Do Not Press the Large Red Button

 Today was another day of ticking along quietly and I must admit to not achieving a great deal, but then that is the great dilemma of mankind, human progress is slow. Anyway today saw several visitors for lunch including Miss Jo and Master Ja and Miss E plus Miss I and Mrs Ghost Writer and the Ghost Writer.  Master Ja reminded the Ghost Writer that he has to put together a super gaming computer made out of old bits from classic Edison radiograms, something he promised to do ages ago . . . . . the Ghost Writer said AH a lot but has promised to complete the task pronto which means in the next few days.

After long chats and lunch everyone vanished and went off to do the stuff they have to do but not long after dad noticed that a certain button had been pressed, it was the large red button that has the words DO NOT PRESS written on it in large type. It is a strange thing but once you write do not press on a button the one thing that some people can not resist doing is pressing the button, and it appears that today is no exception. Yes the button had been pressed.

I had always wondered about this button but luckily it was not me that pressed it, it might have been Master Ja, he is the sort of young chap who faced with a big button and someone saying go on give it a press, I have always wondered what it did, would be unable to resist. Dad did look a little worried and had to admit that is was attached to the weather machines Armageddon destruction setting which he had added as a bit of a laugh as you do, well most mad scientists would. The reason being it keeps the massed folk from the village storming your home with fiery torches intend on destroying your experiment. As dad says there is nothing quite like the threat of the end of the world to keep the masses in their place, which of course is true as long as you don’t put DO NOT PRESS on a big friendly red button; as the old saying goes . . . . curiosity killed the cat (and everyone else too).

It was OK though because there was an override key in a safe place so that it was safe and would not get lost, I know about them I have several things still lost in a safe place which I hope one day I will remember where it is.  It was just like one of those Bond movies where the bomb ticks and Bond still can’t find his secret gadget in the boot of his car. Dad said that the sun would turn very red and then explode, and earth would be swallowed whole by a  huge hot cloud of stuff like porridge (sounds like funny weather to me).

 Anyway to cut a long story short, I got a picture of the sun just before dad found the key with a whole 25 seconds to spare. . . . . . PHEW.

Although the Ghost Writer is complaining it means he has to make a gaming PC out of radiograms now. . . .    

Pizza Slice, The Dark Creature of the Undergrowth, Aliens and Elsewhere

I have not achieved a great deal today, it has been that sort of day I looked at a little job involving some tongue and groove panelling but did not have the things I needed, so sort of waved the various bits about shook my head a lot pointed and said OOOOO sorry madam it needs a new thermitechnic screw adjuster like all good plumbers and then said I would be back two weeks next Thursday. However mum said I was not a plumber I was an IDIOT and sent me out to do things elsewhere, but I knew where here was and I knew where there was but I could not find elsewhere. Despite asking everyone I ran into (I say ran into I was walking and did not make any physical contact) such as the Banshees and the Lemmings of Petrograd, who were playing leap frog ( Lemmings, leap frog . . . . .HAH HAHAHHAHAHH HAH ha hah ah hah ah ahahhah ha ha ha) a few Zombies, a few Cows, a Raven, The Dark Creature of the Undergrowth, Mr Jones, Esmeralda and Freddie who have formed a new group called ‘Watching Alien Invasion Tactics’ or WAIT for short. Apparently Mr Jones often chases aliens through the woods shouting WAIT  . . . . . . take me to your leader.

Hang on what was I saying  . . . . . . AH YES elsewhere; when I asked everyone I was looking for elsewhere they would generally scratch their heads ask if I meant here and when I said no they would suggest over there but I was not looking for there I was looking for elsewhere. I spent a lot of time doing that until I worked out I had been here there and everywhere, although not elsewhere. You can see how a chaps day can vanish like sand through the fingers of a little old ladies hand when perusing such a task, strangely it is the sort of task us chaps will do for hours and women tend not too even for five minutes, although I don’t know why?

In other news I noticed on the news that a man who I believe was a captain of Star Trek although not Captain Kirk (the real captain) was going on about never eating a pizza slice before even though he is now seventy, although he has eaten pizza. Now call me an IDIOT but me and the Ghost Writer who is well old, are well confused what is a pizza slice if it is not a pizza, If either of use go out a restaurant and order a pizza we want the whole thing not a bit of it.  As I say the poor old Ghost Writer (note the word OLD) and I don’t understand what they were talking about.

Oooo I was a bit rushed for a picture tonight so I photographed my dinner (I know it is a bit healthy looking) and it is not pizza. 

The probability of rain at the wrong time, buttered toast and the calculation of the hypothetical average.

