Copyrighting cunts

I hate it when you buy the DVD for a TV programme and they change the soundtracks to take out certain songs because of copyright and royalties. You watch the programme and get used to the the background music, which often consists of famous chart songs and stuff, but you buy the DVD and all the music has been replaced by something that's been done on a Bontempi.

They don't even warn you on the packaging and some of the bastards have the cheek to advertise the series' soundtracks for you to buy on CD! The worst offender was ITV's Cold Feet, which used songs throughout the series, released two CDs of the music, yet stripped all the songs from the DVD release.

I got Tittybangbang, a comedy sketch show, on DVD and they've done the same with this. It's not as noticeable because they didn't use music as much, but it's still annoying.

Bastards.


Turkey curry
One of the things that I look forward to more than anything at Christmas is turkey curry. The 27th of December is always turkey curry day in the Sniffy household - Connie is peeling onions as I type! Yummeee.


Running off to the circus
I got a set of juggling balls for Christmas. Let's just say, it's going to be an awful long time before I start throwing things about that are on fire.


Techno paradise
I also got a new PDA. I love it. It connects to the internet and everything.


Birthdays at Christmas
I despair at the number of people I know with birthdays in December and January, one in particular is the delightful Trump, who celebrates tomorrow. I don't mind buying two sets of presents, it's the fact it's impossible to buy birthday cards at this time of year. I'm sure she'd appreciate me making her one instead!

Merry Sniffmas, 2006

Nothing much else to add except Merry Christmas to everybody. I hope that everyone is with the ones they love, or at least not too far away from them.

I am starving, I need something to eat. People go on about their hearty, oo-la-la Christmas Day breakfast, but for me, this consists of half a kilo of selection box chocolate.

Bring it on!

Mulled whine

The festive season brings out the worst in some people - as well as the best in many others. I mean, I can't believe the audacity of folk wanting to use cloves all of a sudden. Throughout the year, the supermakets' Schwartz herbs and spices shelves are virtually overflowing with jars and packets of these little spice bombs, but with three days to go to Christmas, you can't get hold of them for love nor money.

I blame Nigella Lawson. Delicious as she is, her fancy London-ways have given normal folk ideas above their status and even the most lowly of plebs is doing stuff with spices. Amongst the common person's repertoire is mulled wine, which is supped by the mug full to sighs of pleasure and "OOooh, you can just imagine being back in them days, warming yourself next to a fire and eating roast pheasant using your fingers". Yeah, and I bet you can't imagine what it's like plucking and cleaning the fucker beforehand, y'bastard!

And of course, cloves are also used to stud gammon joints before crisping up their glaze in the oven. This was the intended purpose of the cloves that I couldn't source. Never mind, Christmas won't be ruined without them.

Cinnamon sticks are also in short supply. I think this is because of The Guardian and The Observer readers using them in wrapping of Christmas gifts or to scatter with abandon to decorate the Christmas table. Ponces. I know of a certain couple of the Sisterhood who are preparing gifts of hampers, containing home-made fudge and organic, fair-trade goods. I'm sure gadgets are cheaper.



Rudolf with your nose so bright
Won't you guide my plane tonight.

Yes, the south of England's air traffic has been severely disrupted by a thick fog that has been stuck over that part of our small island for the past couple of days. Domestic flights cancelled, international flights subject to long delays - all because the air traffic controllers can't see when the planes have cleared the runway at Heathrow.

It's good to see that the stoicism of the British people is alive and well, with stranded, blanket-wrapped travellers accepting their lot with comments like "it's only fog, I don't see why they can't fly" or "nobody will tell us what's going on and why they've stopped all the flights."

Perhaps British Airways might consider changing its recruitment policy to include extremist Islamic suicide pilots for occasions such as these, just so certain people can be assured of getting on their flights on time.

I pity the fool.


Sweet home Alabama
Somebody in the Alabama School of Maths and Science has been searching for "Cliff Richard gay" and found my blog! And the same person seems to be leaving comments on the post that they found, which was written in July, perhaps thinking I might go back and respond. No I won't, but since Cliff has taken it upon himself to hijack Christmas, I might just remind everyone why I hate the vain little cunt.

A victory for sanity

We're having lasagne for tea on Christmas Eve. This can only mean one thing:

Yes folks, threatened with mass protests, Connie has put them back on the menu!

She has seen sense and has decided to provide the family with a fucking delish Christmas Eve meal of lasagne, leaving us to have our proper Christmas dinner on Christmas Day. Thank fuck for that. I was on the verge of calling Social Services to get her put away, thinking she'd finally lost all remnants of sanity.


Finished
Finally finished for Christmas today, it's been such a struggle getting through these past few weeks.

I am now looking forward to a good break in which I will be spending lots of quality time with people I care about instead of wasting lots of my time with total arseholes.

Tonight, I ice my cake! Oh the joys of all that sticky white powder getting everywhere. What fun I shall have, trying to be creative while Mother hovers around me, criticising.

I shall be meeting up with Trump tomorrow morning and we will start the day with a leisurely stroll around the supermarket, amongst people who will be filling trolleys with bread because 5 loaves and 16 packets of barmcakes aren't quite enough to last the WHOLE DAY that the shops are shut on Monday. It's not as if there's nothing open on Boxing Day, stupid selfish cunts.

We will spend the next few days relaxing and getting increasingly excited at the prospect of being together on Christmas morning as we open out presents to each other. I may have to sedate her in the meantime as her request for clues reaches an unbearable climax.

On Sunday, we're here a la casa Cakesniffer for dinner. Mother asked if I'd be returning home after dropping Trump back at hers. "I hadn't planned on coming back until early Christmas morning", I replied pleadingly.

"But who's going to help me get ready for Christmas Day?"

"In all honesty, Mother, all I do on Christmas Eve is eat Twiglets and pretzels while getting under your feet. It's Dad that does all the helping."

"Oh, yeah, that's true. Well, make sure you're back early on Christmas morning!"

Nice one!

I don't want a lot for Christmas, there is just one thing I need. I won't think about the presents underneath the Christmas tree. I just want you here tonight, holding on to me so tight. What else can I do? Baby, all I want for Christmas, is YOU!



Dirty little bugger
I can't believe some of the things people video... and then upload on to You Tube. Check this filthy little beast out.

Squirrel nutcase

I've read a report on the BBC News website about some Russian black squirrels that attacked a stray dog and mauled it to death. They ran off when they saw humans approaching, but they each took a bit of the pooch with them. Vicious little bastards.

In the words of Boney M's (Ra Ra) Rasputin:

Ahh, those Russians!

Meanwhile, be warned when trying on cheap imported jeans from China. One Japanese woman ended up in hospital for five days after being stung by a scorpion that had been transported in the legs of the pair of jeans she was trying on. Wondering why she'd got a sharp pain in her knee after an initial sting, she got caught out again when she patted her knee with her hand.

Ouch!


Breaking up is hard to do
Bollocks it is. Breaking up from work for Christmas that is. I finish tomorrow and I'm counting the hours to 4pm when I can turn off my PC and say goodbye to my untidy desk for nearly a fortnight.

I'm not really feeling Christmassy yet, but no doubt a couple of days roadraging for parking spaces at the supermarket and tripping over spasmo shoppers will get me feeling all festive and warm inside.

I'll have Trump with me to calm me, so all will be fine. Actually, she winds me up even more by not agreeing with me when I complain about the tossers who see their sole purpose in life as being irritants to the rest of us.


Bombshell
Nope, nothing to do with my increasingly insane sister, this is related to Mother.

I noticed a bag of sprouts in the kitchen on Sunday and asked if they were the Christmas ones. "No, we're not having sprouts with Christmas dinner this year. I'm doing a lasagne and we're having the turkey with salad and pickles and things afterwards."

I almost fainted. Christmas dinner, the BEST meal of the year, without sprouts, roasties, parsnips and gravies? She must be fucking mad.

This is like the 2004 tsunami, Farepack and the Grinch stealing Christmas all rolled into one.

People always go on to me about how wonderful it is that I am half Italian. No it's fucking NOT wonderful, not when it ruins my Christmas it isn't. I bet none of you bastards are having some weird foreign stuff on Christmas Day (unless you're weird and foreign).

I can't believe it. There is some very strong lobbying to be done in the coming days. I may have to go in the local newspaper, photographed looking forlornly and pointing at a bag of raw sprouts. "Salford woman seeks adoption from proper English family".

Shocked and appalled.

Ordeal or no meal

With more drama and bloodshed than a thousand episodes of Deal or no deal, I took on the gruesome twosome in the shed. Accompanied by the radio and a stray cat, and decked out in the clothes of a North Sea fisherman, I put my squeamishness to one side and began plucking the beasties that had been hidden away from sight and mind since the middle of the week.

