March 31, 2004
LingoLatte
The discerning british public, traditionally, enjoy a nice cuppa. Not cappo, cuppa. Tea. Starbucks etc. have done us in though and brought in coffee bars everywhere. For some reason we like to use Italian words to espresso our types of coffee. And we do like Italian food, Italian delicatessans, and Italian restaurants. Apparently the women like Italian men, and I've heard that if you laid all the English girls in Rome end to end, and they probably have been etc. And of course I still lust after an Italian car.
[NB: If you click the Italian car link it takes you to www.ferrari.it. This may not work for you if you have pop-ups suppressed using Google or similar software - You just get a blank screen like I did. I'm amazed by this.]
Anyway, notwithstanding that preamble, you'd think that in South Molton Street, scene of many Campaign for Unobstructed Pedestrianism incidents, which a fairly upmarket street, they could at least spell the word correctly. Or maybe they are appealing to the Sloanes? Ok yah!
March 30, 2004
Paranoia
resistentialism (ri-zis-TEN-shul-iz-um) noun
The theory that inanimate objects demonstrate hostile behavior against us.
If software is inanimate then I agree. Also some people are hostile without doing anything so they count as well.
March 29, 2004
The Robot Speaks
According to The Cyborg Name Generator I am T.P.T.B.: Technician Programmed for Troubleshooting and Battle which makes Y.O.U.: Ytterbium Obedient Unit. So there.
The Scream
We went to a restuarant the other day for my father-in-law's 70th birthday and there was much gabbling and babbling from the women present about a drawing in the Ladies toilet. Apparently it was showing the private parts of a few men. We were about to leave and one lady said she was going to pay another visit so I turned on my camera and handed it to her to take a picture. Here is the result.
Now, there are some people I wouldn't trust to sit the right way on a toilet, that low-life Cliff Stanford for instance (watch out for his court case at the Old Bailey on May 14th), but I expect even pensioners to be able to point a camera the right way.
Edward Munch is on the right.
March 25, 2004
Wine Tasting
Earlier I mentioned that I went to a wine tatsing event and here is the sommelier, maitre d', general wine font of knowledge for the evening. Aside from his rather suspicious bouffant hair, he was actually extremely knowledgeable.
It's a funny old game this wine tatsing lark. Witness the spittoon for instance:
Very unsavoury. You'll be pleased to know I greedily swallowed all the drink and didn't use this vulgar device.
Groover
I went to a wine tasting last night for no better reason than I was invited. The guy pictured was the live entertainment which was more than I was expecting. In fact it was possibly more than he was expecting because he did a couple of numbers and walked out. Apparently nobody was listening to him. Still he left us all a nice photcopy about him. Here are the first few lines:
Peter Molinari
Singer Songwriter
Born in Chatham, Kent
...and the relevance of that last bit is? No idea. There follows a one sentence bio of him but then we get to the real selling points. "Peter loves his work..." oh that's good then "...and has been in many bands..." "...In October 2003 Peter decided to leave his band and go it alone". Presumably for someone who holds the Chatham, Kent record for being kicked out of bands "go it alone" means playing to himself in the shower and not in front of an audience.
"Tonight you will hear a mixture of..." nothing. Silent Night? Can you play Long Ago and Far Away [please] Peter?
"We feel that you may find Peters music melodic filled with optimism and the titles and words of the tracks interesting." Hopeless punctuation and grammar. Anyway whoever wrote that should "feel" again as it was more like Songs Without Words. Or Songs.
If you want to book Peter, probably for a quite a short gig, you can contact his manager bruce.henman@btopenworld.com.
March 23, 2004
What I am Currently Reading
Bloggers sometimes have these sections: "What I am Reading", "What colour are today's socks", "What I am currently wiping my arse with" etc. So here's my contribution.
What I am Currently Reading. Apart from these words that I am typing. Oh and wondering whether there is a sexual meaning behind the fact that so many websites have a button saying "submit". No, to get to the point, if indeed there is one, and in any case it may be better if there wasn't one, urrrm. Damn, I've forgotten. Oh yes. The current book:
Are You Dave Gorman? It's a couple of years old but I don't have to be cutting edge...ever. Are you familiar with it? Please do read on...