It is Wednesday today about half way through a school holiday in late May and we all know what that means, yes the weather has taken a turn for the worse. It is strange because statistically I have now worked out that school holidays are mainly wet regardless of the time of year. It is possible to work out the probability using hot buttered slices of toast dropped onto the floor as the hypothetical average of the chances of rain.

If you then use a large steam catapult to fire small school children into random passing clouds at a fixed regular interval, by taking note of the state of them as they return to the ground it is possible to see that in most cases they are cold wet and suffering from shock, a clear sign they have passed though a thunder storm. Hot buttered toast never suffers from shock and sixty three percent of it lands happily butter side up allowing me to eat two thirds of all the toast (OK a few slices have a bit of fluff on but that’s fine). In contrast to only five percent of children who on landing will eat a slice of hot buttered toast. Eighty one percent of them will go and lie down, face down with there head hiding under the pillow and say get him away from me Mummy, I don’t like the clouds a clear sign that for reasons unknown to man as yet I really should be allowed to have my holidays outside the normal holidays. And if you do have children ensure you leave them in school when you go on holiday, I think you will find you are much happier (with the improved weather).

I spent a little more time sorting the garage today it is rather full as it was the overflow for stuff when we moved here 18 months ago or so. The garage at the time was the overflow and folk would look at things and say Ooooooooo I don’t know where that is going? ? ? . . . . stick it in the garage, it is a common moving house problem, and seventy two percent of houses have boxes of prized items in garages, cellars and attics doomed to a life in a box as a result of a house move.  Did you know that even in the bank vaults of the world there are items worth millions that have been stashed away by people moving and they will never see them again. 

Oooooooo yes Harry the Cat is wagging his tale at God. 

A Request for five happy things from Mr klahanie

This is an additional little post I have created and its all that Mr klahanie's fault as he has been playing blog-tag where you get tagged and then do what ever it is required of you to do. Mr klahanie's seems like a nice chap and has all the ingredients required to make him a member of RATs; because he is a nice chap I have decided to do the blog-tag game although I will not be passing it on to others to avoid the inevitable pyramid selling scams of the past. Where innocent folk bought what they thought were good wholesome ancient pyramids from Egypt only to discover they were fake cardboard pyramids stolen from baby and toddler groups across Britain . . . . . . . The scream of “someone has stolen my pyramid mummy” still sends a shudder through the financial world to this day.

Sorry a distraction .. .... . . 

I am here to tell of five things that make me happy (five that's hard)

1

The first is snowmen, I love snowmen and will make then when ever I can, even if there is almost no snow. Say hello Berty

2

Pets, although you should never smile at a crocodile. My bed which the cats have confiscated 

3

Beaches, I love the sea and you can’t beat Scotland with no massed masses on it sunbathing. This was the view from the tiny stone  holiday home we stopped in on our last holiday (some time back now)

4

Fairy lights you cant have toooooo many fairy lights, this was last years temporary structure to eat out in the summer (someone nicked summer though) 

5

Making cardboard sculpture things such as pyramids and selling them to the punters (OH DAMN what a give-away) 

OK Mr klahanie Duty done i will go and write my diary entry now PHEW

The Ups and Downs of Life, and the Capacity of the Brain

As you know over the last few days I have done this and that and also moved stuff here and there, all very good but it appears I have tweaked my back now and so it is rather sore and so I cant do triple somersaults on the high wire while riding a unicycle and juggling burning torches. As it happens I could not do them before but my brain would tell me that I could very easily if I so chose to do so, brains are like that always convinced that the body they are attached to is better than it is. In fact I think it would not be unreadable to say the greatest cause of accidents today is brains thinking beyond the capability of the body.

Even I have fallen fowl of this in the past by moving a washing machine/drier single handed into a cellar and then realizing once it was over the first step that just maybe it was rather heavy to move on your own down a steep set of steps. However as I was on my own at the time my brain had to convince my body that it was possible, and so no harm was done once the builders invisibly mended the hole in the wall.

What a rotten day it has been today just like last summer with rain and wind and flooded roads, there is nothing quite like a British summer they are more fickle that the ficklest fickle thing you could think of. . . . . . . . . Talking of which.

The Ghost Writer was in his office today and it appears news is starting to emerge of what will be happening now that all the funding for the office he works in has gone. It appears the office might well go although he says he will almost certainly be told he has to move all the IT stuff (there is loads of it) to another office already full of stuff, It is strange that no stuff comes along for ages and then all of a sudden there is stuff everywhere but not necessarily in the right place. He also has a back problem now and the prospect of moving mountains of IT equipment let alone rewire it all up is something he is not looking forward too. But it also appears that his work colleagues who do other non IT stuff are loosing loads of working hours so things are going to be a bit tough for some of them, not what you want when the weather is so rotten, or someone accidentally drops a washing machine through your wall.

