I'm pleased that Bryony come out in favour of the world's second most talked about pills. And she's headed 'oop 'Norf for a few days. The two are apparently unrelated.
My invitation to Eccles McDonalds is still open (to all of you in the vicinity as well as Ms Gordon). 13:00 Eccles McDonalds, Saturdays. I'll be the guy with the completed Telegraph crossword. The Japanese restaurant quest in Manchester seems a tad more difficult than I would have imagined though. Hell, it's only a blip across the tops to get to Leeds or York, and I know they both have cracking Japanese food. On second thoughts, the Waaart is in York and I swear the last time we were in the Japanese there, something unsavory happened.
That said, I'm sure someone in the Manchester area will be able to furnish me with details of a suitable Sashimi temple.
On the subject of happy pills, stick to Mirtazapine (tetra-cyclic) and good old-fashioned tri-cyclics. Paroxetine is a killer. Step away from the Citalopram. Cross the street to avoid Seroquel. Not that I have extensive experience of such beasts. Cough. Really. Cough.
People of the earth, please send aid. Look at the damage (picture from Al Beeb):
The media are in a frenzy:
Britain may never recover.
Sources talking to this reporter detailed the violent shaking of bedpans across the land, rogue alarm calls and in one horrific display of nature's power, a thatched roof had two of its tranklements cross-joggled.
As we can see from the Al-Beeb coverage, insurance companies are in for a record payout for the, quite literally, tens of chimney pots that were damaged. Markets reflected the catastrophic news by blinking twice. The usual culprits (gas suppliers, electricity companies, oil companies) all reacted quickly to the news by increasing prices -- BP, who made a profit of twenty googleplex dollars in 2007 commented that they had raised prices to £10 a litre in "an attempt to curtail panic buying" after having witnessed queues of nearly four people at a gas-station in Toxteth during peak rush hour this morning.
A return to the dark ages is not likely according to Alistair Darling, Minister for Anything That Goes Wrong, although he did intimate the current 200W economic lightbulb that we have been told we have been enjoying may have to be substituted for an eco-friendly 100W version.
Roads were in chaos as evening hit the stricken country. Drivers could be seen cowering in fear as they reached over to switch off the awful news.
Mohammed Al Fayed was quick to point the finger of blame squarely at the Duke of Edinburgh and MI5. MI5 were implementing "Operation Omega" from their secret bunker, just a frightening 150 miles from the epicenter so did not leak any national secrets. All government-issue top-secret PCs were reported safely stashed away in Beijing.
David Cameron seized on the bad news by taunting the government with suggestions that the last labour government had left their successors an earthquake as a hangover from their tepid policies and it seemed that the current government was experiencing a premature hangover that was aimed at the Tories but was ratified too quickly in panic legislation. Cameron continued on blistering form warning of future tsunamis and economic hurricanes before this reporter was completely buried in the rubble of political rhetoric drowned in metaphors and illegal immigrants.
Jonathon Ross was unavailable for comment in English.
If you drive a Honda Civic in the UK and use the M62, I am your mortal enemy. All of you, without exception. Do Civics have an "auto-prat" control that is permanently set at 100%?
We had an eathquake. Coo. I woke up, thought "that's an earhquake", made sure my duvet was still covering me and went back to sleep.
If my doctor wasn't married, I would be severely tempted to make a complete arse of myself by making a pass at her.
Thanks are due to Jlo (the guy at work, not the chick from the films) for his efforts in flashing the firmware of my wireless router. It has been temperamental for a while and has caused me too much exercise running back and forth to reboot the bugger.
Finally, the question of the day is whether Bryony left a column for tomorrow prior to her staycation.
Okay, Waaart, Kidder, Flip-Flop, Nevuloid, Allie-Bongo etc. did not miss it...
I've spent the day idling. A token gesture at housework soon fizzled out as I felt the urge to read the Sunday paper. Unusually, I read the news section of the Observer cover to cover -- much better read than the Sunday Telegraph. That, and the crossword complete, I flicked through the channels for something light-hearted to watch while I sketched away at yet another abject load of nothing.
After watching Rome fall from a very shaky cardboard horizon, I found a certain Mr Frederick Mercury and the rest rocking away in Rio. As a rule, Queen are not really my cup of tea, but as a live performance, you have to admit that Mercury's talents were undoubted. Choral electric guitars were never my bag. Give me a pissed off old geezer with an acoustic guitar, a love-struck whimsical pre-raphaelite Goddess with a piano, or a really angry young lass with an acoustic any day of the week.
