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Not long to go before Graspop now. Got the tickets, flights, insurance, car parking, coach bookings and hotel (one night only) sorted. Tent borrowed (thanks, Caz!), rucksack dusted off, camera charged up, currency converted.

OOOOOOOHHHH, roll on Thursday.

Kitty fiddling

Sharon popped round earlier. Her shower is shafted at the moment (retiling going on courtesy of one of her neighbours) so I let her borrow mine. She’d just been shopping in Meadowhall and decided to try on one of her new frocks. I was tapping away on here when I heard screams from my bedroom. Unusual when I’m not in there as well.

“Get off!”

Still unusual when I’m not in there.

“OW! OOOWWW! YOU BUGGER!”

Sharon’s new top has “laces” that you need to tie up round the back. Thing is, doing this means jiggling bits of string. Near my cat.

*pounce*

By the time I ran in, KK had one set of claws in the string and another holding her weight as she dangled off Sharon’s arse. Now that must have hurt.

Fore!

I was seeing Sharon out to her car, watching KK go mental chasing moths in the street, when I spotted a tennis ball on my lawn. Cool. Late at night, nobody around. That means it’s mine.

With perfect accuracy, I lofted it, pivoted and welted it with the curve of my foot. I have no idea where it went. Predominantly as I was too busy watching my right slipper tumble and arc away over my car and into deep grass and utter blackness.

****.

Cue me hopping around like a **** trying to locate my slipper while Sharon took the piss. Cheers for that.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have got to get this coursework done.

Oops

Well at least my boss knows I wasn’t faking with the cold last week. He’s caught it. Unfortunately I couldn’t have timed it worse. As he’s now constantly reminding me, he’s doing my appraisal in a week or so.

Personally, I think I should get bonus marks for being “generous to a fault”.

DIY misadventures

I’m not as bad as some, as I’ve yet to lose a limb or blind myself (I’m only 31 – sure I’ve got time left), but I had fun over the weekend. First off, many thanks to Steve from number 11 who helped me with the loft ladder. Finally, four years after I bought it, I’ve got the thing fitted.

There is a downside, though. I’ve had to replace the loft hatch to get it in. I used to have a “push up” hatch, and to get the ladder to work I need a “pull down” one. Easy enough as the ladder kit includes a locking mechanism and hinges.

Problem. The hinges have screwholes in them about 10mm from the hinge part itself. These have to be screwed to something secure, such as a) the door itself and b) the wooden beam from which it should hang.

Therein lies the problem. My ceiling is plaster – about 10mm or so thick. As well as the hole in the plaster being crooked (this was hidden by a nailed-on plastic surround that I had to remove) which means that the perfectly-cut hatch isn’t as good a fit as it should be, it also means that the holes in the hinge line up with very insecure crumbly plasterboard. I need hinges which have holes about 20mm (or further) from the joint. Thing is, I’m struggling to find any. The few I’ve seen are enormous and take screws the size of my little finger.

So I currently have a loft ladder which I can show off. Because it overhangs a whacking big hole in the ceiling.

I knew there was a reason I normally got people in to do these jobs.

The other job (one of them) I didn’t do courtesy of the heavens opening was re-sinking a fencepost which fell over in the winds a few … erm … months ago. For this I needed a small bag of “post-crete” or post fixer – fast drying cement.

I was in Wickes at lunchtime trying to find the hinges when I thought I’d pick up a bag. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I was halfway across Sainsbury’s carpark and my legs were getting shorter with each step that I realised how ******* heavy it was.

I paced myself from there to the car and was doing fine until I met one of my managers on his way to lunch. He decided to have a 5-minute conversation with me as I continually adjusted this rather weighty bag on my shoulders. No way was I putting it down – I’d never have picked it back up again.

Grr.

Well this is handy

Apparently a “simple” brain scan can tell when a woman’s faking an orgasm. So if you need to know, all you’ve got to do is subtly slip her head into an MRI scanner while you’re shagging her. Easy.

On the other hand… who cares? I know I cum. What the hell am I bothered if my partner does or not? That’s their problem, surely?

Yeesh.

Not that I’m jealous of multiple orgasms of various different types or anything.

Cruisin’ for a bruisin’

In case you missed it, Tom Cruise got soaked at the London premiere of War of the Worlds, by one of those crappy “practical joke” TV crews. The upshot of which is they are now facing charges of assault… which it is.

I’d like to link this to another story that cropped up today. Specifically, the government now announcing it’s going to specify which venues fall under the future smoking ban. As ******* usual, the pro-smoking lot are up in arms about “invasion of civil liberties” and other such bollocks.

Now, let me link the two.

Tap water – good for you, non-carcinogenic, natural, many safe uses. Only real risk is from drowning in it.

Fag smoke – more toxic chemical than you can shake a tar-soaked stick at. Not natural. Known to cause fuckloads of diseases even when inhaled passively (and cuntbollockfuckery to the tobacco companies who say otherwise).

So, let me get this right. If someone squirts a non-toxic liquid in my face, it’s assault… but it’s perfectly legal for someone to blow a toxic gas at me when they’re fully aware of the health risks involved?

Will someone please try to explain that, because I ******* can’t. Especially the bit where people are trying to encourage others to generate more of the toxic fumes. Sorry, but that’s just ****** up.

Incidentally, blow ciggy smoke in my face and I will punch you. You now have plenty of warning.

