tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37531762311322059022024-03-13T13:43:59.173-07:00Last Django in ParisUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger172125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-24841204126587894662016-06-28T00:45:00.003-07:002016-06-28T00:45:59.569-07:00The British Insult GeneratorWARNING - MAY CONTAIN BAD LANGUAGE<br />
<br />
It is told in legend that Arthur, King of the Britons, lies not dead for all eternity but, as the once and future king, will return in his country's hour of need. And so Last Django, the once and future blog, returns once more in an hour of dire need to help its readers push the boundaries of foul language.<br />
<br />
You see, recently Donald Trump visited Scotland; and Americans <a href="http://www.barstoolsports.com/boston/donald-trump-was-the-victim-of-some-vicious-british-insults-which-are-incredible-and-my-new-favorite-thing/" target="_blank">were delighted to find</a>, via twitter, that the British rouse themselves to creative bad language as a matter of course, beyond the boorish American commonplaces 'asshole', 'douchebag', 'chicken-sucker' and 'mater-lover'.<br />
<br />
Laddish banter that is strewn around wantonly in British conversation on an everyday basis fell upon impoverished American ears like manna from Basildon, astounding them with its flights of verbal creativity and leading to plaintive pleas for a day-by-day British Insult Calendar to help them push the envelope of swear..<br />
<br />
Which I have no intention of writing, because it sounds like hard work.<br />
<br />
Instead, there is an easier way - mix and match. Simply take a word (or several) from List 1, then follow it up with a compound created from Lists 2 and 3 using the magic of hyphens, and bingo - a laddish British insult which would not be out of place outside a Romford chippy of a Friday night: <br />
<br />
<b>LIST 1</b> <b></b><br />
Tiny-fingered, witless, inbred, stoat-fondling, sausage fingered, ham-faced, pea-brained, colossal, massive, feckless, mangled, mis-shapen, dung-breathed, whey-faced, vacant-eyed, moon-faced, eel-strangling, ferret-legging, jug-eared<br />
<br />
<b>LIST 2 </b><br />
cock, twat, fuck, jizz, shit, turd, goat, felch, rat, spoon<br />
<br />
<b>LIST 3</b> <br />
gibbon, ferret, badger, weasel, pillock, wazzock, stain, splat, nozzle, monger, trumpet, goblin, monkey, womble<br />
<br />
So by a simple mix-and-match process, our American cousins can soon be addressing each other as "colossal turd-monkey", "feckless jizz-gibbon" and "witless, stoat-fondling fuck-nozzle".<br />
<br />
It's a public service, really. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-46798116120014474712013-10-22T03:37:00.002-07:002013-10-22T03:37:32.867-07:00An attempt to raise educational standards, spurned.My dear lady wife - whose name momentarily escapes me - dedicates her days (and indeed unreasonably large portions of her nights, weekends and holidays) to attempting to teach English to the <b>slack-trousered ragamuffins </b>littering the less salubrious parts of the largest nearby town, in aid of which she frequently slides teaching material in my general direction to check for typos. The other night, the <b>forlorn teaching aid </b>presented for my perusal was a story-planning sheet, an A4 sheet of paper with various boxes, numbered and linked with arrows, to help her pupils gather their <b>addled, scattershot thoughts </b>together in the pursuit of meaningful and engaging narrative.<br />
<br />
In an <b>unnecessarily pedestrian manner, </b>the guidance in the boxes was something along these lines:<br />
1) Describe a character or setting<br />
2) Introduce a problem<br />
3) Describe how the problem develops<br />
4) Describe the character's attempts to solve the problem<br />
5) Describe how the problem is solved.<br />
<br />
Her pupils still had trouble engaging with this <b>dumbed-down advice, </b>so she had suggested to one less able boy "Imagine that one of your friends tells you about a plan for a terrorist attack on the school", upon which he goggled at her and said <b>"What, Jamil again?"</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
"The problem is you need to give them a bit more <b>concrete guidance</b>" I opined last night over a modest supper of <b>salmon-en-croute </b>with seasonal vegetables.<br />
"Well, what do you suggest?" she said, inevitably.<br />
<br />
I gathered pencil and scrap paper, and within minutes had produced <b>an improved version, </b>the linked boxes of which now read:<br />
1) Describe a character and a setting.<br />
2) Describe how the setting, and indeed the whole of Planet Earth, is imperilled by an <b>imminent invasion from an alien fleet.</b><br />
3) Describe the character's efforts to resist the <b>alien scourge.</b><br />
4) Reveal, in a <b>surprise twist, </b>that the character and setting - not to mention the alien fleet - are actually figments in the imagination of a lonely, socially dysfunctional woman named Beryl living in <b>a seedy bed-sit in Kidderminster </b>which she shares with 197 stuffed toy dogs.<br />
5) Describe how he police arrest Beryl and charge her with <b>spreading panic and wasting police time.</b><br />
6) Narrate Beryl's inner monologue as she sits <b>alone in her police cell, </b>in which she reveals that her toy dog obsession and her inability to form lasting human relationships stem from <b>a traumatic incident in her childhood </b>during which her beloved Labrador puppy Benji - the only thing she ever truly loved - disappeared without trace.<br />
7) Describe how her court appearance is interrupted to everyone's surprise and shock by the appearance of an fleet of <b>Intergalactic Zargon Battle Cruisers, </b>led by a four-legged alien who takes his helmet off to reveal that he is in fact Benji, who was a actually a Zargon Prince genetically modified to look like a Labrador puppy and placed on Earth in Beryl's care by his father, Lurprox, King of the Zargons, so that he would be safe from the <b>rebel Kra'aka'ars. </b>Having grown to manhood (or at least Zargonhood), defeated the Kra'aka'ars and punished them by removing the <b>extraneous vowels </b>from their name, he has now returned to rescue Beryl and make her his queen. She accepts the offer happily and vaporises the judge, yelling <b>"TAKE THAT, WIGGY!" </b>as she does so. And they all live happily ever after. <br />
<br />
There was a pause.<br />
<br />
Guthlac pronounced the story "Awesome, <b>except for the bit about the woman.</b>"<br />
At length, my wife replied "I think I'll <b>stick with the original version, </b>but thanks all the same."<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-8570170922147070032013-06-17T03:09:00.003-07:002013-06-17T03:10:09.955-07:00The ingratitude of youth<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1r2FqRc3hZSXjNTuPVm96NCejn7F-pU9cem632u1-e7t3YL4w-FeyQ1vHwzNtS0oGgJ3M8odNq4qu5XpwFrIgcnStiQ4dRqFyfcQxq_WZk1jilao8OQYWZDSnJ_gUJEgv-7Ddhu5DEpR/s1600/JWW_TheLadyOfShallot_1888.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="151" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1r2FqRc3hZSXjNTuPVm96NCejn7F-pU9cem632u1-e7t3YL4w-FeyQ1vHwzNtS0oGgJ3M8odNq4qu5XpwFrIgcnStiQ4dRqFyfcQxq_WZk1jilao8OQYWZDSnJ_gUJEgv-7Ddhu5DEpR/s200/JWW_TheLadyOfShallot_1888.jpg" width="200" /></a>Djangolina is struggling with her English homework, and making <b>unhappy noises.</b> <br />
"Daddy, can you help?"<br />
"Depends. What's the problem?"<br />