Watching Queen brought back some days from University. In the final year, there was a group of us that used to knock about together, primarily a core three. Nevuloid (who had a brief dalliance with blogging) and Muffty were both massive Queen fans. At any given time of day, Freddy could be heard all around Middlesbrough center from one of their houses. I formed the odd third of the unholy trinity.
Muffty was larger than life, twice as loud and three times as ugly. That last part is not strictly true; virtually every girl I ever introduced him to fell instantly in love with him (I'm looking in the direction of the Flip-flop as a prime example). Large, in Muffty's case, did not mean tall; in fact, I used to pseudo-tease him about being a short-arse. He was built like a tank and is, to this day, possibly the strongest person I have ever had the misfortune to try to overpower. His strength was second only to his presence. If he entered a room, the lasses would all suffer whiplash turning their heads, seats would be vacated to allow Him to sit and an air of glorified reverence descended as he flicked back his head (in a very 70s Hollywood style) and ordered some poor soul to go to the bar for him. That rarefied silence was usually broken by the Nevuloid and I breaking into a chorus of (to the tune of Losing My Religion):
Oh life is bigger, it's bigger than Muff and Muff's a fat bastard, The things that he will drink to, the distance in his thighs. Oh God I've said too much -- he hasn't drunk enough.
After our initial salutation, the jukebox would suddenly become aware of His presence, interrupt whatever late-eighties or early-nineties rubbish it was spewing forth and Queen would start playing for the duration of His visit. I think there are by-laws still in force throughout Cleveland, North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and Surrey which dictate that Muffty's arrival must always be heralded by a fanfare of choral guitars playing God Save The Queen. This should be followed by the purchase of a Hallowed Pint of Guinness for His Mufftiness to neck within a few seconds.
Much the same as court rooms, one could only sit after Muffty had sat.
Conversations were usually jibberish. Inevitably we would disagree on something at some point, usually over whose round it was. A mock fracas would then begin twixt Muffty and I. "Outside now." We'd then disappear outside the pub for a couple of minutes and violently argue over whose turn it was to win. That settled either by concencus or by the exchange of beer-tokens, one of us would slope back into the pub behind the other, either hobbling or clutching a jaw in Oscar-winning agony, which would magically disappear once the beverages arrived. Queen would be restored to the jukebox and the session would continue until Nev and Muffty had run out of things to lambast me for, usually a bad pool shot or my appalling taste in women (according to them).
This cameo act continued for years. To this day, whenever I text Muff, there is an exchange as to whose round it is and whose turn it is to win the fight.
The one thing that Muffty was absolutely useless at was dancing. I'm not talking bad, I'm talking horrific. Those that have had the misfortune to see me dance will know it must be pretty abysmal for me to be able to put my hand on my heart while typing that. Poor is an insult to its meaning when refering to the Muffty on a dance floor. Once we had established that he was indeed the crappest contortionist the local nightclub had ever seen, he must have spent hours practicing his new dance style.
Freddy Muffty-Mercury took to the stage at The Southfield in mid-1998. Only Nev and I (and probably anyone else who was there) will remember.
The song? The Only Way Is up by Jazz (sp?).
Imagine that Freddy prance, the use of the microphone pole as alternately a crucifix or an extension to his manhood, the theatrical flick of the head back with an operatic pose. The whip of the head sideways to present a Roman profile brought about gasps and hysterics; gasps from the lasses, hysterics as Nev and I pretended to be out with the nerdy guy from the course, all to such forget-me-not tunes as Erasure's Respect, Sade's Smooth Operator or Dee-lite's Groove Is In The Heart. In isolated moments of rapture Muffty Mercury used to randomly grab someone (Nev or I, or sometimes a passing maiden) and fling us into the air like Freddy did his microphone stand. He'd catch us (usually by the throat) and wing us hurtling into any group of angry looking locals (not the girls, they were gently collected and laid backward over his knee in a faux 1930s love pose).
To my knowledge, this star-like presence continues. The last time we met up (too long ago), we walked into his local for a sneaky pint. The barman bowed and addressed him as "Sir Muffty", the women swooned, the jukebox choked at the occasion and only started playing I Want To Break Free after a stern look from Him, and I ended up payimg for the ale and losing the fight.
