Sunday, December 11, 2005

Sweet sweet, the memories you gave to me

What can I do but prostrate myself before you all by way of abject apology? I haven’t blogged since, well, the last time, which was absolutely ages ago. I have no excuses other than to say that nothing much has moved me enough recently to warrant it being broadcast to the four corners of the earth – not that the earth has four corners, of course, or any corners come to that, but you know what I mean. Also, I have been very busy (that might be a feeble excuse, by the way). Sometimes, something prompts me to think about something and, sure enough, a discussion in the chatroom about Sparkly’s uni offers prompted me to think about something. Just goes to show how right I can be! It revived the memory of my eldest son’s three years at Bath. I remember the wonderful time he had. I remember the unutterable sadness I felt when we took him there on his first day and then left him – in a strange place, after 19 years at home (I'll never forget the image of him in my rear-view mirror standing in the car park alone). I remembered how I thought it was stupid that they had to drink loads of vodka BEFORE they went out. I remembered the love and camaraderie they had and that I never experienced in my youth when I was too much of a tosser to realise that I shouldn’t have done what I did at grammar school. And I remembered the pride when we went to his graduation ceremony. His brother is not going to university (and I am no less proud of him because of it); he is by no means stupid, being talented in a different way. They both have the same ability to wring the humour out of a situation; I wonder if that’s all they got from me? Hopefully not - they know right from wrong, and that Manchester United are the spawn of the devil! I am very proud of them both but, regrettably, I could never say to their face that I love them – that would just embarrass all of us. But I do, of course.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

A year out

Well, my first blogversary went without incident. Come to think of it, it went completely unremarked – despite being in the Calendar. In fact, I forgot about it myself! So, since the end of November 2004, you have suffered the burden of been deriving enormous pleasure from reading a variety of garbled dissertations erudite and brilliantly written treatises ranging from the unutterably sad to the, well, if I'm honest, deeply sad (that last 'sad' being the meaning of 'sad' which is different from that of the first 'sad'). I wonder what the next 12 months holds? Merry Xmas! Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Mixed feelings

Last night, we went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was really very good indeed and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think I ought to be ashamed to admit that because something happened just before we arrived at the cinema which really unnerved me and did not deserve to be ignored or forgotten in the pursuit of our entertainment. About 500 yards from the turning to the leisure complex is a (quite small) roundabout. There was a large articulated lorry parked on one side and two or three cars parked on the other. We couldn’t see what exactly was happening until we arrived at the roundabout. There were a few people standing around on adjoining pavements. Then I saw the body lying in the road on our left. I think it was a man. He was wearing a crash helmet and he wasn’t moving. The most strangely awful thing was to see the people just standing there on the pavement – one man, possibly the lorry driver, was standing next to the lorry, he was in the road – but the man was spreadeagled flat on his back in the middle of the carriageway and nobody was doing anything, just standing there, and he wasn't moving. I will always have that lasting impression. It was like life had gone into slow motion. He is someone’s son, perhaps someone’s father or brother, someone’s friend, lover, teacher, whatever; I hope he’s all right, but I have a horrible feeling about it. I hope I didn’t see a dead body last night.

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Dogged blogging

Whether intentional or not, it looks as though I have been led up the garden path by Omally. He well and truly put the wind up me by telling me that, according to Simon, a kitten dies every day you don’t blog. This was followed by a nervous spate of daily blogs, which feverish essayism, I am ashamed to say, lasted just four days. Now, steel yourself for a blood-spattered visit from the Cat God, you may have warned me at the time. Well, the flappableness of the Great Catflap In The Sky was conspicuous by its absence and, to date, all my organs remain intact and inside, mostly not showing at all. However, and you must make up your own mind as to the importance of that ‘however’, in my aim to read all of Simon’s blogs from Day 1 in 2003, I encountered this one (see the end of the first paragraph), which, I am sure you will agree, is indicative of three inescapable scenarios: (1) I am indeed engaged in reading all Simon’s blogs, otherwise I wouldn’t have found the reference to which I have, er, referred, (2) Omally confuses kittens with puppies, and (3) it would appear I have to expect a visit from The God Of Unnecessarily Dead Puppies any day now which will probably result in more of my organs ending up on the outside than would be healthy. Oh well, you can’t have everything. What’s that echoey growling noise?

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Food for thought

Me: “Look, this is about the tenth time today I’ve had to dash to the little boys’ room. And it’s all your fault.” 
Lamb, Mint and Redcurrant Burger: “I’m sorry, it most certainly was not my fault; there is obviously some problem with your digestive system. We have to undergo the most rigorous Quality Control procedures following manufacture and then the ignominy of spot checks by Mr Waitrose and his bullies.” 
Me: “I can assure you there is definitely nothing wrong with my guts – I’ve got the constitution of an ox, and…” 
Lamb, Mint and Redcurrant Burger: “Look, matey boy, how do you (or I) know that? Is it a written constitution?” 
Me: “Don’t be ridiculous!” 
Lamb, Mint and Redcurrant Burger: “Well, there you go, then! You can’t prove it!” 
Me: “But I hardly ever get the sh… er, stomach upsets.” 
Lamb, Mint and Redcurrant Burger: “As I said, you can’t verify that to any acceptable standard of proof. I’ve only got your word for it.” 
Me: “Well, if it wasn’t you, it was you! (points at Pork, Sage and Apple Burger accusingly). You actually tasted quite odd, now I come to think of it.” 
Pork, Sage and Apple Burger: “Oi! Don’t try and blame me. As my colleague has explained to you, the processes to which we are subjected prevent harmful bacteria from being present among our ingredients to any substantive degree. And we are extremely conscientious about hygiene. We certainly don’t want Mr Waitrose and his trained thugs working us over.” 
Me: “I don’t accept that; I haven’t eaten anything else all day, so what other conclusion can I draw?” 
Pork, Sage and Apple Burger: “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing we can do about it. I would suggest you should look for the culprit a little closer to home. You’re just looking for a scapegoat.” Me: “I think I’ve had enough meat for one day, thank you! Doh! I’m obviously wasting my time arguing with the two of you.”

Today, my dear friends, I ate something that disagreed with me.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Sumpkin Poop

Have you ever smelt rotten pumpkin? I don’t think you have, because you would quite likely be throwing up by now: I nearly did! As some of you may know, we have had two enormous pumpkins in the pub for a couple of weeks now, for the purpose of running a competition to guess their joint weight and to subsequently sell chunks of them, both for charitable purposes. Well, one of the buggers had given up the ghost in the vicinity of its nether regions and leaked all over the carpet. I think someone at a private party a few days ago who was the worse for alcomohol had damaged it by climbing on it, puncturing it, and then falling off it! Liquid was spreading inexorably toward tables in the back bar that had been reserved for punters taking part in the quiz that night. I had to use our industrial carpet cleaner to try and deal with the ghastly situation and several able-bodied male customers were engaged to shift both pumpkins out of the building. Did we need this on Quiz Night? What do you think? Still, things were accomplished and the evening went swimmingly. Hurrah for brilliant staff and helpers!

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Poppycock

When I was much younger, I remember hearing a Rugby Song (no doubt still aired in the bath – I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been in the bath with a rugby player) called “If I Was the Marrying Kind.” Sorry about yet another pome so soon after the last one, but it occurred to me when I was bleeding earlier. It is the time of year when such accidents are all too common, I’m afraid. Actually, the only similarity to the old song is the format of the first two lines, which popped into my head for some unknown reason.

If I was the inventing kind (Which, thank the Lord I’m not, sir!)
The kind of thing that I’d invent
Would be a Poppy Clothing Attacher – It would be a thing
to stop your fing-

-er being attached
to your shirt or scratched
and without a point
that impales your joint-
-ed digit to your nipple
Not designed to cripple

Or make you bleed
But what you need

To fix it safely in –
AND IT’S NOT A BLOODY PIN!

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Keeping the Cat God at bay

Omally’s comment about a little kitten dying every time you don’t blog (Simon told him that, apparently, and he should know) has put the wind up me a bit, and I don’t want the God of the Cats leaping down to Earth through the Great Cat-flap In The Sky and then tearing me limb from limb and/or disembowelling me, just ‘cos of killing a few measly lickle kittens. I hate it when Cat Gods do that. So, to avoid all that feline unpleasantness, I thought I had better knock something up to keep the arm and leg totals at the basic level and the old entrails ticking over. But, I ask myself, anxiously scanning the heavens, has anything happened today? Then I realised that lots of things – momentous things – had indeed happened today. I will list some of them (not necessarily in order of importance):-

I woke up this morning alive

I strode purposefully around town without it hurting
I added one or two Limerick lines
I had some lovely comments from some lovely people
I did some work that I love doing and for which I get paid

Sheila and I accomplished a mundane household task together by cleaning the kitchen – both of us smiling, she singing
I did something for my son and he said, “Thanks, Dad”.
I laughed a lot I read about the joy and sorrow in several people’s lives I worried about my niece who lives in Paris

Up yours, Cat God!

Monday, November 07, 2005

Bad timing

Well, it's later on today - yes it is! I know it's not in terms of the previous blog, wherein was contained the promise of a blog later on today, er, yesterday, but I just couldn't manage it, sorry! You'll have to make do with a pome I have wrote.

A Blogger's Lament

Oh! I wish I could blog every day

But my head doesn’t let me, okay?

There are others who do

But I’m just not like you;
There’s a block on my brain

And so, once again,

I can’t think of a damn’ thing to say.

Oh! I wish I could blog every week,
But my life is exceedingly bleak

It drifts by so sadly,
I’d swap it quite gladly

Because, as a rule
It’s distinctly uncool

Writing words that have flimsy physique


Oh! I wish I could blog every quarter,

That interval’s one that I oughter

Attempt to achieve
And, at least, I believe,

I could meet the time scale
And so thusly regale
You with noteworthy essays – well, sorta

But I think I’ll just blog every year
‘Cos I know that I’m no pioneer;

Then more are a bonus

And therefore the onus

Upon me decreases,
I’ll store up some pieces,

Thus leaving me more time for beer.

Sunday, November 06, 2005

Empty vessels....?

