To hell in a milk float

Staplers are great fun. Been wondering what I've recently been spending my hard-earned free time doing? Well, I've been experiencing the twin delights of staplers and a sheet of cardboard. The hobby (or is it a pastime?) of stapling a sheet of cardboard with staples in an increasingly agressive manner is one which not only combines endless repetitive movement deep-vein-thrombosis style with the opportunity to be astoundingly violent to an inanimate object (which is probably the best kind of object to be violent towards, seeing as they can't fight back or call the police).

I really, really need a girlfriend, don't I?





Anyway, all those of you who have the misfortune of having to pay taxes to the British Crown will no doubt have heard of the wonderful use to which your hard-eared cash has been put. For the benefit of those who don't know (and simply to wind up those who don't care), therefore:

A recent audit by us nasty, smelly common people has uncovered the intersting fact that Prince Andrew has been scrambling RAF helicopters to fly him to golf matches. (Quite how you scramble a helicopter is beyond me!)
The cost has so far come to roughly £30 grand. For Americans (bless your little insular, xenophobic hearts) that's about 50 dollars. Good ol' Royals, eh?







Fi, enjoy:

There was a young woman called Fi,
Who once consumed too many pies,
She ate on so large a scale,
She ended up like a Whale,
And spent the next fourteen weeks in the Clyde!

Put that gun away, I'm not finished yet:

There was a young woman called Fi,
For beauty known throughout the land,
She went swimming one day,
Got carried away,
Was washed up on Portstewart Strand!




Dan, "Your friend Lenin"? Friend? Friend?


Cait, tap "Jaguar XJR" into Google images. Much better than a horse. Farts less, too.


Tweed & Laura, Yes, I'm afraid so! The honesty of teenagers today is totally appalling! Whatever happened to the "I'm actually fifty-seven, but I'm the Nivea anti-ageing test-dummy" spirit, eh?

Went to Croydon today to protect Gingery and Dave from assasins, chavs and rabid horses while they checked out the price etc of tatooists and piercers and things. (As it happens, the upshot is that they either need to lie about their ages or find a mickey mouse tatooist who does the job with a tin of emulsion and a stanley knife. I'm willing to do their piercings for free with a dartgun).

But the real thrill of the trip came from the tram-racing. Dan and I made the first run, but he forgot somehow to mention that it was up-sodding-hill! Even so, we only lost by about eight or ten seconds, meeting a very smug Dave at the tram-stop. The second run (which all three of us attempted) was along a crowded high-street. This time we drew even despite me getting lost en-route. Correct - the art of tram-racing involves running beside a pair of huge steel bars hammered into the tarmac. I still got lost. The tracks diverged at one point, and genius here took the wrong set of tracks to run along (being ahead of the tram and therefore unsure of which way it was going to turn). Next time, I'm going to beat that bloody tram. It's not over yet, oh, no!

As an aside, is it ethical to steal a traffic-cone and place it on the tracks, thereby delaying the tram long enough to build up a decent lead?

After the disappointment of seeing Dan and Dave say to a tatooist "Err, we're only sixteen!" (Have I taught them nothing?) and the annoyance of losing because my body gave it it's all but my brain was sitting happily on the fairground teacup ride that is my sense of direction, the only good part of the day was the toddler's playground we got into and played gleefully on swings, slide and see-saw.





Well, I've managed to make bitter enemies of Cait and Shan via my previous post! Thankfully, they both live a safe (at least I hope so!) distance away. While my sense of self-preservation is telling me to beg on bended knee for their forgiveness and submit to the flogging that they would no doubt like to give me, I'm going to have to pose this question instead: D'you reckon Sainsbury's sell horsemeat burgers?



Dan, "ooo-arrr!" is Norfolk. Yorkshirefolk prefer "Hey-up!". People from the west country just sound like hobbits.

Fi, I'm terribly, terribly sorry! Hang on a tick while I whip myself... there. Satisfied? Tell you what, how'd you like me o break my no-poems resolution and compose you a poem, how's that?

