It's Getting Wetter All The Time

There was a part of me that actually believed I would get through my exams without it once pissing it down on the way home. With only two exams left, it was looking good. But this, when all is said and done, is England, and it wasn't to be. And all that after the exam itself was nicely lacking in frustration.

Just What He's Always Wanted, Part Two

It turns out that the Perfect Gifts for Father's Day are expensive. So instead, we went for five films, on DVD, about dangerous marine life. And I like to think that Piranha, Piranhas and the Shark Attack Trilogy will become the foundation of my dad's classic cinema collection. Particularly as Piranhas is apparently a remake of Piranha and, after thorough examination of the blurb, Shark Attack 2 doesn't appear to have any plot at all.

So far, we've only watched Piranha, and I must say I never knew that they made such a similar noise to pigeons. I thoroughly recommend it, though its startling accuracy did make it seem rather more like docuumentary than entertainment at times.

Something Beginning With "F"

Yesterday I was kicked square in the eye. It hurt.

Sympathy, please.

My Graphics GCSE Paper (In Haiku Form)

1. Complete this bar chart,
Put it all in the right place,
Then make it pretty.

2. Write down the substance
That's used in vacuum forming,
And draw how it's done.

3. Draw a box design
And a corporate logo,
Then evaluate.

4. Complete your design,
Then explain about barcodes
And two ways to draw.

5. Redesign the box
So it closes correctly,
The first one was crap.

6. Englarge this image,
Use lots of British standards,
Do NOT use colour.

7. Complete the flow chart,
Say why CAD/CAM's fantastic,
Then say why it's not.

8. Explain these four tools,
Plus forehead thermometers
And materials.

9. Consider the world
And how to keep it going
With good packaging.

Biscuit Bigotry

If I told you that Peter Kay has a lot to answer for, you might be forgiven for thinking I was referring to the hordes of people who think that having a good enough memory to quote him makes them witty and amusing, but I just see that as a little variety amongst the people who think the same about Monty Python, or the Simpsons, or any one of a thousand others. No, I am talking about his rampant anti-Rich Tea propaganda. I put it to you that Rich Tea biscuits can be successfully dipped with consummate ease by all but the truly incompetent. So before you randomly take the word of comedians as Gospel, just have a go, and remember: if you can't dunk a Rich Tea, you're doing it wrong.

Just What He's Always Wanted

So far, the Perfect Gifts For Fathers' Day are the compilation CDs Power Ballads II and Cruise Control. I'm really not confident that there are that many fathers who would consider anything featuring Will Young to be the perfect gift.

I suppose we'll find out on the twentieth.

Today's Shopping List

Cold Meats (Not People)
Oats (To Sustain The People)
A Potato
General Recce For Food
Mince (Not People)
Beer
Veg (Preferably Amusingly Shaped)
Apples (Braeburn) (Plenty)
Biscuits (Digestive, Rich Tea)
Mussels (Alive, Alive-O)
Bacon (From A Pig)
Tamotoes
Ingredients
White, White Wine
Stewing Meat (Not People)
People

And to think Mum thought we'd lose all organisation without a female influence in the house.

When The Boat Comes In

In my freezer, in front of the out-of-date ASDA own-brand curries and the breaded prawns (which are probably also out of date, but nobody ever considers eating them so they never get checked), there lies four mealsworth of fish and chips.

Just down my road there is a fish and chip shop. In fact, it's an entire fish and chip restaurant.

I rather suspect that there will be some more out-of-date food in that freezer come May 2005.

Mark Allocations Are Shown In Brackets

There are few things that make you feel stupider that spending twenty minutes writing a fantastic answer to an eight-mark question only to discover that it's actually a four-mark question that you somehow misread the allocation for, but one of them is doing it on the English paper's reading section.

I like to think I kicked proverbial anyway.

Have You Done Your Special K Ten Thousand Steps?

Earlier today, I went on a long and pointless walk, because it was a nice day and I was bored. I passed many a Public Footpath sign, and mostly they led off down those familiar beaten tracks. But one of them appeared to point at a wall, which puzzled me somewhat. As I got nearer, I found that there was a gap in the stone just wide enough to slip through — but it was disguised by the fact that, on the other side of the wall, there was a second, much higher one, made entirely out of bracken and nettles. I like to imagine it was cultivated intentionally by someone who wanted to keep people off his land despite the public right of way.

So this is a call to arms. Footpath oppression must be stopped, and our tracks must be kept clear and beaten, just for the look of the thing. Band together to form elite mercenary rambling groups and wander about the place making footpaths look like they've been used at least once this millenium. Packed lunches and machetes are a must. We can't have the great British public looking idle.

