tptb dragoon

Cheap as Chips

David Dickinson lives on... In fact the beautiful cut-glass decanter being held up is made entirely of plastic.

Time for a Picnic

Is it a British thing to want to go out for the day/evening, eat, drink, have fun then go back to your car and set up a picnic in amongst the angry congregated cars that are battling to leave the car park? I suppose it makes sense on occasions but it's just not my kind of thing to eat cucumber sandwiches in a busy car park.

Something for everyone

The Internet has something for everyone. For instance, I am sitting here with Ryan playing Scrabble with a web site of two and three letter scrabble words on the screen. And yes, I am letting him look at it as well. Meanwhile I get a spam email for ChristianDebtRemovers.Org. Here is some of their info:

"ChristianDebtRemovers.org can make a difference in your life by lifting the financial burden that has come over millions of Americans across the country."

It's a standard consolidate all your loans and bills in to one monthly payment scheme. Actually scam is more appropriate as it is rarely the best way to get ouf of debt. I was looking for the Christian angle/message and notice at the bottom they say:

"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another... Romans 13:8"

No doubt in their version of the bible they have inserted "and the easy monthly payments to ChristianDebtRemovers.Org". Notice the use of .org which implies a not-for-profit organisation. Elsewhere they have:

"The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender... Proverbs 22:7"

I could go on about the facts of all this but I'll leave you with one last fact: there is no phone number, registered company name, telephone number or address on the website.

Bastards.

Run For Your Wife!

Theatre Report

We were invited to the theatre the other day. Four of us were to meet at Val's house in Barnet and walk from there. Walk? She lives nowhere near a theatre we thought. However it was an AmDram (Amateur Dramatic) production in a local theatre so maybe walking was indeed possible. Check out that groovy website!

We arrived and had a pre-match drink and then set off on a 3 minute walk with about 10 minutes to go. We crossed the road and then Val declared she was unsure of the way. So we got into our cars and followed Val. She drove 50 yards from her home and thenstopped and asked for directions. Surely a new world record?

We drove on, took the first right and parked. We got oput of the cars, took the next right and walked a couple of hundred yards. We were now, we reckoned, nearer to the house than the cars.

We enetered the little 60 seater hall, bought a program and settled down. There were red hot bar heaters all around the walls making it very stifling. The wrinklies in front of us put their tired legs up on the low stage and we placed an order for the break - tea or coffee. We read the well produced but slim program, the highlight of which was the thanks given to the people who had leant the 3 piece suite for the stage. It was awful. I would prefer to remain anonymous I think.

The play was excellent and I thought the actors could have been professionals. It's an old Ray Cooney farce and it was very funny. As usual, they had tried to modernise it by introducing mobile phones etc. but the stereotyping of the police was right out of the sixties or earlier.

Towards the end of the play one of the lead characters appears wearing only her underwear. Her knickers could only be described as "slightly flappy" as there was good bush of dark hair on show. This, of course, quickly became the talking point after the show, possibly when one of us felt brave enough to introduce to polite company. "Did you see that bush?" I think was the opening gambit. Which quickly spread on to how the play should have been performed in Bushey and by Mary Hinge.

The post match beers were good and we went home. We told our babysitter where we had been and she asked what we thought of the play and we said we loved it. My favourite character had this wonderfully rubbery expressive face - which was lucky as it goes. It was our babysitter's husband...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

The Wonder of Nature

I just cast out again and had a small knot in my line. Whilst trying to untangle it, not too pleasant at 4 degrees celsius in my pjyamas, I heard this blowing sound. The river was very flat and calm and I looked up and to my delight, about 50 yards in front of me, was a baby dolphin, a porpoise, surfacing every 20 yards or so.

I didn't know whether to get my binoculars or camera or wake the family up first I was so excited. I tried to get a shot but this is the best - you can just make out the head. About 45 minutes later he/she came back but I still didn't get a shot but at least we all saw him/her this time.

Delightful.