Sara, I personally prefer animals you can eat. But what in god's name is a "bushbaby"? It can't be what it sounds like, can it? And I like the fact that merely leaving a single coment would be far too straightforward. No, you left three completely unconnected comments on the same post!

Shan, "Horses are a girl's best friend", are they? Don't fancy Bacardi or chocolate, then? Anyway, as far as I can ascertain without getting within smelling distance of one of the brutes, I thought that you had to control the thing's direction and rhythm by pulling on it's neck with reins and squeezing with the insides of the thighs? Which would probably mean making love to a horserider would be something like being trapped in a garbage compactor. I think it's only fair that you and Sara foot the bills for any sex-related injuries your future boyfriends suffer.

Cait, If you consider horses gorgeous, go and look at a Jaguar XKR.

I'm a bit choked for something to post about. Today, like every other day in my life, was very uneventful. Oh! But I saw a shiny green "Black Cab" today. It makes sense, but only in the same way as the complete works of Shakespeare make sense. But what I really want to talk about is horses. Or more specifically, horse-riding. Not only do half of the Abu-Dhabian population seem to ride horses, but apparently they make good romantic gifts as well. And DJ, but then he has an excuse - he didn't pass his driving test. So he seems to have regressed 120 odd years and is riding horses instead.

So, dear horsies. The best friends of the tweed-wearing man. Well, for a start, I don't understand how people can love them! They're big and smelly and can't even make a pot-noodle. Pathetic. You horse riders are currently all going "Well, they can run around really fast, can't they?" Yes. they can. So can cockroaches. And cockroaches don't insist on covering wherever they live with gallons of their own shit.

Okay, you're now going "Well, they're better than people!" No, they're not. The £25 grand cash prize for beating a standardbred horse over a 21.7 mile marathon course was won last year by a Welsh IT consultant! The race was sponsored by William Hill, who must have been pretty annoyed when they had to cough up on the hefty odds they were offering against! And what about Greyhounds, eh? "Simply Fabulous" beat a racehorse over 400 metres in a novelty race at Kempton park last summer by 23 seconds!

Finally, what's wrong with the modern equivalent of the horse - the moped? Even a little 125cc moped can outpace a big ugly horse over any distance you care to mention. And, rather like cockroaches, mopeds are much cheaper to buy and run and they don't produce a small mountain of faeces on a regular basis. And can be fed by pumping petrol into them through a hole in their arse (Don't try this with a horse, as you'll most probably both recieve a kick in the teeth and get arrested ).







Tweed, "Tae-Kwon-Do" literally means "The art of hand and foot". Which, to me, seems a little vague - that could cover everything from flower arranging to deviant sexual practices, couldn't it?

Bec, thanks to the EU, some places now sell beer in Litres! What more d'you want? An oil drum full of the stuff?

Dan, Cider, especailly dry cider, can be quite pricey. But what's wrong with a bitter brew? Cider is the prime fuel for the entire populaion of the West Country. Being a Londoner, I'm more civilised than that.

Rosie, NO! No to everything! You sick, twisted little child!

Ned, I'm just a perfect human being. Simple as that.

Elly, I wouldn't apply for that place on Mastermind, if I was you!

Horseriders, I'll make you a deal - I won't mention showjumping, grooming or breeding, and you don't send me any letterbombs, okay? Please - I'm too beautiful to die!

Aahh, Shaun. It's a lovely name, isn't it? Wonderful, wonderful Shaun.

For those of you who think I'm becoming a bisexual, you may be interested (and perhaps dissappointed) to learn that this is not the case. Shaun just happens to be the greates human being who ever lived, that's all.

I popped into Sainsbury's (where else?) after Tae-Kwon-Do earlier tonight, in order to buy some milk and my favourite chewing-gum (the red sugarfree orbit peppermint). Manning the checkout was a funny-faced teenager on minimum wage wearing a nametag that bore the title "Shaun" and informed me that he was "Making life taste better". He certainly was. The orbit cost thirty of the Queen's own new pence, and I gave him fifty pence. He gave me change for a quid. Net profit - forty pence!

