I didn't quite catch that...

I’m thinking of starting a new catagory: How to piss me off on the road.

This catagory would cover such gems as changing speed limits without warning and suicidal birds. It would also, as of today, contain a story about planks and the safe transportation thereof.

Pop quiz, hotshot: you have 15ft of planks. You want to transport said planks from place A to place B, the quickest way between them being the very busy Antrim Road, and the even busier urban dual carriageway, the Westlink. Now, you also have the problem of only having a Rover (old style) 216i to move them. What do you do? What do you do?

Do you leave the boot open and let the tail of the planks stick out? Nah, too sensible. do you open the sunroof and drive about with a big flagpole for the day? Nah, too dramatic. How about folding the back seats down, and having half the planks stick out the passanger window at an angle carefully selected to cause minimum disuption to other road users? Nah, too much like work.

Do you open your two back windows and have five foot of wood sticking out each of them? Yup. And then drive down a mile of very busy road at a steady 10mph with the hazards on? Why not? How about making sure that you do this on a day when there’s a big police presence on the Shore Rd (probably an accident, I’m guessing, but you can never be sure)? Bonus. And then you have the balls to start giving the finger to anyone who manages to cut around you by using their knowledge of back streets off the Antrim Road.

You, Mr KDZ **** (a blue Rover 216i), are a cock. And I hope that you impale yourself, very slowly, on one of those planks.

Vindictive? Moi?

Hmm. Can’t really see it myself, but can’t really complain.

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I’ve been commissioned to build a pretty complex database, and I’ve pretty much forgotten how to do the “complex” bits of Access. It’s been a long time since A-level, and my notes from that time seem to have gone up in smoke somehow… So my memory is being dredged at the minute.

Cheers to Laurie for the link.

In my job, I spend a lot of time driving between places. And I try to take into account the travel time involved, so that I waste as little time as possible waiting for meetings, and maximising my time at home watching DVDs. And so it was today, I’d left enough time, to within 5 minutes, for a trip between to sites. And all was going well until I got to a stretch of the Ravenhill Road. Normally a 40 limit, they’d put it down at the weekend to 30. And to celebrate this, they’d set up no less than 3 speed traps along the length of the road (about a mile). Which meant that the petrified and confused motorists in front of me crawled along at 20 the length of the road, and the length of the Ormeau Road, and a fair whack of the Newtownards Road, making me half an hour late.

My first late appointment. I dislike.

I also dislike the sneaky, underhand tactics of Belfast City Council and PSNI’s traffic branch. Shame on you.

I’ve said before that I’m not a big fan of cats. I mean, I like individual cats, but once you get into plurals of them, then it all goes wrong.

At the minute, we have a group of feral cats round the house, attracted by the shelter afforded by one next door neighbour’s garden, and by the supermarket on the other side putting out fucking catfood. Recently, I’ve noticed that one cat and about five kittens have been gathering outside my front door, occasionally licking the cobbbels. Which annoyed me, as they were making noise right under my window, and probably eating there most of the time when I wasn’t watching. Then I caught them, this morning. What with the clock going back, the body clock said I was looking out the window at 6.10, and there they were, with half a fucking fish. I mean, the supermarket puts out buckets of catfood for them. The river with fish is across another small stream from my house. Yet, this cat decided to ignore the free food, catch fish from a fast-flowing river, drag it either through or round another wee river and then feed it to the damn kids.

Which annoys me. SO I did the only thing any sane person could. I went out, tossed the fish over into the supermarkets feeding area and covered the ground where it had been with Jeyes Fluid. Hell, it’s bright black, so I figure that any cat stupid enough to lick it deserves what it gets.

Plus, I needed to go round with weed killer anyway.

Did I ever mention that NIreland is a pretty damn beautiful place?

Well, it is. Incidentially, this picture shows Portrush and it’s Old Golf course, which is often used to stage senior tournaments.

Pity my camera fone is a tad shite, but hey.

Ladies and gentlemen, I can now say that having a portable defrib machine put in the house was a fantastic idea. Having just watched the Ireland v Argentina match, I can state that I was in a state of cardiac arrest for the last five to ten minutes. One point we won by. One fricking point. Against the team with the biggest and heaviest pack in the tournament. Only one try scored, and that by us, although at a terrible cost: Quinlan landed hard and dislocated his shoulder. Basicially, we won because we won more line-outs than we had any right to in the second half, and because we didn’t let the Argie scrum walk all over us.

Bring on the ozzies, cos we should be through now.

My head hurts.

And I now have to go and serve beer. Which is liable to make me feel sick. Ouch.

That is all.

Further to the footnote on this post, I can now state that the road in question is capable of a sustained 75, and the sharpest of the corners can be taken at a little below 50 without too much tire squealage. I like that road.

Of course, it’s also where the Ulster Motorcycle GP is held, which might infulence my liking of it. Maybe.