Fuck, what a nightmare. With their limp little bodies flopping about, it was so difficult to figure out what was what in the sea of feathers that ensued. And they smelled horrible, and then I had to get their insides out.

And then you saw me dead.

They're in the oven now. Pheasants aren't even that easy to cook; they can be tough; they can taste strong (i.e. bad). But I suppose if the poor little bastards have gone through death-by-angry-boss, the least I can do is honour them by cooking them and eating them. And at least they didn't disgrace themselves by getting run over like most of their brethren do. Stupid fucking animals.


Push the button
I've ordered tickets for the Sugababes' concert in Manchester in the spring. I saw them when they supported Take That in the summer and they were top notch, so I figured they'd be worth a go.

My desire to experience or live music was fuelled after seeing The Roots (yes, hip hop/funk/soul) on Friday. They were fucking top notchamundo.



Christmas wrapped up
I've got loads of Christmas presents to wrap up. I don't know how I manage it, but every year, I manage to get something that's impossible to wrap. This year's "what the fuck have you got one of those for, you know you can't wrap them!" item is a football.

Tit.

Turkeys

There are some things that make you despair. As we're bedding down into the 21st century, it amazes me how savage some people are - people in so-called civilised nations, nations with aspirations to join the EU. That nation is Turkey:

"A job well done is worth celebrating, but Turkish Airlines say staff went too far when they sacrificed a camel.

To mark the last delivery of 100 aircraft, maintenance workers clubbed together to buy the beast - and then consume it.

The sacrifice took place at Istanbul international airport... read on..."

Shocked and appalled. Fucking pigs.


A pheasant plucker
Then again, I accepted a gift of a brace of pheasants from my boss at work today. I think he'd gone out on a killing spree with his shot gun after we got some bad news at the end of last week. Of course, the birds in question are in need of plucking, gutting and the rest - after a week or so being hung. They'll be pretty ripe and it won't be a pretty sight. What was fun to watch was Mother's reaction when I asked her to look in the bag that they were in - I never knew people could jump that high at her age.

I also like it when Otto gets hold of the tail and runs through our scumbag neighbour's garden with it in his mouth. I'm also tempted to nail the heads to the top of the fence as an act of revenge against them and the way they constantly look over into our garden in the summer.

Cunts.


Moonlighting
After a break of about 8 months, I've been asked to do a bit more moonlighting work at a place that funded: a snazzy digital camera; a pushbike; holiday to Rome; holiday in Canada. Did I say yes? Too fucking right, I'm skint! The last two nights have gone some way into funding half of Trump's Christmas presents. She should be paid off by next Tuesday with any luck.


Secret Satan
I have to buy a Secret Santa present for the maddest person in the world. Yes, I picked Cynthia out of the hat in our not-so secret Santa draw. I've no idea why they have it so we all know who's buying for whom. It's just another mechanism of inflicting torture on us all. But what do you buy somebody who is eccentric to the point of being insane? Somebody with the oddest sense of humour on the planet? As far as I'm aware, she only eats herrings, yoghurt and dried crackers, so a box of Thornton's chocs would probably be lost on her. She's really into history and travel and gardening, but there's no point in buying her books because she knows it all already, or talks like she does.

I might just get her a t-shirt emblazoned with: "You don't have to be mad to work here... I'm bonkers enough for everyone!"

At least I'm getting out of the Christmas "party" this year. Thank fuck for that.

Bed protest

I would like to start a bed protest to highlight the government-sponsored torture of its subjects by its insistence on making the majority of us go to work so they can bleed us dry by taxing our earnings, savings, purchases, inheritance, homes, utilities - anything. Otto is protesting about lack of support for partially-sighted 5 year old cats (called Otto). He wants a "Guide cat" to a) be his right eye, and b) play with, since all the other cats just beat him up all the time.

Who am I kidding? I'm not one for political protest or mass demonstration, I'm just knackered and I want a couple of weeks off to sit around and do sod all. Instead, it seems the run up to the Christmas break is going to be hectic: Christmas wrapping today; Christmas decorations to put up; London with work tomorrow; taking on evening work as a favour to an old colleague; Christmas shopping yet to do; Christmas cake to ice! Plus other shite at work where people decide to have a deadline of "We must get this out before Christmas!" - I don't understand why, most people are just watching the calendar, waiting for breaking up day; they don't generally give a crap about work at the moment.

Anyhow, my bed protest will probably end when I need my third cup of coffee.

I'm actually in my own bed this morning, having been dumped by Trump so she can spend the day gallivanting around Manchester with her mother. It's the first time I've slept in my own bed on a Saturday night since March. It feels a bit weird, not having to get up and rush around to go to work, the relative quietness outside.

I say "quietness", this is of course disturbed by the constant jingle-jangle from a ridiculous number of wind chimes that my idiot neighbours have strung up about their gardens. It'd be so much nicer to hear the sound of their strung up bodies as they knock against a tree trunk. Cunts.

Please, somebody please explain wind chimes to me?? Surely they just cause a disturbance to everybody, including the fucking idiots who put them up. I've been to cemeteries where families of the deceased have attached these things to grave stones; this is so inconsiderate and extreme bad taste. They're just tacky and nasty and very common. But I guess that sums up lots of people.


Harebrained
I love the BBC News website's Have Your Say. They suggest a topic for discussion from one of the latest news items, and they let people discuss it in an online forum. There are general rules about submissions and some discussions are moderated so that comments can't appear until they've been passed by a moderator. You can guarantee that some outraged contributors will complain about the "Government's latest hairbrained scheme", and this always gets my goat - I always thought it was "harebrained", as in like a nutcase hare. I've just had a look at one online dictionary and it says that the "hairbrained" spelling is a Scottish variant that means "a brain the size of a hair" - well, that makes complete sense! Why not just have "pissed out of head-brained", that'd probably be more fitting to the Scots.


Bunny abuse
Apparently, rabbits are the most abused pets in the UK, with many tending to be neglected or even just let go once the novelty of having them has worn off. This is a real shame, but having seen a few pet rabbits, I can understand how easy it is to forget about them. I don't understand the concept of pets that you keep in a hutch. If you're going to have a pet, get one that roams about the house and does things other than looking at you sideways while twitching all the time.


Come forward, mystery Manc reader
I tend to have a look a my site stats quite regularly and, for the past few weeks, I've noticed that I've been visited a LOT by a reader who I think is in Manchester. I wish they'd leave me a comment or drop me an e-mail, I'm intrigued to know who they are.

Give Gypsy a stroke for £2

There were two women at the entrance to Tesco just now. Both were wearing bright yellow bibs, one carried a charity collection can, the other held the lead of a black labrador dog. "Please help Guide dogs for the blind", their bibs (and the dog) said it all really.

Having done some shopping (more later), I acquired some change so that I would have an excuse to get closer to the dog. Having made my donation, I felt justified in molesting Gypsy - she was so soft! I really want a labrador so badly, being near them is almost like torture. I said to the charity worker "You should charge people £2 a stroke".

"Well, I do," she replied, "and when they've finished, I let them pat the dog".

But these dogs, guide dogs, not only provide companionship, they also work for their Pedigree Chum and go through rigorous training to get them to the stage where they can provide invaluable assistance. They are amazing, and a lifeline for those who might otherwise be unable to live independently. Knowing this, as everybody does, what would possess somebody to kick a guide dog in the street while it was with its elderly blind owner?

I hate people, really, really hate them. The little shit who did that should be kicked about himself.


Sad
I'm a bit down in the dumps at the moment. I attended another funeral yesterday, this was of Minnie Souch an old lady who lived as our neighbour when we were growing up. We never had grandparents and she was sort of a surrogate, she was utterly lovely and I never heard her say a bit thing about anybody. Some old people get cantankerous and bad tempered, Minnie just smiled through things. Despite losing her sight over the last 15 years of her life, she just tried to adjust and adapt and get on with things, making the most of everything she did have.



Multicultural Britain
People (mushy-brained lefty politicians) say we should celebrate Britain's multiculturalism. Unfortunately, we're not a multicultural nation; we have pockets of high populations of particular ethnicities that never mix with the others.

Today, I am in an almost totally white part of the country and the thing that indicates that we're not a true multicultural nation is the fact that, apart from there only being white faces on show (dirty ones at that), you can't get chapatis in the Tesco here. How rubbish is that?

And THIS report isn't going to do much for calming tensions that exist between India and Pakistan. Apparently, on average, Indian blokes have smaller (shorter) willies than other men. This is REALLY bad when it comes to trying to persuade Indian blokes to wear condoms for preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other STIs (and babies of course) because they don't fit properly. Although I'm sure a survey of the partners of Indian men would reveal complete satisfaction in the whatsit department.

