Cows, Zombies and Me, but not Football.

(32....)

I am still working on the workshop; progress is exceedingly slow at present because not having a design can lead to technical issues as you progress. One of which I am trying to sort out in a neat way so that no one will ever know I might have made a design error. And I have almost finished . . . . Phew . . . . It is not structural so the workshop will not fall down, but I needed to sort it before I put the corrugated sheets on the outside walls or that would have been so much harder. Anyway that should now be a piece of cake . . . . . That’s an odd saying. Why something being relatively easy should be linked to a piece of cake makes no sense to me. If someone asked me to make a piece of cake I would consider that extremely difficult indeed. And not a piece of cake even if it was actually a piece of cake if you get my drift.  I mean I can make ginger biscuits dead easy and damn good ones too, but cake no.

I have been out this evening saving a cow which had got onto the road and was well spooked. Not helped by idiots driving too fast and refusing to slow down for the poor critter. Anyway the farmer who owns the cow turned up and it is now safe in its field again. . . . We suspect it may have been Zombies that released it. For reasons I have not yet worked out it seems Cows don’t like Zombies and Zombies don’t like Cows. Actually when you look back on films involving Cows and Zombies it is hard to think of one where both Cows and Zombies feature, generally its either one or the other.

Right I plan to have a cup of tea and a chill not watching football in any form whatsoever . . . . I am not a fan of football and I suspect neither are the Cows or the Zombies. So despite our differences we have much in common.

Houseflies . . . . .What is their cunning game

As you know I live in the countryside with the woods to one side of us the fabled Minor Stream of Inconsequence behind us and rolling fields full of cows and the local village. I say village it is almost a village it is not big, but we do have a village hall which has its Friday market due to a twist of fate, and a rather good health food store that has been here for almost ever.

Now being rural with cows peering over the hedge at us and water (sort of) behind us means we do see rather a lot of flies in the summer, yes even the rural ideal has its little annoying issues and flies are a bit of a pain at times. But for reasons I have assumed must be connected to some sort of long term change in the world order or even linked to alien invasion, this year the flies have mutated. Yes they still look like your average housefly being blackish with six legs and wings but they are now ferocious and aggressive. 

I mean flies have always been a bit annoying but not actively aggressive dive bombing you and hitting you in the face. Flying directly at you rather than thinking OOOOoooo is a huge human I better get out the way. So why has this happened it is not something I have seen before. As I have said it must be something like aliens or the like.  I know aliens are a long shot but just imagine if insects coordinated their attack on us poor unsuspecting humans with our soft sensitive skin. I heard that once on a TV advert so it must be true, not that the insects had coordinated their attack on us, but that we have soft sensitive skin.

Another thought was maybe this is a global warming thing because insects can adapt much faster to environmental change than other critters which is why some beetles moths and other insect critters from warmer climates have been seen in Britain but not larger things such as Panthers, wallabies, porcupines and pterodactyls . . . . . AH DAMN. . .   No the point is all the big ones have been brought here by folk who then get bored and let them go, where as the little insects have made their way here by choice.

Still I may not know exactly why the flies are so aggressive (its aliens for sure), but they are; which is why we have a big glowing flyzap in the kitchen.  Finally I will say you can not but be impressed by a fly sat on the edge of a very hot frying pan like it has not got a care in the world trying to work out how to steal my bacon as it cooks. 

HD85512b also known as Earth 2 or Super Earth and possible issues that may arise

Earlier today while busy doing stuff I was contemplating writing an interesting tale about HD85512b or Earth Two as it has become known in the press.  Humans have long been keen to meet aliens and the like and this is a great opportunity if it was just a bit closer.  But then I thought to myself even if we did meet them communication would be rubbish.  We sort of assume most of the time that because as humans we are clever it would all be easy and anyway if aliens get to Earth they would be super clever and work out what we were talking about.

Well there are two important points, the first of which is if we are so damn clever how come we have never managed to talk to other species on Planet Earth. All critters communicate using some sort of language (OK some of the tiny ones don’t).  Maybe it is possible that science has already achieved this but it is an official secret for rather logical reasons, I mean imagine how folk would feel about eating beef if the following conversation happened every time you went near a field of cows.