Right! That's it! I'm sick of not blogging. Why can't I do it? What stays my hand in the hour of need? Even if nothing particularly interesting happens, I can always make something up, can't I? Anyway, I've had enough! So, batten down the hatches, pin back your lugholes and prepare for some shock news.... later on today, I AM GOING TO BLOG! Yes, later on today - after I've seen Adam and Lisa, of course - and after I've compiled Thursday's pub quiz - well, after that, obviously - and after I've prepared the notices that we'll have to display in the pub about ID and parents being responsible for their children and children under 16 having to be accompanied - yes, well, that goes without saying - and after I've done the football team's Christmas Dinner tickets - I've got to do those, they're urgent - and after I've done some new Lottery Syndicate sheets and Weekly Meat Draw Sheets - we've completely run out of those - anyway, make no mistake, after all that, I am going to blog - did I say later on today? - ah yes, later on today. So... see you later. Possibly.

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Where To Go!

As some of you will probably know by now, I took delivery of a lovely new Garmin i3 Streetpilot yesterday which that nice Mrs Maplin (I know it’s Mrs because, after I ordered it online, she rang me up to say they were currently out of stock and would I mind waiting or could they cash my cheque, thus ensuring the reservation for me of one that would form part of an imminent delivery? Of course, it might have not actually been Mrs Maplin as I have no knowledge of Mr Maplin’s marital status but allow me to have this one possibly inaccurate but perfectly reasonable assumption in my dotage) let me buy off her and, don’t get me wrong, it is a marvel of modern technermology and I can set it to speak to me in several languages. Not all at once, of course, that would be counter-productive, not to mention unintelligible. With regard to the voice, the only thing I can specify is the style and I have chosen, not surprisingly, British English. However, there is no option to choose the sex of the voice, so I find myself in the continuing life scenario of following female instructions. Back to the Streetpilot. There are other settings that can be, er, set, and one which did intrigue me somewhat was the ability to indicate preferences for what those lovely people at Garmin call ‘avoidances’. You can tell the device to ignore the following in calculating your route: Toll Roads, Carpool Lanes (what the hell are they? damn merkins! Sorry, Scott!), U-turns and Unpaved Roads. But the one which threw me was Highways. If anyone can tell me why, when using an electronic GPS automotive navigational aid, you might need (or indeed be able) to avoid highways in driving from point A to point B (unless, possibly, those two points are a few yards apart on a pavement – doh! sidewalk – although why you would want to drive a few yards along a pavement/sidewalk, I’m not sure), please let me know. There is a feature to set the type of vehicle used, but Jet Fighter, Helicopter or, come to that, any other type of aircraft, are conspicuous by their absence. I have tried it out two or three times and, although I totally disagreed with the route to the Chinese takeaway it told me to take from my house (even though it helpfully avoided Carpool Lanes), I think I’m in love with it and I am fairly anxious to have its babies, so Mr and Mrs Maplin’s (still in assumption mode) original instruction worked!

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Much More Elaborate, Purposeful And Fulfilling Number Plate Spotting Than That Other Not Clever Or Anything Rubbish Version

I believe I have come up with an idea which could revolutionise the in-car entertainment business. It beats the game of Spotting Car Number Plates By Starting At One Etc into a cocked hat. All you have to do is spot a registration and then think of another (extremely hilarious for some reason, and imaginary, although I accept you could hit on one that does exist by accident – I mean you would have chosen it by accident, not that it exists by accident, not that you’d know that, of course, anyway, if you’re still with me) registration that could satisfactorily either precede or follow the one you spot. Let me give you an example from actual play. On the way back home from Letchworth yesterday I saw a car with the registration 27 DEC. ‘Hmmm,’ I mused, ‘I’ve got an idea for a game’ (go back to read the above if necessary, in case you weren’t paying attention). ‘An extremely hilarious made-up registration which could satisfactorily precede that one would be 26 ANT.’ D’you see? Of course, you would have to have a rule which would forbid making up completely boring registrations, like 26 DEC or 28 DEC, for example, but with a bit of fine tuning, I bet this could rapidly become a nationwide craze, even perhaps an Olympic sport one day. I might write to the Minister of Games about it; does anyone know where he lives?

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

The Sausage And Mash Award

“And the Lois Award For The Most Disgusting Sausage And Mash goes to……” *pauses for suspenseful effect* “……the [insert name of hotel here] Hotel, Letchworth, Herts! Unfortunately, the Hotel couldn’t be here tonight as it is busy poisoning some other unsuspecting diners, but the award will be received on its behalf by the generous sponsor.” Hello, Lois here. I would just like to thank the first waitress who obviously misheard me when I consulted the Menu and ordered the “Sausages and Mash In A Yummy Gravy” and got the kitchen to rustle me up a dish of sewage instead. Thanks are also due to the second waitress who brought the steaming, er, dish to me, asking if I wanted some tomato ketchup on it! On reflection, this may have improved the taste somewhat. I must take the opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the knife and fork – it couldn’t have been easy for them. And I couldn’t possibly have accomplished any eating without the help of extreme food deprivation brought about by a lack of lunch. And when Stacey… pardon? I didn’t? oh, sorry, that was rude of me… when Stacey came to collect my dish, she asked if everything had been all right for me. I cleverly avoided giving her a direct answer by asking if I could please pay the bill. What I should have said is that, yes, everything had been all right, inasmuch as it is all right to give someone food that has only marginally more flavour than industrial effluent, but it was 7.30 p.m. and I was quite tired and emotional from a four-hour journey that should have only taken two and a half. Thank you, and I love you all!

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Vacillation

Today I have been mostly vacillating. Pardon? Well, if you must know, between (1) continuing to read Simon’s blog from its very beginnings and (2) trying to repel the uncontrollable urge to dance naked round Tesco’s with Lemon Strepsils sellotaped to my private parts. As we speak – or rather as I write, in case we are not speaking - I am up to September 2003 and it’s already taken me several hours, during which time the Strepsils urge has become worryingly more intrusive into my thought processes. Funny, that! Especially when you consider the banality of the events Simon describes. I mean, I could read about democratic beards, kamikaze rabbits, foxes called Ursula and time-travelling dinosaurs ‘til the cows came home, not that any live here, you understand. Or be exposed to pornographic vermin. And all without any appreciable effect upon my mental equilibrium, oh no. Or do I mean oh, yes? I’m not sure. I just can’t help thinking that my time might be better spent undertaking more worthwhile projects, like making up anagrams of Agatha Christie book titles, or distributing hundreds of photocopies of my bottom from an aircraft, but, having set myself the task and it having been publicly advertised, I don’t want to let anyone down. And there is every chance it could become a Thing. Oh well. I must press on. ‘September 2, 2003 Nuclear Potatoes’… *sticks pencil up nose*

Caravan

A short while ago, my former GP’s daughter got married and we provided the bar in a marquee in a field at the rear of his house. Behind the field was a caravan, of sorts, and I noted its existence as being somewhat photogenic. Today, I took these pictures (among others).

I used my new tripod!

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Unbelievable

Sorry to go on about it but, in case you didn’t know, we had a Dairy-Product-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named and Wine Evening at the pub last night and, as you may or may not be aware, I had to do some tasting notes. Well, I was OK on the Buffalino (despite being sidetracked by some fascinating information on the world-famous tap-dance instructor Brenda Buffalino) and all the other chee… er… relevant foodstuffs but – can you believe it? – New Zealand Anchor Mature Cheddar proved to be a major stumbling block in the search for enlightenment. Yes, Cheddar! I ask you! So I had to make it up. And here’s what I came up with (and considering it was at about 2 a.m.) a valiant, if predictable, effort, though I say it myself:- “What can you say about Cheddar? It comes in many different shades and strengths. Originally a unique English cheese, it is now produced in many other countries. This is just one example, and, on a taste strength scale of 1 (mild) to 10 (ouch!), Waitrose (for example, but we didn’t get it from there, oh no!) grade it a 10! It’s not mature if it doesn’t burn the roof of your mouth!” Oh dear, that’s made me read it again. Still, the punters bought it!

Monday, September 19, 2005

Leicesestershire and Alton Towers Revisited – Part III

This part of the series (you might have missed Parts I and II as I’ve done them all quite close together) is the Alton Towers bit which, as you know, I am only revisiting by virtue of this. I would just like to say that it was great (and just a bit weird at the same time) to meet people who I only knew as names in blogs, and/or rubbish chatrooms (I imagine it was the same for them meeting me, although obviously nowhere near as great). And it was a shame I couldn’t have sat and had a chat and a cuppa with Mort’s Mom and Dad. I met them when they arrived, and that was it! Another time, hopefully! 

I, of course, went on all the rides except, possibly, most of them, but I did have a good excuse as I had to look after everyone else’s bags and loose belongings in case they fell out on the rides – the belongings, that is. In any case, I have a back problem which means I have to actually heed the dire warnings at the ride entrances. You know, the ones which say:- "Please Heed This Friendly Advice – Due to sudden gravity-defying changes of direction and the breakneck speed with which they are executed, normal able-bodied healthy people are only likely to have various internal organs irreversibly rearranged, whereas people like Lois may as well just look after the bags." 

Well, I went on the Flume with Nick the Greek, Sparkly and mcl and took Kouros’s advice about sitting at the back of the bathtub, cunningly concealing myself behind mcl’s *ahem* ample frame. Yes, of course I got completely soaked. I went on the Rapids thingy with Kouros, you know, the round boaty wotsit with a big rubber ring at the bottom. Oh yes, and we shot a few zombies on ‘Duel’. Although Kouros kicked everone’s ostrich the first time round, I kicked his on the third! And I never realised how much shooting zombies hurts your arm; next time you see one, just let it eat you, it's far less trouble. Great fun! 

Except for the 50 minutes it took to get out of Leicester’s gravitational pull – the road to the M1, which had hitherto been the raison d’être of all our route planning and actual movements, had been closed. We got there in the end, though! Here are some piccies from the weekend.