Ooooooo yes the cat is feeling better but he has been out in the rain

And finally here on the blog I must add a big thank you to The Woven Tale Press A-Z Special Edition folk for using a letter from my own A to Z, it is good to be included as one of the twenty six posts out of all the hundreds they could have picked particularly when I am a rather grumpy sole. So why not have a little peek it looks rather good although the drawing on the letter V is rubbish .. . .. . .. . . … . Just click on the pic.

The Garage, the cat and being poorly

Today has proved to be very different to yesterday. The weather man said yesterday that we could expect rain where we were at two o’clock, and at five minutes to two it started to rain. And it has also been about 20˚ C colder today than yesterday.

I have been rearranging the garage and so it looks remarkably tidy at present but you still can’t get a car in it, something that is fairly typical for Britain. It is strange just how common it is to have a garage and the last thing that anyone puts in it is a car on the grounds that it is an entire waste of space, even when you have loads of space both outside and inside the garage; unless  you have seriously posh car that you get all paranoid about, worrying it might get wet. The big garage clean up is in preparation for the possible arrival at some point of a load of stuff.

Thinking outside the Blog's 

Now yesterday was ticking along OK right up to evening when I started to feel a bit on the cold side, colder that I should have considering it had been such a lovely day. Then I started to get colder so I spend half of last night physically shivering in bed, so cold it was impossible to sleep properly; then about four in the morning I warmed up and got so hot that it was very difficult to get to sleep and I ended up with a headache. So today has been a long day because I have been very tired, I have just had a siesta for a bit to get my wits together. Interestingly I have not been the only one not feeling well, as Sooty the Cat has slept most of the day and hardly eaten and looks like he may have been beaten up by geese or Zombies although Zombies would have eaten his brain and he would now be wandering about like a Zombie which just at present he is. . . . . . .AH.

Last night in my state of frozen delirium I did manage to finish a new members badge for my rather elitist blogging group RATs, the Radical Abstract Thinkers, there is nothing quite like a new posh hand drawn members badge to rekindle interest or justify the huge membership fee.

OK I am off now as I am still not 100 percent and need to be on full alert in case I am attacked by a zombie cat.

A bit of this, a bit of that, summer and stuff

After yesterdays little taster of summer today was even better WOW how did that happen, that’s two whole days of sun with swallows flying about and Zombies sun bathing in the clearing in the wood. Mr Jones hates it when the Zombies sun bath he reckons it’s not good for alien watchers, he says a Zombie tried to eat one of the aliens once which is not good for inter-planet diplomatic relations. He says he even tried to get the police to help but they sniggered and seemed to be indifferent to the plight of the alien and suggested Mr Jones gave the Zombie one of his bacon sandwiches.  You would think the police would know that Zombies don’t eat bacon, I think there might be a bit of retraining needed.  

Anyway I have done it again I have drifted from the point which was . . . . . . . . . . . . MMMmmmmmmmmm    . . . . . . . . . .  AH yes it was a really sunny day.

Now remember yesterday I mentioned I was doing stuff with stuff and looking at stuff and the like, well I really should never have written that it was a major error because it appears that we may have to store someone else’s stuff for a while. So I spent part of today moving our stuff to make room for someone’s else’s stuff in case their stuff should turn up. I have a habit of writing things in my diary that then happen, this is fundamentally entirely the wrong way round and I was always told I should write what has happened after it has happened. I am starting to feel a bit like that Nostradamus chap, although he was rather cunning and allowed a certain amount of vagueness to his dates so that the end of the world was anything from 1969 to sometime in 2350 or there about’s give or take the odd millennium or two.

Ooooo what was I saying . . . . . . . .  AH yes the sun, apart from moving stuff I also did a bit of this and that, as it happens this is a very rural activity and many people spend their entire lives doing a bit of this and that and it is possible to make a  reasonable living doing this and that for a bit of cash (nudge nudge say no more, a wink is as good as a nod to a blind bat). Apparently the main problem is the tax man according to dad; and the Ghost Writer, says he was one paid in curry (lots of curry) for an IT job, and the tax man got a bit hot under the collar about that too. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . HAH AHHAH HAH HAH ah hah hhah ahha hah ah hah ah ahh ah ha hah ahah ahahhaha hah ah ha hahahah hah ha ha ha ha.

Sorry about that  . . . . . . . mum says IDIOT.   

