This Is My Truth...Tell Me Yours

It is very important, especially in the run-up to a presidential election, to remember that you shouldn't believe eveything you hear.

For example we have always been told that the moon is a barren, featureless, vegetation free lump of rock....however, what were Armstrong's famous first words when stepping onto the surface for the first time:

"I See Trees Of Green, Red Roses Too"

Someone is telling porkies!!

Merry Halloween....

....to one and all.

How I love Halloween, the evening for Monsters, Goblins, Devils and Witches with black pussies (if that doesn't get more hits for my site then I don't know what will!)

Oh and by the way.....you could have let us out Joll!!! (He'll know what we mean)

Which One Of You Bitches Wants To Dance?

I have just been listening to an interview with Bill Bailey on Radio 5, and thought that the following bit of info may be of interest to fans of Black Books:

1, A 4th series is very unlikely
2, A stage show is currently being discussed
3, Best of all.....In Norway, Black Books is known as "The Crazy Shop"....how perfect is that!!

Now can I have a sandwich....and a pickle!!

Gouranga

Now this has been irritating me for some considerable length of time. I have seen signs on bridges saying 'GOURANGA' for years, there is one in Durham, on somewhere around Nottingham and we passed another close to London the other week. I had to know what it was, but I have come to realise that if I post a 'today I am mostly wondering' people post answers I read them and then I forget. So this time I had a look for myself. Turns out it is a Hare Krishna saying that means 'be happy'. Which is nice, but brings about two issues for me.
Firstly, posting the message on bridges...doesn't personally make me happy, not at all in fact... it has mildly irritated me for a few years, until this time when I decided to resolve the problem, and frankly I'm still not what I would describe as 'happy' because of it.
Secondly, how did these signs get there?! Am I the only one who can't imagine the orange pyjama clan dance along with there tambourines and wallpaper paste to bridges all over Britain (well England at least), to spread happiness?! Not a great camouflage colour, orange, either is it?!

Tony Blair Spoiled My Day!!

His special train, which was visiting the new railway museum at Shildon, made me half an hour late finishing work today!!

Razzing Frazzing Tony Blair!!!

Boo Hiss!!!!!!!

Ouch I'm an idiot

I burned myself twice today.

First time I had a cup and a spoon that I had just washed. I put the spoon in the cup because I was making two cups of tea and couldn't caryy it separately. I then poured boiling water into the cup causing a fountain effect from said spoon all over my handy, but mostly on my index finger. A person would normally learn from this and take more care around boiling water, yes?!

Aparently not, as no more than three hours later I am making anothe cup of tea nd talking to my friend. I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing and thought my cup was close enough to the tap on the boiler to catch the water... but it wasn't and hence my second burn of the day.

It needs a sign on it saying something like "For stupid folk: Please take care when extracting water because it is hot hot hot" I am sure less accidents would occur.

Mushrooms and Frogstools

Right then I thought I would post this immediately because I keep forgetting. What is the difference between a mushroom and a toadstool... it's not a joke...there is no punchline... I don't know.
And while I am on the subject, vaguely of toads. what is the difference between a toad and a frog. I would say that it is that toads are uglier....but I am sure that is not the right answer.
Thank god I have got one of my wonderings on here this week... I keep forgetting.

Today I am mostly wondering

I shall start at the beginning with what began me wondering.

A friend of mine said that he had saved a fly's life the other day, how noble is that?! Most people wouldn't give a ****, well to be fair I'm not sure he did either. Anyway he saved this fly's life by accident really. It was lying on the windowsill, looking dead, he gave it a flick and it came back alive (briefly). So I suggested that he might have restarted it's little heart. He laughed.... there is a related story for part of the reason behind the laughter, but I'm not going into that...anyways I asked whether he was laughing because flies don't have hearts. He laughed again, but really he didn't know anymore than I did. So do they? My friend said that he thought all living creatures have hearts, but then another friend (note: I'm not clever enough to have realised this) pointed out that worms stay alive when they are chopped in half and so they must have at least 2 hearts or none at all. We presumed none at all. But that still left the question, do flies have hearts? Is there some kind of formula for knowing what creatures do have hearts? How little are fly hearts? Are they the same as human hearts only wee?

Damn them to hell.

Right then. It would appear that this is going to be the place that I spill all of my aggression.

So Andrew and I went to York shopping yesterday. We went on the train because it is far easier than trying to park in York.

It's not a small train, there are a lot of carriages so how is it the group of lads that got on at Darlington (about 15 of them) could only locate seats in the carriage tht we got on. I shouldn't complain becasue after all we were getting off after 30 minutes. They were going all the way to Manchester to swap trains to get to Prestatyn for a weekender.