Leicesestershire and Alton Towers Revisited – Part II

This is the Leicesestireshire part, obviously, and simply seeks to fill in some of the gaps in Simon’s version of events of last Saturday evening. Having confirmed my doubts as to the likelihood of the owners of “The Yews” naming their premises after some sheep, its location at Great Glen was established. Or, as we subsequently discovered on our journeys round the Leicesestershire countryside (some, as Simon rightly relates, being duplicated, to the extent that we began to recognise cows as old friends), it wasn’t. In fact, the man with no legs (incidentally, driving an elaborate go-kart thingy with hand-operated pedals) was just one of three near misses, the other two being a man on a bicycle with all his legs (only narrowly managing to retain them, no thanks to Simon) and a car, all of which, whilst on the face of it using the highway in a perfectly legal manner, thoughtlessly arrived at a particular point a fraction of a second before they were about to negotiate a blind corner, but a fraction of a second after we had completed the manoeuvre and arrived at the same point. Thank heaven for the open fields abutting on the roadway. It’s all right, we didn’t frighten the cows, they knew us. At one of several places where Simon decided that we may have been travelling in the wrong direction, he endeavoured to execute a rapid three-point turn, which I thought should have been more correctly called a two-point-one-kerb-collision-point turn. It was a fairly high and robust kerb, I have to say, and I had seen it coming. Kouros, in the back seat, however, had not, and was entirely unprepared for the not insignificant jolt. Only the layers of sandwich cases, food bags and chocolate wrappers saved him from being severely injured. Fortunately, the front wheel didn’t break. However, sheer perseverance and clever guesswork paid off and we found The Yews. Then Stu and Sarah arrived. I won’t say we had a lovely time, because Simon’s already said it, but we had a lovely time! Oh, and Part III will have links to Alton Park piccies.

Leicesestershire and Alton Towers Revisited – Part I

Now, a few words by way of clarification on the title are needed here. The word ‘Revisited’ refers to Alton Towers, not Leicesestershire, because, as I mentioned to Simon on Saturday, when he wasn’t breaking kerbs with his car’s front tyre (more of which later), it was (as far as I am aware) my first visit to that lovely county. The word 'Leicesestershire' is simply intended to lead the reader to expect a descriptive narrative in which it figures prominently. The word ‘Revisited’ in the context of Alton Towers is also possibly somewhat misleading because I personally have never been there either. I simply intended it to mean that I am not the first person to blog about the recent visit. As you will know by now, Simon already has. The words “Part I” are intended to convey the impression that at least one further Part will ensue (I didn’t want one covering the weekend’s events to be too long). Right! That about covers it for the title. And now the blog is already looking about the right length. Hmmm, perhaps I should have called it “Leicesestershire and Alton Towers Revisited – Part I – The Title”. Oh, mongoose it! See Part II, it'll be along soon. (Which just goes to show that my earlier statement about there being at least one further blog in this series was uncannily accurate).

Friday, September 16, 2005

The day I met Chuck Berry and had an Animal between my legs

Something someone said recently prompted me to recall a truly groundbreaking incident in my past. I think it was “Oi! Lois, you gerbilling bushbaby! When are you wombatting well going to start blogging a bit more regularly, eh? You sit there, feeding off everyone else’s, enjoying the fruits of their far more regular labours, and what kind of parrot do we get – no parrot at all, that’s what! Still, p’raps that’s a good thing. Tchoh, I give up!” All right, all right, keep your lobstering hair on! Many years ago, that great purveyor of rhythm and blues, Chuck Berry, was appearing at The Winter Gardens in Bournemouth and a friend and I had front row tickets. He (along with many other great black Merkin blues singers) was our hero at the time. We arrived at the theatre in the afternoon to see if we could catch a glimpse of the great man. To our utter delight, he had decided to take a walk through the Lower Pleasure Gardens to the Lucullus Restaurant at The Pavilion (near the seafront), where, having been followed by an adoring group of fans (not many, only about 7 or 8 – other members of the public didn’t seem to know who he was), he sat down for a nice cuppa. We sat opposite him and gaped and I got his autograph AND….AND…lit his fag (not his friend, obviously)! I kept the cigarette end for ages afterwards! The support band was The Animals and, after their performance, there was a break. To our surprise, the band came out from the wings, into the main body of the theatre and plonked themselves down on the floor in front of us, waiting to watch Chuck Berry! So I got their autographs AND… AND… I had Alan Price between my legs. So there!

Friday, September 09, 2005

Sam The Vacuum and Derek The Dishonest Dustbin

This load of tripe stemmed from a conversation in the chatroom and the gauntlet was thrown down in front of me. I had to write a story about Sam the Vacuum, a character dreamt up by Sparkle Princess. I asked how on earth you could give a name to a lack of air, much less tell stories about it. I was reliably informed that Sam was a vacuum cleaner and, somehow, a brothel came into it, although I’m not sure how that happened – oh yes, I remember now! A simple misunderstanding. Right, here we go. D’you know, I have a really bad feeling about this, but my excuse is that the whole sorry situation was forced upon me.
Sam sucked. Yes, he really did. He was a little vacuum cleaner, you see, and he worked in a brothel. One d… what? You don’t know what a brothel is? Well, go and ask Mummy or Daddy. That’ll give them some tough parenting practice. Right, where was I? Oh yes, I was just telling you about Sam. He was a very hard-working vacuum cleaner and his insides quickly filled up with all kinds of things that he picked up on his several daily outings: five pound notes, coins, condoms, pub… what? You don’t know what a five pound note is? Tchoh! One day, Sam was going up and down on the carpet in one of the house’s thirteen bedrooms and…… pardon? No, it probably isn’t an unusual… look, can you stop interrupting, please. Sam was in the capable hands of Betty the cleaning lady, and as she pushed Sam’s spout under the bed, a small round object shot into it and went bobbling all the way down the tube into Sam’s tummy, where it lay buried. Sam had seen it just before it disappeared – it was a small black cherry from the fruit bowl (there was one in every bedroom and it was not the first time fruit had been found strewn all over the floor). “Oh dear!” he thought, “another lost cherry.” Yes, it’s not that common; all right, be quiet at the back! At the same time as the cherry, a small circle of thin metal had been sucked up from under the bed and rattled into Sam’s tube. He knew it had been a wedding ring. He was quite concerned because, deep down, he was an upstanding little Vacuum with morals and knew about the reputation of Derek the Dishonest Dustbin, into whose large interior the contents of Sam’s tummy were tipped when his sack was full and aching to be emptied. Derek stood by the fence which separated the brothel from the house next door; he was an unscrupulous character and had often sold valuable items to the fence - well, who else? He already had large, ornate brass handles and a platinum lid. Now, when Betty took Sam to be emptied into Derek, Sam said to him, “Derek, you can’t have the wedding ring in this lot – I must retrieve it and get it to Madame so it can be returned to its rightful owner.” Derek said, “You must be joking. I could get some sports wheels for that, at least! And maybe an electric motor!” “You’re talking rubbish!” said Sam. “What else would you expect me to talk?” said Derek. But Sam was in a position to do something about the ring and he spat it out onto the ground in front of Betty, who quickly picked it up and put it in her pocket. As she walked back indoors, she was humming and smiling. “Drat!” thought Sam, “Betty’s got her hands on someone’s ring.” He had failed. But he had tried his best. And the moral of all of this? Never ever try and write a story about a vacuum cleaner in a brothel, even in the face of dire threats.

Friday, September 02, 2005

Drink to me only....

Quite frankly, I am sick and tired of the media going on about 24-hour drinking, politicians criticising the new licensing regime, and the police, judges, now magistrates, airing strong fears about the anarchy that will inevitably follow extensions to current opening hours. It is not 24-hour drinking; premises had to apply for precisely the hours they wanted to open. All right, this may mean some who want to be open for 24 hours will have applied for that, but please don’t force people to assume that this will be the norm! It just won’t happen. I am very uncertain of the consequences of longer opening hours: presumably, if people want to go out and drink themselves senseless, they will continue to do so, although it will still be an offence to serve alcohol to someone who is drunk, continuing to place the job of assessing a person's condition squarely on the shoulders of licensees and their staff. And any decision to refuse to serve them will inevitably lead to indignance at best and violence at worst. Oh well, they can stock up during opening hours at the pub or an off-licence and then get as blotto as they like out of hours. The new legislation is not going to stop that and they can do it now! Critics have said that the priority should have been to get to the root of the culture, particularly among younger drinkers, not to be allowing outlets to sell alcohol for longer. I suppose that’s true. But if the police don’t like it, they can object to the grant of licences. If judges and magistrates don’t like it, why didn’t they or anyone else who doesn’t like it kick up a fuss at the consultation stage? The Licensing Act has been around for more than two years so why have they waited until now? And it survived the passage through Parliament, so why are they acting as if the whole thing is a big surprise? Come to think of it, these critics must have a pretty low opinion of us and assume that we’re just in the game to make as much moolah as possible and if the customers start collapsing around us, well, blind eyes will be turning like mongoosery. We’ll do our damnedest to ensure it won’t happen in our pub. Anyway, we only asked for an extra 30 minutes on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, so it will be very much business as usual. Paul G0tlg says in his latest blog: "…the way to stop binge drinking …… is for people to get a grip and take control of their own lives"... Yay to that! Oh, and good luck to whoever is given the job of getting people to do it! Whinge over.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

You're telling me

Today, I received a very nice informative letter from MBNA Europe Bank Ltd about one of my credit cards. Here are two extracts from it: “We are writing to you to inform you of important changes to your credit card’s terms and conditions. Please read the enclosed leaflet ‘Important changes to your credit card’s terms and conditions….” “For details on how to make the most of your credit card, please read the enclosed leaflet ‘How to make the most of your credit card’….” Thanks, I'd never have known.