Chris (who needed to get the milk) seems to think that dear Shaun just happens to be an inept, useless, lazy, careless idiot, but I prefer to believe that he's an angel, sent down from on high to ensure I make a profit over the monetary transaction. I can't decide whether to give the money to charity or spend it on porn.



I believe in personal statistical equality. To those of you going "What?" (which should be all of you, seeing as I just made the term up) it means that every time a bad thing happens to someone, a good one is due to follow, and vice-versa. Not because of any magic, supernatural, spiritual nonsense but because of the law of averages. For example, I almost got my neck twisted off my body during a fight in Tae-Kwon-Do, but then Shaun saved the day by his divine intervention.



Charlie, "Pikie" is a stupid word. It sounds like the cuddly-toy version of a freshwater fish. "Scally" is much better.


Bec, I'm not going to descend to your level. I retain the moral high-ground. And British beer is real beer. Aussie beer is dingo piss.


Dan, beer is every bit as valuable as spirits, if not more. Beer is for when you just want to relax and enjoy things, not when you want to get hammered and lurch around smelling like a Russian whore-house. And whisky (as the scots prefer) is designed to facilitate just that. Whoever thought of throwing bottles of burning vodka at people probably found the best possible use for the stuff.


Elly, where I come from, "sham" means "fake" or "false". The term crops up most often while talkning about Australian beer.


Sara, go over here for enlightenment. Oh how I wish I too could say "I don't know what a scally is"!

Well, today's national Australia day. Bit silly, that, isn't it. Seeing as this nation isn't Australia, it'd kind of have to be international Australia day or no Australia day at all. But we have a Labour government and so it's national Australia day.

This means that every pub in the land is full of raucous men with funny accents swilling Foster's (Foster's have somehow become the international symbol of Australian-ness). Well, what I want to know is why don't the Aussies have a "National Britain Day", eh? Where everyone must spend a day drinking John Smith's, not having sex and complaining about the weather.



But Aussies aside, Pikies. I'm currently still recovering from accusations of being a pikie (or, for those of you living above or to the left of Birmingham, scallies). How can you be so cruel! I am not, in any way, a pikie.Actually, say "Pikies" to yourself. Now say "Scallies". What a satisfying word to say! I imagine less fun can be had by giving a blowjob than can be had by mouthing the word "scally". I've been doing it for ten minutes now. (Saying "scally", that is, not giving a blowjob.) It's like a cross between "Limescale" and "Furby". Brilliant.

Anyway, pikiness scalliness. I do not own a parka. Irrelevant of it's attraction of East Londoners, I plan to wear a parka when (and only when) they crucify me for squeezing the Queen's arse. It's true I wear Ben Sherman shoes, own a Ben Sherman watch, enjoy music by Badly Drawn Boy and Athlete (there's nothing wrong with either of them, Dave. 'Cos I said so.), am buying a Ford Escort and would rather watch a Vauxhall Conference football match than go to a Linkin Park concert, but I'm not a scally!





Dan, yes the post was mostly about you! You can feel so proud! In fact, maybe I should do a series of posts about everyone I know - now that'd be interesting! I'd probably have to become a hermit, live on an island in the North Sea and build an eight-foot wall around my hut, though.


Laura, yes, snow patrol wear parkas. Well. But those chappies have the excuse that snow is cold.


Shan, by "Hossie" you can't mean "Horse", can you? I can accept the idea of buying a handful of spiky plants merely because they're red, I can even acept the idea of paying for a girl's meals (at a pinch!) provided she doesn't order a kilogram of Russian Caviar or something (I suppose the Essex equivalent would be a KFC family-bucket), but there's no way in hell I'm going to bring a horse to a date!

Elly, I do not own a parka - fact. I do own a parka - lie. Whatever Dave says, ignore him. (If you want to cave his head in with a cricket bat, that's also acceptable.)

Janelle, thanks a million.