Bloody Brummies

For the first time ever that I can recall, Birmingham City fans have done something right. On the eve of signing Lee Bowyer from us, they set up a petition saying they didn’t want someone like him at their club. So Bowyer’s decided not to move there.

Steve Bruce said they needed someone like Bowyer to replace Robbie Savage in midfield, which is about right. They’re both idiot thugs who kick first and don’t bother asking questions later. I have my doubts about the fans though. Given that Birmingham City’s the only ground I’ve ever felt threatened leaving, do you think they didn’t want him because he’s not enough of a thug?

D’oh

Why the hell am I in the office? I’m bunged up with cold and have a great excuse to go home. Of course, you know what’s going to happen. Every other bugger here will catch it and I’ll end up here alone for a week.

Thanks out to Allen for having Beecham’s in his desk drawer and picking me up some Lockets on the way in. Star!

Although I have to say the Beecham’s is giving me a pain in the left eye whenever I sip it out of the cup. Maybe I should take the teaspoon out first.

OK, so I gave up at lunchtime. I wasn’t massively busy so I headed home and had a rest. I was just as ill yesterday, but I was busy on site so I just didn’t feel it. Today, I was meant to be teaching Ben some techie stuff, and all the talking was really punishing my throat.

One hot (well, warm) bath, a hotter shower and an hour or so’s kip made a bit of a difference, but my head still feels like it’ll explode (in spectacular green gunky fashion) if I stuck a pin in it. I shall be checking my pillow very closely for sharp objects when I crash out.

You know when you’re recovering from sunburn when you dry yourself after a shower and the towel’s covered in little pellets of squishy skin. Every time you rub, more of them come off and they stick to you as well so you’re never clean.

My head’s covered in them, like huge maggots, clinging for life until they dry and drop off. Oversized lumps of dandruff you can almost hear as they bounce off the carpet.

And I’m sneezing, spluttering and coughing. I think it actually is a cold, and not just that dust. Think yourselves lucky you don’t share a keyboard with me as mine’s covered in snot and phlegm. Well, my hanky’s soggier than Anni’s underwear at the sight of Billy Idol so there’s no point using that any more.

Guess what, though? I’m going to the gym tomorrow lunchtime. Oh yes I am. I’m either going to make myself better or get every other bugger ill trying.

Welcome to Jiang Zemijn’s Britain (he’s the dictator who runs China, in case you didn’t know)

I was going to complain about this, but I’m probably not allowed to.

It’s not just Star Trek fans

Someone who regularly reads this blog has sent me this link. It’s ******* grim, you have been warned. S/He said “im not sure how i just found this….” and frankly I don’t want to know. You know who you are, you sick individual.

Pass me a bucket.

Urgh

And the after-effects of Download continue. While the festival food was of surprisingly good quality (even if I paid through the nose ofr it), I hardly ate anything. Partly the cost, partly the adrenaline. I was just too busy enjoying myself to stop and eat.

As a result, I ended up with a digestive tract part-full of food, part full of water but largely full of gas.

This morning, my toilet looked like an explosion in a **** factory. Even after two flushes, there were spatters on the bit above where the water flows from so I had to get in there with some loo roll to mop it all up.

Good job that even with all that rushing around I still remembered to brush my teeth. Toothpaste tasted funny though. Or smelled funny.

Loos

Something I noticed when I was in Prague was the design of the toilets. OK, this may sound weird that I even looked, but it’s just so wildly different from ours that you couldn’t help.

In the UK, every toilet I’ve ever used has had one thing in common. When you sit down and crap, your poop drops right into the water with a sploosh. This can result in a jet of cold water hitting your exposed nipsy. After a particularly acidic ****, this can be rather relieving. On the other hand, it can scare the hell out of you and make you jump a bit. I’m sure someone somewhere has had splashback and fallen off the crapper as a result. No doubt this has already been filmed and is waiting its debut on the brand new “scat” section on Another C-list “Celebrity”‘s Funniest Home Videos or When Toilets Attack or something.

In Prague (and according to Anni, in the US of A), things are different. The toilet’s are more stretched in shape so your poop-chute is vertically in line with a flat area of porcelain, rather than with the still water. Hence, when your faeces lands, it doesn’t splosh. Instead, it just sits there. I can see this being a problem if you’re fairly large and your arse cheeks squish too deeply into the bowl, and/or you’re dropping a really big, stiff turd that won’t dribble away of its own accord. The US “ledge” is apparently not as wide/deep as those of the Czech variety.

However, there has to be a reason for this. I think these reasons may be different for each of the countries. Prague is in an ex-Soviet state, and therefore used to be a rather poor nation. Thankfully, they seem to be benefitting from European trade and tourism and things are perking up for them – something I’m happy about as the people were so nice when I was there.

In the past, people won’t have had that much cash so they may have had a great need to recycle. Hence, the plop lands on a little ledge and you could scoop through it and pick out all the corn, potato skins and stuff that hadn’t been digested. One quick wash and there you have it – reuseable roughage.

Conversely, our theory for those in the US is related more to affluence than effluent. There are two ideas we came up with between us.

Firstly that it’s simply because it’s different. The US declares independence, and then decides it’s just damn well gonna do stuff different. Yee haw. And so on.

The second theory is more of a conspiracy, perhaps some kind of Masonic agreement between porcelainists and colonic irrigation specialists. The idea being that you poop, look at it and wonder “should it be that colour/texture/taste?”. Then you go to see an arse specialist who sticks a big hosepipe up your back end and flushes you clean.

Commercialism in all its glory.