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Pisa - the action, or Florence - time for bed

Blogs here are a bit like my Italian – fairly scarce in the existence department; the following is a partial remedy. S and her sister kindly arranged a short break in a Pisa hotel and we (accompanied by my brother-in-law, of course) duly flew from Bournemouth International (15 minutes away) to Pisa (2 hours away) at a quarter past bleary-eyed-and-bodied o’clock on Monday morning and returned last Thursday evening. The whole (bed & breakfast and return flights) shebang (all booked on the intermanet) was remarkably cheap. Unfortunately, none of us had an O-level or GCSE in Italian Menu Translation, so eating out while we were there was a kind of culinary mystery tour. The Leaning Tower was:- (1) marvellous and (2) a bloody long walk from the railway station. Several hundred Japanese people will hope to fool their relatives into thinking that they were holding the tower up – no doubt with hilarious consequences. Florence was:- (1) very lovely indeed and (2) extremely tiring to walk around. We certainly did not regret the decision to take two open-topped bus tours around and above the city. It was nice to have a sit down for a while – both tours took an hour each. You paid on one tour bus and the ticket was valid for 24 hours on either of the routes covered. This lessened the impact of the €20 per person charge somewhat. For now, you will have to make do with just a handful of pictures. First, a view from the hotel swimming pool. A fine pair of knockers in Florence. A lovely holiday spot. Can you help? I can’t for the life of me think of a limerick using this as a basis. Remind you of anyone? There could be more!

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Reading out of all proportion

One of the bewildering twists and turns of my 37-year local government career actually resulted in my going berserk at Reading (Berks) – as opposed to Reading (Books). It was a simple chain of events. Oh, and the Books thing was just a cheap joke. I worked in Rochdale for just under six years from 1974 to 1979 then got a job back in Bournemouth, where I was born and had begun an illustrious local government career in October 1966! As you may have already read, there were some initial advantages to the job at that time! Upon the return to my home town, there was a recession in the North West and thousands of workers were suffering a three-day week. The property market was therefore pretty stagnant in that area and I spent the next two years (the time it took to sell our house) travelling backwards and forwards on trains. The one I mostly caught (on every other Friday) was the daily 09.26 service (or was it the 09.24? it seemed to matter in them days) from Bournemouth Central to Manchester Piccadilly, which took a cross-country route (thus involving no changes in London) and took six hours or thereabouts. One of the scheduled stops was Reading and, if memory serves, it was not long after the introduction of the wizzo Inter-City 125 service (so-called because the trains actually went 125 mph – well, when there wasn’t dust or jam on the track), one of which passed through Reading (without stopping) on the way from London to Exeter (I’m sure Hutters or Mr Hedgehog will confirm or deny the factual nature of these witterings). It was, however, quite impressive to see one of these new machines thundering through the station at a rate of knots! Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, going berserk. On my first journey on the jolly old 09.26, we duly arrived at Reading (forwards). Can you see where this is going? I thought I was going to be able to at the time. After some rather unnerving joltings, the train began to leave – arrrgh! – backwards!! Coupled with the entirely irrational (I accept) need to sit facing the direction of travel and the resumption of the journey in a direction completely opposite to that which had been hitherto prevalent, my senses took a turn for the berserkness. I could not understand why we were going in the opposite direction – obviously I was on the wrong train and goodness knows where I would end up, or how much more it would cost me (times were hard). For a short time, I ran amok with a mental machete, chopping the heads off passengers and an assortment of British Rail (remember them?) employees for not telling me I was on a train that was going anywhere other than my desired destination. After I found out that Reading was where the diesel engine was replaced with an electric one and, via a system of intricate points and other nifty railway-type devices, we ended up going in a north-westerly direction as planned, my running amokness subsided and I returned to my seat, mentally apologising to all the people I had hacked to death in my railway information vacuum. When all's said and done, it had been an unnerving experience. Funny how the mind plays tricks.

Saturday, August 06, 2005

The Refreshment Break Scam

When you first started in local government (and, I suspect, any other similar job), you were the lowest form of life, the office junior. You did everyone else’s filing, had to go to the public counter when someone buzzed, answer the telephones and nip out to buy fags for a superior. However, all this administrative drudgery paled into insignificance when compared to the brilliantly conceived but frighteningly simple Refreshment Break Scam. The former junior (promoted to Plan Folding once you had arrived) would instruct you in the finer points of this lucrative process which would supplement your salary of £385 per annum. It is probably best explained with an actual worked example and, as I recall the details for the purpose of this blog, it has just struck me that, of the 16 employees in this particular office, none were women (well, not during normal working hours anyway) – a fact that has never occurred to me before. But that is not part of my tale. You took orders for tea, coffee, plain buttered rolls and cheese rolls in the morning and just tea in the afternoon, then took a tray with teapot/coffeepot to the canteen across the back yard of the building where your orders were filled by Alice, the cook, who always had a cigarette hanging from her mouth, the ash always at the point where it was about to drop (and frequently did into whatever she was cooking, presumably). I don’t know who was worse, Alice or her successor, Betty. After Alice left, you always knew if suet pudding was going to be on the lunch menu because Betty used to walk around wearing just one elastic stocking. But I digress. Supposing that you had taken orders for 10 teas, 6 coffees, 5 buttered rolls and 8 cheese rolls. You would actually order 7 teas, 4 coffees (measuring quantities was by no means an exact science), 8 buttered rolls and 5 cheese rolls. On the way back from the canteen, you would redistribute the cheese from the cheese rolls to populate the 3 buttered rolls needed to make up the number of cheese rolls ordered. When you returned, you always had enough tea and coffee to fulfil the number ordered in the office and the right mix of plain and cheese rolls. Thus, you made a tidy profit and the poor fools suspected nothing!

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

The Power of Advertising

The other day, I received an e-mail from dabs.com, containing an offer for the Motorola RAZR V-3 mobile phone (black version). It said "Lois (yes, really!), by virtue of an arrangement we have made with ‘Dialaphone’ ('the UK’s leading direct mobile phone specialist'), you can pay us just £4.99 per month for 8 months, then £30 a month for the remainder of the period for which you must contract to us (4 months) to get this marvellous piece of kit which is worth – for insurance purposes - £450 or more. You will also get a car charger, a Bluetooth earpiece, a dashboard carrier and, of course, many months of happiness playing with a device that will enable you to capture digital images, connect with your compluter, thus allowing the interchange of sounds and pictures and facilitating, for example, the sending of multiple (or single, of course) text messages using a PC keyboard. You will also receive 200 minutes of free calls per month (any network) and 50 free text messages per month". I was putty in their hands! I have said many times in the past that I probably couldn't justify a mobile phone on contract because my (outgoing) usage does not warrant it. However, this seemed an offer too good to refuse, and I took them up on it. And I have had the phone for almost a week. And it is a luvverly piece of gear. And I have sent a text message to everyone in my address book notifying them of my new number. And I have been walking and driving round Hampshire with an earful of Bluetooth to apparently no avail. Not one person has rung me yet! I’ve even forgotten what the ring tone is! Oh well, who knows? It may prove to have been worthwhile in due course. And perhaps I can go back to Pay As You Go after 12 months! I think I might be a sucker, though!

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Down In The Forest III – Recovering the Cache

On Sunday, I was mostly wading in a stream, fully clothed (or thereabouts), but more of that later. There is other information to be imparted first. Background: On Saturday, there was a barbecue at the pub for *ahem* a few geocaching friends (you have to be careful what you say in public, you may be accused of belonging to a seekrit society and ostracised as a result). Omally was the in absentia evil mastermind behind the three-part multi-cache and, following reconnaissance missions by him, me and Lorry, his evil helpers, we (with admirable help from KronA) set the cache on Friday evening, cunningly using two bikes between three of us – which involved KronA doing a lot of running! During the journey, and on her turn with a bike, Lorry approached a large patch of mud with the remark "Ooh! Look! Mud!" which you would expect would result in a tactical avoidance of same – noooo! She ended up sunk in the middle of it with tyres and trainers liberally covered! Omally was otherwise engaged at Donnie Osmond Park to watch people on motor bicycles going brrm! brrm! and mrowwwwww!. And he got one set of co-ordinates wrong! Ner! Swedish monarchs aren’t necessarily perfect! He will deny it, of course. But, apparently, Corals are offering 12-1 on it being true! Ooh! *bets £20 million* As the evening wore on, it got quite dark (especially amongst the trees) because the second stage took quite a long time to execute by virtue of its extreme cunningness, with wires and canisters and things, but the deed eventually was done and the helpers repaired to the Best Pub In The Universe to: (a) drink and (b) practise their evil gloating. Anyway, as I said earlier, I was wading on Sunday. This is because a number of clues had been magnetically attached to the metal supports on the underside of a bridge and which needed to be retrieved. Well, when we placed them, the bridge spanned an arid expanse of pebbles. What happened on Saturday night and Sunday morning? Extensive precipitation, that’s what. So I decided to wait until much later in the day to venture into the forest. The weather duly cleared up and I embarked upon my mission. When I arrived at the bridge, the stream had returned, courtesy of the aforementioned precipitation! Realising that I had been entrusted with a task the importance of which was akin to a quest for the Holy Grail, I gritted my teeth and feet and threw off my slip on/slip off trainers and began to wade. Because of the aged and decrepit nature of my body (and the irritating varifocal spectacles I have to wear), I was unable to contort to an extent sufficient to identify all of the magneticlues and I could only find six of the eight originally placed. And I girded the legs of my shorts so that I could kneel in the water as well! Is this above and beyond the call of duty, or what? On top of that, I had to explain to three sets of muggles why I was wading in the stream in the first place! The rest of the geocaching impedimenta was easily recovered and I returned home, whereupon, following an unusual burst of enthusiasm, I cleaned both bikes! It was all worthwhile.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Passports and IDs

Left: 1973 (wasn’t I luffly?), Middle: 1996 (errmm…), Right: 2005 (eeek!)

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Down In The Forest II - Mud In July?

