BBC NEWS | Youths admit Royal balloon prank

BBC NEWS England Bradford Youths admit Royal balloon prank

"The court heard how the (bursting) balloons had sounded like gunshots to trained firearms officers..." Trained in what exactly?

What an Expedience!

Sad news befell this household yesterday, with the death of my Dad's sister after a long illness. My Dad originates from Italy and all of his family remain there. When the news came that his sister had been admitted to hospital, he decided to go over to visit before it was too late. Having been too late for his mum and his late sister's husband, he really wanted to get there in time. Unfortunately, she was ever so poorly and died yesterday and the earliest he could fly was today. A complete bummer.

I'd already decided to take today off work so I could take him to the airport. This meant that I was up late last night when my sister phoned after hearing the news; she wanted to accompany Dad on his trip and could I Expedia her there and arrange a return on Monday?

Well, what a kerfuffle.

You do a flight search and the appropriate outbound flight appears amongst the selection. So you clicky away: no, I don't want a hotel; no, I don't need a hire car; yes I agree to the terms and conditions; yes, I want to proceed to book. Oh, I have to add my sister as a traveller: clickity-click, tappety-tap. Clicky..... "Sorry, one of your flights is not available, please try another." What the fuck? Which flight isn't available? Tell me which flight isn't available!!!

Start again, try coming back later on Monday... Clickity, tappety, clicky. No, no hotel; no, don't need insurance; no, DON'T WANT A FUCKING CAR. JUST PROCEED TO BOOK!!!! YES, I just fucking clicked that I agree to everything you fucking want the last time!!!! Which traveller? Dr Fucking Who the fucking time-travelling Time Lord, who do you think the traveller is? The same one as before, that's who! "Sorry, one your flights is not available, please try another."

Eventually I had ten itineraries that wouldn't book. The air was blue. I was very, very stressed and extremely tired. I tried a final time and managed to get her some weird trip that means she spends Sunday night in Frankfurt airport, but at least she managed to get out there with Dad today and he's not on his own.

Airport lounges from Hell
Took 'em to the airport this morning. Lufthansa are EXTREMELY efficient; excellent service. In all honesty, the Expedia thing was excellent; who'd have thought that you could be booking a plane ticket 12 hours before flying just a few years ago?

Anyway, back to the airport. £2.10 for half an hour's parking (that's the time it takes to park); and an exponential upwardly-sliding scale thereafter. Nice. For some reason, and bugger only knows why, I decided to join them in something to eat there and thought Burger King would be a safe option. A cheesy whopper, spicy bean burger and some chips came to £8. EIGHT POUNDS STIRLING? The burger was grey, and cold. It was covered in mayo (disgusting) and iceberg lettuce (readers of previous posts will know of my dislike of this shit). I was tempted to go and give my commendation to the chef, saying, "That was absolutely delicious! was that a ciabatta with wild venison? You know, one of Nigella's? Or did you go for River Cafe?" Might as well have been for the bloody price, the robbing bastards.

Then when we were seeing them through to the departure lounge, after hugs and kisses, I said the strangest of things - even for me. Bearing in mind his sister died yesterday and he's going over there to see his other rellies and hopefully be there for the funeral, it's all going to be very distressing given some other ongoing family issues. As he turned away, I said to him, "Have fun!"

Answers on a postcard please.

Bollocks to buggery!

What a lot of stuff and nonsense!

What is? Nothing actually. It’s just that Blogger is having a crisis so I’m e-mailing a post in anticipation of it reaching my blog sometime around mid-June.

Dairy Milk Chocolate Buttons Easter eggs
Surely it can’t be safe for these things to be targeted at anybody under the age of 21? I’ve just eaten the packet of buttons from mine, and Mother had some too, and there were so many that I now feel quite sick. How am I expected to eat my Aero egg now?

Ridiculous.

Terrible misfortune befell this cakesniffer today: I had an impromptu meeting with my potential new boss – today! With my face in this state! They’ll be checking the job advert to see that it doesn’t mention the ideal candidate being a glue-sniffing, teenage fast food service operative.

Bubonic plague

I've caught bubonic plague: my face is covered with pustulant sores. I suppose I'm my own worst enemy in that I can't resist squeezing anything that I think has potential to squirt out all over the bathroom mirror. My eyebrows need plucking too; I'm beginning to resemble wolf girl again. I'm sure these contributions to my overall appearance will stand me in good stead at my forthcoming job interview.

JOB INTERVIEW????
Blimey, yes, that's something I ought to be preparing for. The whole interview process is a pain in the arse. Arriving, then waiting for an age while they call you in. Invariably there's a presentation in which you try very hard to prevent your top lip sticking to your top gum. This is often done by taking a drink of refreshing water, holding the glass with an extremely shaky hand. The last thing you need when you're in an interview is to feel overly self conscious, but there's absolutely no way of avoiding it with 4 people staring at you and interrogating you.

It's freezing here today.

Orange wrists

A comment to my post yesterday was from some joker called "Hiddenfish". This twat spammed my blog with his/her ridiculous crap that I didn't even bother reading. Arsehole. I really hate it when people write in language that they think makes them look clever. They don't realise that it's only clever if it conveys a clear message that can be understood by the general readership. Using big words and philosophical arguments may impress a college tutor, but it just makes you look a complete wanker.

I don't really care though because I've just had hot cross buns again and they were delish. Today is Easter Day and what an uninspiring day it is here in a dull Northern English town - and I don't just mean the weather. There's not even a biblical epic on the telly. How slack is that? I could just go a Greatest story ever told or Ben Hur.