Now That's What I Call Xmas Lights 2003

Check out these lights.

Light Wars - update

The Light Wars Competition has got off to the usual start but we won't let that put us off. Here is my entry - it's an 8 foot blow up Santa Claus.

Here is another entry:

The talk of the town

Somebody posted links to the story of the day, Saddam Hussein's capture, this morning. I immediately got dressed and went shopping figuring this would keep the shops empty for a bit. On returning I was getting the carrier bags out of the boot when the woman across the road spoke to me. This is unusual in itself as her and her husband, Sir Bernard Audley, live securely behind their sliding gates and this was only the second or third time in the 7 years she has spoken to me. She was beaming as I waved hello to her and shouted "They've got him. They've arrested Saddam". I thought she was going to do a little jig. Her husband used to work in the Foreign Office I believe so they were probably doubly happy. It takes something like this to get them to talk to their neighbours.

What is this?

There used to be an entirely average TV program called Ask the Family (which has been axed according to this very informative website) hosted by that famous comb-over Robert Robertson. Not the Nine O'Clock News did a skit on it where the families were all chartered surveyors. One round of the program was close up photographs of everyday items and you had to guess what the item was.

So here's mine. The difference here is that you're not on TV, I don't care whether you guess it and it's not a close up. It is very famous though.

Read on to see if you were right...

It's the clock at Waterloo under which thousands of people have arranged to meet at one time or another.

Its curtains

I brought some curtains down but of course the guys put up pieces of cardboard instead. Sorry for the small photo bit is hopelessly out of focus.

Walking to Freedom

I have been posted down to Falmouth again, this time with 3 mates for a walking weekend. They bought the beers and I think the fridge looks very healthy. Much healthier than we all look this morning.

Money Scam

You've all probable receive the bank transfer scam email or fax before. Typically it starts out:

YOU MAY BE SURPRISED TO RECEIVE THIS LETHER FROM ME
SINCE YOU DO NOT KNOW ME PERSONALLY, THE PURPOSE OF MY
INTRODUCTION IS THAT I AM MR. JOHN MOYO. THE FIRST SON
OF MR. JAMES MOYO WHO WAS RECENTLY MUDERED IN A LAND
DISPUTE IN ZIMBABWE.

I confess I was hoping to receive a lether soon in order to wipe down my motorcr. It really is tragic about his "mudered" father. Maybe he meant "mullered"?

It continues:

BEFORE THE DEATH OF MY FATHER, HE HAD TAKEN ME TO
JOHANNESBURG TO DEPOSIT THE SUM OF US$20.5MILLION(
TWENTY MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES
DOLLARS )

If I did this then my kids would have "mudered" me and wouldn't be sending poxy emails like this. Check out the scambaiting site on how to wind these people up.

He ends:

I HAVE TWO OPTIONS FOR YOU,

Well I have a few options for him (including telling him how to get capslock off) but I won't go into those just now.

FIRSTLY YOU CAN CHOOSE TO
HAVE A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE OF THE MONEY FOR NOMINATING
YOUR ACCOUNMT FOR THIS TRANSACTION, OR GO
INTOPARTNERSHIP WITH ME.I HAVE MAPPED OUT 5% OF THIS
MONEY FOR EXPENSES AND 15% OF THE MONEY FOR YOU,SO
THAT 80% WILL BE FOR MY FARMILY INVESTMENT. ALSO GIVE
ME A CALL IMMEDIATELY YOU RECEIVE THIS MAIL.

Well thanks. He does leave his no.: 27-73 318 1653 (in S Africa) so why not give him a call?

Real Autumn

It's finally here. The lack of rain has, apparently, kept the leaves on the trees longer and they have turned more beautiful with each day. Yesterday morning was a wind and rain swept turmoil as you may be able to see from this shot taken through my window. Glorious weathe especially as it means I can't reasonably expected to go into the garden and pick up leaves.

