or their contribution to world cuisine perhaps? The ubiquitous McD? KFC? And now why o why do we have to call Treats MnM’s . And this inevitably leads to big fat trailer trash women with HUGE bottoms and big Fat guys too. And now this cultural deficit is impacting on our women too!
Ok I’ll give them the film industry and some good actors, some marginally good TV programmes and yes I’ll give them some good, if not great Rock n Roll, Blues etc.
But what’s all this red neck stuff up in the Ozark Mountains or wherever, what’s all this white Aryan nation stuff? All this gun ownership, the paranoia that someone’s out to get them. So lets waste them first before they waste us. Baloney! (more bad food!)
And I’m not even going to mention their (mis)use of the English language. Like you know- whatever!
Hating Americans is sort of complicated, it’s not like hating the cat or the next door neighbours. It’s like a general sense of uneasiness that they are out there waiting to come and get us. Like a damp fog across Dartmoor in winter, if you get my drift. I don’t really have time to hate Americans, not all of them anyway. So maybe like most people George W will have to do, unless you readers can come up with any more likely candidates? Whatever!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