Update: "The Ten Commandments" is on Sky Cinema at 2.30pm

I think I might go and find some baby sheeps and cows to see if they can make me feel a bit more springy. It'd be great if you looked out of your window onto your suburban surroundings to find that some weird mix of enviornments had occurred while the curtains were shut. Imagine a tower block in the middle of the rain forest (won't be long the way things are going). Or how about opening the blinds to see lambs bouncing across the street and calfs grazing on your lawn?

The fox hunts could be brought into the cities: instead of hunting foxes, they could set the hounds onto local ne'er-do-wells (and gangs of teenagers). Everybody would be happy - except the local scrotes and shitbag up-their-own-arse kids, but who gives a shit about them?

My right ankle doesn't half crack and creak.

"I'm terrible allergic, you see"

Some people have allergies to the oddest things. I think severe allergies are nature's way of introducing population control, you know, survival of the fittest and all that?

Of course, being super fit, with an excellent genetic make-up, I have no allergies. Or should I say almost no allergies? I do suffer a strange reaction around vacuum cleaners: my blood pressure rises; I go red in the face; all my muscles tense up; and I find it difficult to stop myself running around the house, screaming. As soon as the noise stops, I'm OK. I hate the fucking things when other people are operating them, but I'm OK using one myself. It all stems from Sunday afternoons in my childhood when I'd be trying to watch Mr Magoo and Betty Boop with Mother torturing me with the Hoover; making me lift my feet up and wandering backwards and forwards in front of the telly.

Follow your "Bliss"

It's no coincidence that the expression of my growing unease at the state of today's youth appears on the interweb the same day that the Angry Chimp publishes his very revealing interview with 14-year-old Bliss editor and notorious crack whore, Helen Jenkins.

Many happy return of the said Chimp, I've missed him lots and I've been finding it most difficult to keep up with current affairs in his absence.

Crap hair
I'm not really in the position to be making comments about other people's hair dos, but there are so many hair DON'TS out there at the moment, something has to be said. What is it with these shocking half-mullets where theres a whole chunk of head that's been shaved? Fucking tossers, don't they realise they look utterly stupid? I suppose they're not harming anybody, but I bet their mothers are ashamed of them.

Pimp my ride
This is a superb TV programme on MTV. I'm not sure West Coast Customs of California would be able to do much with my 2002 Nissan to make it look like a pimp's car, but I'm sure "Kroozin" of Swinton might have some "cool" accessories to make it look like a something driven by a load of Asian youths. Who am I kidding? It already does! All I need is a Bangra CD and a tin can tail-pipe extension and I'm there.

Magic Roundabout Easter Bucket Massacre
I couldn't hold out until Sunday for my Easter choclit so I demolished the contents of my Magic Roundabout Easter egg bucket this afternoon. Never mind. I'm not even bothered.

Lock 'em all up!

Angry Chimp says: "For an alternative perspective on modern youth, be sure and read the well researched and balanced article at Cakesniffers entitled ‘Lock ‘em all up!’"

Fucking kids are all a bunch of complete shits and they all need locking up from the age of about 3 to 20 - along with their useless shitbag parents!

There's a blank post from yesterday evening (below). I was going to post some amusing anecdote about something or other, but I was so incensed by something that had happened that I just shut down and went to bed.

As I'd gone to close the gate over our drive, I noticed that some little darlings had left a huge trolley from the local DIY centre parked across it, so I dutifully took it back to where it belonged, seething as I went.

On walking back to the house, I noticed three charmingly-attired young girls walking up the road, sniggering to themselves, whispering loudly enough so I could hear "That's her that walks the cat, here pussy, pussy". You see, Max often follows folk around and likes go for a wander with his people; it's a little odd, but nobody's hurt by this, nobody's affected by it, it's nobody's fucking business to tell you the truth - if he was a dog, would it be an issue? No. But one of these little bitches decided to make some comment about it one evening last summer and I lost my rag. For some reason, she's so upset by my cat following me around, that she's still going on about it in front of her friends now - I wonder what she'd say if she was on her own??? So, as they walked up the street last night, all wearing yeti boots and mini skirts - 13 year olds, dressed as whores, she decided to make comment AGAIN. I told her to fuck off. She said something else, I turned back to say "What?" and they ran off, scared of me. Scared of me? Tempting as it was to get in my car, pursue them and mow them down, I resisted and came inside to seeth for a while before going to bed.

The next time I see her, I shall ask if she'd like to discuss what she finds so upsetting about Max following me around, whether she'd be worried about this so much if she didn't have her clones with her, why it's any concern of hers, and why I should give a flying fuck what some 13 year old braindead prostitute thinks of me anyway.

But why can't these unruly little shits leave people alone? What would happen if a bunch of 25-to-30 somethings hung around the streets and started making comments about them and laughing at their ridiculous outfits? I'd like to see that. Unfortunately, most of the 25-to-30 somethings are the parents of these little bastards and they're probably far too busy down the boozer or shagging their latest boyfriends to care what their little angels are up to.

One solution that I'm particularly keen on is for local councils to employ a team of childcatchers who can lock these little fuckers up until they learn some fucking respect!

I ain't even bothered. Face. Bothered? Ask me if I'm bothered. Yeah, I well and truly bothered.

On a lighter note, today is hot cross bun day and I haven't been disappointed with the fayre offered by Hampsons ("So fresh we're famous"). Never heard of Hampsons? You will do, they're very fresh. They're so fresh and famous that they even had to change their name over in Merseyside, where they're known as Sayers.

Missing chimp - can anybody help?

Well, the Angry Chimp has been quietly seething since the emergence of the BBC's blatant plagiarism of his imaginitive reality TV programming. So much so, that this cakesniffer is getting a little concerned.

Go on, ask me if I'm bothered. Look at my face - does it look bothered, though? Does any part of it look bothered? Face. Bothered. Look. Face. Bothered?

I ain't even bothered, though.

