For Stense

Boots on telephone wiresFor reasons I can't go into right now, I saw these in Hebden Bridge this morning, and they made me think of Stense.

Not that Stense reminds me of a pair of old boots, you understand.

Well, not very much.

They both have tongues, I suppose. And heels. And they're both very well built. And they're both very reliable. And they can both be rather straight-laced at times (you know what I'm talking about, Stense, oh yes you do!).

Actually, come to think of it, Stense does remind me of a pair of old boots.

See also: More photos I took of footwear on telephone wires

Yet another step too far

Just when you thought the intolerance couldn't get any more extreme:

Observer: Now drivers face ban on smoking at the wheel

Britain's senior road safety campaigners are calling for a ban on smoking while driving, in an attempt to cut the number of crashes.

The Department of Health said last night that it would seriously consider a ban, which is also being looked at in Germany, Australia and America. The move was backed by anti-smoking campaigners but drew criticism from others as an attack on personal freedom.

Presumably, they will also be calling for a ban on other driver distractions, such as car radios, roadside advertisement hoardings and passengers.

No, somehow I don't think so either.

Hmmm… Hundreds of thousands of motorists deprived of the calming effect of nicotine. Expect a lot more road-rage.

Pro-family

BBC: Pro-family groups call Rome rally

Pro-family groups are holding a rally in the Italian capital, Rome, to protest against legislation giving more rights to homosexual couples.

Pro-family: is that what they're calling themselves these days?

Well, it does sound so much nicer than homophobic god-bothering bigots.

Midsomer Madness

I stayed at my parents' house last night, and they wanted to watch Midsomer Murders. "You don't look too impressed," observed my dad, observantly.

Jen and I only have two rules about what we can watch on telly: (1) no soaps; (2) no Midsomer Murders. We came up with rule 2 having watched a few episodes and noticed a common weakness running through every single plotline:

"No, it's OK, I'll watch it," I said to dad, "but I'll tell right now you who did it: the nutter with the totally ridiculous motive."

That's the big problem with Midsomer Murders you see (apart from the acting, I mean): it always turns out that the person who dunnit has a motive you could never have seen coming in a million years, because they are, it transpires, totally bloody nuts. Like the time the murderer turned out to be the leader of the bellringers, who was killing off the opposition so that he could win the bellringing competition. As if. (And, yes, we did make the obligatory dead ringers jokes, before you ask.)

Two hours later, and the murderer was revealed: the Welshman with a pathological hatred of doctors.

I kid you not.

Published
Filed under: Nonsense Tags:

It's sorted. It's gripped. Let's Off-Road!

Jen and I helped our friend the farmer chase cows today. We'd got them out of the field and they were heading in the right general direction, when the farmer suggested I head them off at the pass in her LandRover Defender.

Yeeees!

I'd never driven a LandRover before. I almost fell at the first hurdle, trying to start the bloody thing (handy hint: the ignition is on the left side of the steering column), then I was off down the rough, dirt track at a blistering 10mph.

After a short while, I got a bit cocky and changed up to second. Easy-peasy! But then I came to a slight bend in the track and…

Nothing happened. I turned the bloody steering-wheel and nothing bloody happened!

I was about to scream and slam on the brakes, when the LandRover suddenly turned as I had wanted it to. Then another bend came along and exactly the same thing happened. It turned out there was a two-second delay between turning the steering wheel and the message getting through to the wheels.

I reckon I'll stick with Murphy.

Earlier cow-herding yarns:

No good deed ever goes unpunished (part 2)

Pulling up to the M6 Toll Plaza (as they insist on calling it) on Wednesday, I spotted a car in another lane trying to move into mine, so I let it in.

Without even a wave of thanks, the driver pulled up to the barrier, leant out of the window, and threw his four pound coins at the collection bucket. Miraculously, every single coin missed its intended target and rolled underneath his car.

"Congratulations, you missed the side of the barn," I muttered to myself.

By now, there was a queue of cars behind me, so I couldn't reverse. So I sat and watched as the man got out of his car, had a chat with one of the unhelpful barrier attendants, then started groping around under his car to retrieve the coins. Having rescued three of them, he had to get back into his car and, through a series of about 20 backwards and forwards manoeuvres, slowly work it sideways until he could reach the fourth coin. Then he was off in a rage of smoke. Hooray!

Needless to say, I took extra-special care dropping my coins into the bucket.

See also: No good deed ever goes unpunished

The man who mistook somebody else's dog for a hat

Irish MickIrish Mick caught the train to Hebden Bridge on Sunday, and we went for a seven-mile walk which took us up onto the moors, then down into the valley, then along Hebden Water to The White Lion in Hebden Bridge. I've put a few photos from the walk on Flickr.

At one point, we were overtaken by a woman with unnaturally red hair walking what I took to be a greyhound, but which I later learnt was a lurcher.

Isn't lurcher a great name for a breed of dog? It's the 'er' at the end that does it. The 'er' makes it sound like the dog actually does something: lurcher, terrier, pointer, retriever. You see?

Anyway, about 10 minutes later, we spotted the same woman (the hair was a dead giveaway) apparently trapped in a stile on top of 10-foot-high drystone wall. As we got nearer, we realised what the problem was: the stile was one where you have to climb up stone steps projecting out of the wall, pass through a narrow gap at the top, then climb down similar steps on the other side. The woman had tried to lead the lurcher over the stile, but it had got half-way up and lost its nerve. The woman was now leaning back through the gap on top of the wall, trying in vain to coax the frozen dog forward with chocolate drops and gentle tugs on her long lead.

Richard and Irish Mick to the rescue!

I tried to get behind the dog and ease her forward onto the next step, but she wasn't having any of that and jumped back down to the ground. So I suggested the woman come back down and I go over to the other side of the wall and pull on the lead.

The woman and Irish Mick somehow eventually managed to dog-handle the terrified creature into the gap on top of the wall. Then I had to climb up the steps on my side of the wall and somehow try to pick it up on my own. The problem was, one of the steps was missing from my side of the wall, so the dog's feet were at my eye-level.

After a bit of general faffing about, I thought what the hell and just lunged at the dog. I'm not quite sure what happened next, but somehow the dog ended up on top of my head. I have absolutely no idea how I managed to climb back down the steps with the dog on top of me, but I did it somehow. Then I realised I was supporting the dog with my hands above my head, and there was no way for me to adjust my grip so that I could put her down. So I did the only thing I could do and fell over.

The dog landed neatly on all-fours, and I ended up flat on my arse, looking like a total idiot.

I wonder how they managed to get back home.

See also: The man who mistook his hat for a telescope