Different sized condoms are now being manufactured for the Indian market.

Can you imagine the damage this research can do to an entire nation's pride? Especially when you consider the fierce rivalry between India and Pakistan.


Orange nets
I hate those net bags that oranges and other citrus fruits come in. People tell me they're supposed to just tear open, but every time I try this, I almost get my fingers severed by the industrial strength plastic threads.

And I've just discovered that mandarin oranges are only nice in jelly.

Santa Nav in ambulance mystery tour

I love satellite navigation systems. I think it's great the way drivers have these little things stuck to their dashboards so they have something to look at, rather than the road and the vehicles, pedestrians and other road users around them. I really can't understand why people need these things for going to and from work, or to go down the shops, or at all. We have maps, routefinders, common sense, road signs.

The emergency services are using them these days. Imagine my surprise to hear of this incident on Friday. Yes, an ambulance transferring a patient somewhere in London, ended up 200 miles out of their way in Manchester because they relied solely on their sat nav, rather than bothering to look at the road, road signs, a map, or use their common sense.

I don't think the blame lies with the technology, the blame lies squarely with the idiot ambulance crew. If I was their boss, I'd sack them for being so supremely thick that they're a danger to themselves, their patients and other members of the public.

And then I'd have their houses burnt down.

Thick twats.


The dried fruit is soaking...
And this can only mean one thing. Tomorrow, I make my Christmas cake... under close, and somewhat irritating, supervision from Connie. She won't let me just get on with it. It's not as if I didn't spend over half of my life working in a lab and following recipes. Oh no, Connie has to interfere.

She's already told me that I've used too much brandy to soak the fruit in "It's going to be far too heavy". I don't give a shit. I'm not allowed to drink and the only way I can legitimately have any booze is by spiking my Christmas cake with as much of the stuff as is humanly possible.

I will, as ever, post a diary of my Christmas cake here on this very blog. How very exciting for everybody.


Mother ruins
Mum always looks on the negative side of things. I tend not to notice too much anymore, but it is an odd trait of hers. I love her dearly, but she doesn't have piss me off at times. I thought she would be pleased at the £7 Christmas pud that I just bought from Tesco, but no, "Let's have a look. Oh, it's that one that looks like it's got really big pieces of fruit in it. Aldi's is best".

Grrr.

Top 100

One of the digital radio stations (BBC6) is running a poll to find the top 100 singles of 2006. It's simple for me: Shapeshifters' Incredible. It's not the best song ever written, but it's fuckin' ace and it's my number one for this year. So I went to their website to vote and was disappointed to see that I have to choose FIVE singles to vote.

I can't think of 5 records that came out this year. Load of rubbish.


Pan's Labyrinth
This is a pretty scary fantasy horror that's set in the backdrop of the last days of the Spanish Civil War. A fairytale-obsessed little girl, Ofelia, moves with her mother to be with her new stepfather - a vicious cunt of a general/commander/el big cheesio in Franco's army. The army command post is near an ancient and mystical labyrinth where Ofelia is guided by a fairy to a scary faun who gives her three tasks that will enable her to retake her rightful position as princess in the underworld kingdom.

Scary monsters, scarier men. Definitely worth a watch.


Nice weather
The weather is fucking hideous - bloody tornadoes and torrential rain. I was surprised to get a text message from Connie, telling me that she was going to the seaside to have a look at these today:

I replied asking if she was mad and had she not heard the hurricane and apocalyptic weather during the night - "Haven't you seen the forecast??"

I got a phonecall from her telling me that they'd almost got to the end of the path to the beach, but had been beaten back by swirling winds that was blinding them and whipping up sand. Surprising that.

I only went outdoors to get to and from my car on the journey back from Trump's. Call me nesh, I call it survival instinct.

Bearing in mind that my folks are retired, what do you think possessed them to go into Manchester to experience the Christmas Markets on a Saturday afternoon? "They were very nice, but ever so crowded". Surprising that, Mother.


On a festive note
OK, latest festive pics. No sign of our decs going up yet, but I might make my cake this week.

I've no idea how old I was when this photo of me and Bomb was taken with the scariest Father Christmas EVER! You can see the fear in our eyes (and the malevolence in his), I was struggling to get away from the sinister old bastard in Kendal's Christmas Grotto.

Just a couple of shots from the Christmas market again. Oh those lights in the trees are so lovely!

Me and Trump are probably getting her tree next week. Can't wait. What I CAN wait for is having to go into my own loft to retrieve our own decs. Fucking spiders don't care about the festive season; they'll scare the shit out of you all year round for the fun of it, the eight-legged cunting terrorists.

World AIDS day

Don't forget people, try to think about AIDS and how it affect so many people all over the world. Make a donation if you can.

I'd like to mention the George House Trust in the North West of England, go and check out other charities that help people living with HIV AIDS near where you are.

Oh, and as promised:

We also found something very special at the markets, which we thought explained Piggy's recent lack of blogging:

Alas, it turned out not to be him as he is now back online after a few techinical difficulties.

UK readers, petition our shite government
Our shite government wants to introduce a pay as you drive road pricing tax (another tax) to "ease congestion". We already pay as we drive in that 85% of the cost of fuel is on tax (the more you drive, the more tax you pay - you use more fuel if you drive when the roads are congested), we also pay annual road tax and motoring insurance tax.

The new scheme will mean all cars will have a black box fitted to them that talks to yet another overpriced spying system to track where and when you drive. So not only is this yet another unfair tax on the motorist, it is also a gross invasion of privacy.

You can petition the government at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/sign. Well you should be able to, only they can't process signatures as the site is "extremely busy" at the moment. What a surprise. A prime example of democracy in Britain today.

Democracy doesn't work. Let's have a revolution.

Madam Butterfly, Manchester United v Everton & Snow Patrol

My sister Bomb bought Mum and Dad tickets to the opera for tonight's performance of the beautiful Madama Butterfly at the Manchester Opera House.

"I'll be working till late and they need to get there for about 7.15, can you take them?"

Of course! No problem, it'll be a pleasure.

But I do wish my sister Bomb would check the local events calendar when she books these things. The combination of an opera, a Premiership football match and a "rock" concert starting at approximately the same time, within a 3 mile radius leads to:

ABSOLUTE GRIDLOCK

So our relaxed journey into the city was somewhat fraught as I fought my way through the traffic. The opera is very civilised you see, they don't let you in if the performance has started and you should ideally be in your seat a few minutes before the screaming starts.

I've just had an interval report from Connie. Apparently they were a bit late afterall - the tickets were misleading and said you should be there for 7.15 for a 7.50 start. It actually started at 7.15. No idea what that was all about.


Technoldies
They should know better than to put confusing information on tickets that are predominantly going to be used by older people.

There are so many things that can cause confusion for people who are getting on a bit - let's face it, it's bad enough for us thirty somethings. I came home to find Mum cursing at an automated telephone system. She'd received a new credit card and was trying to activate using the oh-so-unhelpful "Press one to activate your card, key in the card number using your telephone keypad, key in your date of birth" shite. It wasn't working and there was no way to get through to a real person for assistance.

But that's Lloyds TSB for you. My new Marks & Spencer card arrived, I phoned up, got through to a real person immediately (on about 2 rings) and my card was activated within 30 seconds.

I "heart" M&S. I REALLY "heart" their Christmas TV ads.


UN Disaster zone
My hair is a fucking mess. The Disasters Emergencies Commission has set up a fund for people to donate to so that Sniffy can get a hair cut.


Big, fuck-off building
Somebody was questioning me when I was going on about the Beetham Tower in Manchester. Here are a few photos that might indicate how big this thing is.

So there you have it. That's Beetham Tower for you. I wouldn't mind spending a night in one of the Hilton Hotel suites, it looks a bit posh.

Eeevil

As I stumbled from the bed I'd shared with Trump, heading bleary-eyed into a dark Monday morning, I was taken by surprise: an involuntary fart left my person before I'd taken more than three aching steps. I was instantly hit with a funk so strong, so evil, that it must have come from the bowels of hell itself. Within seconds, the dozing Trump fell victim to the gases that had permeated the atmosphere and expelled the sweet, fresh air.

"You dirty bitch!"

Actually, she might not have said that; unable as she was to move or cry for help in her paralysed state.

But the strange thing is that I've been doing horrendous farts for the past couple of days, yet my number twos have been almost odourless.

Explain that, Lord Winston!

It's getting me down a bit now, but still providing plenty of amusement as I leave a little bit of myself wherever I go.


Time won't give me time
My mobile phone has gone weird. People's text messages are recorded as arriving an hour later than they were. Rubbish! Although I'm sure I could use this to my advantage if I need an alibi for something.


