Where do you go to my lovely?

Recently, on facebook, a pal indicated her displeasure at her friend's habit of spoiling Peter Sarstedt's best known hit by singing "I want to look into your shed". I felt sorry for him, so I took it upoin myself to spoil the entire song. Here it is:

You talk like Janet Street Porter And you dance like you have two left feet
Your clothes are all made by Asda
And there's headlice and nits in your hair, yes, there are
You live in a council apartment
Miles away from the strand
Where you keep your Susan Boyle records
And an old friend of Russel Brand, yes, you do

But where do you go to, my lovely
When you're alone in your bed?
Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I want to look inside your shed, yes, I do

I've seen all your qualifications
You got from the I.L.E.A.
And the picture you stole from Ikea
Your silliness brightens my day, yes, it does
When you go on your summer vacation
You go to Butlins Skegness
With your chinese designed primark swimsuit
You get a snow white tan on your back, and on your legs
And when the snow falls you're found in Blackpool
With the proletariat
And you sip your Weatherspoons lager
But you don’t think it will make you fat, no, you don't

But what do you keep on those shelves love
I remember full well what you said
Won't you tell me what you’ve stashed in there?
I want to look inside your shed, yes, I do

Your name it is heard in high courts
You know the local dustman
He gave you an old donkey jacket
And you keep it just for fun, for a laugh, ha-ha-ha
They say that when you get married
It'll be to a millionaire
But they don't realize where you came from
And I wonder if they really care, or give a damn

Where do you go to, my lovely
After you’ve ‘et your kebab?
You bring up the phone app for Uber
and order a flounder and dab

I remember the back streets of Hackney
Two teenagers begging in rags
Both touched with disfiguring acne
And sporting electronic tags,
So look into my face now Bianca
And remember just who you are
And though you call me a wanker
I know you still bear the scar, deep inside, yes, you do

I know what you’re up to, my lovely
When you're alone in your shed
moody goods and soft drugs surround you
Where they came from is better not said

WalpurgisNacht

A Facebook pal has pointed out that last night (April 30^th) was “Walpurgisnacht” or Walpurgis Eve. In this day and age, with the Walpurgis itself becoming increasingly rare, few people actually know what it is. Enter the Grumbler, duty bound and entirely delighted to educate.

The Walpurgis (or King Hedgeward as it was once colloquially known) looks very much like a miniature (its only about 30mm from nose to tail) amalgam of a hedgehog and a potato – although, as part of the fabricanidae family, it is not directly related to either. A shy and nervous creature, if held, most Walpurgis will start to shiver with increasing vigour and frequency until eventually exhausting themselves and falling asleep.  As a means of defence/self-preservation, this would appear to be useless but the build-up of lactic acid in its powerful muscles that results from wearing itself out means that the flesh of the Walpurgis tastes utterly revolting.  A small percentage of them, however, will inflict a remarkably serious (for its size) and terminal (for the Walpurgis) bite.

It was originally introduced to the British Isles, as were so many species, by the Romans who called it “Ericius Terrapomum Tremefacio Deminitus”.

Notorious for their dog-like tendency to fight anything they could, and eat or have sex with anything they couldn’t fight, the first invading Romans found that British food was inedible even to a palate as indiscriminating as their own, and that the remarkably pale and bluish skin of the indigenous people served, efficiently, to extinguish their almost perpetual carnal thoughts .  

Hungry, sexually frustrated and bored, the occupiers soon latched on to (or in some cases were latched on to by) the Walpurgis as an early vibrating ‘aide-de-frottage’ that could, when fully depleted, be impaled on a stick, roasted over a fire and eaten. Walpurgis importers grew extremely rich and tended to be invited to all of the best parties. The fact that perhaps as many as one in a hundred of these little creatures would, when applied to an erogenous zone, inflict a painful and piercing bite only appealed to the Romans’ love of gambling and gave rise to the earliest known intimate piercing jewellery industries.

As an obligate hibernator, the Walpurgis is unavailable to consumers from late autumn to spring. Prior to the occasional escapers establishing themselves in the British countryside these first imports of the year would typically be available towards the end of April. Ever up for an excuse, it soon became a Roman custom to celebrate the annual resumption of ‘festivities’ with wild parties at the end of that month.  Large bonfires would be lit to stave off the nocturnal chill and the celebrants (the nature of the Walpurgis’ shivering tended to appeal mostly, though not exclusively, to the ladies) gathered around them would shed clothing along with inhibition and gorge themselves to insensibility.

This practice spread back across mainland Europe and lead to many of the indigenous tribes (who were excluded from participation on pain of death) believing that the naked, shrieking and cavorting parties were gatherings of witches – hence the origins of Walpurgis Eve as the night of a witches’ meet.

Small Scale Chicken Farming

Coccidiosis is not the easiest of words to pronounce. For example, after taking a run-up at it earlier today, Mrs Grumbler managed ‘Cock Cilla Doses’, which sounds like a dreadful venereal disease caught some fifty years ago in Liverpool’s Cavern nightclub.  It is, in fact, a parasitic infestation of birds and animals and not a word most folk are going to need unless, like us, they are small scale chicken farmers.

Now, when I say “small scale chicken farmers” I mean that we have a relatively low number of chickens, rather than that we farm chickens whose size is a fraction of the generally accepted norm. Not for the want of trying, however….

Some weeks ago, while watching the BBC’s ‘Countryfile’ and reading a Victorian horror novel, I was struck by a particularly intriguing bolt of inspiration. There was an article on how people with small back gardens can keep chickens but what, my inner voice asked me, if I were to produce a chicken one tenth of the size of a regular one, specifically so that people with window boxes can have their own (admittedly tiny) fresh eggs for breakfast?  Several mad-scientist possibilities occurred to me and I resolved to begin my experiments in pico-poultry-production first thing on the morrow! 

We can cut a long story short and gloss over the many attempts which earned me little more than a startled “Awk!?” and a baleful glare from my test subject (as well as a turkey baster I can never bear to use again, but thats a story for another day) but, eventually, by good old fashioned selective breeding I’d managed to produce remarkably compact birds. With one small problem: every successful mini hatchling was, without exception, male.  All of the hens were regular sized.  And so it was that in the end I had to concede defeat because, and I know that you can see this coming a mile off, nobody wants a tiny cock…

Disguising vegetables and embarrassing misunderstandings

I'd thought my days of disguising vegetables so that they would be eaten by the intended victim were over (at least until one of the Grumblettes brings forth a grandchild or two) when I was finally able to admit to the aforementioned ladies that the 'cooked lettuce' that they were eating was not, in fact, Iceberg (which they love) but was actually a Savoy Cabbage (which they had professed to hate).

This week, however, Mrs Grumbler informed me that it was necessary for me to cut the grass in the stallions' field because it was 'too long' for them to eat. This is not a physical problem, you understand, the poor pampered beasts don't suddenly find it impossible to chomp a mouthful of blades once they get past six inches long. Apparently, long grass tastes too bitter for them.

Oddly, in the hundreds of years Ive known her, I've never seen Mrs Grumbler disconsolately pushing a lawnmower over the ponies' dinner. However, now that we have a 'topper' (a mower attachment - not a posh hat) for the tractor, I was instructed to mow the field. This strikes me as pointlessness of the same ilk as drying washing up with a tea towel.  Just as the washing up will dry on its own, with time, so shall the horses eat the grass, no? Such arguments cut no ice with the missus, and so I was shortly to find myself driving the tractor round the field in ever decreasing circles.

At first, I learned the hard way that I needed to dodge the low hanging branches round the edge of the field.  Fortunately, after giving it a quick suck to get rid of stray grass clippings and horseshit, I was able to pop the eyeball right back in, and now you'd almost never know it had ever been gouged out by an errant sweet chestnut tree much overdue a spot of pruning. I considered holding a chainsaw and doing two jobs at once, but the potential for calamity was too great even for a chancer like me. After the first three 'revolutions' I was safely out of their reach, in any case, and beginning to understand that I had a quite different problem.

Blog devotees will know that I have previously referred to riding a seatless bicycle across a ploughed field as a substitute experience for horseriding.  May I add 'driving a tractor repeatedly around a paddock' as another possible alternative?  Tractors, or at least MY tractor don't have much in the way of suspension. The vertical jolting was of such ferocity that I suspect the fact that my moobs are a paltry B-cup (and all muscle at that) is all that saved me from TWO black eyes.

