Ivan Denisovich. Yeah, you and me both, mate.

O.K.

Here's the skinny for all you budding ranchers out there.

You take the top one and breed it with the bottom one, then let them loose on the wide prairee.

The secret of blogging!
This is my theory and it belongs to me (I own it).

When you’re at work you’re obsessing almost non stop about crap. You can’t turn it off. You have weird meetings about nothing and instead of tackling whatever it is we’re all there for, you’re wondering:
“Is my position strengthened or weakened by this? What did Dick mean by that last remark? Is he having a laugh? He won’t be laughing when I give him a fat lip for his trouble. Hmmm, Geraldine’s looking well these days, has she lost weight? SHE dressed in a hurry this morning hmmm… What was that? Maroon pay attention! Did I say that out loud?...”

It’s endless noise and then when you get into this world, the blogging world, all the noise stops, and it’s a bit silly; it’s a dinner party without having to feed anyone or polish the table.

That’s the secret.

We’re off to Perth Show today. It is a bit “county” but the show jumping at the end can be fun as can the guest of honour, who is always some American rancher called Hiram Pipesucker the Third…“who has come all this way, to buy a bull.”
Where else is he gonna get one? Wal Mart?

Haloscan and blogger are shit.

I'm tryin to have a conbersation here and the comments are all over the shop.
the level of servive offered by British isps is bloody awfyul

Bon appétit Mrs Pouncer.

(haloscan won't let me reply.)

I want to tell you a story; a creepy, true story.

Two weeks ago last Monday, so that would have been Monday 14th inst., I found a fairy ring in Dundee.

A fairy ring is the superstitious name given to rings made in grass by toadstools and mushrooms. The fungi expand out like a ripple in a pond getting bigger over time until there is a ring of them. The one I found was about 10 feet across and most impressive. So in the Jungian tradition* of science meets superstition, I stood in the middle of it, turned three times round widdershins and made three wishes out loud. The whole event was witnessed by a sneering colleague who said “For fuck’s sake” (just shows you the calibre of people I have to work with.) One of the wishes was to meet another pig of 1959 vintage. This is all true. I had come independently to the conclusion that ‘59 for whatever reason, was a vintage year for pigs, then lo and behold, Mrs Pouncer drops out the ether like Mary Bloody Poppins.
I had my suspicions, for it was none other than Dick who was the witness and for a decent bloke, he can be an asshole of epic proportions. The other two wishes were lesser personal ones which would probably have come true anyway which they did. For other’s privacy, I won’t be specific, but they were trivial wishes, like I wish it would rain on Wednesday, that sort of thing.

* Jung as you will know got into all sorts of bother investigating this sort of stuff by carrying out proper statistical analysis of his results. Coincidence such as this appears to be, is only significant because we look at it from the result backwards.

i.e. I would not be creeped out if nothing had happened.
Wrong numbers only happen when someone answers the phone; do you see? But the episode WAS weird especially the shared experiences, which looked suspicious until one realises that everyone our age would have similar tales to tell.

From ‘Once Upon a Time in America’:

“Life, is stranger than shit!”

Finally; a bit of recognition for us blokes in the Harris jackets with the pens in the top pocket. Until yesterday, I thought my life would pass in a blur of cigarettes and whisky, my value to society known only to the cognoscenti, just like oh, what’s her name?-Princess Margaret! But Mr Gorilla Bananas has set the record straight, and you can like it or lump it but the truth is out there and that’s all that matters.

One tiny fly in the ointment.
Mr Bananas’ correspondents would rather not have sex with engineers.

Who can blame them: I’m repulsed by the idea too, but if I were a lady, I’d rather do it with an engineer than a gynaecologist say, or worse, a lawyer!

Oh – my - God, think on that: a big, hairy-arsed lawyer a-huffing and a-puffing all over you with his chalk stripe trousers neatly folded over the chair.
And if we, the doers and shapers, wear tank tops in the summer, so what?
They wear blue shirts with white collars! I mean, who the hell are they kidding? That is like so Eighties.
That’s the trouble with us engineers, we see things with such clarity, things that ordinary people (no offence) just can’t.