DJ seems to be turning into a poet. Don't ask me why he's turning into a poet, maybe it's to fill a void in the depressing soulless misery that is his life, maybe it's to pass the time while the South American mail-order bride he ordered via the internet arrives in a large wooden crate, we just don't know. But the fact remains he's producing poetry.

Now, I've nothing against poetry, I'm just unable to appreciate it. I slaughtered my English Literature and English Language exams, but I don't see the point in concealing a meaning within another set of words. Why write:

"The sky is grey, the clouds are murky and as the thunder rumbles in the sky it shatters my very soul, and the rain forms tears as it falls, tears for my undying pain for my long lost loves and my failed dreams" (Imagine if weathermen started saying things like that!)

when all you mean is:

"I'm a little bit sad just now"?


Another thing I can't stand is the interpretation of poems. A poet can write more or less anything he likes confident that some "expert" somewhere will decide it means something totally differnt to what it says. In fact, providing the most tenuous links between the most wildly different and random subjects within a poem as interpreted by the experts seems to be their whole purpose in being.




But in a way, DJ may be onto something. It's widely believed by the male population of the civilised world that all women like poetry. And by poetry I mean of course love poetry. Love poetry is actually pretty easy to write (Although to actually get anywhere you'll have to do better than "Roses are red; get into bed".) which offsets the fact that it's nigh on impossibile to read while keeping a straight face. Some men keep a poem memorised specifically for romantic emergencies, and for this it's important to use phrases that could mean more or less anything, like "My love for you is like the spirit of a fairy resting on a quiet rose". That could, quite literally, mean anything, couldn't it. After all - what's a fairy like? And does it really matter whether it rests on a rose or in the gutter outside a kebab shop, anyway?

That being said, I happen to know a love poem myself, though it's not that brilliant (men seem to enjoy it, though):

"You talk too much,
button your lip,
just take a trip,
behind my zip!"

Which I'm sure every male human being in the world can relate to. But it's probably the worst thing it's possible to say at the end of a first date.









Airhead, I'm from South-West London. And no, I'm not obsessed with Kit-Kats. There is a pretty large number of things I am obsessed with, but the less said about them the better.

Dan G, I deny owning a parka! I posess no such thing! How dare you imply that?

Cait, You're back! Wahey!

I wandered off to see Team America today. So I guess you want me to tell you about it? No? Pleeease! But I haven't got anything to post about! Oh go on! Sure? Fine. See if I care. Wankers.



No, if you wanted reviews, you'd be looking at a film review website. What you want is my no-good, overexpressed, moronic opinion. Which doesn't happen to concern "Team America". Nope, it concerns instead Dan Ginger's utter, absoloute and irrefutable pikiness.

When the film was over and we all filed out (that seems to be the regulation, doesn't it? Having been in total silence for the entire duration of the film, people have to allow their vocal chords time to warm up, with the result that nobody says a word except for the mandatory "Well, whadja fink of da film, den?" to which, inevitably, some plonker who goes to cinemas merely to get into a room with other people in it and no padding on the walls, listen to other people's conversations and secretly videotape couples having oral sex in the back row, will reply "Wot film? I'm here for the atmosphere". That plonker, more often than not, is me.) Bloody hell! that was a pretty long bracket, wasn't it? Well, what in god's name was I talking about before I opened them?

Ah yes, Dan G's pikiesque behaviour as we left the cinema. Well, he scurried around the cinema looking for a carton of drink that someone may have left behind them (presumably to fuel his search for crisp-wrappers and popcorn kernels). He found a half-full carton of Pepsi or something and calmly proceeded to slurp it down! Where will it end, that's all I ask. Listen: "Where will it all end, Dan?" See?




Well, with the results of the Kit-Kat fusion experiment in, what do you care about mere post-cinematic antics?

The experiment was a success, as it happens. I heated the George Foreman up, and pressed the sides of the Kit-Kats onto the hot grill plates for about a second each side, then pressed the molten edges together to fuse the bars. But the interesting thing is not in the creation, but in the consumption.