Some more views of the city
I was preserving these photos for somewhere else, but what the hell! I've been having such a nice time wandering around the city with Trump and my camera, it's nice to share it with folk.

The fountain, Albert Square

This is the Town Hall in Albert Square. We've had an inflatable Father Christmas for over twenty years. The original one used to climb the clock tower, but burst every year as it got punctured on spiky brickwork. This is the last year that Manchester will be visited by our inflatable Father Christmas. It's a great shame.

The second photo shows that Father Christmas is holding the Space Shuttle - no idea why. It's also nice to note how easily the 2005 was changed to 2006. I've seen this somewhere before...

Here we have a couple of different views of Manchester's Central Library - the top one shows some of the arc of the wall that borders Library Walk. The Central Library is ace and I used to spend a fair bit of time in there, looking up old newspaper editions on microfiche when I was a sixthformer.

And this is the G-Mex Centre. It used to be Manchester's Central railway station, but it stood unused for years before being turned into a big exhibition centre. The big thing in the background is Beetham Tower. It is HUGE, with the Hilton Hotel occupying lower floors and private apartments on the top third. The tower dominates the skyline and it is in such a position that it occupies a central point for most of the major roads into the town. If you ever come into land in Manchester airport, look out for it - it sticks out a mile.

So that's another photojournal of my days out in my city (well it's not mine, but my city - Salford -is totally shite with only a concrete shopping precinct and run-down bus station to boast at its heart).

Next in the Sniffy does the City: HOT SAUSAGE! Sniffy's adventures on the Christmas markets.

Wordpress advent-ures

Wordpress is one of those blogging tools that people go on about being the dog's bollocks. I like Blogger: it's easy, customisable, generally very reliable. The new Blogger Beta is even snazzier in that you can sign in to your blog from the page itself and from here you can change the template and stuff without having to do html things. It looks good and one of my blogs has already switched over to Blogger in beta.

However, not being one to dismiss things without trying them, I've taken advantage of the resources offered by Taz and Pig and I've set up a blog over on their server - FOC, they're so benevolent for a pair of vicious little queers. They use Wordpress for their blog utility and this has a snazzy tool whereby you can import another blog in its entirety. So that's what I did, I imported all of Cakesniffers over to "Click next when ready". And it fucked up my formatting back here in Blogger.

Cunting shite.

But I'm impressed that I can do this and have the option to perhaps switch over to the Taz and Pig site... perhaps, maybe, one day - no more popups if I get myself a new Url.

Click next when ready? Well, when I was setting up the T&P blog I clicked next before I was ready and the blog was initially called "Sni".


Advent calendars
Friday is 1st of December and this equals day number one for those eager to get stuck in to their Advent calendars in the countdown to Christmas. Most advent calendars have little doorways that open on to a picture that is obscured for a nanosecond by a small chocolate that rapidly finds its way into the mouth of a small child or excited Trump.

But I've been thinking about Advent calendars; it'd be brilliant if they could do savoury snack ones where each door reveals a speciality salami, cheese, salty snack or pickle. That would be an advent calendar worth having!


Radioactive like sushi
What about the UK being witness to a spy drama straight out of the Cold War? How fantastic is it that assassins would go to the trouble of killing somebody with polonium-spiked raw fish rather than just putting a bullet in the back of their head? It's so exciting!

Of course, by fantastic, I mean out of the ordinary and totally mindblowing, rather than really good. This is the sort of thing we want the security services investigating, not your pathetically unoriginal islamic so-called plots to just blow up buses, planes and trains - this is real espionage. Pol-fucking-onium! Brilliant! Bring it on!

Essentially though, the Russians can get away with anything because they supply all our gas and oil - fall out with them and we're much more fucked than when we faced the threat of nuclear war.

Mix tapes

I've loved the musical medium of the "mix tape" since I first got access to recording equipment in the early 1980s. In those days, it was the painful exercise of having finger poised on the pause button while record and play were waiting to kick into action to capture as much of your favourite track being played on the radio... in mono of course.... with half the track being spoken over by the egomaniac DJ. But you got some mixes of your favourite music that you could listen to on your Walkman.

Over the years, radio DJs haven't changed that much. I suppose they're presenters rather than DJs since they don't need any particular talents or musical knowledge to talk shite over music that all sounds the same while having their egos massaged by a side-kick who talks in the language of in-jokes and D-list celebrity gossip. At least in this time, music media have changed quite dramatically. Mix tapes now come in the form of playlists on digital music players and the music never really comes in a real format anymore - it's just a file on your PC that has been downloaded.

It's rare that I buy real music these days. This is a good thing since I really haven't got any room for any more CDs: it's so much more convenient to just download an album onto a hard drive. But if you think about it, there's something really nice about listening to music on vinyl, there's a warmth there that cannot be achieved with the cleanliness of the purely digital format. Ah for the start of Blondie's Parallel Lines, the crackle of the stylus on the record... thud, thud as it hits a minor scratch... dialling tone... I'm in the phonebooth, it's the one across the hall. I still have an original copy of this album from when it was first released back in 1978, I shall be playing it very loud this weekend.

But back to my mix tape. I do make mixes of things for my car's CD player and, when I started seeing Trump, she gave me some rules about making these things. Apparently, it's a mortal sin to put more than one track from the same artiste on a mix CD. I could've been Trump dumped within a week if she hadn't been so forgiving. Apart from that one rule though, anything seems to go and you can put whatever you like on a mix CD. It is without shame that I can proclaim that my latest mix CD contains the following tracks:

1. The B52's - Lava
2. Beyonce - Ring the alarm (thanks Tazzy)
3. Banderas - This is your life
4. Gnarls Barkley - Who cares
5. Sade - Paradise
6. Rainbow - Since you've been gone
7. George Michael - Too funky
8. Kate Bush - James and the cold gun
9. Michael Jackson - Rock with you
10. Duran Duran - Come undone
11. Jamelia - Something about you
12. Joe Jackson - It's different for girls
13. The Similou - All this love (thanks Tazzy)
14. Morcheeba - Let me see
15. Blondie - 11.59
16. David Holmes - Paper underwear
17. Soft Cell & Jimmy Sommerville - I feel love
18. GeekGirl - The Devil and the dolly
    

What an excellent mix, I think the world will agree. Who else could get away with such a mix of contemporary dance, 80s rock, and soul?

Rainbow eh? I challenge you all to hunt out an old Rainbow, REO Speedwagon or Asia song and have a good old listen with the volume turned up. Fantastic, that's what it is.


Drag up, wear wigs, throw glitter: VERY DISCO
On the subject of mix tapes, one of my favourite mix tapes EVER was the Off your tits mix, which was made for me in my second year at university. The first track on it was Sylvester's (You make me feel) Mighty Real. I loved it, mixed in with plenty of S' Express and loads of other shite, I almost wore the thing out.

I asked my friend David (who made the tape for me) why we never heard much of Sylvester anymore and he told me that he'd died. When I asked what Sylvester had died of, he told me AIDS. I wondered if Sylvester might have been gay, then I saw this:

I still had my doubts, right up to his appearance in the purple sequinned turban.

Oh hell, I can't fine Lana Pelay's Pistol in my pocket, so a bit of Divine will have to do instead. I love gay disco!




Move away from the chick peas
Going out for a curry tomorrow night. Not just any curry, it's an eat all you can for a tenner buffet thing. They do this lovely chick pea curry and I can't stop eating it. I could be in casualty by this time tomorrow night, having my stomach pumped with a Dyson vacuum cleaner and some industrial hosing.

And then you saw me diet.

Awwwwwwwwwwww, intit lovely!

As I mentioned the other day, I wandered around Manchester on Saturday afternoon and enjoyed the Christmas lights as they came on and lit the streets around the city. Here are a few photos that I took there.

These displays are hanging around Albert Square, which is where the Town Hall is. Unfortunately, there's a Starbuck's in the way of the shot, but that's not hard since there are about 15 of the bloody things in the city.

This looks a bit shite, but this is Deansgate - one of the main shopping/eating streets in Manchester. One of the nice themes of the lights is that most of the trees around the city centre are covered in those little lights.

Kendals, one of our original department stores, is a Manchester landmark. It's nice to go in there and try to get across the ground floor without being accosted by sales personnel attacking you with the latest "oh no de parfum". I remember being taken to Santa's Grotto there as a child... well, I don't, but there's a photo of me struggling to escape from Father Christmas, tears streaming down my face, so I know it happened.

I "heart" the big wheel when it comes to Manchester. It's an impressive structure that occupies an prominent place in the city's skyline. Trump was so patient as she waited with me while I took this shot. I'd been waiting for what seemed an eternity for the thing to get spinning so I could get an action shot.