The Stuff of Summer

What a lovely day it really was summer here today, a whole day of summer may not seem a great deal to some of you but to us in the UK that is about one day more than we got last year. There is even rumour that tomorrow may be summer too, however Monday which is a bank holiday in the UK (for some) is rumoured to be wet with loads of rain attacking us from the West. I plan to draw Blinkanditsgon the Micro God of British Summer outside while I eat my tea tonight in the setting sun, let’s face it we need to make the most of it while we can. And I need to remind myself of what the sun looks like to draw a suitable image.

I have had a good day of sawing stuff, moving stuff, eating stuff, poking sticks at stuff, throwing stuff at more stuff, shouting stuff, climbing stuff, hiding stuff, loosing stuff, smelling stuff, looking at stuff, kicking stuff, finding the stuff I lost, making stuff with stuff, and I will soon be drawing stuff to add to the stuff I have written about stuff in my diary, which quite frankly is enough stuff for one day.

So I will go now and do more stuff, well draw stuff but as you will only read this after the stuff I am about to do is done I guess in reality there is stuff you don’t need to know. There is loads of stuff I don’t know about stuff which if I did I could tell you about but I don’t so I can’t. . . . . . . . Mum says IDIOT  . . . . . . . She says stuff like that. 

Cyberblogamus the Micro God of Blogs

The Weather today is cold, sometimes a bit sunny with some hail and rain. So not a great day really as it feels I have time warped back to February. I am in the process of creating and establishing a series of Micro Gods in the school grounds to get feedback as to the viability of making my fortune as the Mr Big of Micro Gods. My attempted meeting with the powers that be in Lego started badly when they saw me went AAAAuugggHHHH a lot and threw bricks at me (luckily they were Lego bricks) . It ended badly as well, as the chairman’s desk which I swear was a bit wobbly before I touched it fell apart and then the chairman’s arm fell off, I always thought Meccano was much better using nuts and bolts, lets face it Frankenstein’s Monster was held together with bolts and his arm never fell off. Just image if  Frankenstein’s Monster had been made with Lego, poor old Professor Frankenstein would have been a laughing stock.

Sorry a slight distraction, I have made the school mascot, the goat the Micro God of unsociable animals, Freddie the Micro God of Ferrets and Esmeralda the Micro God of part Steam Powered scary girls with chainsaw attachments. They all seem very pleased but the goat is demanding a shrine and offerings, in particular chocolate chip cookies and ice cream plus fresh vegetables from the out of town supermarket, maybe living Micro Gods is not such a good move.

We are off out tonight to a talk in Monty town hall about artists from the area and to see one of the founders of the 56 Group; a group of artists formed in 1956 and who are now starting to be collected nationally. We are hoping Mr M E will have a signed copy of his book for us tonight so that will be WELL COOL.  We have a couple of his pictures in the house and have known him for quite a long time now, he is getting rather frail these days but then he is one of the founder members of the 56 Group, so mathematically that makes a lot of sense.

And I have drawn Cyberblogamus the Micro God of Blogs in order to bring good luck and fortune to my blog, although someone said that very nice Steven Spielberg is not keen on snakes . . . . . . . .  DAMN . . . . . . Maybe I should make it look more horse like.   

Religion and Micro Gods, A Master Plan.

It can be a right old game writing this diary at times what with the surrealness (which apparently is not a real word, very surreal) of a life half in cyberspace and half in real life. Because it is important to log events in the real world to complement those of cyberspace, if I just made stuff up and wrote nonsense it would turn into complete gibberish that no one could make head nor tail of. . . . . . . AH DAMN. But sadly things in the real world are not always nice, well to tell the truth most items classed as newsworthy are in general events of death or destruction, war or a group of bankers and high fly capitalists running off with all the money.  I told my teachers that I was planning to be a high fly capitalist and run off with all the money and they said there was a long queue and I may need a better plan and also would need to be neat and tidy.

Anyway as a result of yesterdays news in the UK I have decided that Religion needs a bit of a shake up (again), I appreciate that the so called religious\political protesters of yesterday were in fact deluded nutters , but to quote several politicians over the years, we should not look at the crime but the causes of crime….

So I return to the subject of Gods again tonight, and the fact there are just not enough of them; when large groups all start saying we are right you are wrong all that happens are fights, there is even fighting and killing within the same religion at times which is stupid and pointless, but a result of large groups. So I will again say we need lots of Gods, thousands, maybe millions so that there is no wrong God or wrong religion, and yes I have pointed this out recently and no doubt will do again in the future, but the world of the Micro God is the way to world peace.

Each Micro God would have its own Micro Religion (or Micligion) and folk could follow loads of different ones depending on how keen they are. Children would learn of the many Micro Gods from the incredibly popular game of Micro Religion, Top Trumps, folk rubbing their little Micro God for luck at the start of the game.