Dr.Seymour Bush

Mark Cavendish

- Great Human

Englishman wins FOUR stages?...never thought I’d see the day…English cycling back on the map…old Scotsman can die happy…jumpers for goalposts…Saturday afternoons…watching the wrestling on the box with Dad …Mum making custard…15-a-side in the park…grumpy old Parkie having his sandwiches…mustn’t go into his hut mind…not after little Bobby…marvellous…

For Ronnie.



1976 was a hot summer and overnight we changed into punks.
On the Monday we sang along with the Brutus advert and on the Tuesday we had slashed our T Shirts with razor blades, made our hair spikey with brylcreme and bought drainpipe jeans from an old fashioned man's shop in the Gallowgate. It was that fast and spontanious.
We played the Ramones especially "Havana Affair" non stop. We were the only people we knew, wearing all the mad gear. We learned the chords (3) and rehearsed in the scout hut. The girls loved us.
By 1977 everyone was on the bandwagon. By 1981 we were young fogeys, complete with tweed jackets and brogues and our fathers' cravats for christsakes!

For Eryl.



For everyone else, sing, "my Brutus jeans on"
for "my old blue jeans on"

There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repenteth etc.
Stack overflow at line 0 and so on...

SafeTinspector’s back!

That’s right! The Michigan familyman, polymath, musician, erstwhile time traveller and anonymous 28 inches is still kicking.

Actually I knew he was. I was over at his bit a couple of months ago. I hesitated to leave a calling card as it seemed to me he had moved on and would not relish a visit from his past. You know how it is. You start a family, put on a few pounds, join a golf club, start voting Republican, then your hippy pals from college turn up looking for drugs and asking whatever happened to that girl with the big boobs.
Nay, I couldna do it to him Captain, ah jist couldna.

However, he broke cover first, so hell mend him.

SafeT! WAZZUP!?

Happy Treasion Day to all our American friends.

I've seen this picture in New York and it's almost like a mural, and who was the first person in the boat I noticed? That's right, Old Hamish Maroon (enlarge photo to spot him) and I thought, might have known there'd be a bloody Scotchman in it somewhere stirring the shit. I had a snigger to myself but the reverential people around me at the time misinterpreted and told me to move on while I still had my teeth (lousey limey bastard).

Picture courtesy of http://www.failblog.org (again)

Now that Savannah (xoxxoox) has got over her irrational fear of flying. Yikes! And why not? (our picture today shows the massive airbags now fitted to modern aircraft) I suppose it’s time to think of holidays.
Because of the credit crunch, we shall not be taking the villa in Umbria this year but rather a caravan in Port Seton. You can have just as much fun and the carbon footprint is negligible.

Picture courtesy of the wonderful http://www.failblog.org

I’ve heard some weird noises during flights on MD80s, 737 200s and the odd Fokker, all of which I am assured are “normal”. I’ve never witnessed blue ice, trailing smoke or flames, unexpected engine shutdowns, flap failures, or covers coming off in flight like our picture shows.

However I was on a Loganair flight from Glasgow once.

Once.

We had been pushed back and had taxied for about 50 yards when on go the brakes quite hard. Ah, this is first officer Sandy McNab or whatever his name was, we’ve got a slight technical problem that will delay us for a few minutes, we won’t need to return to the terminal etc etc. Almost immediately a Loganair van pulls up and another man pushing one of those sets of steps on wheels, you see them in B&Q, arrives and climbs up onto the wing. We’re all watching him. The guy in the van is handing him up tools. Off come some engine covers, and then more bits from inside the engine then he starts laying into something with a hammer!
Now, being in the trade as it were, I was unconcerned at the bits he took off. I was watching him, engine covers, some heat shields, but when he started in with the hammer, I couldn’t think what he might be hitting or why.
I looked at my fellow passengers but being British they were studiously ignoring everything by now even though you could feel the hammer blows through your seat. He suddenly stopped and put everything back and ran round to the pilot’s window and gave him the thumbs up. A second later though, he waved both his hands in the unofficial non JAR approved hand signal for “for fuck’s sake stop!”. He ran to the wing, and pulled away the steps, ran back and gave the pilot the DOUBLE thumbs up this time, so that was alright.
I felt like captain Kirk in that programme where the hairy beasts are crawling about the plane pulling bits off and he’s the only one to see them.