We usually keep the wheel until May, but unfortunately, we're only having it until the beginning of January because it's getting shipped off to the European Capital of Culture. Big wheel in Liverpool? Are they fucking mad? It'll be missing a few pods by the beginning of February.

Named and shamed

I love the power of Google.

People use search engines for all sorts of things and, sometimes, their searches bring them unto me. So for the person in Nottingham who was interested in "gay cruising using bluetooth", I'm sorry Cakesniffers couldn't offer any answers to your query, but I hope you enjoyed your visit, you filthy little cunt.

I don't know whether they get their clients' stuff delivered on time, but hauliers R Swain & Sons must have a job on their hands, what with their shit-for-brains workforce. I live opposite one of their transport depots and since it was taken over by Swains, I've had nothing but irritation from their idiot wagon drivers (and other employees).

Here's a question for you. When you leave to go to work in the morning do you:

1. Get your shit together, get in your car and go?
2. Get in your car, realise you've forgotten something, go back in the house to get it, then go?
3. Get in your car, drive off your drive, half way down the street, realise you've forgotten something, so park across somebody's drive, abandon the car, go home, put your feet up for half an hour, then return to your car?

Let's just say that Swain's drivers have the habit of doing the equivalent of option 3, only in a big, fuck-off articulated truck.

Why can't they just get in their wagons and piss off to wherever they're going? Why do they have to leave the depot and park on the road before setting off? And why do they have to do it with their engine running for up to half an hour from 4am?

I think they must be slightly a) thick, b) inconsiderate, or c) a combination of the two.

Not content with parking their wagons on the road near the depot, their employees have also acquired this habit, leaving their cars for up to twelve hours a day where people would normally park to use the local community centre. The consequence? People block my drive.

So, R Swain & Sons, next time you're thinking of recruiting people, perhaps you should ask them a few questions about the best methods for avoiding pissing people off.

Twats.


Sniffy's Catholic funeral experience
I'd never been to a Catholic funeral before Friday's event. What a bloody palaver! Up, down, sit, stand. It was a bit like an hour long hokey cokey with snivelling. You go in, sit down. Realise everybody else is stood, so you stand. The choir is singing a hymn, a nice one. You all sit down. The priest says something, the congregation mutters something back at him, you all stand up again. And that was it for about an hour. And then you shook hands and left for the crem do.

The good turn out was an indicator of the respect that many people had for the star of the show. Plus there was fantastic grub at the "do" afterwards - including "scouse", curry, BBQ chicken wings and chips! And, despite the sad circumstances, it was nice to meet up with my family who I don't get to see that often.

Drive safe

There is a road safety campaign called Drive Safe that claims that the thousands of road accidents and a few deaths that occur on the region's roads are all caused by motorists breaking the speed limit. What a load of bollocks. Accidents are caused by:

• Vehicles pulling out;
  
• Vehicles stopping suddenly;
  
• Pedestrians wandering into the road without looking where they're going;
  
• Buses weaving in and out of bus lanes.

Speeding isn't the cause of accidents when these things happen, but travelling at an inappropriate speed means that an accident is less likely to be avoided.

For example, the speed limit in most towns is 30mph. You travel at this speed in stop-start traffic and you're highly likely to smack into the back of the car in front of you, but you won't be caught by a speed camera. People travel on motorways in excess of 70mph, but there are relatively few accidents. Why? Because people are generally travelling in the same direction, you don't get pedestrians wandering into the road while sending text messages and you don't get cyclists or buses weaving in and out of the cars and lorries.

So now there's a road safety campaign that claims that all accidents are caused by motorists breaking the speed limit. Worse still, The Mysterious They are using the campaign as an excuse to introduce yet more speed cameras and - even WORSE - mobile speed detection units. These fuckers drive round in a little "Drive Safe" van and park on the roadside of nice wide 30mph roads, on nice clear days when there's no traffic about. And they wait and they rake in the cash as unwitting motorists pootle on by at 33, 34, 35 mph. Two weeks later the poor bastards get a notice to prosecute because they were driving at 33mph in 30mph zone on a clear day. KerCHING!

You don't get the fuckers parked up and taking their pictures at 10pm when lunatics are flying about 80mph on the same roads, do you? No because they know there's no point prosecuting people who are probably already banned from driving or whose vehicles aren't registered, taxed or insured anyway.

Next time I see one of these sneaky little shits parked up with his camera poking out the back of his van, I'm going to pull up in front of him, and then reverse as quickly as I can to knock the little bastard out. Fuckers.

I don't condone speeding in urban areas, I try very hard not to break speed limits myself, I'm sure most motorists are the same. If campaigns such as these were really interested in road safety, drivers would get a warning notification for each occasion when they were found to be travelling over the speed limit (within limits) within a three month time period, picking up points and a fine on the third occasion. The campaigns should also concentrate more on stupid fuckwit kids (and their parents), who run into the road without looking, and nobheads who wander about into traffic without paying attention too. Let's face it, if pedestrians stayed on pavements and used proper crossings, they'd be much safer.

Of course, spending money on education and getting people use road safely doesn't bring in any revenue, does it?


ANPR
While I'm the subject of cameras and shit like that, I'd like to mention Automated Number Plate Recognition. This is a system that I understand the government is trying to introduce here in the UK ANPR allows a vehicle's number plate to be picked up and tracked by a series of cameras. Nice.

It's getting to the stage where you can't go anywhere in this country without being captured on CCTV, but the introduction of ANPR will mean that you'll not only be captured on camera, but they'll also know who you are too.

FUCKERS!


Christmas lights
Me and Trump wandered into the City yesterday afternoon. It was getting dark and it wasn't long before the Christmas lights came on above the city's streets. "Season's Greetings!", was the welcome above Cross St. It's Merry Christmas, fuckers. CHRISTMAS! Not fucking Season's Greetings or Winterval or whatever else these twats want to call it for fear of offending people who aren't in the slightest bit offended by Christmas.

But the lights looked nice (we have a blue theme in Manchester this year) and the Christmas (not "Season's") markets were attracting a bustling crowd of people, enjoying cups of steaming gluhwein and hot sausage to keep the cold November air at bay. It could be a bit difficult for somebody who shouldn't drink to wander around in such an intoxicating atmosphere - the aroma of the spiced wine really does fill the air - but it's OK and the singing moose head was ever so cheery.

I've noticed that some of my neighbours have their Christmas decorations up. Fucking scumbags. When I'm Prime Minister, I'm going to introduce a law making it illegal to put up Christmas decorations in the home before the 1st of December. Any transgressions will be severely punished by the the perpetrators having their houses burnt down.

Funereal Friday

I'm off to a funeral tomorrow. I never really know what to wear at funerals. I know this may seem daft, but what can you wear with black trousers so you don't end up looking like a waitress in a Brewer's Fayre pub restaurant? When I die, I'm going to make it known that I want people to wear what they want. So long as they look fabulous, I don't care what outfits they have on.

I think I'd like a photographer there too, so my remaining loved ones could look back and see how many people turned up to show their respects because I was so popular and fantastic.

As if.

But photos would be interesting. Or a video to capture people making spiteful comments about each other... or me. The cunts.

But tomorrow's do will be a dignified affair that will reflect the dignified life of Marie Wilson, a woman who touched many people's lives just by being normal and good and decent and fair. Even as she lived with a terminal illness, she just got on with things without complaint, and adapted as she became less able to get about on her own. She was great.

She was also a Catholic once and this means a Catholic funeral mass. Oh blimey. Me in a Catholic church without my camera! And I have to drive really slowly behind the funeral cars. This wouldn't normally be a problem, but my sticky accelerator cable/throttle means that the car will be kangarooing in the middle of the cortège. People will think it's a hip-hop or rap star's funeral as they see my car bouncing along in tribute.



Keeel them!
I got to Base 2a this morning to find that my phone had been replaced by mad Cynthia's. Whereas I look after my phone, ensuring that the cable never gets mangled and twisted, Cynth clearly ain't that bothered about hers. I was horrified and really fucked off within 2 seconds of getting into my office. This, only a week after I'd chastised the very same Cynthia for spilling toast crumbs all over my desk and leaving coffee rings on my mouse mat (there are three coasters on my desk and plenty of plates in the kitchen). I swapped over the handsets and calmed down with a cup of coffee and a fair old amount of toxic trumping.

Cynthia came into work at 9am: "Oooooh, you've taken yours back!"

"Yes"

"Well, you see I had to swap them because I had to transfer a call for [big boss] and mine conked out at 4pm yesterday. I was going to replace it, but I forgot."

"There's a spare phone in the other office."

"Oh, IS THERE??"

