That dog has distemper!

A wonderfully lazy Saturday morning had seen Trump force me out of bed at 10am. I didn't want to get up, I was still tired, but she made me. After taking a couple of hours to come round, I realised that Rocky was restless, so I took him for a wander.

He's hopeless at walking on a lead; choosing to pull and half choke himself, resulting in him wheezing, grunting and ultimately throwing up (spray collar to come). Anyhoo, I didn't care as I was accompanied by music from my wonder-gadget, so I just plodded along, allowing him to sniff, leap at crows that was hundreds of metres away, wee, sniff, pull, poo - dog things.

As we pootled along, a little girl on a bike approached, as she neared, I saw that she was saying something to me. For fuck's sake, I've been walking this dog for months and no fucker has spoken a word and now that I choose to listen to some music on my walk, I am bothered by a child seeking my attention! I removed the earphones. She was pleasant enough and very polite. She asked if she could pet Rocky. Of course she could, but I warned that he might want to jump on her velour trousers (how very oo-la-la we are in Levenshulme!) because he gets excited with the attention but that he had muddy feet and so she should be careful. At this point, he vommed up a few swollen dog biscuits in front of her.

"He does that because he pulls on his lead", I told her.

She wasn't too keen to pet him after that.

We continued our journey and the wind picked up like a bugger. It sent him bonkers; he pulled, leaped, spun round in the air. I noticed another couple approaching, then as they passed, the man said something to me. I didn't understand because I had my earphones in so I removed them. He repeated what he'd said and I still didn't understand because he was Irish or something weird.

"Sorry?"

"How old is dat dog?"

"Eight months"

"Dat dog 'as disdemper! You can tell from da noise he's makin' from 's troat."

"Oh no, he's fine, he's just choking because he pulls on his lead too hard"

"Does 'e 'av all 'is jabz?" He gesticulated an injecting motion.

"Oh yes, he's fully vaccinated. He's fine"

We continued our journey.


Mr tambourine man
I think I'm going to develop a new skill. Nothing particularly useful or "transferable", but something fun. Something that will make me stand out at a party. I'm going to learn to play the tambourine and bongos. Perhaps I could be a mercenary for the Salvation Army.


Noise reducing
I bought some in-ear, noise-reducing earphones today. You know the sort that prevent others being annoyed by the tst-tst-tst noise that usually emanates from people with iPods? Anyway, they're really good, but they feel quite weird, a bit like they're going to come out through the back of my throat.

People might make the mistake of thinking I have distemper. Or just a temper.



Dinner for one
Apparently, it costs $14CDN to send a box of Kraft dinners from Canada to Barnsley. But did you know that you can get Canadian delicacies from the Canada Shop Online? Here, you can buy Kraft Dinner original or spirals for £1.95. I'd better stock up for when April gets here. I want to make Manchester a home from home for her. Things I need to arrange:

• Somebody to keep her warm at night
• Telephone local donkey sanctuary to see if they'll lend me one of their residents for a day or two
• Finest Canadian cuisine
• Kraft dinner
• Bicks pickles
• Lays crisps (chips, whatever the fuck they call 'em)
• Must remember to buy some Twiglets for her to try
• All washed down with some Clamato
  
• Sporting activity
• Waterskiing down the Ship Canal
• Hoodie clubbing in Gorton

Oh yes, we're going to have so much fun! I wonder how she'll cope with being taken out in the big city? Probably something like Crocodile Dundee with foul language.

Random

"Oh my God, this really random thing happened. There was this random guy who was really cute and we got together and it was so random!"

I once worked with somebody who spoke like that. It was almost ironic the way she randomly inserted the word "random" into her sentences.

In some respects, despite the general structure to our daily lives, many occurrences might be attributed to random chance, although not entirely. There are certain constraints that apply, depending on location, time of day, time of year, time of month.

So I guess things aren't so random afterall. Like having music on random play on your MP3 player or PC's media player. It's never random is it? With a thousand tracks on my new media player, and the player set to shuffle, how does it manage to keep playing the same song? Weird.

Oh, did I drop a hint? Yes, Father Christmas spoiled me rotten this year and I got so many wonderful presents from lots of lovely people. Ruined, that's me. Top gift, techno-wise, was a Creative Zen media player. Not an iPod, a Creative. And it's great. Does it play MP3s? Yes! Does it play videos? Yes! Does it play WMAs? Yes! Would an iPod? Er, nope. Has it got a radio? Yes. Does the iPod? Don't think so! Has it got a slot for an SD card? Yes. Does the iPod? Does it bollocks.

Creative wins hands down.


Christmas cheers
I had quite a few liqueur chocolates this Christmas. Being a non-drinker, these made me quite tipsy. Lovely.

Christmas was nice. I spent it between the Sniffy homestead and Trump's family home, it was lovely. Lovely. Lovely.

I love Christmas.

Now, how do I avoid New Year?


Happy holidays
Apparently, our MPs have said again that we in the UK should have an extra bank holiday, since our European neighbours all have more than us.

They say this every year in the middle of winter to make us feel a bit better about the shit weather and the dark. They also say it in the middle of a couple of bank holidays, so as it doesn't hit as hard as if it was mentioned sometime in October. Cunts.


Merry Christmas!

One more get up

Yep, just one more get up to go before I break up for Christmas, then I'm off until the 3rd of January.

Thank fuck!

Did my Christmas shopping in Manchester this evening; it was pleasantly quiet. I wandered around the shops looking for inspiration, but didn't find much. So it was something smelly from Boots for my brother, something smelly from Selfridge's for Bomb, a jumper type thing for my dad from Marks's, a toy for Little Con, something for the in-laws.

Hrrrm, that's a tricky one. I ended up in Lush and my olfactory senses were immediately assaulted with the overpowering odours of soap that smells of foodstuff... mainly because the soap is made of foodstuff. I couldn't distinguish one thing from another so I gave up on that one. Rubbish.

There's so much pressure, and it's all so easy, to spend loads of money on crap that you don't need. As I queued for the tills in the shops I visited, I looked at the items for sale, all especially packaged to be sold as Christmas presents. By Monday lunchtime, they'll be a third of the price. I'm tempted to nip into town on Monday lunchtime, but STOP! It's all tat! there's no need to even consider buying any of that stuff... apart from perhaps the puppy chaise longue I saw. Rocky would look the biz on one of those.

Trump bought herself a new games console. She's doing skateboarding now. I'm sure it's much easier to do the real thing, judging by the complexity of controls. The soundtrack to most of these games consists of hard rock music and shouting, or hip hop. It's no wonder kids are mental.

Homemade veg and pasta soup + puppy

I'm thinking of having a sweepstake on the outcome of providing leftover beany veg and pasta soup to a little doggy. How many hours before he shits himself on the new carpet? I'm going for five.

The things you do when you can't be arsed to empty the slops into the bin when you know the collections are going to be erratic next week.

There's a fucking huge bluebottle buzzing around the living room. It's been struggling to get about zero for the past ten days and there's a blue bottle in here. Outraged!


You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy cunt!
Radio 1 here tried to censor one of the finest Christmas songs of the modern era today. They'd backed down by 5.30pm.

The Pogues and Kirsty McColl's Fairytale of New York, twenty years old; twenty years of a song that tells the story of a squabbling couple at Christmas; twenty years of people of my age thinking fondly of all the times they'd heard it, all those associations.

In all those twenty years, I had never thought the song was offensive, I'm sure nobody else had either. The most offensive thing about it is Shane McGowan's face.

Yes, faggot can be used in an offensive way, as can so many words, but the problem with political correctness is that it generally means there's a bunch of white, well-educated, middle class numpties scouring the globe for things that they think people who they've never met might or should find offensive. I find political correctness utterly offensive. How dare people be offended on others' behalf without even asking them.

Patronising CUNTS!

Tell you what, why not be grown ups and let people just get on with stuff and if somebody finds it offensive, then address why that is if and when it happens?

And the bells were ringing out for Winterval!


Rocky around the Christmas tree
Here's Rocky in his outfit for Christmas Day. Cool eh? One of my friends said he looks a little camp. I think he looks like he should be supping a martini: licked, not stirred.

He's so handsome!

The last resort

Well, faced with the alternative of reading The Observer magazine supplements and their incessant bombardment of ethical living, I thought that contributing to my blog would be the best option prior to turning in this Sunday evening.