I make a small digression to explain my familiarity with the arcane art of bra-sizing. Back when I first met Mrs Grumbler, and love and lust were both in the first flower of their youth, I determined to purchase her some lingerie for Christmas, in the hope that she'd have something nice to unwrap in the morning and I'd have something nice to unwrap in the evening.  But what of size?  I had heard of 'cantilevered' bras and, as an engineer at heart, I assumed that weight of the contents might be a useful statistic in calculating the correct fit. I should advise any gentlemen readers that approaching the boudoir with a kitchen scale and a large spoon is unlikely to have any positive effect on your chances of a romantic evening, even if you have gone to the trouble (as I did) of warming the spoon. Rebuffed, I realised I'd have to wing it on my mission to purchase frilly things.

Undeterred, I sallied forth to an appropriate posh looking shop, perused the merchandise (suffering many suspicious glares from the unanimously female customers) and, having selected a likely offering approached the lady in charge. Viciously suppressing my embarrassment by staring her unswervingly in the eyes, I pointed over my shoulder at where I'd recently seen what I wanted, and declared, "I'd like a closer look at one of those please".  In my defence, I have to say that I had no idea that the changing room was in that direction, nor that the prospective bride who was seeking her friends' opinion on what she intended to wear under the wedding dress had chosen that moment to step out of its curtained depths. Had she been less than an arm's length away from me, my index finger would have had a soft landing - which is more than can be said for the handbag which made contact with the side of my head.

Once the concussion had subsided enough for me to drive, I took myself to a Marks and Spencer.  (in another town, just to be on the safe side). You cant go wrong in a Marks and Spencer, and I know it's clientele to be drawn from both genders. Surely I was safe.  I found an even nicer possible present, and, as luck would have it, was approached by a helpful young assistant.

"Can I help you sir?"
"Yes indeed!  I'd like to buy this for my wife.  Do you have it in a size thirteen and a half?"
"I'm not sure we have that size sir, how are you measuring it?"
"Well, my hat's a six and three quarters, and each of them fit rather nicely into that..."

Suffice to say that Mrs Grumbler got chocolates for Christmas that year.

Anyway, back to the tractor, I clearly missed a few bits (beginner's luck) and so the finished job had some resemblance to Hampton Court Maze.  A carrot in the middle and the rabbits could have had their own amusement park. All in all, though, a job well done, and I sat back with a glow of satisfaction. A very short lived satisfaction, it has to be said, and more than a glow. As I have since found out from a farmer pal, I should have done most of it standing up to avoid the 'soft tissue' injuries to the nether regions.

And that, honestly, is why, when the vicar came round, I was to be found reading the newspaper in the dining room with my plums nestled in a fruit-bowl full of iced water, gently steaming.

To think I thought getting more involved with the horses was going to be a doddle...

Being horsey

As anyone who's lived with a horse owner will be able to tell you, it can sometimes seem that they play second fiddle to the horse(s).  It's certainly true that the good ladies of Grumbler Towers spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with their own animals and, as a grumpy old man, I've occasionally wondered what it takes to get some attention.

Well, on the one hand, you can try to be a little more horselike. Presumably one could undertake a certain amount of cosmetic surgery to attach a tail and it must be possible to apply for a licence to crap in the street from HM Government (these appear to be two of the primary attributes of the target animal).  However, I'm not really up for a diet of grass and sugar beet, and there are only a limited number of circumstances in which I am prepared to let Mrs Grumbler anywhere near me while wearing shiny boots and carrying a riding crop. And I'm not sharing those with you lot.

There's also the old dictum "If you cant beat them, join them". Actually, I've tried that, having owned a rather nice horse called Max for a few months. As it happens, I didn't have the time or dedication needed, I just wasn't cut out for it. Now, I'm sure you're wondering "how hard can it possibly be?"

Well, for you, dear reader, here's how you can discover that for yourself, without actually having to buy a horse....

The Grumbler's guide to pretending to own a horse...

Dressing the part isn't essential, but if you want to be authentic you will need an anorak and a pair of skintight stretchy trousers which are at least a size too small and have holes where they shouldn't. Note that this is the inexpensive part of horse ownership; you need only one of each, since neither will be washed more than twice a year. You should be militantly indifferent to your appearance, because the horse doesn't actually care what you look like, and therefore neither should anyone else. Footwear, however, is important. You do need a pair of boots, which you should soak in cold urine every night. so that they quickly attain that 'Je ne sais quoi...' (That's French for 'pervasive smell of wee-wee').

Your pretend horse is going to require a certain amount of looking after - physically and financially. Be prepared to spend up to two hours before and after work each day in the middle of a field, shovelling wet twenty-pound notes into a shredder (note that shredded paper from companies who really do print money is sometimes used as horse bedding, the analogy isn't that far fetched) while a crazed accomplice pelts you with dung. Obviously, that should be horse dung, but since you don't actually have a horse yet, cowshit will do.  One cautionary note - if you are using cowshit, make sure its fresh - those dried out "frisbee" shaped cowpats can have your eye out in skilled hands.

You have now successfully recreated the authentic mucking-out experience, while at the same time getting used to feed, accommodation and vet bills.  You see how easy I'm making this for you?

You might be thinking this is a dirty, smelly job - and there's a grain of truth in there. But look on the bright side - it's not necessary that you be indifferent to how badly you reek because you wont actually notice it. That part of the experience is for other people, such as your loved ones (remember those boots?  They should be about right by now...)

While I think about it, you must occasionally have someone knock you down, drive over your foot, smack you in the shin/stomach/groin/head with a hammer, or trap part of your anatomy in a door. Your accomplice must do this when you least expect, and when it will cause the maximum amount of inconvenience; it will acquaint you with being barged, stood on, kicked or bitten. Remember, though, that this is only happening because your 'horse' loves you, so the only thing you should do to your accomplice is offer a nice rosy apple or juicy carrot as a reward.

At weekends, you will have time to 'ride' - this is, after all, why you're pretending to have a horse. After the first field based money shredding experience of the day (yes, that happens at weekends too), obtain a bicycle, by borrowing or stealing if necessary (by now, you are unlikely to be able to afford your own).

Spend at least an hour cleaning the bike before letting all of the air out of the tyres and, if you are planning to go on a public road, loosening the nut which holds the handlebars straight. Its finally time for your reward for all of that hard work - ride that bike backwards and forwards across a field which has been freshly ploughed.

Once you are exhausted and have cracked at least two vertebrae, you may go out onto the highway, but only if there is traffic. Every time you hear a car, it's important to move a little further into the road and slow down. You must wobble alarmingly (this is why you've undone your steering) and, if at all possible, you must cycle sideways like a drunken crab, while pulling a series of spectacular "wheelies". This is all just to remind the driver that he needs to slow down and stay far, far away, since should he end up with a hoof (wheel) through his windscreen it will be his fault under UK law, whatever the circumstances.

By the time you arrive back at your 'stables, you should be almost too exhausted to move. Now you must clean the bicycle again, and finally remove the saddle and hang it in a shed. If you're very lucky, the saddle will still be there in the morning, unless you've been visited by a collection of thieving XXXXX[1] bastards (triple tautology) overnight. Now, cover the bicycle with a blanket, go back into the field and shred another wheelbarrow full of cash.

If you still want a horse after all that, then I heartily encourage you to contact a livery stable and learn how to do it properly, since you're clearly a nutcase with a bad case of obsession which I'll never begin to understand.  Anyway, hope that's helped. I cant sit around here all day writing to you folk, I've got several motorbikes to clean and polish[2]....

[1] Feb2024. Owing to woke-progression, the word orignally used in 2011 to rhyme with 'crikey'  has had to be removed, otherwise the blog would be cancelled.

[2} Feb 2024. Owing to the increasing cost of the Equine lifestyle, I can no longer afford even one motorbike.

They Made Me an Offer I Couldn't Refuse

In the weeks following my altercation with Reader’s Digest (and yes, Lady from a Small Village, I know the positioning of the apostrophe indicates they only have one reader, that’s wishful thinking on my part) I have been suffering from a nagging feeling that I’m missing out on something.

The thing is, this is an itch I don’t want to scratch - I am not going to play any of their silly games, I know that they lead only to disappointment.  So I’ve been wracking my brains for an alternative and I finally had a great idea.  I wouldn’t respond to them, but I would take advantage of every other hand-delivered leaflet/offer pushed through my letterbox in the course of a working week!