"Yes"

"Blah blah, lots of shouty stuff that I'd already turned off from, blah, blah"

If her phone had died (it probably gave up after a few months of her constant shouting and banging down of the receiver), why did she go to the trouble of plugging it in in my office if it didn't work? What's the point of replacing a working phone with a broken one?

NO

COMMON

SENSE!


Popups
People who visit here are plagued by popups. I get them too. They piss me off as much as they do everyone else. They're nothing to do with me and there's nothing I can do to stop them other than starting a new blog and changing my url.

I'd like to thank Easy Hit Counters for my popup problem. When I first started my blog, I installed their counter. For some reason they have targetted my blog address so that every time you click here, you get a pop up.

They are cunts.

They can sometimes be stopped with firewall settings, but they generally come back and the best thing to do is just try and ignore them.



Television sex

Is it just me, or is having the TV on while you're trying to have sex really distracting? How are you supposed to get jiggy with it when you have Tony Blair for company? I might get some ear plugs.

Three fingers pointing back at you

I was going to write a post about how Britain seems to be turning into Nazi Germany and that all sorts of sections of our society are being blamed for the ills of the nation. According to the press, the following people would be heading for our equivalent of a concentration camp:

• Muslims - poor bastards are really getting picked on for just about everything at the moment
• Motorists, especially 4x4 drivers
• People who go on foreign holidays and take cheap flights
  
• People who don't want ID cards
• People who don't believe that global warming is caused by carbon
  
• Polish people
• Youngsters who wear hooded tops
  
• NHS managers
• Immigrants
  

Of course, the people mentioned in this list haven't generally done anything wrong, but they've all been targetted by the government for particular and unfair blame. But like Ghandi (I think, definitely Madonna) said, when you point the finger, there are three fingers pointing back at you.

Blaming sections of the population for the failings of a society simply because they're easy targets or more visible is a sure fire symptom that the fault lies elsewhere. In our case, it's with our wholly inept government.

Google me
Anyway, off that crap now. I have decided to start a new feature on Cakesniffers. Yes, Google me, will give me the opportunity to play mind games with people from my past, who I probably never really cared that much about, or perhaps cared lots about and perhaps those I'm just a bit curious about. What I'm going to do is simply type somebody's name and see if anybody finds my blog by searching for that name.

Who shall be my first victim?

Today I choose Jo Montgomery.

I used to work with Jo a few years ago. She's nice, but she's one of those people who only has people in their address book to use them as recipients of multiple-forward joke e-mails. So Jo, if you find me, hello. Hope you're doing well. Drop me an e-mail if you get chance.

Hewlett Packard Ink Cartridges

I've used HP inkjet printers for years. They're usually pretty good until they die. They're not too expensive, it's the consumables that tend to cost a lot of money. You're talking about £20 for a black cartridge and about £25 for a colour one. But this isn't too bad because you don't have to replace them all that often and the supermarkets tend to do their own that are just as good for a lot less money.

Embarking on an art project that would require printing out lots of 6x4 prints, I decided that I might as well replace my nearly empty Tesco black cartridge. So off I pootled and was disappointed that they only had HP brand cartridges for my printer in stock - at about twice the price of their own. But I wasn't too bothered since I don't have to replace them that often. I just wanted the thing tonight so I could get on with stuff.

First problem: getting into the cartridge.
Why is this so bloody difficult? First off you have to cut through that super sharp, super tough plastic security packaging while trying not to impale your hands on the razor-like corners and edges. Following this, with aching hands and bleeding fingers, you must negotiate two layers of cardboard packaging before finally getting to the cartridge. Before installing it, you recall the last time you used an HP brand black cartridge in the very same printer: somehow on that occasion the metallic communication strip on the cartridge had become mangled as you tried to install it. You remind yourself to be extra careful on this occasion!

You try to put the cartridge in the designated slot. Despite being as careful as possible, it doesn't seem to go in as easily as the colour cartridge and your worst fears are realised when the orange light flashes to tell you that there's an incompatible cartridge in the machine. Yep, the fucking thing has got mangled and has been rendered totally useless. That's £20 down the pan again, thanks to shitty HP cartridges.

Bastards.

I'm so pissed off. Next time I buy a printer, I must remember to get one that is compatible with the cartridges that we have at work.

Bios-fear

I don't really know what a Bios is - something to do with a bit of software that controls key settings on your PC when it starts up... you know, the black DOS bit before Windows starts. I made myself look a right tit (as opposed to a left one) when I thought I'd be clever and disable the Bios password on my work's PC. Didn't realise there was an additional administrator password and I ended up locked out of my machine for hours this morning while I waited to be rescued by my Shite in Whining Armour from IT Helpdesk.

Dur.

Why are IT Helpdesk personnel so password obsessed? Probably because of idiots like me who think they know what they're doing, but who always fuck it up.


Christmas
There's no hiding from it now: the festive season is just about on us. Well it's not, but the time has come to start preparing for it in terms of thinking about presents to buy loved ones - preferably ones that you can keep secret despite the almost constant questioning, "Sniiifffff? Can I have a clue please?"

Yes, so I've been organising some gifts for dearest Trump because I like to be organised. Most people like to be organised and it surprises me that the main retailers feel the need to remind us to get organised for Christmas. Why do they think they need to do this? Surely most people who celebrate Christmas generally know that it falls on 25th of December and that shops and things get crowded from mid-November, so it's usual for people to start asking what loved ones would like for gifts and to start sorting things out. We don't need the fucking shops to tell us that Christmas is coming!

We CERTAINLY don't need fucking horrible Asda telling us that Christmas is coming with their fucking horrible adverts that feature fucking horrible children singing I wish it could be Christmas every day! FUCKERS! Of course they wish could be Christmas every day! The fucking parasitic bastards don't have to pay for any of it and they get to have a really good time while everybody else is stressing about everything. Selfish little shits.

I hate the sound of children singing, absolutely fucking hate it. For Asda, which I hate with such a passion I cannot describe it, to use singing children to advertise their god-awful fucking shops is the absolute perfect example of how utterly fucking shite they are!

My jaw is aching because of intensive teeth-clenching.

In as much as Trump gifts go, she thinks I'm really splashing out, but I'm actually using my creativity to keep the costs of Christmas down. It's amazing what you can do with bits of old toilet roll insides and crepe paper. Next week I'll be making a Blue Peter advent candle.

That's just a bit of a joke to throw her off the scent. If anybody has any tips as to how to prevent her from finding out what I've got her, I'd be very grateful. I find it impossible to lie to her, so keeping her pressies secret until Christmas Day is going to be very difficult - she's already figured three out.


HA, HA, HA!
Don't you love it when people get their comeuppance? I really cannot believe the stupidity of some people, but I'm so glad that this idiot got what he deserved rather than hurting somebody else.

Passion

Ah the passion of new love. You are irresistible to each other. You can't look at the object of your desire without finding them desirable, without wanting to jump on them and get downright dirty with them. WOOF! They're gorgeous, and you're the luckiest person alive.

Seven months into a relationship and it's still the same as day one, moreso in fact as each time you're with them, you notice something else about them that you find absolutely adorable.

It's great.

What's even better is that you can get away with anything and still be attractive. It's been a bit chilly since we entered November and on Friday night, I couldn't cope with bedtime in the buff. I started off with pyjamas, but my feet were freezing and my dear Trump donated some bedsocks. Still no joy - or warmth - and as I shivered me timbers right to my core, I took her dressing gown and draped it on top of the duvet. Our hands were too cold for consolatory cuddles - the shock would've killed us - and the shivering continued. As a last resort, I took my hooded top from the chair, put it on and zipped it up. Warmth finally enveloped me, I fell into a deep slumber.

You wake at 6am to kisses and cuddles. You are boiling hot.

It's amazing that, even at your least attractive, somebody can still love you.


Anyway, that was Friday night; it's been a lot warmer since. So much so that, back at Casa Sniffy, it was so fucking hot when had to shut our windows to block out the noise and smoke that resulted from a six hour barrage of fireworks during last night's Guy Fawkes Night celebrations. It was nice to see that the fuckwits next door had left a load of whites washing pegged out for the duration. Thick cunts.

Remember, remember, the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th of November... oh, and don't forget Diwali, Eid and New Year too.

Fucking fireworks. They are wonderful spectacular things. Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes Night) used to be really special when it was just one night: we'd get some crappy Standard fireworks and stand with a sparkler while Dad tried to get a Catherine Wheel to work. They fizzed and putted and crackled; they weren't the best, but they were fun. These days, the fucking things are so loud that it sounds like you're under mortar attack in Basra. And, because of our multicultural society, or so we're told, they're available from September onwards and not just the week up to 5th of November.

Should the sale of fireworks be banned? I don't think so, but it should be restricted to people who have to work, who appreciate that having the frigging things going off at 3am isn't much fun when you have to be up in the morning.


