Halloween, Zombies, the Headless Horseman, Quasimodo and the severed leg

After a quiet start to the day poking at some electrics with a screwdriver because it is something that needed to be prodded at, sort of, we went over the hill to Miss E’s home to help put up spiders webs. When I say spider’s webs they were large mutant alien spider’s webs, this was followed by a request to carve a pumpkin into a sort of person chewing the severed leg of an unknown person. They are unknown because all I had was the severed leg and to tell the truth there are very few people I can identify by just their leg, let’s face it, one leg gushing blood looks much like another.  OK that is not entirely true it is possible to separate them into right and left but that does not really pin things down a great deal identifying the owner of it.  

It has also been rather wet here today and I think the rain may have scuppered a few plans although the man eating squid suit which has suddenly become very popular on the east coast of the USA has looked like a wise choice here in the UK all day too.

We were not expecting much Halloween activity when we returned home what with the rain and the banshees circling overhead screaming, the Life Size Steam Powered Hydraulically Controlled Tyrannosaurus Rex hissing and growling on the drive at the vicar, it has him pinned into a corner of the garden. And the Headless Horseman stumbling about looking for his hat, I still am not sure why he is looking for his hat unless it is still attached to his head. Then of course there in Quasimodo getting tipsy on the Bells Whisky again and flesh eating zombies from class 32Z0B at school who are looking very scary after falling in the pond and getting covered in slim and things. We even had an Egyptian Mummy, but it turned out they had fallen out of an ambulance, and had spent the day desperately trying to get to the A and E department. The good news however was they had gained £27.50p, a huge pile of sweets, 8 toffee apples and 15 Sherbet Fountains as they stopped people to ask the way to the hospital who then mistook them for trick of treaters.

Anyway there we were all doing what we do on Halloween when two mysterious characters arrived from out of the dark and did the exploding trick, they didn’t even ask for a treat but we gave them one anyway because we are nice, sort of, a bit, maybe……….

Ooooo I forget to tell the Headless horseman I saw a severed head today at Miss E’s house, but I don’t think it was his because it was not wearing a hat……. Maybe it was related to the leg? 

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Halloween floods and the Steam Powered Hydraulically Controlled Tyrannosaurus Rex.

There is much despondency on the east coast of the United States as many of the cities and towns are flooded by Hurricane Sandy, surely they could have found a better name for one of the largest hurricanes in recent history than Sandy it lacks a degree of street cred to say the least.  Still in all the gloom and doom we must try and look for small sparks of light within it all, like the stock market opening up in time for Halloween so all those scary bankers will be back making money  . . . . . . .PHEW thank god for that.

And the Trick or Treaters are going to look really good this year as they wade up to your house and splash on your front door, with water mud and slime falling off their little bodies in the blackness of the power cut. I can see that the man eating squid suit will be very popular this year in that part of the world. As it happens I am off tomorrow to advise on matters of scary things for Halloween as I have often been told I am a ******* curse and to go away, something that will no doubt be a bit of an anthem with many folk tomorrow.

It has been a fairly pleasant day here so I have spent much of it pondering the best way to make the most of a nice day, I did consider several options and sort of got it down to a choice of two Option A, and Option B, both of which required a decent amount of time and after much thought I opted for Option C, because I no longer had enough time for Options A or B. Option C was a choice of either Option D, or Option E, or possibly Option F, although Option F would need the full co-operation of at least two people a ferret and I would need to find the Grimble Spin from book one. As it turned out just as I was finalizing things it was time to eat, so that completely confused me. As a final resort I said to mum as one does during the school holidays I’M BORED but she hit he over the head with the Armadillo Toaster from book one and book two I think.

It was at this point I that is suddenly dawned on me; not only have I not done a great deal today but I have also not said what I did do in my diary in the end which was ********** all anyway.

I am sure we still have the life size  Steam powered hydraulically controlled Tyrannosaurus Rex somewhere at the back of the garage maybe I could use that tomorrow to scare the vicar……. 

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Drumming and Hurricane Sandy (it is not a superstorm it is a rotten one)

Tonight’s diary entry I think will be very short because it is late and we are all tired, After a day at IKEA and then in my case an evening of drumming and Chinese food. When I say Chinese food it is not the real thing like Captain Nessman of the High Seas gets to eat at present but none the less it is still very YUMMY. IKEA was a bit of a battle today and it appears there were two main reasons for this, the first it is Half Term so us younger members of society get to run round the way shopping system annoying all the adults; although it back fired a bit and they all annoyed me instead. And secondly it appears it is possible to get a full English Breakfast for £1.50p, sadly I was not allowed to set the dog on the queue or use a flame thrower so I never got a breakfast.

