Never Leave The House.

So I went into town on Saturday, and after roughly 4 years of searching I managed to find a parking space only to realise that I didn't have any change.

 

Dammit I thought, I looked to see if the sweets stall that only sells sweets because people need to change a fiver was there but no it was shut.

 

Ok ok what would Jack Bauer do I thought, and after discounting the idea of interrogating the bloke selling conservatories until he confesses to planning to blow up Argos I realised my only chance is to quickly buy something from toys r us (the nearest shop) and leg it back to the car before I get a ticket.

 

I ran inside the shop, god it was busy AND NOISY, why do they let children into these places?? I frantically looked for the cheapest item I could find (unfortunately the Xbox Connect wasn't it, not that I know what one is anyway it sounds like a park and ride bus at Luton Airport) and hurriedly made my way to the nearest and only open checkout. Only to find the most spoilt child in the world (looking a lot like Veruca Salt from Charlie & The Chocolate Factory "I will sqweem and squeem") has managed to persuade her long suffering parents to buy the entire stock of Bratz dolls, wigs, shoes and most of aisle F.

 

I eventually put my single solitary item on the conveyor belt and shuffled to the front of the queue.

The shop assistant (her name I believe was Abi...) looked at my item, then looked at me, then started to smile, then looked at me again, not in a 'he's nice' way though, it was more of a 'who let him out, it must have been a mistake, he is just a tad on the wrong side of weird' sort of look.

 

"Is that all you are buying sir" she said looking at me, I could tell she was about to laugh

 

"err yep it is" I said looking at what I was going to buy; ONE GIANT GOLD CHOCOLATE COIN

 

"yeah sorry I need change for the car park"

 

then I realised how it looked and the penny (or giant coin) dropped.

 

"not that it will fit in the machine I know!"

 

she started laughing and I turned bright beetroot red and quickly left after paying, imagining that she was thinking I would put my giant gold coin into a blue cartoon parking meter and drive off in my big cartoon clown car, hooting away, with Roger Rabbit in the passenger seat, whilst the loony tunes theme plays in the background.

 

As porky pig would say; Thats all folks.

http://readingroom.podbean.com/

This month the Reading Room Book Group take an outing to the cinema to watch the film adaptation of One Day by David Nicholls, starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. Will Hollywood ruin one of our favourite books - or bring a whole new audience to it? We’ll also be talking to actress and writer Abigail Tarttelin about her first novel Flick, Claire Kinton returns with the first chapter of her book Dead Game, we find out how thebookpond.com helps students swap academic books, and our tea break story comes from Jim Gotts. All this plus more 101 Books To Read Before You Die, poetry from Paul Eteng and Jamie McKay brings us Musings of a Muddled Mind.

Signs You May Have Been Watching Too Much T.V

Each day as soon as you wake up you announce 'previously on my life' then proceed to re-enact brief snippets of the day before.

You leave the house with a slice of toast in your mouth as 'Walking On Sunshine' or the theme from Friends plays in the background.

At work you get called in to see the boss, call him Captain, accuse him of eating doughnuts whilst you are on the streets and he calls you a maverick and to get out of his office - even though you work in the Admin Dept of the Tax Office, your bosses name is Derek and he likes morris dancing.

Before going for lunch you tell the story of your incredibly tough upbringing, being raised by 3-legged blind rabbits in an allotment shed in Milton Keynes whilst Fix You by Coldplay mysteriously appears getting louder as you speak.

You come back from lunch punching the air singing  Take That's 'Today this could be the greatest day of our life'.

After a Staff Meeting you tell the rest of the room to 'press the red button now for an exclusive behind the scenes look at your life'.

Rubbish comedians a la Shane Ritchie and Bobby Davro seem to start work in your building. Yes that is Joe Pasquale that started on the reception desk today.

Whenever someone says something slightly rude or strange, you find yourself turning to an imaginary camera and make a bemused face.

Before going on your annual holiday you announce to everyone that you will be back in the Autumn but people can follow your life in a series of expensive audio books available from all good retailers in the meantime.

