Zooey & An Icepick

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

What is it with jigsaw puzzle manufacturers? For the second time in three weeks we've completed a 1000 piece puzzle to find that it only has 999 pieces. One piece missing. What a ripoff!

Readworthy Bl**s

I'm struggling to find visit worthy bl**s. In the last two days I've been to dog pages, cake pages, baby pages, knitting pages, gardening pages, hiking pages, photo pages, model car pages, witch pages, ripped jeans pages, political comment pages and failed to find anything grippy or tittery or anything really. Come to think of it the pictures on the ripped jeans pages weren't too bad.

Why bother? Because half the people listed on the right hand side of the page no longer post or they've gone into hiding or have just gone or they have secret pages that I don't have access to.

This then is by way of being a 'cris de coeur'. Send me some links to interesting, readable pages, pages like Zooey from New York used to write. Zooey stopped writing in July 2005 and I've been waiting for another entry ever since.

"Zooey, I sense anger here. Are you angry today?"

"Angry?....me?..not at all. Are we getting any closer to the part where you write me a prescription? because i have to be honest with you doc, 5 more minutes of your bullshit, and i plunge an icepick through your eye...not that i am in a 'angry place' or anything."

Yes Zooey's writing had a certain something that's sadly lacking in the dog and model car pages I've looked at so far.

Wherever you are Zooey I hope you're well and thanks for the pieces that you wrote back in 2005.

Double Bass

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

The local tea room shut down. Apparently the retired Bogsvillians claiming their special offer breakfasts and cups of tea or coffee reduced the profit margins to zero.

I've been having a few problems with Windows XP recently. Nothing I can't handle of course. Or so I thought.

By last night I'd just about got the computer back to how it used to be. Everything was working fine so I decided to do a bit of a cleanup, to get rid of temporary files etc. A bit of fine tuning you might say.

I pressed the mouse button and watched in horror as my desktop lost all its icons and my My Documents folder emptied itself. All my Firefox and Opera bookmarks disappeared and my email store folders vanished into thin air.

Everything is back to normal again now - I think. I've decided to steer clear of cleanup software.

According to one of my recent emails, 'playing a big instrument brings bigger pleasure to women'. I'm going to get a double bass or a tuba. It'll be interesting to see just how much pleasure a little old guy with a double bass or tuba brings to the women of the World.

My friend Sue Ridgepipe from down the road informs me that Double Bass is a sexual position in which the man enters the woman from behind, and then fiddles with what's available up top with one hand and what's lower down with the other. The position is similar to that used when playing a double bass, but the sound produced is different.

Thanks for that Sue. A Double Bass it is then.

Susan Boyle

Track of the day - Cry Me A River - Susan Boyle.

Thanks to Susan Boyle, Blackburn in West Lothian will never be quite the same again. You can read the official line in any national newspaper.

Here is the alternative view as posted on the web by some Blackburn residents.

"Cracking singer who stays just round the corner from me, but watch it tomorrow night and other words will spring to mind
Wired to the moon
As mad as a bucket of frogs
Bonkers"

"I seen her chase folk with a half brick in her hands wanting to club them to death!
I'm keeping the full story till she gets famous and I can make a wad out of it!"

"If you stuck a sign on your door saying 'karaoke' she'd be there!"

"Remember guys, she's single!"
"And deservedly so. Even by West Lothian standards she's the bronze medal."

I was getting a roll and sausage yesterday and the lassies serving were talking about her and the conversation went..
"You must remember her? She used to chase us with a shoe ...."

"Today's update.
Council put up a new front fence for Susan, photographers take pics of the fence being built!
It's a glitzy life here now."

"Even our camp postie got the undivided attention of the snappers today, clicking away like mad at him as he delivered the post to her house!"

"Conversation in the street between a neighbour and Susan,
Neighbour:- How does it feel to be a star Susan?
Susan:- **** off, I'm a professional now. I'll not be singing for nowt no more so you can **** off and tell the papers that!
Oh dear."

The Carrot Slicer

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

Did I ever tell you about Bill from the Hole in the Ground bar who works in the canned vegetable factory? I'm pretty sure that he's the guy who lets his dog foul all the grass verges round here.

Just before Easter he confessed to his wife that he'd had a terrible urge to stick his penis todger in the carrot slicer at work.

She was horrified and suggested he should make an appointment with a therapist to talk it through.

Bill told her he'd be too embarrassed but promised he'd deal with the urge in his own way.

A few weeks later, when he got home from work, his face was ashen. His wife could see that something was seriously wrong.

"What's wrong, Bill?" she asked.

"Do you remember what I told you I wanted to do with the carrot slicer at work?"

"Oh, Bill, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"Bill, what happened?"

"They sacked me."

"Yes but what about the carrot slicer?"

"Oh. They sacked her too."

Red Headlines In Google News

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

It's Friday again. I'm not sure where Wednesday and Thursday disappeared to, but I suspect I lost them trying to fix the computer.

Physically installing a new hard drive is easy but getting software reinstalled is a total pain in the ass.

There wasn't anything wrong with the hard drive that I replaced. It just wouldn't boot into XP. It is now connected as a slave drive. At least all the files on it are still available.