I’ll let my overseas reader in on a little background info on this: the NIrish motorway network is a little, hmm, lacking*. By which I mean, we have less than a hundred miles of motorway, and it’s all shite. The M12 is about 1 mile long (including the roundabout), the M3 is basicially one bridge about a mile long, the M22 is just a six mile curve, the M2 is split into tow sections ten miles apart, the M1 deliberately doesn’t link the two main cities of Ireland, instead linking Belfast and Dungannon (haven’t heard of it? I don’t blame you), the A8(M) is three miles of dual carriageway, and the M5 is less than 5 miles.

And it’s all in half the country. There’s buggger all except a few miles of the M1 west of Lough Neagh. But that’s not the point.

The point is; this evening there have been three accidents on them. And I want to know why. Sure, an accident in icy conditions on a twenty mile stretch of M2 is understandable, but two seperate accidents on the five miles of the M5 is a bit strange. It’s only five miles, and there isn’t a turn, it’s all straight. It’s not like they’d have to lift the magic wand and get the tail out on the bends, because there aren’t any. How? I ask you?

Now that I’ve said that, of course, I’ll get into an accident tomorrow. Shit.

However, what with me getting to basicially set my own timetable, I don’t get out of bed until 10 tomorrow (I start work at 11.30 and finish at a quarter to two. And get paid from nine to five. It’s good to be me), so any ice on the road should be gone by then. Which only leave my driving skills as an excuse for any accidents. So there’s no chance of an accident.

* – of course, because it’s more than a dirt track across a rock in the sea, it is a damn sight better than a certain un-named Channel Island. ;p

… Don’t be a cock.

Or, at least, don’t stand up in your house of Parliament and express your hope that the soldiers of your country, under orders from the governemnt lead by your party, will refuse their orders. And probably more. Oh, and hey, if you’re in the pay of a foriegn power do a better job of hiding it.

Did I mention the fact that he’s a cock yet? No? Oh well. George Galloway is a cock, everybody.

He’s gone and said that “Labour would rue the day it decided to throw him out”. Not so. I suspect they’re actually ruing the day that they let him in, or at least the day that they let him speak. I think I should mention at this point that George Galloway, in the opinion of this blogger, is a cock.

I’ve had three hits from people searching for “cremation after death“. And I wonder why someone is bothering to put in the “after death” bit? Unless it is the custom in the searchee’s local areas (one in the Seattle, one in Florida and one in Singapore by the looks of it) to not bother waiting until someone is dead. Maybe it’s a special treat: “Mr. Smith, you were kind, generous and loving. But you only tithed 10% of net income, not gross, so I’m afraid we’ve got you pencilled you in for next Thursday. If you’re still alive, you get to choose your own cremation suit, otherwise you get a backless gown*”.

* – Red Dwarf moment: “Why were they always backless? When did a doctor ever need to get to your bottom in a hurry?” Need I mention that Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers is one of my favourite books of all time?

• When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realised that The Lord doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.
• My mum was a ventriloquist and she always was throwing her voice. For ten years I thought the dog was telling me to kill my father.
• I’ve often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can’t get my wife to go swimming.
• I was doing some decorating, so I got out my step-ladder. I don’t get on with my real ladder.
• A cement mixer collided with a prison van on the Kingston Pass. Motorists are asked to be on the lookout for 16 hardened criminals.
• Well I was bullied at school, called all kinds of different names. But one day I turned to my bullies and said – ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’, and it worked! From there on it was sticks and stones all the way.
• My Dad used to say ‘always fight fire with fire’, which is probably why he got thrown out of the the fire brigade.
• Sex is like a game of bridge: If you don’t have a good partner, you better have a good hand.
• I saw six men kicking and punching my mother-in-law. My neighbour said ‘Are you going to help?’ I said ‘No, six should be enough.”
• If we aren’t supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat?
• Politicians are wonderful people as long as they stay away from things they don’t understand, such as working for a living.

Because I can’t be arsed to blog properly today. Oh well.

So, I’m sitting here, trying to write application form. Which is even less fun than it sounds. However, I don have a little light relief. Found at Fusion Reaktor, there’s the Office game, great fun. Got 16 then realised that I should be working. Boo.

Incidentially, does anyone have any suggestions for this question: Give an example/s where you have participated in a meeting and persuaded others to see your point of view?

My possible answers would be:

• During a busy night in the Union, myself and a couple of workmates were engaged in a meeting with some disgruntled customers. At the start of this meeting, they were of the opinion that I was an illegitimate son of a goat, that my mother was a hamster, and that my father smelt of elderberries. Using reason, examples, armlocks, headlocks, general pummeling and pointing to the brick-shithouse-like workmate in the corner, I convinced them that this opinion was incorrect, and that my parents were (a) married at the time of my birth, (b) not quadrupeds of any species and (c) not well known for smelling of fruit. Furthermore, I convinced them that their interests would best be served by their hasty retreat from the area, followed by a written apology and several beverages left behind the bar for me.
• There was a meeting. I can’t recall all that was said, what with all the beer I drank during it, but there was much agreement with whatever I said, and I left a happy man. I think that it was jolly decent of all present to laugh along with me at all my witty comments, too.
• I once had a meeting. But the social worker prefered to describe it as am “interview”, and said that I should be on my best behaviour for the nice parole officer. In the end the nice parole officer let me out again, as I had persuaded him that I was no longer a threat to myself or to others. I immediatly proved this by setting fire to his car in the car parking place, and then castrating his hamster. but I didn’t hurt myself! Aren’t I clever!

