That sinking feeling....

If I accurately described what is going on at work at the moment, you wouldn't believe me. So instead you can have some doodles that highlight my current working life.

I call this 'What my department would be like if it was a well-known ship (and it doesn't half feel like it some days)', or 'My Managers are Clueless Numpties' for short.

















And yes, I did do all of that this evening. Frustration can be a real motivator :)

It must be love

A sample of today's conversation:

Me: "I almost bought you a present today"

Mrs RS: "But you didn't?"

Me: "No, I've learnt my lesson enough to make sure it fits first."

My brain: "Hah, cunningly throwing the scent off towards clothing or lingerie. She'll never guess I was going to buy jewelry."

Mrs RS: "Was it a ring?"

My brain: "What. The. Fuck....?"

Me: "Not necessarily. Why?"

Mrs RS: "Was it going to have a diamond?"

My brain: "Defcon 3! Defcon 3! Defcon 3!"

Me: "Hah! Like I can afford a diamond!?!"

Mrs RS: "Was it an engagement ring?"

My brain: "Defcon 1! Defcon 1! Defcon 1!"

Me: "No."

Mrs RS: "Good."



Late edit:

Couldn't miss this off the end though!

Two cats fighting in the hallway

Whilst that would be a great (if surreal) Red Indian name, it is in fact now my fourth least pleasant way to wake up at 3am.

And 4am.

And 5am.

And finally 6am before I lost my rag and stormed outside to chase away the stupid bloody cat trying to get into my flat.

(For the record: number three is the sound of the smoke alarm, number two is the sound of some psycho scraping knife blades together - thankfully something I'm only getting in dreams - and number one is the previously mentioned Tokyo incident)

Last night's attempted refugee from the Pussy Wars in my street was next door's new Siamese. Now I have a problem with Siamese cats because they're:

a) fugly
b) evil little shits.

Your average Siamese would more likely rip your chest cavity open and take a dump in it than show you any affection, unlike my Floyd who's as close to a cat whore as is possible. So, sorry that the ginger fur monster down the street is trying to eat you - but you ain't hiding out in my pad, you pointy faced freak.

Talking of sleep (or lack of it), a colleague at work suffers from sleep-talking. Or rather, he suffers from a girlfriend who sleep-talks. I'm not just talking murmuring a little in her sleep, oh no. She asks questions. And when he (reasonably seeing as he's asleep) doesn't answer, she pokes him repeatedly on the arm and asks him again. If he then doesn't respond quickly enough she sits up in bed (still fast asleep) and shakes him awake whilst blurting out something like 'We need to join the hunt for the spatula!'

She then goes back to sleep leaving him wide awake. This repeats every couple of hours.

I think I'm paraphrasing Meatloaf a bit, but he was spot on when he sang "I will do anything for love, but I won't put up with that sort of bollocks."


Anyway, you may have seen/read on the news that the east coast of Australia is covered in dust storms at the moment. It must be pretty bad out there, but I fear that the intake of red dust has had an adverse effect on some of the inhabitants - for one of the eyewitnesses proclaimed:

'It was like being on Mars. I haven't been there, obviously, but I imagine that's what the sky would look like.'

You haven't been to Mars yet? Jeez, I thought everyone had gone to Mars by now....

A moment of introspection, if I may...

There are moments - well of course there are moments, if there weren't then we'd be a bit fucked timewise - but there are moments when you are fulfilled.

There are moments when you genuinely feel content, when you feel happy, when you feel joy. We all have them, and we all have them for different reasons.

There are moments that the cliche dictates that they should last forever, but there's a reason why that's a cliche favoured by bad novelists and gossip magazine fanbois.

(Plus that's my biggest problem with organised religion - do 'this' and you'll spend the rest of eternity doing the same fantastic things. Sounds boring as fuck.)

But there are those times, those fleeting fragments that you savour, that make you feel almost a whole person.

For me, that happens when I curl up on the sofa (or on my bed) and my cat - fat Floyd himself - jumps up, snuggles up in a purring ball and looks up at me with an expression of pure bliss. An expression that conveys that there is nothing more pleasurable that he could be doing than this, that the most astonishingly brilliant thing in the universe is just being in my presence.

And frankly, if you can do that with a cat, then the rest of the world is child's play :)

Yawn

I've made the mistake of watching Harper's Island on BBC 3 on Sunday nights. I'm now hooked.

Plus they show a double bill. I love watching good US shows on the BBC because you get no adverts, and it lets the tension build nicely.

Sadly this is the problem. It's quite scary and....well.... it's giving me nightmares such that my sleep patterns are completely buggered at the start of the week.

I should probably stop watching it, but I reckon I know who did it (no spoilers please) so I'll have to keep on going until the end to prove whether I'm right or not.

Just don't ask me anything complicated on a Monday morning.....

It's a new day...

So I bring happy joy joy instead :)

I went to see Bill Bailey the other week with my excellently good friend (and I can confidently predict he'll never read this) Mike.

Mike and I have been Bill Bailey fans since the olden times. From his stand-up shows, from his early tours, through some live shows we had the pleasure to experience, and to the present day.

