Wittering Heights

Be afraid be very afraid

2007-01-30T01:21:00.000Z

If you receive an email entitled "Bedtimes"
Delete it IMMEDIATELY. Do not open it.

Apparently this one is pretty nasty.
It will not only erase everything on your hard drive, but it will also delete anything on disks within 20 feet of your computer.

It demagnetizes the stripes on ALL of your credit cards.

It reprograms your ATM access code, screws up the tracking on your VCR, and uses subspace field harmonics to scratch any CD's you attempt to play.

It will program your phone auto dial to call only 0898 numbers.

This virus will mix antifreeze into your fish tank.

IT WILL CAUSE YOUR TOILET TO FLUSH WHILE YOU ARE SHOWERING.

It will drink ALL your beer.

FOR GOD'S SAKE, ARE YOU LISTENING?

It will leave dirty underwear on the coffee table when you are expecting company.

It will replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine.

If the "Bedtimes" message opened in a Windows 95/98 environment, it will leave the toilet seat up and leave your hair dryer plugged in dangerously close to a full bathtub.

It will not only remove the forbidden tags from your mattresses and pillows, it will also refill your skim milk with whole milk.

***WARN AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN. ***

And if you don't send this to 5000 people in 20 seconds, you'll fart so hard that your right leg will spasm and shoot straight out in front of you, sending sparks that will ignite the person nearest you.

Send this warning to everyone!!!

THERE'S A LOT OF SADNESS IN THE WORLD!Right now, as you read this, 17 Million people are having SEX!!! And look at you - you're on the computer!!!!

Book Report!

2006-09-07T12:54:00.000Z

Students were assigned to read 2 books, "Titanic" & "My Life" by Bill Clinton.
One smart ass student turned in the following book report, with the proposition that they were nearly identical stories!
His cool professor gave him an A+ for this report

Titanic: $29.99
Clinton: $29.99

Titanic: Over 3 hours to read
Clinton: Over 3 hours to read

Titanic: The story of Jack and Rose, their forbidden love, and subsequent catastrophe.
Clinton: The story of Bill and Monica, their forbidden love, and subsequent catastrophe.

Titanic: Jack is a starving artist.
Clinton: Bill is a bullshit artist.

Titanic: In one scene, Jack enjoys a good cigar.
Clinton: Ditto for Bill.

Titanic: During ordeal, Rose's dress gets ruined.
Clinton: Ditto for Monica

Titanic: Jack teaches Rose to spit.
Clinton: Let's not go there.

Titanic: Rose gets to keep her jewelry.
Clinton: Monica's forced to return her gifts.

Titanic: Rose remembers Jack for the rest of her life.
Clinton: Clinton doesn't remember Jack.

Titanic: Rose goes down on a vessel full of seamen.
Clinton: Monica...ooh, let's not go there, either.

Titanic: Jack surrenders to an icy death.
Clinton: Bill goes home to Hillary...basically the same thing.

Makes perfect sense to me

2006-08-21T11:54:00.000Z

‘People Kill People’
In its latest airline security restriction, the FAA has banned all people from flights.

WEB-EXCLUSIVE SATIRE

By Andy Borowitz

Special to Newsweek
Updated: 1:31 p.m. ET Aug. 15, 2006
Aug. 15, 2006 - In a move aimed at further tightening airport security, the Federal Aviation Administration announced today that it would ban all people from flights leaving or entering the United States, effective immediately.

The FAA, which has in the past banned such objects as toenail clippers and hair gel, took the extraordinary step of banning people after the Department of Homeland Security conducted a thorough investigation of previous terror plots.

"We looked at terror plots of the past, and in each and every case, people were involved," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff at a Washington press briefing. "These new rules send the strong message that the FAA has zero tolerance for people."

Chertoff said that while banning liquids from flights was a constructive step, the only true solution was to ban people altogether. "Let's face it, hair gel doesn't kill people," he said. "People kill people."

The Homeland Security secretary acknowledged that the new rules would curtail Americans' ability to travel, but added, "On the plus side, that will make them easier for us to spy on."
The FAA's ban on people onboard flights raised questions for the nation's airlines, which must now ponder what, if anything, their airplanes will be carrying.

But Davis Logsdon, who studies the airline industry at the University of Minnesota, said that the FAA's crackdown on people could be a "win-win" for the airlines: "Maybe if the airlines don't have people to worry about, they can finally concentrate on getting our luggage to the right destination."

New Words For 2006

2006-07-24T12:43:00.000Z

TESTICULATING
Waving your arms around and talking B*llocks.

BLAMESTORMING
Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.

SEAGULL MANAGER
A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything, and then leaves.

ASSMOSIS
The process by which people seem to absorb success and advancement by sucking up to the boss rather than working hard.

SALMON DAY
The experience of spending one entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed and die.

CUBE FARM
An office filled with cubicles.

PRAIRIE DOGGING
When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to see that's going on (This also applies to applause for a promotion because there may be cake.)

SITCOMs
Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids or start a "home business".

SINBAD
Single working girls. Single income, no boyfriend and desperate.

STRESS PUPPY
A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.

PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE
The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

ADMINISPHERE
The rarefied organisational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the "adminisphere" are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve. This is often affiliated with the dreaded "administrivia" - needless paperwork and processes.

404
Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message "404 Not Found," meaning that the requested document could not be located.

OHNOSECOND
That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you've just made a BIG mistake (e.g. you've hit 'reply all')

GOING FOR A McSHIT
Entering a fast food restaurant with no intention of buying food, you're just going to the bog. If challenged by a pimply staff member, your declaration to them that you'll buy their food afterwards is known as a McShit with Lies.

AEROPLANE BLONDE
One who has bleached/dyed her hair but still has a 'black box'.

AUSSIE KISS
Similar to a French Kiss, but given down under.

BEER COAT
The invisible but warm coat worn when walking home after a booze cruise at 3am.

BEER COMPASS
The invisible device that ensures your safe arrival home after booze cruise, even though you're too drunk to remember where you live, how you got here, and where you've come from.

BREAKING THE SEAL
Your first pee in the pub, usually after 2 hours of drinking. After breaking the seal of your bladder, repeat visits to the toilet will be required every 10 or 15 minutes for the rest of the
night.

BRITNEY SPEARS
Modern Slang for 'beers', e.g. "Couple of Britney's please"

GREYHOUND
A very short skirt, only an inch from the hare.

JOHNNY-NO-STARS
A young man of substandard intelligence, the typical adolescent who works in a burger restaurant. The 'no-stars' comes from the badges displaying stars that staff at fast-food restaurants often wears to show their level of training.

MILLENNIUM DOMES
The contents of a Wonderbra, i.e. extremely impressive when viewed from the outside, but there's actually naught in there worth seeing.

MONKEY BATH
A bath so hot, that when lowering yourself in, you go: "Oo!Oo!Oo! Aa!Aa!Aa!".

MYSTERY BUS
The bus that arrives at the pub on Friday night while you're in the toilet after your 10th pint, and whisks away all the unattractive people so the pub is suddenly packed with stunners when you come back in.

MYSTERY TAXI
The taxi that arrives at your place on Saturday morning before you wake up whisks away the stunner you slept with, and leaves a 10-Pinter in your bed instead.

NELSON MANDELA
Rhyming Slang for 'Stella' (the lager)

PEARLHARBOUR
Cold (weather). An example of it would be - "It's a bit Pearl Harbor" out there (there's a nasty nip in the air)

PICASSO BUM
A woman whose knickers are too small for her, so she looks like she's got four buttocks

SALAD DODGER
An excellent phrase for an overweight person

SWAMP-DONKEY
A deeply unattractive woman

TART FUEL
Bottled premixed spirits, regularly consumed by young women

URI GELLER
See Nelson Mandela (above)

Things that make me go argggggggghhhhhhhh

2006-07-14T10:33:00.000Z

1. People who point at their wrist while asking for the time.... I know where my watch is pal, where do you keep yours? Do I point at my crotch when I ask where the toilet is?

2 People who are willing to get off their backside to search the entire room for the T.V. remote because they refuse to walk to the T.V. and change the channel manually!

3 When people say "Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too". Too bloody right! What good is cake if you can't eat it?

4 When people say "it's always the last place you look". Of course it is. Why would you keep looking after you've found it? Do people do this? Who and where are they? They need help

5 When people say while watching a film "did you see that?". No Muppet, I paid £6 to come to the cinema and stare at the floor.

6 People who ask "Can I ask you a question?".... Didn't really give me a choice there, did you mate ?

7. When something is 'new and improved!'. Which is it? If it's new, then there has never been anything before it. If it's an improvement, then there must have been something before it, so it couldn't be new.

8 When people say "life is short". What the hell?? Life is the longest thing anyone ever does!! What can you do that's longer?

9 When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks "Has the bus been yet?". If the bus had been would I be standing here stupid ?

10 When you are already waiting for a lift or at a pedestrian crossing and someone comes up and presses the button. Oh so thats what you have to do, I would never have thought of that!!

11 When I walk into the Doctors consulting room and he says " Hello Steve how are you?" !!!!! DOH if I was ok I wouldn't be here.

can you think of any more??

OOOh this feels like a bit of a meme so I tag Cheryl, Jo, Redmum, Doris

Happy 4th July

2006-07-04T11:16:00.000Z

Happy 4th July to all our colonial friends

2006-06-18T21:19:00.000Z

Abseiling ......at Last

2006-06-12T11:12:00.000Z

Ok so the promised post has taken a lot longer than first suggested-- so sue me lol

The day of the abseil arrived and percularly I wasn't really nervous, well perhaps just a little, but I couldn't let the kids see that so Dad was very upbeat in the morning. We got our usual stuff out of the way saturday morning and got ready to set off. It had been arranged that I would pick my darling daughter (DD) up from her friends where she had spent the night. I telephoned her to let her know we were on our way so she would be ready and I wouldnt spend the usual 20 minutes sat outside while she actually got her stuff together. It was at this point that my DD decided to tell me she wasnt coming:-

Me: " what do you mean you arent coming?"

DD " I mean I dont want to come"

Me " Any reason or just adolescent mind changing taking place"

DD " I just dont want to come"

Me " But WHY NOT!!"

DD(Bursting into tears) " Cos if you want to throw yourself off a building and kill yourself thats up to you but i dont want to be there to watch"

Me " Dont be silly I am not going to kill myself, its perfectly safe" (thinks * I bloody hope so anyway*)

So a protracted conversation takes place and the result is DD doesnt come. It was at this pint I started to have mental conversations with myself, ( by that i mean in my head not insane ones) about how far 300 feet really is and that its not that far.........is it?

Arrived in Birmingham and seemed to be having trouble contacting the person who volunteered me for this. Hmmmm
Telephoned one of the other guys (Ginge) doing the abseil, who was also having trouble getting hold of the person who volunteered me, the same person who volunteered Ginge. Double Hmmmmm.

Got near the centre of Birmingham and the kids could see the building as we approached from quite a long way away.
The reason they could see the building from quite a long way away is becuase it was at least twice as big as the surrounding buildings.
Outwardly very calm, inside I am thinking BLOODY HELL!!! and some stronger more discriptive words.

Try again to get hold of the person who volunteered us, straight through to his answerphone
on his mobile over and over again WTF!!

Spoke to Ginge who had spoken to our volunteerer(? if it isnt a word it should be) who had told him he had to go somewhere to pick up a quad bike!!!!!!!! Cue me telephoning his answerphone to do an impression of a chicken. So here I was in Birmingham at a charity fundraising suicide attempt without the pleasure of the company of the person who volunteered me to do it in the first place. A different conversation started in my head:
Me " Would anybody notice if I just slipped away?"

Me " Dont be such a chicken"

Me " Chicken? Have you looked up and seen how big that Fking building is?"

Me" Its not THAT big"

Me " Not That big are you insane???? if it was any higher you wouldnt be able to see that top for clouds, now I know how Jack felt( of beanstalk fame)

Me" You can't chicken out now what would the kids think?"

Me " I could fake an injury"

Me "What straining a muscle looking up? Anyway you're knackered now"

Me "Why"

Me " heres Ginge"

Me" Oh @*&^%$£@"

So I have a conversation with Ginge and we are both being brave bloke'ish pretending neither of us are bothered and calling our volunteerer ( i thought the word should be used more) every name we can think of.

3:15 arrives ( our appointed time) and they call our names well mine and somone called Paul.
It turns out that Ginges name is really Paul, who'd have guessed, I have only known him a few years lol

We book in and are given a form to sign, an indemnity form, which says and I am Paraphrasing here: If you slip and plummet to your death its not our fault cos you were stupid enough to let someone else volunteer you, so no money for you( the last bit was said in the voice of the soup nazi from Seinfeld)

We were then told there was a bit of a delay and we would have to wait about 45 minutes!! Oh good that will give me more time to contemplate my death. ( I know its a bit melodramatic but honestly you should see the building)

It ended up being an hour and three quarters wait, then we had to go and get the gear on which involved being fastened into a harness which was quite snug especially around the groinal region.
There were 2 people doing this a young blonde lady and an aging hippy with a ponytail and a very bushy beard. Guess which one I got, yep it really wasnt my day.
It seems that the young lady was there to do the womens harnesses only. I thought about voicing my concerns regarding sex equality and that the young lady looked eminently qualified to ajust my harness then thought better of it as the harness was the thing keeping me attached to the rope.

So harness on, climbers helmet on, what looked suspiciously like gardeners gloves on and into the lift to the top of the building.
A thought occured to me on the way up about the helmet, velocity, impact speed, the human skull and egg shells but I tried to put it out of my head, it wasnt hard as there seemed to be someone in there running round screaming anyway.