Any other better suggestions? I’m mainly interested in ones that won’t get me arrested or sectioned, by the way.

On the way back form work today, I decided to take a shortcut. So I went along one of the nicer roads about*. And then I get to a short cut off the short cut, and wonder why there was so much traffic off a side road in a tiny village. At first I thought that there was something big happening at the nearby RAF base, but no. It had been at the airport. And had just finished.

I’d only gone and missed the last visit of Concorde to Northern Ireland. Shite. If I’d known that that was happening, i’d have rescheduled my last appointment. Because I’m a bit of a geek, really.

* – fantastic road. Sweeping curves to start, then tight turns, opening into a straight, wide section, down a country lane, down a fantastic stretch with soft turns (and a fantastic right hander just before Antrim), then the wide road into Randalstown. And the views the other way are fantastic, descenting into Belfast from Blacks Mountain. But I digress.

Well, young Mr O’Connell won’t be getting a ban, which means that we’ll be able to field a first string team against Argentinia. Bring them on…

If this was the start of the summer, I’d be worried about this getting the number 1 slot, because there’s always some shitty little tune that does.

Luckily enough, it’s not the start of the summer, so all we have to worry about is the Christmas spot.

I hope that this is all made up, but I’ll proceed on the assumption that it isn’t.

According to Michele (and the Sunday Mail), Mothercare have added to the lyrics to Humpty Dumpty:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
Humpty Dumpty opened his eyes
Falling down was such a surprise
Humpty Dumpty counted to 10
Then Humpty Dumpty got up again.

Because the original (where he was broken and couldn’t be fixed) wasn’t nice enough. Right. Have they failed to notice that Roald Dahl is one of the best loved childrens authors ever, despite having very nasty things happening to characters in his books. Have they not figured out that Ring-a-ring-o’-roses is about people dying of plague? How about Jack & Jill? I can’t remember anything about the paramedics turning up and saying “Oh, don’t worry Jack, it’s not actually broken, it’s just bruised”.

Kids like that sort of stuff, and probably need to hear it at some point. Go on cushioning kids from all of it, and they when their pet or granny dies, they’re going to be royally fucked up. It ain’t an easy world to live in, so stop pretending that all is nice and fair out there.

And stop fucking with my childhood.

Someone remind me, are heart problems a good thing, or a bad thing?

A Bad Thing, you say? How about if the guy having them has his finger on (or within reaching distance of) a button which can order the launch of many many nukes*; can pick up the phone and order air strikes; has a party sniping at him; has a continent pissed off at him; has the media angry at him; and has a fair whack of the country a tad annoyed at him?

Yes, PM Blair has a dicky heart, and has been ordered to relax for a full 24 hours. Can’t see him being the type to be able to relax fully, though, but I’m sure he’ll manage to relax for at least an hour or two…

* – OK, so he can’t actually order a sub commander to launch his nukes; he can only authorise said commander to launch. Under the rather odd UK system of government, only the Queen or one of her commissioned officers can actually order this. But if I was the commander, I’d take the authorisation quite seriously…

Over the last week, I’ve had a couple of search queries sending me a fair bit of traffic. One is about the Lord of the Rings, and does get something related to it. However, I’ve had about 20 hits from people searching the internet for the word “scrotum”.

Why do people think that my site would have a lot of detailed information on ball sacks? I mean, the quote that google and yahoo have found goes like this:

Unfortunately for Justin, the sack concerned is more commonly known as a scrotum.”

“As I said, the sun, me not being used to steel toe-capped shoes…”

Really, who would have that quote in a serious reference page?

I say research because a lot of the hits seem to be comming from the same .edu address. I’d have thought that college students would already know what a scrotum was, but maybe the education system in the states is in worse shape that I thought…

Layman’s Logic points me in the direction of the Financial Times agony aunt column:

“Dear Economist,
I do not know whom to turn to. A few months ago I discovered that my wife was having an affair with my boss. I lost both wife and job in quick succession. My wife also took the dog. As I cannot afford my mortgage repayments, I am about to lose my house as well. Betrayed and homeless, I feel very depressed. I have become so desperate as to consider taking my own life. Please help.
– A.W., Dulwich

Dear A.W.,
Don’t do anything rash. You are on the verge of making a terrible mistake, albeit one often made by naive practitioners of cost- benefit analysis.
Presumably you are contemplating suicide for the usual reason: a net-present-value calculation suggests that the future benefits of living are outweighed by the future costs. You will have considered the low probability that you will ever love again, the disadvantages of your poor credit record, and the difficulty of securing a new job, especially if applying from no fixed abode. While this cost-benefit analysis may appear to be a rational approach, it neglects advances in the field of real option theory.”

Remind me not to consult the FT with any problems I may have, please.