There could well be a side benefit to this brilliant plan; I might get to write about the experience (oh, look what you’re reading)! Lets face it, that bloke who went around pushing Mickey D’s into his face, and the one who wrote the Dice Man, they made MONEY out of it, didn’t they? So here goes, “The Man Who Says Yes to Everything…”.

The rules are simple.  To be sure that I'm not "missing out" on anything, I must take advantage of every offer and, to be fair, give to every charity request, that gets pushed through the portcullis at Grumbler Castle, from Monday through to Friday for one week.

Monday:

An outfit claiming to help old people pushes a plastic bag through the door and invites me to fill it with clothes. Stifling a temptation to stuff half of Mrs. Grumbler’s wardrobe in there, I oblige with a number of old pairs of jeans which, while serviceable, no longer successfully enclose the ever expanding Grumbler waistband.  I feel good and have more space in my wardrobe. What’s more, there’s some old duffer somewhere who’s teamed my cast off 501s with a sports jacket and is now zooming around the care home in his bath chair pretending to be Jeremy Clarkson.

A lady called Andrea who claims to be a native of Rio de Janiero (where the accent is very similar to that of the West Midlands, apparently) invites me to Latin Dance Classes for only a tenner a time and, after a quick phone call, I have something to do every night this week.

Tuesday:

I have engaged a company called Mr Sparkly-Trash to steam clean and disinfect my wheelie bin on a monthly basis.  If only he’d take the bin to the end of the drive too he’d save me some pain, for I think I’ve slipped a disk at Samba class.

An agent acting on behalf of “the Ethiopians” and another one who looks after disadvantaged Old Etonians both dropped off plastic bags, inviting me to fill them with clothes. This takes care of all of the pullovers and sweatshirts which no longer fit.

I trundle off for my second session with Andrea ("call me Andy...") and its while I'm trying to work out whether that was a shadow, or does she really have an "Adam's Apple" that I trip and am convinced that I've dislocated my kneecap.  At least it takes my mind off my back.

Wednesday:

I have saved over fourteen pounds by taking advantage of every cut-price item on the supermarket flyer which came my way this morning.  I do have quite a lot of unwanted pasta and feminine hygiene items but you can’t win them all. On the plus side, I got a great deal on half a hundredweight of Brazil nuts, which are left over from the Christmas festivities.

Two men with Eastern European accents have resurfaced my drive with Tarmacadam which was apparently surplus to council requirements for a bargain five hundred pounds.  D’you know, I had no idea it was as easy as spreading the hot mix over the existing gravel and flattening it with a garden roller!

A disabled-dog rescue centre leaves me a plastic bag and invites me to fill it with clothes.  I feel a little guilty in consigning a few unwanted Christmas presents to it, but at least they are going to do some good.  Though exactly what an accidentally tripedal pug is going to look like wearing a duck-egg blue XXL t-shirt with a picture of Garfield on the front is going to look like I shudder to think.

Andy teaches me ‘lifts’ tonight.  You know, she’s got quite big hands and she's really strong, but I don’t like heights much so we wont do that again.

Thursday:

Today, I go everywhere by Taxi.  It’s lucky I got the taxi special offer through the door, actually, because when I looked at the car this morning its up to its axles in my new tarmac drive and I cant move it.  I call the police and report the erstwhile drive layers for their shoddy workmanship.

A new shop advertising “nails 'n' waxing” has opened up in the local parade.  I’m a keen woodworker, and the car’s going to need a polish once I manage to get it off the drive.  Apparently they’re busy today, but I arrange to visit them tomorrow.

Two more plastic bags, both printed with information relating to a deserted wives refuge, have arrived. This is awkward.  I’ve no more old or unwanted clothes left.  I fill one with socks and underpants. I can go commando if I have to, no one will ever know.  The other is filled with shirts. It’s winter, after all, I’ll just keep my sweater on.

Tonight’s dance class is not a great success.  Andy tells me we are to practice the Paso Doble, but I’m tired and confused and manage to deliver a Double Entendre.   She’s calmed down by the time I leave, and the swelling in my eye is hardly noticeable now. Oddly, just before she hit me I noticed she had hairy knuckles.

Friday:

Some rotten bastard has stolen my freshly sanitized wheelie bin.

Two more plastic bags have arrived.  I’ve given up even looking to see who’s sending them.  I have only jeans and sweaters left.  All the jeans go into one, and all the sweaters into the other.  Now I know it’s breaking the rules, but there’s one thing I can’t give up. Every man has an item of clothing that he’s emotionally attached to, usually to the exasperation of his other half. In my case it’s a baggy cable knit sweater which I have had for so long I’ve given it a name.  I’ve always said I wanted to be buried in it, and that looks inevitable. Reg is now the only item of clothing I own.  Its perhaps fortunate that its so stretched it reaches to my knees, but less so that the somewhat loosened cable knit has lent it a transparent quality more usually associated with crochet, rather than knitwear.

In the afternoon I walk to my appointment at “nails ‘n’ wax”.  I try to explain that we’ll have to forgo the latter, because I still cant move the car. However, this doesn’t seem to faze the rather large and very familiarly dressed Eastern European ladies who work there.   I’m soon to learn that this place has been set up by ladies who live at the local deserted wives refuge.  Apparently they had to move in after their husbands were arrested for stealing tarmac from the council. One of them is holding a pissed off looking three-legged pug in a t-shirt.

Now, I’ve always thought that ‘manicure’ and ‘pedicure’ were variants on some kind of alternative medicine, but I am seized and subjected to an ordeal which leaves my fingers and toes scarlet tipped and pointy. This is appalling. Assuming that I ever get the car out of the drive, the first time I hit a traffic jam (in which situation an unwritten but universally recognised law states that all drivers possessing a Y-chromosome must immediately begin a thorough nasal excavation) could prove very dangerous, if not fatal.

I’d rather not recount what happens next.  Suffice to say, I have developed a fearful aversion to all things Brazilian.  Andy can stuff the dancing, and they can keep their damned nuts. Between you and me, I feel quite lucky to have managed to hang on to my own.

I’m broke, sore, dressed in nothing more than a wooly mini-dress and its going to cost me a fortune to get my car dug out and drive fixed. Where on earth am I going to come up with that kind of money? Hang on, there’s a letter here from Reader’s Digest. It says I’ve almost certainly won a hundred thousand pounds…

Reader's bloody digest...

Reader’s Digest

PO Box 5,

Isle of Man,

IM993UZ

Dear Reader’s Digest,

OK, I surrender.  I’m sorry, truly I am, but I just can’t take any more.

It’s my own fault, I know, for ever responding to the mail shot you sent me a little while ago, but since then the rain of completely incomprehensible tosh which you have poured through my letterbox has bean unceasing.

I mean, honestly, how many prize draws, which, if the implications in the glossy missives that arrive on a more than weekly basis are to be believed, I have almost certainly won, can you actually run?  There’s the immediate £5,000 draw; the immoderate £10,000 draw; the infeasible seven shillings and sixpence early bird bonus and the incontinent £120,000 draw.  OK, I may have made one of those up, but you know exactly what I mean and don’t you dare to pretend otherwise.

Furthermore, have you ever tried following your own instructions? Good grief, people!  Look, I’m no slouch at being able to cook up a process so complicated that a four digit IQ is required to stand a whelk’s chance in a supernova of successfully completing it. This will be attested to by, quite literally, legions at my place of employment who have been faced with the prospect of completing one of my fiendish puzzles or having their arms metaphorically ripped out and being beaten to death with the wet and bloody stumps.

I can even do a Sudoku puzzle in less than a week without getting my children to help me. But I am left bereft and gormless in the face of the convoluted directions in each and every letter you send me.  Stick the green sticker on your post-code at precisely four o’clock next Tuesday if you don’t want to buy a book full of red stickers every three weeks until hell freezes over, or alternatively put the gold sticker in your left ear while whistling the stars and stripes forever.

Bah.

You make Ikea flat pack instructions look like a particularly instructive nursery rhyme. My irritation at being unable to follow your insane ramblings is only eclipsed by my grudging admission that you are clearly in a different league to me when it comes to forcing innocent people to perform mind-warpingly pointless menial activities.  I salute you, while simultaneously detesting you.

The funny thing is that, at first I didn’t mind, because we have an open fire and I heat my home almost entirely on pulped junk mail because, in Bracknell, there is no council waste collection service. Instead of this, every two weeks we are lined up in the street by machine gun toting fascists and forced to eat the contents of our dustbins (which is why I have taken to putting the dog’s turds in my neighbour, Bob’s, trash).  Oddly, perhaps, he’s looking well on it.