Out of the lift we then had to go up a couple of flights of stairs, through the boiler room for the building and onto the roof.

If I thought it looked high looking up at it from the ground it was even higher from the top looking down,although I didnt look over the edge as I am not good with heights ( I know I know) ,the person screaming in my head seemed to get a bit louder.

There was a group of 6 of us on the roof all full of nervous laughter, trying not to look like we were really shitting ourselves.
The first 2 were called to the edge and discovered that they first had to pul up the safety rope, this the man explained was to ensure that if anything happened to the rope you were abseiling down then he could stop you at any time with 2 fingers by applying pressure to the rope running through the metal loop. I looked round at the tohers and they looked like they believed what this guy was saying as much as I did i.e not at all!!

I watched the others go over and then it was mine and Ginge's turn, first pull the rope up, my forearms were burning from the excertion, as pulling up 300 ft of rope isnt something I do every day.

The guy at the top of my rope fastens me in checks my harness, then he says "ok just swing your right leg out over the edge, I do this and am now sat astride the ridge on top of the roof...... I get a glimpse of what I have been trying to avoid......the drop HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If I thought it was high before believe me it was nothing compared with the view I have now,my stomach is churning and the person in my head seems to have reached a crecendo.

He then says lean forward bearing your weight on your hands and swing your other leg over, I do this and am now hanging over the edge of the buildingwith my legs dangling, now he says I have lean backwards, well I am sorry but this goes against all human self preservation and for a few seconds I am frozen, then, after a short argument with myself in my head, I start to lean back and a photographer comes to the edge, I smile, he takes a photo, the smile disappears. The guy at the top tell me that it doesnt matter how scared a person is they always manage a smile for the camera.

I start to lower myself down and realise they have neglected to tell us one thing: that when your whole body weight is suspended by a harness all the weight is applied to the top of the harness applying pressure to your chest and solar plexus making it quite difficult to breath.

So here I am suspended in the air by a rope ( safety rope controlled by someone I met 5 minutes before), finding it difficult to breath and trying desperately not to look down.
I decide that the best way to deal with this is to descend as quickly as possible to get it over with. I start to go down quicker and quicker, then I can smell burning and quickly realise that its the gloves as my hands are getting quite warm, I stop to let the gloves and my hands, recover.

Whilst paused there I thought to myself, I must be a fair way down now, can't be that far left to go and steal a glance downwards. BIG Mistake, far from being near the bottom, I find I am less than a third of the way down with a long way to go. I set off again and gain speed, then I hear a voice saying " Ok Mate slow down a bit now nearly there" I look round and realise that I am about 30 feet from the ground.

I slowly lower myself feet on the ground, a little unsteady and quite a bit lightheaded from the lack of proper breathing. Stand for a minute, then remember Ginge, look round and he is nowhere to be seen, I ask the man taking the harness off where he is and he points up, Ginge is about a third of the way down, decending slowly but steadily.I am then accosted by a Local Radio DJ who tells me that Ginge is descending at a normal speed and that it looked like someone had cut my rope I came down that fast ( I wondered if this was the case what happened to the guy in control of the safety rope??) and that I had the fastest decend time of the day.
He asked how much I had raised which was just over £600 ( thanks to those who sent money via paypal) and then he asked would I do it again? I of course lied and said of course I would, then walked over to the wife and kids as cooly as I could to the hero's welcome I thoroughly deserved ;0)

If only they knew
see here for pics as I cant get them to upload on here

Some research

2006-05-10T13:05:00.000Z

Research Department Report - Los Angeles, Calif.

A recent study conducted by UCLA's Department of Psychiatry has revealed that the kind of face a woman finds attractive on a man can differ depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle.
For example: If she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and masculine features.
If she is menstruating or menopausal, she tends to be more attracted to a man with scissors lodged in his temple and duct tape over his mouth while he is on fire.
No further studies are expected.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to blogging

2006-05-05T11:31:00.000Z

Just a short post to say Yes I did the abseil, NO I didnt fall.

Been lots going on here which should give me enough blogging material for about 3 lifetimes. All I need now is the time to be able to sit down and type it all up. Hopefully things should be back to some form of normality next week and I may start to tell the story, then again I may totally ignore it and pretend I havent been anywhere.
I just thought I have hardly read any blogs since I last posted EEEEEEK how long will it take me to catch up??

Just had a quick look at Cheryls blog and thank goodness she hasn't been blogging much or doing long posts ( ooh sarcasm, how biting) Only about 80 posts to catch up on on her site so should be up to date with everything everyone has been doing by about Christmas 2008 lol
Leave me a comment please just to let me know people are still visiting or am I really talking to myself.
Steve

Losing my marbles!!

2006-03-04T23:07:00.000Z

Lots of people that know me might be able to confirm this, but I am afraid I may be losing my marbles. Let me explain, each week I traveldown to the Midlands for a meeting with one of my trade partners where we arrange exports for the following week, sometimes we have foreign visitors ( clients, customers call them what you will) from the Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Ghana etc ... and discuss the setting up of possible export contracts. I digress:-

Three weeks ago was just another such meeting, when a call was put through to the office we were in and my trade partner took the call, I only heard one side of the conversation it went a bit like this:

Trade partner : "Hello, nice to speak to you again, hows things?"

Pause for answer from other party

TP: "Yeah I'm fine thanks" more small talk . "What can I do for you today?"

Pause

TP : "Yeah I'd be up for that, hang on." Turns to look at me " You're up for a laugh aren't you Steve?"

Me: " Yeah why?"

TP: " OK put me down and Steve"

Then more details were requested,full name, address etc
When he put the phone down i asked " what have you just volunteered me for?"

TP " Oh its abseiling down the side of 1 Hagley Rd in Brum ( Birmingham)

Me thinking I had misheard : "What?"

He repeated and I hadn't
Me: "Are you bloody mad? How tall is this building?"

TP " Awww dont worry its not that big.Anyway I have told them you'll do it now and its for kids that are blind and stuff"

So as I said instead of saying no I said ok and thats how I ended up having an appointment next Saturday to do this

So if you feel the need to help an old insane man make a complete fool of himself by crying whilst decending, I think, 300ft down the side of the building send some money to me via paypal ( My account is ste2601@aol.com) and I will add it to my sponsor form for Birmingham Focus on Blindness. You can have a look at their website here

Photos of me being rescued by helicopter will probably be on here some time the week after the event and in the Birmingham Evening Mail the following day.

Who is strongest?

2006-03-03T16:27:00.000Z

A bear a lion and a chicken are talking about who is the hardest.

" Well it's me " said the Bear, "When I roar the trees shake! "

" No it is I" Said the Lion " When I ROAR the jungle shakes"

" Ahh your all wrong I am the hardest" said the chicken " All I do is give a
little cough and the world sh*ts itself"

Sick day

2006-03-03T16:25:00.000Z

A woman calls her boss one morning and tells him that
She is staying home because she is not feeling well.
"What's the matter?" he asks
"I have a case of anal glaucoma," she says in a weak voice.
"What the hell is anal glaucoma?"
"I can't see my arse coming into work today."

Stolen meme

2006-02-20T13:58:00.000Z

I nicked this from prydwen at wulfweard the white but in my defence he stole it too .

Time of starting this? 1300hrs

Were you named after anyone? No because my Dad registered the wrong name when he went to the registery office ( he swears no alchohol was involved just that he was so excited)

Do you wish on stars? Yes

When did you last cry? Probably watching extreme makeover home edition it gets me and Jan every time

Do you like your handwriting? No. My primary school headmaster said it showed great character but a less diplomatic teacher described it as a drunken spider crawling across the paper. In my defence I was born left handed but write with my right hand

What is your favourite meat? Rib of beef

What is your most embarrassing CD on your shelf? I wouldnt be embarrased by any of them

If you were another person, would YOU be friends with you? Possibly

Are you a daredevil? I didnt think I was these days but then just to confuse myself I agreed to abseil from the top of the tallest building in Birmingham (1 Harbourne rd) For a childrens charity on March 11th this year.

How do you your release anger? I meditate

Where is your second home? In my car, I spend nearly as much time in it as at home

Do you trust others easily? Too easily sometimes

What was your favourite toy as a child? My Bike

What class in school do/did you think is/was totally useless? For me? technical drawing

Do you use sarcasm a lot? Moi never

Have you ever been in a Mosh pit? No

What do you look for in a guy/girl? Sense of humour, nice eyes

Would you bungee jump? With an unstable fracture of the first cervical vertebrae......no

Do you always untie your shoes when you take them off? Always

What is your favourite ice cream flavour? Rum and raisen

What are your favourite colours? Blue

What is your least favourite thing? Narrow minded people and litter

How many people do you have a crush on right now? Just the one ( the wife)

What do you miss most right now? A warm bed

What colour underwear are you wearing? Blue

What are you listening to right now? The Happy Mondays

What is the weather like right now? Bloody freezing

Last person you talked to on the phone? My wife

The first thing you notice about the opposite sex? Eyes

How are you today? Tired and rundown

Favourite non-alcoholic drink? Tea............best drink o't day

Favourite alcoholic drink? Lager if beer, brandy if short and red, white or rose wine

Natural hair colour? Auburn ( more brown than red these days)

Eye colour? Blue

Wear contacts? No

Siblings? 2 sisters one older one younger

Favourite month? March.....everything comes to life

Favourite food? Pasta

Last movie you watched? Final destination 2 on tv last night, hope to see the 3rd one this weekend

Favourite day of the year? With kids it has to be Christmas Day

Have you ever been too shy to ask someone out? Yes

Scary movies or happy endings? Scarey movies

Summer or winter? Summer

Hugs or kisses? Both

What book/magazine are you reading? Freaky Dancing by Bez from the Happy Mondays

Honey I'm home

2006-02-20T12:53:00.000Z

Sorry to have been absent but I have been poorly, I may bore you all to death with the grusome details later, and yes Jo I do have a note from my Mum :P

I am such a tealeaf, I nicked this from Jo at Le laquet

Your Brain's Pattern

You have a tempered, reasonable way of thinking.You tend to take every new idea in, and meld it with your world view.For you, everything is always changing. Each moment is different.Your thinking process tends to be very natural - with no beginnings or endings.

What Pattern Is Your Brain?

Its Cheryl's birthday

2006-01-30T14:18:00.000Z

I just thought I would make a short post to let everyone in the blogsphere know that its Cheryl at Madbaggage's 45th birthday today. I am posting this because she is my friend and definitely not just because she forgot my birthday 5 days ago.

Just to recap this post is not to make the point that Cheryl forgot my birthday but I havent forgotten hers

Happy Birthday Cheryl

Cheryl click here please

Verbal Warning No1

2006-01-27T20:35:00.000Z

I was talking to someone today about having to give a member of staff a verbal warning for having 5 mondays out of 6 off. He told me that it was because he had been out on the beer the night before and had a hell of a hangover on the monday morning, I explained to him that I appreciated his honesty but he was still getting a verbal warning.
This whole thing reminded me of when I got my first verbal warning whilst working as a butcher at a chain called Baxters: It was a traditional Butchers ( do you remember when they existed?)
I was in charge of the shop front i.e arranging the display in the window and cabinets and making sure it looked at its best and occasionally called upon to serve customers if we were really busy.
It was on one of these occasions that a posh lady ( you know the sort broom handle up her backside, nasty smell under her nose and a load of plums in her mouth) asks me"are the chickens fresh"
Me:- "fresh madam, I should say so, half an hour ago they were still eating corn,if they were any fresher the would still be clucking"
Woman:- (looking like the smell under her nose has just got worse) could I look at one please?
Me:- "certainly" picks up chicken on cellophane wrap and holds it out to woman
Woman then leans forward and smells the chicken under the wings and between the legs ( you know where the opening is for the stuffing)
Woman:- " It doesnt smell very fresh to me"
Me:- " do you think you could pass a test like that?
It was at this point I realised the woman had no sense of humour and she asked for the store manager. Cue verbal warning number one

Its my birthday so...........

2006-01-27T20:28:00.000Z

Nicked this from Jo at le laquet as I thought it was relevant.For some reason when I posted it yesterday it ended up 3 posts down??????

Your Birthdate: January 26

You lucked out the the skills to succeed in almost any arena.
Put you in almost any business or classroom, and you'll rise to the top.
You're driven and intense, but you also know when to kick back and cooperate.
Your ability to adapt to almost any situation is part of what's going to make you a success.

Your strength: Your attention to detail

Your weakness: You can be a little too proud of your successes

Your power color: Turquoise

Your power symbol: Arrow pointing up

Your power month: August

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Its all true of course except for the bad bits LOL

Teachers Pet?

2006-01-27T01:46:00.000Z

It was the end of the school year, and the infant school teacher was receiving gifts from her pupils.
The florist's son handed her a long box, and she said "I bet I know what it is. Some flowers?"

"Right," said the boy. "How did you know?"

"Just a wild guess," she said.

The daughter of the owner of a sweet shop produced a gift. The teacher shook it, and said, "I bet I know what this is. A box of sweets?"

"That's right," said the girl, "but how did you know?"

"It was a lucky guess," said the teacher.

The next gift came from a boy whose father owned the off licence.
The teacher held the package overhead -- and noticed it was leaking. She touched a drop with her finger, put it on her tongue, and asked the boy: "Is it wine?"

"No," the boy replied.

The teacher took up a larger drop and said, "Is it champagne?"

"No," said the boy, with great excitement. The teacher sipped one more drop, and declared, "I give up. What is it?"

"It's a puppy!!!"

