Another famous saying?

Society expunges individual zeal with an amalgam of banal ennui. 
..........Aaron Chynn

Advent Candle

Ok - who the heck stole our Advent Candle......there we were, watching TV, next thing, someone has snook in while we were snoozing and there is no sign of it!
I shall be making serious enquiries!

Crap

Just nearly went flat on my back in a giant cow pat up the field while walking the dogs. I realised instantly that this is a business opportunity! This stuff is the slippiest stuff known to mankind. It does not melt on a warm day, and only needs water to keep it slippy. Now, if there are two things we have in abundance around here, it is rain and cowshit. I intend to buy the Chevin and cover it with cow crap and open it up as an all weather ski slope. Brilliant eh! Low maintenance or what! How can it fail!

Dodecahedron

A dodecahedron is a large circular tunnel in Switzerland designed to discover the effects of crashing large buses.

The Mini Van

My first car was a Mini.....not the overblown newer 'Mini' but the microscopic Tardis of a car that was originally designed in the late 50's. There is no doubt that this little marvel was way ahead of it's time, but it had foibles. Boy oh boy, did this car have foibles.
I learned very quickly that a necessary tool was a stick about 2 feet long. This was to prod and thump the fuel pump with, to encourage the thing to pump fuel, cleverly this was mounted under the floor of the car in a position where it would receive equal amounts of road spray from the two front wheels.
The doors had a retaining strap, this would prevent the door from being blown against the front wing of the car should it inadvertently be opened in a gale, or whilst reversing at speeds of over forty miles per hour. It was the former that was the demise of the strap on my drivers door, and of the door itself, and the wing suffered a bit as well!
The resulting re-styled door was not a good fit, and the floor well of the mini would fill up with rainwater every time it rained, which is just about all the time round here. The solution was to remove the rubber bungs in the floor to allow the offending liquid out.
The trouble with the clever solution was that when driving through snow and slush the holes became miniature geysers which soaked the driver and passenger alike. Usually when we were suited up and on our way somewhere!

The Rules According to Dog

There is no doubt that dogs are intelligent creatures. But on the other hand, trying to reason with a dog is a bit like typing your life story on a keyboard with only numbers. I know that dogs are extremely intelligent because ours have made up a set of rules for a ball game that is more complex than football.

The rules of the game:

There are three players in the game. The tall one with two legs is the banker. The banker starts the game with two squeaky balls about 5cm in diameter.

There are two four legged players, one is Brown and one is Black.

The Black player is faster than the Brown player, but has no sense of smell. [in fact not much sense of any sort].

The turn starts when the banker squeaks a ball to get the attention of the other two players.

The ball is then thrown.

The Brown and Black players chase the ball.

If the ball lands in plain sight the Black player will get it and bring it back to the banker. A squeak of the second ball is the cue for Black to drop the ball at the bankers feet. This is a win for Black.

If the ball lands out of sight the Black player will give up first. The Brown player will search for the ball and bring it back to the banker. A squeak of the second ball is the cue for Brown to drop the ball at the bankers feet. At this point the Black player will rush to get the ball and take it back to where it was thrown, before returning it back to the banker. This is a win for Brown.

The turn does not finish until the Black player has returned the ball to the banker.

The game ends when one of the balls is lost.

BBC and the Met office

I understand there has been a falling out between the Met Office and the BBC. The attached might help if a new weather map is required, a thoughtful cow left it in the field nearby. Personally I think the accuracy stinks a bit, but it may be perfect for crap weather.

Scary thing

I went for a 'tune up' of my pacemaker. This is painless, it just involves placing a pad on my chest and plugging into a computer, they can tell how often it has kicked in and at what time of day [or night]. I suspect that this is near field communication. Clever thing is....It now looks for a gap of more than 1.1 seconds between heartbeats during the day and 1.3 at night before it gives me a pulse, I did ask if it automatically changed time zones if I went abroad, but alas that one is still to come.
I was asked to read a sheet of paper, this turned out to be a donor certificate, happily I signed, of course I would want to give someone else a chance to live if I no longer needed the device, I suppose 'no longer needing it' means 'after you are dead' so it is just like being an organ donor.

Or is it!

