Not really Groundhog Day and Ice Cream . . .

(30 . . .)

It's strange how a chaps day can sort of take on the feeling of Groundhog Day. Although it was with different wood 6 years ago and I did actually have the tools and also did some shopping. But apart from that, and eating different food; and several other things, OOOoooooo and I achieved something today which was good. BUT apart from all that my diary entry of six years ago has an uncanny resemblance to today  . . . Although I am seriously older now; back then I was the Young Eccentric Child of Cyberspace, but I probably just grumbled too much and the secret of my old age became known to all.

And I have also discovered today that ice-cream is regarded as a highly processed food and will reduce life expectancy. Unfortunately I have just finished a large bowl of ice cream having put walnuts, chocolate things and maple syrup on the ice cream. On the positive side the nuts are good for me; the maple syrup is the real stuff as is the chocolate. The ice cream was also good quality vanilla ice cream. I do have a theory that as long as you eat real foods not cheap rubbish then you can eat what you like and it is OK. It’s a good theory and serves me well. Plainly you should not get too carried away with eating too much that would not be good.

Right that diary entry from way back for you to read.

Six years ago today

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 OOOOOO 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 pursuing such a task. Strangely it is the sort of task (searching for elsewhere not pouring sand through fingers) us chaps will do for hours and women tend not too, even for five minutes, although I don’t know why?

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My diary is a lot more rational these days, not like it was back then. . . . . . Sorry about that.

Mmmmmm My feet

Why do humans like different stuff . . . The Big Question

I have just enjoyed a rather good Indian takeaway and am now drinking a nice cup of tea made by me. Interestingly the Indian restaurant makes great food but their tea is rubbish. I have tried to get them to make weak tea in the past but they just can’t understand the concept and it arrives like a cup of crude oil, ready to take the hairs off your chest and make you sing like Tiny Tim on helium.

Anyway this has made me ponder one of those big questions which is the vague theme of this year’s blog. Only because you were all getting bored with the day to day life of me doing my day to day stuff and writing a daily diary.  Yes the big question is . . . . . . Why do humans like different stuff. . . .  At first this might seem like a silly question but is it, you see in nature Lions eat Gazelles or Zebra, they dont go . .  AAAAhhhhh I wanted vanilla ice cream I don’t like raspberry ripple ice cream.  So why are humans so damn fickle about stuff why will one chap like pink and one like orange but with a subtle hint of blue.

I think we have to put this down to evolutionary development. To many (well mostly humans) humans are the pinnacle of evolutionary development on earth, we have invented the wheel and the screwdriver. However all species of critter on Earth will diverse to some degree in order to cope with environmental changes that may occur such as drought, flooding, temperature change or food sources vanishing. The problem for mankind is that humans are the first critter on planet Earth to change his environment to suit him rather than the other way round. This is OK while its all in control but just lately it has all sort of got out of hand, humans are ironically too successful as a species and have to put it bluntly buggered the planet a bit (I know a strong word for me indeed).

The thing is though, we are at the end of the day just another critter evolving on planet Earth in order to continue as a successful species, we are programmed to do this and have no free will to do anything else.  But as we are now slightly detached from nature thanks to things like central heating, cars, aeroplanes, supermarkets, chairs, Indian takeaways and many many other things, our genetic diversity has gone a bit odd taking an un-nature turn.

What this means is that some of us will like flock wallpaper while other will prefer a nice painted wall, or maybe you will find you prefer a city flat to a county cottage in the country. All well and good, but I suspect when it comes to the crunch and our environment makes a sudden change it seems unlikely that only those who eat coffee fudge ice cream and prefer a nice floral wall paper with matching rugs will survive. The rest of us dying out because of our taste in soft furnishing and liking lemon bon bons from the old corner sweet shop which sadly has become extinct.  

Why do we never seem to have enough time in the day. . . . The Big Question.

