And The Prophet Spake: "A Ding Ding Ding"

I think this is a religion we can all get behind.

Is Your One Brain Better Than His None?

"Sport is an abomination. It's a total waste of time, effort and money." Those were the words - well, actually, they might not have been quite the exact ones, I can't quite remember, but I'm writing it as a quote anyway because it's much, much easier - of a gentleman named Chris Thingy. Well, actually, his surname isn't "Thingy", though I'm sure like anyone else he would love it to be. And I'm not positive he's called Chris. But anyway, there's this bloke who's probably called Chris, and he has a surname of some description - well, I assume he does, but let's not get picky - and he said something to the effect of "Sport is an abomination. It's a total waste of time, effort and money."

Right. Now. The point. The Chris in question - if he is indeed a Chris - is the International Mastermind Champion. Because of that, he's also one of the Eggheads on the popular - well, it might not be popular - quiz show called, er, Eggheads. For those of you not familiar with the show, this essentially means that he's on it every weekday, answering questions in an attempt to foil the contestants. This man appears on an early-evening quiz show five days a week! It takes a certain arrogant bloody-mindedness to spend that much time sitting in a box answering trivia questions and still have the nerve to say that sport - just, you know, in general - is an abomination and a waste of time, energy and money.

Although come to think of it, CJ could probably manage it too.

Human Nature

If people had time machines they would be used primarily to go back to their childhood and watch children's television programmes.

And Now For The Next Installation Of Our Mini-Serial, Dead Ringer

With a Krypton Factor immeasurable with our rudimentary number system, it's the BBC.

Well, that's if this actually gets off the ground. But let's hope so. Then we can get back to the golden times of rubbish observation-round acting, hilariously squiggly flight approaches, and people who break their ankles at the start of the assault course and not only finish anyway but don't even come last.

(I was enormously disappointed when that woman didn't win her heat, or semi-final, or whatever it was.)

Some Condemned Men Don't Fall For That One

This week, the Scouts were knotting. Knotting's a good, wholesome activity for a Scout troop. The older ones can teach the younger ones and everyone comes away having gained something from the experience. Trouble is, when you're dealing with the Scout troop who can endanger lives washing up, what they tend to come away with is rope burns, a tinge of blue in the extremities from the cutting-off of circulation, and at least one choking-based near death experience.

I reckon that as long as I still have the patience to step in and prevent them from killing themselves, I'm doing as well as can be expected.

Smoke-Filled Rooms

For a little while now, I've been on the campsite management sub-committee for Bradley Wood, a delightful little campsite in Brighouse that, if you're reading this, you probably know a little of that's chock-full of groovy things and nice people (we also have a great many bluebells.) I can't say with any degree of precision how long I've been on this committee because I never really agreed to be on it, but I wouldn't want to mislead you with such information anyway, as committee meetings have no regard for the usual laws of time. Anyway, I was rather hoping to get away from this meeting in good time so I could get to bed in preparation for an exam today, but that wasn't to be. I don't intend to bore you with the details - not even those of the particularly fascinating discussion of the various applications of JCBs that took place shortly after we'd decided unanimously that it was too late in the year to start digging things up with one - but I feel I ought to mention one particularly signinficant episode by way of a warning to anyone else who might get dragged onto one of these things over the course of their lives.

Last night, the Bradley Wood Campsite Management Sub-Committee spent fully ten minutes, if not more, discussing, analysing and generally mulling over a proposal that we continue to do things precisely as we always have. Quite what would have happened if we had rejected this particular proposal I'm not sure, but I like to imagine that it would have left us free to actually get something done down there without all this vein-bulgingly dull mucking about with committees.

Join The Debate

Thank goodness The Times hasn't dumbed down since moving to its new tabloid layout.

('Pologies for the rubbish blurry photo, I am exceptionally lazy sometimes, and besides, it gets the message across.)

Born To Be Wild

I am planning on spending almost all of this weekend writing essays in preparation for my English exams. Mostly for the literature one, simply because I have a bigger pile of practice questions. It's looking like a long, hard slog of making many a point and explaining many a quote and doing a fair deal of thinking, over and over and over again. My question to you is this: quite how sad is it that I am actually quite looking forward to it?

Speaking Of Omelettes

Gosh.

Interactive Television

Apparently ITV's Celebrity Wrestling, which goes up against Doctor Who every Saturday night, is being pulled due to a lack of viewers (the result, of course, of it clearly being utter rubbish and yet still trying to compete with Doctor Who). I'm mentioning this here really only because it feels good to be able to. With luck, nobody will watch Celebrity Love Island either.

Come to think of it, I suspect that Celebrity Love Island may be the result of the same process as Domino's Pizza's new Cheese Steak Pizza - that is, making a big list of words and sticking three pins in it. If that is the case, I think the lists really should be combined. Then perhaps we could tuck into a nice Celebrity Spice Waffle while watching Hidden Omelette Beach. Now that's what I call civilisation.