The more you eat, the hungrier you are the following day. No idea why that is. But, after a huge amount of delish Indian takeaway food last night, I had to have a sausage barm and two rounds of toast this morning.

Are you calling me a pikey?

Easter Bunny
It's hot cross bun day tomorrow, which also means "no meat BAD Friday". Bah! We can have seafood though. Then it's Easter Egg day on Sunday. Followed by stick your fingers down your throat Bulimia Day on Monday.

I'm sure my pancreas is swollen. Am I bothered, though?

Loon pants

With there being a strong likelihood of a job interview on the horizon, I bought myself a new suit from Mexx the other day. It's a trouser suit and, although Mexx don't offer a range of lengths, they do offer free alterations on trousers when you buy the suit. Great! The chap pinned them up for me while I was there and I noticed that about a foot of fabric would be taken off them for the alteration. Now, I know I'm not the tallest person in the world, but I'm sure that there aren't that many 6'4" women out there. Why on earth do they make standard length trousers so bloody long?

They're a wide leg, so I bet I look a complete tit in them anyway. Saying that though, I always look a tit in interviews, so it makes no difference to me. In fact, it's tempting to take a leaf from the Michael Jackson book of "dressing for the big occasion" and turn up to interviews and court appearances in your pyjamas and slippers. It'd certainly get you noticed. Let's think of the most outragreous outfits for that big job interview (in no particular order or preference):

1. Mardi gras drag queen (on a float!)
2. Father Christmas - ho, ho, ho!
3. Pirate - pirate accent obligatory (avast ye!)
4. Premiership footballer - you'd have to roll over and feign mortal injury every time they hit you with a tricky question
5. Tramp (preferably with Turette's syndrome)
6. Jedi knight/Knight of the Round Table
7. 80s Rock chick, using a synthesiser to simulate Cher's "I believe" voice
8. A nun or other comedy religious figure, accompanied by "bless you my child" wherever you can fit it in
9. Spaceman
10. NHS middle manager

Of course, what I'd REALLY love to do is dress up as Beatrix Kiddo, Samurai sword and all, and perform ninja moves to each question. Now THAT would be an interview worth seeing!

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

And people with false teeth shouldn't eat! My dad, bless him, has false teeth. Lots of people have dentures, some sets are excellent and you hardly notice the user has a mouthful of plastic. My dad is never one to shirk the opportunity to exaggerate and he has taken on the role of false-teeth wearer with great gusto! If you could imagine a caricature of somebody trying to eat with false teeth, that's my Dad. It makes mealtimes particularly pleasant - to the point that I have to leave the table as soon as I've finished because I'd be sick if I stuck around to bear witness. Last night he was crunching roasted, salted chick peas (chick peas again) for about an hour while watching telly last night.

He also does everything in slow motion: when he takes a mouthful of food (and it's always a HUGE mouthful), it sort of happens as slowly as possible, from lifting the fork/spoon, to him lowering his head and finally to him opening his mouth wide enough to accommodate half a plate's worth of pasta/veg/meat/rice. It's truly amazing.

I'm often woken up by him washing his dentures before he goes to bed. He stores them in this plastic container thing and washes them, first under running water with a brush, then by rattling them in the container with some other sort of solution. Then he takes himself to his bedroom where I can hear him rustling the numerous bags of prescription medicines, followed by the pop, pop, pop of him bursting blister packs and organising his 20 pills for the next morning.

I love my parents dearly. I love them so much that it has always really hurt to think of them not being around anymore. But there has to be something that you really can't cope with about the people you love the most - with me, it's my slo-mo Dad and his teeth (and his temper, and his lack of understanding of English, and his Dad-logic).

Of course, I blame Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. If it hadn't been for their appalling management of the economy and theft of pension funds, house prices wouldn't have escalated so much (100% in 4 years compared with salary increases of about 8% over the same period), I'd have been able to move out to a place of my own by now. I was only supposed to be here for 6 months and now it feels like I'm trapped here for ever. Nice.

Royal Doulton in chick pea and tomato horror!

Imagine what it'd be like if inanimate objects weren't inanimate, or were animated even. My toilet bowl wouldn't be very happy today, that's for sure! Having suffered a little tenderness in my guts for the past few weeks, I think the delicious chick pea and tomato soup that I had last night has pushed me over the edge. I think I'll book myself in for a colonoscopy; theres something not right somewhere. It could be something stuck from a pineapple yoghurt, or perhaps even a semi-decomposed cocktail sausage that's lingering from the Boxing Day running buffet. Or a tumour.

Meat is murder (but chicken isn't)
There's an interesting conference about animal welfare going on somewhere at the moment. A number of studies have been highlighted that demonstrate the intelligence, learning ability and "feelings" of farm animals. Did you know that sheep form close friendships? That' s nice to know when you already feel really guilty about not having enough willpower to go vegetarian. I suppose I could stick to chickens and fishes, but sheeps and moo-moos are nice to eat too. And pigsys? We should actually think of eating pig products as an honour - we should worship our porcine buddies for providing us with sausages and bacon.

Anyway, anyone who doubts that animals have feelings should swap places with me most Saturday mornings when Otto wakes me up whinging about his shit monster anxieties and his rumbly tummy. The cats form different relationships with each other: Maisie hates everybody and beats the boys up; Sonny likes of one the stray cats who lives outside, but LOATHES Otto (I'm often woken by Otto whimpering as Sonny is trying to rip his throat out); Max is a bit of a loaner, but he'll attack Otto for a laugh - especially if he can push Otto over into a puddle; Otto is a real sweetie who loves and wants to play with anybody. They all love me as their favourite "can-opener".

Testing AHEMMMM!!

This is another test of the mail-to-blog feature that has, so far, been VERY disappointing. I can feel a customer services enquiry coming on!

Edit: I originally sent this post by e-mail on the 9th of March. Fantastic!