[If you don't particularly appreciate the unique british sense of humour of self-deprecation then I'd probably click elsewhere right now]

I first stumbled across Bill (or 'Our Bill' as us stalkers like to view him) during a new-comers comedy slot on TV when he played his Cockney Music session. He combined a wonderful mix of surreal humour and music into a fantastic combination.

His recent tour-ending show was in Bristol (for he's almost a local) and Mike and I had tickets. I hadn't realised it was the final date of a three year long tour taking in something like 17 countries, I'd just picked the Saturday night so that Mike could get back down to Bristol. We had a fantastic night, and because it was the final night we got encore after encore (and the crew superglueing Bill's foot to the monitor at the interval). I haven't laughed as much for months, if not years.

West Country Hip Hop - 'Say Ooh, Say Aar, Say Ooh, Say Aar'......

Y'see I'd seen the same tour two years previously at the NIA in Birmingham when he did a series of stadium gigs. There's something to be said for 20,000 people laughing along to build an atmosphere but the critical audience interaction (which has always been the fun part of his shows) wasn't there and it lacked something. That wasn't the case in a smaller venue like the Bristol Hippodrome. It were great like. Gert lush and all that innit. (I feel a new translation page coming along)

Some colleagues were there on the Thursday, including the woman at work with the worst laugh ever. I've never heard it as she's on a different floor but my team-mate was entirely co-incidentally sitting alongside her, two rows from the front.

One joke in and Bill stopped to find out who'd laughed as it sounded like 'a swan with a broken leg'. This just made her laugh more. And more.

Anyway, he'd amended and added to the tour as it went, so it only bore a slight resemblance to the one I saw a while back, but to give you some idea of his genius:

Bill Bailey on current music

Bill Bailey on news themes (and the BBC one is so, so right)

And from his stadium tour which appeared to be London only (grrrrrrr.....), the best 'dueling banjos' I've seen for a while. Hindi stylee.

And while we're at it, let's have some Hindi Indie. Radiohead in Hindi-style. I'd laugh if I had enough space between the crying.... :)

In for a penny...

I've thought long and hard about actually posting this, but then I thought 'fuck it, it's my blog and anyone who takes offence clearly doesn't understand who I am'.

Seeing as today is 11/9, it seems to be popular to write reminiscing posts about the terrorist attacks on New York. Seeing as I spend quite a bit of time there it would seem logical to follow suit, but instead I actually want to address a deeper issue.

You see, growing up into my early teens and first getting an understanding of the way the world worked, I actively wanted mainland USA to experience terrorism.

Because 'they', to my mind, were inflicting it on me.

Full of righteous indignation - in a way only a 13 year old can be - I would've had one thought had the Twin Towers attacks happened then. I would've thought 'about bloody time'. Let me explain....

I grew up constantly in fear of the IRA and the numerous bombings of innocent people that they committed (I don't wish to enter into a discussion on the relative rights and wrongs of the time, this is just from the perspective of someone growing up then). I distinctly remember the time a huge armoured military truck drove down the centre of town with a large claw on top of it, ripping out rubbish bins from the pavement because of an IRA bomb threat.

(The knock on effect of that is that an entire generation of people don't use bins because they're not used to them, and just litter the streets instead. I think for 15 years I didn't see a single bin anywhere.)

The IRA (with the tacit approval of the then Taoiseach) received the majority of their arms from the Libyans, but they bought those weapons with a mixture of organised crime in Ireland (North and South) and - significantly - from donations abroad.

Those donations abroad came mainly from an organisation based in the USA called NORAID which simply collected money for the 'humanitarian' struggle to unite Ireland and funded the IRA instead. I'm sure many people gave money believing it would be used for humanitarian grounds, but the facts are that money from the US funded and prolonged the terrorist campaign in Northern Ireland.

So as a teenager I steadfastly believed that all that was required was for the US to understand what it felt like to live in fear of being blown up simply for being a citizen of a country (I mean, I couldn't even vote or influence the parliamentary process, but I was regarded as a 'legitimate target' by the IRA), and maybe they'd mellow a bit, reign in the IRA a bit. In some ways that happened, but sadly so much else did too.

The Patriot Act, the invasion of Iraq (on the basis that one of the almost exclusively Saudi bombers once went on holiday there) and Guantanamo Bay. Go Democracy! (Sadly literally.)

As an adult I don't believe anyone should suffer the effects or terrorism, yet I also understand why it occurs. I understand why the IRA continued their fight, I understand why Palestinians resist the removal of any chance of an independent state, I even understand why devout Muslims feel the need to resort to violence to make themselves heard. I don't agree with it/them, but I understand why.

But as it was shown in the conflict nearest to me, political solutions can be found. Yes, nutters live on - but they rely on implicit support from the general populace. At the end of the day, what the vast majority of people want is a fair crack at a decent life for themselves and their family. They don't want to live in fear. In every conflict such as these there becomes a tipping-point where the majority turn on the militants, where they trust those in power - not much, but just enough - to keep them safe.

It will only come from talking to our enemies. It will only come from compromise. It will only come via political means.