All this will lead to the unifying political party known to all as the Micro Party which will sweep the world by storm with its snappy slogan of “A big party of small ideas” and I will then lead this party to eventually rule the world and call myself Emperor Rob Z Tobor insisting that a large image of myself is placed on all main streets . . . . .  just before I run off with all the money wearing a nice suit. 

Immortality, Franciscan Monks a Steam powered, electro-mechanical person called Igor and a Rabbit

In a battle to become immortal , I have offered my blog (of my daily diary) to the British Library for posterity, I would prefer to offer them the hardback edition with the all its medieval illuminated lettering and the like, but as I am still working on volume three (that’s year three) of what is a long term project the producers of the  hardback edition with all its medieval illuminated lettering, a group of free lance Franciscan Monks living on an isolated rock in the local lake told me to go away. When I say they said go away they shouted stuff in Latin and threw seagulls at me.  However I mentioned that the very nice Steven Spielberg is a regular visitor to my diary, (well OK I regularly mention him from time to time in my diary) and this did make them reconsider things and they have implied that as long as they get to do a song and dance routine in the musical and, can have Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers autographs then they will do a quick write up, I say quick it appears it may take up to fifteen years and I have to supply my own gold leaf.

So in the meantime I have been left with leaving the blog to the nation as a record of life as it is here in the wild (OK not very wild) hills on the borders of England and Wales, a place full of dragons and monsters and Zombies and Strange old men in flat caps who drive in mysterious ways on the open highway in old 4X4’s once owned by Franciscan Monks back in the Bronze age.

I am very optimistic that they will be keen to lock my diary away in the darkest vault for ever so that it will be safe from the ravishes of being read (Hang on that sounds wrong).

It appears dad is also keen to create something that will last for posterity so he is working on Igor a Steam powered, electro-mechanical person that will be controlled by a suitable human brain and triple A batteries.  All he needs is the correct sized brain, which apparently is exactly the same size as my own one, that’s a bit of a coincidence. . . . . . AH DAMN.      

Oooooooooooooooo yes I saved a bunny from under one of the sofa’s this morning that Sotty the cat was considering having for breakfast.

Meeting and Nature

I have returned to tell all of news before I scurry off to eat curry. The Ghost Writer as I mentioned yesterday was off to a meeting in which he thought he might find out news of events at his big office, bearing in mind it is on the brink of a huge funding crisis. However it appears the powers that be have yet to make a decision as to what will happen, so he will have to continue going to work for the present, I know it’s terrible but these things happen.

Anyway what with the Ghost Writer and myself being otherwise busy with the real world and time being very limited I will have to go again. It’s a strange old world as here right now the sun is shining and all is peaceful and only a few hours ago a huge tornado ripped through Oklahoma City killing many people and causing chaos. It just goes to show that nature can be a scary beast and will do its own thing and there is little we can do when it is angry.

The Dinner Jacket and other things.

It appears that efforts are a foot (I know I really don’t understand the saying myself), to make me tidy as I will be going to a wedding next month at the house of Mr Charlie and Miss Jane, they are already married so it is not them getting married. Where big posh tents and the like will be scattered about the gardens for the massed masses most of whom I don’t know. As it happens I don’t think Mr Charlie or Miss Jane know many of them either so that’s OK.  We are out tomorrow night to have an Indian meal at the Indian restaurant with them so they will be able to tell us how plans are progressing then.

But as I was saying plans are a foot (underway) to make me a tidy person and so today I have gained a dinner jacket; no laughing or else I will mention you in my diary and make sure that when the film is made by the nice Steven Spielberg, the sniggering will be done by someone you don’t like.  It is only the jacket as the whole dinner suit would make me look like a drunken waiter and strangers would demand strangely named cocktails from me or nibbles on a silver tray. The plan is to turn me into a posh eccentric so I will get to wear a flashing, revolving bow tie, musical cufflinks and other accessories worn by posh folk that us scruffy lefties from the working class don’t understand. It does appear the dinner jacket was a bargain at M&S for £35.00 so that is  OK I like bargains.

Miss I and Mr S have just called by, heading to the Castle of the Bishop to have a curry there, this is the other Indian restaurant not the one we are off to tomorrow. It is Miss I’s birthday (happy birthday Miss I) and so they got to see my dinner jacket, I think they sniggered, but pretended that they did not . . . . .

Ooooooo yes tomorrow is the big meeting for the Ghost Writer, he is not a great fan of all day meetings and would rather poke things with a pointy stick, much like myself (no not poke me with the pointy stick).

Oooooo (again) there is another picture delay tonight as I need to go off and draw it now and drink tea.

What came first, the chicken or the chainsaw. . . . .