The four Meme

2006-01-20T13:27:00.000Z

A meme from Wulfweard the White or Paul Mckenna to his friends

Four Jobs You've Had In Your Life:
1. Butcher
2. Salesman
3. Civil Servant
4. Company Director

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over Again:

1. School for scoundrels
2. Dumb and dumber( the toilet scene just brings out the schoolboy in me)
3. Some like it Hot
4. Blade

Four Places You've Lived:

1. Manchester
2. Southend on sea
3. Taunton
4. Birmingham

Four TV Shows You Love To Watch:

1. CSi (Las Vegas)
2. QI ( Stephen Fry and Alan Davies-Funny and informative)
3. Dr. Who
4. Charmed ( its got Alyssa Milano in it!!)

Four Places You've Been On Vacation:

1. Florida
2. Morocco
3. Florence, Italy
4. Canaries

Four Blogs You Visit Daily:

1. Madbaggage
2. Chez Le laquet
3. Redmum
4. Old Hoss

Four Of Your Favorite Foods:

1. Rib Steak
2. Spaghetti Bolognese
3. Sunday Roast
4. Full English Breakfast

Four Albums You Can't Live Without:

1. Sitting on Top of the World- LeAnn Rimes
2. Best of UB40 I and II
3. The Buddy Holly Story
4. Bat out of Hell - Meatloaf

Four Vehicles You've Owned:

1. Chrysler Alpine ( what a shed, held together with filler and string)
2. Vauxhall Cavalier
3. Saab 9000 Turbo
4. Renault Grand Espace

Revelations

2006-01-18T23:12:00.000Z

Found out today that i am dextrosinistral which explains a great deal

It set me thinking

2006-01-17T16:05:00.000Z

I read Cheryls post earlier where she spoke about the term "being a bike" as a derogatory term for a woman of easy virtue, we then had a chat on msn with Cheryl ensuring that the term meant the same in this part of the country as it did down in the deep south, of England that is not Alabama.
We then had a discussion which can only be described as disturbing as we listed lots of other terms for this group of women Cheryl had to go to help/placate/shout at/beat/sell ( delete as applicable)the kids this made me veer off on a slight tangent:- do you remember the old song by a group( I think) called Racey (sp?) who had a hit record with a song with the lyrics:-

Some girls will,ooooohoooooooh some girls wont,oooooohooooooh
some girls need a lot of lovin and some girls don't,
Well, I know I've got the fever but I don't know why
Some girls say they will and some girls lie

I used to hear people singing along with that and have hysterics because they didn't really think about what they were singing.
In todays pc world (political correctness not the shop) they would probably be bannned from any play list in the very least if not hung, drawn and quartered.( I think that should be hanged but it didnt look right so will a spelling nazi please let me know)Then the government would set up a helpline and support group for these much maligned people who are just victims of modern society.

I'll get me coat

Top trivia about Steve

2006-01-16T13:14:00.000Z

I saw that Jo had done this over at Chez le laquet and had a go myself. I thought it was a bit silly until I read number 7 and then I thought well maybe it does have some merit.

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Steve!

If you break Steve, you will get seven years of bad luck!
Steveology is the study of Steve.
Wearing headphones for an hour will increase the amount of Steve in your ear 700 times.
Steve can sleep for three and a half years.
Originally, Steve could not fly!
In his entire life, Steve will produce only a twelfth of a teaspoon of honey.
The National Heart Foundation recommends eating Steve at least three times a week!
The eye of an ostrich is bigger than Steve.
More than one million stray dogs and half a million stray cats live in Steve!
Twenty-eight percent of Microsoft's employees are Steve.

Do bears and is the Pope?

2006-01-10T11:43:00.000Z

I nicked this from Old Hoss just because it made me laugh as it is a phrase I use on a regular basis. I know sad isnt it.

9/11 conspiracy video

2006-01-04T10:52:00.000Z

Saw this link over at Wulfweards blog and went for a quick look, ended up watching the whole thing which lasts just over an hour.

It asks a lot of questions and it would be an incredibly sad indictment of modern society, if, even some of the things it suggests are true.

I am in 2 minds about it, I find it difficult to believe that any government would but I do think that there are lots of questions to be answered.

Look for yourself here and let me know what you think.

Its 2006 already?

2006-01-01T13:06:00.000Z

I hope the new year is what you wish it to be, I wish you all health, happiness and prosperity for 2006 and may I offer this Traditional Gaelic blessing to all my blog friends

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
May the rains fall soft upon your fields
and until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Burger King Advert

2005-12-21T01:11:00.000Z

Just a quick question.
Has the world gone bloody mad? Why? I'll tell you

I was sat down watching TV when an advert comes on for the latest Burger King promotion, you know the tie in with the King Kong film. The product being a triple "Kong" burger. The ad shows a huge burger falling down and squashing a car all pretty normal so far but then I notice in the bottom corner it says something like :- Product shown not actual size.
WTF are we so thick that we have to be told that when we buy a Kong burger we dont actually need a crane and a flatbed truck to take it home.

This made me go an surf to find out what other stupid warnings etc comapnies have used and strangely enough there is no shortage of them. Here's a few:-

Tesco's Tiramisu dessert: (printed on bottom of the box) Do not turn upside down.

Marks & Spencer Bread Pudding:Product will be hot after heating.

Packaging for a Rowenta iron:Do not iron clothes on body.

Boot's Children's cough medicine: Do not drive car or operate machinery.

Nytol sleep aid:Warning: may cause drowsiness.

String of Chinese-made Christmas lights: For indoor or outdoor use only.

Japanese food processor:Not to be used for the other use.

Sainsbury's peanuts:Warning: contains nuts.

American Airlines packet of nuts: Instructions: open packet, eat nuts.

Curling IronWarning: This product can burn eyes.

Hair Dryer-Do not use in shower.

Can of self-defense pepper spray.-May irritate eyes.

A birthday card for a 1 year old.--Not suitable for children aged 36 months or less

Microwave Oven:Do not use for drying pets.( I remember actually reading a story about a woman who tried to dry her poodle in a microwave........Ruined the microwave........ sorry)

Toilet brush--Do not use for personal hygiene. ( Tut back to the toilet paper then)

Caution: Remove infant before folding for storage." -- On a portable stroller.

"Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly." -- On a child sized Superman costume.

So tonight I can sleep safely in my bed knowing that if we were as thick as some manufacturers think we are then we wouldnt be able to get out of the house in the first place

Teenagers II the sequel

2005-12-17T02:31:00.000Z

I have spoken/ blogged about teenagers before but I was over at Redmum’s reading this weeks column ( yes, she has a column now in the local paper, didn’t you know , tut, do please try to keep up) and she was talking about her daughter and doing her chores.
Read it here it will save me explaining it all.

Whilst reading it I got a real sense of deja vue, it seems that teenage children have inherent traits in their genes which are triggered by the passage of their 13th birthday.

As I have mentioned before I have a step son who is 14 and a daughter who is 13. My daughter was always a delight as she was growing up, helpful, polite, thoughtful, well behaved, tidy, it started to go downhill when she was 12 but as soon as she hit 13 I was sure that someone had stolen my daughter and left a monster in her place. A monster who can be moody, selfish, thoughtless, unbelievably untidy and that’s before we get to the hormonal bit.

My step son has the attention span of a goldfish and can be distracted more easily than a kitten with a ball of wool. He honestly can forget what he is going out of the living room for before he gets to the door. If the T.V is on then communication is futile, if the play station/game boy advance/computer is on then we could all be killed by a homicidal maniac using a pair of cymbals to squash our heads and he wouldn’t bat an eye lid.

All the kids have jobs to do to earn spends (allowance), like keep their bedroom clean and tidy (which tends to only happen when they want some spends) tidy up after themselves ( which never happens) and washing the pots ( dishes) after dinner.

At first with the washing up, I thought that my stepson was trying to be smart, by doing a bad job and taking over an hour to wash a few pots, so we wouldn’t ask him to do them again but it has happened so many times now that I believe he thinks he is doing a good job. I have gone to the cupboard to get a plate out only to find last nights dinner stuck to it in small dried globules or the remnants of tomato ketchup, that the kids had, on the back from the plates being stacked..

I have gone to get the cups to make a cup of tea only to find the inside of the cup stained with the last tea and sometimes rings around the inside: knives, forks and spoons with the remains of whatever was on it last time it was used.
In all these cases I am not just talking specks of stuff but huge patches, it really looks like they have been rinsed under the tap and put in the cupboard.

I have tried to show him how to do a good job, you know start with the glasses and work your way to the pans but I still catch him washing the pans first, so filling the water up with all those nasty bits that stick to everything else. I have also caught him hiding the pots in the oven so he didn’t have to wash them at all.
The standard answer I get if I ask why he has not washed them properly is the standard shrug and “ I don’t know” Which doesn’t really wind me up……. No really it doesn’t……..ha if you believe that you’ll believe anything. It just makes me think wtf….how many times does he have to rewash them before he learns that it is easier and quicker to do them right the first time. But then again I am not a teenager and haven’t been for a while (ok.. ok.. quite a while) and we all know teenagers know best.
I think parenting should come with a government health warning!

A Christmas Story

2005-12-16T02:09:00.000Z

'Twas the night before Christmas--Old Santa was miffed.
He swore at the elves and threw down his list.
Miserable little brats, ungrateful little gits.
I have a good mind to scrap the whole bit!

I've busted my backside for nearly a year,
Instead of "Thanks Santa"--what do I hear?
The old lady moans cause I work late at night.
The elves want more money--The reindeer all fight.

Rudolph got drunk and goosed all the maids.
Donner is pregnant and Vixen has AIDS.
And just when I thought that things would get better
Those idiots from the tax office sent me a letter,
They say I owe taxes--and that isn't funny
Who the hell ever sent Santa Claus money?

And the kids these days--they all are the pits
They want the impossible--Those mean little shits
I spent a whole year making wagons and sleds
Assembling dolls...Their arms, legs and heads
I made tons of yo yo's--No request for them,
They want computers and robots...like I'm IBM!

Flying through the air...dodging the trees
Falling down chimneys and skinning my knees
I'm quitting this job there's just no enjoyment
I'll sit on my fat arse and draw unemployment.

There's no Christmas this year
now you know the reason,
I found a big blonde.
I'm going SOUTH for the season

The best shop sign ever

2005-12-07T21:01:00.000Z

You have been warned

This made me laugh

2005-12-03T02:20:00.000Z

A man is dining in a fancy restaurant & there is a gorgeous redhead
sitting at the next table.

He has been checking her out since he sat down, but lacks the nerve to
talk with her.

Suddenly she sneezes & her glass eye comes flying out of its socket
towards the man.

He reflexively reaches out, grabs it out of the air & hands it back.

"Oh my, I am so sorry" the woman says, as she pops her eye back in place.

"Let me buy your dinner to make it up to you" she says.

They enjoy a wonderful dinner together & afterwards they go to the theatre
followed by drinks.

They talk, they laugh, she shares her deepest dreams & he shares his.

She listens.

After paying for everything, she asks him if he would like to come to her
place for a nightcap & stay for breakfast.

They had a wonderful, wonderful time.

The next morning, she cooks a gourmet meal with all the trimmings.

The guy is amazed! Everything had been SO incredible!!!!
"You know," he said "you are the perfect woman. Are you this nice to
every guy you meet?"

"No," she replies . . . .

"You just happened to catch my eye."

(Oh shut up.... you know you will be telling it everyone tomorrow)

Chain Letters

2005-11-26T23:06:00.000Z

I want to thank all of you who have taken the time and trouble to send me your bloody chain letters over the past few years. Yes, thank you,thank you
thank you from the bottom of what's left of my heart for making me feel safe, secure, blessed, and wealthy.

Because of your concern...

I no longer can drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains and cleans up pre decimal currency.

I no longer drink anything out of a can because I will get Weils Disease from the rat faeces and urine.

I no longer use Cling film in the microwave because it causes cancer.

In fact I can no longer use the microwave at all as if the seal around the door has not been tested then my testicles could be cooking at the same time as my lunch

I can no longer drink or eat anything containing asparteme as it will turn into formic acid inside me then dissolve me from inside out

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS/ EBOLA/ ANTHRAX.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day

I no longer use margarine because it's one molecule away from being plastic.

I no longer go to shopping centres because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from Link/Parcel Force/ UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a stupid number
for which I will get the phone bill from hell with calls to Jamaica,Uganda,Nigeria Singapore and Uzbekistan.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer date the opposite sex because they will take my kidneys and leave me taking a nap in a bathtub full of ice.

I no longer need to buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus(not that I did before) since I now have their recipe.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

Thanks to you, I have learned that God only answers my prayers if I forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

(errmmm, the Bible didn't mention that bit)

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl who is about to die in the hospital (for the 1,000,000th time).

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the £50,000 that Microsoft and AOL and Sainsburys are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

Yes, I want to thank all of you soooooooo much for looking out for me!

I will now return the favour.

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 200 people in the next 60 seconds, a large bird with diarrhoea will crap on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and a disease of unknown origin will make you extremities drop off one at a time; largest first ( I know some of you boys will have a while to say goodbye to a certain part)

I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of my next door neighbor's mother-in-law's ex-husband's cousin's 2nd husband's ex-wife's mother's hairdressers dog.

