tptb dragoon

Specialist Shops

London is full of specialist shops - camping, music, sex, alchohol, drugs, toy cars, miniature soldiers, naval fluff and...beads. I had to go there for my wife you understand. It's not often you find yourself being the only bloke in a shop but years of buying lingerie....oh hang on, that's not quite right. Anyway, this particular bead emporium is in Covent Garden and is well worth a visit if beads are your bag.

Twenty One Today

Karen uses an online shopping service. It's very good. So far we have had credits totalling about £150 so I'm well pleased. She ordered 1 can of tomato soup but changed her mind and put 2. Ahh, so that'll be 21 cans of soup which duly arrived. I wonder what the person packing the goods thought.

Travel Interruption

More chaos! It's snowing. We had 4 or 5 inches in about 30 minutes here and luckily we were all at home and it's been great fun. The Big Freeze last year caught me out and it took 7 hours to get home.

Here is the view from the front door...

Insert small boy:

Insert 2nd boy and create giant snowball:

Create a snowman as big as them:

Create a snowman as big as me!:

Any Old Iron

Every now again we get a skip provided my the council in a local street. This makes for great sport as the council workers are able to take the stuff out of the skip faster than the public can load it in sometimes. You see them driving off with armchairs etc. strapped to the roofs of their cars. This pile of junk was nice although I don't think the cone is part of it. An old barbecue and some useful looking bits of aluminium. Now if only I had a garage big enough...

Power (the lack of)

"Speed, I need more speed" is the cry from Bart and Lisa Simpson in the "Hit and Run" game on the PS2. Ages ago I bought this car which, it has to be said, has shed loads of speed. 420bhp in a fibreglass car has to be fast really. I don't bring this to your attention to show off, in fact it's the opposite. It's embarrassing really as, although being proud to be one of the minority of garage owners that have a car in it, that is where it normally stays.

And the main reason it stays there is that I don't use it much. Blinding logic! However, in a case of use or lose it, the battery will go flat even if the car sits in the garage without the alarm on. This is a pain as the car has a flash feature - electric doors. So I can't get in the car to open the bonnet. In fact I normally leave the bonnet undone as this is a regular occurrence. At speed the bonnet flaps away a little but as it opens from the windscreen forward, like all sensible bonnets (E type Jags and other real cars do this - sorry that's all car snobbery bollocks), it's not a safety issue. However, I had the bonnet locked down.

When you have a flat battery on my car, the answer is to take the rear number plate off. Of course. You then insert a screwdriver and push a lever which opens the, normally electrically operated, boot. You pull back the panneling and pull the lever that manually opens the driver's door. You rush to catch the door before it scrapes against the garage wall and squeeze in and unlock the bonnet.

So, last weekend, I went through the above routine and I charged the car overnight but it wouldn't quite start. So I charged it again. I noticed that the electric doors still were'nt working a day or so later but assumed that the car was really flat and so I left the driver's door ajar.

This morning I took off the battery charger, clambered in and it started first time. I'll record the engine noise one of these days (sad, I know) as it's wonderful. With a big smile on my face I left the car to warm up and got out and shut the door. I went round the back and put the number plate back on admidst the twin exhaust fumes, shut the boot, told the family that it started etc..

So, armed with RAC callout number and my mobile phone, essential kit for all British Sport Car owners as reliability is not a strong point, I went out to the car to take it for a battery charging, life enhancing spin. The driver's door wouldn't open. The passenger door wouldn't open. The boot wouldn't open. There was a one inch gap where the driver's window was open and I reckon I could just get a stick in to press the red "off" button to stop the engine (keyless iginition). I decided not to and took the number plate off etc.. Bugger.

So I checked the fuses and they were fine. Fortunately, it's apparently a common problem, and the service man I rang talked me through the finding and resetting of a control unit. 50 years of technology and we still switch things off and on to get them to work.

Having written this I am now going to pop down to the garage...fingers crossed!

Another One

In the category "collectables" - busted umbrellas. Not the best but a collection is a collection

Steaming great streaks of

Shortages

There's a shortage of shortages these days. When I were a lad we were always short of something. Or getting caught short. Or getting our shorts caught. I once caught site of a short-sighted man in caught shorts. But these days, well, there's too much of a shortage.