Sunday, the sun was shining and it was lovely and warm all day, I did not have to venture into the Zombie Defence Ditch as it is doing what it is meant to do, we have seen no Zombies today. I even chopped a few logs because as  sure as fish are fish or what ever it is you say all this sun will run off and hide again soon, and all the rain will run all over the place and make things wet.

Chopping logs is one of those jobs us chaps like because we get to wave chainsaws about and large axes in a slightly demented way going HAH HAHHAHAH AH hah ah hah ah hah ah hah hahah hahahh hah ahhahah a lot as we do. It also amuses any passing motorists if you cover the wood pile in tomato ketchup and mannequin body parts.  You can always tell if a passing motorist has spotted you as they swerve all over the road, I assume because they are having a bit of a giggle at the image of a mad axe man. One motorist did stop and looked at the torso of my mannequin as I was wiping tomato ketchup off the chainsaw blade, but I told them its OK because it was completely armless . . . . . . . . .. HAHHAH HAHH HAH AHH AH hahh ah hah ah ha hah ah hahahh ha hah ahhahahhah,  Oooooo I did have a good laugh but they suddenly vanished off at speed, so I guess they were running a bit late.

We met one of our new neighbours today she was a sort of brownish red colour and walked funny, but it turned out to be a Gallus Gallus Domesticus or as it is more commonly known a Rhode Island Red. Still it has finally resolved one of the worlds great riddles . . . . . . What came first the chicken or the egg . . . . . because clearly the correct answer is the chicken as an egg can’t wander through the fence from next door.

Parties. Poo Men and Eurovision

Life is a strange thing full of ups and downs, last night there I was at a posh dimmer (sorry dinner) party of which I will write in a bit and then today I had a slight down. . . . . No not in the way you might think, you see I had popped out to do a little work on the Zombie Defence Ditch which as you know (most know) is connected to the septic tank, well no Zombie is going to climb over that lot. So I thought; OK DAD thought I should check the septic tank to ensure all was well, but I made the error of taking one step backwards and sort of fell downwards in the septic tank in a sort of YUCK way. So today I became a Poo Man, I now know why you seldom see Poo men because other folk have a habit to either running away or turning cold nose (hose) pipes on you shouting “AAAAAAUuuuuuuuuuugggggHHHHH go away it’s a monster . . .IT'S  Poo MAN” . It appears that the life of a Poo Man is not all it is cracked up to be (I can’t help but feel there is a terrible joke in that statement somewhere).

OK enough on that I will return to last night which was very good and we all had a lovely evening and it was great food, a really interesting curry that was an Indonesian favourite of the host from her days in the grand palaces of Indonesia. I did have a couple of problems one was the interesting Indonesian serving implements which involves a special technique in order not to appear to throw curry at the person sitting next to you. Luckily the person sat next to me was very good at using them but unluckily for them I was not. Then I was faced with two knifes and a spoon one side of the plate and a fork the other and a fork and a spoon at the top of the plate, a configuration of cutlery I have not seen before. But luck was on my side as the others had by now been distracted by the person next to me who was covered in curry.

What was also rather cool is the house was full of Indonesian furniture and we had to light a candle for a little God (a God of good fortune and money) whose name I can’t remember. It was a small painted god about two foot high but the host told us that is was painted in order that it could be shipped home OK without any agro as it was made of gold and shipping solid gold Gods about can cause a bit of bother with customs and the like. It still looked cool though even though it still had its paint job, done back in the streets on Indonesia.

Anyway as I said it was a great meal and we finally got home sometime around two in the morning. And I did not see Steven Spielberg; I think he might have been concerned his nice white jacket would end up covered in curry.

OOooooooooo finally it is the Eurovision Song Contest tonight so I am predicting the UK will do rubbish based on two facts; one the UK song will be terrible (I have not heard it yet so it must be), the UK has produced some really bad songs of late and then folk wonder why we come last. The second fact is the rest of Europe don’t like us so no one would vote for us even if we had a good song . . . . . Please note I can write this before it all starts because these facts are a dead certainty or my name is not Rumblestilskin. 

Dinner with friends,but not Steven Spielberg.

I am off to eat with friends tonight at their house in Monty, now this for a very scruffy bloke is a bit of a game because you see we are eating with folk who by tradition like to dress up for dinner, an old custom not really done by scruffy folk like myself or the masses in general these days. And some other friends have been invited who are ex diplomats who as we know traditionally dress for dinner. So I am left with a dilemma because somehow I need to not look scruffy, some of you will say well that’s easy wear some nice clothes and if all else fails comb your hair something I did once but folk sniggered, so I try and avoid it.  The problem is I have tried many things, many times and have even resorted as a last resort to wearing a suit but the majority verdict on that occasion was I looked scruffy and somehow made a decent suit that had done no one no harm look dead scruffy also. 