Testing Ahoy!

Of course nobody could ever accuse me of procrastination, but I've been
meaning to change the blog settings for a while now. This means that I
should be able to e-mail posts to my blog, thus evading the scrutiny of
the Nazi Bastard IT Police at work.

One of my favourite words at the moment is irascible. It describes me
perfectly.

Turpy-turpy, top o' da mornin' te ya!

Yes, it's St Turpy-Turpy day and everyone's an Irishman for the day. No doubt, everybody will be having smelly, black Guinness poos tomorrow. Everyone except me of course. I'm English not Oirish, and I don't think I could find any connection with the Emerald Isle if my life depended on it - although I think a great-grandmother may have lived in Belfast for a while. Oh, and I don't drink, so the Guinness (and Guinness poos) are out of the question. I could simulate this by eating lots of charcoal or lots of black pudding, but I don't think it's worth the effort.

Back to black (text), but continuing the colour theme, I feel the time has come to make mention of that scourge of the cutlery tray: the BROWN TEASPOON. Now, I like brown: most of my clothes are brown (or beige); coffee is brown and I love coffee; some of my favourite coloured poos have been brown and brown wee is fantastic. However, brown teaspoons are just disgusting. They're an indictator of shoddy (no-existent) washing up practices and there needs to be a clampdown. I'm going to contact Home Office minister and Salford MP, Hazel Blears, to ask whether the Government can introduce a bill giving the police powers to enter people's homes to assess the brown-ness of their teaspoons and perhaps to extent to powers to search crockery cupboards for telltale signs of greasiness on plates and cups. Perhaps people suspected of not doing their pots properly could be put under house arrest? Just a thought

My insides are all wrong and my ear hurts from where my specs have been digging in today. Oh burdens of my life are manifested in physical erosion. Perhaps a session with my fellow fat fighters might help jiggle the badness out of me.

You want me to do some work?????

Seriously, this is getting out of hand. I've been busy at work in Base 2 for the past 2 days. What's all that about then? I'm supposed to use my time here to catch up on my internet activity! I think it's all building up to me taking some time off on long-term sick with "stress". You can't work in the NHS for 4 years without being off sick because of being crazy and weak, so I guess it's about time I fulfilled my destiny.

If I was more mysterious I'd have a desssstiny, rather than a destiny, and I'd be myssssssterious too.

While on the subject of mental illness, I'm quite pleased with the way my Beatrix Kiddo alter-ego is developing. People start to piss me off and my mind switches over to killer mode: on the outside, I look normal, but inside I'm experiencing the most wonderful images of bloody carnage, death and destruction inflicted by my own fair hands. Lucky that I don't have the full virtual reality of feeling the squeeze of size 6 motorcycle leathers, I can definitely live without that.

I've got to go now. The boss is coming over from the Dark Side to use my computer because his is shagged. I'm sure his PC is fine, he just wants me scintillating company for a couple of hours.

Feed me!

Well, I haven't got the faintest idea what a feed is, but there's one associated with this blog. If somebody can enlighten me as to what a feed is and atoms and RSS and XMLs and things, I'll be very grateful. The only thing I know about feeding is to do with food going into my tummy - obviously food that is prepared properly and fits criteria laid down in a previous post.

Went to Fat Fighters tonight; I worked myself so hard that at one point I almost had liver coming up through my nose, and I'm not talking about the liver I had for my tea. Liver for tea????? Yeah, and there was black pudding too, it was fuckin' delish!

Sitting around
Again, there were a lot of people at the gym, just sitting on machines staring into space. I could throttle them! Do your reps and fuck off so somebody else can use the bloody thing, you selfish twat! Jeez, some people eh? It could be worth conducting a survey to assess what exactly they're thinking about. Nothing most probably by the look of them - they don't seem to have much going on between their ears.

Buses do my head in
Stupid things. You give up half the width of the road to them and they still insist on blocking the bits for other vehicles. Hardly fair is it? Then you get the leftie greenies saying that there's too much congestion and we need more bus lanes and buses. I'm sorry, but from where I'm sat, it's the fact that you've reduced road capacity by introducing bus lanes that's caused the congestion in the first place. If you take a two-lane stretch of road, then reduce its width to one lane, then that means the traffic has to occupy a longer stretch of road. It's not rocket science - of course it's not rocket science, rocket science is about putting things in space, this is about poor bastards trying to get home from work, but heing blocked by fuckwit town and road planners. On my way home through Central Manchester this afternoon, there was a stretch of Oxford Road with about 10-15 buses, all vying for road position and blocking the entire route for the rest of the traffic. It's the buses that are a major contributor to congestion, believe me. It'd take a bloody retard not to see it.

Nobheads.


Sonny the cat has got all but one whisker white - the rogue one is jet black. Wonder what noise he'd make if I pulled it out. Sonny is the one that keeps me company by prowling backwards and forwards across my desk - constantly, over and over again. He purrs all the time too and is very neurotic. He's ginger and he knows it.

Things you can't do when your fingernails are too long

Well, typing is one of them - and how! Taking contact lenses out is another. I'm sure there are other activities that are more comfortable with a shorter nail, but this cakesniffer doesn't know anything about that sort of thing.

I'm quite lazy and I use nail clippers to do my nails - I can't be bother filing them or any of that crap. I prefer Bassett's Trim, or is is TRIM? nail clippers, but they've recently moved production to Korea from the USA and the new ones aren't as good. Whatever you use, nail clippings are uncontrollable and they fly all over the place.

Quite disgusting really.

I used to break nails quite regularly when I was a child and that feeling of broken nail against a smooth surface really goes through you. Sends shivers down me spine just to think about it.