What a life
I'm sure it's time for one of Connie's What a life gems. I imagine. She's currently acting as mediator for her two nieces whose mum is very seriously ill. I wouldn't mind her telling us about these family traumas, but it's the fact that she always draws comparison between me and Bomb that really pisses me off. Bomb is mental and under the influence of hormones, so anything I say to her is justified.

Bomb has decided to go down the washable nappy route for her little one. Mental. Get yourself some fucking pampers, nutcase; your life is going to be difficult enough as it is without washing baby poo down the lav and soaking shitty nappies for hours.

She had her 20wk scan last week and I can confirm that she is definitely carrying a belly full of arms and legs. The misery guts didn't want to find out its sex though, so I'll have to wait till it's out before I can start calling it Cosmo or Allegra (my names, not hers). Why not find out if you can?

Peppery hedgehogs

Peppery

Now that it’s officially winter, I am officially enjoying official wintery foods. Tonight’s tea will be copious amounts of black peas, a Lancashire delicacy that I was introduced to for the first time only last week. Trump is such a dear, she’s had the things soaking in water overnight so all we have to do is boil them up once she gets in from work.

They’re just about the weirdest peas I’ve ever had though; you cook them with bicarb so they go all mushy – a bit like mushy peas, only they taste a little like refried beans. Anyway, they have to be enjoyed with lashings of vinegar and lots of white pepper (and salt if you’re me, or not if you have any of your taste buds left).

I’ve just had a cup of hot Bovril with lots of pepper. Yes Bovril, the beef extract. I was stunned when I heard that the manufacturers were going to stop using beef products altogether. That’s just not right, what would they call it then, Vovril? Anyway, it seems that good sense has prevailed and the proper stuff is available again. My nose is dripping from the pepper, but the hot Bovril drink is something that is slightly addictive. I’d get another cup if it was a bigger jar. I think Trump only bought the smaller size to test it out.

I’m at her house now, eagerly awaiting her return from work. She knows I’m here, I’m not like a weird stalker or anything.

Car share

We’re being encouraged to car share at work. Apparently, if you car share, you get preferential parking spaces on the level of the multi-storey car park that’s immediately below that which the rest of us environmental vandals have to use. A whole level lower! It doesn’t really make that much difference when the car park is on the corner of the site that’s the furthest possible from where most people work. So you still have a ten minute walk to your office, you just have to go down fewer stairs.

Dicks.

The scheme is being advertised with colourful posters that say things like “be kind to hedgehogs, car share!” I still don’t follow the logic behind that link, especially since we’re in the centre of a big fuck off city and the nearest hedgehogs are about eight miles away.

Dicks.

I tried car sharing for a while and it’s a complete pain in the arse.

• You agree a time that you’re going to pick somebody up.
• You rush around your house like a mad thing to ensure that you don’t leave late.
• Half way to picking up your passenger, you realise you’ve forgotten something important (like tampons), but you can’t be late, so you keep going.
• You need a poo, but didn’t have time to have one so you have to trump in the car. You have to open the windows despite the gale force winds and torrential rain.
• You arrive at your passenger’s house on time.
• You expect them to be waiting on the doorstep for you. They’re not, so you have to get out of the car and knock on the door.
• They let you in the house where you wait while they finish doing their hair, packing their bag, smoking their cigarette.
• You leave ten minutes later, but not before they’ve gone back into the house to check that they shut the bathroom window.
• You hit bad traffic – traffic that wouldn’t have been there had you not made the diversion to pick up a passenger twenty minutes earlier.
• They make conversation about the bad traffic and how much better it would be if more people shared their journeys to work.
• You bite your tongue.

I don’t really like having passengers in my car, not strangers at least. I like to be able to listen to my music, sing along if I like. How can I shout and swear at other drivers if I’m trying to be polite? I need my fart space.

So, be kind to hedgehogs, stay off work with a bad back!

Talking of which.... An edit and dedication to Her Majesty the Queen

Her Majesty has had to cancel a number of public engagements over the past week due to a bad back. She has my sympathy. But I can't believe it's taken her so many decades to discover that you can get out of your job by claiming to have a bad back.

Well done, Ma'am.

You're a vegetable and I hate you

For all the years since I first heard Michael Jackson's "Got to be starting something", I've never known what the hell it was on about and was convinced that the closing reprise went something like:

"You're a vegetable, you're a vegetable
And I hate you, you're a vegetable"

Could these really be in the lyrics of a pop song? Well, and I'm not sure whether these are correct or not, but this is what he's supposed to be saying:

You're Stuck In The Middle (Yeah, Yeah
And The Pain Is Thunder (Yeah, Yeah)
You're A Vegetable, You're A Vegetable
Still They Hate You, You're A Vegetable
You're Just A Buffet, You're A Vegetable
They Eat Off Of You, You're A Vegetable


So there you have it, it wasn't my ears playing tricks on me, the lyrics are truly bizarre!

There are other instances of odd song lyrics, but plenty where we just get it wrong. One of my favourites was Womack and Womacks Teardrops, from about 1988:

Footsteps on the dancefloor, remind me baby of you
Teardrops... in my eyes, next time I'll be true

Not difficult, but I used to think she was singing about "teardrops in my high heels".

It's good to know that it's not just me. A friend of mine once thought that Bonnie Tyler was Lost in drag, while I know of another person I know thought that Kirsty McColl was telling us There's a guy works down the chip shop swears his 'ead off.


Trick or treat
Following the great tradition that was brought her from North America, the UK's children are terrorising their neighbourhoods by taking part in "Trick or treat" activities. There have been arrests in Liverpool, apparently, where the little shits have been vandalising the homes of those who don't give them enough cash - sweets are not enough.

We've had three ghostly visitations so far, from "youths" who have gone to all the trouble of dusting off last year's Scream mask and wearing it under their hoodies.


"Trick or treat"

"Sing us a Hallowe'en song or tell us a joke. You're not getting anything until you do."

"Don't know any"

"Well, you're not getting anything then. Tell us a joke!"

"Where does Bin Laden keep his CDs?.... In a rack (in Iraq)"

"Good, have a couple of Heroes, but leave the time outs! They're OK if you're allergic to nuts.... I think. That'll be a treat for us if your face swells up and you can't get your mask off!"

Little bastards will be exploding fireworks through people's letterboxes for the next month or so.

DooooooooWopp

I could never write songs, or be a singer for that matter.

This has nothing to do with the fact that I have no talent for either writing or singing. No, you see, I'd never be able to incorporate the necessary "oooooooooos", "aaaaaaaaaahhhhhs", "boooooeeeeeeeeps" and other such non-verbal accompaniments that are a prerequisite for a hit song.

For some examples (and there are loads), check out the following:

Every little thing she does is magic - The Police
Use it up, wear it out - Odyssey
The house that Jack built/Respect/Seesaw/Dr Feel Good, etc, etc, etc - Aretha Franklin
Give me the night - George Benson
Anything soul/RNB

These are probably extreme examples, but just about every pop song has some degree of this. I reckon the "Oooooh Factor" is very important in popular music, it sort of provides a link in the song and it'd be interesting to see what songs would be like without it. I suppose you'd end up with something like Coldplay or Keane or some other such shite that we could all live without.

Why has Windows Media Player attributed Tori Amos's From the choirgirl hotel to Natasha Bedingfield? I'd love to know how that one came about.


Zipping up my boots
I'm heading back to my roots. Or not, if you're somebody like the Appletons (from All Saints), James Martin (Yorkshire TV chef), Mel Gibson (total American/Aussie/American cunt).

What is it with these people that they change their accents so easily? I remember when Mel Gibson was an Aussie (in films like Tim, Galipoli, Mad Max) and then he turned into an American in the mid-eighties. He also tried being Scottish (Braveheart) and English (Bounty/Hamlet). He was just annoying in all roles. Tit.

People do change their accents depending on where they live and the people who they associate with, it's only natural; I have a strange Manchester/Yorkshire accent from my time at university all those years ago. However, what really grates on me is when people from the North of England (who have the flattest vowels on earth) start to change to "Southern-speak". A classic example is TV Chef James Martin, a bloke from Yorkshire, who still speaks like a bloke from Yorkshire apart from a recently-acquired tendency to change his vowel-sounds to make them more palatable for TV. No longer do we get "butter" or "honey", oh no, young James now favours the "batter" and "hanny" sound. Tosser. I'm sure even the most retarded Mockneys can understand what is meant by "butter", fuckwit.


Laying about in bed all day, stinking of shit
I'm in bed. I should be parking my car at work right now, but I've been suffering with a bad back for the past couple of days and even the slightest movements in the wrong direction, and even those in the right direction, were causing me a lot of pain when I tried to get going this morning.