The fact remains that it has taken me two days so far to get everything looking more or less as it did before Wednesday morning's breakdown. Except that this morning all the headlines on the Google News page were showing up in red text in Firefox and Opera. Internet Explorer to my annoyance displayed everything in the usual blue. An update of the graphics driver fixed that.

Foxhole Update

The repaired fence is still in one piece but the soil round the doorway I left for the fox shows signs of tracks. Something is coming and going during the night. This morning Dog marked the gap as part of his territory by leaving a large gift in the middle of it. If the fence is damaged again tonight it will be his fault or mine for not clearing up after him.

I did mean to but I've just remembered that I forgot.

Jigsaw

I've been sent a 1000 piece London jigsaw puzzle.

Rebuilding fences and computers is apparently deemed not time consuming enough.

If the sun shines tomorrow I'll cut the grass.

What's the photograph at the top got to do with any of this? Nothing. I was going to write about something else.

Problem On The Computer

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

Slight problem on the computer front. The bloody thing wouldn't start.
I switched on and got some error message or other. I suppose I could have done a Windows repair installation but I was worried that I might lose all my valuable garbage so I trotted off to the shop and bought a new hard drive.

It's taken me all day and most of the night to get it up and running some of the software that was running yesterday.

I have sore eyes, a stiff neck and am bad tempered to boot.

Perhaps things will run more smoothly tomorrow, or should that read today?

A Fox Doorway

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

Last Saturday morning I found holes ripped through the fence at the end of the garden (picure 1).
Not a cat, a cat would have gone over the top.
Far too big for a rat unless it was the size of a dog.
We decided it must have been a fox.
I repaired the section of fence.

Yesterday the fence was undamaged.

This morning the fence was wrecked (see picture 2) but further along this time.
Whatever the creature is it's incredibly determined because it had ripped newly screwed slats out.

Mrs B suggested leaving a doorway for it to get through, which struck me as being an eminently sensible idea. The bottom picture shows the newly finished fox doorway on which dog had just piddled. I'm hoping that this will solve the problem.

Fitness

Not content with developing thighs that can crack nuts, my wife phoned the local gym and asked if they could teach her how to do the splits.

The receptionist asked, "How flexible are you?"

She said, "I can make any day but Tuesdays and Thursdays."

Homebirths & A Thigh Toner

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

All this stuff in the newspapers about MP expenses has got me thinking. I'll become an MP for Bogsville, then I'll be able to get some expensive hi-fi gear, a new bed and a glittery toilet seat, courtesy of the tax-payer on my expenses.

These presents essentials would be much appreciated as it's my birthday tomorrow.

Strangely enough I don't remember my actual birth day but I was told it was one of those, "Hot water and plenty of it!" midwife, homebirths, that all the celebrities are going in for these days.

Pa didn't turn up for the birth. He didn't turn up for any of my birthdays until I was five.

When he did turn up I went and hid under a table and, metaphorically speaking, I've been under there ever since.

1 in 5 people

1 in every 5 people in the world is Chinese so, as there are 5 people in Mrs B's family, one of them must be Chinese.

It definitely isn't Mrs B so it's got to be either her mother or her father, her older brother Booger or her other brother Wun-Hung-Low.

We're pretty sure it's Booger.

Thigh Toner

When Mrs B finally got back from Leeds she brought in a "Thigh Toner". It's like a big, bright blue, butterfly clip and is guaranteed to give you thighs that can squeeze the juice out of lemons or crush nuts.

It's going straight in the bin. At my age I can do without presents like that.

Quicker By Train

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

I wake up at six. At seven I struggle into my clothes to drive Mrs B to the station. She's visiting Leeds.

The roads are empty and the lights are all on green. It's what driving must have been like fifty years ago and I'm back home again by 07.15. The sun is shining and life is fine. Mrs B. will be in Leeds at ten.

At 08.23 I get a text message. It reads

"Stuck at Birmingham. Signalling problem at Derby. Well worth getting up early!"

At 09.11 another message comes through.

"Still stuck but supposed to be moving shortly. We've just been told we will now be moving to join the queue at the blockage, where there will be a further delay. AND there's no buffet. We are now moving."

At 10.11

"Just passed Tamworth. Trolley just reached me. Have run out of coffee. Hope this is not what the rest of my day will be like."

Then at 10.18, seven minutes after the train should have arrived in Leeds, the following message arrived

"Just been told not stopping at Leeds. Have to get off at Sheffield and get another train."

She's now due in Leeds at 12.18.

It's quicker by train!

Wild Bore

Track of the day - All Over Bar The Shouting - Prince Edward Island.

This morning the butcher's shop at the end of the road was advertising Wild Bore. I assume he meant Wild Boar but you never know round here.

There were two dark blue undertaker vans nearby, both marked Private Ambulance. Hope it wasn't another delivery of Wild Bore to the butcher's shop.
Luckily today is Friday so we'll be having fish.

I know that they're running out of burial space in the local cemetery but I don't think the local butcher's is the answer.

There's obviously a nationwide problem with finding spaces for the dearly departed because a headline in last Sunday's newspaper read

Dead man 'hit by train'.