Tonight’s drumming went rather well so that was good, we were drumming to try and appease the great gods of the weather to see if we can subdue the great mega-storm (superstorm) Hurricane Sandy which is slowly heading towards the East coast of the USA.  However all the elements are working to make this worse rather than better so two drummers in the dark of night in Britain I feel is not going to help even if they are extremely good drummers.

I have been able to watch the first pictures of Hurricane Sandy as it reaches the coast on a television set, what is interesting is that they have been evacuating everyone, although there seems to be various members of the media perched in precarious places like bridges or on the beach telling the world that everyone has been evacuated from these places because it is so dangerous; I think we can only assume it is really dangerous when the media are evacuated.

So good luck in the USA with the Hurricane and remember a hot air balloon is not a good method of escaping, although it will travel remarkably fast for a balloon.

Just in case of a high tide in the UK I have prepared myself for the worse, although it is not easy to eat a Chinese takeaway ot drum in this thing

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Running through the piles of leaves, Fairy Lights and British Winter Time

Today is Sunday and in the old tradition of a Sunday fairly chilled and peaceful, OK chilled and peaceful here, there are many places that are not.

I have not done a great deal today mainly sweep leaves as the leaves in Britain are falling off the trees on mass at present and if they are not swept up will cause chaos. If you live in other parts of the world you will be thinking leaves cause chaos surely not, but only a couple of years ago the entire rail system was grounded by leaves, although as British Rail pointed out at the time they were the wrong sort of leaves. We have the wrong sort of leaves in our garden because they only appear to fall in the wrong places so I was dispatched to sweep them into tidy piles and deposit them in the recycle bin. Luckily I did not suffer one of the great problems of sweeping leaves into piles, the one that all sweepers hate. This is passers by running through the piles of leaves kicking them into the air in a jolly happy way. This impulsive almost subconscious act is something from deep in the mind when we were very little and insisted and knocking down the brick tower that an adult spent many painful hours building for you. The pile of leaves is a sort of flash back and everyone just has to knock the pile down again, of course the consequences are very different, in one the brick tower is rebuilt with a begrudging smile in the other you are chased by a mad screaming man waving a bristle yard brush at you while you try to loose him in the shopping centre at the perimeter of the park.

OK enough about sweeping leaves up, there is only so much any man can write about sweeping leaves up while still making it interesting and I think I may have passed that point some time ago. Although I will add what was really annoying is I would sweep up all the leaves then look back to admire my handy work only to discover a load of new leaves had fallen out of the trees so everything was covered in leaves again.

I have also put up a few more fairy lights at the front of the house today,  I have always said you cant have too many fairy lights although it might just be that we now have so many plug in fairy lights connected that the solar fairy lights will just think it is day time all the time, even in the middle of the night so never come on.

OK that is about it for today I need to try and get my body adjusted to the fact all the clocks were themselves adjusted last night so what was 6.00pm yesterday has become 5.00pm today (I think) resulting in a lighter start to the day but a very dark end to it. In principle its fine only my body hates all this and I get well confused. And tomorrow we are off to IKEA and it is not a place to go to in a state of confusion, what with the one way system round its cunning rabbit warren of stuff, subconsciously making you buy things you never need, and instilling an urge to run through the huge pile of cushions, kicking them into the air and laughing hysterically.

  

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A One Hundredth Birthday Party, the Sun and Huricaine Sandy

We have just returned from a one hundredth birthday party; now when I say one hundredth birthday party I of course refer to the age of the person whose party it is/was not that this is the one hundredth party we have been to. It was the party of Mrs Bunner who has been a sort of link figure in the little town of Montgomery for many years and for a long time the driving force behind the Bunners ironmongers shop which is celebrating 120 years of trading. There were loads of people there I think to tell the truth there were a few thousand too many people there but then in one hundred years you get to know a lot of people.

It has also been a very sunny day today which was a bit of a shock after all that grey it seemed very bright indeed but I think that is because we have not seen the sun for a few days I get the impression that it is due to vanish again tomorrow according to the man on the wireless so we had to make the most of it. When I say make the most of it, the dog Heavy Harry the Cat and Sooty the Cat lay in the sun and snored and I was sent up an apple tree to clear branches from the power cables. These were not the 11000 volt cables but just standard 240 volt cables so there was never going to be a huge bang and a flash of light, something they were also trying avoid at the one hundredth birthday party, I am told it is bad form to set off fire crackers at the birthday parties of the old and rather frail. . . . . . . AH.