Thank you and A Merry Christmas to you all :)

2005-11-22T03:16:00.000Z

I got this meme from Jo at Chez le laquet who got it from Cheryl who got it from her hubby wolfwhite the weird (sorry Cheryl made me do it) who in turn got it from Cyn

This is how you play:

Do a Google image search of the following and post the first (or favorite if you want to cheat, but label it so) result for each:

The name of the town where you were born
The name of the town where you live now
Your name
Your grandmotherÂs name (just pick one)
Your favorite food
Your favorite drink
Your favorite song
Your favorite smell

So here are mine

Ardwick Green in Manchester, most of whichdoesn'tt exist any more, they knocked the house down where I was born about 38 years ago and it wasn't as grand as any of these just a little 2 up 2 down terrace, no inside loo or bathroom

The town where I live now. I picked this picture because my house is where the station used to be and we still get mail addressed to The Old Station House

My name (as my mother calls me anyway) Stephen. Re the picture its called the stoning ofStephenn and sometimes it feels like this every day LOL

My Maternalgrandma'ss name:- White and this was the first pic

Fav food :- Pork Chop and I picked this pic because I like my Pork fresh

Fav Drink:- Mug of tea ..... best drink of the day

Fav Song:- Homely Girl by UB40. Had to put the UB40 bit in the search or it came up with a rather buxom wench thatdidn'tt look very homely at all.

Fav Smell:- Fresh sawdust because it reminds me of my Grandad, it was my first job of the day to spread fresh sawdust on the floor of the butchers shopwherer I worked with my Dad and Grandad as a young lad

So there you have it, if you fancy having a go feel free but leave a comment so I know where to look.

My life is over

2005-11-09T00:46:00.000Z

My life is over, its just downhill from now on.

Why? I'll tell you.....

I went to the shop for a newspaper on Saturday and was on my way out when I saw a young lad, about 7 or 8 unwrapping some sweets and throwing the paper on the floor, now one of my pet hates is litter, I dont see any reason for it, there are plenty of bins around and if there isnt put it in your pocket til you get home, simple really.

Anyway,this young boy was stood at the entrance no more than about 3 feet from the wastebin kindly provided by the shop, so I said " hey there's a bin there ( kid looks at me as if I have just sprouted another head) why dont you pick up your rubbish and put it in the bin?"

He looks at me with a disgusted glance and then picks up the rubbish and puts it in the wastebin. I say thankyou and go to walk off as his friend comes out of the shop and they start walking away from the shop too. As his friend starts to unwrap his sweets the kid I was talking to says to his friend" You'd better not throw your rubbish on the ground or that old man will tell you off"

Well that just about made my weekend........... I mean OLD MAN!!! I am 41 years old and I didnt think that I had reached that discription yet.

I told a friend this tale on Saturday night in the pub and he says "you think thats bad wait til you get your first grey pubic hair!!!"

See what I mean its all just coasting downhill from now on.

Lazy blog

2005-11-01T15:22:00.000Z

I know I have been a lazy blogger just lately, normal service will be resumed shortly

GREAT TRUTHS THAT LITTLE CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED:

1) No matter how hard you try, you can't baptise cats.
2) When your Mum is mad at your Dad, don't let her brush your hair.
3) If your sister hits you, don't hit her back. They always catch the second person.
4) Never ask your 3-year old brother to hold a tomato.
5) You can't trust dogs to watch your food.
6) Don't sneeze when someone is cutting your hair.
7) Never hold a Dust-Buster and a cat at the same time.
8) You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
9) Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
10) The best place to be when you're sad is Grandpa's lap.

GREAT TRUTHS THAT ADULTS HAVE LEARNED:

1) Raising teenagers is like nailing jelly to a tree.
2) Wrinkles don't hurt.
3) Families are like fudge...mostly sweet, with a few nuts.
4) Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut that held its ground.
5) Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
6) Middle age is when you choose your cereal for the fibre, not the toy.

GREAT TRUTHS ABOUT GROWING OLD

1) Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. ( and don't we all know it ;))
2) Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
3) When you fall down, you wonder what else you can do while you're down there.
4) You're getting old when you get the same sensation from a rocking chair that you once got from a roller coaster.
5) It's frustrating when you know all the answers but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.
6) Time may be a great healer, but it's a lousy beautician.
7) Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

THE FOUR STAGES OF LIFE:

1) You believe in Santa Claus.
2) You don't believe in Santa Claus.
3) You are Santa Claus.
4) You look like Santa Claus.

SUCCESS:

At age 4 success is . . . not piddling in your pants.
At age 12 success is . . . having friends.
At age 17 success is . . . having a drivers licence.
At age 35 success is . . . having money.
At age 50 success is . . . having money.
At age 70 success is . . . having a drivers licence.
At age 75 success is . . . having friends.
At age 80 success is . . . not piddling in your pants.

Always remember to forget the troubles that pass your way;
BUT NEVER forget the blessings that come each day.

How much is your Blog worth?

2005-10-28T13:25:00.000Z

Nicked this link from Redmum

My blog is worth $5,645.40.
How much is your blog worth?

Needless to say I shall be cashing in tomorrow ;)

LIFE IN THE 1500'S

2005-10-25T22:53:00.000Z

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be.

Here are some facts about the 1500's:

Most people got married in June, because they took their yearly bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour.Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children! Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no woodunderneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and off the roof.Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.
This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hungover the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt.Hence the saying "dirt poor."

The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing.
As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a "thresh hold."

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettlethat always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to showoff.It was a sign of wealth that a man could "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "uppercrust."

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days.Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.
They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple ofdays and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."

England is old and small and the local folks started running outof places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and reuse the grave. When re opening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive.
They would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be"saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."

And that's the truth... Now, whoever said that History was boring! ! !

Are friends electric?

2005-10-10T10:01:00.000Z

Couldnt resist using the title of the old Gary Numan song as the title for the blog after coming across this story while surfing.

For those of you who cant be bothered to follow the link, its about a man who generated so much static electricity that he caused things around him, including carpets, to burst into flames.
In fact the firemen measured his clothes and were found to be carrying an electrical charge of 40,000 volts!!I felt really sorry for this guy, then something else caught my attention :- the description of his clothing

"Frank Clewer, of the western Victorian city of Warrnambool, was wearing a synthetic nylon jacket and a woollen shirt when he went for a job interview."

I dont know about you but most people I know, if they are going for an interview for a job, would attend at their most presentable. For him to attend in a woollen shirt and a nylon jacket is just asking for it,its against all fashion rules,in fact it should be a criminal offence. So he deserves everything he got ;)
So the solution, if you dont want your carpets to burst into flames when your friends walk in through the door, is obvious...........only pick friends with taste.

Free Association 139

2005-10-03T11:10:00.000Z

Another disturbing psychological look inside my brain from Lunanina

Quaint:: A word I have heard lots of Americans use to describe a multitude of things when visiting Chester
Rind:: Crackling, Pork Scratchings mmmmmmmm
Disease:: Sickness,illness. Men have serious diseases like triple pneumonia ( women call it a cold)
Queer:: Nowt so queer as folk
Pork:: I know i should put pig or roast but in the UK it is also a term for having sex with someone i.e did you get to pork her?
Soaked:: Wet through, wet and warm is ok but I hate being wet and cold
Skeleton:: Bones, Dr McCoy, Star trek
Mold:: a nice place in Wales, near a lovely lake at Bala
Finished:: Relief
Buffalo:: The old joke: whats the difference between a buffalo and a bison?...... You cant wash your hands in a buffalo

Teenagers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-09-26T12:48:00.000Z

I was reading Red Mums blog , she was talking about her daughter, who is a teenager and it really rang true with me as I have an almost 14 yr old step son and a 13 1/2 yr old daughter. Now they are very different people with different interests and personalities but they do share some traits which , it seems from reading other blogs, all teenagers have in common.

They are the centre of the universe, the world and the rest of the planets revolve around them and when they need to do something the world must stop revolving until they are sorted out.
Any idea that Mum and Dad may have a life to lead too is just too unbelievable.
Like:-
Loving daughter " can I go to the disco at (insert name of any venue here)"
Me " when is it?"
LD " Friday night"
Me " Might be a problem, what time does it start and finish?"
LD "7 til 9.30 why is it a problem?"
Me " because I have arranged to go out on Friday night"
LD " Out, out where?"
Me " to meet some friends for a pint, is it that incredible that I have friends or a social life?"
LD " No, but I have told everyone that you will take them home afterwards"
Me "Well you will have to untell them, and why would you tell them I would before checking with me?"
LD " Because we are the only ones with a 7 seater car,so you can pick everyone up, otherwise it means 2 parents coming out"
Me " oh heaven forbid that other parents should pick their children up"
LD " Daaaaaad will you , cos it will be dead embarrassing if I have to go and tell them you wont now"
Me " sorry I have already made arrangements, I will be happy to pick them all up at home a drop them off at the disco, if you can all arrange who is picking you up"
LD " Right, whatever, don't you care that I'll be really shown up now?"
Me " and I need to speak to the parents picking you up before the night"
LD " Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad I'm not six you know"
Me(laughing) " I know you just do good impression don't you"
LD " Your not funny you know"
Me " Well I Make me laugh"
Cue LD rolling eyes, walking away muttering to herself

My eldest son who is almost 14 has developed this really quite peculiar and extremely annoying trait of telling lies in answer to questions that really aren't that important that they would need lying about.
Stupid stuff like have you made your sandwiches for lunch tomorrow? He says yes, then when I go in the fridge for the milk later, no sign of said sandwiches, so I think eewwww he hasn't put them in his bag already has he and shout him.

Me "Where are your sandwiches?"
Loving son " " ( that's one of his famous blank looks)
Me " Have you put them in your bag already?"
LS " Yes"
Me " Tut don't be disgusting , you will make yourself ill, go and get them and put them straight in the fridge"
LS " ok" Rolls eyes and walks off towards bedroom

10 minutes later still no sign of LS or sandwiches

Me " LS you have exactly 30 seconds to bring those sandwiches down"
LS "muuppphhhh ssyyyygghhh" (Muffled reply)
Me "29, 28, 27"
the sound of a migrating herd of wilderbeasts comes from the stairs
LS appears but no sandwiches
Me" where are the sandwiches?"
LS " I haven't made any"
Me " But you said they were in your bag"
LS " I know, I thought I had made them but I hadn't"
Me "?????????????????????????????????" (that's my wtf look)

Sometimes it hurts my brain being a Dad

Free association 138

2005-09-26T11:45:00.000Z

Free association 138 from Lunanina she says------- we think, then type.

Crave:: to get the urge for something or a mix of things that are considered inappropriate like choc ice and chips or Sunday lunch with salad cream all over it ( I swear I have a friend who does this even when eating out!)
Whole package:: Do you want the whole package? This is the pont when you realise that the bargain is going to be more expensive than anticipated.
Roommates:: Only ever shared my rooms with girlfriends and now of course my wife, don't think I would fancy sharing with another bloke, far to messy.
5:30:: Shall I go home now and sit in traffic or have a cuppa and wait for it to die down.
Lesbian:: always brings back the memory of some graffiti I saw years ago, it said " My mother made me a lesbian" and some wag had written underneath " If I gave her the wool would she make me one"
Poignant:: Poignant moment in every parents life when their child realizes that Mum or Dad don't actually know everything
Hurtful:: When people don't think but put mouth in drive before putting brain in gear
You and I:: Bloggers one and all
Grateful:: What we should all be more of, when we look around the world and realise that our life is not so bad after all.
Giggle:: the most beautiful sound in the world is the giggling of a child/children. I just hope I can still make mine giggle to balance out the telling off lol

Free association 137

2005-09-19T11:35:00.000Z

Another glance into the mind from Lunanina

I know I didnt do Free association 136 but by the time I got around to doing it I had read to many other peoples for it to be my own association.

Less filling:: What you would never say to the person serving you at Subway
Glue:: The stuff you use to stick your fingers together when trying to fix something
Surprise me:: BOOO!!
Model:: Airplane, car or a person who looks like this ---->
Fee:: Fi Fo Fum I smell the blood of an English man
Microphone:: Very small mobile or cell phone?
Choices:: Sorry I think the c is missing should this be choc ices?
To the bone:: Where my dog goes when she is not sure of someone, she goes straight to her bone and guards it with her life either until the person leaves or she starts to trust them.
Run!:: The correct instruction that should be given by those entering the haunted house in any number of horror films, instead they say things like: lets look in the very dark basement, or lets follow this trail of blood to find out where it came from or the worst of the lot, I'll be right back
Appeal:: New product being cleverly marketed it involves selling the skin of apples hence the combined name.

Cheryl's new service

2005-09-19T11:14:00.000Z

My good friend Cheryl at Mad Baggage has decided to offer a fantastic new service to all blog readers, I think she originally decided to do this to fill in her spare time.
The service is to give the correct definition for any words which are used in British blogs that are not understood by people living outside Great Britain i.e. slang or coloqial terms.
Please utilise this service as I am sure, it will make your blog reading and surfing a much more enjoyable experience and help Cheryl burn off some of that excess energy

Another definition post

2005-09-19T09:57:00.000Z

I like to keep my regular readers up to date with the latest information, so here you go, sorry but no cows in this one

Finally, a definition of Marketing that makes sense....

You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and say, "I'm fantastic in bed."
....................That's Direct Marketing.

You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says, "He's fantastic in bed."
......................That's Advertising.

You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and get her telephone number. The next day you call and say, "Hi, I'm fantastic in bed."
......................That's Telemarketing.

You're at a party and see a gorgeous girl. You get up and straighten your tie, you walk up to her and pour her a drink. You open the door for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her a ride, and then say, "By the way, I'm fantastic in bed."
......................That's Public Relations.

You're at a party and see a gorgeous girl. She walks up to you and says, "I hear you're fantastic in bed."
.....................That's Brand Recognition.

What colour are you?

2005-09-16T10:56:00.000Z

Nicked this from Jo over at Chez le laquet

You are

What Rejected Crayon Are You?