Its about a stand-up comedian who takes on a bet to find 54 other people in the world with the same name as him. It's an OK book, quite funny in places and light reading. Good for when you're standing on the tube wishing you weren't.
It does throw up thoughts such as how many more books are there going to be about bets (Tony Hawks' Fridge Round Ireland and Tennis with the Moldavians spring to mind). If you are half decent at writing or recounting a story then you can make a living of doing, lets face it, complete bollocks. Has a certain appeal doesn't it?
The other main thought is at what point in this process did the two of them, the bettee and the bettor who take it in turn to narrate the story, decide to write a book about it. I'm up to Dave Gorman number 35 and they have been on stage, in the papers, on the news and been offered a TV series but apparently the idea of cashing in by writing a book has not occurred to them. Yeah, right.
March 21, 2004
More Wind
I remember what I was going to add to my earlier posting. During the wind I saw birds being blown backwards as they were trying to fly. It was quite mesmerising.
During the worst part Karen heard a really loud bang from upstairs. She found nothing that had fallen down and looked out of the window. Whilst doing this, she noticed some strange marks on the window. One of our footballs was in the garden but nobody was around to have kicked it. She went outside and found the cause - a pigeon had been blown off course so hard that it had hit the window. Its neck was broken - either from the initial impact or perhaps that simply stunned it, the Norwegian Blue stuns easily of course, and when it fell to the ground it broke its neck then.
It's in the dustbin and I couldn't bring myself to photograph it. Sorry.
Bowl Me Over
We went bowling which normally includes 1 boy so disinterested and walking away before his bowl even reaches the skittles, one bowl hitting the bar because it was bowled too early, several boys jumping up and down and falling on the floor, one near miss with a dropped bowling ball, lots of noise, a fight to get away from the arcade, a visit to the Pizza Restaurant to have some food and draw and the table cloth (and pull some daft faces) etc.
This is the first picture of Nathan with specs. Poor bugger. He likes them though which is good. He is has a Good Attitude and long may it last.
Windy City
Chicago is the Windy City but it was pretty windy round this way over the past 24 hours. You can see the damage to my shed roof which is a bit of a bummer. There is a big tree lcoally that's decided to lurch over as well so it's being chopped down which is a shame. Wind can be pretty scary stuff as you can't really hide from it. Except I am not getting on that roof until it dies down! It was Rod Hull who died falling off his conservatory roof and I won't want to follow him.
Hope you like the bigger format picture.
March 20, 2004
One Year On
No, I'm not referring to the war but Ryan's birthday. It was his birthday 1 year ago and it is again today. What a coincidence! He's 11 and he got a couple of playstation games, lego bionicle, bey blade magnacore arena (what's that?), beginner's french CDRom (boy was he pleased with this) and The Lord of The Rings Risk board game. Did you play Risk as a kid? I've still got ours in a cupboard. I recall playing with loads of other people and taking all weekend playing it. Fantastic.
Other childhood games included that golf thing which was a little man on the end of a stick and he swung a club that hit small polystrene balls. We used to play it all over the house. The green was a bit of curly foam and you had to substitute the ball for a small glass marble when you reached it. Bunkers were made of plastic. We used to introduce water hazards and other hazards such as the stairs.
Now I just need to get Ryan off the Playstation so that I can beat him at, errm teach him how to play Risk...
March 17, 2004
Unchained Rhapsody
I've been trying to learn Bohemian Rhapsody on the piano. It is truly a great piece of music. The first ever concert I went to was Queen at Wembley Stadium supported by an up-and-coming band called INXS. I sneaked my oversize camera in and got a couple of half decent pictures.
I realised that most of my Queen music is on vinyl and my record player is in (unplugged) the loft (natch). So I have bought the Queen Platinum Collection and have been playing all to loudly on my computer this morning. Takes the edge off the hangover. Marvellous stuff. Amazon is pretty cool - I ordered £50 of essential stuff at 5pm Monday and it arrived 20 minutes ago. And now I am writing about it.
Oh and what have Unchained Melody and Bohemian Rhapsody got in common? They form part of that small set of tunes that have lyrics but the title of the piece do not appear in the lyrics.
Caption competition. 2.