The thing is, yesterday was a bad day.  You sent me so many offers to burn that when I came home from work the dog had roasted in her basket and my wife had melted. On the plus side, I don’t have to buy a turkey this Christmas, and I’m not being nagged, but I was quite fond of the old girl. I didn’t mind the wife much either.

Anyway, the thing is, I’d like you to stop now, please.  No more. Unless you’re writing to acknowledge that you’ll stop, forthwith, or the next envelope from you contains a big fat cheque, I don’t want any more mail from you.

I fervently hope that this letter finds you well, and happy, and delighted to comply with my request to cease and desist all mail forthwith.

I remain your faithful and admiring (but preferably from a long way away) servant,

The Grumbler

Bondage

Contrary to generally received wisdom/folklore, the Grumbler was not created fully grown and irritable. In fact, I experienced a (relatively) normal childhood. Born. Grew. Learned to walk. Learned to talk. Went to School. Got a job. Learned how to use the bathroom. Not necessarily in that order.

The ramblings in this post hark back to those days when there were 12 pennies to the shilling, the Mini was the last word in excitement (whether it referred to cars or skirts) and no-one in the UK had ever seen an avocado. (Indeed, when they were first introduced later in the decade, they were marketed as 'Avocado Pears', and many people's first experiences was a singular disappointment as, after their evening repast, their keenly anticipated and really rather expensive dessert consisted of a bowl neatly segmented avocado pieces with a generous helping of evaporated milk.)

I'm not one of those folk who claim to be able to remember everything that's ever happened to me - you know the sort: "The first thing I can remember is that I fell out of this weird furry window, it was freezing cold, there was this bright light, and then someone smacked my arse..."  But I do have just a few very early memories which, having discussed with my parents, must date back to when I was about 18 months old.  I think I remember this particular experience because it was both frustrating, and utterly terrifying.

I can recall, more than once, waking in the dead of night. My room would be pitch black - because there were no streetlamps on our road, and in any case, British children born before 1975 simply weren't allowed to be afraid of the dark. Such children were simply left outside on the doorstep for the wolves to carry away. I say 'wolves' but they were probably badgers. But they were wolves to us, and that's what's important. Of course, progressive parents who might have been prepared to leave a light on for their fractious and nyctophobic offspring would have found themselves outwitted by the frequent power cuts caused by industrial action on the part of Britain's coal miners. Its a little known fact that the miner's strike was actually orchestrated by a team of badgers, pretending to be wolves, who had developed a taste for doorstep takeaway Late Baby Boomers and early Gen-X'ers. Why do you let me digress like this?

Anyway, having awoken, I would quite naturally try to get up, in order to toddle in to my parents room and wake them up with demands for avocados, a drink of water or suggestions that there was a monster under my bed. (It was a porcelain chamber pot, but to me it was a monster and I'd be just as scared if I found one there now!)  To my horror, I'd find that I could sit up in bed, but any attempt to get out of it would meet with solid resistance. I'd simply, physically, not be able to get my feet on the floor and walk away from the bed.  I don't remember what would happen next, but presumably I'd eventually give up and fall back to sleep.

Much later, I learned that when my parents first put me in a bed, rather than a cot, I developed a habit of turning round and burrowing to the very foot of the bed where I would be trapped by the tucked-in sheets and blankets and, unable to get out, would howl until rescued. I don't have any idea why I'd taken to doing this, possibly I was practicing to become a strike breaking coal miner or learning how to escape from a badger set. But the end result was that it drove Mum and Dad to distraction. Their solution to this was beautifully simple.  They had a set of 'baby-reins' which saw sterling service in preventing me from toddling off at high speed and running under trucks, jumping off cliffs, swimming with the ducks I was supposed to be feeding or any of the typical toddler pursuits of the day. They reasoned that these could see double duty by preventing the revolutionary nocturnal habits of their overactive offspring.  In short, they tied me to the damned bed.

So why am I telling you this, my faithful if infrequent reader? Well, don't worry - I'm not about to recount any bizarre latter day bedroom athletics involving the neckties I no can longer be bothered to wear to work. I suspect its got something to do with work, though. No, I'm not physically restrained here either, though I'm sure there are those who wish I was. But we're going through one of those hellish phases where you just cant seem to move without the bindings of some process or other snapping taught, and I think my twisted subconsciousness has just joined the dots.

Still, looking on the bright side, if the parallels hold true, then this is all a bad dream, and sooner or later someone's gonna wake me up and feed me sugar-puffs.  So that's ok...

Birdbrain?

A lady of the Grumbler's acquaintance (she cannot be named because she made me promise not to) recently had an accident and ended up with a scratched cornea - an exquisitely painful condition. Fortunately, it seems to be getting better now, though there have been a couple of flare-ups.

After the last day spent sitting in the dark with a cold cloth to try and get some respite from the pain, a return visit to the local barber-surgeon was in order. Of course, the National health service isn't much round here, and if the quack can't diagnose your ills by the taste of your piddle, or fix what's broken by sticking leeches to it, then he or she will be pretty much stumped and may refer you to a more qualified authority; such as a hedge-witch, for example.

So it was that when I was chatting to the good lady she informed me that, having donned a feathered head-dress and cast the bones (presumably they belonged to someone he'd failed previously failed to cure) our local shaman determined that the auspices were good, but if the eye got any worse she should visit an ornithologist.

Now you may, as I was tempted to, scoff at this quite obvious malapropism, but may I point out that the root of the word 'auspices' is 'auspex' - latin for "one who looks at birds".

Still, since this amazingly clever comment was followed up with "Apparently, you can get some kind of contract lens thingy to stop it from hurting" perhaps it was a mistake after all...

Just Like a Viking (not for the faint of heart)

Sometimes, very funny things happen to me, or I hear of funny things happening to others.  It would be a waste to keep them to myself, especially if even just one other person will laugh.  To be kind, though, (and I’m not inherently unkind) it’s sometimes necessary, and always desirable, to embellish and tweak in the cause of obfuscation and entertainment. Both techniques are employed here in what will be presented to you as a story.  It’s entirely up to you to decide who’s who, and what’s true…

He was a callow youth - a fact to which many of his friends would attest - but also inclined to be gregarious.  He rather enjoyed the occasional pint too - as long as an occasion could be defined as something that happens at least eight times a day. It would be pleasantly reassuring to suppose that this combination of ill considered, alcohol fuelled sociability is a occurrence rarer than dodo sightings, but that would be a mistake since, unfortunately, it pretty much sums up most lads in the eighteen to twenty-two age bracket.

Our particular lad was also blessed with two left feet, extreme myopia, a callous disdain for sartorial elegance and a distressing tendency to behave tactlessly to people whom he considered less intelligent than himself - which was pretty much everyone.

I paint this somewhat less than flattering picture for you so that when I tell you, at the time our story unfolds, that the lad has a girlfriend you’ll appreciate that this is an infrequent occurrence and one he’s as keen as mustard to nurture.

Now, no-one’s all bad and our hero does have a few plus points - he’s a fair cook, and has reasonable taste in wine too.  This evening he’s had an opportunity to use both these skills in the pursuit of a greater aim (some might say the only aim of most lads of his age) as he and his girlfriend have her parents’ house to themselves while Mum and Dad are away for the weekend. Since he’s already been invited to stay over, he’s reasonably sure it’s going to be a lucky night. He’s prepared a chili con carne, fresh jalapenos and coriander mind you - none of your powdered or freeze-dried rubbish and procured a pretty decent bottle of St Emilion with which to wash it down.

An hour or so later the pair of them are having a “nice cuddle” on the sofa when our hero decides to try a little game of “Yellow Pages”[1]. At first, all seems to be going remarkably well - right up until the point where his little sweetheart emits a banshee shriek and runs to the bathroom as fast as its humanly possible to do with one’s best lingerie round one’s ankles. (I did say remarkably well, didn't I?)

Initially very concerned for the young lady’s welfare and puzzled by this extreme behaviour our boy is soon left in no doubt as to the cause of her ire as, to the accompanying hiss of a power-shower on full-cold, punctuated by a number of vile oaths worthy of the saltiest of sea-dogs she casts doubt upon his parentage, calls down on him a plague of misfortune and lets him know in no uncertain terms of the capsicum tainted error of his ways. She instructs him in tones that preclude any negociation to begone, permanently, from her sight by the time she leaves the bathroom if he knows what’s good for him.

I’m sure you, ladies and gentlemen of the world, can work the details out for yourselves without me having to stoop to further explanation.  But you might be wondering what this has to do with Vikings? 

