Thought for the day

Now now, calm down. I'm not about to go all 'Radio 4' on you and start writing the kind of wet-tissue tosh you hear on the Toady...oops! Freudian slip – the Today Programme. This will probably disappoint Art-Girl as she actually likes Thought For The Day, and actually has around half a dozen of 'em on her iPod. In my not so humble opinion this is a waste of good solid state memory (Art-Girl no doubt holds the same opinion about the many hours of prog rock that fill my iPod), but each to his or her own, right? So, you can relax Gentle Reader – I'm not about to start spouting platitudes like some Anglican lady vicar who doesn't actually believe in God, but does believe that if we all hold hands, sing 'Kumbaya', and ban the private car all will be well with the world. No, what you're about to get is TFTD Barguest-stylee.

Like the Lord my mind works in mysterious ways, and odd (sometimes very odd) thoughts or questions will arise unbidden. Anyway, here's today's: vegetarian bunny boilers – how does that work then? I mean seriously, is it even possible to have a veggie bunny boiler? Think about it: even though she's not gonna actually eat the bunny it must surely be against her veggie principles to stick it – alive - in a pot and boil it into a nice threatening message. So, what's the veggie bunny boiler to do to get back at the besuited Michael Douglas-a-like lothario that's used and spurned her? Well, she could always give up her vegetarian ways but, given that such people tend to be very earnest about their cause (I'm generalising, but that doesn't, necessarily, make it untrue), that's unlikely. She could always use a soft toy bunny, but given the way many kids abuse their toys boiling's gonna be something of a mercy for the rabbit.

Nope, I think there's only one answer: replace the bunny with something that's...acceptable to a vegetarian. So, if you've been having it away with a veggie, you've dumped her and she hasn't taken it too well, don't be surprised if your missus comes home to find a roasted parsnip or some lightly steamed broccoli in your pressure cooker. And, as I don't find cooked vegetables in a pot on the cooker particularly frightening or threatening, I think we've arrived at a tip: chaps if you are gonna play away from home (and your humble blogger neither recommends nor endorses such behaviour) pick a veggie in which to dip your wick. After all, what's the worst that's gonna happen? Your wife's gonna come home and think you've started cooking the dinner. Bonus!

Chin chin

Afterthought: writing this got me musing on the film 'Fatal Attraction' and the implausibility of it's plot. I mean, really, would you wanna bone Glenn Close? Me neither. She's got a face like a bloke and she looks scarier than Idi Amin having a tizzy. No, do the sensible thing: stick with the rather tasty missus back home and give the bunny a long and happy life.

This blog is rated 'O'...for 'old'

Recently Art-Girl was opining that some of the cultural references I use in this blog would be unlikely to be understood by anyone who was...oh, under a certain age shall we say. This, I think, was her way of telling me I'm an old fart (and the 'grumpy' prefix may be taken as read). Well, this left me thinking: should I change how I write so I is like all down wif da kids innit? Should I start referring to...well just what the Hell does interest the yoof of today? Apart from (c)rap music, bad hair styles, endlessly texting each other in what appears to sanskrit with all the vowels removed, and aspiring to appear in the pages of 'Heat' magazine and its ilk.

I freely confess I have no understanding of the yoof of today...oh, bugger that - I, at least, am capable of writing proper English: the youth of today. (Yea gods, I think I'm turning into my parents). But do I feel diminished for my lack of understanding? Err, no. I sit here, secure in my middle-aged grumpiness, knowing that one day - some years hence admittedly, but the day will come nevertheless - the youth of today will be exactly where I am now. And I, assuming I haven't shuffled off my mortal coil, will be a very grumpy old pensioner. Though hopefully not the sort who thinks buying trousers with elasticated waists from Greenwoods is a good idea. (Art-Girl will doubtless be pushing one of those tartan shopping bags on wheels up and down the cat food aisle at Tesco's and adopting 'ramming speed' for any young mothers who happen to get in her way).

