Hmm woodsmoke and lavender ?

I try not to disguise my enjoyment of alcohol as a hobby, even though a lot of the time I drink red wine which affords me the opportunity to do just that. I have found that if you want to sit and get merrily pissed go no further than Marks and Spencer. They do a litre bottle of red wine called simply "Italian red". It's £3.95 and comes with a handy screw top. Not the kind of thing your wine snob would approve of.......like I give a fuck whether Jilly Goolden can taste chocolate in a pint of fuckin' Guinness or not. It's big, it's red and it makes you slur your worms, job done.

Angry from Cumbria.

Just watched Mark Thomas, in his guise of weapons inspector, and he showed that not only are we in breach of UN regulations governing nuclear weapons, but the powers that be are maddeningly unaccountable. He met a wall of silence and obstruction. Now I know you can't just saunter into a US air force base and demand to see their nukes, but even an MEP wasn't allowed past the gate of a British weapons establishment. We need some accountability of our public servants in this country, and not just the ones that come round every four years, we need open and honest communication with anyone who is concerned enough to ask for it. If we had a level of openness in this country we could prove that we are doing exactly what Dubya and the rest of his cronies are accusing Sadam of doing. Such hypocrisy is not surprising given the level of sleaze within politics nowadays, so to add my comment to that of the Iraqi football fan on C4 news who said "Fuck Bush!", here's mine......."Fuck Blair!"

Funnier than the last one.

Check this out, it says it all so much better than I could.

It's funny cos it's true !

An American automobile company and a Japanese auto company decided to have a competitive boat race on the Detroit River. Both teams practiced hard and long to reach their peak performance. On the big day, they were as ready as they could be.

The Japanese team won by a mile.

Afterwards, the American team became discouraged by the loss and their morale sagged. Corporate management decided that the reason for the crushing defeat had to be found. A Continuous Measurable Improvement Team of "Executives" was set up to investigate the problem and to recommend appropriate corrective action.

Their conclusion: The problem was that the Japanese team had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, whereas the American team had 1 person rowing and 8 people steering. The American Corporate Steering Committee immediately hired a consulting firm to do a study on the management structure.

After some time and billions of dollars, the consulting firm concluded that "too many people were steering and not enough rowing." To prevent losing to the Japanese again next year, the management structure was changed to "4 Steering Managers, 3 Area Steering Managers, and 1 Staff Steering Manager" and a new performance system for the person rowing the boat to give more incentive to work harder and become a six sigma performer. "We must give him empowerment and enrichment." That ought to do it.

The next year the Japanese team won by two miles.

The American Corporation laid off the rower for poor performance, sold all of the paddles, cancelled all capital investments for new equipment, halted development of a new canoe, awarded high performance awards to the consulting firm, and distributed the money saved as bonuses to the senior executives.

For more jokes click here

10 things I hate.

I’m not going to include the comfort thieves, they are beyond hate. This is a list of things that piss me off, but in the grand scheme don’t warrant a post of their own.

1. Memes.
2. Mortality.
3. Cliques.
4. Censorship.
5. Call centres.
6. Jelly.
7. Scree.
8. Lies.
9. Royalty.
10. Butter beans.

Please feel free to compile your own list of ten things, hang on ! then it would become a meme…….hmmm this requires further thought.

Dog years I wouldn’t mind.

As I stood beneath the Cumbrian night sky staring at the dog star, I wondered, as clouds obscured my view, about how transient this life is, how brief our stay on this beautiful world. The Dog Star twinkled and flashed as it has for millennia prior to me looking at it, mocking me and my short lease, as it disappeared behind a large dark cloud I swear it winked at me.

This week has been a good one, I got birthday pressies that were totally unexpected, I got stuff I bought off e-bay, and I have been nominated for president. It’s a nice thought to be able to put my ten point plan into action, but I can’t help thinking that you would be just swapping one establishment for another. A question I have asked myself several times over the years is why would anyone want to lead a country, I know we are all control freaks to varying degrees but what would posses someone to want to be in charge of a nation ? It’s frightening enough being in control of a chemical plant. Anyway I would never get the nod from the emperor, and lets face it I’d be fucked if I wasn’t privy to his creative vote counting techniques.

Bastard cushions !