Well, history has it that, just like our now rather chastened would-be lothario has just done, the Vikings ended many a loving relationship by setting fire to the man in the boat….

[1] Let your fingers do the walking.

The Long Way Found

Last month, my pal Bob the B'stard and I toured the UK on motorbikes, taking in John O'Groats and Land's End on the way. It took us just over a week, and was rather good fun.

If you'd like to read about our adventures then you're in luck, the Grumbler has spilled the beans, told the secrets, and gossiped the gossip in mini-book form! You can download this short pictorial account here in PDF form.

(For those who don't want a 16Meg download, there's a web version - but it really doesn't match up to the loving care put into the PDF!)

Taking the fear out of project plans

I've recently had quite a lot more involvement in project planning exercises than I have in the past, and I've been struck by the fear that a deadline inspires in people. Frankly, being afraid doesn't help much, so Ive been seeking ways of reducing this irrational, date inspired terror.

Whether I'm considering things that people are chasing me for, or I'm talking to people who owe me something on a given date, one thing is becoming quite clear... The amount of work outstanding is almost irrelevant - what scares people is knowing that the due date is rapidly and inexorably approaching.

I think I have the ultimate solution... Its as simple as renaming the months - probably on a regular basis. That way, its gonna be much less obvious that your boss needs that great big project all wrapped up on his or her desk in a mere five weeks, and thus, the fear goes away.

With some fanfare, then, here is my list of suggested month names:

Plimsoll, Bungalow, Trumpton, Horseapple, Hobbit, Spam, Wimbledon, Carrot, Nutter, Tweak, Frotter and Minge.

As an aide-memoire, here's the updated version of several old and well loved rhymes...

Thirty days hath Nutter,
Horseapple, Spam, and Frotter;
Of twenty-eight there is but one,
And all the rest have thirty-one.

Remember, remember the fifth of Frott.
Gunpowder, treason and plot...

And finally...

'The Best Month to Marry'
(Traditional Rhyme UK)

'Married in Plimsoll's hoar and rime,
Sweaty and smelly before your time.
Married in Bungalow's sleepy weather,
No stairs to tread in time together.
Married when Trumpton winds shrill and roar,
Your home will be on a puppet shore.
Married beneath Horseapple's changing skies,
A chequered path before you lies.
Married when bees over Hobbit blossom flit,
Strangers around your board will sit.
Married in the month of roses-Spam,
You're Up the Duff, go buy a pram.
Married in Wimbledon with flowers ablaze,
Tennis on TV for days and days.
Married in Carrot's heat and drowse,
You'll see in the dark your chosen spouse.
Married in Nutter's golden glow,
Smooth and serene your life will go.
Married when leaves in Tweak do thin,
You'll wish you'd stayed living in blissful sin.
Married in veils of Frotter mist,
Fortune your wedding ring has kissed.
Married in days of cheery Minge,
What an excuse for a big beery binge.'

Anti-Aging Excuses, #34

I'm not old and these arent wrinkles.

My face is ribbed, for extra pleasure...

The Winalot Diet

OK, this isnt 'mine', but it was sent to me by my good freind Louis, and it needs a wider audience! Though I do have 2 dogs, and I wish I had said it!!!

A real story by a Man who was standing in a queue in Tescos.........

I have 2 dogs & I was buying a large bag of Winalot in Tesco and was standing in the queue at the till.

A woman behind me asked if I had a dog.

On impulse, I told her that no, I was starting The Winalot Diet again, although I probably shouldn't becauseI'd ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care wardwith tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.

I told her that it was essentially a perfect diet and the way that it works is to load your trouser pockets with Winalot nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry & that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try it again.

I have to mention here that practically everyone in the queue was by now enthralled with my story, particularly a guy who was behind her.

Horrified, she asked if I'd ended up in the hospital in that condition because I had been poisoned.

I told her no, it was because I'd been sitting in the road licking my nuts and a car hit me...

Helping with Homework

The Grumblettes are currently both at college, working on an introductory course. They've recently been given an assignment to write "a report". The assignment guidelines are quite detailed, laying out exactly what's expected of them. As usual, though, there's quite a gap between the the abstract explanations of the college tutor, and what he or she is actually trying to convey.

Mrs Grumbler requested that I help, so I knocked up a quick example which, she says, I should publish. Since I know when to do as I'm told... Here it is. If anyone else has observed similar behaviour, or resorted to the same approach, I'd love to learn about it... (That means, leave comments please)...

Update: 28 January. Clearly hacked off with being reviled by the 'junior workers' the dishwasher itself has gone on strike, claiming to have triggered its 'leak prevention system'. This has precipitated a call to 'appliance repair man', who will arrive in his souped up Transit Van on Friday. Its also raised the question, why doesnt the UK Government have a leak prevention system?

Dishwasher Behaviour Report

Introduction




Figure 1: AEG Dishwasher


This report describes a number of behaviour patterns displayed by the junior workforce at “Grumbler Towers” and observed by the Senior Management after the workforce has been requested to Empty and Refill the Dishwasher. One specific behaviour will be analysed in detail, and the implications of a second behaviour will be discussed, prior to making a conclusion based on the effects of all of the behaviours.

Observed behaviours


OK
This is a desirable but rare behaviour. When exhibited, the junior worker will complete the task properly, promptly and without complaint.

I Hate the Stupid Dishwasher
This particular behaviour is an expression of dissent. Often, it merely takes the form of a grumble, but it may also be followed by a second behaviour and will then usually result in non-cooperation.


It’s Not My Turn (AKA I Did It Last Time)
The junior workforce consists of two individuals. Both are keen to ensure that one does no more work than the other. Sometimes the statement may be based on truth, and at other times it may simply be a preface to non cooperation.


They Aren’t My Dishes
This statement of the blindingly obvious is presumably an attempt to justify non-cooperation. As with all of the other behaviours, it is utterly irrelevant, and futile.


I’ll Do It Tomorrow
On the face of it, this may actually be a genuine attempt to put an unpalatable task off until a later date. However, if the request to defer the activity is granted, it often results in no-cooperation in the morning, especially if no reminder is issued. If the worker is questioned as to the reasons for failure to execute the task as agreed, it will often respond with “Forgot”.


Detailed Analysis of: It’s Not My Turn
The objective of this behaviour is to avoid the task by having it assigned to an alternate resource. This is usually a junior worker, but on occasion a management resource will be called upon to perform this individual contributor task.

As discussed above, the behaviour may indeed be based on fact – sometimes a worker is requested to perform the task on successive occasions. More often, however, this is an unsophisticated attempt to avoid work.

Management has attempted, with various degrees of success, to discourage this behaviour by assigning set days to perform the task, or by posting a written rota. Neither solution has ever worked satisfactorily for any extended period of time.

Implications of: They Aren’t My Dishes
Recent over-use of this excuse led to an alternative strategy by a member of the management team. Rather than attempt to refute a substantively correct, but nonetheless irrelevant statement, the workers were invited to clean their own dishes, immediately following any meal, and by hand (reference, telephone conversation during January between management team, one of whom was at the Headquarters location, and the other travelling on business in the USA).

This approach was highly effective, since it brought home that there are indeed less enjoyable ways of treating dishes than the requested dishwasher related activity.

Conclusion
Each of the behaviours listed, with the exception of “OK”, is exhibited with the sole aim of avoiding the dishwasher related task – at the expense of another party. All are irrelevant, since the task needs to be done, and all are counterproductive since they use more time and energy than actually completing the task without complaint. The fact that the junior workers are fully aware of this simply serves to make the behaviours utterly bewildering to the management team.


Reference List
Figure 1: AEG 60780 Dishwasher – Amazon.co.uk.
Telephone Conversation between Management team, January, 2009.

Offensiveness, philosophical musings...

Preface: This article contains some words. It is not my intention to cause offense to anyone having actually used 'words', but I found it very difficult to express myself without doing so. Er, sorry.

Note (16-Feb): Quite a few comments on this one.. not entirely a surprise, to be honest. Some, I have rejected, so in case anyone is wondering where their comment is, here's the guidelines I've been sticking to:
1) Some comments have been racist. That not what I was trying to do, so they wont get published.
2) Some comments were offensive towards an individual. Oddly, not to me, but to other people who have commented.
3) Common to both of the above, some comments have been anonymous. If a commenter wishes to take a pop at me, or one of the other folks that have commented here, they can damned well identify themselves to me. Contentious is OK, Anonymous is ok, but its either or, not both. My blog. My rules. OK?