So that's it settled - I'll continue to blog in my own, imitable, fashion. And if any references to 'Norman Tebbit' and why his name's funny with regard to cycling, or to 'The Tomorrow People' make no sense then you have a choice: you can either look it up (the internet's not just for porn you know), you can ask an old person (that's anyone over the age of 25, 30 or 40 depending on how old you are Dear Reader) or you could sod off and read something about who Russell Brand is, or is not, shagging this week.

Chin chin!

Biodiversity - good or bad? Discuss

 Hello Gentle Reader

The subject of today's post is biodiversity, a subject which has very recently been elevated on my agenda. Have you noticed how certain people...well, sandal-wearing, lentil-munching, Grauniad-reading ecomentalist people to be specific. Y'know, the sort who lie awake at night worrying that somewhere someone might just be enjoying themselves (probably with - Heaven forfend! - petrol or meat or both). Anyway, the subject of this post is not them as such, rather something very dear to their recycled little hearts, one of their sacred cows: biodiversity. They're always banging on about how it's a 'good thing', without ever explaining in what way exactly this is so. Well, I'm sorry...actually no I'm not. Being of a naturally sceptical turn of mind (reinforced by years of observation) I see no reason why I should apologise for questioning anything.

Ok, back on topic - biodiversity. We're constantly told it's a 'good thing' and we must preserve it at all costs, but rarely, if ever, why. Well, I have my own observations on this issue. What's that you say? They're not observations merely opinions. I say po-TAY-to you say po-TAH-to. Whatever. Except I'm right - you want to be right, go start your own blog!)

Bloody hell, I'm having trouble staying on topic today, it must be the drugs (don't panic - they really are for 'medicinal purposes'). Right, biodiversity - in the (not so humble) view of your humble blogger I think it's not as good a thing as the sandalistas make out and a little less of it might be appropriate. Now, before you reach for the keyboard to accuse me of being a meat-eating (let's just say the spit-roast I attended at the weekend in no way involved Premiership fottballers and a slapper name Tracy), petrol-using, heterosexual, man let me just say mea cupla to all of the above. But, consider this: ebola - is that a 'good thing'? (I suspect, if you asked them, most Africans would rather not expire by hemorrhaging copiously from every orifice). Or how about the smallpox virus? Surely the world wouldn't be that bad a place for its loss? How about lice, ticks, fleas (those good friends of that little bacillus yersinia pestis AKA bubonic plague) or tapeworms. I think we'd get along just fine if these little buggers went the way of the dinosaur. Or what about this particular critter:

Utter utter utter utter utter bastard (Culicoides impunctatus)

Art-Girl and I were away camping at the weekend, at a particularly idyllic spot on the shore of Loch Rannoch. Well, it was idyllic until myriad swarms of c. impunctatus descended upon us...well, mostly upon me. Bastards! I'm currently suffering from in excess of 100 very inflamed and itchy midge bites. Bites so bad that I'm taking antihistamine tablets and liberally coating myself in antihistamine cream, but for little relief. And before any of my loyal readers suggest "Oh, but you should've used Avon Skin So Soft" let me say I did use Avon Skin So Soft - it had no effect other than to give the little buggers a nice sticky surface to land on so they could bite me all the easier.

Apparently midges are attracted to the CO2 on their victim's breath. Well, now there's a potential midge avoidance approach: I'll simply stop exhaling. Hell, I'll stop respiring altogether - that ought to do the trick. Actually, that gives me an idea for an effective (probably) anti-midge strategy (no, not auto-asphyxiation) - what if I was to provide a diversionary source of CO2? What if I were to park the rabbit (that's my beloved Alfa Romeo for those readers new to this blog) nearby with her engine running? Well, she produces millions of carbon dioxides that are, according to the gummint who use it as a pretext for taxing me to buggery for the 'sin' of owning a nice car, killing the planet. That being the case I can put those carbon dioxides to good use: killing a very specific bit of the planet by enticing it up the exhaust pipe and flash-frying it in the catalytic converter.