And on today of all days, I think this should be said.



Sorry to go all serious on you. Next week:- fart jokes.

Murder most foul

Or 'Moiduh' as Taggart would've said.

I said I didn't make the 4th day of the Test because of unforeseen circumstances - and that was true, because I spoke to Mrs. RS on Sunday morning and then sold my ticket on.

Y'see I'd not been out with my friend Q in over nine years. Nine fucking years. We spoke on the phone every few months but we'd not met in person for half a decade. Q and I met on my first job after university. He's a couple of years older than me, but seeing as I became technical lead on a product called 'Lotus Notes' within 3 months of joining, he became my bitch. If, by bitch, you define that as a valued co-worker you train up to learn valuable skills whilst retaining utter respect for.

I'm trying to reclaim 'bitch' from the nay-sayers.

I moved back to Bristol within the year to start the heady 'career' I've had and Q stayed on for a year or two before splitting off himself. Brilliantly (and coincidentally) I got hired as a contractor for 18 months at Q's then employer so we resurrected our famous 45 minute smoke breaks.

I don't smoke, but I fail to see why I should be discriminated against.

But since 2003, we'd not seen each other. So seeing as I was in the area for cricket I decided to spend the night in Coventry visiting Q.

To explain Coventry to those who have never been there. Imagine Venice, made of concrete, bombed mercilessly by the Nazis for 4 years, and rebuilt in concrete with all its canals filled with used condoms.

Lovely place. Smells like 3 week old wee, but lovely place.

Q and I laid into the beers, went to his local pub where I met people who actually recognised me and had a great night. We even stopped for an Indian Kebab that was a culinary experience. We then laid into the beers.

I decided to call Mrs RS at midnight to see how she was (so, er, yeah, that's 5am my time. Well toasted I was) and brilliantly she'd been out with her girlie friends as well so was equally drunk (she'd had maybe three whole drinks or something - wasted). We had an enlightening and deeply intellectual conversation about kebabs before she decided she wanted one, so left for food. I passed out at this point.

Mrs RS left her basement apartment (it's a 2 storey building plus basement - 2 apartments on each floor) via the lockable door to the basement and walked through the main hallway before exiting the keypad controlled door and leaving the building.

She went for food.

Half an hour later she returned to a street full of flashing lights and cop cars. After establishing that she wasn't some gawper, they told her that they'd had a body reported and had attended the scene to find a dead woman in the building who was 'half upstairs and half downstairs'.

And that's a direct quote from the police at the scene.

The woman didn't live in the building (she was an 'acquaintance' of the recently divorced guy on the first floor).

So either Mrs RS walked past a good chunk of the woman without noticing.

Or the killer was in the building but upstairs.

Or the victim entered the building with the killer in the twenty minute gap.

Or the killer lives in the building.

Still, the rent is dead cheap for that part of New York....

He's given him! The finger goes up. The umpire's Hugh Jarce....

I'll happily credit The 12th Man for my title today.

(If you've never heard him before, here's a link to one of his earliest recordings - high level of swearing warning :) )

If you haven't already guessed, today's post is about cricket.

Specifically it's about Ashes cricket, which - you may have read - England actually won.

As per tradition, I attended the Edgbaston test match (I grew up not a million miles from there and a group of us treat it as an annual re-union). This series it was scheduled as the 3rd test, and I'd been looking forward to it for ages (as I have fond memories of the Ashes test there in 2005 - aka The Greatest Ever Test). Sadly I was to be denied by the weather.

It had rained almost non-stop for 3 weeks prior to the game and the ground was saturated. Despite soaking up all the surface water by working all the previous night, the groundsmen were unable to get the outfield fit enough to play on the first day (the Thursday), despite it being bathed in bright sunshine since lunchtime. All we could do was eat sandwiches, catch up on life and sup the occasional pint of ale. Eventually play started at 5pm and they bowled almost exactly enough overs to deny anyone even a partial refund, then trooped off at 7pm.

We got lucky with the weather on the Friday and play started almost on time. I wasn't there though, because I got held up in traffic and arrived 5 minutes after play started. I'd already missed two Aussie wickets in the first two balls (something rather extraordinary). The day continued in much the same vein, with Jimmy Anderson cleaning up the middle order to dismiss the Aussies for a paltry score. England even then batted well to establish a good lead. It was all starting to come together!

At this point I'll add a couple of photos - the first is of the respective fans. The Barmy Army on the left booked a whole block as best they could and instructed everyone to bring both a red and white top in an attempt to have a St. George's flag effect going on. Seeing as most people were drifting off for an early lunch when I took this, it's not a bad effort. The big yellow blob are some of the Aussies (the deeply original 'FANatics'. Because they're FANS and they're fanatical. Yeah. Subtle Aussie humour rocks....)


The second is of one of the better attempts at winding up the aussies at the ground


There was so much rain on Friday night that I knew they'd never start on time on Saturday, so I meandered up from Bristol by lunchtime to chat to some of the people who were only making that day. Oops. This was the field by the time they abandoned play for the day at 3pm (and yes, those are rather deep puddles forming.)