Further oddness. Someone (anonymous) picked up on my Enid Blyton comments - shortly before Carol Thatcher got herself into hot water... Note the BBC's reasoning for her removal froma TV show - not because of what she said, but becuase they didnt like her apology. I'm not sure if this actually proves anything, other that I was right, this whole business is a minefield. (NB, no offence to mines is intended in this statement).


Good ole Prince Hal is up to his protuberant lug-oles in hot water again (must be a slow news day) for having (quite inadvisedly) referred to one of his colleagues (a gentleman from Pakistan) as a "Paki". Actually, that wasn't all he said, but its this particular word which is relevant to the thought which popped into my head while watching the item on the news this morning.

Now, the thought is this - If it is indeed offensive to refer to a Pakistani as a Paki, to the extent that the BBC feels it necessary to have a representative of said nationality on breakfast TV to debate the issue, can we assume that the next time someone calls me (note, I was born in the United Kingdom and am therefore British) a Brit, then I get to dress up as John Bull and get all pouty on TV?

The third in line to the throne (this is something Harry and I have in common - I often have to queue for the bathroom too) maintains that he had not intended to cause offense. Language, however, remains a minefield, with words that are considered perfectly innocent one day turning taboo overnight. If you don't believe me, go and dig up Enid Blyton and see what she has to say.

Finally, because I like to leave you with a disturbing mental image whenever I can, I mus pose this question. If Harry had called his mate a "Wanker", would the BBC have interviewed a short sighted gentleman carrying a copy of "Reader's Wives" magazine and a box of tissues?

TTFN,
Grumbler...

Is Bad Poetry Hereditary?

I have a guilty secret. Well, to be honest, I have quite a lot of guilty secrets, but only one I'm going to ramble about here - there is, after all, a limit to how much of my dirty laundry I want to wash in public.

I have begun to write bad poetry.

Strictly speaking, this isn't an intention to write bad poetry, just poetry. But bad is the result.

For some time, Ive made an occasional habit of answering the long-suffering Mrs Grumbler in rhyme. The first time was an accident, but I discovered that it annoyed her and, well... There's a challenge in being able to respond to a question like "Do you want a cup of tea" with an instantaneous sonnet, and the little 'frisson' of excitement while waiting to find out whether I have misjudged the current lie of the land and am about to wear said cuppa, rather than consume it. So far Ive been lucky, and have not had any need to retire, liberally moistened with steaming Darjeeling, for a change of apparel.

Things took an interesting turn in recent days when I composed a ditty, in Iambic Pentameter, offering to fetch some Christmas beer from a local brewery for my Friends and colleagues in the office. The resulting verse is truly, shockingly appalling - so much so that I shan't reproduce it here. This missive isn't meant to be an opportunity for me to ape the great William McGonagall, but rather the cause and effects behind this current dalliance.

The fact is that the offending ode plumbs depths which would make even Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz wince which has led me to speculate on whether there is in fact some extra-terrestrial makeup in my DNA. After reading the vicious verse to my pal Andy (who sits close to my office and therefore plays, unwittingly and uncompensated, the part of my resident, on-call shrink) I told him about my theory that I was, perhaps, part Alien.

Frankly, Andy pooh-pooh'ed the idea, telling me not to be so silly. How, he reasoned, could I be part alien when (a) I am not green and (b) I have never knowingly consumed a live rat. We've both watched a lot of TV, so we know that these two things are inherent characteristics of any martian or other non-earthperson. That's one of the things I really appreciate about Andy - while I might harbour quite ridiculous concepts, he always has a much better grasp of reality. Closer to the ground, if you like.

So, I'm back to the drawing board, in a manner of speaking. Carrying around a stump of pencil and a small notepad in my back pocket in case I'm struck by a stray piece of inspiration. The next bad poem might not be a result of my ancestry. But it's certainly in my jeans.

Fat.

Sylph-like is an adjective rarely applied (other than with heavy irony, or while I have been temporarily located in Florida, USA) to your Grumbler. Even so, it's become apparent that my manly physique has, in recent times, begun to exhibit characteristics more traditionally associated with the better fed strata of our society.

You may appreciate that I greet this realisation with the same dismay previously reserved for the discovery that one of the cats has seen fit to gift me with half a dead mouse in my left-foot carpet slipper. (One of our dogs has eaten the right-foot slipper - either as a form of dietary protest, or some utterly misdirected expression of adoration. Personally, I have never found the consumption of garments belonging to an objet d'amour to be a reliable declaration of infatuation. My advice, once you've ripped your chosen article of clothing off the wearer using nothing but your teeth, stop while you're ahead.)

The rib-cage of a field mouse, incidentally, is a very good fit on the second toe of my left foot. A useful fact that I shall file away should I ever take up the business of producing costume jewelery for the S&M/Goth/Foot-fetishist community.

My burgeoning rotundity is as welcome as a trouser cough in an Extra-Vehicular-Activity suit, and has crept up on me in much the same contemptibly surreptitious fashion that I imagine a a low-earth-orbit fart would employ.

It's quite evidently been a gradual process, and subject to a good deal of self-delusion. I've been more than comfortable assuming that our new tumble dryer bears sole responsibility for the fact that my heavyweight cotton T-shirts now stretch so thin across my abdomen that they take on a disturbing transparency more commonly associated with expensive fashion garments targeted at the well-to-do metrosexual.

I've been able to rationalise the tightness of my belt as 'leather shrinkage' - a direct result of the fact that I was recently rained upon, a common occurrence in these geographical parts. As for the bathroom scales, don't they all over-read when the battery gets low?

I've even been capable of believing that when someone shouts "Oi Fatty!" in my general direction when there is no-one else to be seen is attributable to my failing eyesight. (Odd, isn't it - more comfortable with incipient myopia than obesity?).

I suppose that the final straw came the other day whilst I was crossing the road. (I wouldn't usually do that, but I suffer from a rare condition known as Alcoholic Constipation. Basically, I have extreme difficulty in passing a pub.) An elderly lady driving a Mitsubastard Dungbeetle or somesuch equally execrable far-eastern economy-microcar shot out of a previously un-noticed side road and bore down upon me at speeds that must have been approaching twelve miles an hour.

I don't mind admitting that for quite a long while I thought I was a goner - proof if it were needed that a low speed traffic incident is a lot more frightening than a fast one. But then she stopped, looked right, and proceeded to drive round me, 180 degrees, and back the way she came. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the silly moo thought I was a mini-roundabout.

Oooh, the ignominy of it.

Its not that I have anything against street-furniture of this type. Some of my best friends are traffic islands. But lets face it, this isn't the time of year for that kind of career change. Its cold enough to freeze one's bollards off out there.

There's nothing for it, I'm going to have to go on a diet. Otherwise the next time you see me the town council will have stuck a Christmas tree on my head, and I'll be surrounded by boy-scouts singing "Away in a Manger", and I've always hated that one.

"U" Gotta be kidding

At the very core the Grumbler is, of course, little more than a loose collection of generalisations, prejudices and bizarre compulsions wrapped up in a loose bag of skin with just enough spare room for the occasional beer and curry to be added. Same as any bloke I suppose.

This doesn't automatically make for a bad fellow (my Mum told me that, so it must be true) but it does need some work to ensure a positive result. Happily, most of these attributes can be disguised as the kind of eccentricities for which 'the English' are justly famous. Of course, great care must be taken to ensure that one remains at the correct end of a scale of 'unusualness' which stretches from Peter Sellers to Peter Sutcliffe, although maintaining the tantalising promise of being prepared to operate at either extreme can give one an incredible advantage in negotiations.

In today's character defect under the microscope session, we will concentrate on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as manifested in the form of extreme grammatical pedantry. For example, my reaction to the greengrocers' apostrophe. This particular crime against humanity involve's the placement of an apostrophe where none is necessary. (Did you catch that one?) It takes its name from the fact that it's commonly seen on signs outside greengrocers' shops - such as "Potato's, twelvepence per bushel". To the disgust of the ladies in the Grumbler household who believe that there are more important things in life, I am rarely able to let one of these things pass without comment.

Of course, my high moral standing is fatally weakened by the fact that I am a little careless and thus, occasionally, I do tend to 'drop one' myself. I like to think of this as the literary equivalent of accidentally farting in church - a bit embarrassing if anyone notices. (Of course, being noticed farting in church on purpose, rather than embarrassing the offender, tends to lead to the sin of pride.) Anyway, I digress.