So, in conclusion I think we can say that biodiversity is not universally a 'good thing' and that it can happily stand to lose at least this one species. So, if God or Gaia or an even more powerful entity (I have in mind some third world-exploiting multinational chemical corp) can arrange it for the Highland Midge to run up the curtain and join the Choir Invisible I'll be deeply grateful. Next week: I tell you what I really think of the polar bear and how I won't be the least bit sorry if it fucks off and dies too. Ok, that may make your little Julian and Jemima (for whom you adopted a WWF polar bear* last Crimbo) cry, but if that is the case you've gotta ask yourself just what the fuck are your kids doing reading a blog written by an angry bastard who makes liberal use of 'post-watershed' language?

Right, my bites are itching like a Turkish tart's chuff. I need relief (no, not that kind you dirty-minded individual) and I won't get it from poncey antihistamine cream. I know: a large G&T (or six) should do the trick.

Chin chin!

*I was totally unaware that the World Wrestling Federation did polar bears. I'd always assumed their stock in trade was big oiled up men with the oratory skills of a baboon and the mullets of a 1980s German heavy metal band. Just goes to show: you learn something new everyday.

Spot the (real) green car

Hello Gentle Reader,

You may have noticed (or you may not if you don't give a toss about such issues) an item in the press this week that the Environmental Transport Association (now that sound like a fake charity if ever I heard of one; hmm, this outfit is known as 'ETA' - probably not the smartest move: naming yourself after a bunch of murdering Basque bastards) has named Britain's least environmentally friendly car: the Lamborghini Murcielago. Apparently the Lambo has CO2 emissions exactly five times greater than those of the 'Green Car of the Year': the Toyota iQ. So, the the Toyota pumps out 99 g/km of CO2...hang on a minute, what's up with all this 'g' and 'km' bollocks? What's the bloody Hell's wrong with ounces and miles? Have we suddenly become France and no one's told me?

Anyway, back to the carbon dioxide. The Toyota knocks out 99 while the magnificent Lambo churns "exactly five times more". Why they couldn't just say '495' I don't know - I mean it's not exactly advanced calculus to work it out. Actually, I do know: reporting it as "five times more" is just that bit more scary, particularly for the many sheeple whom our world-leading education system has gifted with numeracy skills worthy of Gordon Brown, rendering them unable to multiple anything other than their broods of feral little benefit-monkeys. But, of course, what ETA aren't telling you is that the Lambo has an engine that's actually six and a half times bigger than the sewing machine in the Toyota. Therefore, per litre, the Lambo is actually the better car in terms of it's emissions: 99 g/km/litre for the Toyota and a mere 76 g/km/litre for the Murcielago. Plus the Lambo's only about a billion times more fun, better looking, cooler, and so on than the iQ, not to mention a soaring testament to the engineering ambition of Man. I mean which of these two would you rather have?

Pig-ugly Japanese wuss-mobile

Thing of exquisite beauty. Scorchio!

And the Lambo's actually not too bad in terms of fuel consumption: a very creditable (for a hyper-car) 21.4 average mpg. That's only a couple of whiskers worse than I get in my Alfa (affectionately known as 'the rabbit'), only don't tell Art-Girl that - she might want me to sell it and buy one of those hideous iQs.

One more thing about the ETA verdict on the Lambo: they claim that in the course of a year it emits CO2 equivalent to felling a football pitch sized forest of trees. Now hang on one sec - that ain't exactly a lot of trees, I mean I could fell that many in a weekend with a decent chainsaw, and I'm a really lazy bastard when it comes to gardening. But it would take the Lambo a whole year to achieve the same result. Not exactly apocalyptically scary is it? Once again the ETA scare tactics fail when exposed to the light of common sense - all they've really managed to establish with that little factoid is that a Murcielago is less harmful for the environment than an angry bugger with a 24 inch chainsaw.

ETA will doubtless be ecstatic that the Murcielago is being retired this year, but worry not - you can guarantee that Lamborghini will replace it with an even more dramatic (and powerful) piece of automotive artistry. Can't wait.