Yesterday, we carried out some proper reconnaissance, not like the rubbish variety found in Devon! There is a geocaching gathering at the pub for a barbecue next Saturday and a cache is being set for the day: Omally is the evil mastermind behind it and I and Loretta are his evil helpers, although, I hasten to add, much of the evilness is attributable to the Swedish element of the team. Unfortunately, Lorry could not be with us on this mission as she was *ahem* busy. We met at the Best Pub In The Universe for sustenance as usual, and then repaired to my garage to transfer two bikes from it to the rack on the back of the car. I reckoned that, if I was going to sweat around the forest again, I might as well get to where we were going and back as quickly as possible. Plus, in some places, the wind on the downhill bits might cool me down. There’s nothing like coasting down a forest track with the wind in your hair. And, of course, as most of you will realise, nothing could make that happen! Near the end of the journey, I spotted a chunk of rutted, uneven ground on the path and braced myself as I rode over it. I sank! Well, the bike did, but I just about managed to keep the machine moving. We arrived at the road and as I set off for the car, I felt two dirty great chunks of mud hit me in the back and heard a horrid, evil chortling behind me. Trust Omally to manoeuvre me into the only patch of mud currently in the New Forest.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

The flying cat and War of the Worlds

You might not think that there was the remotest connection between War of the Worlds and flying cats, but a link – tenuous though it may be – does exist. I suspect it may be argued that you could make something link to anything else if you put your mind to it; hey! I was bemoaning the lack of bloggage on here the other day and now I’m going to write about something I’ve only just remembered while writing about what I was actually going to write about! I remember reading in a book about a game which I cannot remember the name of just at the moment, where one person says a word and the other person has to say a word with absolutely no connection with the first person’s word. Now you may think that sounds quite boring, but the fun part is the challenge! The challenge, that is, of the first person who must maintain that there is a connection and proceeds to describe the thought processes involved in linking the first and second words with, of course, hilarious consequences. No? Oh well. Just bear with me. For example, the first person might say “Camilla”. Now, clearly, the second person could not say “horse’s arse”, for example. But he (or she) could say “Superman”, fondly imagining that the first person would certainly fail in the attempt to establish any kind of link between the two. The first person, however, is probably made of sterner stuff and, although possibly stumped momentarily, would undoubtedly respond in magnificent fashion by revealing the following intricate mental itinerary not envisioned by the second person: Camilla – Parker Bowles – Lady Penelope – over – 6 balls – Superman. Get the idea? Oh, please yourselves. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the flying cat. My eldest son Andrew and his girl-friend have two kittens, Fruit and Nut, and no, I had nothing whatever to do with that. They all live in the flat over the pub, so all the rooms are, as you would expect, on the first floor of the building (or, if you are a Merkin, the second floor). Well, to cut a long story short, Nut jumped out of the lounge window onto the (concrete) forecourt. Without a parachute, the descent did not take too long and I was surprised Andrew got down there before she ran off in a panic (or in a strop because she had not been issued with a parachute in the first place) but he managed to retrieve her and she seemed relatively unharmed although she sported a cut lip. When she seemed to exhibit somewhat sleepy tendencies, they began to worry and took her to the vet straight away. She was given an injection for the cut and, apparently, no bones had been broken. This morning, she was chasing her sister round the flat as usual. The connection? Well, it happened last night and we went to see War of the Worlds last night. It was very good, actually.

Monday, July 04, 2005

Down in the forest...

Hurrah! I am a temporary Grockle. Allow me to elaborate. Omally and Pharisee (two of the real and permanent Grockles) had the good sense to come and visit the Best Pub In The Forest yesterday (Sunday), accompanied by the delightful and effervescent Tammy, the love of Omally’s life! No beer was consumed at all, oh nooo, we just sat in the pub garden for an hour or so, chatting of this and that. The decision was taken to do a spot of geocaching and we set off in the direction of Smuggler’s Road with a view to extending the trek to take in Mr and Mrs Hedgehog’s Ziegler Passage. Although I am still a *ahem* Young Man, I admit I am not as fit as I once was and it was very tiring watching Tammy running up steep pathways and sitting at the top, gloating, whilst others crawled breathlessly onward and upward.

We reached a point where a decision had to be made as to whether to do the half-mile or so to Ziegler Passage, taking in Smuggler’s Road on the way back, or do Smuggler’s Road (which was only a few hundred yards away) first. I began to formulate a cunning plan and suggested that, as it appeared I was slightly *ahem* injured, we should go for Smuggler’s Road and, as I had done Ziegler Passage previously, I would make my way to the car park above it and await collection. This was agreed and I punched the air with a mental fist – the fools had failed to spot the evil cunningness with which my plan had been imbued. The cache was found quite easily eventually – oh all right! Omally – damn his unerring sense of detectiveness (he must have had his caching nose screwed on really tight) – found it! He also saved Tammy’s life by preventing a branch from falling on her, using his head to hold it up while he calmly and coolly made notes on how to prevent it killing him when he moved.

I struggled manfully up the track leading to the car park and sat on a grassy bank nursing my injured erm…thingy, you know, the muscly thingy down by the wotsit bone – it was agony, I can tell you, and I had to spend a good fifteen minutes or so sat sitting in the bally sun while a deliciously cooling breeze swirled about the place – sheer hell! The Omallymobile duly arrived and we made our way back to the Best Pub etc. where it was necessary to imbibe some more cooling nectar to refresh the parts before saying farewell. What fun!

Friday, July 01, 2005

Medication, medication, medication

Hello, Lord Julian, in the lack of direct news to himself, did not know another now. I’ll overlook your discourtesy, so I will. Blood, whose mood seemed to be snappy, done him a monstrous injustice. She remembered words he had used: skirmish, although it wa…… In case you were wondering if I had taken leave of my senses and might possibly be sitting here with peanut butter spread all over my shaved naked body, yodelling the “Drinking Song” from The Student Prince, that introductory load of bollocks appeared as the header (in the preview pane – it doesn’t appear anywhere in the actual message – how do they do that?) to yet another e-mail offering me pharmaceuticals: Cialis, Viagra and Valium this time; oh, and many other (sic). I get them every day. By the way, if Brigita Love is reading this, I am not Sohrab Pierson – perhaps I should forward it to him (her?) – the poor devil’s probably at his (her?) wits’ end if I am getting his (her?) messages by mistake. By and large, the intermanet is a wonderful thing but sometimes it really gets on my wick.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Minutes of the Football Club Committee

Not actually Minutes, just a resumé of the Committee’s reaction to proposals that the Chairman was foolish enough to be persuaded to bring before the Committee by Simon and Ariadne earlier in the day. I suppose it was inevitable, really: sport is fairly high on Simon’s list of Things I Would Rather Not Do If It’s All The Same To You; I should have been alerted to this when it emerged that he thought Henman was a half-man half-chicken superhero. So, to the proposals. The first was that the Club should provide topless cheerleaders to encourage the team during the match. I reacted to this with considerable enthusiasm and Simon displayed a rare empathy with such an obviously sport-related matter. His keenness dissipated somewhat when I suggested that, to save money, I could perhaps be one of them. The Committee felt that, whilst they would undoubtedly encourage the players, it would not be to play football. Not approved. The next was to use a duck as the ball. The Committee was less than receptive to this, firstly as the proposal seemed flawed in that the report failed to mention whether the duck needed to be dead or not and, dead or alive, a duck was unlikely to possess the bouncing qualities necessary to make a positive contribution to the game. Not approved. Next, the goalkeeper should dress up as a clown and dance the lambada during moments of inactivity. Amazingly, the Club was halfway to achieving this as the present incumbent’s performances gave the impression that he was dressed as a clown and he already danced the lambada incessantly, even during moments of activity. No approval necessary. Lastly, I put forward one of my own suggestions: that the traditional half time oranges should be replaced by flagellation with birch twigs. This was approved unanimously. So the two hours spent in the chatroom weren't entirely wasted.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

A New Forest Pathway

…a picture of which I took, is now occupying a spot amongst a cast of thousands on the BBC Digital Picture of Britain thingy. I followed the example of Aoj and, well, there you are, and, in case you are remotely interested, here it is.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Tank goodness!

It was a momentous day down in the Forest yesterday when the paths of Loretta, el10t, el015e, Sam, MMM and the Milk Monster crossed mine – and it was deliberate – hurrah! It was great to put faces to names and to meet some more lovely people in the *ahem* flesh. We were getting a bit worried when it got to 1.45pm and MMM hadn’t turned up (she said she’d arrive by 1pm) but, apparently, she was held up by some soldiers near Salisbury. She thought she’d better not argue with them as they had really big guns on their tanks. Almost as scary as trying to order food from my line manager after 2pm! (it was a narrow squeak, I can tell you). We had a good chinwag and guffawed a bit (mostly at Sam’s jokes – not necessarily the punch-lines, actually, but perhaps more of that some other time!) and Jess learnt how to execute the time-honoured manoeuvre of getting to the top of the slide by walking up it instead of climbing the ladder, which is as yet beyond her capabilities, but only because of the size of the gaps between the steps (they are almost as wide as she is tall)! And, guess what, MMM encountered another tank on the way home, but this one let her through! We have lift-off!

Friday, June 10, 2005

Irregular Blogging and Bank Holiday Bouncing

I have recently mentioned somewhere else about the infrequency of this blog’s updating, and its sporadic nature is a constant source of irritation to me. I would like to be able to make a daily entry but I seem to have been conditioned to expect myself to write several hundred words instead of just a few dozen. Other people manage nice little chunks on a regular basis and they still make them interesting and/or humorous. Anyway, that’s enough whingeing for one paragraph. But I promise to try and make more regular entries, whatever their length. I was in charge of the Bouncy Castle at the pub last Bank Holiday Monday and I was sitting in the warm sunshine all afternoon without a hat. By tea-time, all my extremities were a bit red and I must have massaged a good half bottle of After-Sun Cream into my noddle when I got home – it certainly stung for a bit if I touched it! Loretta came and visited me for a couple of hours during the afternoon and, about halfway through the proceedings, felt it incumbent upon her to advise me of the caution needed to be exercised in acceding to the numerous repeated requests from little girls to put their shoes back on after their allotted bouncing sessions. Well, they kept asking me, bless ‘em! They obviously love me! And what little girl worth her salt would ask anyone to put her shoes on other than a kindly old…*ahem* Young Man with brightly-coloured extremities?

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

All fired up!