Tesco are going the right way for being on the receiving end of some electronic correspondence from this particular consumer champion. They used to have a really good selection of pasta, now half that aisle's been given over to organic produce and wheat-free crap. They used to sell Neutrogena shampoo, now they don't. They used to sell loads of stuff that I used to buy and NOW THEY DON'T! And they keep moving everything else around. They give too much shelf space over to seasonal goods and forget the every day things that people go in for. Bastards.

Still, somebody will be getting a nice Easter egg, so I bet they won't be complaining.

For some reason, the young chap on the till seemed a little alarmed when I responded "No, they should burn 'em all down!" when he asked if I was collecting computers for schools vouchers. Bloody kids can't even read and the little bastards are pissing about on computers! It's just pure laziness, using PCs as surrogate teachers. No child should be allowed anywhere near a PC until they're in secondary school and until they can read and write properly. Stupid fucked-up way round of doing things.


Check these out!
Now I like a bit of reality TV, but it's a bit tiresome at the moment. Thank God for the imaginations of Veebs and Herge. I can't wait for the next installment of Celebrity Euthanasia Challenge. Perhaps a good reality TV show would involve locking a teacher, a social worker, a nurse, a doctor, a politician and Davina McCall into a house. I wouldn't do anything with them, like film them or anything, I'd just leave them there. At least it'd take some of the useless gits out of the system. I suppose the house could be burnt down on Bommie Night or something.

http://www.jimvanblaricum.com/realitytv.html http://angrychimp.blogspot.com

Chased by the Shit Monster

A strange thing happens to our feline friends every now and again: their tails straighten; ears go back; eyes widen; then they go for it - running around as if possessed by the Devil himself, making that strange kitten purr/miaow, running up and down trees. The untrained human eye just thinks the little beast has gone mad, but look carefully and you'll see that Tiddles is actually being pursued by the Shit Monster!


This is the beast that hides down dark holes until the time is right to spring terror on any poor, unsuspecting moggy. Shit Monster will not let a cat out of its sight and will continue the chase until the terrified pussy frantically digs a hole as if ready to bury itself, proceeding to perform a full bowel evacuation - thereby exorcising its demonic stalker in a flash!


Feeling rubbish
I'm fed up of feeling rubbish. There's nothing specific wrong, but a few niggly aches, constant tiredness, less than clear sinuses and an underlying feeling of unsettled and bloated in my insides.


Cars that I hate
Can't stand Rovers, don't like Mercedeses, hate all people carriers and Vauxhalls are generally pretty crap too. I don't know what it is about the cars mentioned in this list, it's just that when I come across one on my travels, I get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and my inner eye screams out a warning that I'm in the vicinity of a complete nob or some doddery twat that can't drive (or both).

There's a certain category of driver, whom I call Girl Driver. These are young women who drive very aggressively - always too fast and too close with little attention to what else is going on on the road. You can usually find them in something like a Vauxhall Corsa, Citroen Saxo or Peugeot 206, usually about 2" off your back bumper, smoking a fag, on the phone, with a pathetic nobhead of a boyfriend wearing a "Burberry" baseball cap, sat in the passenger seat. Stupid little shits need a really hard kick up the bum with an open-toed sandal.

There's also another type of driver called Woman Driver. Anybody, male or female, can be a woman driver and Woman Driver tends to be the best type of motorist, although they can be a bit overcautious and crap at directions at times. Still, better off getting there a bit later than not at all!

Another thing I've noticed is a propensity for really shit cars to have customised "GB" number plates. What for? These deathtrap piles of junk wouldn't make it all the way round the M60 without conking out, so what's the chance of them ever being driven abroad?


Ring doughnuts round III
I learnt today that some people have only ever had ring doughnuts with an iced sugar coating. It saddens me, the deprivation that some of our children suffer when the rest of us live in a world of such riches.

That'll do for today

Testing Ahoy!

Of course nobody could ever accuse me of procrastination, but I’ve been meaning to change the blog settings for a while now.  This means that I should be able to e-mail posts to my blog, thus evading the scrutiny of the Nazi Bastard IT Police at work.

 

One of my favourite words at the moment is irascible.  It describes me perfectly.

hsvuhauj

husagviuobhdsfv

That was a test because I was having a few techinical problems.

You GOTTA check this out! I know GE's financial services are utter bollocks, but this is brilliant!

http://www.imaginationcubed.com/LaunchPage#

You can draw stuff and share it with your mates. If they're on IM you can draw stuff together on the same canvas! That is smart.

Nazi bastards!

I find it strange that our beloved Tony Bleuuuuhhhhrrr and his cronies are trying so hard to protect us from being murdered by marauding terrorists when the NHS can do a perfectly good job of finishing us off themselves. Deaths in UK from "Islamic" terrorists = none? Deaths in UK from hospital acquired infections (2004) = 950. Deaths from infamous NHS Hyde GP = >300. Deaths and injury from NHS cock-ups = ??????? Deaths from allowing thick people to reproduce and eat/smoke/drink themselves into an early grave = hundreds of thousands!

This begs the question: Is Tony Bleuuuhhhrrrr actually in cahoots with Osama Bin Lid, and are his attempts at creating paranoia and histeria merely a smokescreen for his greater plan? The end points are ultimately the same: a police state; erosion of our civil liberties; lots of innocent people dead. For fuck's sake, we were on the verge of being invaded by the Nazis and we still had more freedom than we've got now! The guy should get a grip. Fucking tosser.


IT Police Shitheads
I find it very flattering that people comment on some of my posts and I try to respond, either in this blog or on the pages of those who have been so kind as to visit me. I also have moments of inspiration while I'm at work, I think, I must blog that! Unfortunately, the IT Nazi Bastard Police at work only allow the blog to be viewed and the commenting and posting pages in Blogger are "Forbidden by the ratings check". Even worse, whenever you happen on a "forbidden" site, you are warned that "Your PC's IP address has been noted". Y'what? It's probably some attempt to prevent people slagging off the place during work time - because of course, we can't do it when we get home. DUH!