I hung around for a bit until we'd eaten all the sandwiches and then I was going to spend the night in Coventry seeing a very old friend before returning for the Sunday. I never made it back the next day, but that's for another post :)

My car was parked a couple of miles away and it was *heaving* it down. My umbrella lasted about 200 yards before turning inside out and breaking. I don't think I've ever been as soaked as I was by the time I reached my car - but I couldn't resist stopping for this picture of the West Midlands Police Training Centre.


Seriously - 'Tally Ho!'????? Which eeijit thought *that* was a good idea for a motto?

How to feel old pt. 2

On my way to work today I walked past about 500 freshly-scrubbed young students, gathered on their first day at University to register for their courses and I thought of only one single thing:

Christ, another bunch of noise-mongering bastards determined to hold 'fresher' parties every night for a fortnight and deny me any sleep whatsoever during the week.


I'm not even twice their age yet, and I'm already a crotchety old git :(

Inspiration

Our work provides free tea and coffee, and should you have forgotten/broken your mug then they have a collection of old ones (presumably left by those fired over the years) that anyone can use. Whilst trying to find my mug last week - after it had been moved by someone, I came across this filthy example of an inspirational message.



Now how do you read that?

I read it as 'why bother doing your job? Someone else will do it for you. Just chillax and surf the web for a bit.'

But then I'm a lazy git :)


I was equally amused today by the news that last year's Billionaire's plaything of a football club (Chelsea FC) has been walloped with a transfer ban until 2011 for finally getting caught for poaching other clubs players. Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of right-wing thugs!

And on that theme, I want to get this as a t-shirt :)

Just this once...

I don't do memes as a rule, but I'm making this one exception for Pearl and then I'm never doing one again.

Apparently I have to list seven quirky personality traits that are evidenced in this blog and then pass it on to seven other bloggers.

I've spent a while narrowing the list down from ninety-two, so here they are...

1) I have a love/hate relationship with punctuation. I can't stand colons, semicolons or bullet-points - whereas I seem to have an increasingly intimate relationship with the hyphen and putting '...' at the end of sentences as if I'm trailing off. I do the latter because that really is how I speak...

2) I read, re-read, and then re-re-read every post to make sure I've not spelt anything either a) wrongly or b) in American. I don't like using the spell checker because it objects to '...' (see point 1)

3) I feel the need to respond to every comment left here, because I don't like upsetting people. For the same reason I no longer keep a blogroll because I'd never remove anyone - even if I hadn't read their blog for years.

4) Very few people in real life actually know me very well because I choose not to disclose very much about who I really am/how I think. This is why there's little actual personal information about me posted here either (except when I'm drunk). I presume I do this because I'm insecure or something.

5) The last word is mine. Mine, I tells ye!

6) I try to find humour in every situation. Doing this provides most of my ideas for posts here, which are in the main supposed to be dryly amusing (um, if you hadn't worked that bit out yet :) ).

7) Pearl thinks I'm a smart arse. I consider that a compliment :-P


Right then, I would tag people here - but point 3 means I can't. So I'll tag everyone instead (see point 7) ;)

So, highlights of the rest of the week are posts about..

1) Cricket
2) Murder
3) Mugs
4) Peppers
5) Sleeping

Not, necessarily, in that order.

I do live.

It's been a bank holiday (= for americans yet another free day off work that you don't get. In fact I think we get more free days holiday than you get annual leave. It sucks to be you sometimes) and I've had fun.

Lots of fun.

Woot woot.

Many updates coming soon. With pictures :)

You're all great though. I love you guys. I'd be, like, nothing without you all.

*sob*

Well, yes...

A colleague told me this story today. Apparently his wife - who has zero interest in football - wandered into their front room last night and said:

"I just heard on the radio about that footballer who was stabbed in the legs."

"Yes," said my colleague, wondering where this was going.

She continued. "They said they might have to amputate his legs."

"That's what I heard too," he replied.

She paused, looking pensive. "So......I guess that would almost certainly put an end to his footballing career then?"


There's not a huge amount you can say to that.....

Most annoying advert ever....

This one.



I'm sure it's attempting to be 'ironic' or something, but seriously - who thinks that front fog lights and CUSTOM MATS come under the description of 'goodies'.

Grrrrrrrr....

100 not out

I thought I'd use my 100th post on this blog to sit back, relax and say:

We are top of the league, say we are top of the league!

I may never get the chance again, so I'm grabbing it while I can :)

How to feel old, pt. 1

When your 22 year old co-worker informs you that she has never used a fax machine.

I'll say that again:

Never used a fax machine

When faced with our incredulity, she simply stated 'well, why wouldn't you email it?'

Words fail me. I require a time machine to re-educate her. I bet she's never done a tape-mix either, or used a VCR.

Does anyone have a spare time machine?