I'm off to ring Him to see whether he has selected a spouse from His adoring harem yet and to see whether I should go down and act as a prop while he busts a move in Guildford sometime soon.
Unfortunately it has an evil midget reference, just going to prove that she is on a one-midget mission to monopolise TV. Rupert Murdoch and she may make strange bedfellows, but they are a serious threat to free markets.
I've just checked my referer logs. The number of recent search strings alluding to Kate Silverton is amazing:
1) kate silverton back with her beau 2) pictures of kate silverton's boyfriend 3) is kate silverton a lesbian 4) photo of kate silvertons boyfriend 5) kate silverton belt "on the bed" spanking mississippi 6) is kate silverton in love 7) how many sisters has kate silverton got 8) kate silverton love life 9) kate silverton haircut 10) dishy kate silverton
I feel so inadequate not being able to help these poor souls. I must confess, had number 5 added the words "pic" or "photo" to their query, I would have been able to oblige.
Poor old Bryony fares not so well:
1) bryony gordon mentor
The sad bit? That came from the Telegraph domain (I must hasten to add it wasn't her -- the user agent was a Mac).
This is getting beyond a joke. Last night, the ITV channels were going Brit-mad. One of them started interviewing the Minogue and with a move that was quicker than the wife's hand on payday, I grasped the murdler to change channels. Sweet relief.
Channel five news brought the relative sanity of Kurplunksy (who, incidentally, Bryony seems to take issue with), until they started on the Brits. Up again popped the devil incarnate herself being all Antipodean and causing me to half regurgitate my pudding, chips and gravy. The poison-dwarf oozed smarminess as she proclaimed that she would be performing, presenting and probably be receiving awards during the Brits ceremony (I don't know whether she won any and I really don't care -- wait, maybe if there was a category for the most talentless, obnoxious, sickening non-Brit on the planet, she would have a very strong and compelling argument for her victory). Her little tyrade over, I had been tipped the proverbial nod; no ITV tonight. I simply cannot afford the medication.
I flicked through the TV guide. Hell's bells and buckets of blood -- what was on at 11:00? Yup. The frickin' Kylie show. Say it ain't so.
Point of order here: last time I looked, Kylie was Australian. Why should she be on the Brits? We haven't given her citizenship have we? If, and I hope this is the case, we haven't, can we not just revoke her visa and then ban imports of Australian shows?
As if it could not get any worse, I then noticed that Bill Oddie was on for an hour as well. Talk about losing the will to live? In an effort to avoid my two most despised people on earth, I set about doing some book-keeping until something I could stomach came on.
Unfortunately, nothing did. I ended up watching Robson Feckin' Green in Wire In The Blood for the fifty-billionth time. He's fast becoming as big a pain in the arse as the vertically challenged one. He's in absolutely everything and performs at varying levels of crapness, starting at utter crap and going downhill from there.
Good people of the ether, Wednesday was a triumvirate of wannabe has-beens. I hope you didn't suffer like I did.
Dexterity is not a word that should be used in the same sentence as Kenny
It was Die Fuhrer's birthday on Sunday. She is a remarkably hard person to buy anything for. She has an attitude that oozes "if I haven't got it now, I probably have no use for it". Worse still, if she has something and it breaks, the replacement is never as good as the one that has just shuffled off its mortal or electrical coil.
A couple of examples...
I bought her a new kettle for Christmas (I know, aren't I thoughtful). She had become convinced that the old one was leaking. It quite obviously wasn't but who am I to argue such a trivial point? The new one boils very quickly and has groovy lights on it (great for the partially sighted, or so I thought). No. It's not as good as the old one. It's too noisy. It uses too much electricity (don't ask) etc. Essentially it's inferior to the old one.
She recently bought a new bed. Her old one was older than me. As the Young Ones said, "there are as-yet undiscovered tribes in the Amazon that could have predicted it [the response]". The mattress is too lumpy.
As far as radios go, don't get me started. She has a post-WWII thing perched at a specific angle in her kitchen. The channel and volume levels have been tuned into radio 4 at glass-shattering volume for over 30 years. No-one is allowed to touch it. It is switched on and off at the mains so as not to change any settings. Volume and frequency must be left at current levels. This "wireless" is positively worshipped for its longevity. I have my DAB at the side which is 100x better -- clearer, audible etc. but it will never replace the decrepit monster.