Update: I can find no record of a charity registration for ETA, so maybe they're not a charity per se. But they do want your donations. Ha! There'll be snowdrifts in Hell before they get any of my hard-earned! I'm saving for a Lamborghini.

Haute cuisine...or maybe not

Your humble scribe has just had a shock to the system, food wise that is. I was browsing the office tuckshop for something tasty to supplement my Tesco's soggy cardboard sarnie when my eyes lit upon the box of crisps in the bottom of the cupboard that serves as our local branch of Fortnum & Mason's. 

I should explain at this point that my office possesses no canteen - subsidised or otherwise - so, being of a self-reliant turn, and desirous of building a retail empire to rival WalMart, my colleagues and I started a tuckshop. In the interests of a healthy workforce we stock only 100% natural, organic wholefoods such as Tunnock's Tea Cakes, Irn Bru (full fat, of course) and Bountys (hmm? guess what I'm having with my afternoon cup of Earl Grey...). Oh, c'mon you didn't really think we cater for the lentil-munching hordes did you? If you're desperate for sustainable high-fibre, ethically-killed, Venezualan peace tofu you'lll have to put on your Birkenstocks (or fire up your G-Wiz, assuming your last two mile journey hasn't completely drained its battery) and patronise some other retailer. (In case Art-Girl's getting worried that I'm once again channeling the spirit of Jeremy Clarkson I will say, in my defence, that we run this tuckshop as a co-operative - so any capitalist exploitation of the proletariat is being done by the proles to themselves for their own benefit).

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah - a shock to the system. My eyes had happened on the box of crisps and I noticed it was overflowing with Quavers and Wotsits. Thereby making a nice change from Walkers Crisps that taste like they've been cooked not in vegetable oil but Castrol GTX. Hurrah! I immediately blagged a bag of Wotsits and headed for my desk, a happy man. But something about the bag in my hand didn't seem quite right and, after a moment, it dawned on me: it was the wrong colour for Wotsits. So, I looked more closely: hmm? Wotsits sure enough, but bearing an additional word above the product name in sneakily small letters: baked. Baked?! Baked Wotists?! FFS!! A devious attempt to con the poor unsuspecting gourmand into eating 'health' food. Well, uh uh, no way Jose. Baked Wotsits are a crime against deep-fried savoury snacks and the people (starting with you my loyal reader) need to be warned.

I returned the dodgy Wotsits fothwith and grabbed a bag of Quavers instead. You can't go wrong with them: lovely artifical cheese and a nice coating of oil left on your fingers. Mmmmm! Bon appetit!

Who needs 'Watchdog'?

Hello Gentle Reader, 

I'm sure we can all tell our tales of incompetent utility companies (let's not even get started on the time my gas supplier decided I'd used £5000 of gas in a single quarter and swiped £1000 out of my bank account - without even telling me - thus causing my mortgage payment to bounce. Bastards!!). Well, I was sorting through old correspondence at the weekend and came across a letter I wrote to NPower three years ago. It speaks for itself, so what can I say but...enjoy!

16 March 2007

Acct no: xxxxxxxxxx

Dear xxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx

Thank you for your final reminder (enclosed) about the outstanding £71.68 on the above account. I doubt very much, however, that this will greatly worry my late father. When I called in January to close the account I pointed out that the reason for closure was my father’s death, yet you continue to send mail addressed to him. The bill is in the hands of his executor and solicitors, and will no doubt be paid in due course. Meanwhile, I doubt an organisation as large as NPower will become insolvent for the want of £71.68.

A few other points worthy of mention: my street name is spelled wrongly, and the spelling of ‘Edinburgh’  (Edunbooaargh) is laughable – clearly literacy is not a significant requirement for your call centre staff.

