That Won't Get The Pigs In

This was nearly a dull and rambling post, but then I noticed the whole Gmail beta-account thing and got a little caught up. It's a pleasure to use, that thing.

Anyway, as I would have been saying, I just caught the last half-hour of Jimmy's Farm, a TV programme about a bloke (Jimmy) who borrowed something like fifty-five thousand pounds of Jamie Oliver's money in order to set up and run a pig farm. Pigs in woods. It's how the Europeans do it.

Now, I didn't think this programme would be up to much. I expected another standard person-setting-up-own-business deal with the odd cash flow problem and neglect of family. Alas, it seems that I will never know for sure, because I suspect that the BBC pulled Jimmy's Farm at the last minute in order to show footage of a car crash.

They found themselves in need of £15 000 to get running water. They paid three times as much as they budgetted for caravans which then got stuck in the road. They set fire to two fields and closed the motorway. They broke a big fence-post whacker on wheels. And then, like the shock death at the end of an episode of 24, came Blaze, the Least Horny Pig In The World.

The pigs Jimmy bought are a very rare breed, so it was rather important for them to reproduce successfully. Quite a burden, you would think, on the boar's shoulders. But Blaze didn't seem to mind. He was really rather content in his little sty, even when the errant Jimmy was prodding him with increasinly larger implements in the hope that he would at least twitch.

This, I understand, was not an entertaining post. But that's not the point. The point was to whet your appetite. I can only hope that I have succeeded in that, and that next Wednesday those of you who can will tune in to the further adventures of Jimmy and Blaze, the Least Horny Pig in the World.

Those Who Can't

How is it possible for a professional repair centre to spend a fortnight on a job they themselves designated as "Skill Level 0"? How is it possible for an established company to manufacture a video recorder that, nine times out of ten, cannot record and, when told to rewind, actually fast-forwards for a few monents and then turn itself off? What gross degree of uselessness could cause Sky to install a sattelite dish in such a way that it allows rainwater to run down the cable and into the back of the decoder box, and then replace it later with a second dish that cuts out when the first cloud appears? How can a group of thirteen-year-old Scouts take an hour to take down a tent and twice as long to cook a simple fried breakfast? How can an experienced physics teacher manage to lose a piece of coursework and not notice until the day before it has to be sent for moderation? And how, in God's name, can I somehow contrive to soak myself thoroughly every single time I attempt to rinse out my toothbrush?

More Content Than Here

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