Not Steven Spielberg 

What this means right now is that I will be going off to try and look respectable and it may take some time, apparently Zombie fancy dress is not allowed . . . . . DAMN.  So this is it, this is tonight’s diary entry as I am unsure as to when I will be back, I was rather hoping that nice Steven Spielberg might be there but it seems last time he turned up wearing a crumpled white jacket and an untrimmed beard so may not be allowed back in by the doorman.  I may have to keep my fingers crossed and rely on being the mad eccentric British chap, sometimes that can work . . . . . . 

Neil Armstrong and the slightly faulty space suit

Today has not been that exciting, it is as I have said before not easy to do exciting stuff every single day so sometimes it is best to go off on a tangent and look at other events that might be of more interest.  I think it is very likely that all humans have days that are not exciting, I bet Neil Armstrong’s diary was dead exciting as he went to the moon and back but even he would have times when he was not doing exciting things. Writing . . .  

‘got up, had breakfast took the dog (Mandy) for a walk, tried on space suit ate dinner, tried on space suit again went home fed dog, dog wagged tail but chewed hole in space suit . . .’

 It's OK, but let’s face it not the sort of stuff folk want to read, they want to know about the aliens on the moon and the hand to hand combat with huge moon monsters and how he managed to hold his breath for three hours after finding a hole in his space suit made by a dog. I can remember him climbing down those steps onto the moon, and then saying in a slightly hesitant way “That's one small bite for Mandy and one giant hole for man. . . . . . . .AH DAMN”.

So you see I am at the stage in life where dogs are chewing holes in my space suits and have made my moon trip to fight moon monsters even trickier than it was going to be. However to resolve this I have been out to draw a selection of possible monsters I could fight back here on planet Earth that might make interesting reading at some point in the future if all else fails (like the space suit). OK my battle with the fly might not last long unless I can convince dad to make a thirty foot high steam powered hydraulic nano technology controlled  man eating fly with pointy teeth and a buzz ray that can destroy cats (sorry I think I mean destroy buildings).

OK I am off now

Oooooo yes Sooty the cat has taken to sleeping on the ceiling at night but no one knows why, very odd.    

The Lone Ranger, Tonto and the Pirate

I saw a trailer for that film The Lone Ranger the other day and it was a bit of a surprise because it did not appear to me to be anything like the original Lone Ranger. For a start off Tonto in the original was a Red Indian and it appears that in the remake Tonto is a pirate so I am expecting  to here “White man speak with forky tongue kemosabe HAR HAR HAR ….Pieces of Eight” . I say this because Tonto looks just like that Robert Newton who played Captain Long John Jack Sparrow in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Blind Pugh is eaten by the creature from the black lagoon. I was told that Tonto even has a pet Vulture that sits on his shoulder and sings “I shot the sheriff but I did not eat the deputy” during a rather heated gun battle with the cowboys with black hats in an attempt to distract them for The Lone Ranger and his horse Silver, so called because as Tonto says “He cost heap much money, not so kemosabe . . . . me think kemosabe well ripped off”.

I really wonder why they had so much agro back in the days of the wild west because it is a known fact that if you wore a white hat you were a goody and if you wore a black hat you were a baddy. Although railroad owners who often wore battered top hats or even bowler hats were in general not very nice (some things never change). And they never had any problems with aliens they did not arrive until about 1950 when loads of them turned up all at once, probably waiting for Gary Cooper and John Wayne to get too old to shot at them. It would be good if there were aliens in The Lone Ranger then Tonto could say “Take me to your leader kemosabe” or as in the original, look at the ground and say things like “An alien passed this way many moons ago, he limp on both left legs and has patch over all five eyes and is called Dennis”

Anyway in other news WHAT is going on with the weather, last night we had the rain from hell (that’s a lot of rain) so we had flooding on all the roads, there was snow on the hills and between the hail stones today it was either nice and sunny or bitterly cold. The sooner dad gets the weather machine fixed the better. . . . . . . . . PHEW.

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Important unknown facts about rain and a faulty weather machine

It has returned to winter again and it is not the weather machine at fault either because it has a fault and is not working. It seems that the rotten weather is entirely natural today in fact dad insists that today is normal and that unless he fixes the weather machine and turns it on again then this weather will last for at least another few weeks or maybe longer. Well that is extremely bad news. I don’t mind the wet so much but when it is wet and cold it is very hard to remain motivated, and bouncy. 

It appears even Esmeralda and the school goat have started to be effected by the weather now as they tried to use the steam powered catapult to enter the local botanical greenhouse gardens through the open skylight. Bearing in mind that the sky lights are temperature controlled, so on a day like today were well and truly closed.