While on the subject of weather I believe that Hurricane Sandy is due to arrive on the east coast of America in the next couple of days and along with two other weather events of some sort heading the same way, is going to turn into some sort of Mega- storm. And it due to destroy all before it so if you read this and live on the east coast of America I would advice listening to the local weather forecast on the wireless, bearing in mind that most weather forecasts on the wireless can be rubbish. Dad has said he could turn his own weather machine on to help things but that might be a bad move and end in a huge bang and a flash of light the result of which I’m sure would be no more one hundredth birthday parties for a few years due to freak numbers of heart attacks on the same day by the old and frail.

Ooo yes one more thing this is Britain and we move our clocks back an hour tonight so that will confuse the rest of the world and me for a while. 

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The imminent return of the curse of Halloween and the edges of Op Art

I have noticed in the wonderful world of cyberspace there is a definite increase in Halloween related things and as someone who has many dealing with banshees and zombies vampires and the like you would think I was a great fan of Halloween, but it is not entirely true.  You see I am deep down a bit of a kill joy, nothing wrong with that I hear you say, after all she is a mutant alien being who drinks the blood a small cute things and scares small children so killing Joy is OK.  But we need to look at Halloween a bit closer; in the UK it is a one night event a sort of short sharp shock approach as attempted by the police a few years ago and then it is all over; in the USA is a far grander event and appears to last much longer and can be far more elaborate. There is however a core element that is intertwined into the fabric of both nations, and that is annoying children turning up at your door saying trick or treat and expecting money, sweets and toffee apples. NO not cute. . . . . . It is very annoying, me and the dog demand a trick and so far no one has produced a good one over the years.

Last year our only trick or treaters were the Spanish Inquisition OK well they looked like the Spanish Inquisition, they did not seem to know who the Spanish Inquisition were, and they did not appreciate getting a decomposing armadillo as a treat in fact they ran away screaming although that might have been the bucket of eyes that did that. The dog had even filled it with sugar mice and jellied babies, that’s the decomposing Armadillo not the bucket of eyes that would be silly. But the key fact again was they were rubbish at tricks (not the armadillo or eyes I refer to the Spanish Inquisition). So this year on Halloween me and the dog are planning to eat all the trick or treat arrivals in a huge spicy pie YUM, it is what the Zombies will want us to do, and after all it is their special night we need to be respectful.

OK what happened today I was painting a line OK an edge but an edge sort of forms a line, I have painted edges before in fact I am rather good at it and would have made a great op artist back in the day when op art was rather fashionable. These days op art is not fashionable so the skill of painting an edge is of limited use I tend to find I am asked to paint things like the top of walls where it meets the ceiling and similar things, you see . . . .  so much talent used for such a task as the edge of walls.

I also had to fix a door to make sure it locks correctly as the person is concerned they might have trouble with zombies next week trying to get their toffee apples and sweets and small children with white sheets on their heads that look just like small children with white sheets on their heads going wooooooo wooooooo I want my mummy will attempt to sneak in and run away with humbugs (sorry I mean humming bugs).

I also got to move a pile of rotten wood today that is very rotten (the wood not the task), so that was fun well OK not fun OK it was rotten.

Oooooo yes

 I have pizza for tea and Meringue, ice cream and walnuts for pud so YUM.

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Professor Frankenstein’s Monster, Jimmy Savile and Zombie Cats

As many of you (in Britain at least) will know if you listen to a wireless or watch a television set there has been much talk of  the man who is now the most hated man in Britain, no not a politician not even one of the leaders of the various parties but Jimmy Saville. For various reasons including good taste I have avoided any mention of the man in my diary but something was said on the wireless earlier that made me think I should make a comment.

You see they said on the news program that the police were looking into various scenarios and options in order to make an arrest in the Jimmy Savile case. I have to admit I am not sure of the precise words; I have sort of switched off about this story because it appears to revolve more round the BBC than the victims, and I think everyone should just accept the BBC is just another victim, even if as a result most of the other victims then suffered.

However the thought now that somehow the police might be looking into a way of digging Mr Savile up and reviving him in a sort of  Perry Mason or maybe Starsky and Hutch meets Professor Frankenstein’s Monster sort of way; made me think hello what’s going on now then. 