Bloody Kids Thursday

2005-09-15T22:43:00.000Z

I know I havent blogged for a week so this one is long enough to make up for it

Last Thursday was one of those days when right from the start you know its not going to be a good day.
I set off for a meeting in Birmingham at 10.00 am expecting to arrive around 11.30
On the way it was raining really heavily on the way down the M6 and of course the inevitable happened:- It came over the radio that there had been a crash on the Northbound carriageway which had blocked 2 lanes and caused a severe backlog of traffic, nothing to worry me I thought because I am on the Southbound, but no, I hadn’t allowed for all the rubber neckers slowing down on my side to have a good look at the crash, which caused, yes you guessed it a crash on the Southbound carriageway!! This meant that all the lanes were closed on the southbound carriageway to allow the police to clear the vehicles involved and all the debris. This gave me time to sit there and read the newspaper, twice.
I eventually arrived for my meeting at 2.30pm, 4 1/2hrs after setting off.

There were a lot of things to discuss and sort out so that made me quite late setting off home, after loading the back of the car with two bales of Hessian/plastic sacks it was nearly 8.00pm . I thought that the one advantage was that it was likely that the traffic would be very light and it wouldn’t take me long to get home.

As I set off it was raining again and got heavier and heavier then just for good measure it got a little heavier and then the wind picked up blowing the rain even harder against the windscreen. At one point I was down to 30 mph on the motorway with my wipers on their fastest setting and I was still having difficulty seeing, eventually after about an hour of driving in these conditions the rain decided to lift off a little.

Two junctions away from home I phoned my wife (still feels a bit weird saying that) to tell her that I would be about 25 minutes. Almost immediately that I had finished speaking to her I heard a loud bang and the car pulled hard to the right with a dum, dum, dum coming from the rear right hand side of the car. I pulled over to the hard shoulder and stopped the car at that moment the rain decided to return to its previous ferocity along with its friend the wind. I reached into the back to get my warm waterproof coat ( I have always kept one in the car since being stranded in the snow some years ago for 26 ½ hrs wearing a suit shirt and tie, the snow became deeper and covered the exhaust pipe so I couldn’t have the engine running and eventually suffered from the early stages of hyperthermia).But my coat wasn’t there I looked all over the car but it wasn’t anywhere to be found.

At this point I must relate a conversation that I had with my children the previous weekend:-

ME “ I am sick of the car being full of all this rubbish, I want everything taking out of it or no spends this week .
KIDS “ awwww Daaaaaad”
ME “ and you will be grounded for a week”
Kids ( they didn’t say anything but I could hear the cogs whirring)

Back to me in the car:- “aaaaaaarrrrggghhh You have got to be kidding me”, I got out of the car and walked round to the back right hand wheel, it was flat, what I expected
to find I don’t know, I didn’t really have to look at it to know it had no air in it. I then got back I the car absolutely drenched and freezing.
It then occurred to me that I had had this car for just over 10 months and perhaps in that time I should have read the owners handbook/manual then I might have an idea where the spare wheel was and how to get it out, where the tools and the jack to lift the car up were. Not to worry I know it’s in a little cubby hole in the left hand glove compartment.
I opened the glove box to get it out and guess what; yep that wasn’t there either, bloody kids!
I phone home and ask my wife to find out where the kids had put the stuff out of the car and look in the manual for where all the gear was. She found the book and told me that the tools were in a little compartment right at the back of the car. I located them, then she told me that the spare wheel was underneath the car and the thing to lower it was behind the third row of seats in the middle under a little flap. Slight problem there thinks I, remember (tut pay attention) there are 2 bales of sacks in the back of the car , stacked on top of each other, each weighing approx 200 kgs. I might be able to get them out of the car but there is no way I could lift them back in.
Sod it I thought I’ll phone Renault assist they’ll help me. So I did, they answered the phone very promptly ( good sign). I explained my predicament and the young lady said “oooh we don’t do punctures anymore as part of the service” but if I wanted help with the puncture someone would come out for a charge of £95!!!!! I asked if they came out would they help me get the bags out of and then back in the car, she asked how heavy they were and when I told her she went to check and then said no they aren’t insured to lift things that heavy. Shit I thought I could be here all night.

I telephoned my step-dad and mum who are also my business partners for any ideas, we came to the conclusion that the only thing for it was for my step-dad to come out and help me lift the bags out. Only drawback it would take him about 50 mins to an hour to get there.
Now I know that they advise you to get out of the car and wait behind the barrier but there was no bloody chance of that as I was still soaking wet and freezing. I sat there in the pitch-black (sorry did I forget to mention it was one of the stretches of motorway with no bloody lights) with articulated lorries thundering past at high speed within a foot of my car, quite un-nerving I am not afraid to say.
I telephoned my step-dad back and told him as the tyre was ruined anyway I was going to crawl down the hard shoulder to the next junction as it didn’t feel incredibly safe where I was. As I set off at about 5 mph I could see in the distance a roadwork sign and thought that perhaps there was a pull off area. I limped on and came to a sign saying the road works started in ¼ of a mile and even better there was free recovery from just a little down the road. I crawled past the ‘free recovery starts here’ sign and sat and waited. Within 5 minutes the recovery truck pulled up in front of me loaded the car on and off we went, he dropped me at the next services, so in I went and bought a £4 cup of coffee, ok they called it a latte and it came in a cup the size of a small bucket, but its still a bleedin coffee, and waited for the cavalry.

They arrived 20 minutes later, I say they because of course my mum still sees me as her little boy, and she had brought me a flask of tea and a coat. I had a quick slurp of the tea to please mother and then we got on with the job of changing the tyre. We got the car jacked up and released 3 of the nuts on the wheel but had problems with the last one, go the torch and had a look, it had some type of locking wheel nut on. I promised myself that I would read the owners handbook the following day, my
Step-dad told me that they normally store the key to the locks in a small plastic box along with the ordinary nuts they have taken off. “AHA” I said I know where they are they are in ………the…….. glove………..box……. Bloody kids. I checked just in case but no the box wasn’t there. I phoned my wife again and yes they were at home. So off they went to my house to pick them up about 30 minutes later they were back and we finally got the wheel changed and got home at 11.45.
I always say I wish that the kids would do as they are told…………………………………….. be careful what you wish for

Free association 135

2005-09-08T02:00:00.000Z

Free association 135

from Lunanina she says .................my brain hurts

Julie:: Walters an underated actress
Emotional:: It's been (emotional) the best line by Vinnie Jones in Lock Stock and two smoking barrells
Head of household:: I'd say me but you would have to let me ask the wife first
Diva:: Two go ( Di =two va=Go) Which is what all the divas should do
Devastation:: the opposite of vastation
Business or pleasure:: do they have to be mutually exclusive?
Crown:: The.........serves a good pint of bitter
Eastern:: bloc countries
Buzzed:: Full of energy
Officer:: please dont hit me again........what to say when they get to the bit "anything you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence"

Cheryl the response

2005-09-05T14:14:00.000Z

My friend Cheryl over at Mad Baggage has just gone back to work. What as I hear you
ask ....................( I know you didn't just play the bloody game will you)..............................................
A dinner lady................................at first I thought she must have lost her mind, I mean, can you think of anything more scary than hundreds of the little cherubs running round generally being rude and well being kids I suppose.

Then it dawned on me that this bloke

Jamie Oliver is rumoured to be doing a follow up series to the fantastic Jamies school dinners television programme and that Cheryl would like to replace Nora (The lady in this pic with Jamie) I know, I know but hormones can do funny things to you at her age.

Anyway part of my reason for blogging about Cheryl is her response to me tagging her for a meme You can read it here, I felt I should respond just to clarify a fewpoints.

I can recall on speaking to her on the phone for the first time saying that she sounded a bit like a cockney, I think what I said was that she reminded me of Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins only with a deeper voice.

The bit about the website/chatroom we both joined around the same time is quite true and I must admit that Cheryl being called Chief No-eye-deer did amuse me greatly as did the name Idano (I Dunno geddit?). I must add we didn't really mislead people, more like wound the sh*t out of them for our own warped amusement as we both found that we had more or less the same dry and severely warped, at times, sense of humour. She does fail to tell you that she was a moderator and I was admin on the site eventually until the usual infighting took place and the site imploded.

With regard to Cheryls response to the meme I thought I should also point a few things out

Cheryl wrote :-

Seven things I can do:
1) Cross only one eye
2)make my knees and knuckles crack
3)bobbin lace (don't ask)
4)touch my head with my toes
5)kiss my own feet
6)fold a shirt properly (not down the middle) in four seconds
7)multitask

I answer:-

Point 1) But can you uncross them both?

2) what on earth are you doing that would make both your knuckles and knees crack?Or should I ask Gary?

3) Bobbin for what?

4) Shall I ask Gary again?

5)narcissism at its worst

7) Refer to points 2,3,4 and 5 you're not kidding.

About the 7 things she cant do, Cheryl said:-
Seven things I can't do
1)Pee standing up
2)swim a mile
3)play the saxophone
4)tolerate selfishness
5)make pastry
6)the splits
7)sit doing nothing; that drives me nuts

I believe the solution to point 1 lies in joining activities 1 and 2 together, and, that Cheryl is aware of this and is just being coy, just don't try it in the swimming baths as it might have that red dye stuff in ( according to Cheryl)

In case you didn't realise Cheryl and I are online mates, cos only mates can take the P out of each other like this. I am bracing myself for the backlash.

Good luck with the job Cheryl and don't let it stop you blogging or there will be a lot of disappointed people.

I didnt think I would post about Hurricane Katrina but....

2005-09-02T13:52:00.000Z

I didnt think I would post about this as there has been so much already said and written by people much more competent, knowledgeable and intellegent than me, but after seeing the images the last couple of nights on Fox news, I just felt I need to have my say.

I can see in hindsight it is much easier to say what should have been done and USA goverment spokesmen/women are sticking with this tack at the moment, that they couldnt have predicted the devastation that would happen. The thing that makes this less believable is the fact that the hurricane was expected to hit as a Category 5 but actually "only" struck as a category 4 so surely the planning that was in place should have been more than sufficient. The starnge thing that struck me, and I can only go off what I have seen reported, The levees holding back the water were only built to withstand a Category 2!! WHY for heavens sake When they expect to get hit by category 3 's and 4's. Is it the US Government playing the percentage game? I.E whats the likelyhood of it really happening and then deciding to spend the money elsewhere.

People are being critised for not evacuating when they were told to, but if you have nowhere to go and no money to take you there, and all that you own in the world is what surrounds you in your home, or if a family member is too sick or frail to move, what are you supposed to do.

The Police are being criticised for not doing enough, well I watched a journalist last night interviewing a Cop when the Officer just burst into tears and said something along the lines of, I have so much to do, I am trying as hard as I can but seem to be getting nowhere and I am not even sure if my own family are safe. What some seem to forget is that the Police are human too, I know we all love to hate them when they pull us over for speeding, but give them a break, what would you have them do? With severely limited resources and fragile communications, I think in the main that they are showing super human strength of character Just as you would hope and many would count on.

Onto the looters, anybody who is taking stuff like food , water, perhaps dry clothes and shoes I dont think that there is anyone who would blame them, they have interviewed people that havent eaten for 3 days. I mean if it was me and my kids were hungry and thirsty in those circumstances I wouldnt hesitate to take some food and drink from a shop. As for those who are taking other things like the people the police caught going from house to house, stepping over the dead bodies of the householders to steal their valuables, they can do with them what they will.

One more thing about "looters" I was quite distressed by this, it seems even in disasters some people let other agendas or prejudices rule the way they think ( I must point out that I have had to find the pics from another site now, as the origional site has deleted them at the request of the associated press)
Draw your own conclusions

Enough pontificating from me anyway, my thoughts are with those who are still in the area, those still waiting to be rescued, if like me you feel a little useless not being able to do anything to help,You could do your bit and give a couple of quid or whatever you can spare to the American RedCross or the Salavation Army ( I did plan on putting the links here but they appear to be broken at the mo, hopefully from over use)

Seven Thingy Meme

2005-08-31T13:29:00.000Z

I have been memed by Redmum
(Go and have a look a great site brilliantly written and her photography is amazing)

Seven Things I Plan To Do Before I Die

1) Live somewhere warm for at least the 4 worst months of winter here

2) Fly a plane

3) Visit Orange County Choppers

4) Be a terrific Grandad and spoil the grandkids rotten

5) See more of the world (Eastern Europe, Australia, NZ, more of the USA)

6)Learn to play the Uillean pipes

7) Own another motor bike( I dont mean I have one and want another, I mean I had one years ago)

Seven things I can do

1) See both sides of an argument

2)Make a wicked smoothie ( according to the kids)

3) Cook fairly well

4) Look after myself i.e. washing, ironing, cleaning etc

5) Drive a forklift truck ( although the lad that work for me and do it for a living might beg to differ)

6) Ride a horse

7) Play Clair de la lune on a recorder

Seven things I can't do

1) Stop reading too many blogs

2) Type without looking at the keys

3) Wear a hat ( none ever look right)

4) Play the Piano

5) Draw or paint ( I am so crap the last time I helped one of the kids with art home work they were given a c-)

6) Carry out any electrical work ( tried twice before and almost electrocuted myself both times)

7) Drive the number 23 bus into Manchester ( I know this cos I asked the driver if I could as he stood outside his bus having a smoke earlier when I went to the shop)

Seven things that I find really attractive about the opposite sex

1) Bright Shiny eyes

2) Genuine Smile

3) Boobs ( any really)

4) Long Hair

5) Dressed Like a woman none of this androgynous nonsense

6) Figure ( A proper figure not a skeleton covered with skin)

7) Sense of humour

Seven things I say the most

1) Aye up ( I have lived in the country too long)

