From a telephone conversation with Carolyn this lunchtime.
C: Oh, before you go, Richard… I’ve been telling my children that you once read a dictionary. Is that right?
R: Which dictionary?
C: Any dictionary.
R: No, it’s not right. Why on earth would I want to read a dictionary?
C: I don’t know. It just seemed like the sort of thing you would have done.
So it’s official: even friends who have known me for 42 years seem to think I need to get a life.
RAF Red Arrows Team News: Display Programme 25 to 29 July
This weekend sees the Team (Reds and Blues) criss-crossing the United Kingdom. Our planned timings are: […]
28 July
1500 Reds depart Edinburgh Airport
1556 Reds arrive RAF Brize Norton
And what is on a direct line between Edinburgh Airport and RAF Brize Norton? That’s right: my house! The following should have been included on the above itinerary:
1527 Reds appear out of nowhere, flying in low, tight diamond formation, and startle the crap out of Richard as he is trying to rewire his phone connections
Damn impressive, though. Wish I’d had my camera to hand.
BBC: Chanelle walks out of Big Brother
Victoria Beckham fan Chanelle Hayes has become the latest contestant to leave the Big Brother House.
Five words:
WHO GIVES A FLYING SHIT?
Sorry, but it needed saying.
HOLY CRAP!! I just went outside and the sky was this freakish blue colour. And bang in the middle of it was this blindingly bright round object that appeared to be emanating heat.
I have heard tales of such phenomena, but have, until now, put them down to the ramblings of the deranged and feeble-minded.
It’s the dawn of a new era.
Erm… Does nobody see the irony in this?
BBC: Scotland exempt from UK flag plan
Proposals to fly the Union flag every day on public buildings are set not to apply to Scotland.
It’s a bloody crap flag anyway. We should invent a new one. No design consultants. No children’s competitions. No symbollix. Just get someone to come up with a half-decent flag.
One with a biscuit on it perhaps.
Everyone likes biscuits.
A major network upgrade is planned for Gruts HQ this weekend. This won’t affect the website, but it does mean there won’t be any new content. Normal disservice will continue as soon as possible.
If you don’t hear anything by Monday, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. No flowers.
Update: I emerged from phase one of the network upgrade (the dangerous phase) in one piece. Normal disservice has now resumed.
Guardian: Renewable energy projects will devour huge amounts of land, warns researcher
Large-scale renewable energy projects will cause widespread environmental damage by industrialising vast swaths of countryside, a leading scientist claims today. The warning follows an analysis of the amount of land that renewable energy resources, including wind farms, biofuel crops and photovoltaic solar cells, require to produce substantial amounts of power.
Jesse Ausubel, a professor of environmental science and director of the Human Environment programme at Rockefeller University in New York, found that enormous stretches of countryside would have to be converted into intensive farmland or developed with buildings and access roads for renewable energy plants to make a significant contribution to global energy demands…
The report breaks what Prof Ausubel calls the “taboo of talking about the strong negative aspects of renewables”, by focusing on examples that highlight their limitations. “When most people think of renewables and their impact, they’re mistaking pleasant landscaping with what would be a massive industrial transformation of the landscape,” he said…
Prof Ausubel said that despite technical and political concerns, nuclear power plants still ranked as the most environmentally-friendly for large conurbations. “The good news about nuclear is that over the past 50 years all of the forms of waste storage seem to have worked.”
I stopped next to one of those Smart cars at some traffic lights on Tuesday, and couldn’t help noticing that the young woman behind the wheel was the spitting image of Paris Hilton.
Then it hit me. Somewhere inside my skull, a remarkably complex network of neurons is being used to store an image of Paris Hilton, along with assorted trivia about her that I won’t go into here—this is a family website. Now, there is another set of neurons storing the memory of some poor, unsuspecting girl in a black Smart car. I would surely have forgotten all about her by now, were it not for Paris Hilton.
Paris Hilton is using up space in my brain, and I want it back.
I have far more important uses for my grey matter than storing crap about talentless, American no-marks. Last weekend, for instance, I went upstairs, then realised I had no idea why I had gone up there. Yesterday, I referred to a colleague using the name of a different colleague—I do that all the time. And I still don’t have the vaguest recollection of what happened on that pub-crawl with Carolyn all those years ago that she keeps winding me up about.
My brain has limited capacity. It has important jobs to do. Knowing who the shit Paris Hilton is isn’t one of them.
Postscript: Less than 24 hours after I wrote the above, I was doing a calculation at work and suddenly realised that I couldn’t remember what four times nine is. I knew it would start with a three and the digits would add up to nine, but I couldn’t remember what the answer was off the top of my head. I had to work it out by adding 18 to 18 instead.
Paris Hilton has robbed me of 36. Which, by an amazing co-incidence is her IQ.
After making passing reference to my Tesco™ Bag for Life Scam the other day, I was almost inundated with a comment from somebody named Linda who was simply dying to know more. So here goes:
It’s dead simple, actually. The people on the checkouts at Tesco are told to award you extra green points on your loyalty card based on how many reusable bags for life you use. They are not told to check that you actually fill all your bags; just that you use them. So, instead of filling up, say, three bags for life, half-fill six bags and get double the green bonus points!