We haven't had a competition in ages, which is probably just as well, but here goes. Captions for the following please.
Click on the picture for a larger version
March 13, 2004
Search Me. Again.
An earlier entry examined why soem people were mistakenly coming to my site. I have cleared up the spelling mistakes, lowered the level of content (if that's possible) but the stats keep on rising. This month there isn't a runaway winner though. Previously I have lots of people looking for Benny from Crossroads and Stan Boardman. Might have been the same people/weirdos looking for all I know.
This month searched are good though. Top of the list is
"dog in a bottle"
OK hands if you know why someone would search for that. I see no hands.
My favourite search was the one person who simply typed in the word "rubbish" and got to my site. Fantastic!
Other ones I am confused about are "bonka" and "figging". Any ideas?
There are at least 4 entries searching for Splodgenessabounds or their songs which pleases me as well as "jump, you fucker jump" for all you Derek and Clive fans.
Keep it up, you're doing a great job whoever you are.
They Aught to Know Better
The Nationwide Building Society. Cuddly. Caring. Anti-carpet bagging, staying mutual, lovely bunnies.
So why do they send me a leaflet with big letters saying "Want to save money?" when in fact it's not about saving at all - it's about getting into debt. They should Shut Up!.
See this category for more people who should shut up or maybe click on of the links on the right that you hadn't noticed before. Or go and get a paper and cup of coffee as it's Saturday morning. Feel free to choose. tptblog. the blog that cares.
March 12, 2004
Pedant-O-Meter
Funky Dave got himself a pedometer. According to the guys in the office that is something to do with walking on children, but it's not. Honest. Dave walks a lot by shunning the tube system mostly. I walk a little and so I thought I'd get one. It has a combined FM radio as well with shoddy ear pieces. Yep - it's a hopeless gimmick.
There are some interesting facts to come out, assuming we believe the read-out. For instance, on an average day I walk about 2 miles. That's even when I drive to the tube.
However, there are some boring stats which the tedious amongst me tend to trot out. For instance I had two pints of Cornish Tribute on Friday night and, during that time I stayed at the bar. But apparently I walked 0.03 of a mile. Good huh? I then had more beer and red wine etc. but didn't measure those.
Watch out for more interesting measurements soon.
March 10, 2004
More Travelling Wilburys
You may recall some minor observations or incidents on my previous travels and I am here to report a couple more.
The other day I got on the tube and sat next to agirl. I didn't take much notice of her. You get a lot of them on the tube after all. After a few minutes I noticed her runnaging around in her handbag. Imagine my surprise when she fished out a pair of furry handcuffs. I obviously followed this up with a sideways glance to check her out. Nope, not dressed provocatively and not attractive. Not to me at least.
I started listening to her conversation. Not that I was interested but I thought you might be. Turns out that she goes to school. I reckon she must have been 18 years old and she was chatting to someone who was old enough to be her mother. What did she think of the handcuffs I wondered? Anyway, the tube journey flew by.
She ended at Finchley Central trying to take a picture of a bottle of Coke on a poster that was about 75 yards away and then announced that she didn't think the flash would carry that far.
There were other incidents of course:
I think the girl pulling the huge suticase on wheels between the seated passengers so should could stand at the end of the carriage instead of the middle takes the current prize for sheer, urrrrm, single-mindedness.
Lastly, the Northern Line is back to a full service. Which explains why I had to wait six trains to get a direct one to High Barnet. Poo.
March 08, 2004
Voice Message
Dontcha love technology? I have a voice mail service on a mail account. I don't use it don't know the number you call to use it. I don't know what message you get when you call it. However, I do receive messages such as this one. No, I don't work for the water board and can't sort out her "kidneys" or whatever the problem is.
Oh and I deleted her number so you pervy types out there can't ring her up and pretend to be the waterboard. That's my privilege.
Can You Tell What it is Yet?
Those famous words from Rolf Harris. Painter, singer and buzzy little stylus/keyboard player (the stylophone - fab!). He also plays the diggery doo. Malcolm, pictured here, has one too and I think every home should have one. You generate the sound by blowing rasperberries down it which really does work. I wonder if the Two Ronnies' Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town had one.
The sound was quite funny...