2) Cool ( afraid I have caught it from the kids)

3) Which part of no didn't you understand

4) Dont make me come up there ( Kids bedtime)

5) Is she on the phone again/still ( daughter)

6) THOMAS! put it down! ( Youngest age 3)

7) Hello hello can you hear me, hello, HELLO HELLO ( me on my mobile)

Seven Books I love

This is a difficult one as I love to read and have enjoyed lots of books over the years

1) The Rats by James Herbert ( the first book that scared the sh1t out of me, read under the covers by torchight

2) The Complete Illustrated Stories of Hans Christian Anderson my excuse is its for the kids bedtime stories

3) The Thirty-nine Steps (Penguin Popular Classics) Roger Hannay is the quintessential British Hero and watching the film starring Kenneth Moore made me go out and read the book

4) All the Harry Potter books

5)Comrades of War ~Sven Hassel ( pinched this one off my Dad and read it when I wasnt really allowed, found the descriptions of the war and the black humour that his characters used to cope were wonderful, have since read the whole series of books)

6) The Da Vinci Code ~ Dan Brown ( lots of discussion about the validity of this book, I just enjoyed the way it was crafted and the pace that it created)

7)Killing Floor (Jack Reacher Novels (Paperback)) ~ Lee Child - The latest book I have read, finished it on Sunday evening, I couldnt put it down and will certainly be looking out for more of this series

I would like to tag Cheryl, Shane, Doris and NickleAnnie

Free Association No 134

2005-08-30T11:07:00.000Z

Another one from Lunanina

( I know I did one the other day but I am trying to catch up)

Girlfriends:: I like to have friends who are girls but "girlfriends" seems to have a different connotation
Here to stay:: The internet, I mean, could you imagine trying to close it down now?
Call me:: Debbie Harry and Blondie, my adolescent dream
Frustrated:: arrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhh
Public school:: Enjoyed every minute (question if anybody knows, why is it called Public School in the UK when its private, but Public in the USA means state run?)
Glitch:: The word people use just before they tell you how much longer it is going to take than anticipated OR how much more than quoted it going to cost
Cheese:: on Toast with Daddys sauce mmmmmmm
Director::'s Cut
Pivotal:: Life changing
Exclusive:: MINE all Mine mmmmuuuuuaaaahhhhhh

Free association No 133

2005-08-25T12:59:00.000Z

Thanks again to Lunanina ..........she says I think

Fan:: Manchester City dont punish me for this, I was born in Ardwick Manchester so what choice did I have. Blue til I die
Scum:: Ray Winstone
Lily:: of the valley ( reminds me of my Gran)
Humid:: eeugh wet heat, the worst kind
Ghetto:: Blaster( this gave me the answer to No 10 below as one of my fav lines from the film is, in the future everything gets smaller and smaller except portable stereos)
Remember me?:: Johnny ( Johnnnnyyyyyy rememmmber meeeeeeeee, it was a record..... I know it was a long time ago......Stop pretending you dont remember it. Listen to a clip here)
Polished:: Shoes.... always a good judge of a person according to my grandad, clean nails and clean shoes, which is probably why he wasnt keen on our Coal man
Compose:: artistic invention
Squish:: I think to qualify as a squish it must ooze between your toes
Future:: Back to.........Michael J Fox film at an innocent time when we thought the special effects in it would never be bettered

Excuses excuses

2005-08-22T21:30:00.000Z

I know I have been missing in action for nearly 2 weeks but I do have a good excuse. Honest, Trust me (Cheryl don’t say a word LOL)

Wednesday the 11th August I had to go here on business,

flew with these people

(Great airline and their boast is that they have the youngest planes in the european fleet)
Not a popular arrangement in my house (more will become clear later) but business is business.

I didn’t see much of the country as I flew in on Wednesday evening and was back in the UK late on Thursday night as one of the last flights in before total chaos took over at Heathrow (believe me panic did set in) but I did see this

and this

Then on Saturday 13th August I got something I have waited years for …… this

Which comes with a free spouse attachment

Now in the morning when I woke up and looked through the window to one of the neighbours building an ark, it really was raining that hard, I thought that the day would be ruined for my future (not very) wife.

I got to the church and it was still raining, the Priest was looking up references to what happened before Noah set sail and raised questions as to why did he take useless creatures onto the ark, like wasps, slugs, pigeons and cats ( I know I am gonna get stick for that last one but you are either a cat person or not and I am definitely not but that’s an entirely different post) The priest disagreed about the feline question and told me that lots of religious ministers like cats which I find peculiar as they wear a dog collar.

The worst part of the rain is that we had booked a horse and carriage to take us from the church to the reception. A horse and carriage with only a half hood I could just picture us arriving at the reception venue looking like drowned rats.

All that though was pushed to the back of my mind as I was stood at the front of the church and the music of the Bridal Procession by Wagner.

Everyone had told me I would be nervous.

Nearly everyone asked me, on the way into the church, in the church and as they arrived, whether I was nervous. I didn’t think that I would be, I mean we have been together for years and its not as if I thought she wouldn’t turn up but as soon as that music started I thanked god for Imodium and bicycle clips.

When the ceremony was over we were amazed that the rain had cleared and left a gorgeous blue sky with a sun so hot everywhere was dry. We had some pics at the church then off in the horse and cart carriage and even more amazingly it stayed dry whilst we got there and waited until the photos were almost done before it started raining quite heavily again (I edited that bit to keep it nice lol)

We had our reception here

which was a fantastic day and night do, the food was perfect and some of the guests enjoyed lots of liquid refreshment later on in the evening.
I mean I hope it was the Liquid refreshment after witnessing some of the moves on the dance floor; it brought back some fond memories seeing those robotic moves again, laugh I nearly bought a drink.

Anyway it was a lovely day and my wife and I enjoyed ourselves thoroughly

Please pass the sick bucket back when you have finished

Cows, Political Solutions and Business Techniques

2005-08-09T22:33:00.000Z

(this is about the 10th time I have tried to post this so fingers crossed)

Ever wonder how political solutions work, Here's an explanation using cows as an analogy:

CAPITALISM: You have two cows.You sell one and buy a bull.Your herd mulitiplies, and the economy grows.You sell them and retire on the income.

SOCIALISM: You have two cows and give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM: You have two cows, the government takes both and gives you somemilk.

FASCISM: You have two cows, the government takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM:You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows; the government shoots one, milks the other and throws the milk away.

I recently heard some additional definitions about national business techniques. So staying with the cow theme

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force theother to produce the milk of four cows. Later you hire a consultant toanalyse why the cow dropped dead.

A FRENCH FIRM: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want threecows.

A JAPANESE COMPANY: You have two cows. You redesign them so they areone-tenth the size and produce 20 times the milk. You create a clever cowcartoon image called Cowkimon and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN COMPANY: You have two cows. You re-engineer them so they live for100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN COMPANY: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.You open a bottle of wine.

A RUSSIAN COMPANY: You have two cows. You count them and learn you havefive cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You stopcounting and open another bottle of Vodka.

A SWISS COMPANY: You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You chargeothers for storing them.

A CHINESE COMPANY: You have three cows. You have 300 people milking them.You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsmanwho reported the numbers.

AN INDIAN COMPANY: You have two cows. You worship them.

A BRITISH COMPANY: You have two cows. Both are mad.

Free association No 131

2005-08-07T22:21:00.000Z

Free association No 131 from Lunanina

Complexion:: The thing which is flawless on models featured on the cover of magazines....... after airbrushing of course
Teach:: Probably one of the most important things to be able to do as if there was no-one to teach then we would all have to learn by our own mistakes, which could be messy
Back to school:: I wish..... I had a fantastic time at school people always say enjoy your school days as they are the best days of your life, which you find out is true ....... only too late( My other halfs answer to this one would be it can,t come soon enough as she has to occupy the kids during the sumer holiday)
Months:: Things that seem to fly by quicker and quicker as you get older
Nominate:: To think that someone is better suited to something than you are and to say so. Can also be used as a weapon by nominating someone for a "poison chalice"
Favorite curse word:: Shit...... a good old fashioned all rounder
Concerned:: What parents always are but try to pretend not to be
Better:: get a bucket I'm gonna throw up ( Monty Python fans will understand)
Escalate:: Normally to get worse/ more serious
Unveil:: the latest model

Saw this

2005-08-04T00:09:00.000Z

I saw this and just had to post it

What age do you act?

2005-08-01T13:23:00.000Z

WoooHoooo I knew it !lolol

To take the test yourself click the link at the bottom

You Are 26 Years Old

26

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Free Association No 130

2005-08-01T11:34:00.000Z

Free association No 130 from Lunanina

Risks:: Good and bad.... Good ones can enhance your life, personal or business and bad ones can put others in danger
Abdominal:: Crunches:- what I wish I had the time and /or inclination to do
Radiant:: Heat.... body heat , you know what I mean, when you get in bed and you are freezing and you other half is already there and all warm you have to snuggle up and get warm. Nice if you are the cold one but not if you are the warm one .
The usual:: What you used to be able to ask for in a proper British boozer (pub), before they were all taken over by themes and 12 yr old Landlords who are only interested in alchopops and who think service is what you get once a year at WImbledon
Mix and match:: Brings back memories of the time that fashion forgot the 1970's when you could mix and match that yellow cheese cloth shirt with those purple velvet trousers!!
Wireless:: 2 things first this makes me think of the fantastic day that my Nana gave me their old "wireless" (radio) to take to pieces and find out how it worked. I can remember opening the back to this huge radio and marvelling at the valves etc and wondering how they sent the music to it. Second, with all these new wireless applications for laptops, phones etc will there ever be that many signals travelling through the air that they bump into each other?
Remedial:: A much misused and abused term which actually is positive, meaning to remedy or correct difficiences which we all have in one way or another
Mile:: How far down the motorway you can get on a long journey before one of the kids asks " are we nearly there yet?"
Long lost:: Keys, remote controls, tools, wallet, shoes:- with a magpie for a 3 yr old son anything can be long lost or even gone forever.
Only one:: Highlander "There can be only one". Now by Highlander I mean the one that started with a guy who looked like thisWhich was a brilliant film , made better by the baddy ( the Krugan) created by the underated Clancy Brown and a fair couple of sequels but definitely not the Tv series which was absolute garbage and starred this guy who couldnt perfect his scottish accent

And seemed to be involved in every historical event ever to take place, oh I hear you saying " if it was that bad why were you watching it?" Answer my other half like to watch the pretty boy with the long hair mispronounce his "scottish" words and fall over the props.

Me me meme

2005-07-31T01:13:00.000Z

Cheryl set me the following questions as part of a meme.

If you would like to play please read the instructions at the end of the post

1. If you were still in Junior school, which modern hero would you be charging round the playground pretending to be?

As a child my favourite comic was always the X-Men series and my fav character was Wolverine with his adamantium skeleton, superhuman strength,healing properties and mutitude of martial arts skills, in my opinion he was unbeatable.
Therefore I could often be found as a young child running around the playground growling at people and slashing at them with my early version of Freddy Krugers blade like fingers.
Wolverine in the Marvel Comics looked like this
As a wolverine fan I think they did a great job in the film and the special effects to make Woverines special adamantium claws come to life were excellent.

2. Name three smells that are evocative of childhood.

Saw dust reminds me of the days when I was more than happy to go to work with my Dad to his butchers shop and the first job my Grandad would do in the morning was to spread the fresh sawdust on the floor.

Brylcream-- I can remember both my Grandfathers wore/ used brylcream to slick their hair back and it still brings back happy memories when i catch a whiff.

American Cream soda-- always reminds me of the trips to my Grans on a sunday. it was a two bus journey and a good mile walk at the other end lasting about 1 1/2 hours but still worth it as there were always fondant cakes and fizzy pop, not always cream soda but thats the one that brings it back

3. Shut your eyes and think of something really good in your past. Where is it in relation to your head? Now think of something horrible in the past, does it come back to you from the same direction?

Yes I think so

4. Name your worst school dinner.

There was no such thing as a bad school dinner, I loved every one of them, the food was always freshly cooked and the puddings were fantastic. My favourite pudding is still the one I liked best at school-- treacle pudding and custard.

5. Describe your happiest recurring weird dream.

I would love to be able to describe my dreams to you but unfortunately as soon as I wake up they are gone, I have even tried the putting a notepad next to the bed to jot stuff down if i woke in the night but when I woke I had a page full of indecipherable scribbling.
I do remember one I used to have as a child which involved a blue poodle(why blue I dont know?) standing on the landing half way down the stairs and it wouldn't let me get down the stairs-- sounds daft now but it used to terrify me as a kid and I still dont like poodles.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In accordance with the rules of the meme, I need to post these instructions:

Instructions:
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying “Interview me.” You must leave your blog address so I can think of good questions for you!

2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person’s will be different. I’ll post the questions in the comments section of this post.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

I hope somebody plays!

o post these instructions:

Instructions:
1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying “Interview me.” You must leave your blog address so I can think of good questions for you!

2. I will respond by asking you five questions - each person’s will be different. I’ll post the questions in the comments section of this post.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

I hope somebody plays!

Russian Spam

2005-07-26T23:24:00.000Z

No its not something to do with the Russian Monty Python fan club!

I saw this on Cheryls blog and decided to read the story.

