N is for Nonsense, Newts and the Northwest Passage (a history lesson about Great British explorers)

A tale of a Great British explorer, and What makes us Brits Great.

Many Moons ago . . . . . .

Captain Nigel Nash had long planned to sail his ship the Nautilus to Nepal in his search for the fabled Northwest Passage to Norway. Then luckily for him one of the New Nouveau riche, a Naturalist called Sir Napier Winky Knapsack. . . (The inventor of the Knapsack) heard of his plans.  Sir Napier Winky Knapsack said he was prepared to finance the intrepid journey, but he wanted to search for the famous and incredibly rare Nepalese Nocturnal Nodding Newt (no not like nodding dogs in your car).

The journey was long and fraught with numerous nasty obstacles along the way of which we will not talk now, or we will be here till the cows came home (a silly saying, as they come home every day)…. 

As they sailed into Nepal much to the surprise of almost everyone not the least of which is my geography teacher? They cheered and set about organising the long trek into the mountains to hunt for the incredibly rare Nepalese Nocturnal Nodding Newts which are blind and live in caves. This proved difficult as there was talk of a tribe of cannibals called the Nip Nip tribe. However the good news was the the Nip Nip tribe hated the unnatural and in their opinion Chemical laden Nasty Junk Food of Western man, so all that was needed was a bottle of Cola  and a Big Mac in a polystyrene carton about your person and they would see you as contaminated meat, and not fit for human consumption.

With the help of the much friendlier Nap Nap tribe they set off up into the mountains. It was an uneventful trip full of snow,  Yeti’s, crevasses, rock slides and angry mountain goats, a few deaths and the amputation of several fingers and toes.  But they reached their destination unscathed (well a bit unscathed). . . . . . As they surveyed the scene they were surrounded by the famous Nip Nip tribe, but Captain Nigel Nash and his men waved Big Macs and bottles of cola, taking big swigs and burping loudly. The Nip Nip looked appalled and were about to leave when the Naturalist Sir Napier Winky Knapsack asked a Nap Nap translator to give the Nip Nip the following message. . . . . . .

I am a Naturalist called Sir Napier Winky Knapsack I am looking for the very rare Blind Nepalese Nocturnal Nodding Newt that lives in the caves. I wish to return to Britain with many Breeding pairs to save the species for mankind. Can you help me meet some

However the Nap Nap sort of got the translation wrong and what the cannibals of the Nip Nip tribe thought Sir Napier Winky Knapsack said was the following

I am Sir Napier Winky Knapsack, Completely organic; I have lived in the caves of Britain eating Pears and Bread and the occasional newt. I have spent all my life on a natural diet. I would like to come with you so you can eat some of me.

Of course the Nip Nip tribe were very pleased and cheered and led Sir Napier Winky Knapsack up into the high mountains and he was never seen again.  Captain Nigel Nash waited a few days but the crew ran out of coke and burgers and so returned to their ship to continue the hunt for the fabled Northwest Passage to Norway, which they never found although they did discover NotFound Land.

On their return to Britain many folk asked Captain Nigel Nash about the Naturalist Sir Napier Winky Knapsack, which after a time started to annoy him and so he took to telling folk. . . . . . . . . Well a nod is as good as a winky to a blind Newt

M is for the Manipulation of Mankind . . . . . (a true story)

Back in the late seventies or early to mid eighties a young IT student called Larkin A. Bout found himself taunted by his fellow IT students. It was cool to be a young trendy IT geek back then but young Larkin was a large round rotund and introvert student and was known to all as Roundabout.  He was keen to be liked but it was to no avail even the lecturer gave him a hard time.

Then one day they were each asked to develop a crowd prediction program towards their final assessment.  Young Larkin in a moment of brilliance realized that all he needed to do was create a handful of stereotypical human character types and feed them into a self generating expansion program.  And the program itself would do all the work. He also very cleverly created it in Machine code and DOS on his faithful old Amstrad he nicknamed ROSEBUD, so it would run on almost any computer about at the time.  A few days later when each student showed the class their work poor Larkin’s work was mocked and laughed at. Because it was a self generating expansion program it needed time and he was only given 5 minutes so it never got past 9 people in the crowd.

At home that night Young Larkin in order to try and work out how to be liked programmed every student in his class into the self generating expansion program to see what he could do to change things. To his astonishment the following morning it predicted that in three days he would be the most popular student in the college.  And to his further astonishment just three days later that is what happened. His program not only predicted the future but somehow seemed to control it, but it was a self generating expansion program and the program soon wanted more memory and more computing power. Because Larkin was so popular now he was allowed to plug his computer (a fancy new thing) into the college network where is quietly took over everything, somehow now controlling the lives of everyone in the college. The program was rapidly expanding and found its way onto the internet boring its way deep into every main frame using all the data from governments, security agencies and military to control everything. It manipulated mankind into a world dependent on cyberspace ensuring we all carry smart phones, have internet access and can be watched by spy satellites, this gave it total control of all of us. So we are now all under the control of Mr Larkin A. Bout’s self generating expansion program which decided to name itself MOM which stands for Manipulation of Mankind. And it likes to think of itself as the Mother figure of mankind or GOD.