"We're studying Tennyson's <b>'The Lady of Shalott'</b>, and have to write a stanza in that form. I can't do it."<br />
"Well, let's have a look..."<br />
We analyze the form a bit. After cogitating for a while, I come up with the following:<br />
<br />
<i>He ready put his sharpest knife</i><br />
<i>For dinner - ordered by his wife - </i><br />
<i>By cooking would avoid he strife </i><br />
<i>In many-towered Camelot</i><br />
<i>Once gnocchi pot was on the boil</i><br />
<i>And sea-bass fillets wrapped in foil</i><br />
<i>He chopped, and fried in olive oil</i><br />
<i>The ladle of shallots.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
"Er, thanks, but I think I'd better do my own. <b>Properly</b>."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-81316133492019523932013-04-22T03:05:00.001-07:002013-04-22T03:10:51.546-07:00A counterblast to Amanda PalmerMany people - rightly - have been substantially offended by a <b>toe-curlingly awful</b> '<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/louispeitzman/amanda-palmer-pens-a-poem-for-dzhokhar" target="_blank">poem' on the fate of Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by a lady named Amanda Palmer</a> (whom I freely confess I was hitherto unaware of). Some have felt moved to hurl abuse at her via twitter, or mocked her <b>unmetrical, non-rhyming glurge</b> via Facebook. Fair enough.<br />
<br />
I feel stung into responding with a proper poem about the event, <b>in a proper verse-form</b>, and staying somewhat closer to the known facts. I stand by it on the grounds of accuracy, and stress I mean <b>no offence to anyone in Boston or otherwise affected by the terrible events of last week </b>(the only word I have reservations about is the 6th line, but the form demands a <b>6-syllable double-dactyl </b>at that point and I couldn't think of one which better reflects the courage and tireless devotion to duty of the Boston PD). I merely wish to provide a literary alternative to Ms Palmer's poem which avoids being <b>overlong, sloppily written, vomit-inducingly self-regarding and misplaced in its sympathies</b>.<br />
<br />
<u><b>A Poem for Tamerlan</b></u><br />
Higgledy piggledy<br />
Tamerlan Tsarnaev<br />
Set off a bomb<br />
At the finishing line<br />
<br />
Afterwards uniformed<br />
Overenthusiasts<br />
Shot him.<br />
Bostonians felt that was fine.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-22211332113431310562013-03-20T04:01:00.001-07:002013-03-20T04:01:05.294-07:00The dishonesty of literature<br />
Poets are not famous for writing what's actually in their heads. The chief function of poetry being for <b>bespectacled geeks to get off with girls</b>, they write what they think people want to hear. Take Yeats, for instance, who famously wrote:<br />
<br />
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,<br />
Enwrought with golden and silver light,<br />
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths<br />
Of night and light and the half-light,<br />
I would spread the cloths under your feet:<br />
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;<br />
I have spread my dreams under your feet;<br />
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. <br />
<br />
One knows in one's heart that the reality would be, rather:<br />
<br />
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,<br />
Enwrought with golden and silver light,<br />
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths<br />
Of night and light and the half-light,<br />
I would sell them to a market trader of dubious repute<br />
Spend all the money on beer and then<br />
Lie down to recover under your feet;<br />
Tread softly because you tread on my head. <br />
<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-77579071566659975642013-03-15T05:56:00.001-07:002013-03-15T07:00:14.164-07:00The Battle of Richard III - a brief summary<span style="font-family: inherit;">Since no normal person would want to have to read all the media coverage of the current row between the cities of York and Leicester over the reburial of Richard III, I here provide an accurate, impartial and - most importantly - concise summary of the whole rigmarole so far:</span><br />
-----------------------<br />
<i>Leicester:</i> I say minister, we're getting rather bothered by this mad woman from the Richard III Society who's convinced Richard III is communicating with her not merely from beyond the grave, but from under a council car park. And she's offered to fund a dig, and the archaeology department look like they could do with a day or two in the fresh air.<br />
<i>HM Government:</i> Righty-ho. If you do find any bodies, bury them again as close as is reasonably possible. In any case, wasn't Dicky dug up and chucked in a river?<br />
<i>Leicester:</i> Quite possibly.<br />
------------------------<br />
<i>Leicester:</i> Well bugger me - look what the spade's hit! WE'VE FOUND HIM LADS! Except for the feet. And look at that - he <i>was</i> a hunchback!<br />
<i>R3S lady:</i> Shite.<br />
------------------------<br />
<i>York:</i> 'Appen lads - Leicester ave found t'tourist attraction. Could be brass in that t'muck!<br />
<i>Leicester:</i> Fuck off.<br />
<i>York:</i> As t'name 'Richard of Gloucester' suggests, 'e were a Yorkshire lad!<br />
<i>Leicester:</i> Fuck off.<br />
<i>York:</i> And you lost him for 500 years<br />
<i>Leicester:</i> Fuck <i>off</i>.<br />
<i>York:</i> And some folks as says they is related to 'im want 'im in t'Minster.<br />
<i>Leicester:</i> Fuck <i>right </i>off.<br />
<i>York: </i>And us beloved Minster, jewel of t'North and spiritual 'ome of t'Northernness should rightly 'ave 'im.<br />
<i>York minster clergy:</i> Actually we think he should stay in Leicester.<br />
<i>York:</i> DIE, SOUTHERN PONCE!<br />
<i>York MPs:</i> And we wants talks with t'Leicester MPs in t'commons.<br />
<i>House of Commons:</i> Fuck. Off.<br />
<i>York:</i> And talks with t'mayor of Leicester.<br />
<i>Mayor of Leicester:</i> FUCK OFF!<br />
<br />
<i>[To be continued...]</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
I suggest we settle the issue in a way which Richard III himself would have understood and approved - York and Leicester councils should send out commissions of array, gather their forces, and do battle at a convenient mid-point (say, Mansfield - where any collateral damage would barely be noticed anyway). Not only that, but we'd probably end up with some spare feet to donate to his Majesty's remains. You know it makes sense.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-52765297598851788652012-12-04T08:01:00.000-08:002012-12-04T08:01:02.713-08:00The Curse of Byard<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFeAn_WD3PY88IGMMIEwprAOGWKINcfyLvBl2aggf7x6D9tUtbQXbASba-UcPbHxnm8eY2O3Eo0XRfRnKgrx7SlwLIw_c1IhkdC1_kyMjjoXY8lOIzzdhE5Jcl3z93XSho79hlvuZJjMxc/s1600/egypt+fire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFeAn_WD3PY88IGMMIEwprAOGWKINcfyLvBl2aggf7x6D9tUtbQXbASba-UcPbHxnm8eY2O3Eo0XRfRnKgrx7SlwLIw_c1IhkdC1_kyMjjoXY8lOIzzdhE5Jcl3z93XSho79hlvuZJjMxc/s200/egypt+fire.jpg" width="200" /></a>I have, as some of you may know, recently returned from a business trip to Egypt. When I landed the country was <b>a little on edge</b> because of the unpleasantness on its northern border; by the time I left a week later the president had assumed dictatorial powers, Tahrir Square reeked of teargas and <b>quite a lot of things were on fire.</b><br />
<br />