FIVE MORE WORK GET UPS TO GO!

Thank fuck.

I have been very tired and a bit down in the dumps of late. The lack of summer and now the long darkness of winter have had an adverse effect on my mood. As such, I am lacking in motivation for many things.

Still, it's nearly Christmas. Yay, and all that.

Oh for the excitement of bygone years. Now I just look forward to Christmas for the time off work with Trump and my Mum's Christmas dinner. In the future, with any luck, we'll be looking forward to resurrecting the excitement.

I'm planning on having dinner parties if and when we get to buy our little house near the hills. But who would you invite? An occupational hazard of being queer and having queer friends is that they tend to be a bit liberal and, horror of horrors, vegetarian... arriving at the door with strict ethical principles instead of a bottle of plonk. You'd try to impress them with simple but tasty cooking and they'd insist on checking the source of all the components - "Is it organic and free trade?"

"Well, no, but it's cheap and it tastes nice, so eat it, el fucko!"

I don't think we'd ever get to the coffee, what with my insistence on using either Illy or Lavazza.

Tap water OK, or do United Utilities exploit their workforce too much?

I was out on my Christmas do with my colleagues on Friday night. It was excellent. I sat opposite my manager, the one who outed me a few years back. She was telling me what she'd bought for her partner's birthday presents and told me that she'd only given "ethical" gifts. As I shouted a disparaging "Oh, for fuck's sake!", she cut in and explained "No well, ethical means that I buy things that she wants and will enjoy."

Hang on a minute, so ethical presents are things that people actually want? Well, I've been trying to do that for years! But you don't want to go as far as getting a list from the recipient so they know what they're getting - you might as well just give them the cash.

For goodness sake.

Or you could always buy a cow for some village in the back of beyond where the locals end up sacrificing the poor thing and smearing themselves in the blood in the name of some backward religion.

But that's Barnsley for you I suppose.

I'm sorry, but if I'm not spending money on my loved ones, I'm spending the money on me... and gadgets, which I need far more than some heathen in a hot place needs fresh water!

But back to the Christmas do. I wasn't drinking, of course, but my colleagues were and my manager showed no inhibitions in front of her team. Good on her! We tried the normal pubs in Manchester, but they were packed, so we ended up making our way to Canal Street. She kept trying to make me dance, I was having none of it. I don't do dancing anymore. And it didn't seem appropriate somehow.

I really hate dancing now that I don't drink. It just seems like one of those activities that you should only engage in when you're totally off your tits. Same as job interviews I suppose; much easier to deal with (both during and afterwards) if you're shitfaced during the experience.


SAD
I'm sure I suffer from seasonal affective disorder. I really feel rubbish from the end of August to the beginning of April. For my birthday, I'm going to insist on a SAD lamp. They're a bit expensive, so I might have to slum it with a couple of torches strapped to my eyeballs.

And, along with the possibility of buying a bungalow, so begins the decline of wanting things from the Sunday newspaper supplements (not The Observer, obviously - I'd end up with a cow in Darfur).

C'mon!

Filth!

Anyway, what's been going on? Oh, the usual... it's getting freezing-my-tits-off cold now. And it's dark to match as we descend into the depths of winter. Bums.

Trump may have found a buyer for her house. This would be amazing and great, but I'm not counting chickens.

I've forgotten how to type.

I'm trying to remember what I was going to blog about, but Trump is playing maniacally on her Nintendo DS. It sounds like a Super Mario game. I like the way she does the sound effects. I have convinced myself that it's endearing.

She sometimes plays on her DS at bedtime, this isn't nearly as irritating having to listen to BBC Radio 4, which I despise. It's politics 90% of the time. People droning on and on and on. It's maddening. Last night it wasn't politics, it was some woman with the poshest voice ever talking about one thing after another, seemingly without paragraphs; cooking, travel, knitting all sorts of things in a plum in her mouth monotone.

And then the relief.

A lull in the talking and the sound of Sailing by started. I was relaxed in an instance. This piece of music transports the listener the deck of a boat, drifting in a slight summer's breeze. It is lovely and is used to introduce the Shipping Forecast every night. The forecast itself is enough to send me to sleep happy.

With all the digital channels that the BBC has, why can't it give one over to have the shipping forecast and Sailing By on loop, 24 hr a day? Perhaps inter-dispersed with a few numbers station broadcasts from the Lincolnshire Poacher.

It'd be far more entertaining than most of the utter shite they churn out. It pisses me off that they think they can get away with producing self-indulgent rubbish because they don't have commercial sponsors to answer to. The other day on 6 Music, listeners were subjected to a good ten minutes of tuneless noise, simply because they could play it. Arseholes.


Childless benefit
AT LAST there's some benefit from the tax man for not having kids. After ten years of being screwed over time and again for the sake of people who keep breeding, those of us without kids are smiling. HA HA HA!!!

Well done Gordon!

A pound?

I went shopping with Trump and her mum yesterday. Of course, there being 25% off everything at Debenhams meant that I simply HAD to buy a suit jacket for £60 and a leather jacket for £160! Tit. Still, £165 instead of £220 is a bargain as far as I'm concerned.

And I've put a claim in for my last six months' worth of petrol expenses, so that should cover it.

I nipped into Poundland to have a look at the batteries, picked up a pack of 15AAs and took them to the till. "Can you do a price check on these please?" I enquired of the teenage assistant at the counter. She looked at me with disgust: "A pound?". Oh yeah, of course, silly me.

Now then, what the fuck was I going to blog about? There was something interesting...


Spirito di Connie
My new car isn't a Fiat Punto (hence "Spirito di Punto" reference), it's a Nissan (no difference there then) Almera (big difference there!), which is OK and it has some nice features that the Primera didn't. One such thing that you'd think would be quite handy is parking sensors - really useful for a nob like me who tends to use her rear bumper as a parking sensor. Anyway, rear parking sensors are so fucking annoying; they're the electronic equivalent to having your elderly mum sat in the bag, going on at you:

Beep! "Oh look you're going backwards, be careful now!"

You edge backwards slowly:

Beep, beep, beep "Hrrm, I'm getting a bit nervous now, don't you think you've gone back far enough? I'm sure you can stop here, it's fine here."

But you know damn well that you've got miles of room behind you, so you keep going:

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP (rapidly) "Now, this isn't funny! I wish you'd just stop, please. I'm coming over all unnecessary"

Oh fuck off, there's acres of bloody space (not that I'd ever tell Connie to fuck off!):

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "You. Have. Killed. Me!"



House doctor
Trump's house is on the market. We've been redecorating, getting new carpets, trying to de-clutter. There is a viewing tomorrow; me and Rocky have to get out of the way while people are being shown around. Trump has been instructed to tell viewers that her husband is dead (not as in "He is dead to me" because that wouldn't give the right impression) and that she wants to move out to be close to her elderly parents - things that sound good to certain prospective buyers.

Got to do a sweep of the house to remove stray pairs of knickers from here and there.


Northern Lights
A few years ago, a talented British author wrote a trilogy. A masterpiece called His Dark Materials. The first book was called Northern Lights. There's a film out on 5th December called the Golden Compass; Northern Lights as it was published in the States. Why did they have to change the name of it? The story is about the Northern Lights, Lyra's journey there and stuff. Yes, the alethiometer is very important to the story, but it's not even called a golden fucking compass. For fuck's sake. Anyway, the film looks really good, so I'm going to go and see it.


Stranger than fiction
This is a good film too. I really recommend it. Emma Thompson is brilliant in it.


Still can't remember what I was going to blog about, but it was something that got me really annoyed.

Don't forget the cannoli

I'm not sure I like mobster films, but I love The Sopranos. It's been the same old scenario whereby I encounter a TV phenomenon as it's coming to its conclusion. I did the same with Spaced, Frasier, Friends and now I'm currently watching The Sopranos on DVD. It's not a bad thing. At least this way, I can get it all over and done with relatively quickly and get on with my life, without having to wait for them to make the programme first.

But yeah, mobsters. Having an Italian dad, I've often wondered what it would've been like if he'd been on slightly the wrong side of the tracks. Fucking brilliant I bet. Imagine having a mob leader for a dad! A phonecall here, a quick word in the ear there, all problems sorted. The nearest we get is him being greeted with a respectful handshake and bowed head at the local Italian restaurant: "Good evening, Mr Donato, I have a fine table for you just here, not too draughty."