Life of Grime

Where's that LLoyd Grosman bloke when you need him? Lets go through the keyhole and look at this house and find:

This is just one room. A friend of a friend is selling this house and every room was in this state or worse. Look at the kitchen and the cooker:

Click on the cooker image to see the full horror!

skcolc eth went back this morning

Lovely! Especially as we haf a late night at another wedding last night - more of which later when my head allows.

Anti products

I have noticed this anti stuff going on before and I was pleased to find this new version. This time you have to guess the product. It could be loose guttering or shark infested cement. Or paint. Such an anti-climb-axe.

Regent's Park Open Air Theatre

Have you been? It's a lovely place on a plesant Summer's evening. We saw A Midsummer's Night's Dream which was nicely played. Very funny Puck and Bottom. No, really. You weren't allowed to take photos but this hardly counts:

The lights outside were nice too

Safety first

This electric blanket has been unplugged for safety as it had been raining.

Oh I do like to be beside the

I am on location (Falmouth - check out the webcam to see the variable weather. You can't quite see my place in here as it is nearer the water or the rain is so hard you can't see further than 25 yards) but not many people know I'm here. So it was strange to receive an email with "grahame,seaside" as the Subject this morning. Maybe there was some private detective on my tail? So I opened it and realised it was an advert for a car - of course! How could I not tell from the Subject line? It doesn't look the sort of car the women I know want. Fortunately. Although I have met a few women with a drive big enough for it.

More lies

More anti paint stuff (see before). I'm not a builder but I know that this is a brick wall that is unpainted. Who are they kidding? Why bother telling anybody anyway - they'll soon find out. And what happens if you do try to climb? Does it have a speaker that says "No! Do not climb here, I don't like climbing"? or does a big Pythonesque hand swat you off the wall?

Skipping pleasure

All good household skips have a mattress in so I am very pleased to see that someone in my road has one. In fact I think that a mattress should be "thrown in" by the skip suppliers if you haven't got one. The next thing to do is make a list of the contents of the skip and see who comes along and nicks bit and adds their own stuff. Come to think of it I have some junk in the garage that needs a new home.

Moving hands

This is Charlie my piano teacher. He is actually very good although some of his pupils are a bit ropey. Not his eyes of course. I have been having lessons for about 7 years now so I took a picture of him and he played a little which I recorded. He is not up to all this techno stuff which you can work out when he says "so I was actually moving was I?".

I left my palm organiser at home one day and we wanted to book the next lesson and he said "Ahh that's the trouble with these electronic thingies - they're no good if you haven't got them with you." That'll be completely unlike a hand written diary then.

Text message

I have just received a test message which says "Morning. Emily wont make the conga today." from an unrecognised number. Lets analyse this:

"Morning." Yes I am with it so far as it is just gone half past eight in the morning.

"Emily". Emile, Emma, Emsk, Emmanuelle. Nope I don't think I know an Emily

"wont make the conga today" A spello for conger perhaps? Someone is making an eel but Emily refuses to do it? Yeah, she really knows her mind and we can't force her. Or maybe its the dance thing? There's a party, probably for children, or a parade and Emily, bless her, is the star turn as she kicks her legs out left and right. Oh I see a conga really was named after an eel? Actually it wasn't, it was named after Congo from the Spanish. Hah, not so clever now are you Emily!

Actually it occurs to me that this is a Dad from school telling me that his daughter (aged 5) won't be doing the Walking Bus today. This has been given a trendy new name of Kidz Conga. Well that clears that up then. As you were everyone.

ENTRY 100!

This is the one you've been waiting for (but didn't know it).

Webpages don't die

Not if Cable and Wireless host them. Dave must have left them years ago but this wonderfully informative page is still there http://www.simpson.mcmail.com

BTW Entry 100 is coming soon. Stay tuned.

Litter

There is a lot of litter on the streets these days. Just look at this for instance. Well maybe it's rubbish and not litter. I am not sure what the difference is.

They say the streets are paved with gold. Chris is checking this out or has dropped 5p.

More tramps

One of them has found a crutch and pulled it out of a rubbish sack. He doesn't seem too happy about it.