The ring that binds them
No news on the ring doughnut front from Mother. I wonder if I can get a control order put on her for suspicion of failure to discharge motherly duties. Pressing charges is best avoided because I wouldn't want a messy court case where she ends up with a blanket over her head, muttering "Sigh,what a life". Then again, a control order would have dire consequences for me: who would I get to run my errands for me while I'm out at work? Who'd answer the phone (I hate answering the landline)? Would I ever get any peace and quiet in the house if she was tagged and stuck here?

I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and let her try again tomorrow.


Memory loss
Of course one problem with not being able to do blog at work is that I often forget the really funny stuff and I end up posting a load of complete shite instead.


Weird
I learnt today of a new weirdo crank technique/therapy thing for determining which foods are good for you and which you should avoid at all costs. It's called Kenetosomethingorother and what happens is this:

1. Punter lies on a couch and is blindfolded
2. Actually, I think "1" should be "Punter pays lots of cash"
3. Therapist tests resistance in punter's leg and arm muscles by using their own body weight to push against them (this is like the control step).
4. Therapist waves a glass vial containing a particular food stuff near the punter, then tests muscle resistance again.
5. Repeats resistance tests with a variety of glass-bound foodstuffs that are presented in a random order - the punter remains blind to the contents of the vials throughout.
6. Apparently, muscle resistance and tone changes with each different foodstuff and so things that are particularly bad or good for the punter can be identified.
7. Therapist says "You should eat this and that, but not this or this. Should I book you in for another £500 consultation?"

I'd be fine so long as the therapist said I could eat lots of curry, chips, pasta and ginger biscuits. Actually, I reckon they'd find that I'm OK with certain foods so long as they're not eaten in combination with others (peas in things, mushed up tuna, mashed taters in my gravys)....

I still can't remember what it was I was going to post about.

All rise in court

This defendent wishes to enter a plea of not guilty to charges levelled against her! I can't believe I've become victim to some virtual kangaroo court in my own blog. All I said was I was a bit fussy about certain foods and the way I like things prepared. Flippin' eck! I can't believe that people can possibly any differently to me.

Ring Doughnuts
Well, it's top marks to Gregg's customer services department. The lovely Jan has replied to my e-mail enquiry about why their ring doughnuts come with an iced sugar, rather than a granulated sugar coating - even though their jam and split cream doughnuts are coated with granulated sugar. Apparently, Gregg's ring doughnuts have only ever had an iced sugar coating, but they welcome my comments. I'm sure they'd sell many more ring doughnuts if they had an appropriate coating. In fact, many people I told were stunned at the thought that ring doughnuts could be coated with anything BUT granulated sugar.

I'm going e-mail her again to congratulate her on her prompt, polite and informative reply (I'll also suggest that granulated sugar-coated ring doughnuts are they forward for successful confectionary retail). Some vouchers would've been nice Jan and for that oversight, you can have an 8/10.

Following on from this, I'm going to set Mother a task to determine whether ring doughnuts, if available at all, from Hampson's (formerly Parker Bradburn's), Martin's, Greenhalgh's (we have FOUR bakeries on our shopping precinct) and Safeway have a satisfactory format of external sweetener. Older people love doing that sort of thing.

God, I'm so tired. Being a consumer champion certainly takes it out of a girl.

Carwash

Why do people with clean cars go to the carwash? I had to queue for ages at Topwash this morning and about four cars ahead of me in the queue were already clean. People just like to waste their cash. Not me though, £15 spent on something that I could do myself isn't a waste of money at all!

Anyway, the car looked Ok for about 10 minutes until the bastard cats that live outside decided to wander all over it with their muddy little paws. Shitheads.


I need a volunteer to act as a subject in a photography experiment that I'm planning. I want to try to capture the moment when blackhead goo bursts through the skin's surface when it's squeezed. If I'm successful, you'll see it here first.


You can tell that you've got scumbags for neighbours when the people next door fulfil the following criteria.

• They're really noisy without consideration of time/people's sensitivities/sense of shame.
• They leave their washing out for days on end in all sorts of weather.
• They don't work, claim incapacity benefit, but have nothing wrong with them.
• They're constantly in and out of each other's houses, comparing their latest social services-sponsored home improvement (usually a £70,000+ extension).
• You can never smell cooking coming from the premises.
• They have lots of primary-coloured ornaments in their garden and those horrible butterflies adorning the outside of the house.
• The man wears a vest all year round, no matter what the weather, and his jeans don't fit properly.
• They're as thick as pigshit.

I love the summer and I can't wait for it to arrive, but there are some things that I really cannot cope with. These things include:

• People's armpits (or anything above the elbow for certain people who should look in the mirror before leaving the house);
• People's feet, particularly heel skin and horrible toenails;
• People whinging that "I like it hot, but not this hot" and "I'm sweating cobs";
• My neighbours sitting out all the time and being intimidating, irritating and very very common;
• People feeling compelled to listen to their music at full blast (what's all that about??);
• Having to do the gardening and getting my arms sunburnt while keeping my hands protected with gardening gloves (it's a great look, everyone should try it);
• Waiting for summer from May onwards and it not arriving.

However, I love it when people get themselves completely frazzled by the sun. It's especially good with the Umpa Lumpa women who have very, very red shoulders with very, very, very white bra strap marks. Ha!

Things you should like, but just can't bring yourself to

There are loads of things that are supposed to be nice or good for you, or so "the mysterious they" tell us. Just who are "they"? Whoever they are, "They're" responsibile for telling all sorts to the masses.

Anyway, enough of that. People, real people, tell us that certain things are nice and you should try them, but there are certain things that I won't touch with a bargepole. Here are some of them, starting with foods.