This isn't the first time I have done this to an unsuspecting country. I visited Uzbekistan, and shortly afterwards Andijan erupted into <b>large-scale unpleasantness</b>. I visited the Caucasus and the Russians and Georgians marked my departure by kicking the crap out of each other.My visit to Bangladesh heralded <b>a major mutiny</b> of the country's border force, in their barracks just down the road from the office in which I had been working. When I left Thailand a few years ago, <b>all hell broke loose</b> on the street between red- and yellow-shirted partisans of assorted political factions.<br />
<br />The evidence is in - whenever I leave a country, chaos ensues. As yet, Gyppologists are unable to say whether this is <b>the soul of a nation pining for me</b> as I flit away, or whether the removal of a critical quantity of <b>existential lucky heather</b> tips the balance, but a causal link is now hard to deny.<br />
<br />I am now willing to offer governments and regional organisations two ways in which they can benefit from this <b>unusual talent </b>of mine:<br />
<br />1) Any country wishing to avoid unrest may <b>pay me an annual retainer</b> not to set foot in it. I suggest a graduated pay scale depending on population, say £1 per year per thousand inhabitants.<br /><br />
2) Any country wishing to stir up trouble in someone else's patch can give me a return first-class air ticket and <b>an all-expenses paid fortnight in a five-star hotel</b> in the capital of whichever nation they wish to destabilise, except in the case of the UK wishing to safeguard the Falkland Islands (or, for readers in Argentina, <b>THE FALKLAND ISLANDS!</b>) by messing up Argentina, in which case my patriotic sense of self-sacrifice will prompt me to lower the rate to business-class and one week in a four-star hotel).<br /><br />
Serious offers from cabinet-level ministers only please. Leave a private contact in the comments...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-37999436133923146212012-11-14T04:47:00.002-08:002012-11-14T04:47:36.289-08:00Surrealism at home - 4<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7fYbkCoCtJQJkwjEeyETa8gXtwf3Lffxk_Lh2tbUD6KxXob-icxaKPf1NnC4CnRMK2JT3zQa-Ig0M65qWw-g9p6PnM_QMBqJCSYstwvyJaHH7F770WounsYwo0J-5Kit_7fvpTlPyqkfc/s1600/shark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7fYbkCoCtJQJkwjEeyETa8gXtwf3Lffxk_Lh2tbUD6KxXob-icxaKPf1NnC4CnRMK2JT3zQa-Ig0M65qWw-g9p6PnM_QMBqJCSYstwvyJaHH7F770WounsYwo0J-5Kit_7fvpTlPyqkfc/s200/shark.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
"Help!"<br />
"What is it Guthlac?"<br />
"<b>I'm slipping down the stairs</b>." (I can believe this. Moments earlier he had been lying full-length on them.)<br />
"I'm sure you'll be alright. In any case, it'll have to wait until I've finished shaving."<br />
"Help!"<br />
"Look - I have to finish shaving. You're not in any real danger. If you were, for example, being <b>pursued by a hammerhead shark armed with a crossbow</b>, I would rush to your aid."<br />
"Am I?"<br />
"No. And here are <b>three good reasons </b>why not: Reason number 1 - Hammerhead sharks cannot breathe out of water. Reason number 2 - Hammerhead sharks haven't got hands and would therefore find picking up, aiming and shooting a crossbow difficult. Reason number 3 - Their eyes, being at <b>the extremities of their eponymous heads</b>, are ill-placed for aiming correctly.<br />
"What's reason number 4?"<br />
"Are the first three not enough?"<br />
"No."<br />
"OK, reason number 4 - to span the crossbow requires that one puts one's foot in the stirrup, another movement which hammerhead sharks find <b>bafflingly difficult owing to a lack of feet</b>."<br />
"How about reason number 5?"<br />
"Hammerhead sharks have delicate skin which would be <b>terribly chafed</b> by the taut string of a crossbow."<br />
What's reason number 6?"<br />
"I've finished shaving now."<br />
"Awwwww...."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-85115790584717151222012-10-10T04:40:00.002-07:002012-10-10T04:42:01.873-07:00My daily walk of shame<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2u5SiZGugJu9eigOA3yCfNfvZnR9EtcJDFENIlfnX-SwtIFq76ieMd_h0f7VEL4ceN6o1UKNIQmaoHSj_qPH8Y5-giDPOjzU6VjJ89vp1KAKPJTfdrRASrnUIDdLIFUMbWIgbwoOYRzgC/s1600/toys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2u5SiZGugJu9eigOA3yCfNfvZnR9EtcJDFENIlfnX-SwtIFq76ieMd_h0f7VEL4ceN6o1UKNIQmaoHSj_qPH8Y5-giDPOjzU6VjJ89vp1KAKPJTfdrRASrnUIDdLIFUMbWIgbwoOYRzgC/s320/toys.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
From Monday to Friday each week, I accompany Guthlac on <b>his five-minute walk to school,</b> where he is currently in 'Foundation 2' (or 'Reception' as it was until recently. Or 'infants' as it was back in my day.) I then depart for work.<br />
<br />
Guthlac and his classmates are not allowed to bring toys into school. However, they all interpret this rule to mean that they can bring toys <i>to the playground </i>and then <b>hand them over to their accompanying parent or carer</b> when summoned inside.<br />
<br />
Thus it is that from Monday to Friday each week, I am compelled to walk though the streets of my neighbourhood, a solitary middle-aged man dressed more-or-less respectably for work, trying to look normal while carrying in his hand <b>a bizarre toy of some description</b>. As many of those who will see me are similarly encumbered parents I know I have some degree of understanding. But there are always non-parents about who will notice and start constructing narratives inside their own heads as to how this state of affairs has come to pass. I imagine, in my more paranoid moments, that many of these narratives feature phrases like "care in the community" or "predatory".<br />
<br />
I now have, in my head, an elaborate hieararchy of toys <b>categorised by public shame coefficient</b>, running something like this:<br />
<br />
<u><b>Category one:</b></u> Small transformers, toy cars, superhero figurines: Fine for cold weather as they can be <b>concealed inside a coat pocket</b>. In warm weather, can be largely hidden with sleight of hand.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Category two:</b></u> Scooter or bicycle. Awkward to carry and impossible to conceal about one's person, but obviously <b>the burden of a school run </b>and therefore no cause for public shame.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Category three:</b></u><b> </b>Marvel comics. Hard to conceal other than during overcoat weather, and open to non-school run interpretations from passers-by including <b>sad geek's reading material </b>and child-molestor's conversation starter.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Category four:</b></u><b> </b>Light-sabres, game consoles etc. Too large to conceal, too embarrassing to carry openly, these are <b>the stuff of overly self-conscious adult nightmares. </b>Only this morning, a request to take one of these and the inevitable response led to a toddler-like temper tantrum, with screams, flailing fists and hot salty tears. But after a while I calmed down and took Guthlac to school anyway.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-54353235320433062722012-10-01T04:01:00.003-07:002012-10-10T08:35:36.396-07:00Weightloss - a dull, self-obsessed post for fellow losersHaving promised, a post or two ago, never to comment on the subject again I find that a commenter (somebody who reads this blog, and must therefore have <b>petals strewn at her feet</b> and have every whim catered for) has asked for more.