I came across another article that said "Russian media Hails spammers Murder" which I thought was a bit harsh ok I mean he did send, according to the story, spam advertising his language schools and courses to all of Russias 17.9 million internet users in Russia and approximately 20 million Russian speaking internet users outside Russia, but that doesn't warrant smashing his head in does it? Answers on a post card please.
It also goes on to say "(Russia's Interior Ministry reports 1,935 unsolved murders, 73,000 burglaries and 11,400 robberies between January and May in this year alone)." So I may cross it off my holiday destination list this year

Carrying on down the article I came across what must be the most obvious attempt by a Russian journalist to show how hip and trendy and up with what's happening in the west he is . He finishes his piece with this:-

Its little wonder, then, that Vardan Kushnir became as popular a character among Russian-speaking Internet users, as Lord Voldemort must be among Hogwarts fans. And a tale of some anonymous Harry Potter paying him a private visit on a warm July morning produces quite a predictable sensation among the audience. Of course, everybody understands, that spam will not stop with Kushnir's demise it will persist for years to come, exactly the way Lord Voldemort finds his way back into the picture with every new installment of the Harry Potter saga. But this time, the magic wand has for once dealt a deadly blow to the arch-villain, and there seems to be no option left for the spectators, than to hail the magic.

I rest my case your honour

Fantastic Four

2005-07-26T22:44:00.000Z

Went to see the new Fantastic Four film on Saturday

and despite some of the Bad reviews its been getting, I really enjoyed it, so did the children. I must say that it takes a while to get going properly but I can understand that the background to their powers has to be explained. There are some great comedy lines in it as in many films these days some for the kids and some just for the mums and dads ( the Human Torch has all the best lines. The special effects are very impressive too.
What really struck me at the end of the film and the house lights went up was that their were more adults than children, I suppose that there are lots of us old comic readers that want to see what Hollywood has done to this latest group of superheroes. I think they have done a good job and it made a change that the Villain wasn't English.

A P.S :- I see that Popcorn is now worth more by weight than Gold, well thats the impression I got when buying some for the kids, it came in a box the size of a mini skip. One more thing whose idea was it to sell the fizzy drinks in a container the size of a large bucket and then expect them to sit through a 95 minute film?

Free Association Number 129

2005-07-25T10:12:00.000Z

This weeks Free association from LunaNina

Believing:: Peter Pan
Invasion:: of the body snatchers
Boys:: Slugs and snails and puppy dogs tails
Island:: This Island Race
Repeatedly:: Like a stuck record
Normal:: Service will be resumed as soon as possible
Hex:: Ginny Weasley
Tuxedo:: Posh night out, nice change
Virgin:: Trains... late again
Cereal:: Breakfast

Funny Ads

2005-07-20T13:07:00.000Z

Was meandering around blogland when i came across Milt Bogs and followed a link from his site to find THIS. Which I found amusing

Oh and Just for Andrea I found this, and this too as i believe she is a big Peter Kay fan

While we are on the subject of advertising can anyone tell me why they keep changing the names of products, from names we have known for years to something completely different or something similar but different if you know what I mean.
For example Oil of Ulay , you know the face cream that irons all your wrinkles away is now known as Oil of Olay!! whats the bloody point in that?

It all started with Marathons which became
a Snicker..... what sort of name is that?

Then Opal Fruits became Star Bursts

From then on it went mad Jif became Cif
because in Europe they couldnt pronounce the J
and then
immac became Veet.

Leave our brands alone Global companies we are only a small xenophobic, introverted island.
I am sure there are loads more that have changed and i welcome anyone who can enlighten me , go on let me know if you can think of any.

Confused

2005-07-18T13:46:00.000Z

I know it doesnt take a lot but I am thoroughly confused.
I posted a blog on Friday in response to being tagged by Cheryl for a meme , it was all about what I was doing 10 yrs, 5 yrs and 1 yr ago etc...

I know with old age you can mislay things....... but a blog post?? I have no idea where it is, I wrote it and clicked publish as normal but its not been published nor is it in my post list saved as a draft.
I only noticed that it wasnt there when I posted earlier, I would just redo it but to be honest it was a very long post.
So if anybody has any ideas about where it could have gone or if any body has seen it, please send it home

Free association 128

2005-07-18T10:31:00.000Z

Free association from Lunanina

Tolerate:: Put up with under sufference
Release:: Tom Jones ( Please Release me let me goooooooooo)
My soul:: an everlasting, everchanging, cosmic hard drive to store me in
Sax;:: Lisa Simpson
HP:: Sauce
Worth:: Harry A gentleman comedian from the dim and distant past
Rockstar:: Roger Daltry a true rock god
Terrify:: Rats and Dentists ( breaks out in cold sweat)
Knock me off my feet:: Weebles wobble but we dont fall down
Taunt:: T'uncle ( will only make sense to Northerners and Peter Kay fans)

I wonder what a trick cyclist would make of that then?

Roundabouts and driving

2005-07-13T09:58:00.000Z

Doris @ Grans on Bran got me thinking about roundabouts and driving in general.
I honestly thought that roundabouts were distinctly British and having only driven in a limited number of countries had never seen one elsewhere. I have never been sure why they didn’t catch on across the world because I have always thought of them as a fantastic idea.

My kids by the way love it when I am not really sure which exit I need and so go round and round until I am, sometimes this can be 4 or 5 revolutions, all the time the whole car singing the tune to the Magic Roundabout and I love the look on peoples faces walking past as this car full of singing nutters goes round and round.

The other thing I wanted to blog about is things that drive me mad when on the road:-

I do quite a lot of miles a year and I would like to think that most of the time I am a courteous and considerate driver and am not prone to road rage but some things really try your patience:-

Middle and outside lane huggers; these people should be taken out at dawn and shot, you know the type- nothing in the inside or middle lane and there they are tootling along in the outside lane at about 50 mph with a huge line of traffic behind. Which leaves you with 2 options, either wait for them to move (its no good flashing your lights because they really take offence to that and will slow down even further) or to break the law and undertake them on the left.

People who indicate late: - Now I must declare a personal interest in this one as there are specific sets of traffic lights on my way to work, on a 2 lane road (it isn’t a dual carriage way though) Where the left lane is for straight on and turn left and the right lane is for straight on and turn right. So there you are in the right hand lane stopped at the traffic lights when amber, green and the pratt in the front of the queue takes this as a sign that he should now put his indicator on to signal that he wants to turn right across 2 lanes of traffic coming the opposite way, causing the huge line of traffic behind him murderous thoughts.

Women drivers: - Before I get strung up, I better explain, not all women because I would never suggest that men are better or worse drivers than women. I think at one time or another we have all used our mobile phones when driving (not of course since it became illegal) but to put your make-up on in the rear view mirror whilst on the phone and travelling down the motorway at 70 +mph is mind numbing, I kid you not, I have seen this taking place on more than one occasion.

Caravans: - More specifically the people who tow them down the motorway once or twice a year and have no real idea of how to drive with a huge caravan on the back. I mean we don’t let people drive a fixed body vehicle weighing that much without passing a more advanced test so why on earth should we let them. I have witnessed the results of drivers with no ability or training pulling a big box on wheels, I have seen caravans overtake the car pulling them, caravans weaving from side to side and eventually tipping over on their side and lifting the back wheels of the car off the road. Drivers changing lanes too soon because they don’t know how long their car and caravan is, and side swiping another innocent motorist.
Ready—aim-- fire

I’ve just had a thought perhaps I should apply to appear in the next series of Grumpy Old Men

Free association

2005-07-12T11:27:00.000Z

Free association , the workings of the inside of my warped and twisted logic
this is No 127 from Lunanina

Do-it-yourself:: SEX for one
Pickpocket:: Fagin ( you've got to pick a pocket or twooooooo)
Ballet:: tights ( you know the male ballet dancers who look like they have a power drill down theirs)
Resumé:: The american name for a document containing lies, exaggerations and a list of hobbies you think make you look interesting
Phenom:: Spidermans arch rival ( sorry I couldnt resist, but it does sound like it doesnt it?)
Love/Hate:: Relationships tut
Unusual:: Out of the ordinary, different, interesting
Intense:: Pressure
Interruption:: An infuriating fact of life
Not enough:: Time, hours in the day OR Please sir can I have some more

Hmmm reading these back I seem to have developed a bit of an Oliver compulsion

Excuses

2005-07-10T21:04:00.000Z

I know I havent blogged for a bit and my only excuse is I have been extremely busy and I have 5 kids.
If thats not enough of an excuse, try this one:- Its all the other bloggers faults, stay with me and I'll explain.
The thing is when I have a few minutes spare ( which doesnt seem very bloody often at the moment) I think to myself I'll just catch up on reading the other blogs and then I'll blog myself, well thats it from that moment on I'm buggered cos I end up going to read my favourite reads and then following links from them to others and before you know it my few minutes have disappeared and I havent blogged.
So all I can say is stop writting such interesting blogs and linking to others and I'll blog if not you only have yourselves to blame.

weird details

2005-06-28T11:02:00.000Z

I saw this over at Nicoles blog Nickle Annie and thought I would do my own if you want to do one about you follow the link at the bottom of the page and leave me a comment to let me know so I can nosey at yours ( the information Doris keep it clean lol)

You entered: 1/26/1964
You were born on a Sunday under the astrological sign Aquarius.
Your Life path number is 11.
The Julian calendar date of your birth is 2438420.5.
The golden number for 1964 is 8.
The epact number for 1964 is 16.
The year 1964 was a leap year.

As of 6/28/2005 5:55:06 AM CDTYou are 41 years old.

You are 497 months old.

You are 2,161 weeks old.

You are 15,129 days old.
You are 363,101 hours old.
You are 21,786,115 minutes old.
You are 1,307,166,906 seconds old.

There are 212 days till your next birthday on which your cake will have 42 candles on it.
Those 42 candles produce 42 BTU's,or 10,584 calories of heat (that's only 10.5840 food Calories!) .

You can boil 4.80 US ounces of water with that many candles. ( or start a small forest fire)

Your birthstone is Garnet

The Mystical properties of Garnet
Garnet is used as a power stone
Some lists consider these stones to be your birthstone. (Birthstone lists come from Jewlers, Tibet, Ayurvedic Indian medicine, and other sources)
Emerald, Rose Quartz

Your birth tree is
Cypress Tree
The Faithfulness - Strong, muscular, adaptable, takes what life has to give, happy content, optimistic, needs enough money and acknowledgment, hates loneliness, passionate lover which cannot be satisfied, faithful, quick-tempered, unruly, pedantic and careless. ( sounds nearly accurate. I mean all the good stuff is right and all the other stuff is crap ;) )

There are 180 days till Christmas 2005!
The moon's phase on the day you wereborn was waxing gibbous. ( I have no idea what this bit means but it sounds appropriate)

Click here to do your own

Telephones and pranks

2005-06-27T14:11:00.000Z

Ok after the last blog and the comments it got, it really got me reminisning about all the daft phone tricks we used to do. There used to be a little group of us always 3 sometimes 4 and we would meet up at a telephone box just down the road from where I lived , remember the ones that had just the 2p and 10 p slots?

We would telephone a random number and when they answered ask for Harry, when they said there was no Harry there we would say "oh ok if you see him can u tell him Steve phoned" and hang up. This would go on everyday for about a week then we would phone the same number and say "Hya its Harry are there any messages for me?" The responces were quite varied, some would laugh and say oh yes very funny, others would scream abuse at you, but we always found it hilarious.

Another one was we would phone up and say we were from the GPO( long time before BT) and say that we had too much wire at our end could they give it a tug and pull some through, now you have to remember that at this time phones didnt plug in like they do now they were actually wired into the wall. Lots of people would say things like oh ha ha do I sound stupid, but I swear sometimes they would agree to do it and then the line would go dead and we always wet ourselves laughing convinced that they had pulled the wire out of the wall.

Talking of walls, another one was to phone up and ask to speak to Mr Wall, they would say " No Mr Wall here" so we would ask for Mrs Wall, Master Wall and Miss Wall all with the same reply and the person getting less patient, finally we would ask "So there are no walls there then?" exasperated they would shout NOOOO and we would shout "Well whats holding your bloody roof up then"!! and proceed to fall about laughing.

Other pranks we would play, today make me squirm and think how would i react if someone did it to me.

Probably the worst one looking back was one which we only tried a couple of times which was to collect dog crap with a shovel until we had a nice little pile then wrap it all up in a thin wrapping of newspaper. We would then place it on the doorstep of a house, set it on fire, knock on the door and run off. Not too far though because we wanted to see the reaction. The person would come to the door and try to stamp out the fire thus covering their footwear in steaming hot dog poo. This we found so hilariously funny that one day we were laughing so much that we couldnt run and nearly got caught by one of our "victims".

I know, I know I should be ashamed of myself and I am but I must admit to a little titter as I typed this

What pranks did you get up to as a kid? I would love to know

2005-06-21T22:05:00.000Z

Doris over at Grans on bran got me thinking with her post about phone boxes.
I can remember when my Dad told us all if the next phone bill wasnt smaller then he was fitting a lock to the phone. So when the next bill came we were all prepared for the lock to be fitted
We had a trim phone

and not to disappoint us Dad sent the lock home with Mum with instructions to fit it straight away.
The lock was fitted but the hilarious thing was mum fitted it in the zero which meant you could still turn the whole dial round it took about a week for Dad to realise and fit it properly in the number one.
I dont know how we found out but someone must have told us that you could tap the lever that disconnected the call when you put the phone down, so we did that everytime we needed to use the phone. It was a case of tap it once for 1 twice for 2 and so on up to ten for a zero. It would have been easy if everyones number was 1111111 but when you tried to tap out a nine or a zero it got quite a bit more difficult which resulted in lots of wrong numbers each time we tried it. The best part of this was the look on Dads face when the next bill came and it was more than the last one! so of course we then blamed Dad for running up the phone bill.
Needless to say he took the lock off.

Why?