 

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I am not entirely convinced that a decomposing Zombie Jimmy Savile in the dock will exactly help the situation and a life sentence may be difficult to uphold if he is one of the walking dead. After all if you are the walking dead just how long is a life sentence?

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I have just had a substantial break from writing my diary because Sooty the cat arrived in the house looking like a drowned rat that had been rolled in cow muck, maybe he fell into the fabled Minor Stream of Inconsequence . So he was not nice and he smelt worse than he looked. In fact the ironic thing about this is he looked and smelt just like a zombie cat or what one would assume a zombie cat or even a zombie Jimmy Savile would look and smell like. So we have all been doing battle with the cat in the shower, he is not a cat that likes showers and bearing in mind he has just returned from a fate worse than death involving water (and cow poo) the shower was not where he wanted to be, or me.

He is clean now well I hope so, or as clean as you can get a cat that is panicking and has all his claws on red alert, and so I have returned to my diary. Heavy Harry the Cat who was looking fairly chilled and resting in the office has taken one look at Sooty the Cat and has done a runner it appears that cats are also worried about Zombies too, in particular Zombie Cats.

Still if the Zombie Jimmy Savile is locked away for all eternity the one concession he might be allowed is a zombie cat as company.

Sorry I have not got round to telling you exactly what happened today but I will say the Ghost Writer was grumpy after an emergency IT call out . . . . .   

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Entering a mini dark ages and the Geo-magnetic Solar Storm

It has been very dark and grey again today in fact myself and the dog have come to the conclusion that we may be entering a mini dark ages and have decided to take precautions, firstly the dark ages were also called the middle ages so myself and the dog plan to avoid short middle aged people. This is easier for the dog as all he needs to do is smile at them or eat them, but as half the school staff are short and middle aged, and I think middle class avoiding them is very difficult.  I am also a little worried by the continued increase in low energy light bulbs because they do not actually light anything up and I feel they must also be contributing to the fact we appear to be entering a new dark ages.  The original dark ages came about due to the fall of the Roman Empire and as we all know the Italians are in a bit of bother with the Euro, and takeaway Pizza is not what it used to be in the good old days. Then there is the Geo-magnetic Solar Storm predicted to hit Earth in 2013 blacking out all sorts of stuff. The good thing about this is it will be WELL COOL for my diary. But the bad news is my diary will have to be written in a diary with pages made of paper with a quill.

I am trying to sort out the Big Orange room at present so that I cam record myself drumming but there are millions of cables and bits which means it is taking some time, not helped by the fact it is rather dark outside. The weather has also affected the sun dial which has now said it is midnight for three days too, and my quality of writing has gone right down hill, but apparently culture took a bit of a knock during the first dark ages so it is too be expected. Anyway I basically blame the Romans, after all what did the Romans ever do for us. . . . . . . . Yes Yes I have used that old joke before but that was a long time ago now and its dark. . . . . . Really really dark.

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The stereo typical working man and a keen new assistant.

I have been delayed from writing my diary entry today by the Ghost Writer who has done rather o lot of complaining about his IT work. It is not as if he has to work that hard; after all he is very part time at the best of times.

You see he is typical of the stereo typical working man in the west these days, a few hours of beating up a PC with a stick and he is done in. As it happens he also has a very keen new assistant who kept leaping up and doing stuff. As the Ghost Writer says it is not good for morale when someone new turns up all keen and enthusiastic, who leaps up and does things; I must admit I quite agree with that but I tried to assure him that it probably will not last too long. Being enthusiastic is good but seldom sustainable, unless it is eating good fish and chips which are one of the few foods that you can eat all day without major problems unlike things like curry or jumbo sausages which are good but will start to make you flag after an hour of so of enthusiastic eating.

OK what am I talking about, I really need to say what I was up too. I have been attempting to bride everyone in school to vote for Captain Nessman of the high seas photo’s in his photography exhibition but because there are no names on the photo’s they are all confused and are voting for all the wrong things entirely including a huge three headed mutant Zombie holding a large ice cream cone and a straw. I wouldn’t mind but I still haven’t found that photo myself yet, although I did see Captain Nessman’s picture of the huge Mutant spider yesterday. 

And at school we were discussing ancient maps and how they can lead to all sorts of problems particularly if the say they can lead you to the centre of the Earth.

OK I better go I will try and write something a little more exciting tomorrow but in the end it is down to events so they are difficult to predict.