The thing I can't cope with in gangster films is all the characters, most of them called Paulie or Sal. It's all too confusing, especially when you can't hear what they're saying with they're mouths full of manicotti and peanuts.


Wiidow
That's what I am. Trump has rekindled her love for Zelda on the Wii. She doesn't half shout and swear a lot when she's playing these games. And here's me thinking they're supposed to be fun and relaxing.

The music is quite sinister. It's making me a bit scared, what with the sounds of running feet and swishing of swords. Her character keeps getting killed, you don't get that in Wii Sports. I wonder if she'd do better if I made her a little outfit to wear, might help her be the main character.

I don't think the main character is called Zelda, I think this is Link, although it could be called "You stupid fucking twat!", from what I can gather.

From what I understand, the Wii will be in short supply yet again this Christmas. Fucking brilliant marketing ploy from Nintendo, as with others; let the whispers out now that stocks are low and hey presto, everyone rushes out to buy the must have present.

It is a brilliant console though.


Clever puppy
I got in from work this evening to discover that Rocky had destroyed: a rental DVD; bank statement; postcard; car insurance correspondence. He has abandonment issues. He also has cat issues, slipper issues, vacuum cleaner issues and Asda puppy food issues.

He doesn't have any girl issues since we had him castrated a couple of weeks ago. That's nothing compared to what we have planned for him for Christmas - dinner jacket and bow tie!

And he likes to pretend he's pack leader. I don't think so!

Shitbumtitwank

It's been a while, but that just about sums things up.

Things have been busy, to the point that it feels a little out of control. Stuff going on, decorating bits of Trump's house, getting my car written off, dealing with that, having to buy a new car, shit like that.

But there's always one constant that comes back to haunt and taunt me every few years: power tools.

I fucking hate drilling holes in walls for the purposes of screwing things to said wall. You see folk on DIY programmes on the telly; drill hole, insert wall plug; screw bracket - or whatever - to the wall. LIARS!

In Sniffy's experience, it works this way:

• Climb up rickety ladder
  
• Take the thing that's to be fixed to the wall and mark screw holes on the wall
• Take drill, and select a masonry bit that matches the diameter of the wall plug
• Climb up ladder
• Climb down ladder
• Plug the drill in
• Climb back up ladder, position drill bit on the screw mark and start drilling
• Compose yourself, attempt to patch up the wallpaper that's been ripped up by the wandering drill bit, FIRMLY position the drill bit a the site where the hole is supposed to be, then start drilling
• Climb down ladder, find wall plug
• Climb up ladder, attempt to insert wall plug into freshly drilled hole, curse
• Retrieve drill and drill into the existing hole, wiggling it about to widen the opening
• Use a hammer to knock the wall plug into place
• Repeat for hole number two
• Take bracket and position over newly drilled holes, with wall plugs inserted
• Ponder how the holes can't be in the right position after all that planning
  
• Curse
• Screw into one hole, hammer into the other

I won't go into the palaver of fixing the other bracket to a plaster board wall, but let's just say that it's a miracle how a shower curtain rail can be held in place with a solitary screw and half a tube of No-nails.

And why is it that the colour on the outside of a can of paint NEVER matches how it looks when it's on the wall? The bathroom is now the colour of mint ice cream, as opposed to the more earthier pale sage colour that appeared on the can. I don't understand why they even bother putting those little coloured labels on at all. They should call the whole range Russian roulette or Tin of Tombola because what you end up with is a total lottery.

I suppose it serves me right from migrating from magnolia or natural hessian.

DIY is crapola ultima.

Rubbish.


Gadget schmadget
Having to get a new car has its ups and downs. I'm now driving something newer, with a rear windscreen wiper that works and an accelerator as smooth as anything. It's also nice having new bits to play with - mainly the stereo and climate control system - but also playing mind games with the rear parking sensors. On the downside, I'm down on half a litre of engine capacity, I'm in a smaller car with less power and no CD changer, just the single CD slot. Bums, eh?

For a while, I've wondered why car stereos don't come with a USB slot for use with a flash drive MP3 player. It seems obvious to me. Imagine having 4GB of music for Trump to skip every track?


Mistletoe and why?
Christmas is around the corner, Cliff has his 2008 calendar out. Jesus.

Something else for the ladies
As if the lovely Peter Pants of Pop wasn't enough, here's something else for all hot-blooded women to consider: have you ever managed to put two tampons in at the same time? I did it yesterday - not deliberately, obviously. It was really uncomfortable for a couple of hours and I couldn't quite put my finger on it, so to speak. Imagine my surprise when I came to powder my nose...

I wonder how many I could fit up there. It'd be a bit like those competitions where people see how many basketball players can be squished into a Mini. I suppose it depends on what format they took. I mean, you could fit quite a few in if you hacked them up into bits then liquidised them first.

Plus points

Me and Trump are getting V+ on our cable telly this weekend. I've come to realise that I miss the only programmes I want to watch because they're on too late and we haven't got a video to record things on anymore. I can't wait to be able to pause live telly, record two things while watching another, have Miami Ink on series record.

Brill.

Jesus, VH1 are playing Stevie Wonder's I just called. What a dreadful song. I wonder if he'd want to kill himself if he could see how daft he looks in his videos? Why do some of our most talented musicians have to ruin their reputations by producing one or two songs that are utter dross? Of course, many great talents have had their copy books permanently blotted by collaborating with Paul McCartney: Stevie, Jacko, the Frogs Chorus. None of them were the same after singing with Macca. Bloody hell, look what happened to Linda! Singing with him was literally the death of her.

She lives on in her pies, and that can never be a bad thing.

I'm going to watch MTV Dance until Ida Corr comes on.

I love dance videos; some of them are nothing short of soft porn. There's this one with scantily clad young women using construction equipment - yes, pneumatic drills. And the one that's on now has two women in a shower scene! And by the magic of Youtube...

Toing and froing
There's lots of it going on out on the road tonight; it's quite unnerving. Car doors slamming, people driving off, others arriving, knocking on doors, voices in the street...

When I pulled up earlier, a young man on a bike was trying to ride away from a hysterical woman who was pursuing him and screaming. "LET ME EXPLAIN!"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!!!"

Ad infinitum

They were at it for ages. Some people have no shame.

This from the woman who runs about in her pyjamas, squeaking a latex chicken.


Brum, Brum
I went to Birmingham today. I went on the train with some colleagues. It was really smelly. Unfortunately, I needed a wee while we were travelling so had to use the facility on the train. It was just a little unnerving trying to have a wee knowing the toilet door shut so far as to leave a centimetre gap and the weird bloke loitering outside could've peeped through to see the reflection of me weeing in the mirror that was positioned opposite to the toilet.

Why? Can somebody explain why you need a full length mirror opposite a toilet?

I haven't been to New Street railway station for at least 13 years and I don't think it's changed in all that time. Dump.

And why, when it's clear that a seat is reserved, do people still choose to sit there, only to look all hurt when you point out that you've reserved the seat and that they need to move? Idiots. But then you apologise to them for asking them to move! Perhaps you're actually apologising on behalf of them? "I'm sorry, it must be difficult being a total fucktard."

I used to have to travel through Birmingham on the train quite a lot before I got my car when I lived in Coventry. On one particular journey to Barnsley, I'd walked from my house in Cov, caught the train to New Street, where I'd changed to get the train to Barnsley or Sheffield or somewhere around there where they have that weird accent. It was on this last leg of the journey that I'd finally got a seat and as I caught my reflection in window, I realised that I'd been travelling with a leaf sticking up in my hair all the way from somewhere between my house and Coventry station.

Fucking trains.


PS
20.55 MTV Dance Ida Corr vs Fedde La Grande. YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! I don't understand why scruffy man thinks jeans and a hoody is suitable attire when those lovely young ladies went to such an effort to look their best. I'm having a cold sweat now.

Let me think about it....

Would I like to spend an evening being entertained by the delightful Ms Ida Corr and her very musical friends? Let me think about it...

Blimey, ain't she just something else?