Long term masochists will remember that I built her a pond a couple of years ago while she was off invading Poland visiting the Fatherland, Osterreich. It has bedded in nicely and the only faults she has found with it are that it should be about a foot to the left of where I built it (again, don't get me started -- I am not "moving" a pond) and that it is not deep enough to sustain fish (quite obviously a load of tripe as the first lot lived fine for over a year).
While out and about at the weekend, I spotted some solar lamp-like objects that would look great around the pond and quickly realised that there was very little to criticise them for; no electricity cables, environmentally friendly etc.. In short, they were an ideal present for one of a Germanic (with the emphasis on Manic) persuasion. I bought four.
As I unpacked them while she was out, I realised that each of the four boxes had two lamps in them, so I had eight of the blighters. I assembled them all and put them in the ground around the pond with a few hours of daylight left, thinking they would get some charge.
Come twilight, there was nary a glimmer from the beasts. I explained this away by saying that it probably wasn't dark enough yet and gave her some pseudo science about solonoids.
Pitch black arrived and still not a single photon was to be detected. I explained that they probably hadn't seen enough daylight to charge the batteries properly.
Twenty-four hours elapsed and a frustrated Kenny smoked a cig while glaring at the solar lamps in annoyance. Surely they couldn't all be duffers? Being the lightning rod that I am, I started thinking through the problem systematically. First theory: I did take the plastic from over the solar cell didn't I? Yup. Hmmm. Maybe the rechargeable batteries are wrapped in plastic? "No stupid, you would have noticed that."
Finally I decided to take one to bits to inspect the batteries. It was the only thing I could think of. I ferreted around for some normal AA batteries to use a proof of concept and pulled one of the buggers up and brought it inside. Dismantling started. Just as I began undoing the battery housing I noticed something on the opposite side of the base plate to the housing.
A switch. A f*****g switch.
Sure enough, I flicked the switch and there was light. Why the f*** do these things need a switch. Okay, there's that whole battery leakage thing -- b******s.
It was then, a tad unfortunate, when Die Fuhrer pitched up and saw my folly. The simplest explanation was indeed the real one. Just as the "you might be academically okay but you have absolutely no common sense" started, the phone rang. For once in my life, I was grateful to Alexander Bell. Pater had messed up his PC somehow. I was at pains to use every ounce of computer psycho-babble I know to explain the problem to Pater making sure that Die Frau Fuhrer heard every last "cast it to void and de-reference it", "thunk layer", "observer class" and "flange reamer" I could think of.
"That's great," says Pater, " but how do I fix it?"
"Reboot it and it'll go away."
A one-all draw on the day, pride recovered, I made a point of hammering the Telegraph crossword. The lamps were not as bright as the ones they had in Die Fuhrer's cousin's aunt's mother's garden in 1935. Plus ca change...
I think I may have to sue Sky 3. There I was starting to watch Cold Case with the oddly enigmatic Kathryn Morris when what the hell should appear on the screen but a Kylie look-alike. There was no warning. Not even a caution. I call that bloody irresponsible broadcasting, it being before the watershed and all.
I nearly had to turn it off.
I really don't make a habit of sticking pins in dolls of famous has-been celebrities, but I honestly believe I am doing the world a favour. It's nothing personal. Well, it is actually -- I hate her with a passion.
And the first person who intimates that I doth protest too much will be second on my list of targets. You have been warned.
I have never come across this little gem before, although apparently I have taken quite a few of them.
Bryony is off on one from the middle of next week. One can only hope her proposed wanderings land her in the McDonalds in Eccles next Saturday at 13:00 sharp. I will quite happily cough up for a Big Mac value meal. Maybe even a Sushi treat in the evening?
Speaking of, I'm off to that very McDonalds in under an hour, so I must away. I'll be picking up waifs and strays en-route. I might take a camera.
While I could have been doing something constructive like nuking Arsenal, I have instead wasted a while sketching again. What started off as quite good (by my low standards) got massacred. The scanner didn't help in that it lost quite a lot of shading and suddenly developed a propensity for randomly making some shading too dark.
I think we'll all agree that this is a tad better than the last one I posted.
Fret ye not: I'm not giving up the day job.
PS -- I forgot to mention that there are bonus points if you can name who it was meant to be.
Die Fuhrer insisted yesterday that because it was such a nice day, a trip-let would be in order to give my legs some exercise. Southport was deemed to be a suitable jaunt away.