I ate the thing a few minutes ago. All of it. And when it comes to food consumption I'm a Pete Doherty. You see, though each Kit-Kat Chunky is about the same size as a four-finger bar, and I ate four Kit-Kat Chunky bars (that's sixteen four-fingered Kit'Kats - sixty-four individual fingers - for those of you who don't have access to a mobile phone/abacus/brain), the Uber-Kit-Kat is psychologically the same as a normal four-fingerer.

Think about it - you've been happily eating ordinary Kit-Kat bars all your life, the suddenly and without warning a huge chocolatey monstrosity comes along. What does your brain do? The massive construction contains too much wafer alone to fully comprehend, not to mention enough dairy-milk chocolate to keep a middle-aged American woman happy for about ten minutes. So as it travels from plate to mouth you don't see a pocket battleship done in confectionery, you see an ordinary Kit-Kt bar. Therefore, though you may end up weighing two stone more after each mouthful, your mind manages to convince you that you've merely eaten a standard chocolate bar.

I should send that to the British Medical Journal, shouldn't I?













Biscuit, thanks for the impromptu christening. You've elevated me to the same level as that chappie from The Offspring (Who are one of the most awe-inspiringly pathetic bands I've ever risked being sued by.)


El_Destructo_Bunny, you've played in dustbins as a child. And you now seem to spend your time wandering into Parisian gay bars wearing woollen tights. Not much of an advert for the activity, is it?


DJ, the Pope works for me now! Together we masterminded the assasination of JFK (incidentally, I have my own conspiracy theory on that particular unfortunate's death), the capture of James Bond (some two dozen times) and the invasion of Scotland by the Norweigans in the twelfth century AD. (What a right old laugh that was.)


Ned, I'm afraid that yes, they've already made a giant Yorkie bar. But you could trump that by joining two giant Yorkie bars to an unravvelled Cheesestring to make a sort of snack-based Nunchaku. Just a thought.


Monkage, I can guarantee you'll never ever hear anyone who's read your weblog ever say "Hmm, what you need, dear Jen, is More Sex" to you!


Tweed, the population of Essex buy more books in a year than you've bought in a lifetime. They burn them for heat. (It's the Chavs' idea of renewable energy.)

Just saw Bill Bailey's orgasmic stand-up comedy show "Part Troll". It gave me and a mate, Chris, inspiration such as one only recieves once or twice in a lifetime: You've all seen the tradiitional two-fingered Kit-Kat bar evolve into the four-fingered version, and from there be superceeded by that strangest of new species on this planet - the Kit-Kat "Chunky". Now, have you ever realised that, though lots bigger, it still retains the basic not-so-aerodynamic shape of the original (kind of like an individual Kit-Kat "original" finger on steriods. Possibly planning to enter the 2012 London Olympics). Well, using the wonder that is the George Foreman Multi-Grill, is it possible to melt the sides of four Kit-Kat "Chunky" bars in order to fuse them together to form a huge Uber-Kit-Kat Bar along the lines of the four-finger bar? I intend to find out soon.


On the way to Sainsbury's in order to purchase the Kit-Kat bars (yup. A half-mile walk purely in the name of Science.) we saw some local pikies standing around fondly watching their young children playing in a skip. That's correct - in a skip. These people (incidentally, the same family own a Volkswagen Camper Van), who seem to find it acceptable to allow their children to play in a metal box full of household rubbish in full view of the general public, are allowed to vote! No wonder this country is now crap.






Well, Rosie, I've got unanimous support from an army of Nirvana fans on my side, so watch yourself, love.

Timo, I imagine the text service is only a local thing - who would be thick enough to fund a "Nationwide God-Messaging Service"? The US Government? Microsoft? Tesco's?

And I'll leave you with this thought: Anyone notice how only the Americans picked up on the "making out" part of my previous post?

Just whan I thought we'd seen the end of the recent epidemic of quizzes new readers won't have a clue about, Laura sticks this ugly thing onto what could have been a beautiful and entertaining post. And DJ has the audacity, nay - the affrontery, to suggest that I do it! Not bloody well likely!