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Banksy and the Ferret in the Dark

 Yesterday I sort of wrote YA SUCKS BO we are all sunny and warm and everyone else is in the cold autumn mist, well that was a mistake because today it is cold dark and wet and has felt like mid winter all day. I can tell it has been a bad day from the solar panels on the house, yesterday they produced 15 kilowatts and today they produced a total of 950 watts, so not even one kilowatt. I think that is the worst figure so far. I will say though that overall the solar panels are jolly good they just don’t like days when it is dark even at midday.

Another not so good event today was a trip to the dentist, last time we got rained off when it rained so much it flooded the road, and although it was raining again the roads did not flood. I wonder if there is a connection between going to the dentist and rain, maybe I should stop going to the dentist then it might be permanently sunny although I guess in the end all my teeth would fall out. So is rain and teeth better than sun and no teeth, I am not sure.

At school we all sulked and shone torches at our text books because the headmaster is on an economy drive to save money, and today was too dark to read anything without a torch. I always have one handy in case the end of the world should suddenly turn up, lets face it you cant really predict these things that well unless you are the dog who says it will be 6:30 the first Friday of June next year. Esmeralda luckily has a clip on interchangeable torch attachment, so she was fine also and Freddie’s Ferret can see in the dark so was able to assist Freddie a bit, although the ferret is rubbish at maths so was of limited help. As for the rest of the class there was a lot of falling over chairs and shouts of I’M LOST AT THE BACK OF THE CLASS . . . . . . . . HELP.

The economy drive by the headmaster by the way, is so he can save enough money to clad the front of the school in a new iconic stainless steel façade in keeping with the schools new academy status, rather that low grade breeze block. With the words We love ferrets in huge letters sprayed on in red paint. Which was done by an unknown person a few months ago; it is signed Banksy but I am not sure Banksy likes ferrets much but I know someone who does.

Anyway it is well dark and it is now even 6.00pm yet so I think I will declare that Britain has officially reached Winter, and I am off to eat the second half of my rather delicious Indian takeaway from Montgomery.

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Fog and Fairy Lights

It is rather late, 11.00pm so a bit late for me to be writing my diary but then it has to be done. You see it is easy to say Ooooooo no I will leave it after all it is only a diary, but that is what happens with diaries and a reason so many of them sort of fade away. So I am being disciplined and doing my bit, remaining disciplined is not really what I do either as I like to think of my self as a meandering mind skipping from thought to thought as they randomly come to into my head.

So OK today started as a beautiful sunny day but early on this morning we had a request to take someone from Monty to Shrewsbury as they were having transport problems. Now with it being a beautiful sunny day we thought OK a trip in the sun watching the world go by WELL COOL. But then only three to four miles from home we ran into thick fog. It was like that all the way to Shrewsbury and almost all the way home, then just two miles from home from the opposite direction we drove into warm sun again. How strange. So it appears our little house has spent the entire day in the sun surrounded by fog; we could even see it in the distance at one point but it never got to us.

This afternoon I was adding some fairy lights to the front of the house so we can find our keys to get in when it gets dark as it is starting to get dark very early, as I have said before. We prefer fairy lights to those spot light things because they look a million times better. Remember the old saying ‘Fairly lights are for life not just for Christmas’ although annoyingly the only time you can buy them tends to be Christmas.

The fairy lights even got there first true test tonight because we were off doing some things to help Miss Issy move into her new house so by the time we got home it was well dark. And we needed to be super efficient getting is as we had an Indian takeaway, so getting in and eating it were high priorities. It was a rather good takeaway too, helped all the more by an array of sparkly lights which always makes a difference.

Now if you start getting reports of some mad people who have covered their house in Christmas lights in October, no we have not, because they are just the outside lights so we can see stuff. There will be no inflatable glowing Santa’s or Iguana’s or Ducks either just tiny little LED lights that do not flash or spell out TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER like they do on Mr Jones house along with his huge lime green Flashing Alien. The Flashing Alien has rather upset his neighbours a bit in the last couple of years and so this year it will be wearing shorts.

OK that’s it; all a bit of a rush I don’t know what I have written (as normal) so I hope it makes some sense  . . . . . . . . . Goodnight all. 