I have a couple of issues with Southport. The tide is never in so unless you take binoculars, you are not going to even smell the sea. There is pretty much nothing there other than a fairground and some shops (all of which and more can be found five miles up the road). If the Wirral is posh Scouseland, Southport is middle-class Scouseland; it boasts a faux scouse accent mixed with a faux Preston accent which makes it sound like a cross between David Lloyd and Wayne Rooney and therefore murder to order a coffee. My final issue is that I used to be utterly besotted with a girl from just outside of Southport who I kind of dated for a while (I think the Waaart is the only person who knows the full story there) -- she is now a HR manager at a big bank, so I count myself lucky that nothing serious ever happened. That is unless you count a few nights of wading fully clothed in the sea at Llandudno (right up to our chests) after copious amounts of booze and a fumbled "my God, you're gorgeous" as serious. Only the addition of a "tonight petal" could have made it any more cliched.
Having walked along the seafront for three quarters of an hour (me remembering some good times) and having seen nothing of any import, I demanded coffee. Having found a parking spot near a Costa coffee, we hit Costa on Lord Street. As usual the cappuccino was divine. The moment was spoiled only by Die Fuhrer suddenly remembering she had a splinter in her hand. She sat trying to pry it out in the middle of the coffee shop while giving a running commentary about how it was in the hard skin etc. I slipped inconspicuously under the table with shame. Why is it old people can get away with such breaches of etiquette?
Anyway someone demanded pictures so here are the shots (click to see the originals):
I like this first one, if only for the sun-factor and the perspective -- a good excuse to play around with ISO numbers.
Again this is for the perspective. It was actually taken by mistake while I was twiddling various settings, most of which I have no idea as to their function.
What should always be seen on a beach -- a lone man and his dog. If you squint, you can probably just make out the sea although it may be a trick of the light.
I found this one interesting. It means either no explosive canine diarrhea or that burning of dog poop is not permitted. Either way, the sentence is a bit harsh.
This is what happens when you don't clean up. And no, your family are not informed.
I like this just for the patterns on the sand (only really visible on the larger image).
Southport's answer top the Golden Gate Bridge; I drove across it. Twice.
An action shot of downtown Southport taken from the safety of the Midnight Cowboy, complete with reflection of a parking ticket.
Me dossing around with the shadows. I have another that looks like I have a lamp-post growing out of my head, but this Darth Vadar look-alike is okay by me.
I'd have brought you some toffee-rock back but I know you hate dental bills.
Oh what delicate flowers our teenagers are and what bastards are we that don't like having them assembled on street corners? Some sainted inventor or another came up with a device that emits an uncomfortable noise that only yoofs can discern and which moves them along, just like policemen used to be able to. However some of our more touchy-feely nation want the devices removed for fear of scarring our fragile petals. Poor dears. I heard the adult-equivalent on the wireless this morning and, personally, I would buy it on CD; it is much more melodic than the majority of the current top 20 singles. I have a great idea -- let's just play Dolly Parton on every corner. Surely the yoof of today will scatter faster than you can say "hoodie".
Cracking down on internet piracy hits the headlines in the Telegraph. To be honest, internet piracy stories bore the pants off me. The ideas are all the same. Shut down the sites that host peer-to-peer sharing. Cut off internet access to abusers. Slash off the goolies of anyone who borrows a CD and sticks it on their MP3 player. If the great unwashed honestly think they can win this battle, they really need to go and have a lie down. The real winners will be the people who crack the online music market with a business model that is legal and makes sense. Itunes is close, but I have a feeling there is more to come.
While, I'm feeling opinionated, to all the crossword setters at the Telegraph, please understand the words irony and sarcasm. They are not interchangeable. They have different meanings. There have been a number of occasions recently where one has been used as an explanation for the other. Up with this, I will not put.
Kenny will be sporting the ultimate in fashion this summer after a visit to a local mill turned outlet store that sells top gear for next to nothing. He is planning on being available as a personal shopper, prophet and all round good guy. There are those that might take umbrage with the latter, but be assured they are all the nay-sayers.
My old further maths lecturer (who used to call the pub when I didn't turn up to his lectures, and who told me I would never get a degree in maths) used to occasionally pitch into morning lectures, lie underneath the blackboard and gently say "P376, questions 5-10. Shit, this is two hours isn't it? Make that questions 5-20. Poker, whiskey. 4 o'clock. Wife...". We all knew what he meant so sat and chatted for two hours while he nursed his hangover and tried to think of a friend's sofa he could borrow for a few days.