Now, I've never actually been one to stalk the streets with a bottle of correction fluid and a selection of marker pens, with the intention of altering apostophical atrocities. But an obsession with a related subject has recently been threatening to 'push me over the edge'...

...It's well known that English spelling differs, depending on whether one is resident in its birthplace, or the other side of the Atlantic. I've never really thought much about it before, but recently I have begun to suffer a series of agonising temptations to return the letter 'u' to its customary place in so many words in 'American English' from which it has been removed. For example, our cousins in the US have cruelly emasculated words like colour, flavour and labour in favour of alternatives that I can't bring myself to type.

This weird compulsion first manifested itself when replying to emails, but its become more frequent and harder to resist. Recently, in a bookshop in California, I was sitting skimming through an American edition of "Rogue Herries" by Hugh Walpole, and I suddenly came over all peculiar. I felt my hand creep, as if under the malevolent control of some invisible puppeteer, towards a (arguably) mis-spelled word with the clear intention of re-inserting the missing letter. Terrified, I curtailed my Walpoling activities, sallied forth, and infiltrated a place of medical practitionery to seek a diagnosis of my plight.

It turns out, much to my relief, that my malady is actually a reaction to too much 'processed' text. Apparently, if I start reading quite a bit more stuff that hasn't been messed about with - you know, words with the dirt left on, organic text, that kind of thing, it'll clear up quite nicely. Apparently, what I have is called "Irritable Vowel Syndrome" and it should clear up once I get enough literary roughage. "Why don't you try a little extra punctuation?" the doctor asked me. That, of course, was just seconds before I smacked him with one of the "Organic Cucumber's" I'd been forced to buy while arguing about grammar with the illiterate shopkeeper next-door and fled, screaming, into the night...

Credit crunch (again)

Now, I don't usually just republish things on this blog, but I was just sent something by my good friend 'Chicken Jon' which was so good that 'I want to share it with you'.

(I learned, to my intense displeasure, while captive in an airport bus in Los Angeles, that the phrase "I have something I want to share with you" is often the preamble to a sales pitch delivered, on behalf of some crappy pyramid selling organisation, by someone with terminal halitosis and no personality. I suppose its better than being informed by a one night stand that you now have 'crabs', but not much. Anyway, this one, you will like... I promise).

A modern Aesop’s Fable.

Once upon a time...
in a place overrun with monkeys, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each.
The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their effort.
The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for each one. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. But soon the supply diminished even further and they were ever harder to catch, so people started going back to their farms and forgot about monkey catching. The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so scarce that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much less catch one.
The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.
While the man was away the assistant told the villagers. 'Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.'
The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys. They never saw the man nor his assistant again and once more there were monkeys everywhere.
Perhaps now you have a better understanding of how banking and the stock markets work!

Relativity as an excuse for tardiness

How many times have you waited in all day - sometimes for several days in a row, for something to be delivered, only to feel that perhaps you could actually grow old and die before it actually arrives?

Or maybe you work in some computer related industry, and find yourself eagerly anticipating a particular piece of hardware or software which, the supplier tells you, will, with absolute certainty, be ready on schedule and within budget. It never is, is it?

Now, never mind the inconvenience of not actually having whatever it was you were waiting for in your eager hands (metaphorically speaking, obviously, if the item in question is a fridge) - no, what really 'does my head in' is how the cheeky bugger at the other end of the telephone line can so absolutely confidently trot out and assurance that 'it will be there on Wednesday' when he or she has demonstrably never once managed to hit a predicted time or date. Oh, and why are these people almost always called Keith?

You know they've no more chance of making it this time than you have of getting a decent bacon sandwich in a synagogue. And yet you could wire these people up to a full-on lie detector setup, you could attach elestricles to their tectrodes, kidnap their children and threaten to return them over a period of time in a series of minute parcels and you wouldn't get a blip. Their confidence is unshakable. How on earth can this be?

Well, the answer is obvious really. As Arthur Conan Doyle was overfond of declaiming "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? ".

They aren't lying to you. That's right, they're telling the truth.

And yet, the eagerly awaited gizmo, doodad, widget, gimmick or ethereal piece of intellectual copyright still fails to manifest itself. Paradoxical? No - let me explain.

Its all down to Einstein's theory of relativity, and something called the Twin Paradox (look it up in Wikipedia if you don't believe me). Put simply, if you take identical twins, stuff one of them into a rocket, and send it off quite a long way at speeds approaching that of light, then bring it back, the traveling twin will be younger than the one that stayed behind. Or to put it another way, the twin who's moving might have spent a week in the rocket, while the one that stayed behind has waited a year to be reunited with his sibling.

This has been proven, by the way, in a complicated experiment involving flying clocks. There's another proof to look for as well. When you accelerate an object close to the speed of light, you can pump immense amounts of energy into it with out it going any faster. In fact, the energy is turned into mass.

So what's happening is that the delivery man, or purveyor of technology is actually moving so fast to be sure of not disappointing you that they nearly reach light speed. In the process, they get quite a bit heavier than they were when they started.

When, eventually, a hugely fat individual turns up with what you've been waiting for, relativity has kicked in, they think they are on time, and you know they aren't. This also explains their child-like look of bewilderment and unjust hurt when you berate them for their tardiness.

So next time this happens to you, please don't give the guy a hard time. Tell him how much you appreciate his efforts, and give him a cup of tea.

OK, I have to go now, I have to take a mug of Lapsang souchong to 'Colossal Keith' in the office.

This has been a public service announcement issued by the Royal Association of Fat Lazy Buggers.

Dog training...

So, tomorrow, at the grand old age of twentysomething (where something is a number larger than twenty) the Grumbler goes back to school. This has come as a surprise to a number of people, including the Grumbler himself.

You see, what’s really happening is that I’m taking Rowley (our four month old Golden Retriever) on a course of puppy training classes. This proves necessary as he has singularly failed to take on board the information in the book I bought him. I know that he’s digested the contents because I had to clean the results up from the kitchen floor the other day.

In my relatively simple world, taking the pup on a course equates to taking him to be trained. However, in reading up a little beforehand, all of the indications are that it’s the owners that are the target of the educators… This is just weird, for at least three reasons, namely:

1) It’s been a very long time since I last ran away with the single minded intention of impregnating every female I could get my paws on. (note, Im not saying I never tried this, just that I don’t any more)
2) I don’t make a habit of crapping in the kitchen. (I’d say I have never done this, but its conceivable that ‘mother Grumbler’, who has an outstandingly long memory for childhood misdemeanours, might disagree.)
3) Last time I was taken on a course, it was me that was trained, not the taxi driver who took me.

Still, I intend to keep my mind as open as Rowley keeps his bowels and so I shall embark on this course in an optimistic and resolute frame of mind. By the time Rowley and I are finished; one of us will walk to heel, sit, lie down and come on command. Mrs Grumbler thinks this is very funny.

Apart from refusing to walk under ladders; steering clear of black cats; obsessively counting magpies; throwing spilt salt over my left shoulder and touching something wooden just about every time I use the phrase “it should all be ok” in conversation, I am not a superstitious man. Ask anyone and, fingers crossed, they’ll confirm this. However, I can’t help wondering if the fact that I have just discovered, that the course location is one “Prat Hall”, is portentous.

I’ll let you know how it goes…

Wiping a smile off someone's face.

It's a funny thing, how we deal with stress at work.

Some people rant and rave, while others go quiet.
Some give up on their tasks, and others just get more determined.
Some will seek counseling, and others have more 'individual' approaches to coping...

I know quite a few people who vent their cube-rage on innocent fitness training equipment, clocking up countless miles in the air conditioned splendour of a building virtually next door to the office that causes the angst in the first place. (Hint, buy a bike, fellas, and get away from the damned place)...

One gentleman of my acquaintance who shall remain nameless (we shall, for convenience, refer to him as 'C' - this isnt a give away clue, my having referred to him as a 'gentleman' will already have put many people off the scent...) has a positively bizarre practice of rapidly clapping his hands together or against his crossed forearms. The rhythmic, fleshy slapping noises which result have caused many a raised eyebrow as unenlightened folk walk past his closed office door. Now, I don't know what it does for him, but watching the expressions on peoples' faces as they wonder what on earth he's up to makes the rest of us laugh and thus, this is actually a very effective stress reduction technique.