Btw

Regarding yesterday's post - on the off-chance you may have thought I was making those things up:

Coffee from cat poo

All the rubber plantations in Asia come from one man


Oh, and I'll add to my list:

e) it is possible to have a first name containing no vowels (or the letter y)

Truth

Things I've learnt in the last 7 days that are actually true. (No really. Seriously.)

a) Never do your football predictions when drunk (thanks Aussie Boy)

b) The greatest coffee in the world is made from filtered cat poo.

c) Rubber trees are not native to Asia. In fact every rubber plantation owes its existence to one man.

d) The most mis-understood word in the English language is 'agnostic'*


Anyway, in light of a) I'm revising number 17 in my list of predictions to be:

17) Spain will win the World Cup. They will meet Argentina in the final (after they beat England) and will win 2-1 with a goal from a winger in the 74th minute.

And that, ladies and gentleman, is a Prediction :)



*The most mis-understood word in Canadian is 'irony'**
**Hahahahaha

Oh, titty fucking bollocks...

It's the start of the season tomorrow (that's the football (the proper one where you use your feet) season obviously) and I've not done my annual predictions yet.

I know this is a favourite time for some of you as you get to marvel is the rare occurrence of me being wrong occasionally, and I'm sure I won't be disappointing anyone this evening....

So, let's get it on:

1) The winners of the Premiership this season will be.....Chelsea. A brave shout, but I think that their squad is old and experienced and so is their coach. Ancelotti will bring the best tactically out of what is still a pretty strong group.

2) Second in the league will be.......Manure. Yes they lost Ronaldo and haven't replaced him with anything approaching the same ability, but removing the diving tosser from their side gives them a better formation to suit the other players.

3) Third will be.......Liverpool. Losing Alonso is a bad blow, and any injury to Torres of Gerrard will be curtains for any title bid.

4) Fourth will be.......Arsenal. Sorry Man City, I just can't see your best side emerge until too late in the season to challenge the gooners. Having said that, if the scummer's injury list get any worse then even holding on to fourth could be problematic.

5) I can't see beyond Man City, though they'll be closer to 6th than 4th.

6) I'm fancying Everton for 6th. Unless Lescott moves, then they might swap with Villa.

7) Villa for 7th. I'd hoped we'd poach Young but that looks a non-starter, and though they've lost Laursen and Barry I don't see them dropping off that much.

8) Time for realism. I just don't get the feeling that Spurs will push on this season. It's a stabilising year for us. Yes we'll beat the big teams but we'll crumble at times and lose stupid games when the big teams would close it out.

9) The three relegated teams will be Portsmouth, Wigan and Birmingham

10) Top scorer in the league will be Jermaine Defoe (oh come on, allow me some Spurs bias!)

11) Michael Owen will not score more than 15 league goals

12) But Darren Bent will

13) First Manager to be sacked will be Martinez of Wigan

14) Spurs will be in the top four at Christmas

15) A Premiership player will test positive for drugs (or will be penalised for not taking a test)

16) England will qualify for the World Cup with the best record of any European country

17) North Korea will make it to the World Cup finals

18) The squad that Capello picks for England at the World Cup finals will include Rooney, Heskey, Defoe and Owen, although Owen won't play a game.

19) Sunderland will finish in the top ten

20) Newcastle will not get promoted back to the Premiership this year.


A bit hurried are some of those, so I doubt I'm going to beat last year's score :(

At least Diet Coke pisses all over Diet Pepsi though *nods*

Beauty

I observed women's buttocks the other day - and I saw beauty.

Not at the same time, I'd like to add.

No, I was purchasing a sandwich at a posh(ish) sandwich bar near work (by posh I mean - not fried bacon and without ketchup) and seeing as it provides excellent (if expensive) freshly made salads to order, it is normally half full of women.

(Would it be rude to point out to a lady that 'chicken, prawns, coleslaw, pickled onions, beef and pork' is possibly why your 'salad-only' diet is not quite working for you?)

Anyway, this one day while we were waiting in the sandwich queue, a young woman walked in with her buttocks in the wrong place. Seriously. Most people's buttocks are sort of halfway between the neck and the feet, it's just....well.....normal. This girl, however, had buttocks sprouting from where her hamstrings should be - but was still tall. Her proportions were just bizarre. Stumpy legs and the world's longest back.

Sadly for her, she was standing in the queue next to her inverse twin - Ms. Legs As Far As They Can Go.

They were both the same height as well, and they ended up looking like this (excuse my skills in Paint):



It was strangely hypnotic.

As for beauty, well I can thank Alfa Male for pointing this out to me on the way home from work one day. I've never seen a plane intersect a Cirrus cloud quite like this before, but I thought it was pretty damn beautiful.

Wem-ber-lee, Wem-ber-lee, Wem-ber-lee!

The other week I attended the pre-season tournament known as the inaugural Wembley Cup.

(Though frankly, how they can call it a 'tournament' escapes me. 4 teams in the tournament, that each play two other teams - not all three. Therefore you have one team playing Africa's club champions on the Friday, followed by England's 10th best team on the Sunday - whilst another team plays Scotland's second best team on the Friday and Europe's club champions on the Sunday. Guess which team won? Yeah, the ones who didn't play Barcelona. Quelle surprise....)

As with all pre-season friendlies I hadn't been expecting a feast of great football, as most players take it as an opportunity to stroll about the park hitting over-ambitious balls into space and out for a throw-in.