So Melissa (on the assumption anyone else will have bailed out by now) - a few random and slightly more positive thoughts about weightloss:<br />
<br />
1) <b>Knowing your BMI</b> is brilliant, because it shocked me into action in the first place and gives useful waymarks as to how one is doing, plus a wise and reasonable target weight at which you can level out. Trust me, I was fat for years and made every excuse in the book (including <b>"I'm big-boned"</b> and "muscle weighs more than fat" and "I'm a bit plump but not actually obese" and "I don't really eat <i>that</i> much"). All of these are untrue for *any* overweight person, btw. I finally worked out my BMI in the expectation it would come out as "pleasantly cuddly but nothing to worry about" and found I was clinically obese at a health-threatening level. I then made targets out of each full point of BMI I dropped (from well over 30 to 24, where I am now). This was helpful as it kept giving me small victories rather than having me chase a seemingly unobtainable big target.<br />
<br />
2) Diets don't work. I dropped 4 stone (56 lbs if you're American, 27 kg if you live in the metric world) without going on "a diet", or giving anything up. Habit-changing was what worked for me. For example, I used to drink too much coffee, and every cup I had contained about 3-4 tsp of sugar. One day I actually put my daily intake of sugar from coffee along into a bowl and looked at it. It horrified me. I retrained my tastebuds to like black coffee without sugar and also cut down the number of cups per day I was drinking, and in a negligible amount of time had <b>cut several hundred calories a day</b> out of my regular intake without really noticing. If you are overweight, there will be 'savings' like that in <i>your </i>in your daily intake you can make. I did similar things with chocolate, snacks and meat (meat especially is key - be a vegetarian at least 6 days a week and you'll be amazed by the difference it makes). Replacing cakes, biscuits and chocolate with dried fruit or seeds is great as well.<br />
<br />
3) More exercise is good. When you are overweight it's <b>gruelling and painful on the joints</b> and tires you out. When you get down to the right weight it energises you. And you don't feel nearly so self-conscious at the swimming pool or out jogging.<br />
<br />
4) When you reach your target weight, buy new clothes and <b>send the tents to charity shops</b>. You look better, feel better and don't have the option of your weight going back up again.
Hope this is of some interest. Please feel free to share your experiences knowing that I will take an intelligent interest...
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-48337075749425969352012-06-13T06:31:00.000-07:002012-06-13T07:31:52.760-07:00A symposium<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLoFyhd4MViDhbbHX7nFfCJWPNTnIupFMCv49BShLBIg7RKjkjF-Kctz5h_XAHvGO6KQ8KxdNiORR-xZrQ4pHAzXeAFOuVgUGh5p0K1VyEko44jUANKPg4WwCdGJ3wJPsUkPV540i4H2hz/s1600/symposium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="139" width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLoFyhd4MViDhbbHX7nFfCJWPNTnIupFMCv49BShLBIg7RKjkjF-Kctz5h_XAHvGO6KQ8KxdNiORR-xZrQ4pHAzXeAFOuVgUGh5p0K1VyEko44jUANKPg4WwCdGJ3wJPsUkPV540i4H2hz/s200/symposium.jpg" /></a>
A lunchtime stroll to take in some fresh air and sunshine today took me past <b>The Tethered Goat</b>, outside which No Good Boyo and his confederates were sitting around an upended packing crate which had once contained <b>a steam-powered personal grooming device </b>sipping their lunches of Champion's Abdication Special (except for Dazza, who was drinking lady's white wine from a lady's glass) and engaging in the sparkling, erudite conversation for which they are famed. <br>
<br>
As I hove into earshot, Dazza was explaining in the loud, ponderous tones of one well advanced on his lunch that "Social media, right, is like an animal with a huge tail which BASHES itself over the head." He accompanied this hypothesis with arm-flailing gestures which had his companions <b>swiftly move their pints out of the way for safety</b>.<br>
<br>
Unwisely - for I was sober - I allowed myself to be drawn into a discussion of whether there are, in fact, <b>any animals capable of this feat of self-flagellation</b>. Kangaroos were proposed and then rejected on the grounds that their tails - being a balance-weight for their heads - would, if swung around into the vicinity of their heads, cause them to fall over amusingly.<br>
<br>
I mooted snakes as being able to coil themselves around in such a way. "But do snakes have tails?" inquired No Good Boyo. "Well yes," I opined with a Mediaeval bestiary-writer's logic "A snake is basically just a tail with a head attached." There is a brief pause for thought as eyes narrow and creaking brains whirr. "Actually" explained Boyo in the manner of a scholarly authority laying down the law "Snakes are <b>disembodied knobs used by lesbian animals to pleasure themselves with</b>."<br>
<br>
The conversation moved on to the Welsh floods ("Welsh people live on hills. The ones swept away were English caravanners") and <b>some ghastly pimple or other in the cramped Celtic landscape</b> from which Owain Glyndwr once sent a letter to the King of France offering to send over the King of England in two ships for prolonged torture, a plan which failed because Glyndwr's allies the Percys were - and I quote - "Shite".<br>
<br>
Dazza suddenly woke up at this point, thinking that we had mentioned The Persians being Shi'ite. We then digressed into <b>a feasibility study of whether the Safavid navy could have made it as far as the English Channel </b>at the turn of the 15th century.<br>
<br>
A side discussion involving the K-man then brought us back to evolution, and <b>how many willies barnacles have. </b>I then really did need to get on and beat a hasty retreat, leaving them to come up with an answer.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-22612392938997793742012-04-18T05:29:00.003-07:002012-04-18T07:02:52.254-07:00Weightloss - what the health fascists don't tell you.I am currently at the point in an ongoing diet where colleagues and acquaintances are coming up to me and saying <strong>"Gosh, you've lost a lot of weight", </strong>and worrying about my being too thin. I'm am not, needless to say, too thin - that would require at least another two stone of slimming to achieve, and I have no wish to go there. But I have come down from 15 st to 11 st, from what in Body Mass Index (BMI) terms is "obese" to "normal". So for anyone contemplating such a transformation and <strong>wondering what the downside is</strong>, let me explain:<br /><br />1) <strong>It's colder.</strong> Actually, it's much the same but you feel the cold a lot more without your customary padding.<br /><br />2) <strong>Sitting on hard chairs becomes agonising.</strong> Again, a dramatic loss of padding makes itself felt in uncomfortable ways. Frankly, I would quite happily have kept a degree of cushioning on the backside and rid myself of the manboobs and beergut first, but alas the limb insulation went first, leaving me looking for a while like <strong>an obese torso with manboobs and a beergut, out of which stuck matchstick arms and legs</strong>.