How come we never seem to have enough time to do stuff? Yes I think this is a Big Question for many of us.  OK I may be a bit disorganised at getting stuff done and I guess that can't help one bit, but the fact is even organized folk will often say things like I have all this stuff to do and I just DON'T seem to have the time.  As far as I can tell this is definitely a problem of us decedent imperialist westerners because if you watch things on the TV where some celeb is trekking through the wilds in some exotic country they often seem to pass folk sat at the side of the road looking chilled and saying things like . . . . . .  OOOoooo look its him off the tele the chap with the parrot and the ray gun who travels through time in that ICE CREAM van eating jellied eels. . . . .  They seem to be able to sit for days on end, just sitting and being chilled as they watch the world pass by.

But how come we can’t sit about it must be due to the way we live and think. I have realized for a long time now I think I can do more than I can, and by that I mean I often think stuff like . . .  if I cut this old bicycle up and weld the engine of this knackered mower to this I beam and use the gearbox from a Model T ford to fix a Box Brownie to the Grizolme Bevel thrust plate I can toast bread rolls. . . .  The truth is I don't have the time and by adding such ideas to the other ideas already on the list of stuff that needs to be done it results in overload as the list also contains stuff like remove wallpaper from old office walls, remove old office walls, cut grass, plant grass, feed cats, chase seagulls, wash hair, stick mancky clothes in big pile in dark corner of room.

I know this is normal most people have exactly the same issue I often stop people in the street and ask them if they are busy and they always say Yes I’m off to find a  Grizolme Bevel thrust plate.   OK the men say stuff like that for reasons I may discuss another time, women seldom have any interest in Grizolme Bevel thrust plates   but none the less seem very busy.   They often say they are so busy because their partner is doing something stupid with an old bicycle and the lawn mower and someone has to sort the house out, pay the bills and go to work and cook dinner.

Anyway I have to say this is probably the hardest question to date I have dealt with so I need a break and have a round metal thing I might put pointy bits on so I can hang it from a tree to attract Woodpeckers to scare off the Zombies. All we can do is prioritize stuff so that’s it I'm off to hunt for that round metal thing right now.

Ooooooooo look a Seagull.    

The Origin of Life, a Mug of Tea a very Dark Office and a Super Moon

Late last night as it was getting dark I thought I really should have a go at seeing this Super Moon the one that is huge so huge that a cow would not be able to jump over it in one go. Well those cows next to us would not, they are just strange cows. But as is the way of things there were also super clouds so seeing the moon seemed almost impossible, however dad said he would pull a few levers and twist a few knows and see if he couldn’t create a  gap in the clouds. He did but it was directly above the house which was very impressive to look at but it was not exactly where the moon was, so after some more tweaking to create an angled isothermal atmospheric anomaly we finally got to see the Super Moon and I took what turned out to be a really super rubbish picture of it, but at least it shows I did see it.

 We have had the Ghost Writer pottering about here today instead of being in his grey office, he says when he arrived at the building (his office is in up on the second floor) it was not so much a grey office as a black office due to the absence of light. It appears that over the weekend a pipe had become detached from a tap up on the second floor and the water, keen to use the powers of gravity to its advantage to reach the ground had managed to find a convenient shaft to run down. Unfortunately the convenient shaft for the water was the main route for all the power cables for most of the building, water and electric do have a habit of not working together all that well. Or they do work well together, but not always as us humans would like. They are both fundamental key elements of the universe without which it could be argued life itself would not exist, there is a theory that God, one of the big Gods not a Micro God was experimenting with stuff when a huge bolt of lightning hit the large copper sphere on his laboratory roof which then accidently took the easy route to Earth through his mug of tea (99.7% water), creating small wiggly things which he looked at and went YUCK and threw into the sink from there they (the wiggly things) then ended up in the sea. Plumbing back then was rubbish, well a few Gods and a big universe don’t really need good plumbing, I guess the ironic thing is that if the plumbing was good now the Ghost Writer would not have got today off, but had the plumbing been good back in the days of the Gods there would be no Ghost Writer (or anyone else).

It’s a funny old world.