Now I don't have an issue with that at all they were only about 19 and that's what life is all about then. What I have an issue with is the fact that they didn't give a stuff about anyone else in the carriage, like for example the old woman that they sat with. Their language was terrible which again didn't offend me in itself but I did think that they could perhaps show more consideration for the people around them.

Anyway the point of the story is that they had no shame, clearly they were acting laddish between themselves, but they didn't need to share everything with the whole carriage. For example I didn't need to know that one of them was going to "drink himself stupid and sniff himself silly", I'm guessing neither did the old woman. Then they started arguing about what effect a cup of coffee and temazepam would have, and came to the conclusion that they would cancel each other out...... hmm?! I'm thinking it's probably not quite as straight forward as that.

Tehn one asked what people from Manchester were called. After agreeing that they were Mancs. They discussed what that was short for and decided it was Mancturians, largely this was agreed with because the gobbby one suggested it.

Anyway this encounter has left me with a dilemma we are either should not have children or we have them and lock them in a cupboard between the ages of 11 and 21, not sure how ethical that is though.

London Drivers

Right! I know that all of you who will read this are already aware of my hate of the big city. It has intensified with this most recent visit. Now some may find this a bit hypocritical (if you have ever been in that car when I am driving), but on top of the many other foes that London has, to include dirty air, rude people, intensive accommodation......... I could go on.... the people in London cannot drive.

Now to say the amount of traffic there is you would think that unless you were a confident good driver you would not even set out in your car, after all don't they have good public transport? Well better that up here anyways.

I must say that I wasn't driving, Andrew is a far better driver than I am and is much more confident so I let him drive (kind of me eh?!). We were going to collect some stuff from my sister, who lives in Canning Town. We booked a room in the Ibis at Thurrock, so that we didn't have to get snarled up in traffic and could get a good nights sleep. The hotel was located just off the Lakeside shopping centre, it was Sunday afternoon 2 hours before the shopping centre was due to close, and on the other side of the Dartford cross-over is Bluewater, the largest shopping centre in Britain/Europe (I can't remember), so you'd be forgiven for thinking that it might be quietening down...but, no. The traffic was as bad as a Saturday just before Christmas at the Metro Centre, which is probably about the same size or slightly bigger that Lakeside. It was stupid busy.

I, for a change, remained a good passenger and stayed quiet except for to read signposts. I was required to read the signposts for the simple reason that all of Andrew's attention was taken up making sure that the other drivers didn't pull into us or anything.

So, to explain how badly they drive. People just push the front of their car into a queue of traffic regardless of the fact that there clearly is no gap in which for them to go. Well plain ignorance should be expected really. Then when Andrew could see that a lane was closing and so left a gap for someone to get in, they didn't and just stayed where they were leaving the gap to get greater and greater, I think that the reason for this is that courtesy confuses them or maybe they thought that Andrew was leaving the gap so that he could ram into the back of them later... I don't know.

Then we come to roundabouts.... no lane structure.... cars everywhere...and then a gap, car in front remains stagnant...why?... no one can say....gap goes....cars everywhere...a person indicates to leave roundabout blocking all traffic.. finally the car in front moves. I say it was just the car in front, this happened more than once. The reason for this is not clear, because surely they should be used to this traffic and so more able to judge gaps than us from a little town up north should be. Or perhaps it is due to the fact that they have learnt not to trust each others driving. Again.. I don't know.

I may have missed some issues here... if so I am sure Andrew will elaborate further. I'm just glad that my sister is moving back up here so that we don't have to go to that damned place again, although I will still have to go for work, hopefully it wil only be once every couple of months.

Quite Shitty One Evening

I had thought that if I waited long enough I may have calmed down enough to post my thoughts about ITV1’s recent adaptation of Christopher Brookmyre’s novel “Quite Ugly One Morning” but I think that the title of this post suggests I haven’t waited long enough.

I have never been so angrily disappointed by a TV program….ever!! I had been looking forward to it for months, ever since I first heard they were making a TV version of my favourite book. However, it was so bad that if I had to choose between watching it again and having to watch some reality-TV-guff, then I’d take 2 hours with Jade Goody every time.

The problem was that they seemed to have taken the original book, cut it into a thousand pieces, thrown them in the air, picked ten bits up at random and then made up enough absolute cack to replace the rest. Some characters had their parts in the story swapped, I mean the woman in the story who is a central character and goes on in future books to become his wife, Sarah Slaughter, was relegated to an ex-girlfriend!! Others were doing things that we totally out of character, the excellent Annette Crosbie committing a murder that is not in the book and was totally unnecessary, or not doing things that we central parts of the book, by which I mean the fabulous Mark Benton who was totally wasted in this drivel!!!