SPAM Glorious SPAM

A comment has been posted on an old entry The
bubble's burst which is about an inflatable bouncy castle that has it's air pump switched off (possibly not one of my greatest entries but hey ho). That was six months ago and suddenly someone has posted this spam:

"I'd be happy to answer anybody's questions on these topics."

Of course the accompanying URL was spam. Why don't they post to the recent articles?

Lines

Railways are wonderful. Tubes are crap. But that bit when the Tube train is above ground is sort of middle ground and I dont know whether to love it or not. But hey, it's a sunny day and it looks good so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Roundabouts are Magic

I always thought there was something fishy about the Magic Roundabout kids program. I liked Dylan but Zebedee was a faschist. And it was French.

Blow Out

Another one to my amazing collection of blown through umbrellas and other rubbish. Amazing only by the thought of why the hell do I do it and why do you look at it? I like this picture as it has some people's shadows as well. Unfortunately it looks like it's in focus though.

Pub Singalong

It was Friday night at the Golden Eagle. Good singers were thin on the ground as shown by my pathetic drunken version of Tom Lehrer's song Poising the Pigeons. There were still some good characters there though including this guy who insisted he wasn't wearing a disguise.

The Boat Show

I went to the London Boat Show, which was a first for me and it was great fun. Some of the boats are beautiful

but there's more....

Big hulls

Flash racing boats (I want one)

Big fishing reels

BIG engines

Novelty boats

And finally the Yacht Hotel which is a big boat that has entrance like a normal hotel. Actually I wouldn't mind a tour of the QM2 if only to see how rediculous it is.

Prop Job

Guinness is Good For You

That's an old slogan which you might have trouble using today as the Adevrtising Standards Authority may take exception. Older adverts were so outrageous. For example cigarettes were advertised as helping to sooth a sore throat. The slogan started decades ago, long before the web. Guinness were a fairly early adopter of the web though with a free screensaver to go alongside an advertising campaign. Ac recently as November last year, the BBC did a report on this saying:

"A pint of the black stuff a day may work as well as an aspirin to prevent heart clots that raise the risk of heart attacks.

Drinking lager does not yield the same benefits, experts from Wisconsin University told a conference in the US.

Guinness were told to stop using the slogan decades ago - and the firm still makes no health claims for the drink"

My Nan used to drink it but she stopped when Billy Connolly started advertising Kaliber, a low alchohol drink substitute, also made by Guinness. She said that something was missing from it (Guinness). Batty as a fruit cake probably but adorable all the same.

Return of Scar Face

Martyn left and still wears that dodgy watch we got him. He had a few issues last year and he had a variety of completely valid excuses, urrrm I mean reasons, for being absent. He has now got another job but has thought up some new wheezes.

His first is this stick on joke scar. He reckons that he is one jugular short of a vessel load as well. Pah!

Mass Murdering

You may see entries in the Guinness World of Records for mass murdering. For example During the 19th century, the world's most prolific cannibal, Ratu Udre Udre, reportedly ate between 872 and 999 people. If there is a category for mass murderers, then surely Howard Shipman would be at the top of Britain and, despotic dictators aside, in the top ten of the world. However he is described as being Britain's worst mass murderer! How can this be?

Take me for instance, I'm much worse. I mean, I haven't even tried to do any mass murdering. Hopeless. It is estimated that he killed 260 people over several decades. Well make that 261 as he has just hung himself. Impressive. Hanging was too good for him.

Bike Upgrade

We have finally got Ryan a new bike. You can see how mean we were by hanging on for ages - look at the size of his old bike compared to his new. In fact it's a small framed adult bike so hopefully that will save money in years to come. He's a lucky chap I reckon.

What's Your Homepage?

I have 3 computers and each has a different homepage set on the browser. On my laptop it is www.tptb.co.uk. On my desktop machine at home it is www.betfair.com as I used to do a fair bit of betting on there - actually I have just got back into it and I'm a few quid up this month but ask me again in a few week's time. At work it's my company's website www.astra.net.uk.

I hae just had a look at Ryan's (my 10 year old's) computer and he has changed his homepage to www.cheatsforplaystation2.com. Nice one.

Dilemma

Which comes first - entry or finding the other room. Perhaps you can only get to the other room by going through this door? I think all companies should have a Fault Report Centre so that naughty employees can sit in detention. Of course it should be "the" Fault Report Centre. Who can I tell about this?