Oooooo hello rob what have you got there is it nice

Ah yes its a burger, they are rather popular

It looks interesting is it made of grass

No its a bun made of bread with fried onions, a bit of mustard and A meat burger

meat???

Well when I say meat I mean stuff

Stuff. . . . . What sort of stuff

Well mmmm sort of beef

WHAT

Well its only a bit of meat, a tiny bit really Look

AAAuuuuugghhhh that looks like Gertrude.

Gertrude no its just a burger I mean I would never eat Gertrude, well certainly not any important bits.

I don’t like you any more

Ah sorry about that Look I will only eat sheep

Bastard. . . . . . . 

Well as humans kill or eat almost everything that moves communicating with it would cause issues so it might well be that science and the powers that be have suppressed this.

Of course the second issue is if super intelligent aliens did turn up they would look upon us in the same way we look upon Cows and think hey these critters will make great burgers. Leading to the following conversation

You can not eat us . . . we are Humans

and very tasty you are too

No you don’t understand we are intelligent beings

Are you sure . . . you have not done much

Yes we have . . .  we have been to the moon

AH hah ahah ah ah ah a hahah ah ahah h a ha hah ah ahaha ha you are funny critters the moon is just up there I mean it is not exactly very far is it.

Well we have stuff like Mmmmmmmmmmmm toasters and bombs and love a good war

Well I think that sort of proves our point. that is just a waist of a good burger. Look I tell you what I will not eat the squishy bits I don’t like them anyway, you can keep them

WHAT

Now just hop into this liquidiser

Bastard

So despite the human desire to meet aliens, one would have to conclude that it would not end well.  Let’s face it if we manage to get to a planet in the future will we communicate with the life on it or eat it, particularly if it has four legs and is cow shaped.

A repeat of the post from 14th Oct 2012 (Yes OK its lazy I know . . . BUT).

I have been very busy yet again today although strangely it allowed me to draw a cat and a Zombie so I have two pictures in reserve WELL COOL. But because of this busyness I have decided to repeat the post of exactly two years ago on the 14th Oct 2012 just so folk can get a feel of how the old blog has changed with the passing of time.

A repeat of 14th October 2012

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. 

I is for Interesting Instructions of an Irregular type.

It appears that when someone leaves you a little note to remind you to do a particular task it is not a good idea to amuse yourself by modifying the instruction in case you forget that you modified it when you read it the following day. Let’s face it the very reason the note was left in the first place was because I tend to forget things.

So after waking up and waving my hair about in the shower and staggering about saying who am I, what day is it, where is my brain . . . . AH the Zombies have nicked my brain . . . . Eating some breakfast and then groaning loads in order to prove I am a Zombie. I noticed a note left for me to tell me what my task is today. So having read the task I decide I should do them in the order they have been written down. 

Instruction One: - Strim Cows

 WHAT? . . . . . . I don’t know what that is about but if I am left a note then I have always found it is best just to do what I are told, there was a time I would get distracted and go off and do other things and so the important jobs would get left.  But no longer I am a lean mean efficient fighting machine (sort of).  I am not sure if any of you have ever tried to strim a cow with a strimmer it is far from easy, in fact it is extremely hard. First off you need to get the flock (sorry herd) penned into the corner of a field and then fire up the strimmer and then charge at them in a random way to confuse them. If you are lucky you might get to strim the side of the odd cow as it stampedes past you, I will tell you right now cows do not like strimmers one bit.  Cows can shift I have always thought of cows as slow happy docile beasts with a happy go lucky attitude to life, oblivious of the fact they will be turned into dinner for the masses at some point.  Yes OK they did start making tunnels a long time ago, but that was the past, those cows have long since been char grilled and covered in sauce.

Cows it turns out (to get back to the point) can move rather quickly and it also appears that if annoyed enough say by a young enthusiastic chap with a strimmer can be a little aggressive. Well when I say little I really mean big; cows are big, very big.

So after a short time of chasing cows with a strimmer I found myself pursued by angered cows intent on revenge. This quickly led to a decision to abandon Instruction One and concentrate on Instruction two.