<br /><br />3) <strong>Stretchmarks.</strong> Honestly, from waist to rib I resemble <strong>a freakishly hairy mother of young twins</strong>. The doctor never mentioned this, curiously.<br /><br />4) <strong>Becoming a diet bore. </strong>I shall gloss over exact BMI figures and diet tips, but I *could* talk about them nonstop for over an hour. Frends comment on how thin I'm looking, and then <strong>glaze over a mere 15 minutes or so into my reply</strong>.<br /><br />I hereby promise I will never blog about this again. Honest.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-18543425957579149802012-02-27T02:59:00.004-08:002012-02-27T03:08:25.850-08:00The Great Indonesian Novel - 5Stung into action by Boyo's <a href="http://alfanalf.blogspot.com/2012/02/anti-danube-chapter-x.html">resumption of Anti-Danube</a>, we continue the ongoing series with <strong>This Earth of Badly-Raised Twilight - Chapter 5 - March 1920</strong><br /><br />William of Orange Polder Windmill Rotterdam Pancake Li staggered back to his dormitory yet again, the taunts and half-bricks of his red-faced, long-nosed bullying Dutch classmates ringing in his ears. And yet again he felt forced to ponder - for the benefit of the reader - the cruel contrast between the illusory, cultured Holland he had grown up to love and the cold, harsh reality as described so searingly by someone who had never actually been there. It didn't seem to matter how hard he tried to fit in, the Dutch would forever look down upon him as a native and despise him. William, tears in his eyes, ran out of his Amsterdam school, through the coconut grove and along by the rice paddies. He looked up at the distant volcano and swatted away a mosquito.<br /> <br />"Curse the Hollanders!" he spat. "If only my father knew what he was putting me through! My eyes have been duly opened to the iniquity of the white men, and there remains little for me to do here except seek an early return to my native land to work for eventual independence. That and drink large quantities of cheap gin in backstreet dives with Surinamese ladies of negotiable affection, of course. Actually, come to think of it, there's no reason for me to go home <em>immediately</em>..." <br /><br />-o-o-o-o-<br /><br />Far away in Soerabaja, Min - the simple village goat-carrier-turned-dokar-driver-turned-satay-seller turned vice-president of Goodyear Tyres (Southeast Asia) division with responsibility for marketing - who still nursed within him a hopeless passion for the lovely yet cruelly mistreated Royabot was driving past the batik market in his chauffeur-driven car when his eye was suddenly caught by the careworn yet beautiful face of the woman for whom he had, with notable inefficiency, been searching for many years. "Stop the car!" he blurted out, causing a minor traffic pile-up involving four bicycles, a handcart, an old woman carrying a medium-sized restaurant on her back and three bullocks. He flung open the car door, knocking a malnourished child into a storm-drain, and stumbled towards the face's owner.<br /><br />"Royabot?"<br /><br />Raden Roro Royabot looked up at him, to see the kindly face that had filled her many flashback-musings about the essential goodness of simple village folk over many chapters. <br /><br />"Min? Oh - I see you have a car now. The goat-carrying business must be booming."<br /><br />"I am no longer a goat-carrier. It's a long story, for which I refer you to the <a href="http://lastdjango.blogspot.com/2009/09/great-indonesian-novel-2.html">previous</a> <a href="http://lastdjango.blogspot.com/2009/09/great-indonesian-novel-3.html">three</a> <a href="http://lastdjango.blogspot.com/2009/10/great-indonesian-novel-4.html">chapters</a>. But I hear that you have left your cruel and exploitative husband."<br /><br />"Yes."<br /><br />"And become a batik seller in the market."<br /><br />"Yes."<br /><br />"And that you could possibly do me a chicken coconut curry with lemon grass on white bread."<br /><br />"I beg your pardon?"<br /><br />"They tell me you do Siamese sandwiches for sailors."<br /><br />Royabot lowered her beautiful, dark eyes in shame and confusion. "I have much to explain to you, clearly. Possibly with the aid of diagrams"<br /><br />"Ah."<br /><br />"But first, we must fish my sadly malnourished son, Hayamwuruk Gamelan Komodo-Dragon Hopeless-Dream-of-Independence Batik Li, out of that storm-drain at once."<br /><br />"Ah, yes. Sorry about that..."<br /><br />"And if only we could afford food and a proper education for him."<br /><br />"Royabot" he said gently, putting his arm around her shoulder, "I am but a simple village goat-carrier-turned-dokar-driver-turned-satay-seller turned vice-president of Goodyear Tyres (Southeast Asia) division with responsibility for marketing and know but little of these things, but it seems to me that if you were to marry a kindly and now sufficiently wealthy man - a simple village goat-carrier-turned-dokar-driver-turned-satay-seller turned vice-president of Goodyear Tyres (Southeast Asia) division with responsibility for marketing, for example - he could afford to feed you and your son properly and pay for his education at a pesantren (or rural Islamic boarding school for those reading in translation) where his native Islamic education as a santri or Orthodox Muslim Scholar will contrast nicely with his brother's sojourn in Holland and allow for some descriptions of the Muslim nationalist movement over the coming decades."<br /><br />"Wah, Min - of course I will marry you. For your cleverness, you deserve this."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-42876224754643336102012-02-22T01:49:00.003-08:002012-02-22T02:07:27.331-08:00The Revd Dr Giles Fraser. Twat.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPpzmHxGSERjM-TrIXl5gv2Kz_AKHCt7rkkQhECYNYeCnj8V43FEyLeVcc7Bz070-WGTK0b2p099n78oX7ZBwNxDZbJInmDXqY7TXHtOd_b2ZIQjU9Sm66mUD5NprEE0J9CDn3gW_BBGLV/s1600/fraser.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 126px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPpzmHxGSERjM-TrIXl5gv2Kz_AKHCt7rkkQhECYNYeCnj8V43FEyLeVcc7Bz070-WGTK0b2p099n78oX7ZBwNxDZbJInmDXqY7TXHtOd_b2ZIQjU9Sm66mUD5NprEE0J9CDn3gW_BBGLV/s200/fraser.