You don't have Christmas Day but a Christmas Special, that isn't as good as a normal day, lasts twice as long and has a surprise appearance by John Barrowman singing 'Let It Snow' to your Nan.

a coarse and unpleasant instrument

"Lincolnshire was historically associated with the Lincolnshire bagpipe, an instrument derided as a coarse and unpleasant instrument in contemporary literature, but noted as very popular in the county. The last player, John Hunsley of Middle Manton,^[16] died in 1851,^[17] and since then the instrument has been extinct."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincolnshire
I think we should bring this instrument back, its obviously overdue for a revival. How bad was it that its last player died and its become extinct. Thats extinct, not unpopular or overlooked but actually extinct. How many other instruments have gone the same way as the dodo? should there be a charity set up to try and protect these troubled creatures? and who is going to be next? Are the triangle's numbers dwindling to a worrying degree? Is the glockenspiel struggling to find food in the current climate? Do we need to try and get the washboard and the spoons to try and breed in order to keep them going? I feel a campaign coming on.....
from wikipedia

Hmm what to write about this week?

I must admit have found it difficult to concentrate on anything else creative the past few days (poor me you must be thinking). My mind keeps switching to recent events and mulling over the why's and how's and what's etc.

 

After a relatively peaceful night, indeed who would have thought that rioting has the same rules as cricket? a little bit of rain and everyone goes in for tea! Who knows if the covers will be taken off tonight and England will go out to 'bat' again?

 

The first thing I noticed in the aftermath of the initial chaos is that it only takes a riot to bring out the inner racist in people doesn't it. Looking at the some of the postings on social networks it seems you only have to scratch the surface of some people with a blunt stick to reveal opinions that would make even Enoch Powell blush. The idea of bringing in the army to start shooting at teenagers and even younger people doesn't seem to be a particularly well rounded argument. Its almost like some people have turned into a psychopathic version of supernanny "you won't eat your broccoli?" "well go and stand over there while I blast you with water cannon and rubber bullets, that will get you to eat your greens poppet"

 

There seem to be three schools of thought on this:

 

1) the people participating in rioting/looting are scum and should be locked up until the world is run by dolphins and we all get around by using jetpacks. I have even seen mention that people have to 'earn' human rights? human rights aren't the equivalent of your Tesco club card you know, "oh I am sorry Mr Fletcher you haven't earned enough human rights points this month for human rights I'm afraid so we will have to throw you in a cave and let you THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE.

 

2) the people participating are 'misunderstood' and are only doing this in order to get a job interview with WH SMITHS. I don't buy this either really. I have never found this the best way to gain employment even if it does seem less boring than updating your c.v or actually looking for jobs.

 

3) this is where I sit, somewhere in middle of course or as someone actually told me this week "a lily minded liberal". Which I thought was a phrase that only existed in the mind of that bald CID policeman in The Thin Blue Line along with the words "namby pamby". Yes of course what has happened can't be defended, how does looting your local newsagent show the government you aint taking any more? or setting fire to an independent record shop tell the powers that be you have had enough with politicians taking away your money and rights? But at the same time you have to question why has this happened now? At anytime since at least 1979 the poor have been getting poorer and the rich getting richer, governments are known for helping big businesses at the taxpayers expense, large consortiums have always found ways to pay less tax and poorer areas of the country have always struggle to have the voices heard and opinions taken seriously. So why now?

 

I think that just by calling the behaviour deplorable, calling for more police, water cannons etc and thinking that by smacking England in the face a couple of times the government and those that agree with them are frankly missing the point. To put it simply its like taking painkillers to cure a headache without finding out whats causing the pain in the first place?

 

With this happening on such a mass scale its not as easy as that, I have been trying to think of a good analogy but this will have to do:

 

If I was to run around my local town shouting that "YOUR SHOES ARE MADE OF JELLY BRYAN!" in the faces of innocent bystanders for an afternoon I would quite rightly be escorted away by police and hopefully someone would look into my brain and try to understand if I am mentally unstable, in which case treatment and/or therapy would be made available. Or if I am simply being annoying they would probably put me in a room, take me to court or fine me. The point is (yes I do have a point) that people would look into why I was behaving that way and if possible help, or at least help understand what prompted my jelly shoe theory.

 

But if a thousand people ran around my town informing people of the jelly shoe situation the solution seems to be, at least in the eyes of the government, to lock us all up and hope we go away quietly for a bit. Giving politicians more time to cut police/health/education services (indeed those very people that would investigate mentally unstable no doubt) in a strange attempt to sweep everything under the carpet until after the next election.

 

So anyway as it has become clear I don't have all (or many really) of the answers, but that people should think before strapping on their rubber bullet gun and jumping on the water cannon bandwagon.

 

YOUR SHOES ARE MADE OF JELLY BRYAN!

 

OOPS

just a quick one, if you ever find yourself in this situation try not to repeat what a friend of mine (*obviouslyme*) did:

 

in a meeting, big meeting at work with a new manager explaining his new 'vision' for the business:

new manager guy: " so that's how I see the way forward, now can I ask for comments?"