I know we’ve been through this before, but I really hate them. Festering bags of non-comfort, sat there like big horrible frogs, sat there where I should be sat….occupying my space and leaching all the squishiness off our settee, sucking it into their bloated fat swollen carcasses. It’s a conspiracy, all those people who like cushions have been assimilated into the cult, I’m going to hold out as long as I can, but it’s like going to sleep in Nightmare on Elm St, sooner or later I’ll find myself snuggling up with one and I’ll have a brief memory of the good days of comfort, the good days before the lumps came. I’ll probably think it a really good idea to have a couple of them in the back window of my car, and maybe just a couple of different coloured ones scattered on the bed. Until that day comes I will cast them to the floor with disdain. Join me, cast your cushions to floor and reclaim the space.

Ta.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes, they are much appreciated. Unfortunately on my birthday I worked a night shift, which put a dampener on things a little. I’ll make up for it tomorrow with copious amounts of cool cool beer. 37 is a bit of a milestone, but a bigger one will be witnessed at Maine rd next Wednesday, City take on Fulham in what will probably be the last game played under the floodlights at the fortress, a sad night……..as George Harrison said “all things must pass”.

Nice link.

Check this out. I’ve spent ages exploring, the alien is good.

My ten point plan.

I’m thirty seven tomorrow, so I think I can talk with some authority on what I think would make this world a better place to live in:

1. Outlaw religion, it would end most wars and maybe we could all get on a little better.

2. Speaking of war, tell Tony to bring all our troops back and leave dubya to his own devises. Blair must realise that this war combined with increased tuition fees will cost him the next election.

3. Legalise all drugs, this will free up our police and judicial system to concentrate on the real criminals, you know….murderers and rapists.

4. Here’s a radical thought, can we start to treat everyone equally, irrespective of sex, race, colour or any other differences we may have.

5. Can we try to lessen the enormous gap between the rich and the poor, there is more than enough to go around. All we have to do is be a little less selfish.

6. Maybe we could look after this world we live in a little better, instead of the wanton way we use all the natural resources at our disposal, with little or no thought for our children’s future.

7. Lets try to do one random act of kindness every day, without the expectation of a reciprocal act. Sooner or later you will be on the receiving end, and how good will you feel then ?

8. No more fucking with nature. No genetically modified foods, no more clones even if it is for medical research. If we are supposed to die then we should die, stop being selfish. This planet is full, we should be thinning out the herd not extending life even further.

9. Let’s see if we can apply the same laws and restrictions to corporations that we apply to individuals. Maybe we could go to work safe in the knowledge that our management really do care if we get hurt or killed while lining their pockets.

10. Can we stop blaming all societies ills on those who can’t defend themselves: Firemen, nurses, teachers, single parents, drug addicts, homeless, asylum seekers, football fans, unions, homosexuals, unemployed, prostitutes, farmers, lorry drivers……….fuckin’ hell ! live and let live. It’s not rocket science, worry about you and yours, let everyone get on with their lives, they aren’t bothering you.

You may very well accuse me of being a naïve fool, but don’t confuse naivety with hope, I may be thirty seven tomorrow but I can still hope……there is a happy land.

Drum roll.

The ten thousandth visitor to this site is………… enviro grrll

Crime could pay.

Have a look at this, it’s one to watch. We ran one at work a few years ago, the winner took over £800 home when Willie Whitelaw drew his last and shuffled off this mortal coil. It could be resurrected (no pun intended) it was good fun, although the person who had princes Di would probably have become a national hate figure after collecting the dosh. I had Bruce Forsythe, Jimmy Tarbuck, Tommy Lee and I forget the name of my fourth, suffice it to say they are still walking the earth. A freak golfing accident could have made me fairly well off, but in the end Willie bought the farm and the cash was gone…….Hmm exploding golf balls ?

Ahhm !

I’ve dried up, I have nothing in my head of any relevance…..so I’ll give you some links instead. I got my new desktop image from here, thanks to squodge for the idea. Have a mooch around here, there’s some good links. I have a review to write, it’s about one of the best books I have read in a long time, The wrong boy by Willy Russell.

Logic.

Here’s a little something to get your grey matter warmed up.



All four men know that there are two black hats and two white hats. The first man to work out which colour hat he is wearing must shout out his colour. However, he must only face forward, cannot talk to his comrades and cannot see over or through the wall. The question is…..which man shouts first, and why ?

Engage geek mode !