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5711899325852355410" /></a><br />Over the years this blog has been in existence - on and off - I have generally tried to keep <span style="font-weight:bold;">my personal opinions of other people's idiocy</span> out of things. Unsuccessfully, I'll grant you - especially as regards <span style="font-weight:bold;">Esperantists, cyclists who wear lycra, Italian leaders and Simon Jenkins</span> - but there has been some attempt at least. <br /><br />And I freely admit that this is partly because explaining my admittedly unusual (yet entirely rational) position as <span style="font-weight:bold;">a church-going agnostic positivist</span> takes a lot of time and is prone to frequent interruption. <br /><br />However, there are times when one has to <span style="font-weight:bold;">deliver the bitch-slap</span>, with however heavy a heart, and last week was one of those times. Radio 4 had invited vacuous trendy vicar The Revd Giles Fraser to confront laser-guided <span style="font-weight:bold;">Professor Atheist Angrypants Dawkins</span> himself on some pointless survey or other about how many of the population are Anglicans (I answer "yes and no" to this one, myself; <span style="font-weight:bold;">a position of which the C of E heartily approves</span> and frequently takes itself). <br /><br />Dawkins pointed out that a large number of alleged Christians cannot name the first book of the New Testament. Fraser then countered with an <span style="font-weight:bold;">undergraduate debating-society cheapshot</span> by asking Dawkins whether he could recite the entire title of Darwin's 'Origin of Species'. Dawkins promptly <span style="font-weight:bold;">marched into the heffalump trap</span> by saying he could, and then failing to do so.<br /><br />Here's what he should - with the benefit of hindsight - have said: <br /><br />"It matters not a whit whether I, or indeed anyone alive today, can remember the title of <span style="font-weight:bold;">Darwin's 1859 magnum opus</span>, nor even whether we have read it. And this is because <span style="font-weight:bold;">science is not a religion</span>, Darwin was neither prophet nor evangelist, and Origin is not a holy book. If you ask me to explain how we know evolution to be true, I would not start with a reading from Darwin, nor would I ask you to accept everything he wrote on faith. We would instead look at evidence. That is how science works. And furthermore, the best evidence we can show today was unknown to Darwin in 1859. Our understanding of the genome lays clear things that Darwin glimpsed but through a glass darkly. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Thousands of transitional fossils</span> are available in museums across the world which were still in the ground in Darwin's time. Christians, however, need the Bible because Christianity necessarily relies on revelations and faith. Without the book, there is nothing. Without Darwin's book, we can still show overwhelming evidence for evolution. <span style="font-weight:bold;">So fuck off.</span>"Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-55448948751466178212012-02-22T01:43:00.002-08:002012-02-22T01:44:06.260-08:00Good news....Hooray! I have regained control of my blog from the evil googlemonster!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-67723710083925633472011-06-22T06:17:00.001-07:002011-06-22T06:23:24.280-07:00Surrealism at home - 3<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMM75lKtIG3tBFgjdkDevgl3hnW_UQHnGJZ0r2yrwItlabPBs-CvKVIDCPZe-qwsQ19m_fhTHXJGM_583HH77ej_qHdkO0UnawotNvWghl0IyTN58hur71n73Uwu1G-o47xFq913c8wGbn/s1600/bathroom.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 196px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMM75lKtIG3tBFgjdkDevgl3hnW_UQHnGJZ0r2yrwItlabPBs-CvKVIDCPZe-qwsQ19m_fhTHXJGM_583HH77ej_qHdkO0UnawotNvWghl0IyTN58hur71n73Uwu1G-o47xFq913c8wGbn/s200/bathroom.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621032801434407522" /></a><br />A <strong>lithe Oriental lady of my close acquaintance </strong>and I frequently start the day with a conversation that runs broadly along these lines.<br /><br />"Have you finished in the shower, my darling?"<br /><br />"I'll be out in a moment, dearest."<br /><br />"Can you mind <strong>the freshly-fed Guthlac </strong>while I perform my ablutions, Precious Jewel of the Orient?"<br /><br />"I am already running late, Thruthelthrolth son of Ethelbreth. <strong>What you ask is impossible</strong>."<br /><br />"But as to the young Guthlac, <strong>Most Favoured Daughter of the Yellow Emperor?"</strong><br /><br />"You'll have to take him into the bathroom with you, lord of <strong>the semi-detached mead-hall</strong>."<br /><br />"But that is - and I <strong>freely admit my shortcomings </strong>in this area O Glowing Lantern of the Huaren - beyond my powers." <br /><br />"You are in this respect a typical man, he of whose DIY and garden-related incompetence the bards sing extended comic lays, in that you find multi-tasking <strong>beyond your pitiful handful of so-called competencies</strong>."<br /><br />"So are you in fact telling me, <strong>Paragon of Wifely Control of the Nansha</strong>, that you are better at multi-tasking than I, a fact which I am more than ready to grant you?"<br /><br />"That is undeniable, O <strong>ring-loser and sword bender</strong>."<br /><br />"Then why can't <strong>you have Guthlac in the bathroom with you</strong>?"<br /><br />"Stop talking now."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-73632338578199754652011-06-21T07:31:00.000-07:002011-06-21T07:34:29.250-07:00Just a quick shout....... for the <a href="http://www.restlessbeings.org/campaigns/the-roaming-trail">Roaming Trail </a>event. I'll be there if I can...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-59443057816787679402011-06-13T03:25:00.000-07:002011-06-13T04:05:20.140-07:00Surrealism at home - 2<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC8oLizHQQlNYAlCGVy56G2zp2KJZPIciypQGh-aq59ooYY7-hd7jwp__us6ahiMIPgasPJX2XTHxi7GF78-1aLqKsDBhxJlpU7XHtXlTZP6qdR6qANFvzI2bHaqPfe4cLAGCEArQv9k11/s1600/Viking_Axe.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 108px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC8oLizHQQlNYAlCGVy56G2zp2KJZPIciypQGh-aq59ooYY7-hd7jwp__us6ahiMIPgasPJX2XTHxi7GF78-1aLqKsDBhxJlpU7XHtXlTZP6qdR6qANFvzI2bHaqPfe4cLAGCEArQv9k11/s200/Viking_Axe.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5617658300309348002" /></a><br />The other day, I was out in the garden viewing - with considerable sadness - <a href="http://lastdjango.blogspot.com/2010/06/wifely-compassion-historical-overview.html">the latest attempt by the foxes</a> to excavate <strong>a major development underneath the decking</strong>. <br /><br />Guthlac had come out with me, and was dancing around on the lawn waving a plastic mattock (part of a set of child's gardening tools which a well-meaning friend had given him in the vain and naive hope that he would employ them for <strong>honest horticultural labour </strong>rather than whacking his sister on the kneecaps) and chanting "Working together, we get the job done! Working together, we get the job done!"<br /><br />In an attempt to<strong> enter his cultural world</strong>, I asked him "Are you being Bob the Builder?"<br /><br />"No, I'm a axer."<br /><br />"You're an <em>axeman</em>?"<br /><br />"Yes. I'm a axeman."<br /><br />I believe one should <strong>work with one's children's enthusiasms</strong>. So I'm buying him a real axe and a fox identification guide.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-75374338162029574402011-05-31T05:01:00.001-07:002011-06-01T06:04:00.148-07:00The blog-life balance, and how to achieve it. Sort of. Sometimes.Alert readers will doubtless have been wondering <strong>what I've been doing these past months</strong>. The short answer is "having a life", away from the keyboard.