Along a similar line, I suspect you know the drill when I say "Shopping was great. Party was great. Email from Nski."
'Nuff said. Off to take my happy pills. I might be naughty and sneak two.
Last thing: guess who found some wasabi in Sainsburys and virtually bought them out of it? Yup, Kenny-san. My sinuses are about to rock.
The Gogglebot is a whole single digit integer today. I know, I'm such a sentimentalist. She's ONE. To celebrate that her IQ now surpasses the combined IQs of both her parents and her Uncle Kenny, there will be a bit of a do. I will take my camera and inevitably forget to use it.
While chez Kidder and Flip-Flop's last weekend, I took her to one side and asked her what she wanted for her birthday (this was before I poked her en-route to bed after a record and bank-breaking victory at Wigan Monopoly -- had to rub that particular pinch of salt into the wound). Because she's smart, she insisted on typing it into my phone. It has taken me all week trying to figure out how to copy it from the phone. I have given up, so will transcribe it (all typos are mine not hers)...
Dear readers of Uncle Doofus,
My name is Isobel not Gogglebot or Gogglebel. Uncle Kenny calls me Gogglebot because he suspects me of indexing web pages while I sleep. Mum and Dad call me Gogglebel, which is slightly more palatable but still way off the mark. Why did they call me Isobel and then never use it, apart from on all those boring papers that Dad keeps signing to do with power of attorney and council-tax evasion?
Uncle Kenny showed me this from his logs as proof that I am a gogglebot:
crawl-66-249-72-6.gogglebot.com 03:27, 10th February 2008 Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.goggle.com/bot.html)
What a loser. As if even I couldn't modify a poxy piece of code that he wrote. And I do not crawl -- I immitate my dad when he comes back from dominos (and I don't mean pizza).
Anyway, it's my birthday and I demand presents from all of you. I must confess that Uncle Kenny gave me some ideas as to what I want. I figure that now I am one, and it's a special birthday, I can pretty much ask for what I like. To that end:
-- 200 Silk Cut Silver (to be delivered to Uncle Kenny because I'm too young to sign for them)
-- 1 Chrysler Sebring convertable in Pimp Gold
-- 1 Buick in Gangsta Black
-- 1 Lexus SUV in Da Man Purple (metallic paint of course)
-- 2 tickets for a 6 week tour of the world (1 infant, 1 6'0" infant)
-- A puppy (a pretty big dog -- let's say Husky or Shepherd) to scare the damned cat
-- Lots of things with wheels to leave on the wooden floor as booby-traps
-- 2 dozen oysters
-- 1 hot Latino chick for Uncle Kenny (I feel sorry for him)
-- A milky bar
-- A lettuce so I can shut that Flip-Flop of a mother up for more than ten seconds -- actually make that 10 lettuces
-- 1 quad processor beast and a leased line with static IP
-- Jelly babies
-- Maltesers
-- A penthouse flat in Bryn with parking accomodation for a Sebring, Buick, SUV and a stroller/pram
I guess that will do. I'll start work on what I want for Uncle Kenny's birthday now. Honestly, how can you be approaching your 39th birthday and still have no idea about anything -- it took me six months to suss it all out.
I'll save you a piece of cake suckers.
Love to all,
Isobel
PS -- Uncle Kenny has this really nasty habit of using double-hyphens when he's not sure of punctuation and I have picked up on it. I think I'll buy him a grammar book with the poxy £10 he put in my card.
God bless the BBC, but they can be criminally ignorant. I read this story this morning about a halfwit teenager who released pepper spray at a school in Ashford, causing it to be evacuated. The teenager and the pepper spray are irrelevant to my point.
Why so grumpy then Kenny?
Read the story and look what is missing. I know Ashford is in Kent for some reason although while I was thinking about it, I had a rare moment of doubt. The modus operandi of the BBC is usually to include a small map of the UK and have a label pointing to the area of the country where the town in the news is geographically located. I say usually; usually in this case means anywhere North of Watford. Such rural principalities as Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow etc. are all pointed out so we know where they are.
Because Ashford is in the Home Counties, it is implicitly assumed that everyone knows Ashford like the back of their hands so no label is required.
I wonder whether good old Auntie will start labelling London when they move to Manchester? The logical extension to this will be to not label Lowton, Golborne etc. on the basis that everyone knows where they are.