Another case of illegal dumping I thought but as usual I was wrong. Turned out that the man wasn't dead at all until the train hit him. Yes I guess that would do it. Did it for a friend of mine last April and he was always pissed off by redundant adjectives too.

Someone just pushed a piece of paper through the letter box. Printed on it in large red letters were the words "New Car Wash Open!".

I don't know why they bothered to push it through my door because it's quite obvious that Volvo is anything but "New".

It's about time someone gave a thought for people with old cars.

BALLS

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.



The message on the jigsaw puzzle box read, 'WARNING: Choking hazard, small parts. Not suitable for children under 3 years'.
In other words it should have been a doddle for anyone of my mature years.
It took six bl**dy nights to discover that one piece was missing, presumed swallowed by an under 3 year old!
If your little angel has pooped out a piece of the , Lindisfarne Gospel Puzzle, let me know and I'll send you the address to send it to.
Incidentally, if you've got a 4 year old who can complete that puzzle, you've got yourself a genius.

Have you read about the speed camera in Whitely, Hampshire that's caught 23,500 drivers in two weeks? That's a cool camera.
Well not a cool camera really, it must be red hot. That's more than one speeding car snap a minute.
The solution is simple. Don't fine the drivers just send their cars to the crusher, that would solve the problem.

I enjoy an educating read so imagine my excitement when I found a copy of The Isle Of Wight Council's Community and Family Learning Service's Adult Learning Plan Version 3.

It includes the following gems,

The programme has been well received within the Isle of Wight Council with recent pilot with leisure staff leading to the future expectation of this would be to have this project open to all departments of the council and have people directly referred through self referral and the PDR cycle.

Got that? OK so try this for size,

The Service is currently undertaking an Improvement project with LSIS focusing on whole organizational support for Skills for Life including refreshing the IWC Skills for Life strategy and staff training for embedding LLN across the Service.

And finally,

Through the successful completion of the 'Putting the "e" into ACL project' we have established an online learning environment called Moodle.

Wish I'd found version 1.
As past president of BALLS (the Bogsville Association for Learning Life Skills) seems to me that the IOWCCFL service needs to appoint a new TURD (Training Under Review Director).

Twin Sisters & A Photographer

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

These twin sisters celebrated their 101st birthdays in January this year. Remarkable!



Reminds me of the time the editor of the local paper sent a young photographer to take pictures of 100 year-old twin sisters.
One twin was hard of hearing, the other wasn't. Usually worked out just fine.

"I think we'll have you sitting on the sofa," said the photographer.

The deaf twin turned to her sister, "What did he say?"

"HE SAYS HE WANTS US TO SIT ON THE SOFA."

"A little closer together please ladies," said the photographer.

"What did he say?"

"HE SAYS SQUEEZE UP A BIT."

They moved closer to each other.

"Won't keep you a minute, just got to get the focus sharp," said the photographer.

"What did he say?"

"HE SAYS HE'S GONNA FOCUS."

"Good gracious! Both of us together or one at a time?"

St Cuthbert's Way

Track of the day - Sex In The Morning - Prince Edward Island.

It's been so long since I tried to write anything here that I've forgotten what little bit of HTML code I used to know.

I've been training to become a recluse and last week, wearing my best recluse gear, I set off to Northumberland to follow in the wheel tracks of Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne who, in 676, left the Monastery on Holy Island, drove over the causeway to adopt the solitary life and retired to a cave.



It seems to me that Cuthbert would have found it much easier to become a recluse right here in Bogsville. Either Cuthbert did a lot of hiking around to find the right cave to hide away in or his sat-nav was on the blink because every little path in Northumberland appears to be called Cuthbert's Way.

Mind you Cuthbert wasn't a Saint when he was hiking around with a duff sat-nav looking for a cave, elevation to that high office came eleven years after his death when some local smart arse decided to open up his coffin and found that Cuthbert was still perfectly preserved.
If the temperatures in Cuthbert's day were like they were last week I'm not surprised that he was still well preserved.
Suffice it to say that I have decided against living in a wind swept Northumbrian cave especially if local smart arses are going to be opening up my box every eleven years to see if I'm perfectly preserved

According to Wikipedia "Cuthbert's asceticism was complemented by his charm and generosity to the poor and his reputation for gifts of healing and insight led many people to consult him, gaining him the name of 'Wonder Worker of Britain'".
Sounds a bit like me, even if I do say it myself.
I have to visit the local hospital a couple of times a year to prove that I'm not developing glaucoma. This usually means I'm hanging around for hours so while I'm there I like to spread the good deeds, Cuthbert style.

Hospital regulations require patients being discharged to leave the building in a wheel chair, unless of course they've succumbed, in which case they don't need a wheel chair, just a box.

Last time I was whiling away the hours there I found an elderly gent dressed and sitting on the edge of his bed, a suitcase at his feet. I decided to help him on his way.
He got a bit lippy and insisted he didn't need my help to leave the hospital but after a chat about rules being rules, he let me wheel him into the lift.

On the way down I asked if his wife would be meeting him outside.
"I doubt it", he said. "She's still up there changing out of her hospital gown."