Will not try under any circumstances:

• Cottage cheese: No fucking way; it looks like puke. Next!
• Swede, turnips: What the fuck? You trying to kill me with your root vegetables? NO WAY!! Next!!!
• Muller rice: Absolutely not, no way, not under any circumstances.
• Tinned spaghetti/spaghetti hoops: Hoops! Need I say more?
• Bread sauce: Y'what? I'd never even heard of this pig-swill till a couple of Christmases ago, then I saw some!
• Pringles: All that crunching in the ads and that stupid moustached man on the packaging has put me off.

Have tried, donlikit, don't want ever again:

• Cooked carrots: Love 'em raw; they turn into evil nasty things when cooked. Next!
• Polenta: Yeeeeuuuchhh. Not nice as a slop, been put off other ways of preparation.
• Tea: Fucking disgusting; the smell makes me want to be sick.
• Lychees: Bell ends that taste like Parma violets. Nasty.
• Cranberries: Come on! You lot who claim to like these little sour bastards are having a laugh aren't you?
• White cabbage: What's the point of this stuff?
• Salad cream: What on earth is this crap? Doesn't even need commenting on. Mayonnaise isn't much better.
• Coca Cola: Vile.

Things that I'm quite fussy about:

• Peas in things: Lovely on their own, but don't put them in my bloody curry!
• Mashed potatoes running into my gravy: Better keep it safe and not have any sauce on the same plate as my mash. Shepherds pie can be quite traumatic.
• Things mixed in things: Back to the pea scenario here. Keep stuff separate on my plate or there'll be trouble.
• Mashed up stuff: Don't mush my food up. Go ahead and put tuna in my pasta sauce, but keep it chunky; let it go flaky and you've ruined the entire meal because I will not eat it!
• Cream sauces on pasta: Don't be ridiculous.
• Drinks must come in cans (or glass): Don't bother buying a 2L saver bottle of Pepsi Max because you're wasting your money. Drinks do not taste the same out of plastic bottles. The only exception is fizzy water.
• Lack of salt: You DO need a bit of salt to bring out the flavour of food. I admit I eat far too much salt, but don't give me your "no salt is better" crap because you're just cooking something that won't taste of anything. And Lo Salt tastes of potassium, it also burns your mouth, it's horrible.
• Cucumber: Take the skin off!
• Bread: Don't butter it if you're making me a sarnie (unless it's a chip butty, then you need to put plenty on).
• Crisp packets: Red/dark blue = ready salted; pale blue = salt & vinegar; green/yellow = cheese & onion. Not difficult, but Walkers had to fuck it up for everyone.

Consumer champion

The time has come to give due recognition to customer services staff around the UK - and perhaps globally. But what a dreary existence they must have. I have a new quest to brighten up the country's customer services departments by setting challenging tasks and submitting exciting queries that they are duty-bound to try to help me with!

My first task has been to e-mail Greggs the bakers to ask why their ring doughnuts come with an iced sugar coating, rather than a traditional granulated sugar coating. Their jam doughnuts are coated with granulated sugar and their split cream doughnuts are too. The thing is, they have to respond because that's what customer services departments do! It's fantastic.

Next on my list is GE Capital Bank to ask why they're such a bunch of cocks and whether going on their training would give me a valid excuse to be a complete twat to the people I deal with at work. I'd still prefer the Beatrix Kiddo approach, but I'm not feeling quite right for a yellow jump suit just at the moment: I'm still trying to shift the Boxing Day running buffet from my arse and midriff.

I need to do a shop at Tesco before I can compile a list of things to enquire about with them, but I can assure you that the availability of hot chilli peanuts and Frizz Eaze Curl Controller will be high on my list! Of course, they'll come back with that old nutmeg that it's something to do with Government quotas set by Tony Bluuhhhr and Gordon "Gasps like a goldfish" Brown. Or is it a chestnut? I might also suggest that they (Tesco) introduce a scheme of capital punishment for those who leave their trolleys in parking bays; these are probably the same people who park across two bays in their massive people carriers and Mercedes. Perhaps, therefore, Tesco could save a few lives by refusing entry to the car park for anybody in a people carrier or Mercedes. I also think the Beatrix Kiddo approach would be highly appropriate here.

And Image Venue obviously need a word because they've been pissing about with their server for long enough and my pictures are still appearing as thumbnail clickies or red crosses! We are assured that normal service will be resumed.

Of course, if I'm extra complimentary, I may even get some freebies: "Dear Canon UK, I was so impressed with my Canon Powershot A70 that I've told everybody I know how brilliant your products are and I've recommended that anybody looking for a digicam should have a peruse at the Powershot range. Please can I have a free upgrade?"

UK Prime Minister punches US President

Angry Chimp
This had me in stitches. Read on for "Lying: the new black".

Edit:
Herge is right, current affairs is no laughing matter, and we should all be grateful for his accurate reporting of world events. I was just rather tickled by the name of one of the US contingent mentioned in the report. What sort of name is Condoleezza?

Avoid speeding tickets

Step 1. Tie these balloons to your car
Step 2. Drive VERY FAST!!
Step 3. Watch people freak out!!!
Step 4. Tell the nice officer you thought they were real!!

Clicky the thumbnail for bigger piccie.

There's a moon in the sky

It's called the moon! That, for the uninitiated, is from an old B52's song. I LOVE the B52's. It's just unfortunate that we don't get to see anything of them over here in the UK, although I understand there's a new album on the way if they can find a record label. (And I know it should be B52s and not B52's, but that's their name, so that's how I write it).

Yes, the moon. You don't seem to notice it that much, apart from when it's full. However, I've noticed how quickly it goes through its phases since I installed that moon phase chart thing on the blog. It's already a waning crescent. Spooky. It was great the other morning as it was setting around 7am. It's starting to get light at that time now so it was glowing this sort of orange/yellow colour against a blue winter's sky - it was MASSIVE and very low in sky.