2005-06-17T15:54:00.000Z

Just a quick comment.
Caught about 10 minutes of Celebrity Love Island last night and only one thing occurred to me.............WHY?

I cant understand the person that came up with the concept, can you picture it?
"Well the general idea is we get a load of Z-list celebrities and put them on this tropical island resortfor a few weeks where they will be pampered and waited on hand and foot( I am summising this bit from what has appeared in the newspapers), pay them more for doing it than most people earn in a year and put it on TV"

Even worse is the TV executive who said " thats bloody brilliant why haven't we done this before"
I'll tell you why mate cos its crap

Big Brother ?

2005-06-17T11:08:00.000Z

I have just had an epiphany, bear with me and I will explain;-
The government has announced that it would like to charge us for driving our cars(like they dont already i hear you cry), but by a fairer system or a sort of pay as you go type charge. So the more you drive or the more popular the road you drive on, the more it will cost you.
They say we can put a tracker chip in each car so that we can see where the car is and where its been at any time ( cue George Orwell screaming " SEE I TOLD YOU, I DID WARN YOU, BUT DID YOU LISTEN")
I can see a few flaws in their thinking not the least of which is that all the little b roads, they built the motorways to get us off, will fill up again.

But its the technology that has brought me to my epiphnical (is there such a word?) thought. If they can tell you where any car is at any time I have a different or additional application for their technology.
I think that everything touched by children should be fitted with a similar chip, for example the TV remote; so that when they move it, hide it or just put it somewhere it shouldnt be we could just phone up and say in true British form
"sorry to trouble you but could you tell me where the remote is please" and they would look at the tracking map and say " of course sir , its just behind the curtain on the window ledge in the first bedroom on the left as you come to the top of the stairs". I am telling you I would happily pay a small fee for that service.

What a time saver it would be in the mornings too, just picture it, instead of 20 minutes frantic searching you could just telephone and say "hello its me again, sorry to trouble you but could you tell me where Little Johnnys left school shoe (this could actually be school tie, homework book, reading book, PE kit,or anything else) is please" and they would say " Oh certainly sir, its in the rabbit hutch at the other end of the garden" ........You think I'm kidding don't you? Well I can assure you I am not, things dissappear from where the kids " definitly Put them" and reappear in the weirdest places.

As in most households these days we have remotes for just about everything TV, DVD Video, Stereo, Sky and at any one time I would say at least three of these are missing and always the one that you need.
So i am going to write to the government department and tell them I have an idea I am certain 99% of the population would support, but then again that would probably put them off.

Meme's

2005-06-15T11:56:00.000Z

Since I posted about the stuff I miss from being a child that Cheryl put me up for I kept meaning to Google (oops is that an advert? I must say for balance that other search engines are available, but the fact I have to use google to find them defeats the object somewhat) the word to find out what it actually meant, but you know how it is, things, annoying things get in the way of blogging, like work, kids, sleep.
So thank goodness for Doris over @ grans on bran who has done all the work for me,this is the definition she found

Pronounced: `meem

What is a meme? A meme is an idea, or a particular way of thinking about what an idea is. A meme is a unit of mental information in the same way that a gene is a unit of biological information -- a metaphor of an idea as a transposon, a pattern of thought as a virus, a knowledge structure as a chromosome.

Memes compete to spread their information though a social population in the same ways genes compete to spread their information content through a biological population.

from http://www.meme.com/memedef/

Ok so is that all clear now? No me either but at least we tried and please dont complain to me it was Doris's definition ;o)

2005-06-15T11:52:00.000Z

Is it art?
I think sometimes I am what some people might call a fence sitter, I always try to see both sides of an argument or point of view. This can be refreshing but it can also be very annoying for those with strong views one way or the other. Which brings me to my point ( alright alright I got here eventually didnt I?)
I saw an article the other day in the news paper about Tracy Emin and an exhibition, now I know lots of opinions have been shared about Ms Emin and her " pieces" but what I am confused about is the very question Is It Art? or do I think it is to be precise

An umade bed with condoms and tampons and soiled knickers on it
is this art?
or a sheep pickled in formaldhyde

or even the " room Installations

.

I can understand some unusual paintings like Picasso's marie

.

when you compare "modern" art ( its called Stuckism or re-modernism I believe)
to great classics like Constables Salisbury cathedral

or van gough's sunflowers

I dont think I need to go on I have just answered my own question, To me no its not art I think its just a case of the emperors new clothes the wonderful art glitterati tell us that it is so we are supposed to believe them. But then again each to their own

2005-06-14T14:20:00.000Z

Came across this today whilst meandering through the blog lands, I started off at my mate Cheryls and saw a comment from Adrian at sirharris.com who had a link to the piece on renewable energy.
An informative piece on the use of solar panels and wind turbines, we all know that eventually the resources we are using will run out and that alternatives are available but will take quite a lot of investment .
Government initiatives to increase the awareness of valuable resources and increase the levels of recycling are all very well but we need to start to use the new technological advances we have made.
I know of a plant in Wrexham that solely manufactures solar panels to export them all to Germany where the government subsidises the cost of the panels and installation by 50%. I believe the cost of the panels and installation would cost somewhere around the £10,000 mark over here which is just too much to make it viable as it would take too long to recoup the costs from the savings you make on your electricity bill. So obviously government subsidy is needed
Sorry I must get off my soap box its giving me vertigo

2005-06-12T17:48:00.000Z

Cheryl over at madbaggage has seemingly tagged me for something called a meme! I must find out what these terms mean one day lol
Well the subject is 5 things I miss about my childhood
here goes

1 Watching TV on a saturday morning in your pyjamas sometimes even with your pillow and quilt. In the days when kids didnt have 200 channels to watch in the morning. I mean we only had three channels and really BBC 2 didnt count cos that was full of boring programmes about weird things on Open University introduced by men with long hair and beards. The real programmes to watch were those like double deckers and white horses ( a really badly dubbed foreign programme) then later on Multi coloured swap shop.

2 All day bike rides..... First thing in the morning during the summer holidays, our Mums would make us a packed lunch of sandwiches, a packet of crisps, a chocolate biscuit and a bottle of squash and off we would go for the whole day with the only instruction to be back for tea. we got up to the usual stuff that lads get up to, nothing malicious or illegal just boys being boys. Like the time we made rafts to sale on a pond we "found" not realising that the bottom was full of broken glass and rusty metal which caused some real damage to our feet when our raft sank mid way across and we had to wade to the side. Still at least we had each other for company when we were waiting in casualty. And the time when I wasnt fast enough to escape when scrumping apples and got shot in the behind with a salt cartridge. I can remember the sting even today

3 Sunday afternoon visits to Grandparents........ I suppose part of this is that I miss my grandparents but its not just that, it was the tinned ham sandwiches my Nana would make the chocolate marshmallow biscuits, just playing in the garden, washing the car with my grandad, everything about the memories of the afternoons brings a smile to my face.

4 Birthdays...... do you remember when birthdays were special and you looked forward to them for weeks? I miss the anticipation of the excitment, I honestly think that if people didnt remind me I would forget my own birthday

5 Family weddings........ I come from a large family who used to have some fantastic family gatherings especially the weddings where just with family there would be hundreds of people but all people you knew, Fantastic times that dont seem to happen these days what with the cost of weddings and how spread out people are.

When you play, just knock the top link off the list (yes you have to include the live links), and add your own blog address at the bottom.
Chaos Theory
Wired
Bad Aunt
Mad Baggage
Wittering Heights

If five people play at each level then top of the list finds themselves with something like 800 links to their site, amongst other bloggers. I can see this catching on if it works. Its also fun to go see who tagged who and check out the sites.

A load of Pony

2005-04-10T06:10:00.000Z

I thought I would share something that happened over the Easter weekend

We had just returned on the Saturday from the mandatory visit to the Garden centre with the largest bag of compost I have ever seen, well perhaps not seen but certainly had to lift into the back of the car (peat free of course), and a shit load of bedding plants. I had just sat down with a cup of tea before my other half found me something else to do when my eldest son said “ Dad there are some horses in the garden and they are eating all the plants” my response was the usual yeah yeah have you been at the blue smarties again and got up to see. Lo and behold there were some animals eating our plants but unless they look a lot bigger on the TV these were Shetland ponies.

Six in all and chomping quite happily on not only the plants already planted but the newly acquired bedding plants waiting to be planted, they must have been hungry cos they had even taken chunks out of the compost bag (presumably cos it was green).

The kids thought it was great and kept asking “ can we keep them ….Plllleeeeaaassssssssssss. I mean what did they expect me to say oh yeah that’s ok we can keep them all in our garden.
After a good scout about and not being able to find anybody searching frantically for six ponies we telephoned the police, who were less than helpful but said they would get someone out to us when they could, surprise, surprise we are still waiting.

A neighbour then arrived back from her shopping trip and saw the ponies, she told us that the police had found them the night before and had put them in the play park just round the corner, the park however does not have a gate so the Policemen decided to use “Police crime scene do not enter tape” which kept the hungry and thirsty ponies in for at least 5 minutes and then they wandered around looking for food and water. Finally arriving in our garden. By this time the ponies had eaten every piece of veg and fruit we had in the house and were still chomping at the bit (excuse the pun)

I had a closer look at the ponies and they didn’t look in great shape coats all matted and dull eyes all glazed, hooves severely over grown, I wondered if one of the passing travellers had off loaded them and then done one.

I could really see myself getting lumbered with these ponies
I thought I know who can help and at 4.30 pm telephoned the RSPCA call centre, where a very nice lady explained that she would make it a priority case and someone should be out to see us within the hour.

8.30 pm still no sign of the RSPCA so I telephone again and speak to the most apologetic person I have ever spoken to who said they had a back log of work, I said I wouldn’t want to add to their work load as they were busy but if they could get the local inspector to telephone me and perhaps we could discuss the problem on the phone as I wasn’t bothered if the ponies had to stay until the following day. They said they would get someone to call me within the next 30 mins.

About 9.30 pm the ponies had eaten absolutely everything we had that they could .. I am sure they were considering becoming carnivores with some of the looks we were getting off them…. and still no call so I phoned a friend of mine who owns a farm and he agreed to let me have a bale of hay for these ponies.

11.30 and now I am getting a bit pissed off, a simple telephone call wasn’t a lot to ask was it? But obviously too much for the RSPCA
So I telephone again and once more speak to the lead representative from the apology society. After about 15 minutes of solid we are so sorry sir and we appreciate the action you have taken on behalf of these animals I hang up non the wiser.

My other half meanwhile has been on the net and got the number of a local Equine Vet she telephones him and he tells us he has just got of the phone with the local collections officer form the RSPCA and gives us the number. We telephone him and he tells us the reason no one has been out to us is that the officer on duty was only on from 9 to 5 and when we tell him about apology central the call centre he explains that the people don’t work for the RSPCA but just take messages. He arranges for someone to call on the Sunday morning either before 10 or after 12 as we would be out between those times.

No sign before 10 so off we go and we arrive back just after 12 to see the RSPCA van leaving our yard. The young lady RSPCA officer informs us that the ponies are gone which surprised us as they were in the garden and the gates were pad locked! When we looked the gates had been lifted off their hinges and left leaning against the fence.

The lady from the RSPCA explained that this was the 4th time in 5 months she had had to inform the owner that the ponies had escaped and said over and over again yeah he’s a nightmare. She also told us that they couldn’t take them off him as they “weren’t bad enough”.I did despair a little cos I hate to think of those poor ponies not being looked after but looking on the bright side we did get some good natural fertilizer for the plants we went out to replace the ones they ate.

I dont seem to be able to post any pics at the moment but will keep trying

Kids

2005-04-05T13:34:00.000Z

My better half Jan sent me this link earlier and I read it with tears streaming down my face, at last someone else who has the same type of little angels that we have, we have 5 from two 13yr olds (not twins ones my daughter and one is my stepson)down to just 3.

The difference in boys and girls at 13 is really striking with my daughter all "grown up", as she would like to think, full of hormonal imbalances, tears, bad moods, its not fairs and I wish I was deads. Every thing has to be the right thing to wear so that she can fit in with the "cool" crowd, gets embarrassed by her Dad frequently, just by things I ask her or her friends, peculiarly she is still quite happy to waltz with me down the aisles of our supermarket (its a long story lol mainly about a daft dad and his tiny daughter shopping at weekends and having a laugh)
To my sons vacant, memory span of a goldfish- he really can forget what he is leaving the room for between the sofa and the door (I always thought that was reserved for old farts like me), a voice--- the pitch so high sometimes only the dog can hear him when he gets excited, his obsession with computer and consol games (PS2 seen as you asked), which he can quite happily play all day if we would let him.

So please have a read of this and some of the comments/ questions are pretty funny too

Virgin Blog

2005-04-01T11:30:00.000Z

I thought it was about time I put something in this blog. I keep meaning to but then don’t, you know how it is. Although it doesn’t bode well for future posts does it?

I was introduced to the concept of blogging by a Cheryl, good friend of mine, quite recently and have become quite hooked on reading some of them. Even to the point of checking the blogs and being disappointed that no new entries have been made.

I think part of it is the voyeuristic ( or should that be nosey) tendencies that we all have , you know listening to the interesting conversation behind you on the train or in the queue at the bank, just catching a snap shot of someone else’s life and wondering how it worked out or didn’t as the case may be. Blogs take it that step further letting you know what happened next and then some. Some are side splittingly funny intentionally and some unintentionally.

Cheryl told me that she found the process quite cathartic, so, after I’d looked it up (;0), I thought it sounded like a good thing and would give it a go.

I have no idea in what direction this blog will go or whether it will go at all.

We will just have to wait and see.