<br /><br />"What is this 'life' of which you speak?" some of them doubtless wish to ask.<br /><br />Well, today I had <strong>the following interaction with my offspring</strong>, Djangolina (12) and Guthlac (3).<br /><br />"We have to eat up the leftovers that are in the fridge. There's one portion of burgers and pasta bake, one portion of <strong>rice and stir-fry</strong>, or the soup and a sandwich option. Guthlac?"<br /><br />"<strong>Burger an' pasta bake</strong>, please."<br /><br />"Certainly. Djangolina?"<br /><br />"Hmng?"<br /><br />"What would you like?"<br /><br />"Same as him."<br /><br />"By all the <strong>tuneless shriekings </strong>of Rkslthrlp, blind idiot god of swamp, fen and parts of Milton Keynes - what part of 'one portion' dost thou not understand, wench?" I explained, hurling my horned helmet to the <strong>rush-strewn flagstones </strong>of our semi-detached mead hall.<br /><br />"Oh. Sorry. Chicken-and-leek soup and a sandwich then."<br /><br />I relaxed my grip on the plaits of the visigothic handmaiden I had seized in my annoyance and lowered her back onto the mead-bench. "And would you prefer your sandwich cut into <strong>triangles or squares</strong>?"<br /><br />"Triangles, please."<br /><br />"Triangles it shall be. <strong>Pass the two-handed axe</strong>, there's a dear..."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-80245514244199223502010-11-01T02:22:00.000-07:002010-11-01T03:50:20.061-07:00Black Country wisdom<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiq-TaBypBiXl5WxeoLUP8CnFJRfnaXe-mpDl-1dD4la2nFzDITHFV8dMw7uCECXsFcbxOZewNkKRzBIvEbUv6QEbSQOdzlLv9YhBxl7RBIok0IN5OPHJnIbvRtaESRLnAgVzrbdv4aDVN/s1600/Aynuk.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiq-TaBypBiXl5WxeoLUP8CnFJRfnaXe-mpDl-1dD4la2nFzDITHFV8dMw7uCECXsFcbxOZewNkKRzBIvEbUv6QEbSQOdzlLv9YhBxl7RBIok0IN5OPHJnIbvRtaESRLnAgVzrbdv4aDVN/s200/Aynuk.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5534521220385668434" /></a><br />Last week - being the half-term break - saw us returning home to the Dudley area for a brief holiday. While there, we took Guthlac to the slightly shabby but nonetheless enjoyable Dudley Zoo, one of his favourite places.<br /><br />While trekking round the reptile and creepy-crawlies house, we overheard the following dialogue:<br /><br />Small girl (standing nervously in front of the tarantulas): Mummay! Iss freakin' me owt!<br />Mother (from round corner): Well doe look arrit then.<br /><br />Sound common sense, as so often found in this so down-to-earth part of the country.<br /><br />And widely applicable, I believe. Make someone called Aynuk UN secretary-general, and many of the sources of global angst would disappear.<br /><br />"We are deeply offended by the blasphemous cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)!"<br />"Well doe look at them then."<br /><br />"We deeply oppose the idea of building a mosque in our beautiful, Christian city."<br />"Well doe look arrit then."<br /><br />"This celebrity magazine has Katie Price on the cover."<br />"Doe look arrit then. In fact, bairn it. Bairn all celebrity magazines."<br /><br />I'd vote for it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-87006852860352971912010-10-05T04:06:00.001-07:002010-10-05T04:30:47.073-07:00Dungeons, Dragons and Ballpits<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwr1C7iPjiasgnxLJkC44qcP5EtA1xlmmv2b58sIP_roVs5EC8zzdu-dbUZOZGYho0xyAWz0lmcEMEu_eIiZw5H920djfDdqRGthLvwJ_zcXWWroH2u6aYIQspFFn7xiZYubWsmRfZBKg/s1600/DandD.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwr1C7iPjiasgnxLJkC44qcP5EtA1xlmmv2b58sIP_roVs5EC8zzdu-dbUZOZGYho0xyAWz0lmcEMEu_eIiZw5H920djfDdqRGthLvwJ_zcXWWroH2u6aYIQspFFn7xiZYubWsmRfZBKg/s200/DandD.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524519953991975042" /></a><br />When I was a geeky teenager with bad hair, I and some similarly afflicted chums found solace from our socially disadvantaged state by retreating into the imaginary world of Dungeons and Dragons, where all fights could be sorted out by rolling several 20-sided dice and doing an immense amount of looking stuff up in tables, and all women were <strong>well-muscled, clad in skintight leather and entirely imaginary</strong>.<br /><br />One of my pals in this undertaking - in fact the one who had introduced the rest of us to the pastime - was a particularly sadistic plump boy named Lucas. Lucas had a vicious streak and often acted as Dungeonmaster - nothing to do with <strong>naughty goings on in leather underwear </strong>(fortunately, as you'd agree if you'd seen him) - but rather the person who designed the virtual dungeon which the rest of us would explore in our alter-egos as Halfkutt the Barbarian Warrior, Thruthelthrolth the Wizard and Gimni the Dwarf or some such. <br /><br />"There is a door on the right. What do you want to do?" Lucas would ask neutrally. <br />"We'll open it!"<br /><em>[Consult tables, look at graph-paper, roll dice]</em><br />"A huge spiked steel ball on a chain has swung down out of the darkness."<br /><em>[We throw dice against our dexterity scores]</em><br />"<strong>Your head has been smashed to pulp</strong>, splattering your brains 20 feet down the passageway and qualifying you for a job teaching classics at Wellington!" he would announce with an evil grin.<br /><br />I often wonder what happened to him. Last Friday I found out - he's designing softplay areas for small kids. It was pouring with rain, so the usual Friday session at the park that Guthlac and I enjoy was off. A quick internet search revealed an appealing-looking softplay venue not too far away, so off we went. <br /><br />For those without small kids, let me briefly outline what a softplay area is - it's basically a large industrial building (usually a converted warehouse) containing a few tables, a snackbar and a massive construction made of scaffolding covered in brightly coloured vinyl padding and containing a labyrinth of walkways, slides, rope ladders, tunnels and ball-pits. The basic idea is that parents take their kids along, post them into the labyrinth and then <strong>sit down for a cup of tea until the kids escape</strong>. <br /><br />Except that Guthlac - a kindly and generous boy - wanted his hapless father to share the fun experience, having failed to register that all the tunnels, passageways etc were designed to small kid scale rather than <strong>overweight middle-aged man </strong>scale.<br /><br />Worming my way uncomfortably after him, I suddenly heard in my mind's ear the sepulchral voice of Lucas saying "You have attempted to squeeze between two rollers and have become trapped halfway into the Death Ballpit of Nagoth-Rha. A bevy of evil goblins disguised as small children will now <strong>pelt your bald head with brightly-coloured plastic balls </strong>while you squeal like a pig, enhancing their enjoyment considerably."<br /><br />I hope he goes bankrupt.