Today, with the help of Maff, I have built a new computer. Specs:

Pentium 3 - 1.33 gig
512 meg ram
2x20 gig hard drives
Windows XP pro
DVD rom and CD re-writer.

It’s fantastic, I can now do loads of stuff all at once without making the processor go “ne naw ne naw”…………..

Right, you’re nicked !

Today I found out how much you get paid for being in a police identity parade. Ten of us were herded into a long room with a “mirror” that stretched the length of one wall. We sat down and put on the hats and dark glasses we were all supplied with, then the accused was led in with his solicitor and we all sat and waited until whoever it was on the other side of the glass had seen enough. During the proceedings we all heard the three witnesses talking on the other side of the glass……remind me never to take part in one of these, the accused bloke could have heard everything. Anyway, we all got a tenner for our trouble, all except one……….he was led off into the bowels of the nick. I bet he’s eating porridge as you read this.

Shenton Street.

I think the time has come when I can tell you about the spooky house. It will have a bearing on future posts about some dreams I have been having recently.

We moved into number 2 in February 1985 and lasted until June 1988, three of the weirdest and most stressful years of our married life. Number 2 was a little two up two down cottage that used to belong to the local cotton mill, when the arse fell out of the textile industry in this country all the mill property was sold off. In other words a lot of people had lived under that roof before we got there, lots of memories held in those walls…..so many in fact that they began to spill out into the bit we lived in.

At first everything went well, but after a couple of months we noticed the usual stuff, things going missing then turning up again when you weren’t looking, noises, and a general feeling of unease. We noticed that a small area at the top of the stairs was always freezing cold, even with the heating on all day this space was icy. I was washing up one day, staring out of the window while I cleaned the plates. I felt an arm round my waste and presumed it was Tracy, who then promptly shouted me from the living room to ask if I’d finished….I wheeled round only to find I was alone in the room. The tax dodger, who was then only a toddler also experienced some strange things. He was in bed one night and I was in the living room watching television. I heard a crash, closely followed by the wailing of a very frightened child. I rushed upstairs fully expecting him to have fallen out of bed, but he was still tucked up as if nothing had happened. After a quick interrogation he told me that bed had “gone up in the air and then fell back down again”. It’s funny, but at the time it didn’t seem like we had to get out quick, we found rational explanations when all along we really knew the truth. Two things happened to change our minds about moving. First we got burgled, secondly and far more scary was the ET incident. The tax dodger had a small cuddly ET which he carried round by the neck, he slept with his cuddly toy, he loved it. One day the dog, in a fit of pique badly mauled ET, so badly in fact that he was beyond repair and had to be thrown out. Tax dodger was inconsolable, his precious ET was no more. The tears were staunched with the promise of a new one at our earliest convenience, and we all went to bed a little happier. When we awoke we found ET back in tax dodgers bed as if nothing had happened…….To this day I swear the cuddly toy wasn’t as badly damaged as when it went in that dustbin. We decided that day it was time to move.

Throughout the whole of my time at number 2 I experienced terrible dreams, proper nightmares the like of which I had never experienced before or since. I had not thought about them until recently, until a few night ago…………..

Twatenanny !

I spent last night as I have the last two new years eve’s, watching Jools Holland’s hootenanny. The music was fantastic as usual, Ben Elton was a twat…..as usual. This year Elton was joined in his twatdom by John Sessions, the other one off Stella street, Jo Brand and a few others whose names escape me. This is one of the best shows of the year, but Mr Holland needs to stop talking to pissed up celebs so he can fit more music in.

Resolutions shmesolutions….

The weather is doing it’s best to put a dampener on the new year, it’s overcast and miserable. Let’s hope it’s not a sign of things to come, although Tony Blair has done his best to put everyone on a downer with his doom and gloom speech. I remain positive about the year to come, even though I will be busier than ever with less time to post on here (maybe I’ll manage to post from work).

I am 37 later this month, which puts me officially in my late thirties….a depressing thought if ever there was one. We also have our twentieth wedding anniversary this year, which firmly hammers another nail in the cheap plywood coffin that is my youth. All in all this year will stretch my psychological well-being to the limit, and if I come out of it into 2004 with my marbles intact I may be ok until my 40th looms large.

As the year stretches out in front of us I truly hope you all enjoy health, wealth and happiness, and that all your dreams come true.