As I handed the bit of paper back I asked about battery life, these things are good for ten years apparently. This started a little calculator going in my head. No one would want a second hand unit that had less than 5 years life in it , would they? This puts a very finite figure to 'when I no longer need it'. I think I will try and make sure no one inherits this particular cast off.

More Hints on Driving

Sorry about this, but there is something that sets little pictures running in my mind when I read this stuff....

More from 1913....'Hints on driving'

The following are good general rules for traffic:-
1. Observe the usual road rules and sound your horn if passing or overtaking another vehicle.
2. Be careful when passing a tram; passengers therein have an awkward habit of alighting and passing around the back.
3. Don't follow a tram too closely; their brakes are stronger than yours.
4. Beware of dogs; motoring is past their ken in the scheme of life.
5. Always give cyclists plenty of room; some are nervous.
6. Be careful and slow down at cross roads.
7. Turn into a road, or go around a corner, at slow speed, and on your right side.
8. If there be an opening and you must get through, dont hesitate, especially with trams.

I suppose we aught to make allowances, in those days if you had a car, you were a toff and the streets were full of annoying plebs who didn't have their own transport.

PS this is absolutely genuine!

Hints On Driving 1913!

Back in 1913, driving tests were not even thought about. Still you could find useful instruction on how to go on from useful chapters such as this from the Motor Mechanics Handbook.............

For Open Country:
1. Take corners on your right side, and slowly.
2. Don't tear downhill; a herd of cattle may be at the point of crossing at the bottom.
3. If you meet grease in the guttering, don't suddenly turn out, you may turn over or break a wheel; take it gently.
4. Observe all road signs.
5. Remember, it is you, as a motorist, who must observe the rule of the road; others may if they like.
6. If the roads are narrow and winding and the hedges high, special caution is necessary.
7. Slow down for cattle and sheep; fowls can generally take care of themselves.
8. Give led or ridden horses a wide berth; they sometimes turn round to see who is coming, or going.
9. Never drive in the dark on open roads by guiding yourself by the telegraph poles; sometimes these cross over and the road does not.
10. If there be dust ahead, go slowly; troops of sheep often give a misleading indication of a fast car ahead.
11. Don't pass another car unless the road is well clear ahead.
12. If there be mist, tie a lamp to you running board, and drive from the hedge or kerb, going dead slow.
13. If you skid, release your brake and re-apply. If your front wheels skid there is no remedy.
14. If a smash is inevitable take out your clutch and duck your head.
15. Never let a hare or rabbit detract your attention from the road.

I have given No.9 a great deal of thought and my head is in danger of exploding!
Hint No.12 may be useful on the M11 on a misty evening at rush hour.

EEEEE, them were the days!

Zombie

Well, that is it! I am officially bionic, a flatliner, a zombie, one of the returned! And also one very lucky bugger!

I seem to have suddenly developed third degree heart block! [This by the way is not a heart attack.]

What this means is that the signals to fire off my hitherto [pretty much anyway] reliable pump are either getting lost on their way across the muscle, or are too weak by the time they get there, or possibly they are prodding the wrong thing altogether, or just maybe they couldn't be arsed and have buggered off to the equivalent of a Pub for electrical signals.

When I say I am a lucky bugger, I seem to have survived three attacks of Sudden Cardiac Arrest.
[in words of one syllable, my heart stopped.]....is stopped one syllable or two? Unfortunately, since I have a firm belief that good luck comes in bunches of three, then I am not going to win the lottery this weekend, and I am going to have to make my own luck.

So if anyone wants to know what it feels like to die, or my secrets of the afterlife, eg.. did I have an out of body experience, or see a long stairway, pearly gates etc  etc, I shall be putting the info up for sale on E-Bay, [I have to make a buck or two somehow] after all by time I got to flatline number three I was well aware what was happening and that it was not just a funny turn, so I thought that I had better take notice!.... my attempts to write things down as they were happening were however, a bit of a failure.

I thought that I had better do a bit of research on the Internet...It was not a great consolation, I just have to hope that there are a good set of batteries [Duracell at least!] in the pacemaker. Best thing I found is this....

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.

Bill Cosby

An open letter to David Cameron

In the UK, we all need to be thankful, and protective of our National Health Service. Anyone who has ever doubted that it is absolutely essential or anyone who has ever doubted that the cost of covering everyone [after all it is simply a blanket insurance policy run by the state so that no company is making a profit from us] needs to read on............