But, and it's a big but, the Mighty Spurs were playing Barcelona. At Wembley. I'd not been before, so for a minor *ahem* amount of money and a half day off work, it seemed a bargain.

A friend from work (a fellow Spurs fan) and I trained it across to London and met up with my Dad at Baker Street. After several beers we opted to head up to Wembley to see some of the Celtic v Al Ahly game, stopping only for food on Wembley Way (£7 for a Pastie and Chips! Christ...). The stadium itself is pretty impressive and ultra-modern compared to the last one (escalators to the top tier? Why not), although it does feel rather sterile and lacking in atmosphere.

Worst of all, they *still* haven't worked out how to serve drinks/snacks at anything other than a snail's pace. At Cardiff's Millennium Stadium you barely have to stop moving throughout the queue whenever you want a beverage.

We finally got to our seats to watch the rest of the Celtic game. Sadly there was no scoreboard so we had no idea how long there was to go, or what the score was until Celtic scored their 5th and the announcer told us which minute it was scored in :)

It then started raining heavily, so I took a quick picture of the rainbow above the ground. Amazingly the stadium had over 50,000 people in it by this point!


As for the game itself, well Barcelona fielded their 'C' team (with the exception of Yaya Toure in central midfield, and I can only assume he was being punished for something by being there) while we played a 4-5-1 formation with a midget on his own up front. We were rubbish and deserved to be losing 1-0 at half time. In the second half they made 11 changes and brought on their 'D' team - quick as a flash our manager responded and brought on 4 graduates of our youth team. Our 'D' team was better than their 'D' team and we equalised with 5 minutes to go!

All that was left was to wait for over an hour for a tube, and to finally get home at 2:30am - completely knackered. Though at least I can say I've seen Barcelona play now... :)

Right then...

Okay, I've been a bit shit at updating this recently. In my defence there's been work, cricket, pre-season friendlies, big drunken catch-up sessions and murder getting in the way.

But enough of the rest of August's posts, let's talk babies.

Yeah. You heard me. The evil scrot-like things that refuse to stop bothering the planet like an intergalactic herpes infection.

Now I'm not averse to the concept of having children*, but there's no way I want them anytime soon - and rather brilliantly neither does Mrs. RS (a most beneficial side-effect of being the older person in a relationship). Maybe one day, you never know, but not in our near future.

If we do decide to have kids however and I ever turn into the type of parent I'm about to outline, you all officially have my permission to kill me in a variety of hideous ways.

For there is a type of parent (usually the father) whom lurches from disinterested 'yeah, gonna have a kid. That's my golf handicap out of the window' before the birth to 'my life is so amazing, I have a child. A baby. Awwww. A baby, Did I say I had a baby? Isn't she the most beautiful baby ever? Look, my baby. Awww. The building is on fire? Oh, well we'll only get through the first 10,000 baby photos before they evacuate us' afterwards.

The sort of person who's every sentence, every email, every text, twitter, blogpost, phone call or letter is about their bloody child. As if somehow they're the only people who have ever had children. As if doing something only 10 billion other humanoid creatures have ever done is somehow worthy of worship.

This is a genuine example from an acquaintance of mine with only the name changed - and is the sort of thing I get in a thrice-daily facebook update:

Piglet did her 1st crawl today!! Oh noes.....mobile baby!! Woo hoo!

I feel sick.

Yeah, you had a kid. Congrats. You achieved something hundreds of thousands of other people have done IN THIS COUNTRY THIS YEAR. Big ups to the nappy massive.

If someone who did something else that's rather tough, gets done once a year and is done by hundreds of thousands of people (say, run a marathon maybe) and talked about NOTHING ELSE everytime you saw them - you'd rightly tag them as a boring fucknut.

Of course, the vast majority of parents are not like this at all. The world is divided into two types - those that get on with raising their children, and those that get a sign in the back window of their car saying 'Baby on Board' - and we all know some boring fucknut like that....


This rant was brought to you by the emotion 'moody', the physical sensation 'tired' and the logical conclusion that too many parents are 'selfish wankers'.


*That may actually come as a genuine shock to some of you

Howzat!

I'm at the cricket for a few days, so will update more next week.

(Suffice to say we skittled a few Aussie wickets today :) )

You'll be glad to hear that I've finally stopped singing the Trio advert. Sadly I've replaced it with this 80's classic...



Re-record, not fade away......Re-record, not fade away......

Can't get you out of my head...

I've been singing this for two days now (interspersed with different words - and it's quite hard to get a single syllable word like 'beer' to stretch to four syllables). It's driving me mad!

If you're not both English and of a certain vintage then you won't understand this post at all! :)

The Potted History of the World

Welcome, welcome - a thousand welcomes - to the first of an infrequent series of posts about major historical events, major historical people, and major historical history stuff.

These won't be in chronological order because frankly, up until someone invented beer, history was boring as fuck. Instead I'll be choosing a random topic each time, as and when the mood takes me.