On the subject of small towns, we have a place called Crankwood just down the road, at the side of the Leeds/Liverpool canal. There is only one road in and out. Nobody I know knows what the hell is there. I have a vague memory of trying to spill the beans on Crankwood by driving down that one road just after I passed my driving test. I have a foggy recollection of hitting two big locked gates at the end of the road and having to turn around.
I imagine Crankwood is a top secret government thing which threatens the death penalty should anyone ever label it on a map. I imagine motorcades, unmarked helicopters and black water towers.
You could tell me anything about Crankwood. In fact I bet it is twinned with Area 51.
"Rudolf Hess shares a cell with Elvis in Crankwood." Really? Cool.
"Lord Lucan shares a love-nest with posh spice in Crankwood." Kerching -- I smell money.
"The failed Grecian 2000 advert starring Jose Murinho was filmed just the other side of the gates at Crankwood." Cooo.
I'm thinking Crankwood, the TV series. It could be kind of Deadwood meets Torchwood in a Hollywood style. As due diligence, I will risk life and limb to drive there this morning and take some action shots. They will be posted later. If I don't return, contact Mutant X and send them in (left off Plank Lane after the draw-bridge).
The other day I mentioned the six word story bet that Hemmingway made with a newspaper. The Telegraph had several explanations of what Hemmingway was trying to say when he wrote "For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn."
Strangely, none of them were the way I interpreted it. I read it as Hemmingway saying he was never a child. What say you?
Thanks for letting me describe all terrorists as mascarading not masquerading and not pointing it out. I'm sure they don't wear eye make-up. Well except Osama when he's at the eighties night in downtown Jihadville, dreaming of the days when he could really body-pop with the best of them.
Oh, and I meant hosting company (as you gathered) not ISP. I must have been seriously annoyed when I wrote that. Come to think of it I still am since I paid upfront for years of hosting and will now have to pay again.
My hosting company (Hostrocket) has suddenly become jingoistic and will not allow SSH access from outside the US. I am displeased. Their support people advise me that there are no plans to relax this draconian bunch of nonsense so I am in the market for a new ISP hosting company.
Requirements:
UK based Linux server PHP and MySQL (5 databases or more) SSH access 1GB+ storage 50GB+ traffic Willing to transfer DNS from hostrocket Unlimited subdomains Reasonable price
It's a shame. I have been with these guys since 2000 and they have been really good. To those of you to whom I recommended them, I apologise; it seems that anywhere outside the US must be full of hackers mascarading masquerading as Osama Bin Laden and the US is devoid of any threats from within its own borders.
PS -- don't ever tell "them" about jump-off servers that may exist within the US which make the whole premise of this ridiculous restriction moot. If you're good enough to pose a hacking threat, I think you might have thought about a jump-off (sic).
For those of you who may have missed it, today's Bryony Watch(TM) spotted that she has been learning Italian. The lesson here is that she's cute as well as entertaining.
Roll on tomorrow's column. Mint Aeros to the first to correctly predict the content. Entries must be in by 22:00GMT.
Incidentally, I still have a couple of clues left on the Telegraph. V. poor indeed. My biorythms must be at a nadir.
Okay folks, who is it that has had the temerity to cover Edie Brickell's What I am? Bonus points awarded if you can tell me whether I will burn in hell for buying it.
For a couple of reasons I had to travel to Bristol yesterday. This, naturally, meant spending a lifetime on a train each way and freezing my nads off at Birmingham New Street for quite a while. I was comforted only by the AMT coffee stall which serves the perfect cappuccino. My only criticism is that they only do large measures; there should be a "Kenny" measure.
I'd already battered the Telegraph by the time I got to New Street, so feeling all gung-ho, I picked up a Times and a Guardian. Both were put to the sword by the time I hit Brizzle.
Naturally on my way back I was bereft of a crossword. I don't mind the Independent crossword, but as a paper, it just sucks. Their editorial team seem to find the most ridiculously far-fetched topic and plaster a scare-mongering headline in *REALLY* big letters all over the front page. Once you have read that, you know they have bugger all else to report. I treat it like the thinking man's equivalent of the Inquirer in the States; it's all a big conspiracy by Da Man to bring you down. I've yet to meet anyone who buys it for anything other than the crossword and I certainly wasn't going to be caught dead with a copy lest my phone and email start being tapped by the Stazi (ref Independent, page 4, probably).