And as for James Nesbitt as Jack Parlabane…..I was prepared to give him a chance but…NO NO NO!!!!!! And now they have but his curmudgeonly face on the cover of the book so anyone trying to repair the damage this program did by reading what is still a fantastic book is going to end up imagining him as Parlabane!!

One word for you ITV……BASTARDS!!!!!

Your Help Is Required

The other day I found my self pondering my death and more specifically the aftermath. Cheery eh?

No, I wasn't being morbid, my thoughts were concerned with what Archaeologists call "Grave-Goods", and we'll call "The things you get buried with".

Clothes wise I think I'd have to go with an Aston Villa top, a pair of jeans and a new pair of Adidas trainers. As for possessions I think I'd have to have my Granddad's old yard brush for sentimental reasons, a photo of Ann to keep me cheerful in the potentially difficult early days as I adjust to being dead, and also.....and this is the main reason for this post, some music to keep me entertained in the afterlife.

Now my problem is this....what format of music do you take to heaven?? Is God a CD man? Does he prefer that distinctive sound that can only be achieved with vinyl? Is he a high-tech MP3 kind of guy? Maybe he likes Mini-Discs? Has he never upgraded from the humble cassette? Or perhaps he is an old hippy who can't see past 8-track cartridges? Basically I don't want to turn up with the wrong type!! Can you imagine a more embarrassing situation?

I think the best way to decide is to ask all of you. My theory is that if God created man in his own image then if enough people say which music format they think is the best, then the most popular one is surely the one that the big fella would choose.

So my question to you is this: "God is a DJ...What is he playing?"

Comments please..

How The Hell????

I’m sure by now most people will have seen the billboard posters of Sid The Slug that highlight the need to reduce the amount of salt in our diets…a very noble cause…where Sid is standing under a slogan saying “I always knew that salt was bad for your heart!”

My problem with the billboard posters is this….How the hell did Sid paint the slogan!! I mean it is clear that they want it to look like he painted it, he has a pot of paint next to him, but he has no arms!!! Is this another government conspiracy to make us scared of mutant slugs with arms and opposable thumbs? We have a right to know!!

Ladies and Gentlemen....A Rant

As it took me so long to sort out my blog, I have a few things to post about that have been knocking around in my head for ages…like this:

Has anyone noticed that since the Hutton report, the BBC news coverage has become a bit…I can’t think of the right words so I’ll call it “Pussy-footish”!!

The clearest recent example I can think of was the recent “Fathers for Justice” protest when Batman scaled the walls of Buckingham Palace. I, along with loads of other people, was watching the unfolding events live on BBC News 24….I chose News 24 as ITV News is cheap and nasty and Sky News were just showing off because they had a helicopter!!....I digress…as I said I was watching it live on the Beeb.

The thing that really got my goat wasn’t their wild over-exaggeration in suggesting that a man in a pair of tights could be a suicide bomber (I mean as if!! Unless that was a stick of dynamite in his pants!! Just how much damage can you do with a cowl!!). No, it was the point when some police officers were stood at the window next to him, trying to decide what to do and the BBC presenter commentating said, and I vaguely quote, “There is a police officer at the window who appears to be wearing a white crash helmet”……..what the f**k do you mean “appears” to be wearing a crash helmet…he was quite clearly wearing a crash helmet!!!! Is the BBC now so afraid of making an error in it’s news coverage that it daren’t even say something that everyone watching at home can clearly see just in case the police officer in question sues them, claiming that he wasn’t wearing a crash helmet he is actually bald and has a Jacksonesque skin disorder and is demanding that BBC heads roll!!

Now I’m not saying that I want them to blatantly lie…that is the job of the tabloid press…but I would like to see a little less fear in their coverage so that events are covered thoroughly and to ensure that the truth is uncovered.

Holy Crap It Works!!!!

After months of trying I have now got a functional blog as part of Drooster-World!!

I shall forever be grateful to folks at 9mmfilm.com who managed to supply the answer to all my problems, having experienced exactly the same probs when setting up their blog and then posted the solution....I do not know you and you do not know me but thanks muchly all the same!!

I am hoping that this blog will make it easier for me and Ann to get new stuff onto the site and also, just as importantly, allow you to give feedback more easily via the comments facility.

I have a lot of ideas for new content for the site so please keep checking back

Testing

1 2 3.....can anybody hear me??