Additionally, your 'Customer Operations' section sent my late father an extremely generous offer (also enclosed) that you could supply him with both gas and electricity ‘at your new address’ at an annual discount of £60. I’d like to decline this on behalf of my late father, though I am impressed that NPower is extending its operations into the hereafter. That’s the sort of entrepreneurial spirit this country needs. 

 

However, all is not rosy with this offer: you have managed to relocate my street to Hainstock Moor (which is 200 miles away in North / West Yorkshire); Hainstock Moor has been been shifted to Edinburgh (spelled correctly this time – well done!), some 200 miles to the north; Edinburgh has been relocated to West Yorkshire, which is, apparently, in an Edinburgh postcode! I haven’t seen such creative geography since the film ‘Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves’, where Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman landed at the white cliffs of Dover, crossed Hadrian’s Wall at lunchtime, and reached Nottingham in the evening.

Chin chin

Barguest

And today's nominee for the Darwin Awards is...

...the pillock I encountered standing in the middle of the road washing windows with a very long pole (no, I don't mean he was being assisted by a 7 foot tall mate named Stanislaw). I was happily cruising to the office (well, as happily as I can manage at 7:00 in the blessed AM, a time when all good children should be in bed) when I rounded a bend and almost had a head-on with the taxi that had swerved to avoid Mr BigPole. For a moment the driver of the Transit behind the taxi looked like he might just go for it but, after a milisecond's contemplation, decided that discretion is the better part of not just valour, but also not triggering the airbags, and executed an almost textbook emergency stop. I did likewise, offering a fervent prayer of thanks to the god 'Bridgestone' that the new tyres, which had recently cost me as much as a week in Marbella, had been worth every penny.

Meanwhile, in the midst of narrowly averted automotive carnage (well ok, not to over egg the pudding: a narrowly averted minor shunt), the idiot who was wielding Stanislaw continued washing someone's windows, apparently oblivious to the smokey-tyred Transit breathing down his neck, a Bluetooth earpiece jutting from the right side of his head, and an iPod plugged into the left. He wore no hi-vis flourescent clothing, only dark stuff - perfect for being hard to see in the dawn's early light. There were no warning signs up the road saying "Caution! Plonker waving a big stick just around the next bend!". 

I drove slowly past and continued to the office, musing that this was one of the finest examples of stupidity I'd seen for...ooh, about a week. Or maybe I'm being too harsh: maybe he was simply some poor member of 'Exit' who couldn't afford the flight to Dignitas in Switzerland...

Keep on running

Recently an office-wide email was sent inviting staff to enter the local marathon...as part of a relay team. WTF?!! 'Scuse me but isn't this kind of...well, cheating? I mean, isn’t the whole point of a marathon to run 26 miles (and 385 yards if it's a proper modern marathon)? Or do we have here another manifestation of the modern obsession with making things 'accessible'? Your humble scribe can well imagine the thought process of the equality-diversity-accessibility co-ordinator who thought up this one (imagine it being spoken in the whiny adenoidal tone all of the 'Righteous' use):

"Oh dear the majority of the populace are too fat and unfit to run a marathon without expiring. But we can't have them feeling excluded - their feelings might be huuuurt". 

So, the answer, it would seem, is to redefine a marathon as four people sharing it. Equally, no doubt. (After all, we can't have one runner claiming credit for a greater distance than their team mates. No, that would probably be seem as elitist). But, surely, this devalues the achievement of running a marathon. A marathon is supposed to be hard - very few people are capable of accomplishing the feat of running one. And that's the point, isn't it?. It's about sorting winners from losers, wheat from chaff, sheep from...well, from other sheep in this case (this is the population of the UK we're talking about: the sheeple; of course, if you're reading this blog you're obviously capable of independent, rational thought and therefore, automatically, above the sheeple). I bet poor old Pheidippides is spinning in his grave at this mockery of his sacrifice. Somehow, I feel this is all of a piece with the all-must-have-prizes times in which we live.

Mind you, having said all that, I think running 26 miles (or even 6 and a bit) is more than a tad silly in this day and age - I mean, if you need to travel that kind of distance use a car. 