Planetary movements and concepts of space/time, are things that you can either get your head round or you can't. I can't. It's shameful that I'm ignorant of the order of planets from the sun in our solar system. I couldn't tell you which one is largest. I always get mixed up between Saturn and Jupiter. I'm not sure I could even name them all. A challenge then: Earth, Mars, Neptune, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Pluto, errrm, bollocks, Mercury, crap, Venus (I had to look that one up).

Let's try this... There's a sun and there are a few (is it nine?) planets that orbit the sun. Each planet takes a certain length of time to achieve this, for Earth, it's about 365 days. So far so good. The orbits are eliptical. Errrrm, and the planets spin around while they conduct their dances through the atmosphere (is there an atmosphere up there?). It takes the Earth a day to do a spin, and depending on where it is in its orbit around the sun, we get a different amount of daylight. And the temperature changes too (not much in England, but it does).

Nah, too confusing. All I know is it's bloody cold still and it's still far too dark. No idea what the moon does; I suppose it just sits there, its shape changing because of its relationship to Earth and the sun sort of shining on it a bit but Earth casting a shadow I suppose.

Why don't the planets collide?

I think people who work for the space agencies must be off their heads or on drugs or something.

I'll stick to earthly notions, it's much better for my mental health that way.

Another day in paradise

I’m quite bored today. Most of my usual contacts for e-mail exchanges are off sick, so I’m stranded out here with nobody to talk to and nobody to e-mail. Bummer. I think people are just plain inconsiderate at times. Even the BBC News website is pretty poor today.

A person who wasn’t so thick-skinned might actually get upset at the way some people act around here. There’s one woman who completely ignores me; she walks past my office each morning, looking ahead, no hello, nothing. I walk into the office she shares with a few others and she will completely blank me. Weird. It’s just a good job that I don’t give a shit, but I find it really odd behaviour. She must’ve been earwigging when I was slagging her off to somebody. But that’s no excuse; if she’s got a problem, she should tell me to my face! Har, har, har, har, har!!!

Carmelita is rather quiet today, I hope she’s not building up to something. She’s another funny one (funny ha ha AND funny stuurrrange!). This is the one that picked up all the litter from the canal bank and, instead of being the dutiful citizen and putting it in the bin, she threw it all over the local expressway. “Well, you see,” she explained, “the car drivers never see the litter that people throw near the canal so I thought they should!” To say I was gobsmacked is an understatement. I told her that it was the most insane thing I’d ever heard, and that she was a menace and a danger who deserved to be locked up. But it’s the way she speaks, too. She doesn’t half rrrrrrrrrrrroll her Rrrrrrrrrs: “Oh Brrrrrrrrrrrendah, hellooooo!” But it’s not a pure “r” either, it’s said as if she closes the back of her tongue against the back of her mouth as she says it; sort of a bit throaty, but not phlegmy – bizarre. And she pronounces “re” as “ray”, so when she’s referring to a person, you always think their first name is Ray. Fucking bonkers. She acts as if somebody would act if they asked to act “overly eccentric, mad and slightly scary with it”.


I ask myself every day
When you feel that nobody loves you,

Nobody cares for you,

And everyone is ignoring you,

You should start asking yourself...

Am I TOO sexy?

Top ten

Here is a list of my (current) top ten yoghurts. In reverse order:

10. Danone activia rhubarb

9. Onken bio pot strawberry and wheatgerm

8. Rachel's organic low fat summer fruits

7. Muller light strawberry

6. Danone activia fruit layer prune

5. Muller fruit corner (blueberry)

4. Longley farm (any flavour, but especially botu-tastic hazlenut)

3. Yeo Valley organic strawberry collection (strawberry) - super full fat

2. Danone Shape Greek style (lemon)

Drrrrrrrrrrrrrum rrrrollllllll.......

1. Muller vitality low fat pineapple

This stuff is fuckin' delish and I could eat it by the bucket load.

Apart from today though; my guts are giving me terrible trouble today. This could be due to: a) eating priobiotic yoghurt by the bucket load, or b) touching pooey door handles at work where people haven't been able to wash their hands after using the toilet because of the interrupted water supply. Today I started at number 5 on the Bristol Stool Score and have descended to 6/7 foaminess. My guts hurt quite a lot too. Oh woe is me.

I hate my life

Do you ever get the feeling that you're getting a raw deal? No matter what you do to try to improve things, there's always somebody trying to stop you moving forward - mainly because of their own selfish motivations. I'm having difficulties with my contract at work, I'm quite disgruntled.

Despite generally enjoying my job I'm feeling forced to look for something else. But everytime something appropriate comes up, something where there's a strong suspicion that I'd apply, it seems that my current bosses manage to wangle their ways onto the prospective interview panels - despite these being external positions. I don't think that's particularly fair. In fact, I think it's downright horrible. But that's what happens when you're a "highly valued member of the team". If I was so highly valued, I wouldn't have had to wait over 18 months for a contract, I wouldn't have gone 4 years without a pay award, I wouldn't feel like I was constantly overlooked for things and held back, I wouldn't feel forced to look for something else. They can't give me what I need, but they keep blocking my attempts to leave.

I try to stay positive and see the funny side of things; there's usually something humorous to eek out of most situations - something to help you pick yourself up and move on, try a different approach. Today I'm not in that place. Today I've had it confirmed that I'm being shafted. Today I am utterly fed up. Today I feel like giving up. Today I want to go to my favourite place to be alone and for it all to be better when I get back...

This is Peel Tower on Holcombe Moor, near Ramsbottom in Lancashire. The world is quiet there.

...it's just a shame that it's pitch black and freezing cold.