Instruction Two :- Pick Parsley

Well this was a piece of cake and done in a flash. It was only afterwards when I was asked Have you Strimmed the Cow Parsley at the top of the drive that I remembered I had slightly modified the note left for me . . . . . . . . Strim Cow Parsley . . . . . . . . . . AH DAMN

The good news, I now have, but the bad news is I don’t think the cows like me anymore. I have told them I don’t eat cows, but that has only lead to rumours and now the farmer does not like me either.      

The Oxbow lake, the Cows and the Zombies.

It was raining first thing this morning but it did not last long, weather machines can sometimes actually work even if 99 percent of the time it is not entirely as expected. It was an interesting day and I have learnt several things, the first of which is that as a chap I can not multi-task as well as I would like, doing Geography while fitting tongue and groove cladding to the walls in what the headmaster calls his brilliantly cunning economy drive by combining practical subjects and academic subjects as well as meeting maintenance targets is harder than it at first may appear. You see the bonding material for the clapping is very sticky and gets everywhere including sealing my books closed for ever, but luckily we were doing the old faithful subject in Geography of Oxbow lakes…….. What is it with Geography and the Oxbow lake apparently they have been the topic of lessons from the days of Stone Age man and the very first schools ever set up in the open next to an Oxbow lakes.

I then discovered when I realized my tin of glue to bond the cladding to the wall had fallen over and leaked onto my craft knives needed to created cardboard things, that the glue dissolves the handles of the craft knives. Not a worry in itself but I have this glue all over my hands and it does not come off that easily, I really do not fancy waking up tomorrow morning to find I can not turn off the alarm clock because my hands have vanished in the night.

I have also discovered that cows and Zombies are in cahoots together and are I suspect even as I type battling their way through the Zombie defence system. The Zombies who are unable to cross the Zombie defence ditch have got the cows eating their way through the large hedge to the side of this defence ditch and we are starting to see the odd head peering through it with all the clinical indifference of a cow who is obviously working with the Zombies to ensure their efforts at world domination will succeed. I don’t know what the cows get out of it but I bet it involves grass, you know what cows are like, after all that saying . . . . ‘the grass is always greener on the other side’ started with cows and Zombies telling them stuff to lead them astray.

On top of all that the pigeons have also started hanging about at night in the trees and I cant help but think there is something going on; at least I can always cover the branches of the tree the pigeons are looking at us from in the glue for the cladding, that will soon stop their little game, maybe I can glue the cows to the ground too or maybe it will dissolve the cows and turn them into a Quatermass experiment. . . . . . WELL COOL . . . . . AH mum has said IDIOT, 

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Rabbits and Cows and The End of the World (again)

The poor old Ghost Writer has turned up looking like a zombie, he had to go into the office and look at a computer but the computer sort of responded in slow motion. This is something a computer can do at times and it is often connected to older computers, when I say older I refer to more than five years old as in IT terms five years is old. The result for the Ghost Writer was that what he thought would be a quick and moderately simple job turned into an epic all day long job which to rub salt into the wound so to speak ended when the computer crashed out meaning he has to start all over again after Christmas

He has just asked me if I have a piece of paper with a special security word on it because he will need it soon and knows I have it put away safely. . . . . . .AH DAMN . . . . . I was rather hoping he was not going to ask me that, but I have reassured him it is in a safe place.

Very kindly I have been made a safe place with a big sign on it saying Safe Place so I can put things in it that need to be safe, so as soon as I find them I will put them in there.

Yesterday I wrote  . . . ‘and cows when being stalked by rabbits (hang on that sounds wrong. This encyclopaedia might have been cheap but its rubbish)’ . . . .  Well today I was reassured by the Natural History teacher that in fact rabbits do stalk cows but the whole affair is far more psychological than simply cow sees rabbit, cow runs and rabbit chases cow. That you see would look a little odd to us humans, but it appears it is a battle of wits as the cow will hold its ground but the rabbit being a nimble beast will hop about slowly circling the cow. Sometimes a herd of cows will be surrounded by a load of rabbits (called a warren of rabbits) that will rotate round the cows in a hopping fashion. The rabbits trick is to slowly speed up as it rotates the cows, the cows will keep their eyes on the rabbit to ensure it/they is not trying to sneak up behind it/them so the cow is forced to rotate on the spot, as the rabbit gets faster and faster so the cow spins faster. Well as you would expect from an animal not designed to spin on its axis the cow becomes dizzy and faint and falls over; it is at this point the rabbit will move in for the kill.