Running down the road in my pyjamas and slippers, squeaking a latex chicken

Rocky has a new girlfriend. He spent two days joined to Peggy's side, trying to shag her. She enjoyed the attention, clearly keen to take advantage of Rocky's pedigree in her quest to reproduce before getting her tubes tied.

It's always useful having an older dog around to guide him as he tends to go off in a world of his own when he's outside and he becomes deaf to our calls. Unfortunately, Peg's only a relative pup herself and she sometimes forgets herself. I watched in horror as I saw her wandering off out of the front gate towards the village, Rocky stuck to her side. I was wearing my pyjamas and slippers, but it's quiet there so I didn't have any shame in running onto the lane to call them back.

FUCKING BIN MEN! What the hell were people doing on the road? You NEVER see people on this bloody lane. But this was a crisis and I felt no shame.

The dogs trotted off towards the village, I called them both, they were deaf to me. I ran into the house and found Rocky's squeaky chicken...

I ran back out onto the lane, squeaking the chicken. The bin men watched me. Even in in-bred capital of the world Norfolk, the site of an overweight woman in her pyjamas running down the road, squeaking a latex chicken must have seemed odd. I didn't care, the dogs had disappeared from view.

FUCK!

I ran back to the house to call for help. Peggy was in the garden. Rocky was nowhere to be seen. I shouted at her, "What have you done with Rocky? What have you done with him?" I was in a total panic. I ran into the house, everybody was upstairs, I ran into the kitchen to be met by my tripey little dog. The little bugger had come in around the back while I'd been entertaining the bin men.


Norfolk
This county is lovely, but it's a total shit to get to. No dual carriageways for a hundred miles, so a 200 mile journey takes over four hours when it should take less than three. Wednesday's journey took us five and a half hours. Fucking awful. It's no wonder they're all inbred; there's no way new blood can get in there to mix with the existing gene pool.

But the night sky there is amazing; literally bursting with stars that you never see when you live in the city. I noticed them in the early hours of Thursday morning while stood outside when the pooch was having his oh-so-conveniently-timed wee at 3am. I couldn't believe what I was seeing; I've never experienced anything like it before. I promised to set up my camera to take a photo of it the following night, but the temperature and atmospherics meant that I was disappointed.

I guess it'll be a long time before I experience it again.

It's always the way when waiting for the photo opportunity you want; you see it, but assume it'll come back the next day - you know, things like the rise of the harvest moon? But it's only ever like that one night, and then you've missed it.

Carpe diem and all that.


Road rage
Why is it wrong to assault or kill people who are crap at driving? What's wrong with doing all other road users a service in getting menaces off the highways? You're not even supposed to beep or shout at the fuckers.

A sure fire vote winner for anybody with political ambition would be to allow the use of rocket launchers in private vehicles.

A local shop

I needed fresh chillies yesterday and I couldn't be bothered to go to the supermarket, or to venture onto the high street. But there's a collection of shops and takeaways nearby and one is a gardening shop that has expanded to sell vegetables and some deli good. It's owned by an eccentric looking chap with panama hat and elaborate beard.

With a touch of trepidation, I entered. Inside I found that I was pleasantly surprised by what they sold and I grabbed a hand of chillies and took them to the young woman at the till. She weighed them and calculated the price. "That's three pence please". Shocked, I fumbled through the change in my dog-walking jacket pocket and pondered paying her with a dog biscuit.

THREE PENCE? That would've cost about £1 in the supermarket.

I gave her 20p and declined the change, which went into the charity box.

My thoughts returned to the idea of paying for goods with the dog biscuits in my pocket. Wouldn't bartering and payment of goods by exchange of services be fun? I'm sure, given the demographic of the area, this is pretty common between businesses anyway, but could you imagine trying it down Tesco?

"I'll stand by the door and make sure no rif-raff get in if you give me my shopping for free."

"And what if we decline your offer?"

"I burn your shop down?"

It might work at Asda I suppose. When the big Asda in East Manchester opened, they had to sack half the workforce within the first week because the checkout staff were allowing their mates through the tills without scanning half their shopping. Serves them right for thinking they can regenerate a deprived area by building unaffordable housing, crappy supermarkets and casinos.

But that's neo socialism for you....


Gordon is a moron
I've knocked thieving cunt Gordon Brown for over a decade now. Incompetent Chancellor and now unelected Prime Minister, the man has overseen and held the purse strings for Government since they came into power in 1997. Despite him being responsible for the disaster of NuLabour, his PR machine has tried to con the country into thinking that we have a brave new leader who had absolutely nothing to do with that nasty Tony Blair. Gordon Brown would save us all, despite him causing much of the mess in the first place.

Of course, aided and abetted by the BBC and the Guardian, the Labour spin machine seemed to be successfully conning the electorate and Labour had a remarkable turnaround in the opinion polls during a period of time when parliament was in recess and the opposition had zero opportunity to get a word in against him.

With a ten percent lead, election talk surfaces. "Let's have an election before the recession hits next year, before the housing market collapses, before we abolish the 10% income tax rate and make all the really poor workers even less well off, before people finally realise how incompetent we are! " A 1st November election was a 90% certainty this time last week,

But it being conference season, the opposition finally gets the chance to have a say, to start getting their message across, despite being upstaged by the BBC's preference for reporting the Diana Inquest and the PM's oh so brave visit to Iraq. The people don't fall for it, they start getting the message from the other parties, the opinion polls swing back round again and Gordon, in his usual jaw-dropping, gasping manner, announces that he doesn't want an election within the next 18 months afterall.

PUSSY!

What a manipulative, opportunistic, sneaky, cynical, cowardly, CUNT.

He treats the people with such contempt. I'd love a revolution.



Inked
I'm really warming to the idea of getting a tattoo, to the point that I'm about 100% sure of getting one. I'll be getting my tongue split next!

What a carry on

Have you ever been at the till at the supermarket and the checkout assistant asks if you want help with your packing? You say No, thank you because you don't want to look like a lazy twat. I mean, who on earth can't manage to pack two carrier bags' worth of shopping, for fuck's sake?

Me, that's who.

The items are scanned so quickly that they fly to the end of the conveyor belt. And they pile up and all the time you're still struggling to get a carrier bag off the stand. Flustered and annoyed, you finally manage to get a bag from the stand and then comes the struggle to get the fucking thing opened. At this point, all the shopping has been scanned and the checkout youth is left staring at you with an expression of utter contempt having replaced the one of boredom, they add to the discomfort by telling you the total price of your shopping. You just know that they're calling you a spaz and muttering under their breath, "Should've accepted my help to pack, fucktard!".

Supermarket carrier bags used to be quite easy to get separated, but not any more. I blame the greenies and their insistence on us reusing suitcases when doing our supermarket shopping. Well actually, some of us like to collect plastic carrier bags to use for a) bin liners and b) picking up dog poo.

Besides, I'm too young to be using one of those bloody shopping carts like my parents had when I was a kid. You know the sort that were always made of brown or tartan vinyl?

I used to pootle along in front of my mum as we made our way from the mad-busy supermarket to the bus stop. I'd stop at my peril because this usually resulted in me being stabbed in the back of the leg from the spiky stand of the bag. She never did it on purpose or anything.



Rocky update
Rocky finished his puppy training tonight. I'd been looking forward to it all week, but the shitheads in Bury Council decided to resurface a section of road on our way to the class tonight - before the end of rush-hour. Huge tailbacks ensued and we were half an hour late for the class, he was unable to concentrate because he wanted to say hello to his friends and the whole event was a fucking waste of time.

But never mind, he's been doing other things. Like growing his grown up teeth...

Taking his first dip....

And learning how to fly!

Nyyyighhhhhh!!!

Certain things fill you with so much confusion and frustration that all you can do is clench your teeth and buttocks and shriek Nyyyighhhhh!!!! Probably in bold, red, UPPER CASE text with lots of exclamation marks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the street Chez Trump, the houses don't have driveways and residents park on the road. It's customary and logical to park ones car on the bit of the road outside your house. You'd have thought so, wouldn't you? So why then, does the woman from four doors away suddenly decide to start parking on the bit of road outside Trump's house when the space outside her own is free? I find it totally baffling. She's parked outside her own home since I've been visiting and living here, and over the past month or so, she's decided on random occasions, to park outside our house. It's not even easier to park there as she has to manoeuvre between two parked cars whereas she can just drive into the space outside her own house.