    

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The Washing Machine and the Gremlins

Our rather, not very good washing machine which will do strange things just for the hell of it sometimes, because it’s a washing machine and it under the delusion it is normal, has finally decided enough is enough. If we want to spin clothes to get them dry then it has let us know in no uncertain terms we need to do this ourselves by running in circles very fast. Dad has used his vast knowledge of electro-mechanical machines that like water to try and coax it back from sulk mode, the machine however just sort of twitched and mumbled at him. He then tried to give it a good beating with a large hammer but it did not help. So Mum and dad decided to purchase a new washing machine online using a small square bit of plastic, something called a credit card. They almost never do this it is very unusual indeed, so unusual that their bank did not allow the transaction several times and they only managed to do it after several phone calls explaining that they were in fact really trying to buy a washing machine to wash things in.

It was very frustrating and took ages so dad decided it was all the fault of the old washing machine and went and gave it a jolly good thrashing just to let it know who is boss. The good news is there is definitely one washing machine on its way to the house but the bad news is that like busses it is just possible that after years of never buying a new washing machine 15 of them will all turn up at once.

Yesterday the man on the BBC weather forecast on the wireless said it was going to be hot and sunny all day but it has not been hot and it was rather cloudy, I do wish they would tell us the truth it is very difficult when they do these sneaky things. Anyway I am not sure what happened to the day it just sort of faded away and all of a sudden it is dark. In fact it is getting dark earlier and earlier here in Britain and in two weeks time Great Britain does its ritual of moving all the clocks by an hour, so the good news is we will all get to have a lie in and still get up early but the bad news is by 5:00 pm it will be well dark and I will be jet lagged for about a week.

I have finally found my two posh microphones (OK not very posh) so I will be able to record myself drumming very soon which is sort of good for me, but maybe not so good for you and I have also found most of the leads that connected up all the little boxes that need to be connected in the big orange room. I might have to make a tombstone or two, as the last surviving member of the Monty Cardboard Robot Club, for someone who needs tombstones.

OK that’s it all a bit random today but it has been a random sort of day.

  

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Heavy Harry the Cat and the efficient and concise diary entry

I will keep things short and to the point tonight in an effort to be efficient and concise because I can feel this is what the punters want, not my more rambling style of writing that I prefer. But is OK if this is what you all want then its OK with me I will not sulk and run in a small circle in the kitchen shouting bacon and eggs bacon and eggs oooooo look a sea lion for at least half an hour while wearing a rain coat.

Anyway enough . . . . .  I will get to the main points of the day.

1 Heavy Harry the Cat has been to the vet and had three jabs although the vet said he appeared normal (Heavy Harry the Cat, Normal?). Heavy Harry the Cat was not happy.

2 School also appeared to be normal today although Esmeralda’s new steam powered interchangeable cross bow attachment has been banned by the headmaster. Esmeralda insisted she was aiming for the goat and if it had not ducked then Mr Evans would not have bled all over the new staff room carpets.

3 Getting Nitro-glycerine and Nitrogen phosphate the wrong way round is not good in the school garden. It was a rubbish potting shed anyway.

4 There was a seriously cool looking sky tonight although the dog insists it is in fact the glow from the fire of the potting shed in the school garden, and it was the headmasters own fault parking his car next to it. Picture included of the sky (not on the best selling paperback edition)

5 I deny everything it was someone else.

 I am not sure if you are all aware of my other blog the one called The Sky from the Earth where from time to time I add a few pictures of the sky from our garden. I will add a link so that if you so desire you can have a look. Please note if you are reading the best selling paperback then this link will not work very well. However once you have finished reading it you can set fire to it to re-enact the burning down of the potting shed although you will need some Nitro-glycerine in order to truly recreate the event.

OK that’s it that is the lot I have finished my new efficient diary entry so I can go now and race worms in the local worm racing event to see whose worm will represent the county in the big race 

The Sky from the Earth 

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The phobia of putting up shelves . . . Pluteusiphobia

This is a very difficult diary entry to write, very difficult indeed, but not for any reason that might have come into your head, because lets face it when someone writes something like this is a very difficult thing to write people think of all sorts of stuff. But in this case all that, all sorts of stuff is the wrong stuff. You see Heavy Harry the Cat is a bit poorly still and he has settled down on my head. Which means it is far from easy to write anything, this and my known skills with a QWERTY keyboard plus my spelling skills can only result in the days events turning into gibberish. Which is not like me I am usually so concise and to the point, while on the subject of points I have to inform you that Heavy Harry the Cat still has pointy claws despite his present illness. The dog says if I just stopped moving about the cat would not need to cling on; easy to say when you don’t have a cat on your head.

So today was a day of practical subjects at school, as part of the new academy status they now teach pupils how to put up a shelf. Although both boys and girls are taught the subject it has been proved scientifically that each of the sexes approaches this task in very different ways. 