At the place where I worked, I was, for several years, a "designated officer" when an evacuation of the building happened to become necessary for whatever reason. There was a set procedure when the alarm sounded. You had to run down to reception (they never did tell us where to go if reception was on fire) and collect: (1) a little card with a particular task printed on it, and (2) a bright yellow tabard. There were several disadvantages to being selected for this job:- if you didn't time it right and purposely hung back to get 'Task No. 8 - Using fireman's lift, ensure all decent looking typists are taken out of the building then take the best one out for a roistering good time', you’d have probably ended up with ‘Task No.5 – Find all suspicious-looking bombs and defuse them by cutting either the blue or yellow wire [good luck with the choice], then station yourself at the south-south-easterly footway access point, reference AP.9, to prevent the public entering’. Also, there were never any XL tabards (you needed XXXXL in winter when you were wearing a thick overcoat as well and everyone used to laugh while I struggled to don an item of clothing (luminous to boot) that had probably last been worn by one of the Seven Dwarves, whilst running round trying to borrow some wire-cutters and desperately wondering where south-south-easterly footway access point AP.9 was). And nobody ever told you when the emergency (most often caused by a workman in the basement smoking a large cigar) was over, so you paced up and down at the entrance to the rear car-park for several hours trying to placate a growing (I think I might mean growling) queue of foot-tapping members of the public. And you couldn’t do sensible things like vital last-minute shopping while everyone was milling about by the War Memorial. It didn’t seem to matter if you went missing because nobody seemed to have the faintest idea what was going on and who was supposed to report that so-and-so was still in the toilet (“Sorry, from the sound of it, they couldn’t be interrupted. Evacuation, though an entirely appropriate word in the circumstances, would have been taken out of context”) or out on a site visit or on holiday or standing in another Department’s specified assembly point. I could go on. And you didn’t get paid. Talk about unsung heroes!

Sunday, May 29, 2005

A Cautionary Tale

Once there was a bald publican, and he decided that, as he was beginning to replace previously lost body weight, it was about time he got back on his bike for some regular exercise. One fine morning, he set off to do his 6-mile stint. He had almost reached Poulner Baptist Chapel when there was a deafening explosion from somewhere down between his legs. This violent activity in the nether regions was not something to which he is normally accustomed in these latter days and the sudden eruption of sound rather unnerved him. After a few seconds, he had calmed somewhat and, as he had felt no pain, assumed that his front tyre had ruptured. Upon closer investigation, however, he discovered the cause of all this emotional trauma – the lid of his water bottle had blasted open. The moral of the story? Do not use sparkling water in your water-carrier. Tchoh! Amatuer.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

It's Who You Know

Well, would you Adam ‘n Eve it? A couple of weeks ago, during the day that I was sweating through the New Forest with Omally and Loretta, I learnt something which has proved to be to my advantage insofar as my geocaching activities (infrequent though they may be) are concerned. Apparently, the manufacturers of my car deliberately coated all its windows with a special GPS signal-blocking material (or athermic coating) so that I have been unable (for that hitherto unknown reason) to fully enjoy the thrill gained from following a pointing arrow or watching the little triangle moving along a map (as opposed to watching the road through the windscreen). My eTrex Vista would continually lose satellite reception. However, being A Person In The Know, Omally told me what I needed to rectify this and, of course, over the next couple of weeks, I duly forgot what it was. So, yesterday, I had a rare lucid moment and, via the medium of electronical mail, I asked Omally what was the gizmo that he had said I needed. He duly responded with the words: "Well, if I am not very much mistaken, that bad boy would be the RRAD-45 Re-radiating Antenna, available for a mere 37.32 GBP exc. VAT, 43.85 GBP inc. VAT from GPS Warehouse, www.gpsw/thisisthecritteryouneedetc.com." He was right! GPS Warehouse relieved me of the readies (plus 3.95 GBP postage) with little or no pain and they kindly sent me a message this morning saying my purchase had been despatched. I can’t wait to get my hands on its polycarbonate radome enclosure. And, who knows, I may even go out geocaching with it!

Sunday, May 22, 2005

An Anagramapoem for LOISINTHEFOREST

THE SINISTER FOOL 
Continues with his plan 
IN FOOLISH STREET, 
While kindred souls log on - 
FOOLISH INTEREST! 
He wishes that one day they all could meet. 
TO THIS FINE LOSER 
Go the spoils of senseless conflict; 
IN TOOTHLESS FIRE 
That burns with empty flame, 
THE LOONIES FIRST, 
And then the sane, achieve his heart’s desire 
SENIOR THIEF, LOST, 
Who steals the love and wanders 
IN THE SOFTER SOIL: 
The dirt that’s left unturned, 
FILTHIEST SOONER, 
Cleanest later, the dream must never spoil. 
ON THIS SOFTER LIE 
Rely, but know the truth of it: 
THE SNORT IF I LOSE, 
The cheer if I win, 
LONER OF THIS SITE 
But owner of the fight that I will choose.

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

I am not a Number......!

Apparently, I have a Long Penis. Well, it came from the intermanet, so it must be true! Yesterday, I received an e-mail purporting to be from Paypal. It was addressed simply to “2”. It told me that I was to treat the communication as a receipt for the payment of $1,825 which I had just made via my Paypal account to “sexito@yahoo.com” for the undermentioned item. It had the Paypal logo on it and everything and it looked quite plausible. The ’undermentioned item’ was that best-seller, the ever-popular Long Penis / VS 2480 (Item # 75977994). You know the one? And there was a hyperlink to a website with an incredibly long URL. And no, I didn’t! Deep down, I suspected the message’s veracity, but it unnerved me for three reasons: (1) had someone hijacked my Paypal account? (2) would I now have to spend a possible fortune on some Huge Underpants? and (3) would it fit through my letter-box? I must admit I panicked a bit, because I wasn’t really sure what to do next. First, I telephoned Trading Standards and reported it (I should have done that last, really). I then logged on to my Paypal account and changed my password and security questions; while I was doing this, I spotted something that reassured me somewhat: the debit card associated with the account was an old one (I had not used the account for ages) so the money could not have been taken anyway. I then telephoned Paypal where a very nice Irish lady called Anne-Marie told me that what I had done with my account was correct and confirmed that such an amount of money would not have been authorised to be deducted from the account as it was still classed as “unverified”. She also asked me to forward the e-mail to them, which I did. Whilst writing this, I have received a reply thanking me for reporting it, saying that they were investigating the matter fully and confirming that the e-mail had indeed not emanated from them. The people who sent the e-mail obviously hoped to gain information about my Paypal account, and also that, out of the thousands of people the same message was sent to, at least some of them would have a small penis. Ner!

Friday, May 13, 2005

Electric Shopping

Our local Waitrose supermarket recently re-opened after a major refurbishment and I now do my shopping with the aid of electrickery. You have to have a John Lewis Partnership credit card (which a very nice lady let me sign up for when I went in the store a few weeks ago) and you go to a bank of scanners and swipe the card down one of the slots. A screen says “Welcome, Lois!” (marvellous!) and one of the scanner cradles lights up, showing you which one to take. When you pick it up, the display on it says “Welcome, Lois!” (how can it get any better?) The first time you do your electric shopping, they give you 4 jolly good quality bags (2 large, 2 small) into which you bung your provisions after you have scanned each item. How does that nice Mr Waitrose know you’ve scanned everything in your bags? Well, he trusts you. But sometimes, if he’s feeling a bit tetchy and suspicious, he’ll come in unexpectedly and turn your trolley over. He will repack the bags for you, though, and very nicely, I am reliably informed. When you scan certain items, the device will emit a loud danger signal – it frightened me to death the first time it happened – but this simply means the item is subject to some sort of special offer: £1.50 each, buy 2 for £2.75 (ooh, beep! beep!); 3 for the price of 2 (ooh, beep! beep! beep!); I’m sure I can hear Mr Waitrose on his way to the bank, guffawing rather loudly. Well, when you’ve finished cramming stuff into the luvverly green bags, you go to the Quick Check Counter and complete your transaction, all without having to talk to a single soul. You can studiously ignore any of Mr Waitrose’s Little Helpers even if they ask if you need any assistance or wonder if you’re having a nice day. You just stick the John Lewis card in the slot and a message on the screen says “Well done, you’ve finished your shopping, Lois, and Mr Waitrose says thank you and hahahahahahaha!” or something like that; then it tells you to take out that card and insert your payment card (of course, it can be the same one, if you like); it thinks for a little bit, then prints your receipt and gives your card back. Fantastic! You almost want to stay a little bit longer, and you feel as if you’ve been cheated in some way. Which of course you have been, otherwise you wouldn’t have bought 249 items for the price of 250 and loads of food which will be well past its eat by date before you’ve eaten all the other food. Still, it’s marvellous what they can do with electrickery these days.

Friday, May 06, 2005

What's My Line?