Trump doesn't understand or sympathise with my frustration. I just want to ask her why she does it. There must be some reason for it, but I can't fathom it.

Answers on a postcard please.

Still, it's not as bad as the stupid cunt who visits her parents over the road and takes up enough space for two cars outside our house rather than parking over the road. Selfish fucking spaz. I'm convinced it was her who twatted my wheel arch once. She drives and parks like a complete and utter retard.

But I'm not allowed to get annoyed because, as Trump points out, she doesn't own the road outside her house. Of course she doesn't. But why can't that fucking twat show a bit of consideration and park outside the house she's visiting and not take up so much fucking room? I love the way I'm always in the wrong.

What's the point of not euthanising people like that if you can't even shout at them?


The dog is doing toxic farts. I might bottle some up and post them to the neighbours.

I'm also going to box up some Rocky poo and post it to myself here. Then the cunting postman who keeps nicking our parcels will get more than he bargained for. Bastard.


Sledgehammer
Remember Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer from 1986? I never knew it wasn't a number one in the chart.

Remember Dido's White Flag? That wasn't a number one either. Surprised? No, me neither.


Good and bad at games
I'm hopeless at sports, games, anything where I have to pit my wits against man, machine or computer. But saying that, I'm having lots of fun playing Mario Strikers on the Wii. Top notch gaming pleasure.


Uh oh, better look lively, Trump's home!

Facebook

I really don't get Facebook. I have an account, people signed up as my friends, people queued up waiting for me to confirm their friends requests (well, one), but I really don't see the point of it. I have colleagues listed as my friends. They're my bloody colleagues, for fuck's sake, I don't even talk to them at work!

Can somebody please enlighten me as to the point of Facebook? You have a conversation with somebody, but everybody else can see it. And anybody can just search for you and add you as their friend; "Some spurdy dur you really don't even talk to at work has added you as their friend on Facebook". You dread the e-mail coming through.

They're in the next office at work and you hardly speak to them there, would you like to confirm them as your friend on Facebook so they can see a load of your personal photos and messages with other internet ne'er-do-wells?

Hell no! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes they're welcomed, but generally these friend requests are puzzling, bordering on weirdo stalking. In fact, that's exactly what Facebook is: a stalking tool for people who should know better.


Drag up
YAY, Tootsie's on the telly! That's a great film. From the same era as 9 to 5, it just makes you feel good watching it.


"This bruise? Oh it's nothing, honestly. Just clumsy old me, walking into things!"
I have a painful bruise on my forehead where I've bashed it on the underside of the stairs. Here at Trump's house, the doorway from the living room into the dining room has been moved so that the walkway takes you beneath the stairs, as opposed to past the bottom of them. This isn't something that's happened recently (the doorway move), it's always been like that, but I keep twatting my head on the underside of the stairs. You know what it's like when you bash your head so hard that it makes your teeth really clatter together? That's what this is like.


Domestic bliss...ters
Me and Trump look like we've been fighting; she has a black eye from where she's been rubbing hers.

But we don't really fight. She shouts at me when we do domestic tasks. Today's torture was brought to us by the words "Ikea" and "Wonderweb". Ikea curtains being one length (about 5 metres), they need cutting down and hemming in order to fit any normal window. I don't like to get involved, but I feel I have to (I'm told I have to), then I get shouted at. The end result is good and we can finally open the living room curtains because a) they now glide along the new curtain track, and b) we have nets up to stop the nosy fishwives from staring in on their twice-daily promenades along the street.





Isn't the New Zealand accent funny?

Dehydrated disasters

I have, in the past, extolled the virtues of dehydrated food that, when rehydrated with hot water, transform into fuckin' delish, nutrish meals. One of my all time favourites is the chicken and mushroom Pot Noodle, in my opinion, the ultimate pot-based snack. But now they are ruined. Why? Well, because of this:

Yes, Pot Noodles now contain 50% less salt than in 2005 - when coincidentally, I first wrote of my love for them. But what have manufacturers done? Have they just removed the salt to give noodle-lovers the opportunity to replace it themselves? Have they bollocks! The bastards have replaced it with potassium chloride - the stuff that gives you a metallic burning sensation in your mouth when you eat it.

BASTARDS!

Why do they have to mess about with things that you love? For fuck's sake, it's a Pot fucking Noodle! It's SUPPOSED TO BE SALTY! Just leave the fuck alone.

I really hate the salt Nazis who have taken over everything. Don't people realise that food doesn't taste of anything if there's no salt? There'll be reduced salt salty snacks next. Fucking arseholes.

I've e-mailed them to complain, but I don't think they'll respond. This consumer champion has well and truly lost her mojo.


The L Word
Nice to see that Living TV have put the fourth series of The L Word in the prime spot of midnight on a Friday night. Bastards.

You get four hours of CSI in the run up, but they couldn't bring it forward by an hour or so.

At least they didn't put the big bill board ads up for it this year; almost make me crash my car, they do.


Monsieur Rocky's coiffeur
Rocky had his first hair cut last week. I'm not sure what Angel did to him, but he had his lipstick out for 2 hours after and he's been trying to shag all the ladies since.

The next cut Rocky's getting ain't going to be with electric clippers.

Anyway, Boy Wonder has gone from this:

To this:

He's been to the beach too. We think he liked it, although I think he may not have noticed the sand and the freedom of being without his lead, he seemed preoccupied in chasing Lea.

Shat Nav part the millionth

I promise never to use satellite navigation AGAIN unless I'm really unsure as to where I'm going. I will, from now on, return to my reliable road atlas and A-Z to get a handle on the roads in the vicinity before relying blindly on some gadget that communicates with things thousands of miles up in the air before telling me what I've been able to figure out for years up to now.

Imagine the great explorers of the past, how they travelled to the ends of the world, into the great unknown and lands of dragons, relying on the stars in the night sky. Well, that's how I feel when I rely on shat nav to get me anywhere. There's always a feeling of Where the fuck is it taking me? This makes no sense! Sometimes, it'll give plenty of warning of an approaching turn, other times it'll tell you when you're right on top of the junction, or worse, past it. It tells me to throw out my driving experience and sit in the outside lane of the motorway when I'm not overtaking anything. It makes a bad driver of a mediocre one.

Exhibit A - No escape from the back of beyond
On a day out in terribly Cheshire with my lovely Trump and our little dog, our route home was blocked by an accident on the road ahead. I followed the lead of others and turned round. Instead of saying "Have a look at the road atlas and see what alternative roads there are", I mistakenly said "Turn the sat nav on." After several attempts to get the thing to find us an alternative, we found ourselves further down the line of queuing traffic as the technology couldn't comprehend that we were trying to find a different way home. A brief look at the map would've told me to turn round and stay on the road .

It was like something out of a 1940s horror film or the Twilight Zone, where a person is trapped in space and time for all eternity. Forced to return to the same spot again and again.


Exhibit B - Out of pocket by £110
For some god unknown reason on Saturday, I used the shat nav to get to a place about 2 miles away that I could've figured out easily enough from the map. In fact the map was better because el stupido device lost the signal at a vital point in the journey and I had to use those things known as my eyes and common sense to get me to my destination.

On our return home, I was irritated that I was forced to park on the other side of the road because my usual parking space had been taken by something old with blacked out windows and big alloy wheels (that were probably worth more than the car). In the ensuing rant, and Trump's counter-rant, I forgot to unplug the sat nav power adapter from the cig lighter. No big deal, surely?

Big deal, definitely.

Come Sunday, my car battery was as flat as a fluke, but the breakdown man came quickly and his jump leads did the trick. It was raining and dark and I didn't see that there'd be any benefit to charging the battery by driving around with the demisters, blowers and lights on, so I revved the engine a bit and left it.

Monday morning: Battery flat again. This time I called on my sister to come and rescue me with jump leads. Car starts eventually and I decide to drive it really fast around the ring road to my sister's new house to give the battery a proper charge. Arrived, went inside, locked pooch in the garden, returned to car to go do a bit of shopping, car battery totally flat again.

Advice from Sid in my local garage: "Sounds like it's not holding its charge; the cells have probably collapsed. We don't have any batteries in, we get them to order, you could try Charlie Browns." So off I pootle to Charlie Browns and the only battery they have in for my car costs £95.