I tried to get some sleep but the rest of the carriage seemed intent on out-shouting each other so I thought I might do something I have been meaning to do (and half done) for quite a long time -- figure out a will. In fact, I had meant to mention this to Kidder and Das Flippen Floppen at the weekend but was so enmeshed in my property dealings, I completely forgot. I'm sure Das FF will relay the relevant parts to Kidder.
First question: does anyone know a website in the UK where I can draw up a will that will stand up legally in a British court without me having to pay some salivating jerkwad of a lawyer hundreds of pounds?
I guess all I need to do is say that I leave everything (see appendix one for a list) to the kids in a trust fund, overseen by Kidder such that they cannot get their paws on it until they are 25. Wife number 1 and wife number 2 can whistle Heather Nova and Dixie respectively.
Speaking of that, I have been swearing off ever getting married again. I suppose that is an understandable reaction. However when I read the statistic that alleges that two in three marriages end in divorce, it struck me that I'm on a fairly safe bet with number three, having done my fair share to keep the stats accurate. Funny, I knew wife numder one was an accident waiting to happen but never saw number two working out the way she has. Fool me once...etc.
Finally, for now, I was pretending to have an IQ over 90 this morning by tuning in to Radio 4. Apparently, an arts university in the States has launched a bit of a competition. It is based on a bet Ernest Hemmingway (who was a first-order jerk) made with a newspaper. They bet him he could not write a novel in six words. I think I am right in saying he came up with "For sale: Baby shoes. Never used." and won his bet. The university asked that people submit their life stories in 6 words. My favourite for sheer pathos was "Left Harvard. Had baby with crackhead."
I'll have a go myself as I mooch around this morning. You do the same.
AKA the perfect night in and how to annoy a Flip-Flop...
Ingredients:
1 Flip-Flop 1 Birthday (okay it's the 4th really but how often do you have a Kenny buy you summot?) 1 Kidder 1 Gogglebot 3 curries 1 ridiculous present 1 kettle 40 Kidder's work teabags 1 vomitting cat called Pickles
Method:
Order Indian food. Relax while chomping down the most divine Sirloin Steak Massala. Laud The Raj in Thirsk for its heavenly mannah.
Insist that the Flip-Flop open at least one of her presents (i.e. the one you wish to play):
Yes, you read it right...Wigan Monopoly:
Spend an awfully long stretch in jail not passing Go and not collecting £200. i.e. Stir for quite a while.
Escape from jail with a devious double and fly around the board picking up "blockers" and dwindling your cash reserves to a derisory sum that wouldn't even keep you in cigarettes for the night. Sit in smarmy self-congratulation as your opponents laugh at your pitiful financial condition.
Whizz around a couple of times to build up some cash, buying the cheapest properties (in this case, The Three Sisters and Pennington Flash -- the equivalent of Whitechapel and Old Kent Road). Carry on whizzing and slap a hotel on each of said beauties, thus creating a corridor of uncertainty.
Collect £250 here and £450 there a few times while acquiring the yellow ones (in this case I think they are the Jazz Festival etc). Slap hotels on each of those over a few rounds. Sit back and wait for the Flip-Flop to roll straight onto a prime real estate fully developed hotel complex at the sweet price of £1200. Repeat until Flip-Flop (broke, broken and tearful) incredulously screams that there is no way that Kenny should be able to break her with him having been down to the cost of a penny chew for so long.
Continue exchanging rent with Kidder until you have more money than the bank does and Kidder lands a £1200 rent which all but breaks him.
Smile lovingly at Kidder and Flip-Flop and top with a frosty "Goodnight losers." As a final metaphorical punch in the air poke Gogglebot as you retire to bed thereby creating that kiddie scream that shakes your bones at 2:00am.
Awake long after baby and parents do, scoff a bacon butty while being quizzed by a still annoyed Flip-Flop about Monopoly strategy, declare Bill Gates a novice at such things and disappear over the horizon (okay, the A19) in the Midnight Cowboy.
Job done.
Serve with pathos and resolve to mention such mad skillz at every future encounter with the Flip-Flop. Oh, and trumpet it all over t'interweb.
Okay the cat didn't do anything except sit in the lid to the game and vomit. Have I mentioned how much I loathe cats?
Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.
-- Edith Sitwell
373483 glorious calls to prayer (okay, hits) since 2nd September 2003