Men it appears have a bit of a problem with shelves and there is a new theory that men suffer from Pluteusiphobia the fear of putting up shelves taken from the Latin word  Pluteus, meaning shelf like (the dog told me that). I guess it explains why dad never puts up shelves. Women do not suffer from this and are happy to put up shelves but are normally scuppered by men hiding the power tools. This of course is not problem for Esmeralda with her interchangeable clip on power tool attachments and it appears she is a natural at putting up shelves. In fact she totally refitted the school Library and was given three gold stars and 300 house points, she is dead pleased and is now thinking of starting her own business called Shelves-a-go-go with the catchy logo ‘Have drill will travel’. I would offer to help but I think I might be getting Pluteusiphobia.

Anyway I will stop writing now because there is only so much any man can do with a cat sat on his head.

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The grinding wheels of progress going round in circles

There I was minding my own business pottering about attempting to draw 5000 legionaries (that’s the Roman ones that marched about in legions) in the margins of my history book. The one I am allowed to write in not the one from the library called ‘The Roman Legions and their place in the Development of the Ice Cream Van’, when I heard a noise. A sort of grinding spinning noise, the sort of noise that a twenty seven foot high mechanical clock might make prior to it going into the full Westminster chime at midday. So I looked up and low and behold what was staring me in the face but the grinding wheels of progress. Well I say progress, but I mean a twenty seven foot high full Westminster chiming clock made by Mr Progress one of the metalwork teachers, which he plans to put in pride of place on the school roof. Well he did until he was told it breaches planning consent.  Not normally a problem but because we are now an academy the headmaster is trying to do things by the book. That is not the book ‘The Roman Legions and their place in the Development of the Ice Cream Van’ because it has very little in it about large clocks. Although the ice cream vans in those days did have grinding wheels much like the clock, and the planning process.

Now being faced, sort of face to face by the grinding wheels of progress (Mr Progress’s name for his clock makes you realize that life ticks by dead quick, OK not dead quick because the clock is losing at least 10 minutes a day. But I realize I need to focus my diary on matters of great importance as the old History teacher said You can either sit and watch the wheels of life turn and go nowhere yourself or be one of the wheels, sadly in an attempt to prove the point the teacher was crushed by a large grinding machine full of cogs and wheels. Proving to all it is much better not to be one of the wheels. It is all this trying to be one of the wheels that has resulted in so many people just going round in circles. The only real advantage I have found so far for going round in circles is that it allows me to write absolutely loads about absolutely very little on days when very little has happened.

We are hoping our strange electrical fault is fixed and the Ghost writer says after a hard day in the office he feels like he has been trampled by a legion of Roman soldiers, then run over by a large object with grinding wheels that strangely sounded just like a large Westminster chiming clock.

And Heavy Harry the Cat  arrears to be not well, apparently my use of the defibrillator did not help although he did leap up and looked very perky for 10 seconds. 

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Tarquin, the school goat and the seven (borrowed) stolen paintings and rabbit ears

It is amazing just how quickly things start returning to normal after a little holiday, even one as adventurous as a journey to the centre of the Earth, and except for the small incident with young Tarquin today it would have been almost as a distant memory to us all. But Tarquin did get to go home early today due to his mind being in a state of shock, after the incident with the School mascot (the School Goat). Remember only yesterday I mentioned just how good a goats  sense of smell was, and so the school goat got rather aroused by Tarquin’s aroma as a result of his incident in the Swiss Alps with the wild goats. But the school goat is a wirily old beast and more that capable of fending off 15 teachers trying to save Tarquin from a fate worse than death.  I know it was a fate worse than death because Tarquin who was sort of staring the incident in the face so to speak told us it was a fate worse than death and I feel he is the best one to tell us.

Luckily a large space capsule attached to a hot air balloon landed next to Tarquin and the goat, so the goat was distracted for a few seconds allowing Tarquin his chance to run (stagger) away

The art teacher yesterday was saying that there is no decent art work on the school walls at present and was looking rather depressed by it all, which was rather a shame so myself and the dog decided that we would give him a little surprise today and find a few pictures for him to hang in his classroom. The dog said he knew where we could get a couple and no one would notice (much), and dads friend Benny Neckbender said that he would help because he knows a man who knows a man who has a friend in the place that the dog thought might have a few spare pictures. So after a little trip in the dark in a white van on dodgy plates with a hidden chamber in the false floor I took the pictures into school. The Art teacher and the headmaster are very pleased and I would have got a gold star and house points if it was not for young Tarquin screaming distracting the headmaster. My favourite is a self portrait by Meyer de Haan who is wearing a hat with fake red rabbit ears. Someone told me that he often thought he was a rabbit from time to time.