FUCK!

Back to Bomb's where I enlist the help of Dad and his trusty toolbag of totally useless tools - i.e. one adjustable spanner, one imperial spanner and a couple of pairs of pliers. Another £15 and a socket set and a lot of grease and swearing later - accompanied by yelping from a lonely dog - the old battery is out and the new one is in - although we can't tighten up the positive. The car starts, victory is ours.

I am totally fucked off. A hundred and ten pounds just because I left a charger for something that's frankly quite rubbish plugged in overnight. How can these things be designed to draw current without the accessory circuit being on?

Sat Nav is RUBBISH on so many counts.


Ring the alarm
On top of this we have a dog with separation anxiety who chews through alarm wires when he gets bored. I refuse to spend £70 to have a bit of wire replaced so I'm going to do it myself.

Idiot animal.

He's being groomed tomorrow - with clippers, not for child porn. I've been given some tips to help get him used to the idea. He won't keep still though and it'll be like trying to shave an eel. He's going to end up looking like some sort of burns victim.

Photos to follow no doubt.

Is it wrong?

Is it wrong to watch your dog (or cat) throw up his breakfast and then let him eat it to save you having to clean up warm sick?

Hell no!

Is it wrong to put mushy peas on my chips and gravy when I didn't ask for them?

Hell yes!

You see, mushy peas fall into the same category as mashed potatoes when it comes to things that infiltrate gravy with grainy cloudiness. I can't be doing with stuff that sullies my gravy. Instead of having a fuckin' delish plate of food, I ended up with something that looked like it had been fished out of the pig bin*.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

And Trump wondered why I was in such a bad mood. Honestly, you'd have thought she'd know me by now.

*For those who didn't attend school in 1970s Britain, the pig bin was the big bin in the school canteen where the dinnerladies would empty the unfinished meals from children's plates - pudding and all. The leftovers were then collected by farms to be fed to pigs - or so we were led to believe.


A Mars a day
Once upon a time in a land not far away, there lived a scientist who went for a job at the Waltham Centre for Animal Research (or whatever it's called). You know Pedigree Masterfoods, makers of Pedigree Chum, Whiskas and other pet foods? Well they have to research their products and product components, so they have this fantastic facility in the Midlands where they do their stuff.

There are loads of dogs and cats, rabbits and less significant pets kept there and they're basically fed different food formulations before being tested for physiological wellbeing etc. Tested in a nice way - I think the worst that happens to them is that they have blood and wee samples taken.

All the animals are housed in fantastic accommodation and they seem to have a pretty good standard of living, all things considered. That's unless there's a back room where they stick electrodes in their heads to observe brain patterns when they're given different foods.

Anyway, Pedigree Masterfoods is owned by Mars and Mars also owns a chain of three animal care centres called "My Petstop", of which there's one here in Manchester. We're going to take Rocky to check out the grooming facilities later on; it's about time he started to look like a Mini Schnauzer rather than a Scottie dog.

I wonder if these places are a front for their animal research centre. What if they carry out secret experiments on the animals in their care? I may ask the sixteen year old "I just want to work with little animals" at the reception and see what sort of response I get. "And what is it you intend to do with his hair and nail clippings, do you have a intensive cloning programme that you're going to use it for? And don't be getting any funny ideas about hypnotising him and making him want to start eating Pedigree Chum!"

Bling

Trump got me some bling for my birthday. You can't really call it bling because it's too tasteful, but it's got sparkly bits in it. It' s lovely and it sits beautifully on the second finger of my left hand - it's a touch too big for the third finger of my right hand, where I'd normally wear a ring. I flashed it at Connie and she gasped "That's not on your ring finger is it?".

No, Mother, not yet. But think on and look sharp because one day you might have to be forking out for a wedding that you'd thought you'd got away with!


Twilight world
It's that strange time of day when the world starts coming awake. It's actually a bit later than that, but this being Manchester, nobody bothers getting up for work, so it stays quiet until a bit later in the morning.... or dinnertime, as it's known around here.

Little Rocky is in his twilight zone; he has not fulfilled his holy trinity of wee, breakfast, poo, so I am waiting for a bit till I make him go outside again.

You see, parents don't have this, so they? They just shove a nappy on a baby and let it mess itself so they can clean it up at their own convenience. Pet (dog) owners need to get their animals into a routine or the consequences can be disastrous. And smelly.

I haven't had a wee or blown my nose yet; I feel a little other-worldly myself. Nothing beats a good productive nose-blow. You always have to manoeuvre the tissue to give it another blow to try to dislodge a sticky one; wiping bogey on your nose when you know that tissues just don't work on those ones and a poke with a finger is the only thing that's bringing that baby out! I don't advocate nose-picking, but sometimes, in private, needs must.

The dog is turning into an adolescent. He met a friendly lady dog on Monday afternoon who was lovely and calm with him while he sniffed her face, then tried to hump it (her face). He is demanding more sleep; we now have to get him out of bed in the morning. He sometimes drops to the floor and refuses to move while we're trying to walk him.: "I can't believe you're making me WALK. I HATE YOU!"

Yesterday, he threw up at the entrance to a place where he wasn't allowed to go in. Good boy!

Hardship

"Fed up with your dishes still being wet when you take them out of the dishwasher? Why not try Finish Powerball/Fairy Active Burst or whatever shite we're advertising?"

Why not doing the pots by hand and leaving them to drain on the draining board like most of us have to?

Then again, it is quite annoying when you have to dry the dishes by hand when you'd have thought they'd come out dry from the machine.

Just shows you how much we rely on machines to do things for us. Why can't somebody invent a washing machine that washes, dries, irons, and puts away? Especially one that pairs socks. If I had the money, I'd like to be able to wear clothes only once then chuck them.


37
That's how old I am today.

Fuck.

Yes or no: Pride events

Notorious sporan-wearing Yorkshire poof Piggy McPigster made a very good point about Pride events in a comment on my previous post. Here it is:

"I really can't stand all this 'Pride' shite.

As I see it, it's no longe about being 'out' and getting some kind of acknowledgement for actually existing and (hopefully) gaining some kind of acceptance.

The whole thing has been commercialised to the point of becoming vomit inducing - the bars out to fleece everyone for every penny in their pocket, the clubs doing the same thing and - and this is where it really fucking annoys me - help only to strengthen the 'gay ghetto'.

I don't know about the dykes, but as far as the poofs are concerned, it's just one long jolly - everyone out to get as pissed as they can and to shag anyone they can get their hands on. Hence why you see the same old faces at every pride event around the country and beyond.

I don't feel the need to visit or take part in Pride events. I also have no need to line the pockets of the straights who once would never touch us but have now discovered the money to be made from us. I also don't need to visit such events to feel 'love' or to be part of a so-called community (biggest crock of shite I ever heard).

I'm a human being, first of all and that makes me feel proud enough. Events such as this do nothing to enhance the image we have, despite what anyone says."


He's right of course. The Village in Manchester is teeming with people making money out of people who they probably don't care too much for. The takeaways and taxi firms there are run by people of a certain religion that would happily see all LGBT people hanged, stoned or burned to death. During the Big Weekend, stall holders rake it in selling tat, the main bars have floats on the parade that are manned by muscular straight boys, some of whom clearly find approaches by enthusiastic gay blokes quite distasteful. Then again, given some of the enthusiastic gay blokes, most gay blokes would probably find them distasteful.

So why support Pride? Why line the pockets of those who hate us? Why put on a freak-show display for the sake of straight people who think that being gay is all fun and games, a constant party?

Let's have a look at some of the messages from the parade itself. First of all, the Christians and the National Front were positioned at prominent locations on the route. This is a leaflet the Christians were handing out:

Then there are the statistics in the UK:

Attitudes towards people with HIV/AIDS:

The global attitudes to homosexuality:

So I guess it's important to show ourselves to the world every now and again to remind people that yes, we're normal, but no we're not the same. Some like to get the message across a little more subtly:

Not all Christians are obsessed with being shocked and appalled at who people have sex with:

Of course, some just like to make a show of themselves.

And some fuckers get to ride a tank through the streets of Manchester!

I think Pride is an important and necessary event. Gay people are still not accepted. I still have difficulty with things, still have to pretend to be "living with a friend" to my family. You still have to be careful about where you go on holiday, and worry about whether you can hold your partner's hand in public in certain parts of town.