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A day in the life of a Chicken

After a long stint on top of the Christmas tree in hiding the Chicken has finally got off after he/she was reassured that this was in fact a new world record for a chicken, even if the Guinness book of Records refuses to recognize a new world record for a knitted chicken on top of a Christmas tree. As the chicken says (OK SORT OF) it is not easy to roost on top of a artificial Christmas tree for long periods as there is little to eat, just a few glass balls, an angel, and fairy lights which is hardly ideal food to produce a decent egg.

The day has been remarkably peaceful starting with a bit of pointing and prodding at Tongue and Groove Panelling, then the nodding and shaking of heads and a final AH . . . . . Yes; before we all headed of to see family members who are having a bit of hassle with kitchen cupboards, once there we were all able to point and prod at kitchen cupboard doors then nod and shake our heads while pointing at tape measures and saying AH  . . . . Yes, metric measurements . . . . . . DAMN, we are you see deep down imperial people, and old sayings like ‘give then an inch and they take a yard’ are ruined in metric.

I have noticed that most of the Christmas lights around us have now vanished, we are one of the few houses in the area if not the world that think fairy lights are for life not just for Christmas. Lets face it given a choice of two or three glaring spot lamps on the front of the house or just over three thousand fairy lights, lighting everything up in a nice warm glow; I don’t think it takes a great deal of thought to decide which is the aesthetically more pleasing. Unless of course you are a security guard with a growling dog and you love your job so much you like to patrol your home long into the night on your days off.  Shouting stop who goes there as a bored pensioner with a Pekinese heads off to the park to chase pigeons and annoy the teenagers by sitting on the swings and waving their false teeth at them (that’s the pensioner not the Pekinese).

Oooo I had to unhook a finger from a hook today, it was a homemade hook, I am rather good at making homemade hooks……..

OK enough I am off again now to do other things which will also include eating FOOD  . . . . . YuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmMMMM. 

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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 Hunchbacked Claw Monster and the hand

Not sure what got me yesterday, but my hand is very itchy and swollen today, there is evidence that something has bitten it several times although I never felt a thing at the time. The dog recons it is the rare pygmy vampire that lives on hedgehogs, moles and rabbits; and at some point yesterday or last night the pygmy vampires mistook my hand for a tarantula spider or a rat. I did say my hand does not look like a rat but everyone just looked away and sniggered a lot? ......... …….. .. NOT FAIR.  

I also somehow pulled a muscle in my neck so the dog says that I now look like the famous Hunchbacked  Claw Monster with its huge claw that can snip the head off a lion in one go.  In fact the dog sent me next door to prove that I should be able to snip the head off a Lion. As I discovered a bit later snipping a Lilo in half when the man is sunbathing in the pool on it does not count….

Today is a prime example of classic British weather, we have suffered rain storms and flooding for weeks then all of a sudden twenty four hours passes and it is roasting, it is so hot we all have to run for cover. It is not easy to run for cover with a huge swollen hand as it drags you sideways and you go round in circles and I was not happy that the dog and the cats decided to use its shadow to keep cool. Particularly as they then forced me to sit on the sunny side of my own hand.

We have had a few visitors today who said they had been looking on the internet and thought they would pop round to have a little look at my hand as someone had said it looked like a rat that had swallowed a party balloon and was very amusing.  No one would say exactly who had been saying such things but I noticed the dog sniggering a lot and smiling at everyone with his huge pointy teeth and red eyes. The dog really should not smile at folk because he frightens them. Anyway I think it is the dog trying to make me look like an IDIOT.   

Mum is not happy with dad and says he must stop playing with his weather machine, but dad says a mysterious man has given him loads of money to make sure it remains sunny for the Olympics. Although as mum points out agents from an unspecified country have also given dad loads of money to insure that the weather during the Olympics is rotten. Dad has pointed out this is Britain and it should be easy to do both, all he needs to do is some fine tweaking to his machine. He did say if I didn’t have a hand like an inflated rat I would be able to help him but has said I could held by using it to hammer in some fence posts …… NOT FAIR again……  And it appears the dog has hired my hand out as a bouncy castle and there is a gang of grumpy parents demanding it is delivered to their party….. Apparently there is only one solution according to mum so I am off now…… The dog says I need to hum so I sound like a pump….  