Today, I have been mostly losing the will to live. Allow me to elaborate. I am sorry but this blog has ended up quite a bit longer than I anticipated it would be. Many of you know we have a pub. Andrew (First Boy, who used to be Manager but who now has another job) still lives in the flat above. He now has a slaptop and wants to install wireless broadband. Simple task? Hmmm. He has bought a router and made enquiries of BT, whose monthly rate is quite reasonable (£16 or so for a 1Mb service). Snag – because it’s a pub, it’s a business line and the charge will double. Andrew does not want to pay double – I don’t blame him. So what to do? Wannado! (See what I did there?). They won’t know it’s a business line, will they? I dunno, it’s worth a go (look! I did it again!). He telephoned Wannado, who checked the line. Ooh! It’s already broadband enabled for BT Openworld, say Wanadoo. Apparently, someone previously had made enquiries of BT Openworld about broadband but failed to pursue it and, as a result, there is something called a marker on the line which prevents it being enabled for another ISP’s broadband service. He contacted a BT engineer we know for some advice. Acting upon the advice given, Andrew spoke to someone at BT who said that he would e-mail BT Openworld to arrange for release of the marker. Understandably anxious to be up and running as soon as possible, he rang me from work (as he had decided that it was about time he actually did some work) to ask if I could speak to someone at the number he had been given to see if: (1) there was some way to chivvy this along and, (2) how long would it take to do. Because I love him, I did it, albeit with a sense of foreboding. *dials number given* BT Openworld: “Thank you for calling BT Openworld. Calls will be charged at the rate of 50 pence per minute, and will not last longer than 25 minutes. My name is completely unintelligible and I probably will not be able to help you. Please state the e-mail address attached to your intermanet connection.” Me: “There is no intermanet connection here. I have spoken to BT this morning [lie] because we want to set up an intermanet connection here. We want to use another ISP but apparently there is a marker on the line for BT Openworld and the other ISP cannot enable the line for their service because of this marker. The person at BT said he will send an e-mail to the Department concerned, i.e you, so that the marker can be removed. He gave me your number and the reason I am ringing is to ask if the process can be carried out as speedily as possible and, if so, how long will it take?” BT Openworld: “Hello?” Me: “Oh, fucking hell!” BT Openworld: “Pardon?” Me: “Sorry! What’s the weather like in Calcutta, by the way?” BT Openworld: “Pardon?” Me: “Never mind.” *repeats entire paragraph starting “There is no intermanet connection here.”* BT Openworld: “I’m afraid I do not understand your query.” Me: “Right! I will try and use as many words of one syllable as possible!” BT Openworld: “Pardon?” Me: “Never mind.” *largely repeats same paragraph using shorter words* BT Openworld: “I am afraid you need Technical Support, Sir!” Me: “I certainly do and I am sure that is the first accurate statement you have ever made in your BT Openworld career. I was not aware I was talking to the Furniture Polish and Paper Clip Procurement Department.” BT Openworld: “Pardon?” Me: “Never mind. Can you give me their number, please?” BT Openworld: “0906 etc.” Me: “Thank you very much indeed.” BT Openworld: “It has been a pl….” (slam!) *Dials second number* BT Openworld: “Thank you for calling BT Openworld. Calls will be charged at the rate of 50 pence per minute, and will not last longer than 25 minutes. My name is also completely unintelligible and I probably will not be able to help you either. Please state the e-mail address attached to your intermanet connection.” Me: *recites usual paragraph* BT Openworld: “I’m afraid I don’t underst…” Me: “Can I speak to your Supervisor, please?” BT Openworld: “You want to speak to my Supervisor, Sir?” Me: “Yes, that’s right.” BT Openworld: “One moment, please, Sir.” *waits* BT Openworld: “My supervisor is coming right along.” Me: “Good!” BT Openworld Supervisor: “Can I help you, Sir?” Me: “I do hope so!” *repeats paragraph* BT Openworld Supervisor: “So…” *Supervisor repeats paragraph, substituting personal pronouns as appropriate* Me: “Yes, exactly!” BT Openworld Supervisor: “This is the Narrowband Help Desk. You need to speak to BT to ask them to remove the marker.” Me: “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” BT Openworld Supervisor: “Pardon?” Me: “Sorry! Er…can you give me the number, please?” BT Openworld Supervisor:Certainly, Sir, it’s 0800 800 151.” Me:”Thank you very much!” BT Openworld Supervisor:”No problem, Sir! It has been a pl……” (slam!) *Dials 0800 800 151* BT (automated voice): “To have a line tested or report a fault, press 1; for all other repair enquiries, press 2. For all other enquiries, press 9.” *presses 9 without much enthusiasm* BT: “Due to the high volume of calls being dealt with currently, there will be a significant delay and you will have to wait your arse off at our pleasure. One of our representatives will be with you as soon as possible.” *waits* *waits a bit longer* *switches phone to speaker and puts it on desk* *does some work” BT: “Hi! Thank you for calling BT, my name is Lisa, please give the telephone number which has the fault.” Me: “Actually, there isn’t a fault as such.” *again repeats the standard paragraph* BT: “Well, this is Faults, you need Customer Services.” Me: “Oh, f- ! Ahem! Can you give me their number?” BT: “Yes! 0800 800 150, but I can put you through!” Me: “Thank you!” *waits* BT: “Hi! My name is Bob and how can I help you today?” *clears throat and repeats standard paragraph* BT: “OK! I’ll just consult Technical.” *waits* Actually, this BT person was really pleasant and helpful and he had a sense of humour. BT: “Phew! Well, you have my sympathy. I’ve not been with BT that long but I never thought that something that on the face of it was so simple could be so complicated!” Me: “Tell me about it!” Well, one or two further conversations took place and the upshot is we will have to wait about a week to ten days for the marker to be removed, then to ring another 0800 number if it isn’t. That last call took 45 minutes and 6 seconds (true!) and the BT man remarked that, compared to the effort involved in trying to solve my problem, finding the Holy Grail would have been a piece of cake! I thanked him and said he had nearly made everything all right again with that remark! And, no, I don’t know his name, or if he was wearing a mask!

Thursday, May 05, 2005

Wonders never cease!

Well, I’ll go to the foot of our Bill’s brother’s trousers! Not only did Matt (1) bother to go and vote for the first time in his life he was able to, but (2) he made a sensible comment upon the laughable security of an electoral system which permits someone to go to the polling station and vote without having a polling card or being required to show any form of identification (when I told him that, he said “Whaaaaaat? That’s ridiculous!” That’s pretty sensible - and mightily restrained - for him!) As long as you know another voter’s name and address, you’re home and dry. And getting a postal vote? Nothing simpler; do what several media people have done (although they might get their just desserts or at least a hefty rap on their naughty knuckles), complete an application form, send it to the electoral registration officer with instructions to send the ballot paper anywhere in the world (yes, true fact) and Robert’s your relative. Photographic ID has been a necessity to vote in elections in Northern Ireland since 2003, and individual voter registration came in at the same time. The latter makes it easier for signatures to be checked. Why can’t those measures be brought in on the mainland? I understand why security is particularly important in the Province but, for years, we have been told by government that there is no evidence of widespread electoral fraud. No-one’s been found out, they mean! Until now; it has been established to have taken place in Birmingham and Blackburn, and investigations continue in Bradford, Burnley, Leicester and High Wycombe. Goodness knows where else, after the dust has settled tonight and tomorrow morning. Whoever is in power after the results for the General Election are declared, GET………IT………SORTED!

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Giddy macaws honor rio – pah!

SIMON RICHARD GOODWAY – GOD OR ROWDYISH MANIAC? Will we ever know? Probably not. I’M A WORDY, SARDONIC HOG but I don’t think there is anything sufficiently evocative in the English language to describe him. NOW, HOARY SORDID MAGIC might be able to achieve this seemingly impossible task. OH, ODD MAGICIANS WORRY, too, about its efficacy and I remain sceptical. He has been able to WORM HIS GOOD RADIANCY into the lives of many people – well, perhaps ‘worm’ isn’t a very apt word as it suggests creeping, secretive slitheriness, and it hasn’t happened like that. I am pleased to refute any such suggestion that his intentions are other than GOOD. HORRID MANIC WAYS simply do not exist in his philosophy. He is definitely not SHADOWY, GRIM, OR ON ACID but is neither GAY, MACHO OR SORDID. WIN him over and you have a friend for life. There he sits, in a lonely hotel room, in a Windsor chair - O MY GOD A WINDSOR CHAIR! – his eyes firmly fixed upon his computer screen, working down the list of things to DO AMID WORRYING CHAOS, dreaming up yet another fascinating tale about A COWARD HIRING SODOMY, perhaps, or a happy singing cake keeping itself WARM IN A CHOIR SO DODGY that even a singing cake doesn’t seem out of place. He often reflects upon incidents in his life and realises he ought to have said to himself ‘Following some GRAND WASHROOM IDIOCY, I must conceal my DOWDYISH GROIN OR A CAM might show it to the world.’ When, however, he has amassed millions by dint of his amazing talents and is ensconced in his ivory tower, he can say to himself ‘I’M A WORDY RICH GOON, SAD though that may be for all of you. Take this huge pile of money and convert it to pizza. Oh, and keep the change.’

Monday, April 25, 2005

Ladyblokes and a major cock-up at Channel 4

Yesterday was only remarkable for the presence of men on bicycles dressed as ladies – the men, that is, not the bikes. I was busy compiling Thursday’s pub quiz and looking at some holiday cottages that Loretta had found, many of which she could only have afforded if accompanied by 249 other people (Simon’s suggestion). Upon hearing a slight commotion, I glanced out of the window. The glance was quickly transformed into a good long look, followed by (or even combined with) some baffled staring. Streaming into the Tesco car park opposite were several cyclists. On closer scrutiny, it turned out they were all men wearing women’s clothing! Was it a meeting of the New Forest Cross Dressing Cyclists Society? Were they part of the Tandems For Transvestites campaign? The mystery was cleared up later in the day when I met a couple of them in Tesco. I asked what the occasion was and one of them said it was a stag party for his cousin. I commented that I thought it was a top stunt and wished them all the best. I considered mentioning to the other one that his dress was pretty but that it didn’t go with his complexion or his beard and moustache, but thought better of it. It was pretty, though.

Later, I watched (from Number 30 upwards) the Top 100 Children’s TV Programmes (as voted for by YOU!) and would just like to issue the following statements to Channel 4: (1) I know where you live, and (2) if you continue to maintain that ‘The Simpsons’ is a children’s programme, I will come round there and beat you all senseless until you desist from such ludicrous contentions. That’s all, really.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Life's Like That

Supposing life was like a file system? My housekeeping schedule would contain things like:
Open C:\My Stuff\body\eye\left and C:\My Stuff\body\eye\right

Move C:\My Stuff\body\arse from C:\My House\rooms\bedroom\furniture\bed Overwrite C:\My Stuff\body with selected contents of C:\My Stuff\clothes\clean

If that’s empty, select (in descending order) from:- (1) C:\My Stuff\clothes\dirty\whiff_factor 1 (2) C:\My Stuff\clothes\dirty\whiff_factor 2 (3) C:\My Stuff\clothes\dirty\handle_with_gloves

Extract C:\My Transport\cars\current fromC:\My House\rooms\garage Do not copy anything from C:\My Stuff\breakdowns\cars

Goto C:\buildings\commercial\retail\Waitrose
Run C:\My Stuff\finance\purchase\bin\overspend.exe
Run C:\My Stuff\emotions\bin\panic.exe
Delete C:\My Stuff\age\last_30_years_at_least
Copy C:\My Stuff\body\arm\left\upper to C:\My Stuff\body\bits_not_hurting
Copy C:\My Stuff\body\back\lower to C:\My Stuff\body\bits_not_hurting
Run C:\My Stuff\bin\tchoh!getalife.exe

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Writing wrongs....

The nice mechanic who examined Matt’s car for to award it a luvvly crisp VOSA MOT Test Certificate today has just been awarded (by me) the Nobel Prize for the Most Illegible Writing In The Whole Wide World. 