Breakfast at...

...Morrison's. What? Did you really think I was gonna say Tiffany's? The only 'Tiffanys' one sees around here are the orange-hued pram-faces from the local housing schemes. You know the sort: they're built like either Gandhi or Idi Amin, though without the fine dress sense of either of those gentlemen. You could put them in Versace, Dior, or Armani and they'd still look like they bought their clothes from Matalan. You can hear them coming long before you see them: first there's the clinking of the several pounds (that's weight not sterling, although on reflection...) of finest 'Elizabeth Duke' gold tat with which they're festooned (what strange inverse-alchemy has managed to make gold look like base metal?). Then there's the voice: a cacophonous, discordant screech emitted at a volume just two decibels below the threshold of physical pain. This verbal avalanche of invective and profanity is usually directed into the Nokia phone that's permanently fixed (see, cyborgs do walk among us) to the side of that unnaturally orange boatrace, informing Hayley-Chardonnay that Darren's (or Kev's or Tyson's) community service has been extended...for the ninth time. And... Oops, there I go again: not only veering off on a tangent, but also being judgmental about chavs. Not that there's anything wrong with either of those activities.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Morrison's. As today's weather proved to be less than clement (why is the forecast always right when it's bad weather? answers on a postcard...), thus kiboshing my plans to go biking and meaning that I'd have to make good on my promise to Art-Girl to start a blog, I figured I'd better fortify myself with a decent breakfast of incipient arteriosclerosis, otherwise known as a fry-up. And, being something of a lazy bugger when it comes to shopping, I didn't have any of the fixings in the house so a trip to Morrison's was inevitable.

So there I sat, a plate overflowing with stuff that had once been pig or had come from the back end of a chicken, feeling all was right with the world (lousy weather notwithstanding). When, suddenly, my morning repast was rudely interrupted by the conversation coming from a man that can only be described as Tiffany's Darren. He was the regulation shade of orange, had a full set of tasteless tats (now don't get me wrong - I've nothing against tattoos per se, after all I have some myself, but in the name of all that's holy if you're gonna get tats please make them tasteful), and the obligatory Nokia growing out of his face. He then proceeded to share with your humble scribe, and the rest of the denizens of Morrison's, half of the rather heated conversation he was having with his mother:

"No Ma, ah cannae talk - ah'm in public in Morrison's". Is it possible to be private in Morrison's? He then proceeded to dash the small crumb of hope he'd given me when he'd said he "cannae talk":

"No Ma, ah'm goin' tae Spain in a few days. Ah dinnae knaw if ah'll be back. Ah've got a few things tae work oot".

"Ma, ah'm nae talking aboot this noo". Alas, he had no intention of making good on that and continued on...and on...and on. Clearly, 'Ma' didn't want her wee boy (who was around 6 foot three and looked at least 25) to decamp to Espana and was employing the sort of persuasive talent that'd make Henry Kissinger look like a yes man. Fascinating though this vignette was, it was interrupting my fry-up. I tried to block out the human drama playing a few short yards from me, but it was no good - I was breakfasting in an episode of "River City".

And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse it did - the Jack Russell started blowing the car horn. Yes, you read that correctly - a Toyota Yaris in the car park contained a Jack Russell who was standing on the driver's blowing the horn. Saints preserve me! Now I had an episode of "That's Life!" happening in the car park (I raised a silent, but fervent, prayer that I'd be spared Cyril Fletcher showing me a carrot that looked like a John Thomas).

At this point I gave up - the breakfast gods were against me. I downed cutlery and headed home, reflecting that I'd encountered a paraphrase of that old Chinese curse about living in 'interesting times': may you have an interesting breakfast. I never did find out if Darren (I've no idea what his name really was, but he didn't exactly look like a Julian or a Vivian) resolved his issues with his mother, or if the police turned up and booked Jack for excessive use of the horn (he could get three points on his license for that). But I'll offer them both - Darren and Jack - my thanks for the inspiration for today's blog post.