Thursday morning I fainted. After some persuasion from my good lady wife I came around and to be honest, I thought nothing of it. Just a funny turn, perhaps I was dehydrated.

Friday evening I walked the dogs with Dave, only about a mile or so, up the fields to the woods and back. Only I didn't make it back. I had that feeling again. Instantly flaking out as I walked and only 50 yards from home, I hit my face on the ground and smashed my nose up. This time I woke up in a pool of blood. A responder medic arrived within 5 minutes and checked my vital signs. By the time the main ambulance came, I was already on oxygen and medication.

I had a heartbeat of 15 to 25 per minute as they hooked me up in the ambulance. With no messing about I was quickly on my way to Accident and Emergency in Leeds. Within a minute of arrival, I was in the resuscitation suite where they sorted my pulse rate out. Within an hour I was on the cardiac ward and hooked up to 24 hour monitoring of my pulse, displayed at the nurses station in the middle of the ward.

Saturday afternoon my heart stopped. I have to apologise to my friends and family, as I chose visiting time to perform this little surprise trick.  You should not believe what you are reading if they tell you to pump your own heart with your fist to keep yourself going, the lights go out very fast, do not imagine that you can press a buzzer to call a nurse! The other [slightly embarrassing]  thing they do not tell you is that as you slip into deep unconsciousness, you will lose control of your bladder, this only becomes a problem if you return to the land of the living.

This I did...... Due to the efforts of those who had quickly gathered around me [rapidly thanks to the monitoring system] as I became a flat-liner.

Within minutes and attached to a defibrillator I was on my way to theatre.

Within an hour I had a pacemaker installed and tested and was back in the ward, I had been given my life back.

So Mr Cameron, whatever you chose to do to the National Health Service, you need to put yourself in my position and consider what might happen to you in this situation, once you have left the exalted position we have put you in.

I consider myself to be a useful member of society, but I am not well off. I look around at many of the well off and I notice there are a good few who cannot be considered to be useful members of society, some having put themselves there by refusing to contribute to the UK taxation system.

Our health service should not be just for the well off, and it should not be for those who consider themselves useful members of society, or those who have managed to put the cash aside for insurance, it needs to be for everyone, rich, poor, technologists and scroats. We all have a right to good treatment, don't spoil it.

Waking Meg

Arise, fair maid, for 'tis after the time of  fourteen calls of the cuckoo and we must venture forth. We must travel beyond the great river to a mysterious clearing where you will find many great chariots. One of these chariots is for your use. You must take great care that the one you take is yours, as selecting the wrong chariot will cause you great distress. You will be able to identify yours by the symbol 33A upon it. It is a great and powerful chariot that will take you beyond the great hill to the place where the keepers of children reside. Here you will be treated kindly, yet as a slave, held captive for many hours without payment or reward. Many of those under you will act as the devil's children, you must use this experience to strengthen your will...............................................

Meg! wake up! it's after seven! you are gonna miss your bus and be late for placement at the nursery!

Bully Boy Cars

Round our way there seems to be an increasing number of what can only be described as 'bully boy cars'.............................
Invariably these things are about half as large again in all directions as a normal car, with wheels as large as a truck, with the result that they are often driven down the middle of the road. This is particularly noticeable on narrow country lanes. They are NEVER driven anywhere near the side of the road and God forbid that they might have to use their nice nobbly tyres on the grass verge!
The four wheel drive system that these units possess can therefore only be for one thing........It has to be so these things can more easily scale normal cars should they come into contact with the type of thing that a pleb would drive. This can of course also happen if you are approached from behind, since the speed that these units travel at also seems to be scaled up by 50%. And I wonder whether I am still in the drivers field of vision when I am being tailgated by one of these beasts with it's 'permanently on' headlights shining directly into my rear view mirror. It is just possible that the reason I am being followed so closely is that the driver does not know that there is anything down there.