And then there's a lady I know who's office wall bears scars gouged by ricocheting staplers, paperweights and computer peripherals. Once again, there's an unintended positive side to this behaviour. If you want to know which track-ball pointing device can best survive instant deceleration from 70mph to 0, she can tell you. Show you, in fact. If you're going to wind her up, though, remember the rues of the golf range (and firearms range) - the safest place to be is behind her...

As you'd expect, I've got my own idiosyncratic approach to work related stress management. I like to imagine creative ways of freeing myself from the job which is causing the problem in the first place. Some are constructive, others less so, but all have remained (to date) mere exercises in thought, and therefore nothing to get me in to trouble (and come on, do you really want me to believe that you've never considered drowning your boss in a vat of Malmsey?)

Recent flights of imagination had me stocking the rest-rooms of our headquarters building (well, just the boys' ones, I'm not allowed in the girls' ones) with rolls of lavatory paper - every sheet of which bore the image of some individual (or indeed manager) who has caused me angst in recent times. Of course, this isn't a completely original idea... it was (maybe still is?) possible in the late '90s to obtain 'bog roll' with the face of Maggie Thatcher on every sheet. Utter genius.

Clearly this idea was too good to keep to myself, so I excitedly took myself off to chat to one of my good friends in the office. Conscious of the fact that this particular lady is no fan of the current president of the USA, I asked her to imagine this product with the grinning chimp-like fizzog of G-dubya proudly stamped between the perforations. To my surprise and disappointment, she frowned, and told me it was a terrible idea.

"Are you nuts?" she said in what I (correctly) took to be a rhetorical question "Shrubbie makes any mess he's involved in a lot worse than it was in the first place, and you want to put him on toilet paper?"

She was right, as it happens. and when I think about some of he other faces I'd imagined having printed up, well, nothing sticks to them either...

Back to the drawing board - I'm sure there'll be another daft happening to inspire me soon!

Experience which cannot be bought

An acquaintance of mine is, at present, in the happy position of being able to recruit into his little team at work. Of course in these days of political correctness and rules on what you can and cannot put in a job advert he is a little restricted in what he can say.

For example, a lawyerly friend of mine was recently successfully prosecuted for discriminatory behaviour by a Vampire on the basis that, having read what he was not allowed to ask for, he simply stated "Individual required for busy law practice. Must have pulse."[1]

Anyway, there's always a silver lining, and in this case, the restrictions on what can be said prevent the employer from detailing the full horrors awaiting the successful applicant for this position. So the little white card with the job description was taped inside the global news-agent's window of the internet and, being rather vague, it has elicited several diverse resumes (or Curriculum Vitae as we like to call them in the old country).

One such CV from a fellow who we shall call Fred proudly announces that, in his current position, he has experience of bugger 3.2.

Version 3.2??? One can only imagine the press releases:

Bugger version 2.0 - sixteen new levels of difficulty!

Bugger version 3.0 - internet enabled - choose to play with the computer, your friends, or yourself!

Bugger version 3.2 - multi-player is here!

The problem here, of course, for all the (admittedly puerile) amusement this causes, the context of the resume clearly indicates that this is a software package of some sort. Now, I don't know about you, but when someone refers to a software package I've not heard of before, I look it up.

I wonder what will happen if I type 'bugger 3.2' into Google...


[1] This is not strictly true. If one was to bar entry to the legal profession on the basis that the applicant is 'undead' there wouldn't be any lawyers. But as an illustration, I'm sure you get my point.

An untrue history of King Henry VIII

A bloke in the pub told me that you cant libel a dead person. This should test that theory.

King Henry the Eighth built the Tower of London in the fifteenth century as a residence for his wives. Now, hundreds of years later, the Tower is more of a museum than a residence and is where one can see the quite spectacular display of the ‘Crown Jewels’.

Modern day visitors to the Tower of London may see a suit of Armor said to have belonged to Henry, complete with an impressively large codpiece (designed, of course, to protect the ‘family jewels’ rather than the crown ones). Whilst it undoubtedly suited Henry to nurture a belief amongst the peasantry that he was blessed with a fearsomely proportioned todger, the rather more prosaic truth of the matter is that closer inspection of said codpiece (Later used as a model for the Dome of St Paul’s Cathedral by Leonardo DaVinci) reveals that it actually contains three packets of king-sized cigarette papers and a rolling machine.

What would the king be doing with such unusual smoking requisites? Well, by way of an interesting historical footnote it’s worth pointing out that Henry had earned his numerical adjunct not by virtue of having succeeded seven other likely lads of that name to the Kingship of England, but rather because of his habit of never buying more than an eighth-ounce of ‘Moroccan Black’ hashish from his longtime drugs supplier “Marrakesh” Pedro.

Drugs were not the only habit Henry acquired from Pedro – who was in fact the first polygamist of his acquaintance. Having asked Pedro why he had several wives Henry, who was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, misinterpreted Pedro’s mumbled explanation regarding Moorish customs – as in “these potato crisps are moreish, you cant just have one can you?” The rest, obviously, is history (that is, after all, what we are talking about here). It’s well known that the king had six wives, but not quite as widely appreciated that the purpose of such a complicated matrimonial arrangement was so that he could have one wife for each day of the week. (While, as a deeply religious man, continuing to respect the Sabbath, of course.)

Contrary to popularly held belief (which espouses a theory based on the general disapproval of divorce by the church), it was this polygamy that was ultimately the cause of Henry’s excommunication from the Church of Rome by pope Clement (The successor to Julius, who had held the post for hundreds of years since escaping an assassination attempt whilst acting as Caesar in ancient Rome). Clement was in fact wildly jealous that Henry had so many wives, whilst he was forced by the constraints of his position to sit in the Vatican stationary cupboard with a borrowed copy of “Swiss Guards’ Naked Wives” and dream of what might have been or, if he was really lucky, to cuddle one of the nuns behind the bike-sheds in St Peter’s square when no-one was looking. Failing, quite spectacularly, to live up to his name (which means ‘merciful’) Clement simply cut Henry off.

Meanwhile, back in the Tower, as Henry’s first wife Catherine of Aragon might have been expected to be assigned to the first day of the week. However, her seniority allowed her to choose her day for warming the king’s bed and she settled on Wednesday since there was no EastEnders on the TV, and Saturday was her bingo night. This freed up Monday for Anne Boleyn, who was the second spouse, chronologically speaking. The remaining wives followed on successive days of the week as might be expected – with Jane Seymour staking Tuesday, Ann of Cleves claiming Thursday, Kathryn Howard holding Friday and Katherine Parr settling for Saturday.

There was a great deal of serendipity with this final appointment. Henry was a documented lover of sports and, as he grew older, like so many men before and since, he took up golf. Saturday was his golfing day, and he enjoyed nothing better on a Saturday than finishing a few holes on par. (Or if he was particularly lucky, under par.)

One might have expected Kathryn to have been Henry’s most favoured wife. However, this honour actually goes to Jane Seymour, since she produced an heir to the throne (later to be known as King Edward VI due to his uncanny resemblance to a potato). Unfortunately, it was customary for royal males of the time to be born in full suits of armor, and Jane was, understandably, never quite the same afterwards.

When considering Henry, we should not neglect his musical skills. He would sit for hours by an open window, idly stroking a lute (a small, but spiteful, animal related to the polecat) and is credited with having written the well-known song ‘Greensleeves’. Greensleeves earned its name because it was written during the summer, the king was a hay-fever sufferer, and the handkerchief was not a popular accessory until a hundred or so years later.

Several rather stodgy historical references suggest that it may have been a love song for Anne Boleyn, but in actual fact, it was composed under contract to a company manufacturing cheap telephone answering machines as a piece of generic hold music. Henry’s business acumen was as awful as his musical taste. The song itself is recognizably awful and the company which commissioned it went, quite deservedly, bankrupt. This was mainly due to the fact that the telephone itself was not invented for a further four hundred years and thus the market for answering machines was somewhat lacking at the time.

Henry died, from the ground upwards, in January 1547. He’d suffered a leg injury during a jousting match after which he’d become a bit of a bloater and had to be moved about by crane. The leg had turned gangrenous and ultimately carried him off at the age of 55, in the palace of Whitehall. Inexplicably, his last words are reported to have been “Monks! Monks! Monks!”

Approximately 100 years later, medical professionals were still arguing as to whether he had also suffered from Syphilis or Diabetes. This was entirely academic, there being no treatment for either at the time, and the rudimentary diagnosis being along the lines of “Starve ye the patient twixt the crowing of the cock and the setting of the sun. If he still be awake, ensure that ye shagge him notte, lest ye too suffer the pox”.