Chapter One - The New York Metro

Despite not being American, my grasp of that country's history is pretty impressive (even if I say so myself). So having visited the city several times recently to see Mrs RS, I decided to read up on the Metro - mainly to find out which century it was built in, as judging from most of the stations I went through I'd have estimated the 16th - and I was amazed by what I found.

The following is as true as I can make it.

*ahem*

Many years ago, like decades and stuff, America was divided between North and South. The South believed that everyone should drive pickups, whilst the North believed that everyone should drive pickups - except the poor, who should be provided with trains.

A vast and bloody war was fought, and for a long time it looked as though the South would win. Facing defeat (and the frequent bombings of its railroads), the North constructed a secret train system on the island of Manhattan. To avoid it being bombed, they placed it in a series of tunnels under the streets and this soon became known as the 'underground railroad' of the civil war.

To outwit its enemies and confuse would-be saboteurs, the operators of the underground railroad settled on an ingenious and fiendishly clever system. This is why some lines are named after numbers and some lines are named after letters. This is also why some lines are the same colour as other lines. See a yellow train? Ah, yes, - that's a N. Or a R. Or a Q. Or even a W. And a R doesn't run on a Sunday after 4pm, what are you buddy? Stoooooooopid?

It's not at all confusing.

Anyway, in the post-war years America was skint but was determined to expand the underground railroad. Digging tunnels was expensive, so the moment they dug under the East River and reached Long Island, they simply stopped putting roofs on the tunnels and left them as open culverts throughout the rest of the city. This cost-saving measure enabled the Metro owners to vastly expand the system in almost no time.

Sadly, as always, pedantry won out and the owners conceded that since the new tracks were not underground anymore, they couldn't call it the 'underground railroad.' In what was the first of its kind in the world, the Metro accepted corporate sponsorship from a sandwich company and changed its name to 'The New York Subway'.

*Fast forward a few years*

Everything was going swimmingly until the infamous New York Sanitation Workers strike of '73. With rubbish piling up in the streets, the forever resourceful inhabitants decided to combine two successful ideas into one - the landfill and the Subway - and simply threw their rubbish into the big hole in the ground that the trains ran through. In no time at all the tracks became nearly impassable.

This practice continues to this day, although New Yorkers prefer to refer to this act as 'recycling'. Here's a picture I took last time I was there:


The Subway operators needed a solution to get their trains through and a certain railway worker called Dwight T Gefluffenheim, inspired by the idea of 'recycling', came up with the remedy. This is why all New York Subway trains are fitted with Cow-catchers to this day. Here's another photo I took while I was there:


As New York got larger, so did the 'garbage' problem. The level was getting so high that the trains were carving their own tunnels through the rubbish. In 1989 one of the larger tunnels of this kind - the Brooklyn Used Nappy Central - collapsed, injuring several passengers. Eventually the Subway operators bowed to the inevitable and built all new lines on stilts, eg:


This is primarily because it's really hard to throw your rubbish up onto the track from street level.

And that's the true story of the New York Metro system - always innovative, always thinking and always going for that 'medieval dungeon' look.

Lessons in life pt. 27

They're coming thick and fast at the moment. Today's was:

When you are surreptitiously listening at work to an incredibly close cricket match between England and Australia (one headphone in your right ear that no-one walking past can see), and Freddie Flintoff gets Brad Haddin with the 10th ball of the day - do not do a pathetic Tim Henman-esque fist pump whilst shouting out 'YEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!' because you might be regarded as a bit of a weirdo by your colleagues whom, funnily enough, can't hear the commentary in your headphones.

Lessons in life pt. 26

How was your day? Good I hope.

Mine started with the following conversation which, as those of you that have seen me first thing in the morning will understand, left me a little confused all day:

Colleague: "Hey {my real name}, you'll know this - when was Reagan assassinated?"
Me : "Um, do you mean shot?"
Colleague: "Yeah"
Me: "1981 I think" (Trivia I can do*)
Colleague: "Nooooo, Tainted Love never came out that early"

Um, what?!? Is there something about Marc Almond I don't know here???


Anyway, the lesson in life I alluded to in the title is this:

If you intend to pull a sickie for a few days to attend a festival, do not - I repeat, do not - get a T-shirt made up that says "I'm a skiving bastard". Do not then wear it to the festival. Do not get lots of your friends to take pictures of you in it and, most important of all, do not then put those pictures on your facebook profile.

Especially if your boss is a friend of yours on facebook.

Here endeth both the lesson and your job, old son.


*I was right too. I kick arse at pub quizzes. Unless they're about music or TV. Or classical literature.

Maybe it's just me...

...but has anyone else noticed a sudden increase in people dragging their bags behind them on little plastic wheels? You know the sort - the ones where as you hear them approach down the street you instinctively look up to see how low the jet aircraft is, only to be disappointed as some beardy in a suit roars past you at 2 mph.

Noisy fuckers like this guy:

Fair enough if people were actually using them for to go on holiday, but it seems to have suddenly become acceptable to wheel stuff to work because apparently carrying your sandwiches became 'too heavy' and didn't generate more decibels than the Williams sisters at a Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat buffet.

I've spent a long time thinking about why this is suddenly so prevalent, and now I finally have the solution.