The Future Is In Their Hands

My father, having filled in his postal ballot forms amid much grumbling, has just turned to me and said "I can't remember who I just voted for."

Which he then followed up with "Actually, I'm not sure I voted in the European one."

And to think people are worried about poor turnout.

From The TV Times Reader Offers Page

Ballerina Slippers: Buy One, Get One FREE!

Electronics Repair For Dummies

About five weeks ago, my mobile phone handset stopped working entirely. The good people at Siemens, hearing of my plight (through the Siemens Sales and Repairs Information Line) sent me a pre-paid Jiffy bag so I could send it off to be repaired, and I did so, noting that the information on the outside of the envelope described the job as "Skill Level 0".

Today, my phone came back. Or rather, it didn't. Because apparently, a skill level 0 job involves doing nothing for a month and then sending the customer a new phone. I'm not complaining, you understand — this way I don't have all the little scratches, or the O2 logo — it just seems to be that a fault which the Internet assures me can be solved by having your phone "unlocked" for a couple of quid on the market shouldn't be beyond the grasp on people who fix the things for a living.

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

The Humpday Times is a "brand new, free, independent e-newspaper" published every week as a round-up of the most important, interesting and/or amusing (are there any words for funny beginning with I?) stories of the previous seven days, not to mention a healthy collection of links ranging from the useful to the diverting to the thoroughly, sublimely bizarre. So, get a subscription or just check back every week or so and you'll never have to appear distressingly ignorant in front of your friends again. And remember, you very probably heard it here first (unless you quite obviously didn't).

Happy Birthday To Me

Only one day after the Queen's. And Nicholas Lyndhurst's.

All the best birthdays are in April.

Let's Get Vaguely Serious

Why is it that, every single time there's a major, publicised tragedy, people seem to decide that it is their moral duty to start a "commemorative" chain e-mail/instant message, or put an X in front of a screen-name? The latter is, I suppose, not so bad, but doesn't it seem more than a little pointless? Does it not suggest that the "wearer" of the X is trying mainly to demonstrate that they're a caring, wonderful person without ever having to do anything for another human being? Perhaps I'm just missing something screamingly obvious, but I can't think what on Earth it would be.

The chain messages, however, really do grate. Sending a pre-written sentence to everyone you know does not, in my mind, constitute a good way to mark s tragic event. Particularly as they often contain a statement to the effect of "If you don't pass this on, you obviously don't care." How anyone can receive a message like that and not immediately want to punch the sender in the face I really cannot understand. It's like someone shaking you vigourously without warning and demanding that you do the same to everyone you know, and then branding you a heartless, hate-filled fiend when you refuse.

Now, I realise that this sort of thing's significance pales in comparison to the tragedies that they respond to, but this is something that the average person can do something about. Beyond not planting bombs and not murdering people, there's not a lot you, personally, can do in your everyday life to sort the world out, and you don't need to compensate for that with little crosses or irritating messages or by vigourously shaking people in the street. So please, spare people a lot of pointless annoyance and stop. And just in case I should ever die in some pointless and tragic way, and become the focus of media attention for it, I implore each and every one of you to do all you can to ensure that nobody starts anything like this for me. However I leave this world, I don't want to be remembered as a bloody chain letter, and I very much doubt that anyone else does.

You Want To Go Where People Know That Sitcoms Are All The Same

I'd become pleasantly used to watching an old episode of Frasier on the Paramount Comedy channel at six on an afternoon. It was a nice routine. But then, suddenly, they changed the schedule, and now I'm pretty sure they show one of their worthless, dire programmes instead. So, for a little while, my routine was totally thrown out. But then I discovered that Paramount Comedy 2 (which is deserving of praise solely for the promotional trailers they ran for it) shows Cheers in the same slot, not to mention the slot directly before it. I welcomed this change with open arms, because I haven't seen nearly as many episodes of Cheers, and also because it seemed like a natural progression, or at least a natural regression.

Anyway, a couple of episodes ago was the one with Sam's "surprise" bachelor party, and as I watched it occurred to me that I have never, ever seen a surprise party on a television programme that the recipient didn't find out about in advance or inadvertantly trigger by assuming someone's secretive behaviour was because they were organizing one. This seemed a little odd to me, but then I realised that that may well be how it works in real life. I have only ever been to one thing that remotely resembled a surprise party, and I wasn't paying nearly enough attention to know if the surpise was real or not. So if anyone can remember a surprise party that came as a surprise, please let me know. It would set my mind at rest.

And if you can think of one from a TV programme, that's even better.

One-Sentence Wonder

There's something about the sight of two 11-year-olds sharing a cigarette and a long, lingering kiss that's quite disturbing during the walk home from a hard day's schooling.