Every little helps.
Me: Did you enjoy your bath?
Jen: Yes thanks.
Me: You’ve put perfume on. That’s unusual.
Jen: I haven’t put perfume on.
Me: Well what’s that smell, then?
Jen: It might be my shampoo.
Me: [Sniffing Jen's hair] No, that’s not it. It’s more pungent than that.
Jen: I think you’ll find that’s Tesco bath cleaner.
I have reluctantly decided not to put myself forward for London mayor. I spent many hours non-existent-soul-searching before coming to this decision. I hope the good citizens of London will try to contain their disappointment, but it was never meant to be.
It wasn’t the fact that I have never lived in London that dissuaded me. Dick Whittington didn’t come from London either, and it didn’t do his mayoral aspirations any harm. What put me off was the realisation that, when it comes to playing politics, I am a witless buffoon. Which kind of makes you wonder why Boris Johnson is standing.
Oh, and there was the London stereotypes thing as well. I’m all for stereotypes, but I just don’t get the London ones.
At a conference in London a few months ago, I found myself cornered by a loudmouthed Londoner who’d had one too many lager and tonics: “My mate Ken, he’s from Chiswick. He’s mad is Ken! You know what them Chiswickers are like!” he said. I nodded knowingly, wondering what on earth he was on about. “Whereas me, I’m your typical Barnet-man: steady as they come.” He didn’t look too steady to me.
Over the course of the next twenty hours, my new friend enthralled me with tales of his mates from Brent, Southwark, Ealing and Lewisham, each of whom respectively matched the Brent, Southwark, Ealing and Lewisham stereotypes, whatever the hell those are supposed to be. I decided it was time to take my leave of Barnet Man when he started harping on about his friends from some place called Warcraft. They sounded like a right bunch of thugs.
Which is why I won’t be standing for London mayor, you see. I might be a witless buffoon when it comes to politics, but I do at least know that you have to understand your electorate.
Jen the other day: “Are you all right? Your eyes look really b… blood-shot. I nearly said bullshit then.”
…for tomorrow they’ll ban it.
Serves us right for not cutting the smokers a bit of slack. It’s gone to their heads:
BBC: Tax alcohol more says top doctor
Tax on alcohol should be increased to reduce the damage being caused to people’s health, the Chief Medical Officer for England has said…
Increased taxation citing health reasons is already in use with regard to tobacco.
Because, as we all know, increasing taxation was incredibly effective at getting people to give up smoking.
Some Puritans yesterday.
Online chat with Carolyn last night:
Carolyn: I just wanted to tell you – I passed my Sniffing test – I’m VERY excited!
Me: That is FANTASTIC! Do you get a badge?
Carolyn: I get to be an official project ‘tester’ for [the company], and what’s more – if I get hairy armpits, I can be an armpit tester as well!
An environmentalist writes:
New Scientist Environment Blog: Fred’s Footprint: Dirty footprints on a local bus
Seeking to lower my personal carbon footprint, I have been holidaying in southern England, not far from my London. I travelled to the South Downs by bus. What could be greener? Quite a lot, it seems…
Even assuming my Stagecoach bus manages the same fuel efficiency in the lanes of Sussex that National Express attains on motorways, it seems pretty clear that our footprint would have been less if we had rented an SUV for our jaunts. And, for our Petworth to Midhurst journey, the truth appears to be that my wife and I must have been responsible for emissions of about 300 grams of CO2 each per kilometre travelled – bigger than if we had been flying to Hong Kong.
(Not that going to Hong Kong has anything to do with it, you understand, when it comes to per kilometer calculations.)
It’s nice to see someone tell it like it is. The sad truth is, the vast majority of the buses I see every day are practically empty—which pretty much destroys their supposedly green credentials. And as for their ‘fighting congestion’, that’s a load of old bollocks too: what do you think it is that causes the congestion in the first place by having their own dedicated lanes or stopping every couple of hundred yards to take on or let off minuscule numbers of passengers?
Don’t get me wrong: buses are a vital part of our (pretty dire) transport infrastructure, but let’s stop harping on about how green they are.
BBC: Town pledges to bin plastic bags
Traders in Hebden Bridge have pledged to make the town plastic bag free following a campaign by a group of women dubbed the “bag ladies”.
Two-thirds of the town’s 109 traders have backed the initiative, which will mean free plastic bags will no longer be available in shops from 1 September.
Hitchin‘s sister used to make a point of ordering Coke™ whenever she visited a McDonald’s™, just to hear them say (as per script), “We have McDonald’s Cola™!” That was in the days before McDonald’s™ caved in and started selling Coke™.
In tribute to Hitchin’s sister, I am now going to make a point of asking for plastic bags whenever I shop locally in Hebden Bridge. “Can I have a plastic bag, please?” I will ask. And when they tell me it will cost me 10p (or whatever), I will say, “Oh, forget it, then, the deal’s off!” And I will storm out of the shop.
Actually, no I won’t. I’m prepared to give this one a go. But please don’t tell any of my friends: I do, after all, have a reputation to live down to.
(Oh, and remind me to tell you about my Tesco™ Bag for Life scam some time. It’s quite devious.)