A Troubling Development

The world, it seems, has stopped turning. The illusion of day and night is now maintained only by Clever Trickery. This may cause problems.

(See, now, if you were Doctor Who you wouldn't need me to let you know about this.)

Grounds For Complaint

Though I am rather more fond of tea, I thoroughly enjoy the odd cup of coffee, and to be honest it always rather frustrates me to see the stuff lauded solely for its caffiene content. Now, I know that attitude is by no means universal, and that even so it really shouldn't bother me, but I suspect that if you did a quick Family Fortunes-esque survey on "A Reason For Drinking Coffee", the answers "To wake you up in the morning" and "To keep you up at night" would come out somewhat higher than "Because it really tastes rather lovely and goes beautifully with a good chunk of parkin", and that seems a bit of a shame. Possibly I should blame largely rubbish-tasting instant coffee. Or possibly, and this is more likely, I should not concern myself with it.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, and frankly I'm rather shaky on the value of where I've been already, so I'm going to stop now. Though I should really plug CaféDirect's fancy Peruvian stuff, because it's really really tasty, fairly traded, and has a very nice picture of Machu Picchu on the front. Though I should mention that their instructions for making coffee require you to put your feet up, so if that's a problem you might want to look elsewhere. We wouldn't want you to strain yourself.

The Ancient Dilemma

On the one hand, my hair really, really needs cutting, on the grounds that is looks ridiculous and will only look more ridiculous as time goes on. On the other, I have just discovered how satisfying it is to comb one's hair with a fork, and I rather suspect shorter hair might ruin this effect.

The Least Reassuring Page On The Internet

Don't you feel better for knowing?

A Very Seedy Gentleman

It has come to my attention that there is no better snack for extended periods of not-terribly-exciting work than the little bags of pumpkin and sunflower seeds (or, as it says on the bag "Delicious Pumpkin & Sunflower Seeds") they sell at Boots. I suspect they may also be ideal for films, journeys and long, boring speeches. So thank you, Boots, and thank you, More Than One Country.

Some Rats Don't Fall For That One

There's a lot of fine stuff in the Scout Law. A Scout is to be trusted, for example. That's a good all-round rule to live by. A Scout has courage in all difficulties - it never hurts, does it? Nonetheless, I feel that there's one crucial point that's missing, and that ought to be tagged on the end as soon as is possible. Something along the lines of "A Scout has something other than lukewarm porridge between the ears." Now, brace yourself, you may have to read the following sentence twice.

Last night, one of my Scouts tried to wash the dishes with rat poison.

Now, just put yourself in his shoes. You're stood in a building which has had a rat problem. You are washing up, a task for which you have all the relevant equipment, some of it in a clearly labelled bottle. In a drawer, in the unit through which the rats had been scrambling, you find two trays of tiny, mysterious blueish-green pellets. These trays have the word "Rentokil" set into the side. By what possible feat of reasoning do you conclude that it would be a good idea to add them to the bowl?

Last night, one of my Scouts tried to wash the dishes with rat poison.

(Told you you might have to read it twice.)

Pull It Back And Watch It Go (Forever)

The pressure is building. Time is running out. The heat is on. Whatever cliché I choose to use, the fact remains that if I don't get updating this thing soon, I may very shortly be on the receiving end of a menacing look. I know. I was terrified, too.

There's only one problem: after a big gap, it's hard to know where to start. I could just summarise all the stuff that's happened recently that I've failed entirely to mention, but then I have to decide what to put in and what not to and remember things and all sorts. Alternatively, I could just talk about some big stuff in a bit more detail and let the rest be, but I've never written about anything significant here before and I'm damned if I'm going to start now.

So, instead, I'm going to tell a story from a long time ago. Now, the chances are that if you're reading this you've heard this story anyway, not because I tell it to many people but because I'm reasonably confident I know my rather paltry readership, particularly my even paltrier post-gap readership. Anyway, here we go.

When I was little (I don't know how little) I had a little pull-back Postman Pat van. It was tremendous fun, pulling that little thing back and watching it speed back to deliver letters to the good people of Greendale. Or at least, the good people of the kitchen floor, which was the only surface I could easily get to that it would run on. I loved that little thing. But one day, something terrible happened: I was playing quietly with my little van and, thanks to a moment of uncontrolled driving madness, it trundled away into the dreaded darkness Underneath The Fridge. I was distraught, as I'm sure you can imagine. Over the years, the wound healed, but I never forgot that toy. It sat in the back of my mind, telling me to be patient, assuring me that it would return one day. And then, finally, the promised day came. Our fridge packed in and had to be replaced. That, of course, meant taking the old one out, and that meant that I could get my beloved Postman Pat pull-back van back! Oh, what a happy day it should have been.

But it wasn't.

You see, somehow, in that unforgiving realm twixt fridge and floor, that van had disappeared without a trace. Vapourized by aliens. Stolen by pixies. I don't know what happened to it. I just know it's gone, and it's not coming back.