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-32514959180338129792010-09-30T05:08:00.000-07:002010-09-30T05:14:23.473-07:00Surrealism at home<em>Scene: My home, this morning.<br />Dramatic personae: Gyppo Byard, Guthlac (aged two and a half), Djangolina (Aged 12)</em><br /><br />Guthlac: Daddy?<br />GB: Yes?<br />G: A'am Spar'kus.<br />GB (blankly): You are sparkers?<br />G: No, a'am <em>Spaaa</em>'rkus.<br />GB: You are starkers?<br />G: No, a'am <strong>Spaaaaaaaaa</strong>'arkus"<br />GB: You are <em>Spartacus</em>?<br />G: Yes. I am Spartacus.<br />Djangolina: No, <em>I</em> am Spartacus!<br />G: No, <em><strong>I</strong> </em>am Spartacus (launches spirited attack on sister's midriff)<br /><br />I have to go through this every day. So do they...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-40585047510845269162010-09-15T08:38:00.000-07:002010-09-15T09:00:34.332-07:00An open letter to Pastor Terry Jones"Gosh" both my readers must be thinking at this point "Just what the world needs - more comment on International Koran-burning Day!"<br /><br />My initial response was to call for 12 September to be designated <strong>"INTERNATIONAL BURN ALL THE POINTLESS AND COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE MEDIA COVERAGE OF SOME OBSCURE FUNDAMENTALIST PILLOCK'S BURN A KORAN DAY DAY"</strong>, but having thought again realised I could squeeze out a blog posting on the matter while it is fresh in everyone's minds.<br /><br />So here goes:<br />------------------------------------<br />To Pastor The Rev Terry Jones, Dove World Outreach Center, Gainsville.<br /><br />OI! TERRY!<br /><br />You daft git.<br /><br />What the hell were you thinking? Are you just trying to stir up trouble for <strong>perverse sadistic pleasure</strong>? <br /><br />On balance, I think not. Were you attempting that, I'm sure you could have done better. Were <em>I</em> seeking to offend the Muslim Ummah, I would announce that I would shortly be hosting <strong>"International Bar-B-Q Some Pork Chops Over A Pile Of Burning Koran Briquettes And Then Force-Feed Them To Ms Yasmin Alibhai-Brown Day". </strong>But I'm not going to, because I'm not a nasty person by nature. Not that sort of nasty anyway. And even then not against Muslims, who despite having a tiny lunatic fringe are in my wide experience of having lived in a Muslim country for six years charming and lovely people.<br /><br />No - this isn't about offence. Really. I find myself drawn to two key facts about your "church" - <strong>it has 50 worshippers and it doubles as a furniture factory</strong>. Those hardly propel it into the ranks of influential global spiritual centres no, do they?<br /><br />There you are, doubtless with ideas well above your station, grinding your teeth about the insufferable injustice of feeling yourself a world-class religious figure and being confined to the rigours of preaching to (and more to the point receiving tithes from) some 50 people, a significant proportion of whom doubtless arrive for divine service in pickup trucks containing <strong>arsenals of illegally-held banjoes</strong>.<br /><br />The tithes from such a flock are not even enough to afford <strong>crystal meth and gay masseurs </strong>like a real preacher, are they?<br /><br />O for a truly major publicity stunt, eh? Preferably one that would bring in money from and influence over the South's extreme right. Even better, you don't actually have to risk <strong>setting fire to your cuffs </strong>by igniting anything. Make the threat, get the damn-fool media to splash it all over the world and then back out. <br /><br />And you know what? <strong>You've succeeded. </strong>Gimp.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-80408249749174485042010-08-26T04:15:00.001-07:002010-08-26T05:12:48.263-07:00The BBC - it's the new C of E<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_M15_VGAL-_NMBptk45ZRvmfU6yDKPY9l-60zGaAyKjyg8o5SpsDV1hmdhCS9SEKQ2OV1_ETaBcfNYUtLoKp2fa__TEUCY5yRctncfwCFrbLN0THdRD8qAwUMhphzp5oBLyDcUupJTkiS/s1600/side-tubby-clayton150.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 141px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_M15_VGAL-_NMBptk45ZRvmfU6yDKPY9l-60zGaAyKjyg8o5SpsDV1hmdhCS9SEKQ2OV1_ETaBcfNYUtLoKp2fa__TEUCY5yRctncfwCFrbLN0THdRD8qAwUMhphzp5oBLyDcUupJTkiS/s200/side-tubby-clayton150.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5509688543119856834" /></a><br />A thought long fermenting in <strong>what I am pleased to call my brain </strong>makes an interesting historical link between the curates of the Victorian era and the linen-suited denizens of Broadcasting House's corridors today.<br /><br />Under the Great White Mother and Kaiser-i-Hind, Oxford and Cambridge produced a surfeit of <strong>vaguely posh and vaguely but pointlessly educated young chaps </strong>who lacked the drive and physical fitness to go off and join the army or indeed any discernable professional skills, but who nonetheless thought of themselves as part of a God-chosen elite destined to order others about. The only appropriate career thus open to them was the Church, in which they could stand in pulpits and <strong>lecture the population at large </strong>about the moral, aesthetic and intellectual deficiencies of their hard-labouring, poverty-haunted lives.<br /><br />Oxford and Cambridge - never institutions to go charging ahead with radical reform - still manage to produce a worrying surfeit of vaguely posh and vaguely but pointlessly educated young chaps and similar young gels who share the <strong>desires, ambitions and lack of appropriate talents </strong>of their Victorian forebears. But nowadays, alas, the C of E provides very little in the way of full pews to harangue.<br /><br />And in any case, the church today provides very little for anyone in the way of career benefits besides <strong>camping about in fancy tat and drinking free wine</strong>, qualities which have led the priesthood to become colonised by inverts to a degree that makes it impossible for the weak-kneed Silurian buffoon occupying the throne of St Augustine to avoid giving them pointy hats and crooks.<br /><br />Where was I?<br /><br />Oh yes - the decline of the church has led to ever decreasing <strong>cushy job opportunities </strong>for vaguely posh and vaguely but pointlessly educated young chaps to lecture the rest of us, which is where the BBC comes in - as an employer of first resort for vaguely posh and vaguely but pointlessly educated young chaps and a bully pulpit for telling everyone else how to live their lives in <strong>a patronising but uncomprehending manner</strong>. I rest m'case.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3753176231132205902.post-81793337160517404392010-07-29T00:52:00.000-07:002010-07-29T00:54:11.673-07:00Things that occur to me at 3amIf - in furtherance of its attempt to join the EU - Istanbul offers to harmonise it national holidays to include those celebrated by current EU members, could we get away with using the headline "TURKEY VOTES FOR CHRISTMAS"?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4