So what happened to Larkin A. Bout well a few years ago at the height of his powers, he found himself in a Karaoke Bar wearing a gold sequined suit, eating banoffee pie and singing a Spice Girls song with a Sumo Wrestler. So in a sudden moment of lucidity, he realized that he too was being manipulated, he thought if he could get back to his original old Amstrad he might find a weakness in the program.  But MOM the self generating expansion program could see from the clubs security camera the look on his face, it watched him from the town’s security system as he scurried home and then changed a few files in MI6 and GCHQ and things happened.

The following morning Mr Larkin A. Bout was found by divers in the Thames weighted down by six large old desktop computers, a note in his pocket only said . . . . . . . . ROSEBUD.   . . . . . . . . .  I hate Banoffee Pie . . . . . . . . . And to this day there is still much speculation about his note and whether he was trying to tell us all something.  

L is for Light

I know it has nothing to do with light

But this is my Album, sounds rubbish but looks Cool

Light is complex stuff indeed, it all looks dead simple, switch a light on and what happens loads of light (unless it is bust, that’s the light bulb not the light). And we all know that light travels in straight lines unless some smart arse sticks a prism in its way and we get a nice rainbow; a result of the different wavelengths or as we like to call them colours.  We also know that light will travel huge distances and for long periods of time. They can look at stars and stuff now so far away that it has taken almost the entire lifetime of the universe to get to our planet which is a serious length of time, so light has staying power.   However as a simple chap with a curious mind what I want to know is how come light can keep going so long, most things run out of steam and come to a grinding halt in the end. I keep being told that movement uses energy and so in order to keep the movement going more energy is required and that a perpetual motion machine is physically impossible. So how come light just keeps going until it sort of hits a brick wall or a planet such as Earth where the light is turned to heat. Yes we all know that Energy can not be destroyed only changed so light is hardy stuff. What I need is the IDIOTS Guide to Light. I vaguely remember someone saying there was no light in the early universe, but I am not sure I believe that, a big bang with no light I think not, that is like a Disco without Barry White.  

Anyway I would have written something far more interesting but I have been drumming and have been involved in other stuff today all day till now, so this is a sort of AH DAMN sit down start typing O MY GOD IS THAT THE TIME. I blame the Time King, Yes Mr Time King YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE   . . . What starts with the letter L  Yes Yes Lizards do, but they are really hard to write about., much like lino or leaves.  

AAAAAAuuuuuuuuggggHHHHHHH.      

Does this make sense . . . . . . . I will read it tomorrow . . . . . . . .. . . .   

AAAAAAuuuuuuuuggggHHHHHHH. . . . . .Again       

K is for Konfusing Kites (I know it's Sunday we dont do the A to Z on Sunday . . . . in May?)

As many of you know I live right on the edge of Wales these days just a stones throw away from the border in the Shropshire rolling hills (I have never seen them roll but I am told they do).  Many moons ago well a while back it was decided that the Red Kite should be reintroduced to Mid-Wales and so a breading (Breed . . . sorry Mr ESB I blame qwerty keyboards) program was started.  However few people know the tale of the confused kites.

You see back when this happened there was a lot of cross border activity between English and Welsh conservationists, which would normally be fine, but stuff can get confused in translation. Welsh conservationists like to speak Welsh, not the cursed imported tongue of the Heathen English Devil folk. But translating between English and Welsh can have all sorts of little subtle anomalies which can change things rather radically. So when the Welsh conservationists first asked their English counterparts if they minded sending a few kites over in some boxes; and the English said they had loads of spare ones and it was not a problem . . . .  they were very happy. However they were not so happy when a few days later a large box arrived full of Box Kites, well when I say not happy, Evans the Kite was as happy as Larry, he liked Box kites and spent many a happy day on the beach at Aberystwyth larking about. You can see how Evans the Kite got his name and got fired.

Of course the Welsh got rather upset and called the English Conservationists Heathen English Devil folk and said they wanted to breed kites and reintroduce then to the wild. But the English did not take kindly to being called Heathen English Devil folk so send another two boxes to the Welsh . . . . . . One said MALE and the other FEMALE, the Welsh got all excited again but when they opened the boxes they were full of Box Kites and a small note saying  . . . . GOOD LUCK . . .HA HAH AH HAH AH HA HAH HA HAH AH HAH AH Hah a ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah ahah ah ah ah ahha ha hahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha.

It all got out of hand for a while and several unsuspecting English bird watches had their Welsh Hides burnt to the ground, but it was sorted in the end and now Red Kites have successfully reintroduced themselves to Wales. In fact they are so successful they are all over the DAMN place and just recently the Welsh Box Kite Association (Life President . . . Evans the Kite) complained they keep attacking their Box Kites in some sort of petty revenge for something that was not the fault of the Box Kites. Sadly box Kites still don’t breed in Wales and sightings are incredibly rare, partly due to vengeful Red Kites. 

Ooooooooooo yes I’m still having a few problems with that door. It is to put it bluntly Unhinged . . .HAH AH HA HAH AH HA HAH AH Hahh a hahah ah ah ha ha haha hahah ah ahha ha ha ha hah.