I've actually completed a fair few quizzes in my time (yes, I know I've mentally switched into "Drug Rehab Sob Story Mode". You'll just have to put up with it, I'm afraid.) but I did most (if not all) of them while dating Rosie. Well, not actually when going out with her, obviously. She wasn't that boring. Quite. I mean of course that I did them during the time we were a couple (I'm not quite sure just how long ago that was - I think we broke up before the Rohypnol wore off).

But that's different. That was fair trade - she'd have to put up with my tounge down her throat, and I'd have to put up with her ceaseless reams of quizzes. But now, people want me to do a quiz purely for their own benefit! Well, it's not going to happen unless each and every person who visits this blog (and according to my stats page that's a pretty large group of people) will make out with me. When, and only when , that occurs will I ever post so much as a single quiz on this site.







Laua, the only good thing about Havering is that it's far enough away from me to stop the people living there (They are people, aren't they?) from reaching me by a process of aimless wandering. Which is how they seem to get to most places.


Rosie, I'm not quite sure by what you mean by "Smells like Teen Bullshit", but if you're taking the piss out of Nirvana's best song ever, I'm afraid I'm going to have to have you killed by a team of international assasins led by the Pope.


Bec, are you from Sydney? Because when you talk to Aussies they usually say "Hmph. Well. Could have been a lot better." if they're from Adelaide or Perth or Wollongong (Ha! Call that a name?). But if they're from Sydney they tend to go "Olympics?! YEAH! WOW! IT WAS BRILLIANT! I WAS THERE! I SHAGGED PAULA RADCLIFFE!"

Dan, just who is capable of training thousands of homeless people to be waiters in seven years? Enter Gordon Ramsay.

Firstly, should there really be so many "O"'s in "Ooookayy? The sound I'm trying to create textually is a kind of cross between the "Oooohhh" of a young French woman directly after strenuous intercourse and the "Heyy..y!" of someone who's just had their arse pinched during church. Perhaps it should be spelt "Oohhkeyy". Let me just say that to myself.

...

Perhaps not.







Nevermind! On to more important things! The Olympics! Right, well, as you all know unless you're cutoff completely from all human civilisation (well, perhaps I do have readers from Norfolk) Britain, or more specifically London, has put in a bid to host the Olympics. I would specify the particular olympics we've applied to host, but nobody seems to be sure. I think they just asked a bloke with an English-sounding voice to go visit the Olympics Commitee (or Olympics Commission or whatever they currently call themselves) and say "I say, us British chaps wouldn't particularly mind looking after the Olympics one year, you know". I think the current date set is 2012. That just about gives us seven years to clean up London. Seven years! It'll take 'em that long just to shoot all the pigeons. If they decide to pull out all the stops - you know, get out the special, decorative homeless people. You know, the ones with teeth, and the not-quite-so-very-lager-stained woolly jumpers - I reckon they can have it done by about 2040, provided the Thames floods round about 2025 to wash out all the shit left behind by the terrified street vendors who'll have been chased out by mad bulls (as they do in Spain once a year, I believe. Bloody stupid idea, I call it.)

Anyway, the main argument is not "When'll it be?" but "WE DON'T WANT IT!"

Everyone with an income of less than sixty thousand a year says "No! We don't want it! It'll mean slightly higher quality public services for a month or two and much higher taxes for all eternity." while everyopne whose other car is a porche is saying "Olympics? What - let a load of foreigners in? And admit that other countries are better than us? Are you off your tits? Sod you lot - I'm off to watch the Edinburgh Tattoo."


But what you're all absoloutely dying to hear is my point of view. Well, living in North Cheam, I really couldn't give a toss. Look:

See?






Laura, the reason I'm doing General Studies is that I go to a Catholic School. The only way to get out of doing Theology is to take General Studies instead. Come on, whose more interesting - Jane the thieving peasant and husbandless mother of four or Jesus?

Dan, as far as I know, you don't smell A's. You detect them via your sense of self-preservation.