Mosher'sUnimaginativelyEntitledBlog
–**– The Blog Without A Bloody Annoying Tagline –**–
It’s been one of those days, which has resulted in the following mental gurglings:
First off, I’ve realised how sad I am by finding the following link incredibly cool. It’s an enigma machine simulator. Possibly sadder is that the link’s from a paper-based version.
And then I spent ages coming up with this:
For tomorrow e’en, I shall be watching us getting towelled by bloody Birmingham City. Don’t get me wrong – I love the guy. But he’s been **** out of luck this season.
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I do whinge about the crappy "God Save The Queen" that England seems to be stuck with, but according to this interesting web site, it’s not actually our "official" anthem. In fact, we don’t have one – by law anyway. It just seems that England finds itself in an awkward position of being too closely identified as Great Britain and therefore defaulting to the "umbrella" anthem.
This is endemic of England’s lack of identity these days. There’s not denying that the Scots definitely and the Welsh to a lesser extent (though actually more so recently) have a definite established identity. Northern Ireland, to outside views, is still more lumped in with the Republic as part of the Emerald Isle thing but still has its own identity as part of the United Kingdom (not Great Britain – check the wording on your passport, people).
England, however, is often just seen as the UK. Scots say they’re from Scotland, Taffs from Wales and Micks from Ireland (I wonder… Irish folk – if an foreigner asks you where you’re from, do you specify North or South?). English people – in my experience travelling – are as likely to say "Britain" or "the UK" as they are to say "England". At least I have an excuse with my parentage.
Regardless, have a trawl through the site. It makes for some interesting reading.
I found out that the tail end of last week included World Book Day, of which I knew nothing at all until Leah told me she’d dressed as a witch to go to the school she works at. A shame, as I’d have plugged it on here to my three regular readers as something I wholeheartedly believe in. The reading of books, that is. Not the dressing-up of schoolteachers in witch-ey finery. I much prefer Wild West Whore or Transylvanian Barmaid as the costume of choice for buxom wenches, though I confess they’re not perhaps very suitable for primary schools.
This week, I’ve just discovered, is National Science and Engineering Week, something else I’d happily support as a non-closeted geek. I found out about it by chance when someone on the ZZ9 mailing list posted details of a decent-looking kids’ chemistry set. The supplier are giving free delivery this week.
I had a Merit one that got very heavily used when I was a nipper. Our old kitchen table had many bubbled rings scorched into the varnish by me putting the little metal boiling pan things onto it right from the Bunsen burner. It seems that Merit and other big names from the time have vanished in a puff of evil, rotten-egg smelling smoke.
Sadly, I have yet to spawn progeny of my own. The closest to a nipper in the family is my little cousin and she’s more of the artistic bent, going to dance classes and learning the piano. The risk of being ostracised from the family has meant I haven’t gone forward with my threat of gifting her a drum kit.
Her young age does mean she could change direction, though. Perhaps by the time she’s 10 she could start to show signs of being a new Marie Curie (without the glow). Then I could get her something which could melt the furniture. Whether this is better or worse than encouraging her to be a miniature Animal, I don’t know.
It’s just a shame that I’ve only just heard about these two weeks, and heard about both of them by luck. I read the BBC and Sky news headlines regularly and there’s not been a sausage about either.
Emphasis on the "new". Alder Hey Hospital has announced that if parents didn’t smoke around their children, then the number of bronchitis cases (and other smoking-related diseases) would drop.
Now excuse me if I’ve been living in a future world and have just popped back to see how shitty the 21st century actually was… but haven’t we known this for years, just smokers are so ******* selfish they don’t care?
This reminds me of a guy I used to work with. He was my contact at another company and he told me about one of his colleagues with a very poorly daughter. Lovely child, about 10 years old, crippling lung conditions and stunted growth. This chap and his partner went to dinner at the colleague’s house… where said colleague and his wife chain-smoked the entire evening from the moment they arrived to the moment they left.
Despite this, the doctor’s protestations and what is common ******* knowledge in this day and age they point-blank refused to believe that their filthy habit was in any way related to their poor daughter’s debilitated condition.
The selfish, ignorant, backward *****.
I can’t be arsed looking for the post elsewhere on the blog but I’ve said in much these words before: how can it be illegal to slip arsenic and other toxins into your child’s food… yet be completely legal to force them to breathe the same filth when you’re fully aware of the risks?
Yes, I’m a rampant anti-smoker. Yes, perhaps it’s selfish of me to be glad that they now can’t smoke in pubs, clubs and malls in many countries. But how on earth can anyone attempt to justify something that causes nothing but ill health? And worse, not just to themselves but to everyone around them?
I already had half this post written mentally when I ended up with more to write on it, courtesy of a visit to "Sara"’s remodelled web page. Just a couple of questions about the female half of our species.
Referring to the above-mentioned page… what is it with purple? Why do so many women like it? You’re all supposed to like pink, get it right. Or is there some subtle undercurrent that I’ve stumbled upon?
How does one make purple? By mixing red and blue. But I’ve noticed that women prefer a lighter shade of purple – maybe a mauve. To which you’d add white. Deconstruct that and you have red, white and blue. Red and white = pink. Plus blue. We’re getting somewhere.
You lot are trying to wheedle in on the traditional male colour! And, as usual, you’re doing it in a sneaky "we women know, but let’s not tell the men" way. And with my superior male intellect I have caught you out!
Please don’t kill me.
Second question – what the hell do you lot do with toilet paper? Eat the stuff? Now I’m no stinge in the arse-wiping department but in my flat I can make a standard roll of bog paper last over a month. Seriously. And I promise I don’t deliberately **** in the office to save money.
Yet I have one female guest in the flat and I go through whole roll in two to three days. In common internet parlance: WTF?! What do you do, really? Not all of you need it to pad your bras (Leah for one would be taking the piss if she did…), and I do tend to feed my guests well (Nicola came close to complaining about the volume of pasta served one night) so I do doubt you chow down on it.
I’m picturing women wrapping 2m of paper round their hands before venturing said semi-limb anywhere near their bottom (front or back) for a wipe.
From my viewpoint, I could accept a 2-fold increase in paper usage as there are two areas to wipe compared to the singular male one. I could even excuse a 3-fold one due to its requirement for both forms of excretion. But that still equates to maybe a roll a week maximum compared to my 4-weekly rota of paper usage.
Seriously – what gives? Do you get bored and make paper streamers, then flush them all away afterwards so as not to give the game away? Or write long diary entries on them for copying into your little lockable secret books when you get out? After all, men read on the loo – maybe women write.
Please, put me out of my misery on this one!