Clearly we're being invaded by Aliens.

Clever Aliens that have but one purpose in life - to enslave humankind. Obviously these creatures arrive from off world in an embryonic stage known as a 'handbag'. Taken home by unsuspecting weak-willed victims, these 'handbags' hide themselves away (after all - how many times have you (or your lady friend) desperately searched for your favourite handbag that you could've sworn was on the table only five minutes ago) and hatch overnight into the hard-wheeled box monsters we see on the street every day. In fact, whilst you sleep these Aliens are controlling your mind, forcing you to obey your master and drag it around with you all the time - even if you have nothing to carry at all!

You don't believe me? Okay, I offer proof.

This is a photo of the 'Samsonite' family at Christmas:

Note how that the universal rule of group photos* applies across intergalactic species.

And this is a top secret shot of the last gathering (or 'Conference') of the Luggage Masters (aka the 'Bag Snatchers') - taken with a hidden camera secreted inside a turncoat holdall:


See how even at Alien conferences you still have to wear a name tag.

It was at this gathering that the leader of the Luggage Masters (the one proudly displaying his handle in the middle that suspiciously looks like an inverse Hitler) declared stage one of his masterplan complete. Only you can stop them!

Still not convinced? I shall leave you with the wise words of my good friend Dr Miles Bennell:

"They're not human! They're here already! You're next!!!....."

You have been warned...

*That in every group photo, at least one person has to act like an idiot.

Redux

I love the Avenue near where Mrs. RS lives - it's 99 cent store heaven! :)

And here's my new favourite:



Can you see it? Can you?

Probably not, so here's the sign in the left hand window:


Every item is 99 cents or less!

But what's that in the right hand window?


Every item is 99 cents and up!

Errrr, what?!?

My brain hurts now. The only way to explain that tautology is that everything is exactly 99 cents. Except that nothing in that store is.

Like I said, I love that Avenue....

Broken

I am so broken right now. Obviously, the most sensible thing to do when you're jet-lagged, lacking sleep and have gone straight back into work for two frenetic days, is to spend the first day of your weekend drinking in the sun.

Drinking in the sun all day.

And all night too.

And a significant chunk of the next morning as well.

As I said - broken.... :(


Anyway, after a lovely BBQ at Token's house (and having watched the Lions finally beat Seffrica at Rugby) a group of us headed to the National Forest Folk Festival.

I know what you're thinking, and yes - the first thing I did was quaff a four-pint jug of beer :)

The first act was a ceilidh band who's female violinist kept yelping/yapping in such a way that I'd imagine someone making love to her would have a similar experience to shagging a chihuahua.

*erases horrible mental image*

The second act was a magician that finished his act by throwing up and catching (in his mouth) four ping-pong balls. That probably doesn't sound that impressive - but then how many ping-pong balls can you fit in your mouth?

The final act was the brilliant and funny Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain. Never heard of them? Well today is your lucky day because I've gone to great lengths to find some links for you. Imagine six or more people playing ukeleles and nothing but ukeleles. Here they are playing:

Shaft
Teenage Dirtbag
Anarchy in the UK
Le Freak

They are, I'm sure you'll admit, not exactly what you were expecting :)


I couldn't possibly leave a weekend post without a picture, so I snapped this on the way home from work today. Some idiot had quite deliberately climbed over the barriers to leave a footprint in fresh concrete after some work was done on the local street lighting. You've got to love the forthright reponse from the workmen the next morning....

Not wanting to shock you or anything....

....but I'm actually English.

And because of this fact I would like to address this post to the two FUCKING SELFISH rabbis who sat next to me during my flight back last night:


"Thank you so much for denying me sleep at any point during this flight. Thank you so much for drowning out every single announcement by the cabin staff/captain for the entire flight. Thank you so much for being such ego-centric retarded fucks that you thought that the entire plane wanted to hear you discuss the minutiae of the Torah.

FOR EIGHT FUCKING HOURS.

Thank you so much for refusing to SHUT THE FUCK UP whilst eating your kosher meal that you complained about not being kosher and then ate anyway (you hypocritical c*nts), drinking (how did you do it?), apparently dozing (I nearly stabbed you in the eye with a plastic tea-stirrer at this point) and even when the other rabbi was in the toilet (why?!? WHY?!? He WASN'T THERE you dumb bastard. SHUT UP!!!! LET ME SLEEP!!!!). Were the two of you on a sponsored talk bollocks-a-thon? I nearly throttled you before we even took off because:

a) you talk TOO FUCKING LOUDLY
b) you talk a load of bullshit. I don't care what you believe, I do not have to be forced to listen to you exclaim about absolutely nothing
c) that stupid stereotypical jewish rabbi 'claw' hand gesture you do everytime you make a point. Were you trained to do this, because you both did at exactly the same time?
d) you both sound like an exceedingly humourless, racist, retarded Mel Brooks. On crack.

Die horrible deaths. Horrible, horrible deaths."

Of course I said nothing, because I'm English. I tutted once, but it made no difference. The heathens.

As a consequence I'm lacking sleep and am a tad cranky. I don't think it shows.