They are both OK though because as everyone knows Esmeralda is bionic so most of her is mechanical and fairly robust and those bits of her that are real are also fairly robust. And the goat of course is a goat and as we all know goats are fairly indestructible beasts, well certainly in cyberspace they are.

Apparently if you laid every rain drop that fell in a year end to end they would stretch round the Earth  1293 times and weight more that the entire weight of every bath in the world which if laid end to end  would take a long time to fill up unless you could get the rain to only fall in baths but the water would be very cold on days like today so no one would use baths and have showers instead, which is a bit like standing in the rain only warmer (no one likes a cold shower).

The Maths teacher has worked out that the surface area of all the rain in the air at any one time in the world is at least five times the surface area of the earth. Although he has had to assume the earth has a perfectly flat surface with no bump, hills or grains of sand or waves at sea and the like. If you take into account every surface at a molecular level then the surface of the Earth is greater than that of the universe, assuming the universe is smooth.

I might go now and hide from the rain in the bath, if I lie end to end in the bath my feet stick out the top but no rain can fall on me.

Pizza, Marmite Fudge a Blue Sugar Mouse and newts

I have had a long day doing IT stuff with the Ghost Writer, normally that is his area of expertise but he needed someone to use as a human guinea pig to conduct IT experiments on and the only person anyone could think of, who it was felt was expendable was me. Apparently a life in the twilight of reality and cyberspace means I can poke about into a PC and prod RAM and stuff and go oooo no that bit of code does not fit between the bed and the wardrobe and it clashes with the red curtains. It appears this is not how normal IT conversations go between IT folk, but then we are not normal IT folk, well the Ghost Writer certainly is not for a start off he hates computers and says they are the devils work.  He often makes the point that people think by using computers in their office they will use less paper, but the reality is you use more because you can generate more things to print much faster but very often get it wrong at least once.

After a long day of doing IT not only was the Ghost Writer totally spaced out as he is every weak, but so was I. But on my return home and after some pizza and marmite fudge and a blue sugar mouse, I spent the evening doing African drumming with my drumming colleague who is making a pond at present and was wondering if we could sell him some black market crested  newts out of our pond in a sort of nudge nudge wink wink say no more sort of way. Well you know what newts are like, a right bunch of prima donnas.

So there you have it I am late tonight and it is all the ghost Writers fault (again), I bet Steven Spielberg does not have problems with Ghost Writers and computers, and fitting computer code into a  Victorian alcove with an old guilt mirror and flying ducks hanging on the floral wallpaper hand printed in china in 1924.

Sorry it is all a bit of a rush tonight and very late and my brain hurts...... PHEW

Never discuss Politics and Religion on Sunday

There are things they say that should never be discussed such as politics and religion, but as you know I do sometimes discuss politics although not very often. However I am sure I have not discussed religion in my diary yet, well not until now (OK I might have I can’t remember), you see this morning we were asked to nip across the road to the village hall to say farewell to the Bishop (he is retiring), not something we would normally do as I don’t know the Bishop.

Living in a small village though means we all have to do our bit so we went to have tea and biscuits with the Bishop and several other vicars and the like, to tell the truth I didn’t know who most of them were and as it turned out none of them knew who I was. And we all drank tea and ate biscuits and complained about the weather, it appears even a Bishop can’t change the weather. I did say that dad can change the weather but unfortunately most of the time it goes wrong because of the intervention of cats causing agro in the works of the weather machine.  One of the vicars said that may explain the small print at the bottom of the church insurance policy which had a disclaimer saying certain things may be regarded as an act of cats….

Anyway I was telling the Bishop that one of the drawbacks of modern religion is that there are only a few Gods left and the result is war and violence as each religion condemns other religions as blasphemous, and the solution was to employ the early Roman idea of having loads of Gods for all sorts of things and adopting everyone else’s gods as well. So our little village could have our own Gods to help with various local issues as can all the other villages and towns. The result of this would be an end to religious wars because there would be so many different Gods that the best army anyone could muster for a holy war would be Bert and Jim from the local pub and maybe Jim’s sheep dog.  It seems very logic to me but the Bishop did not seem entirely convinced, so I was unable to get him to approve of Zombus the God of Zombie Defence Ditches and Soakaways  which was a shame and will mean I need to go down a deep hole again soon . . . . . . .DAMN.

God moves in mysterious ways it appears, much like our soakaway.

Oooooooo Miss I and Mr S came to visit today and I can now say Mr S likes Madras Fudge and Miss I does not, this may turn into a man thing like Bangers and Mash with loads of Fried Onions.