But it appears that rabbits are vegetarian and after a small nibble of hoof realise they do not like cows and so the cow once recovered will stand up again. It takes a cow at least twenty five minutes to fully recover which is ironically the memory span of the rabbit that will then see the cow in the field and start to stalk it (again) by hopping round it.

The Natural History teacher thinks that the impending End of the World is the result of the cows contacting their far off intergalactic relatives to finally stop this continual cycle of giddiness and falling over and have requested that their intergalactic relatives destroy all the rabbits. But the cows have sent slightly the wrong message resulting in a slight error in that the entire world will be destroyed.

So in short according to the Natural History teacher the End of the World is all the rabbits fault……….. Mum says the Natural History teacher is in fact an IDIOT……

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Mutant Flesh Eating Zombie Rabbit Christmas gift tags

With more of an effort on making homemade things for Christmas and also as we are all having a quieter day after last night’s party. It was a good party but there was one very loud band, they were a good band, but loud. I could tell when several folk ran screaming from the town hall clutching their ears and pointing towards the upstairs of the town hall, although at first I assumed it must be aliens hiding on the roof again.

AH  . . . OK as I was saying we are having a quiet day here and making things for Christmas, so I was helping by making small gift tags in particular Mutant Flesh Eating Zombie Rabbit gift tags. Although mum did say IDIOT as it appears I was meant to be making holly and Santa gift tags, I did explain that Mutant Flesh Eating Zombie Rabbit gift tags were far more popular that ordinary gift tags and no self respecting Goff would appreciate getting a present with a smiling reindeer looking them square in the eye.

It has been yet another cold day outside and so I have not ventured out into the elements, and am maintaining a minimum number of layers of clothing I have worked out that the optimum number of layers to maintain normal temp is eight so I am wearing 32 items of clothing at present but it is not ideal when trying to cut the fiddly bits of a Mutant Flesh Eating Zombie Rabbit gift tag. I am trying to think of some good Mutant Flesh Eating Zombie Rabbit jokes to put into the Christmas crackers, and we have found a nice selection of mummified things to add as gifts, so they will liven up the school Christmas party. 

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A Journey to the Centre of the Earth, a field trip

The geography teacher (the mad professor) is planning a trip at the end of the week for everyone in my year, it will take some time, and we will all be completely out of contact with the rest of the world for a while. Most of the pupils do not want to go but there are two school trips the first a skiing trip in the Swiss Alps which costs three thousand and twenty eight pound.  The second school trip the geography teachers is a Journey to the Centre of the Earth and costs thirty seven pound and eight pence; so all the parents have opted for the geography teacher’s trip. I think the headmaster was a little surprised but after a survey of reasons it appears that the main reason for parents choosing this option was that all children are spoilt brats, and we are in a recession . . . . .NOT FAIR. As it happens I am rather pleased I am on the second option it sounds far more exciting than being stuck on a mountain covered in snow.

Today we did a field trip to a field, but not just any field it is the field next to my house where the cows are tunnelling. Apparently the cows have opened up a route into a labyrinth of caves which the geography teacher is convinced will lead us all the way to the centre of the earth which he hopes to claim for Great Britain.

It was a very promising field trip because the teacher, Professor Von Hardwigg has long believed that life exists below he surface he says because it is rather warm (we have been warned to wear summer clothing) this life may have an almost crusty skin that might look similar to the bark of a tree.  So we were amazed to see as we approached the tunnel entrance a creature that fitted the teachers (Professor Von Hardwigg) description almost perfectly watching us from behind a hedge (no the creature does not look like the teacher).  We tried to follow the creature but it ran off past the cows and down the tunnel. We were not allowed to follow because starting at the end of the week we will be heading off down into the huge labyrinth of caves and tunnels for several days and the teacher says it would not be advisable to disturb them early.   Professor Von Hardwigg the teacher says if it all goes to plan it will make a great film and he will finally get his Nobel Prize for science rather than the science world pointing and sniggering at him, sadly the science world can be a bit like that…..

Anyway you have been warned I will be out of contact travelling towards the centre of the world at the end of the week.