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Are Big BMW's the uncoolest cars in the world and can a slug play hide & seek

It appears that some BMW drivers are fools, dad had one overtake him today in a thirty limit while travelling though a small town, the BMW then got stuck in a queue so dad made rude gestures at him. But the BMW then overtook half the queue on a blind corner with double white lines. It then in theory had to stop for a red light at traffic lights, but it overtook the rest of the queue and drove straight through the lights without stopping and was never seen again.

It is not uncommon for the drivers of big BMW’s to be driving right up behind other motorists and we have come to the conclusion that sadly these cars are very uncool to own because they seem to be the first choice of IDIOTS or as dad would call them ********** IDIOTS.  A shame really because they are quite nice cars but as dad says that is no good if everyone thinks IDIOT when they see you driving your big flash BMW like an IDIOT or even not like an IDIOT. So that’s it no big flash BMW’s for us then…….. PHEW.

I spent the evening thinning out some trees that were growing above a greenhouse; it was the greenhouse that was glowing in the dark the other night only it has not glowed in the dark since which is rather a shame. Anyway I did manage to do this without smashing the greenhouse which is good as you need greenhouses if you are planning to become an eco warrior.  The dog says in the good old days any true eco warrior would chain himself to a tree (we met one of them in book one who was accidently mistaken for an Alien I think), and the dog very kindly offered to chain me to a tree in the wood. I was quite happy not being chained to a tree as I was having fish pie for tea.  It turned out that the dog was planning to chain me to a tree then eat my fish pie and tell everyone I was playing hide and seek with some pet slugs that we had trained to leap through burning hoops.  

No one was ever going to believe that story, after all when have I ever missed a meal and everyone knows that slugs are rubbish at hide and seek, and as me and the dog found out leaping through burning hoops too.

OOoooooo my good friend Miss Fionaski has just reminded me of my possible fatal error my mushrooms were a bit dry this morning AAAAAAAaaaauuuuuuuugghhhhHHHHh will this be the end of my mushroom race, will I have fallen by the way side, who can tell …….. The dog is rolling about and says he thinks it’s extremely FUNGI  

The storm and the genetically modified silkworms

It was a truly grey wet day today with a wild wind blowing and most of nature with its head down hiding. Even I tried that today because it was the first day back at school and doing geometry with a persistent westerly gale force 10 blowing means all my shapes leaned to the left. Maybe this explains the leaning tower of Pisa,

As it happened the geography teacher was able to help us test this theory, so at lunch time the class built three Leaning Towers of Pizza from School Pizza; one built at the angle as a result of windswept blue prints, one built on unstable ground and one built true but in a particularly windy location. And what this experiment proved is it was hellish windy today, because all the Towers of Pizzas blew away like Frisbee’s, confusing a passing little old lady you was convinced that planet earth was being invaded by small cheese eating aliens. She was last seen shouting TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER at what appeared to be the squadron leader pizza ( I think it was the thick crusty edge that did it, and the extra anchovies.)

Esmeralda said she had a great Christmas and particularly enjoyed climbing down chimneys too shout at young children you have been very naughty and your not getting any presents this year then scurrying back up the chimney leaving the house covered in soot. She gave her parents a life size painting of herself this Christmas, and said they were so pleased they ran round the house screaming and waving their arms about.

On his way home the Ghost writer called in, he said he spent the day in the grey office and it was so grey outside it was difficult to work out where the wall ended and the window started, resulting in him accidently storing several PC’s three feet to far to the south. He said the dent in the car was only smallish as his office is only on the second floor and it was a rusty car anyway. Then on the wireless tonight we heard that they have created genetically modified silkworms that can spin silk so strong that now they will be able to make bullet prove kites. Something we will all find extremely useful in the years to come.

Apparently the main draw back to the new super strong silk is that it is so strong that it is difficult to remove the silkworm from the end of the silk strands and there is little demand for a silk shirt covered in little wriggling silk worms singing I’m too sexy for your shirt. Mum has said IDIOT now