Anti paint paint

This guy is obviously walking not climbing but they do think of everything don't they. Non-stick glue for example. I have invented Instant Water but I haven't worked out what to add to it.

Bloggle

Apparently blogs are messing up that nice search engine Google so I have renamed my blog again to be Bloggle. To get more hits I probably need to include words like nipple, aardvark, snark and snorkle but I won't sell out and do that.

Great Job Titles

There's a letter running around the offices addressed to "The Internal Anti Money Laundering Officer" which is not a job many people have I'd say. For security purposes we steamed open the envelope to check the contents for WMD, anthrax etc. and discovered an invitation to a free seminar. Probably held in a phone booth in Leicester Square.

Batteries

My laptop has just told me that my battery is fully charged. What does it know? I am actually running on only a few volts and what's left needs to be connected to that Mr Sony's parts.

Hand Signals Only

Dave's arm was stuck like this which caused a problem in the toilet.

Clock this

This is Dave's new pocket watch. He doesn't seem very pleased with it.

Boys with their Toys

This is Owen. He seems to be pleased with paying far too much for this radio controlled car. Allegedly he is going to play with it without telling his son. This is rank discrimination and somebody should be told - Daniel in fact, his son.

No joking matter

Don't smoke seriously. Put on a red rubber nose, some face paint and sit on a whoopee cushion whilst smoking your slim panatellas - it's much healthier for you.

Today

Keep only half your wits about you but don't let on so people won't call you names.

Finisterre

They renamed it FitzRoy. Nobody told me though. Dogger is my favourite.

This is brought to you by sleepnet.com - Everything you wanted to know about sleep but were too tired to ask.

My camera

I bought a Pentax Optio and I'm very pleased. I'd show you a picture of it but all the ones I took of it in the mirror were no good.

Driving problem

Every vehicle should have a sign like this. It's only fair.

Estate Agents

are jokers.

Zombies

They are filming SOTD Sons of the Dark in the neighbouring streets to my home. Apparently there were car crashes yesterday and there will be a headless zombie in our friend's garden today. The area has really gone down recently.

There's no place like home

This gull is on next door's home. I can't see my section of flat roof so there could be a buffalo nesting there.

Grasstrack Rally Driving

We know the sponsors. The driver is Liz Blake and she is just 11 years old. Ryan, on the left in the picture, is 10.

Parking accident

Jim couldn't fix this.

Dog tired

The dog refused to pull this car any further. Obviously it's not aware of CO2 emissions.

Javelins

I forgot mine so couldn't go in. It was closed anyway.

Careless drivers

Or is that carless drivers? The gull passed on her second attempt.

Hair

My mate Jim has a stammer, or is it a stutter or just a speech impediment. Anyway he can take a while to get his words out. He is very comical with it and doesn't mind the micky being taken and often sends himself up. In fact, having a mobile telephone call with him is difficult as you don't know if it is the network or him causing the listening problems.

He rang me yesterday to relate this story: He was driving behind a small saloon car and idly noted that the driver was "as bald as a coot". Then he noticed that a rear tyre was very low on pressure. He decided to do the good citizen approach and drove alongside at the lights, tooted his horn and wound down his window. The follicly (sp?) challenged driver wound down his window. Jim said "Oh, actually, did you.....know that....you haven't any air...." and before he could get the words out the driver took extreme offence, told Jim to "F*ck off" and raced away.

Brilliant!

Deer

Overheard in a Newsagent's shop in Falmouth "'Ere, do e know where theres one of them car scrap dealers? Only I hit a deer at 60mph last night and I need some new doings for me car". What happened to the deer? And what are "doings"?

Fridge

I bought this nice little fridge for my office:

and they, quite naturally, offered these radio controlled cars at half price so I got them:

They go together well I think.

Try me?

Apparently this is a perfume offer for transvestites

The security guard at the airport told me to stop taking pictures. Maybe he thought I was part of an International ring of perfume spotters.