Apparently diggery doos are made by termites chewing out the inside of eucalyptus tree branches. If you look down the tube you can see the fibres still criss-crossing where they haven't all been eaten. Termites are destructiuve buggers. As you can imgaine, this eating the innards of branches business cause them to weaken and they are liable to drop off without notice. Hence the nickname for the eucalyptus tree is the widow-maker - don't stand underneath!
March 06, 2004
More Labels
You may have seen my earlier post about labels for people. Here's another one. Either mark knows his place - that is he likes to be on top of a roadside box - or he is perhaps advertising Wet Paint, a bit like advertising a Golf Sale. Or may be he thinks he is Wet Paint. Or perhaps the 't' in paint is optional.
Earlier on he did look a bit lost:
There are two massive pots in this tiny alleyway. I don't know how this restaurant gets away with it given that people complain about the overspill of tables and chairs on to our pavements.
March 05, 2004
Friday Afternoons
I have a lot on mind at the moment. In fact I always have a lot on my mind. Sometimes, though, it's many subjects and at other times it's just 2 or 3 things. Well I digress. Or do I? As to digress you needed to have a direction in the first place.
Where was I? Damn.
Things trouble me. Like why does SPAM calm down on Friday afternoons? It's not even as if it is Friday afternoon everywhere is it? Maybe I am just imagining it.
Do you like SPAM? I don't. Can't stand the stuff...and I am talking about the email sort here. However some of the messages make me laugh. Here's one that starts:
Tired of looking at your wrinkled face in the mirror as you pluck yet another grey hair and watch the pounds pile on?
Even if that was me. I'd still delete the bloody thing straight away. Oh and the penis extension ones are funny as well. Some of them put you at ease from the start by using the reference "pindick". Marvellous. Anyway, none of them work. Allegedly.
Japanese ones are good too. Here's one:
* אתרים לכל היישובים-לוחות פרסום חינם
Any idea what it's for? Me neither. I've got another good one somewhere but I think it's in the trash along with the other rubbish. Oh well.
March 04, 2004
More Flowers
I recently posted a couple of aesthetically pleasing pictures and here's another one. This is taken at the flower stall by the tube station. Notice how The Finger makes a welcome return? In this case it is the strangely rubberised hand of Simon who bravely runs the stand in all weathers.
By the way I think the flowers are Gerberas. Or Gerbils or something like that.
March 02, 2004
How to Win at Poker
I play poker online, mostly for play money but I occasionally play for real - and lose. I play Texas Hold'em No Limit which is a type of poker where you have 2 cards of your own, you bet, then 3 cards are laid out in front of all of you, you bet again, another card is laid and another round of betting and finally a 5th and final card is laid down. The idea is to get the best poker hand using any 5 cards out of the cards on the table and your own (hidden ) two. With me so far? Oh and the No Limit means you can bet any amount of money that you have in front of you (you start with a sum of a few thousand $ when you join the table).
The online versions don't enjoy the cut and thrust of the real smokey atmosphere with a glass of bourbon and the gangster with his moll and all the other stereotypes. However, there are thousands of people playing at any one time and you can chat to your fellow gamblers. There's a bit of playing around abuse etc. and it can be very funny as well as fun.
So, here's (finally!) how to win. When you get dealt your cards, the secret is to tell everyone else what they are. No, really! Try it! Nobody ever believes that you would tell the truth. Here's an example:
You get 5 spades and 7 of diamonds. You say "75o" which is code for 7 and 5 off suit.
You bet a little. The next 3 cards are shown to everyone, this is called the flop, and it queen of diamonds, 4 of hearts and 8 of spades.
This is good as it is unlikely that there is going to be a flush and someone might join you in the betting if they have a queen.
So, just to reaffirm your position you say "I just need a 6 for the straight". I did this today and, bugger me, the next card was a six. Two other people kept on raising me and I won.
Simple huh? but don't tell everyone as it only works well if one person is doing it. Oh and it can annoy the heck out of the other players sometimes so don't overdo it. In one game someone said what kind of moron calls out his cards? Two hands later and that kind of moron, hello it's me, called their cards and beat him. the other guy said "So you really do tell the truth!". Crazy huh?