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A wet quiet Sunday, but how many cows can you fit in a glider?

I think today has proved to be the first really cold, wet and generally nasty Autumn (wintery) day of this Autumn/winter and the forecast is not good for the next couple of days or so. We have all been keeping our heads down today and even the cows next door in the field are digging their winter burrows ready to hibernate until spring. Hang on that sounds a bit wrong cows do not burrow, and I sure they don’t usually have a vaulting horse in the middle of the field either. The dog seems to thing it is an elaborate escape plan and they plan to fly south for the winter like the swallows, although the cows will need to go by easy jet; I have to say I am not entirely convinced that it is all that easy for a cow to get onto easy jet even wearing a false moustache and an old Estonian school tie.  Anyway that is a distraction I am sure no one is interested in a field full of cows digging holes and trying not to look suspicious about it.

it is very wet today

 So to other news, well to tell the truth it there is not a great deal of other news because it is a classic wet cold and dark Sunday in the United Kingdom. These are the days when the human brain tries to do the same as the cows and will hide in a burrow and hibernate. So writing an interesting diary entry to tantalize that very nice Steven Spielberg’s own mind which I suspect is in a nice sunny climate next to a large swimming pool sipping champagne and nibbling warm sausage rolls is tricky to say the least.

We did see Mr Kris who has a new car, not brand new but as new as Mr Kris has ever owned because it is shiny and clean and not full of mice and rust. The thing is with cars is that once upon a time you could potter about in a rusty relic quite safely but then everyone started to drive about fast and wave their fists at you, so driving about in a rusty relic was not as safe anymore. Then the powers that be said ooooooo those rusty relics are not safe and changed the rules so they have all vanished to history. When they should have changed the rules to stop everyone driving so fast (not dad or the dog though), so that it was still safe to drive a rusty relic.   If you get rid of you faithful old car to get an environmentally friendly new one you have to drive it for fifty years to balance the environmental cost of scrapping the old one to get the new one, so environmentally it is better just to keep the old one on the road.

Now what was I saying  . . . . . . . . . . .Ah yes not a lot has happened today so I will go. I will say one thing before I go though; cows are rubbish with a spade and a pick axe at digging holes, if it is an escape plan it could be spring before they get out, I might suggest they try making a glider and that avoids the agro with easy jet too.  

How many cows can you fit in a glider?

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Art, 1956, useful stuff and cows

We headed off to Monty this morning to see the artwork of Mr Edmonds one of the founders of the 56 group which was so called because it was formed in 1956. In recent years it has become more well known and is now recognized as one of the very few Welsh based art movements in its own right. We have always said you should try and buy original art if you can, and so we do. And although you might think gosh loads of money it is not true, well not always, as with most things some will rip you off if they can but not if you have a huge dog and a flame thrower.  Anyway Mr Edmonds was exhibiting in a pop up Gallery so we went to look as he is a good friend and a jolly good artist.

We now have two little painting of Venice to hang on the wall with the other painting that hangs on the wall. The dog says the pictures of Venice will remind us of the British Summer as all the roads are flooded and the best way to shop in the big out of town supermarket is in a gondola. The dog has also added that the betting shop is full of punters (HAH HAHAH HHAHAHH HAHHAH HAH HAH HAHHAHH hahaha hah hah ahah ha).

I spent the afternoon sorting boxes out from when we moved and moving them from one place to another in order to do some work so they can be moved to another place. Some say we should just get rid of the boxes full of stuff but it is useful stuff, it is not our fault that we can never find the right useful bit at the time the useful bit would be useful. We just find the useful stuff that is not useful at the time we need the thing that is useful, so all those other useful things are of no use at that time. I’m sure there must be a theory about the quantity of useful things calculated against the ability to find them when you need them.

Other things have happened today but I will go now and not bore you with other stuff….. Hang on I will bore you with one more thing. I went and had a chat with the cows in the field next to us, they like a bit of a chat people don’t talk to cows much these days. But the cows were away again for a few days then they arrived back just a couple of days ago. Nothing odd about that only we have never seen them leave or arrive yet in the six or seven months we have lived here, so how are they doing that. Maybe Mr Jones is right they are in cahoots with aliens……

I spy with my little eye ME

Or another ME