But now I'm sat in bed, propped up on three pillows, laptop at the ready. These things don't half kick out some heat. Really hot now.

The problem with bad backs is that they can lure you into a false sense of security: you get moving and it eases up a bit so you make your way into work and then find that you can't get down the stairs in the car park or walk to your office. Can you imagine what that'd look like? I'm sorry, I couldn't face that humiliation, or the concern of all the healthcare professionals who would obviously flock to my aid. So to save being laughed at by people, I decided to stay off today.

Already from my sick bed, I've heard screams of "YOU BASTARD!!!!" from one of the neighbour's houses. This was around 6am and was quite disturbing. And my prolonged stay in this room has made me aware of a strange smell in here. I think it's the holdall that I took to Canada; the one that got drenched in red wine that's sat on top of a wardrobe.

I'll be taking Voltarol, a lovely drug that has no side effects that I can gather. Although I did have a strange dream in which I was preparing for stint in a stand up comedy show and I ended up deciding to talkabout stealing prescription drugs off old people. I woke up before the audience started dying of laughter, obviously.


Finally succumbed to a You Tube vid clip



Firefox 2
I've installed the latest versions of web browsers from Mozilla (Firefox) and Microsoft (Internet Explorer) and they're both OK, although I do prefer Firefox these days.

Boring techno crap. ... Anyway, I'm using Firefox to type this and I've noticed that it underlines any text that's not in the English (British) dictionary in a similar fashion to the way MS Office applications do. How good is that? Well it's OK I suppose.

The man on the street

Ah, the great British public. Please save me from them/it.

I was having a chat with a woman who has the job of promoting public transport initiatives for people working in Universities/big hospital area just south of the city centre in Manchester. She asked where I came to work from and acknowledged that it's pretty poorly-serviced in terms of a direct bus route - in fact, it's not serviced at all. "But the number 8 is a great service to Shudehill". I agreed with her -it is - but added that I wouldn't like to do it any more frequently than once or twice a year because it gets full of scumbags from Salford.

The problem with public transport is that it means you're confined in a small space with members of the public, and this is something that can cause me great distress. If they could ensure that you didn't have to share your journey with the dregs of society who take pleasure in intimidating fellow passengers without fear or reproach, then this would be a step in the right direction in making bus travel more attractive.

So back to the man on the street. My particular encounter with man on the street today took place near the pond that's on my route to the shops. I tried not to stare at the bloke as he walked in my direction; something wasn't right with his face. I made the mistake of making eye contact with him and he stopped to talk to me:

"You see all these here?" Close-to, I could see that his nose was plastered across his face from what looked like a pretty old injury. He was swaying. He was VERY Scouse. "You see all these here?"

"What, the ducks?"

"Yeah", he swayed, "they're all fuckin' quackers!"

Oh how my sides split!

"Yeah", I agreed, "they're pretty mad, it's freezing today. You should see them in winter when the pond's half frozen over, they still sit in that water all day. Sometimes I think they get frozen in."

"Oh right, like, yeah, I went to visit my mate in the fuckin' [mental health unit] and one of the fuckin' ducks had got in there and laid all its eggs inside the fuckin' yard. Fuckin' mental."

"Yeah, they're great. They lay eggs in the hospital courtyard too and, when the chicks hatch, they put a paddling pool out for them so they can learn to swim."

"No fuckin' way!"

"They certainly do!"

"Well, that's just fuckin' great. Hey, you're a nice person."

I'm a nice person.

I stopped for a 2 minute conversation with stranger who looked as rough as hell, who swore even more than I do, but who wanted nothing more than to have a chat about the ducks and that makes me a nice person. It makes me a bit ashamed of how I allow myself to form opinions about people. I don't think I am a particularly nice person; I'm opinionated, short tempered, irreverent and impatient, but there you go. There are scummy people out there, utter shitbags. But there are a lot of people who don't really have much to offer, and in all honesty possibly can't help themselves much, but who are happy to stop a stranger and talk about ducks. There can't be too much wrong with that.


Another man on the street
Aki got in trouble for stopping young people and asking to feel and measure their muscles and asking them to do squats so he could see their muscles. He's now been banned from doing this. Perhaps he should investigate ducks as a means of breaking the ice when meeting strangers.


ANOTHER man on the street
There are plenty of bigots out there, religious or otherwise. It's odd that we don't kick up too much of a stink about so-called Christian fundamentalists spouting their filth while having dangerous amounts of influence in US politics, yet everytime a "radical muslim cleric" comes out with something outrageous, there's open-season on Islam.

Still, after a couple of weeks where the wearing of veils by a tiny minority of muslim women in the UK has been in the spotlight, the whole debate on muslim dress and that is still in the news. No surprise then that a bit of a stink has been kicked up by Sheikh al-Hilali's comments about the way women dress attracting unwanted attention from men and that women who don't wear the Hijab (headscarf) are like raw meat attracting flies or cats or something. You see, when people use daft metaphors, they're always open to misinterpretation. If he'd just said "women who don't cover up are asking for it because men are animals who can't keep it in their pants, then it wouldn't have been nearly as insulting as likening women to bits of meat and men to alley cats or flies or summat!

But who'd have thought that something as simple as wearing a headscarf would protect a woman from rapists? Genius! I can see this being the basis of a new super heroine. And if, as implied, the problem is that men can't control themselves, why aren't they made to wear blindfolds or kept locked up?

Then again, the Catholic church won't allow the ordination of gay priests "because of its rampant problem with paedophiles". Of course, all gay men are paedophiles, aren't they?

And then there's the delightful "God hates fags" group that protests outside military hospitals in the states and shouts abuse at injured service personnel. They blame injuries to US troops, and I think Hurricaine Katrina, on America's liberal attitude to gays.

Fucking hell, they're all mad!

I'll get off my anti-religion soap box now. Things like this wind so many folk up and make it difficult to remember how many millions of good people enjoy their faiths without causing one bit of trouble, and how many people without faith are complete and utter wankers.

Essentially, people are split into a number of categories, irrespective of sex, colour, race, religion, social class, whether they drive a people carrier:

• Lovelable
• Likeable
• OK
• Tolerable
• Annoying
• Insufferable
• Total cunt

The other stuff just allows them to associate with loveable, OK, tolerable, annoying, insufferable cunts of the same sex, ethnicity, religion or Renault owners club membership status.

Defacation

Why is it that you have loads of poos some days? Is it something to do with how much food you scoff? Gillian McWitch would say so. Stupid cow.

Apparently, there's a bloke somewhere in the South of England who has caused over £60,000 worth of damage to the trains down there by pooing in the carriages and smearing it all over. Dirty bastard. He's probably protesting about the quality of the sausage rolls or something.

Can you imagine? Blimey, there are some proper odd people about.

Little Otto went back to the vet for the first time since he was given a near fatal overdose of ketamine this time last year. He's a calm little soul and apparently has never had much of an issue with travelling in the car... until today, when he peed all over my dad. He'd clearly not forgotten what happened to him last time he had to go in a car. He was OK once he got to the vet's and was back to his floppy self while being examined. The vet reckons he's a bit constipated so has given him some Katalax, which he seems to enjoy a little too much for comfort. No doubt there'll be a major shit monster episode in the early hours and we'll wake up to a house peppered with pellets of kitty poo.



At the dentist
I had my dental check-up today. It took less than a minute for the dentist to examine me and confirm that all is well in the Sniffy gob. It cost me £15.50. That's £15.50 for one minute's work. Do the maths. Still, for the same fee, I could've had an x-ray and a scale and polish included. But no thanks, they're such vicious bastards when they polish your teeth and you end up spitting blood for days.

I was having a look at my teeth last night because I'd been convinced that I've got a small cavity in one of them. I was shocked and appalled when I counted FIVE fillings. I mustn't have started brushing my teeth until I was twenty! Skanky mare. Anyway, he had a close look at where I'd been feeling a bit of sensitivity and found nothing. I think I may have an undiagnosed siamese twin in my jaw or something. You'll hear it here first.


Glad tidings
I've been holding back on letting rip with some exciting news in the Sniffy household. My sister, Bombarella, is about 18 weeks pregnant. Pregnant out of wedlock and no sign of the father I might add. Dirty bitch.

The pregnancy isn't without complications (my sister is the mother for a start!) and I'm not getting too excited until the little one is safely with us, but all being well, it's going to be great. I'm so very pleased for her and I can't wait to be an auntie. Can't wait to have a little one to influence and corrupt. Hee, hee, hee.

I've already started pulling faces in the general direction of the Bumparino, just so it doesn't get too shocked when it first meets me.

Hope Trump doesn't spoil my fun. She's so sensible at times.