 

what I thought he said "so that's how I see the way forward, now can I ask PHIL COLLINS?"

 

what my response should have been "yeah sounds good blah blah blah"

 

what my actual response was "I CAN FEEL IT COMING' IN THE AIR TONIIIGHHHT"

 

Cue blank stares, embarrassed atmosphere and general all round awkward squirmyness for what seemed like an hour.

Spam Spam Spam Spam

It's strange how email spam has changed over the years, I remember it used to be fairly harmless messages encouraging you to click here for the latest deals on televisions and fluffy emails that didn't amount to anything more than a gentle nudge towards signing up for a holiday brochure.

 

Then one day the fella who is in charge of all spam in the world, I believe his name is Ivan McSpammyboots, realised that this wasn't working, people were quite rudely ignoring his wave after wave of harmless junk and instead reading emails about "LOL catz" or "'do you remember the eighties oh they were so FUNNY".

 

So in a rather surprising U-turn he decided to cut out all the wishy washy nonsense and instead focus on INNUENDO WORDS WITH THE CAPS LOCK KEY TURNED ON. Initially this had they desired effect as we would spend minutes, sometimes days, giggling like schoolboys as emails with headings like ENLARGEMENT MAX PILLS, PERFORM LIKE A STALLION PLEASE and PLEASURES TIME GUARANTEED started to flood our inboxes.

 

Mr McSpammyboots was delighted (or EXCITING ALL NIGHT SIR as his emails would describe it), the world was being overrun with these delightful literary masterpieces and soon the world would be his!

 

.......but just like before people started ignoring them, not even opening them and even deleting them before they hit their inbox.

 

Now in one last attempt to rule the world (or at least bung it up a bit) Ivan has decided to write incredibly long, complex, badly spelt, letters from people claiming to be from Nigeria emailing you and just you! about the chance to earn millions of dollars. Or people who have found 1.2 million pounds owed to you by the F.B.I. All you have to do is give all of your bank account details, passwords, address and shoe size. The more ridiculous and convoluted these messages get the less sympathy I have for those muppets who appear on Watchdog after giving their life's savings, house and Gran without even contemplating checking with someone they know that isn't a complete idiot.

 

I have copied one I have received below so you can decide the next time you see Mr and Mrs Shufflesmith on Rogue Traders moaning about there 3.4 billion owed to them by the Bureau Of Nigerian Bank Corrections whether they should be helped or just POINT AND LAUGH AT THEM HA HA HA HA.

 

 

 FROM THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION FBI.
WASHINGTON DC./ UNITED STATES
FBI SEEKING TO WIRETAP INTERNET IMPOSTERS. [Code SSSSFBI]

 

It is obvious that you have not received your fund which is to the tune of $5.5million due to past corrupt Government Officials who almost held the fund to themselves for their selfish reason and some individuals who have taken advantage of your fund all in an attempt to swindle your fund which has led to so many losses from your end and unnecessary delay in the receipt of your fund.

 

The National Central Bureau of Interpol enhanced by the United Nations and Federal Bureau of Investigation have successfully passed a mandate to the current president of Nigeria his Excellency Dr. Goodluck E. Jonathan to boost the exercise of clearing all foreign debts owed to you and other individuals/contractors and organizations who have been found not to have receive their Contract/Lottery/Merit Fund/Inheritance and the likes.

 

Now your payment will be sent to you by ATM card that will be coming alongside a custom pin which you will use to withdraw up to $10,000 per day from any ATM machine that has the Master Card Logo on it. Also with the ATM card you will be able to transfer your funds to your bank account, because the ATM card will be registered with Interswitch. The ATM card comes with a handbook or manual to enlighten you about how to use it. Your ATM card would be sent to you via UPS courier service because we have signed a contract with UPS which should expired by June 20th 2011. Below are few list of tracking numbers you can track from UPS website to confirm people like you who have received their payment successfully.

 

Note: Everything that will impede the process of transfer has been taken care of, to effect the release of your fund valued at $5.5million you are advised to contact the director of payment and delivery officer ISAAC PETERS with the information below;

 

Name: Rev Isaac Peters
Email:

On contacting him do provide him with the following information’s required from you for the shipping of your ATM card parcel:

 

Your full Name:
Your Address:
Country:
Sex:
Occupation:
Home Phone:
Cell Phone:

 

A valid copy of your identity is also needed.

 

Thanks for your anticipated co-operation,

 

Mr. ********************

FBI [Code SSSSFBI]
CC: Federal Bureau of Investigation
CC: National Central Bureau of Interpol