Apparently, there was a problem with all 4 worm and inchkin walls and we have to replace the black hazelnut clam paper as soon as possible. He has also charged us £100 for 4 Wertlab Tyes, £6 for a Tripe Rub and £16 towards a Newt Region. He can bloody well whistle as far as I’m concerned! I'm as keen on the environment as the next man with a woman's name, but I’m not paying more than a tenner towards a Newt Region! What worries me more is that the Certificate indicates that it expires on tfiril 11 2006. Will those in authority accept this as a true fact, whenever that is? 

Who knows, but hope springs eternal……

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Dear Powergen....

As a result of the telephone call to Powergen I’ve just had, I would respectfully suggest that they reword the standard letter which we received at the pub recently. “To: The Best Pub In The New Forest Customer Reference Number: 80110cx5 2 u Dear Customer Thank you for changing - without even realising you had - to Business Electricity Plan Flexirate 2. You'll see this change on your next bill from us. As a Powergen customer with a Business Electricity Plan contract, your prices will be fixed for the length of your contract and we're pleased to be able to give details of the Business Electricity Plan you believe you have chosen all by yourself without any help from us overleaf. Remember, if you are a Tesco Clubcard holder and you have a mere 15 minutes 55 seconds to waste, please contact us at the number below to attempt to register your Clubcard with us as part of a promotion which, as you will soon discover, is only available to Residential customers. Please try and ensure that, before ringing, you have a telephone with a speaker button so that you can get on with some work while you wait the 14 minutes 55 seconds it takes to actually answer your call. With this scenario in mind, you will, of course, appreciate that our operative will thereby have actually dealt with your actual call very quickly indeed, actually. Do remember this call will be free but it would be of great help to obviate delays for other customers with genuine account queries if you were to ring on a separate occasion just to thank us for not charging you for ringing us - this usually only takes 12 minutes 40 seconds. You would - if the Clubcard facility were available to you - earn 1 point for every £1 you spend on your energy. That's 224 points a month you will learn you will have lost just by ringing us - free! Yours faithfully, Elaine Harley Customer Service” Tchoh! Guess which two words out of the last four don’t go together!

Sunday, April 10, 2005

The Limerick Thingy

Some of you will be familiar with the above feature of a certain rubbish website and the monotonous regularity with which it is hijacked! One such recent occasion has prompted me to complete a quite promising piece of doggerel which was cruelly vandalised by a regular contributor whose good lady is possibly one of the most perceptive people in Devon today. A \/\/311 l33t hax0r c4113d 573v3
r3l83d 2 4d4/\/\ 4nd 3v3
\/\/4z h34rd 70 3xc141/\/\
01 u! \/\/075 uR g4m3?
i/\/\ 4fr41d i /\/\u57 47x u 2 134v3 You may or may not need to go and look at this

Friday, April 08, 2005

It’s plagiarism, but I like it

Well, it’s not full plagiarism, it’s plagiarism of style or method of presentation or something – the content is all mine. I like to think that’s not quite so heinous a crime as the out and out theft of a whole literary opus. It is indicative, perhaps, of a lack of original thought but, well, I’ve done it quite a few times over the years and I’m fairly comfortable with it. You may recall a recent instance. I’ve also done it before that. I’m sure many of you are familiar with The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. I won’t repeat the explanation given but I did some of my own, using place-names around my local area. Rightly or wrongly, I hereby share them with you. GUSSAGE ALL SAINTS - Gussaging was something unspeakably messy done to a fish prior to its being cooked and, in fact, was a popular torture inflicted upon heretics during the Spanish Inquisition. In such times of tremendous religious intolerance, violent gangs used to march about shouting "Gussage all saints!" and if they found one, this is what they did. Sometimes, individuals were victimised and the mob would go on the rampage, chanting things like "Gussage St Michael!" However, even when in such moods, they would not be too bothered if St Michael wasn't around, as long as they were able to gussage some other poor sod. In a strange way, though, this indicated a degree of tolerance and, over the years, a breakaway faction was formed which considered this apathy to be a weakening of purpose and they began to specialise in wimborning, the word ‘wimborne’ having derived from the last words of the first known victim, St Giles: "Wish I'm born", (as opposed to dead, which state was brought on by repeated blows with stale loaves of bread filled with lead). Ever since then, the group went around chanting "Wimborne St Giles!" whoever they intended to do it to. At about the same time, another group was formed whose firm preference was to charlton all saints, which meant, basically, set them on fire. The group was disbanded after quite a short time, however, because, as matches hadn't been invented, they had to rub pieces of wood rapidly along their victim's body in an effort to ignite him and this was just too much like hard work. In any case, it didn't really instil a lot of fear in those likely to receive the punishment as it was soon realised that the worst they were likely to suffer was splinters and possibly a little light bruising. MONKTON UP WIMBORNE - It is probably best to draw a veil (or, perhaps, a cassock) over this vile practice which was quite common in the late 1500s, some time after the wimborners ceased carrying out their bigoted attacks. The main piece of equipment required, however (and the reason for inclusion of the "wimborne" part of the name), was still a stale loaf of bread stuffed with lead, although the main difference was that it had to have been baked in a thinnish cylindrical shape, rather like the modern baguette. The practice was, thankfully, confined to groups of monks belonging to the Order of Filthy Habits and its popularity slowly waned, disappearing by the end of the 16th Century. Bored with the solitude which was an essential requisite, the monks wished to share some of their dubious "habits" with the population at large and they began to travel round the towns and villages giving the menfolk what became known as "sixpenny handleys". Sixpence was a great deal of money in those days, though, and the monks' customers soon began to subscribe to the increasingly more varied (and much cheaper) services of the local strumpets. Sixpenny handleys were still known by this name but the cost of them, as for many other facilities, had been much reduced. The fee levied for full sex was, for example, a penny farthing, hence the phrase (originally quite complimentary) "she's the village bike", although this did not obviously come into general usage until much later. Interestingly, there are other practices which were given names that have since proved derivational - a very popular one at the time based upon its price was a "deep groat". BUCKLERS HARD – A physical condition, named after one of the monks (Father Damien Buckler, a founder member of the Order of Filthy Habits) which was essential to enable a sixpenny handley to be successfully administered. LIMPLEY STOKE - A very slow, lazy thrusting action with a (usually metal) poker whereby a fire that's burning perfectly well is just gently disturbed. It is really an unnecessary action and quite commonly carried out almost subconsciously as an aid to mental relaxation or meditation. MOCKBEGGAR - A mockbeggar used to be a derogatory taunt directed specifically at a peasant or some other unsavoury low life who accosted you in the street and tried to solicit money or sell you something you did not want, e.g. "Thou foul smelling, noisome varlet; seek remunerative employment somewhere or return to the midden whence ye came - oh, and by the by, take yon mangy wolf hound with thee!" It was then customary for your companion to compliment you by saying something like "Sooth! Thy mockbeggar was most wicked!" The mockbeggar has evolved to cover all kinds of situations and now encompasses such remarks as "Bugger off, sunshine! You must be blind if you can't see the fluorescent yellow notice stuck on the door saying I don't buy stuff from callers and the fact that I've already got double glazing." BEER HACKETT - This was the name given to anything that was used to open a Worthington Party Seven. It was invariably something like a screwdriver or chisel because no one ever had the right tool, especially the sophisticated tap device that prevented beer from spraying up like a geyser all over the ceiling, furniture and guests when you did eventually open it. SHILLINGSTONE - In essence, an early beauty treatment. In the early 1600s, in an effort to improve the general public's moral attitudes, believing that a healthy body led to a healthy mind, local clergy introduced what must have been the first health farms by setting up institutions around the district and encouraging people to attend them regularly. All they had to do was pay a total of one shilling (in instalments) for a course of 6 months' special body toning. The shilling's-tone (later contracted to shillingstone), as it came to be called, rapidly fell into disfavour, however, and everyone soon went back to being fat, lazy and flatulent. This condition must have achieved significant popularity, continuing, as it has done, to the present time. STRATFORD TONY - William Shakespeare's bookie. Although there was no horse racing in those days, a number of opportunities existed for a bookie to rake in hard earned readies from the local populace. There was so much villainy around, it would be more accurate to label these readies hard-pinched or, so far as the landed gentry were concerned, hard extorted. Murder and mayhem seemed to be the order of the day and life was generally terribly unhygienic and pretty unbearable. Everyone was so despicable to everyone else, it was almost worth being beaten to death to be free of it. The longer someone bet they could go without being mugged, strangled or disembowelled, the better the odds Tony would offer. Mind you, nobody ever collected any winnings from him since they were always killed before expiry of the period they had bet on (usually by someone Tony hired to do the job). It is believed that Shakespeare regularly placed bets with Tony and the most common were, for example, that someone would understand one of his plays or that everyone would stay awake during a performance of King Lear. He never won a groat. NETHER WALLOP - As already described, crime of one sort or another abounded in the Middle Ages, particularly the kind whereby bodily harm (grievous or otherwise) was inflicted upon people for a variety of reasons. One of the favourite disabling manoeuvres was the nether wallop which, as the name suggests, would render a (male) victim completely helpless for some time. Less popular was the middle wallop which required more brute force and which only resulted in temporary incapacity, although it provided the perpetrator the opportunity to follow up with something more deadly. An over wallop was really the result of misjudging the power of the blow actually administered. PRESTON PLUCKNETT - A device originally brought into use in the early days of the Preston "Guilds" (held in the Lancashire town during the same week each year) which consisted of a very large string bag made of thin strong cord into which feathers from freshly killed ducks and chickens were stuffed. The cord was closely woven to prevent the contents from spilling out and, when it was full, it was covered in a cotton sack, sewn up, given a "TOG*" rating and used as a bed cover. * Tested On Gabriel - Gabriel Du Vey was a textiles expert who developed a system of certification for this type of bed cover. The test procedure involved him being wrapped inside one wearing only a pair of thin bedsocks and locked in a refrigerated meat cupboard. He would then give a numerical rating based upon the number of his extremities which, after a fixed period of time, had not gone cold. In honour of his work, the bed covers were named after him, and, for years, many people slept with a soft warm gabriel on top of them. The covers are, of course, now known as duvets but the origin of the word is unknown.