And finally the Ghost Writer was complaining that he had to go to a meeting that lasted all day and was not very exciting

Ooooooo yes we had the electrician visit this morning as our strange fault is still strange so first thing tomorrow they are coming to fix it . . . . . . They have a cunning plan…

I remember seeing 10CC at Knebworth a long time ago

The plebs and the plebeian classes, goats and strange food

So Monday back at the school to tell all of our great trip to the subterranean world, Professor Hardwigg is being very smug because he not only found a new world that he has named but he managed to get most of the pupils back to the surface with only a few loses, when the general view was we would all perish and never be seen again.  The headmaster seems a little disappointed he said the loss of the school party would have been very useful as it would have removed all the right people from the new academy.

It appears the school trip to the Swiss Alps had a few problems too which started with the posh luxury coach breaking down on the motorway and the pupils all had to push it for two miles. Then the ferry was delayed due to an industrial dispute brought about by Young Tarquin, Octavia, Peaches and Fabien calling the crew plebs and that their families were all from the plebeian classes. The pupils were then told that the first class overnight cabins were double booked and they would have to spend the night in the engine room like the other plebs.  Then when they got to the Swiss Alps there was no snow due to global warming so the headmaster decided that a march across the Alps would be good for morale…. It was not.

We asked if they had met interesting tribes and fascinating creatures like the Yeti, but they only met a rather noisy school party from Clacton on Sea and Goats. Well as we all know Goats have an incredible sense of smell and the wild goats of the Alps could smell the school mascot (the wild goat of the school roof) on their clothes which resulted in a large male trying to mate with young Targuin. Which in turn lead to him having an asthma attack, well no one knew what to do with a large male goat having an asthma attack, especially when it had young Tarquin pinned down in a compromising position? Tarquin is also much happier now that the Youtube video has been removed after complaints from the public and the Goats Lovers Society of Great Britain.

I think the final straw on the trip was when the rather posh hotel food took a turn for the worse; apparently for some reason shortly after Octavia called the head chef and his staff foreign plebs when they severed up a creature that they said was from a strange subterranean world and was a local delicacy but it did not like Octavia and tried to eat her fingers.  

OK that’s it for now I am drumming tonight so need to go and do things of importance like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AH DAMN I forgot, but it is important I am sure.

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The multiple dimensions of downwards, a castle and a birthday party

Today has been as much about catching up as actually getting anything done so for example I am still writing up my adventures in the underworld; OK not really so much the underworld as the world underground, as they are not entirely the same thing, as my very good friend Napoleon Beelzebub has pointed out. Although they are both in the same direction, it is more the fact they are not in the same dimension, much like myself and the Ghost Writer. In fact while on the subject of different dimensions I discovered that the old medieval castle that we stayed near which I will mention when I finally get things all written up (you lot are just going to have to wait until I am organized a bit . . . . . . . . . AH); OK yes this castle exists in several dimensions also. It has a real existence so exists in the world of the Ghost Writer; it has an existence in the real world of Rob Z Tobor (me) because as far as I’m concerned I’m real. And then I discovered it has an alternative existence as a French castle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  So I have now discovered that not only did we miss a chance to get all the gold from the centre of the Earth we have also missed an opportunity to find the Holy Grail and possibly the odd autograph……

Anyway the farmer has now filled the tunnels created by the cows, so they are a bit dispirited and are chewing grass in despair, roaming about in the fields in a sort of random fashion as if their goal in life has been taken away from them. However the sting in the tail for us was that one of their tunnels has resulted in the main road being closed and we were forced to undertake a huge detour in order to get to the birthday party of Miss Elle tonight who was seventeen while we were away in the depths of the subterranean caverns. It appears the road will now be closed for at least three weeks because cows make large tunnels but are not good at engineering the supports . . . . . . . 

It was a bit of a shock all that frost and sunlight this morning I had to wear sunglasses at breakfast and a woolly hat although it did turn into a really lovely day. OK I better go it is getting on as I have been at a birthday party and had to go and return the long way. . . .

Oooo I saw two of those powered parachute things going over the house today and an Austin Maxi. I thought all Austin Maxi’s were well dead, ironically on the way to the birthday party we did pass the Austin Maxi again and it appeared to be dead with people peering into the engine. Such is life. 

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