Wet Glove

It looks like an industrial Marigold. In a car park.

The Drugs League

Following on from the discovery that Greg Rusedski has higher than permitted levels of nandralone in his body it occurs to me that there are a lot of people who take drugs to build rediculous physiques. If that's their bag then good luck to them. However, they can't be expected to mix in, competitively, with non-drug takers so the answer is to give them their own set of sports. I don't mean Mr. Universe or those TV programs with outsized blokes hurling barrels with their little fingers or towing trucks with only a bootlace gripped between their teeth. I'd like to see them run a marathon, run a mile, run 100 yards or their metric equivalents, and see how they compare. A few freak show ones like boxing and putting the short wouldn't hurt of course. I'd bet it would draw a good audience.

Free Lunch

We ordered a chinky take-away last night and they gave us free fortune cookies and two green teabags. Apparently the teabags are a valuable gift so I intend to auction them, separately, on E-bay and see what I get.

More Danger

This time it's mobile phones and petrol stations. When you fill up you're told to turn off your phone for safety. But is it simply because they can mess up the metering systems on the pumps or can they really cause an explosion. Here is an extract from a posting on a list I'm on:

"I get all my science information from "Brainiac" on Sky one. They doused the inside of a caravan with *a lot* of petrol and left a mobile phone inside. When they rang it nothing happened. So they put in a dozen mobiles and tried again. Still Nothing.

So, they ran a long copper wire to a place where they got a bloke to move about a bit in a nylon shell suit, who then touched the wire and blew up the caravan in a most satisfyingly spectacular manner.

In my opinion, therefore, mobile phones are far less dangerous than nylon clothing (that's true on *so* many levels, isn't it?). However, I've never seen a warning about nylon underpants at a petrol station."

Makes you think. Doesn't it. About the dangers of nylon clothes.

Christmas Card Danger

The cover-your-own-arse approach to life is getting out of hand. We received a rather expensive looking christmas card from my cousin. On the back was a warning "Warning! Not suitable for children under 36 months due to small parts". It's a card for goodness sake. Who sends a baby a card? Who lets them play with it? Who cares? Anyway, I am perfectly aware that babies have small parts.

At the end of the warning it said "Please retain this information for future reference" so I have cut it out and chucked the card away.

Here is the evidence:

Britney Spearmint

You remember Britney, Baby, Baby? That was years ago when she was provocatively dressed as a schoolgirl on her video. You'd think she would have grown up by now wouldn't you? Apparently not. She married her "childhood sweetheart" only to have the marriage annulled 48 hours later as they "didn't know each other well enough". Some people don't know they're born. Britney is yet another person who should Shut Up!

Review of the Year

It's popular to do a review of the year gone by and so I thought I would join in with my own version.

However I seem to have messed up because it's only January 4th and not much has happened yet. Oh well, I'll tie a knot in something to remind me to do this later.

Oh, and if anyone can help with Adobe Photoshop then please drop me a line - I'm all confuddled with vectors, layers, rasters, paths, masks, channels etc.

Thanks

The Beagle Has Blundered

Now the English have lost their little puppy on Mars, perhaps we could ask those nice Americans if they could get their robot to look for it? Has anyone got the phone number for Nasa? The least they could do is to put signs on trees and lamposts on Mars saying

"Have you seen this dog?

He is a very friendly Beagle answering to the name of Bernard. He is quite disctinctive as he has a stiff upper lip and is a Union Jack round his midriff. He only cost 43 trillion pounds so there is an insubstantial reward if you find him".

Fat is Fun

It's official. Mainly because I said so. New Year's Resolution Number 1 (of 1), you may recall, is to cancel my gym membership as it is Bad Value.

There are adverts everywhere encouraging weight loss and diets etc.. Leave us alone. Actually I'm on the slim side so it doesn't affect me but I do care about others so remember: Fat is Fun.

The Best Lights in the UK

The Christmas lights in Mousehole (pronounced Muzzle) in Cornwall are meant to be the best in the UK. We went there yesterday and enjoyed playing on the beach whilst dusk drew on and the lights were illuminated.

Although they are, allegedly, the best, they don't run to having a neon or illuminated sign though.

I took several piccies...

...but photographing Christmas lights is a tricky thing at the best of times.