Throwing stuff

I became aware of a cat sitting by the pond in our garden. He or she was clearly watching the fish as they went past. I decided that he required moving along, so I hatched a half witted plan. The thing to do was to get some wood from the woodpile and throw it. The thing I forgot was that I am the world's worst thrower of anything.
I should have remembered.... There was a works cricket match. I was persuaded to bowl. I think that everyone was in shock when the first ball became embedded in the pitch two yards in front of where I stood, the next went off to the left, then the right. You see, the middle finger of my right hand has a condition known as trigger finger, basically IT decides when to release the ball....
Then there was the kong tree....the tree next to the footpath where we walk the dogs in which a large number of the 'balls on ropes' hung like unusual fruit. Oh! and that occasion when I threw one of the kongs and it went straight up in the air, an inordinately long distance up I have to say, only for me to be struck dumb as the missile decided it would strike a direct hit in the middle of Tim's bald head.
As the piece of wood left my hand it immediately became apparent that the idea of throwing in the direction of the cat was not about to happen, nor was it going anywhere near the pond. It was however making a bee line for the shed, where it punched a neat hole in the window. The loud bang was enough to attract the attention of the cat, which let out a wail and jumped from his perch. By the time he had 'run' the full length of the pond, he was looking slightly bedraggled and covered in pond yuk and duckweed.
If it was your cat, I am sorry for the state it ended up in, but it did brighten up my day!

Discrimination

Before we start.....I am not racist!
I treat everyone the same until I am in a position to judge them!
This seems a sound and logical approach to me.
But something really wound me up the other day, I was sent a questionnaire by our wonderful health service, this was not about my health!
Question 1 was about my ethnic origin, and just for the record, my skin is a sort of a pinky sick colour with freckles, so I answered that I was white British.
There was no space for pink, pink with freckles, yellow or brown British.

I think we need a rethink. Being British should not depend upon the shade of your skin. Surely it depends on whether you are proud to call yourself British. I think there are probably many people who consider themselves part of this island community who would take this as some sort of a snub that their ethnic origin is more important than the fact that they have adopted Britain as their home.

I think that the questionnaire was probably thought up by some politically correct do-gooder, although it completely escapes me as to what reason the health service needs to know your ancestral past or the particular hue of your skin. I can only presume that this is somehow related to positive discrimination? maybe I wont get my appointment next time because they have already filled the quota of my particular ethnic type.

Positive discrimination is exactly what it says, DISCRIMINATION. It needs to be scrapped, end of!

known knowns

Woo hoo...exited about getting a mention!

http://cdn-cache.worldlibrary.org/…/There%20are%20known%20k…

for my humble effort.....HOW KNOWLEDGE WORKS:-
There are those that think they know everything, these are the ones who don't know that they don't know everything.
There are those who know that they don't know everything, these are the ones that know that the ones who don't know that they don't know everything know Jack Shit.

With humble apologies to Donald Rumsfeld for almost stealing an idea!

Aspurgers

I have a colleague who does not relate to others well. I had come to the conclusion that he was suffering from some sort of a disorder, possibly something along the lines of Aspurgers syndrome. Having spent several hours in his company in a meeting today I have had to re-assess this, it seems I may have been completely wrong about the guy and he is actually just a complete bell end.

Cameron and Osborne

Yesterday was truly surreal, we knew that we were going to get a visit from an important person, this was obvious by the number of dark suited individuals without necks but sporting a single, far from discreet earpiece. We speculated that it was a member of the cabinet.
They blocked off the road to the factory once the cars were in the drive.
Someone with better eyesight than me said "It's Osborne!"
"Huh!" I replied, "we are honoured, I'm gonna tell him that that stone wall out there is the Scottish border and I bet he takes it in. He won't have a clue that it's well over a hundred miles north of here."
"Oh! bloody hell!" said the observant one "and Cameron."
In a strange sort of way we all felt honoured. This must have been the first time that these two characters had been to somewhere that actually made something useful!
There was a great deal of handshaking going on in reception. "Toffs! I thought. I must get back to the manual writing I was on with."
I became aware of movement over my right shoulder. I turned round and was looking into David Cameron's face. He held out his hand and I shook it. We exchanged a few words about the job I was working on. A colleague got out of his chair and marched swiftly to the loo! After a few moments the group moved on, followed by dark suited neck-less ones and assorted paparazzi.
After a long, long time in the loo my colleague re-appeared.
"Freaked out!" he said, "I would have frozen if one of them had spoken to me, then I would have panicked that I had frozen, and probably barfed. Best that I was in the bog!!!"............LOL