Think on that, on your way to Malaga this summer.

Dickey does Dallas.


Scene 1: morning, interior: Sunny apartment overlooking the river. Spacious, minimalist furnishings, objets d’art, paintings etc..

Enter Persephone Melons, lady of the house, dressed in lipstick, nightie, earrings and thong.

Persephone: Gosh darn it, I wish that plumber would arrive.

Footsteps off, doorbell, (ding dong type). Persephone opens door to

Karl Diggler: Hi, I’m the plumber…

CUT!

Yes, can I just stop you there luv?...Karl sweetie, I’m not getting any sorrow from you old darling…remember your ex-girlfriend’s just been devoured by piranhas, so a bit more…Ronnie sweetheart be a treasure and put a filter over that light, there’s a good boy, her thong’s strobing like I shouldn’t wonder…Makeup!...can you do something with Miss Melons’ face dearie?...we’re getting a massive flare off her forehead this side of the lens and it’s ruining the…thanks luvvie,…just do her boobs while you’re at it…right everyone!...from “Gosh darn it” Persephone…lots of anxiety this time darling…and…

ACTION!

We're sorry for the slight delay to Cape To Rio, this is due entirely to Kim Ayres and Gorilla Bananas, normal service will be resumed forthwith.

Until then here's a short programme about clay and so on.

Cue the John Williams guitar muzak...

You may be interested to know that I have a sore thumb. It’s buggered up my piano playing something chronic but the point is it looks exactly as it always has, a fine thumb, a noble thumb, a thumb Michelangelo would have been proud of, and the mirror image of it’s neighbour on my other hand. Totally inconspicuous in fact. It ‘s been sore since the Friday night bar-B-Q when I was passed a baked potato in tin foil which was a bit hot, so I wrapped a napkin round it to make it more comfortable to hold.




That's the ol' ball and chain if you're wondering. It was a hot day.

Goodness gracious me but the Irish politicians are an awful handless lot.
Had they really wanted to win the vote, they should have paid more attention to the wording they were to put on the ballot slip. Muddy the waters a bit. For Example;

Question: Do you want to keep the same constitution?

Vote YES for the constitution.

Vote NO to change.

Then ipso facto they could have argued they'd won no matter what !

I was following a Walkers shortbread lorry up the motorway tonight and I had some pretty weird thoughts about it. They just came into my head from nowhere. You know that one where Homer Simpson finds a crashed sugar truck and steals all the sugar? I couldn’t get the idea out my mind of how great it would be if the shortbread lorry overturned and everyone on the motorway went mad and dived into the pile of shortbread. It could have been a total shortbread-arama! Everyone would gorge themselves sick on shortbread in pagan nakedness then revert to Norman Normal when the police showed up to spoil the fun and take our particulars.
Either that part of the motorway (M90) runs over some strong ley lines or I am suffering cravings because of my pregnancy. I’m going with the ley line theory; I can’t be pregnant, (no one will sleep with me).

Dateline Wednesday 4 June 2008 20 59 BST

Man: Deep breath, I’ve had a glass of cider and a weak doobie (on a school night!) and I’ve decided to

Woman: What are you doing?

Man: Writing my blog

Woman: Oh Jesus, here we go – you you you ! Nobody wants to hear your self obsessed drivel, wise up ferchrisssakes!

Man: Just background material, my friends may want to know what I’ve

Woman: Friends? Friends? They’re names on a screen, penpals

Man: to you perhaps. To me however, they are as valuable, perhaps more so, than my associates in the corporeal world

Woman: therein lies your problem

Man: Look give me some peace. I don’t bother you when you’re doing the laundry

Woman: we agreed you would not bring the internet back into this house

Man: we had a set-to, hardly an agreement, besides “this house” as you put it needs to be connected

Woman: yeah, to the fucking social work department

Man: Anyway, I met Ayres in real life

Woman: you said he was odd

Man: I never!

Woman: You said he looked at you funny

Man: He did as well. He definitely doesn’t believe I’m a doctor

Woman: I don’t believe you’re a fucking doctor any more either

Man: Right, anyway, thanks for the pep talk darling, I’ll mention you to all my friends around the world

Woman: Fuck!