For an interesting angle on Manchester Pride and how people find it abhorrent that, while businesses make up to about £20m from the event, the charities that it is supposed to support get about £65,000, check out www.get-bent-manchester.com. They even invaded the main parade.

So, think on and look sharp. And if you don't want to line the pockets of the bar owners, try to slip a bottle vodka in your man bag, or under the back of your mullet.

Keep right

You know when you're driivng along a motorway or dual carriageway and there's somebody pootling along in the outside lane, refusing to pull in? Have a look to see if they've got a sat nav stuck to their windscreen. If they have, you can bet your life that, rather than thinking about how to drive properly, they're actually obeying Jane Tom Tom, the sat nav woman as she tells them "Keep right" on the motorway.

Seriously, I used my sat nav yesterday and that's what it says, all the time, keep right. I was concerned; there are a number of really really thick people in this country. People who can't read maps or follow road signs. But surely nobody is stupid enough to stay in the outside lane of a motorway when they're not overtaking, just because a computer-generated voice tells them to?

When I got back to the office after my trip, I mentioned this to my colleague. "I bet some people are thick enough to think that this means they should stay in the outside lane", I scoffed.

"Well, funny you should say that. We were on the motorway the other day and my friend was driving. We were in the outside lane and she was going really slowly with all these cars flying past us in the inside lanes. I asked what she was doing and she said that the sat nav had said keep right, so that's what she was doing".

Thick cunt.

I think the fucking things should be banned. If your sat nav told you to drive on the railway, would you? Well, yes, people have done. Because they don't bother using their brains, or following road signs. Because some people are too fucking stupid to be allowed to even breath, let alone get behind the wheel of a car.

Using a sat nav is a bit like driving blindfold; I'm not sure I'm mad keen on the whole, although I admit to acknowledging their use when trying to find back of beyond places.



Pride
It's Manchester Pride this weekend. It's OK. We've already been treated to Belinda Carlisle in Friday's entertainment, tonight we get The Gossip. That Beth Ditto doesn't half scream.

Out in the Village last night, I felt really old. Loads of baby dyke clones, seemingly sponsored by Henleys, G-Star Raw, Hackett, Bench and St-St-Studio Line from Loreal (they're not even worth it!). Many modelled themselves on Shane from the L Word. Why can't anybody model themselves on Bette or Dana? I guess because most lesbians that go out in the Village are 14 years old short-arses.

I am quite horrified that there's a whole section given over to "Youth Pride" which excludes anybody over the age of 30. Not only is this a completely arbitrary cut off - surely a 29 year old can't be classed as a "youth" - but I thought age discrimination was illegal. Shocked and appalled. And so depressed at being so old.

And although I find it a touch distracting at first, it's good to see that all stage acts are accompanied by at least one person who signs for the Deaf. The PA system is so crap that even those without hearing problems need subtitles.

Today: the big parade. Photos to follow.

Rules are rules

I'm a stickler for following rules and I can't abide rule breaking.

I was in Morisson's supermarket earlier, getting some stuff for tea while trying to grab as many grocery and carrier bags for picking up poo (supplies are running low). Steak pie, oven chips, baking spuds and mushrooms in my basket, I headed for the "Hand baskets, cash only" till. The bloke being served paid by debit card. I could the hear woman behind him suck her teeth and I noticed her look up animatedly at the "hand baskets, cash only" sign.

They paid by cash. Gold star.

The young bloke in front of me paid by card too. BLACK MARK!

I pickced up the next cutomer bar, which clearly stated "Hand baskets, cash only", and placed it bheind my shopping on the conveyor as the woman behind me unloaded the contents of her TROLLEY.... yes, a TROLLEY!... onto the conveyor. I was shocked and appalled.

If people can't comply with simple rules of shopping, is there any hope that they'll comply with the law of the land? I don't think so.

Heading home, I was confronted by a psychotic bus driver as he swerved out of the bus depot, forcing me to swerve around him. He then drove up my arse until he could overtake; flying past at about 50mph - in a 30 zone! Where the fuck had the Drive Safe spying twat gone who'd been photographing motorists at that very spot just earlier on?

Bus drivers are all mental. And they're all total bastards too.

We're heading for total anarchy in the UK.


Salt of the earth
The working classes of Britain are the salt of the earth.

The woman from next door came out to meet us as we got back from walkies this afternoon. "He's a total pain in the arse" she said, referring to Rocky. I scuttled inside and let Trump deal with her.

According to her - whose husband often wakes us up hoiking up greenies through the night; who has visitors coming and going at all ours of night, slamming the front door; who has the telly on so loud that I can hear it from the bedroom - according to her, Little Rocky howls all day and into the early hours of the morning.

LIES! Yes, he's a little bastard who hates being left on his own, locked in the kitchen, but I know that he stops his yelps within about an hour or so of us leaving him - I've returned within this time to find him quiet. As for yelping into the early hours? LIES! He hasn't made a peep since he started sleeping in the living room over a week ago.

We live in terraced houses, you hear noises from your neighbours. We're often woken by our other neighbour phoning Karachi or Lahore or wherever and shouting for hours on end from 4am. We're often woken by numpties having arguments on the street.

I just loved the way she didn't come round and tell us, but instead waited until she collared us (Trump) in the street. Yes it's annoying, yes I hate upsetting the neighbours, but it's not as if it's something that we're doing deliberately. And it's not as if it's not getting better. I'm going to record him tomorrow and see how long he goes on for. If it's more than half an hour, we'll have a look at what can be done to stop him.

I might just suggest that she turns the telly up even louder than it already is. I'm surprised she can hear anything over that anyway.


Salt of the pie
I'm not liking the way that supermarkets are reducing the salt content of food these days. You buy a Tesco Indian meal and it's delish, but contains no salt. How can this be authentic? My pie was woefully lacking in salt. I'm sure you end up taking in more salt by adding it than you would've done if they'd just have kept the recipe as it was.

Fucking food Nazis.

Walkies!

We took the dog out for his first walk yesterday evening.

I'd waited for this moment for such a long time. The anticipation that builds up while waiting to walk your very first OWN dog almost rivals that of losing your virginity. Well not quite, most people would think that they'd eventually get a shag (even me), but not everybody gets to walk their very own pooch. Would it ever happen?

For years, I'd watched longingly at people taking their trusty pals on walks with them in the countryside.... and I'm referring to people walking dogs, not people going dogging... and watch from afar, hoping that a little pooch would find me exciting enough to come running to for some attention. Oh, how I loved the attention too; it was magical. A little doggy, with owners who loved it and whom it loved, finding time to come to lonely old me.

So the time was right at last! Little Rocky was finally ready to face the big world. Still too little to wear his new Foul Weather Coat that had dropped through the letterbox yesterday and not in the right part of town to wear his red paisley neckerchief, we thought that wearing his car harness was a good idea to enable us to pull him back without snapping his delicate little neck, should he want to get into mischief. He wasn't mad keen, but he got on with it.

Would Rocky be the sort of dog that walks calmly at your side? Would he become the sort of dog that can be walked off a lead? From last night's showing, no.

Rocky's first walk consisted of:

• Sniffing
• Pulling
• Running
• Jumping like a spring lamb
• Cowering from the attention of other dogs
• Barking at joggers
• Rolling in stuff

Most of these things I had kind of anticipated and didn't mind too much. What really got on my tits was the dog that insisted on following him around, nose firmly entrenched my poor puppy's backside. It's owner was somewhere on the other side of the field, oblivious to the nuisance he had unleashed. Fucking idiot. I asked Trump if I was allowed to kick it. She said no.

It wasn't the most successful trip out - it probably didn't help that I was distracting him while Trump was trying to walk him - but it could've been much worse. We decided that it might be best to take him out when it's quieter, both making a mental note of when the Yorkshire Terrorist was allowed to run feral.


Waking early Sunday morning
Half past five, Sunday 19th August: Sniffy is woken by the alarm. I argued with myself about just slinging him out into the back yard, but decided against it and got up to take him out while it was quiet. Aware of the risk of horrific murder in a frenzied attack, I wore my hi-visibility cagoul over my fleece - potential witnesses to the crime would remember seeing that particular ensemble.

Off we went. He was great. This has potential to be what walkies is supposed to be like. The only thing he growled at was an odd-looking Irish woman pushing a child's push chair that was laden with all sorts of things (I'm guessing her possessions), including a laundry basket.

And then it happened: his first wee. I was very proud of him. This was followed by even more frenzied sniffing and.... a poo! He'd done his first walkies poo! I was so proud of him, but then I had to get down to the task of picking it up using the inverted carrier bag technique (note: Tesco carriers have holes in them). From that distance, and what with me being totally conspicuous, it was obvious to the witnesses to my murder that the dog had pood. I could feel them saying "I bet she leaves that, dirty bitch". But would they be able to tell the difference between me messing about on the ground, carrier bag in hand, pretending to pick up a poo and messing about with a carrier bag and actually picking up a poo? Well, yes, if they had a look at the dog's reaction to being walked with a bag of poo hovering over his head. He didn't like that.

You know what this is like? This is the queer equivalent to straight people talking about changing their babies' nappies, but they don't get to wear hi-vis clothing.

Property ladder

Seeing that the house next door but one had gone on the market, I had a look at the estate agent's website to see how much it was on for. Silly money, in all honesty, but there you go.

Of course, this got me looking at property websites to see what me and Trump could get for our money (well, hers, since I haven't got a house to sell). Looking at the descriptions of the houses and locations, and knowing the reality of a lot of the areas being described, it made me wonder whether estate agents are actually on drugs?

You look at the photos they take that are supposed to impress potential purchasers. One had taken a photo of wardrobe doors. For fuck's sake.

Let's have a look at some examples of things that estate agents think are huge selling points for properties:

To the exterior, there is some well-appointed and very stylish grass:

On the ground floor, the kitchen-diner has a bin and space on the worktop for a nearly-used kitchen roll:

In the main bedroom, the lingering funk of TCP takes us back in time and into a parallel universe:

Also on the first floor is a retro bathroom suite that is especially designed to hide blood splatters:

I also like having a nosey inside people's houses - some are fucking horrible and you can tell that a lot of those at the lower end of the price range are a bit scummy. You get the idea that there are lots of people with their own distinctive decorative tastes, or lack of it.

Imagine if you could smell the places too.

Blimey.


Rotten
I've spent most of today feeling fucking dreadful with one of my heads. It started yesterday afternoon and stayed with me through the night and into the morning, making me feel sickly and shaky, light-headed and all that. I've had these before quite a lot, on and off, for about a year now.

I think it's my hormones.

Anyway, once I started to feel better, I put the telly on. Punctuated by the usual insurance and easier-living products to make old age better, the programmes on offer are pretty good. One of my current favourites on Living TV is "Cheaters", whereby a so-called detective agency pursues and films adulterous partners after being prompted by their suspicious other halves. True car-crash TV.

I can't believe Great Ormond Street Hospital have a charity that advertises on national telly. Not that the Peter Pan money is enough or anything.

Stornoway

This is where Stornoway is:

Yes, that's it, the green arrow stuck in the Outer Hebrides, some islands off Scotland that are drifting into the North Atlantic somewhere.

I'd normally have no beef with Stornoway, or its 5,600 inhabitants. They're probably very nice people. But the BBC are as obsessed with Stornoway as they are with Islam, global warming and recycling.

Every day you get the weather report. There are apocalyptic floods in major population centres in England; people are dying there, there's no food, no power, but the weather reporter tells us "It may be raining like shit on the rest of us, but Stornoway's 5,600 people are enjoying sunshine today".

Stornoway.

Front page news on the BBC's website today was an invasion of Stornoway town centre by some sheep that had escaped from somewhere. Here they are, escaping:

Of course, what you can't see in the picture are the marauding hoards of kebab shop owners, trying to capture the sheep to make a mega doner that will last the town's population for about 500 years.

Does Stornoway have a kebab shop? I think so. Check out this place:

New Island Star Carry Out Restaurant
28, South Beach,
Stornoway,
Isle of Lewis HS1 2BN
Tel: 01851 705256

Give them a bell to see if they do doner kebabs, I dare you! And don't forget to ask them if they watch the weather report on the BBC news. I'm sure the BBC would like to be assured that the licence payers' money is well spent on the grateful population getting a special mention every day.


RIP, Mr Manchester
You know Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays? The man behind them, Mr Manchester himself, Tony Wilson, died this evening. He was a bit pretentious, but he cared about putting Manchester on the map and he did just that. I'm not sure who Mr Stornoway is, but he's doing a fucking good job!

I don't think there are any Mancunians of any note left in the city these days. I can't imagine anybody else having the influence, drive and passion that he did.

Hey ho.


Hot wheelie Trumpster
She came home in a car today. A sixteen year old Peugeot 205; like I learned to drive in years ago. Her OWN car. How cool is that? She let me drive round in it earlier, it was fucking ace.


Guitar Sniff
I picked up my old guitar last night. Didn't have a clue what to do with it. I started learning classical guitar when I was about 8, I did exams and everything, then stopped playing when I was about 16. And when I picked it up again, I couldn't remember a thing. But I tried and it made some noises that seemed like they should come out of a guitar.

Today, the wrist on my left hand is totally fucked.


Hungry
I'm peckish. We haven't been shopping and there are no snack things in the house. No bread or anything. I might have to try dog biscuits.

I'd just have to be careful that eating them won't give me the sudden urge to have a wee on the toilet then run downstairs and have a poo on the living room carpet.

Talking of Rocky, he's just done his first wee by cocking his leg. He's so grown up!

The ties that bind

Why is it that blokes generally have to wear a shirt and tie in the workplace and women can get away with much less formal dress? I've never quite understood this.

Ah well.


Breasts
There's a stink been kicked up by some nannying charities who want the advertising of infant formula to be banned. Fucking Breast is Best Nazis want to stop sticking their self-righteous noses into peoples' business.

Having spent a considerable amount of time with a newborn this year, I think mothers should be forced to use formula to shut babies up. With the best intentions, some mums don't satisfy their babies with the breast milk they can produce and they need to supplement. But of course, at the back of their minds are the lectures from the Breast Feeding Nurses at the maternity unit and the displeasure in said wimmins' voices when they're asked what to do if mum can't breast feed. "Persevere!", no "Well, you need to know how to sterilise bottles if you're going to formula feed", so the mums end up giving their babies nasty gut infections and killing them instead.

Cocks.

Let's face it, with some of the shit that some breast-feeding mothers eat, formula is probably much safer than toxic boob juice.


Bored
I'm here at the Moonlighting Drug Testing Agency. What with having more mouths to feed, I need to bringing in more cash.

Working here occasionally has its bonuses; the folk here are nice, the work is OK (but there are long gaps at times), the money comes in handy for my gadget habit. But once you agree to do this sort of locum work, you always feel kind of tied. There's no reason for me to feel a responsibility, but I feel guilty if I don't agree to come in at weekends and evenings. The weekends are OK, it's evenings that are killers.

But what I like about being here is that I'm back in the lab, doing science things, wearing a lab coat. Your day is dictated by beeping timers that help you stick to a set protocol. You have defined tasks.

And you get two hour gaps here and there.

And they don't block blogger.


Pop my TV cherry
Tump upgraded our cable TV today. After a number of text messages asking when I thought the TV channels would come through, then one saying everything had gone off, I told her to phone them. Instead of upgrading us, they'd disconnected us.

Well done Virgin.

Of course, they'd never had treated her so shabbily had she dropped in a "Do you know who I am?", which she has every right to now that she is a star of radio. It was weird listening to her as she gave an interview on Gaydio yesterday (listen live on http://www.gaydio.co.uk/!), it was her, but she sounded really professional. Made me feel unworthy.

But what if she is destined for stardom? How would I cope with being her wife, tagged along to premieres, never given a speaking role? There'd be gossip magazine articles about why she should dump me for some glamour model, the press would delve into my past. Actually, the press would delve into her past, which is a lot more interesting than mine.

Perhaps I'm off the hook. Perhaps me, Rocky and Looshkin won't be abandoned afterall. The latter spent all night out last night. She came back wet, whingy and with her front paws died orange. I think she must've been messing about with the travelling fairground that appeared on the field at the back of us yesterday.

I wonder what a cat or dog would do if you took it on a waltzer?