Gruts

🦆

Staying positive

According to my garden thermometer, last night was the coldest so far this winter: the temperature dropped to +3°C. Bearing in mind that I live 800ft above sea level in the Pennines, this is pretty remarkable: it's a month after the winter solstice, and we haven't had any frost yet, let alone snow and ice.

Last year's hot, dry summer was bad news for my garden slugs, but what we really need now is some really cold weather to kick them while they're down; the sort of cold, clear, frosty weather that hurts your lungs when you breathe in.

It's hailing outside as I type, and the Met Office is predicting a cold snap, so fingers-crossed!

Perhaps there's something in this global warming malarkey after all.

We know who our real best friends are

BBC: Dog-owners 'lead healthier lives'

If you want to live a healthier life get a dog, research suggests.

The companionship offered by many pets is thought to be good for you, but the benefits of owning a dog outstrip those of cat owners, the study says.

And, unlike with cats, you're not likely to have your personality altered by toxoplasma gondii parasites.

You can thank us later, Man U

BBC: Liverpool 2-0 Chelsea

Liverpool dented Chelsea's Premiership title challenge in impressive style…

The defeat leaves Chelsea six points behind Manchester United - who visit Arsenal on Sunday - and puts Liverpool only five points behind Jose Mourinho's troubled champions.

I never thought I'd live to see the day, but, a couple of weeks ago, an ardent Liverpool fan who shall remain nameless—so let's call him Bill—stated quite unequivocally that he would rather Manchester United won the Premiership than Chelsea.

I'm totally confused. What is the world coming to?

Ya cannae change the laws of physics, cap'n!

Practise as thou preacheth

BBC: Race row shows 'ugly underbelly'

The Big Brother race row shows an "ugly underbelly in society…", the Archbishop of York has said.

Unlike publically bad-mouthing illiberal atheists, eh, archbishop?

Why I will never be an internet billionnaire

No commercial nouse, that's my problem. That and scruples.

I've had a few freebies over the years, thanks to Gruts and my Darwin website: occasional Darwin-related books from publishers, and the odd unexpected present from my Amazon wishlist. Hell, I've even made over a tenner from Amazon referral fees. But I don't have that killer business instinct—the ability to recognise and seize upon a nice little earner.

Take this proposition I received via the Darwin site the other day, for example:

I can offer you $35 if you'll place an ad on [this page] for a website that provides information about LASIK eye surgery. I can supply the ad to you with payment if you're interested.

You see, all I had to do was act the pimp, turn my personal hero, Charles Darwin, into a whore, and $35 could have been mine. That's £15.22 in proper money. A few thousand more offers like that each year, and I could be living the life of Riley. If it weren't for my scruples, that is.

DAMN SCRUPLES!

When you walk through a storm…

Mersey Storm — The River Mersey earlier today.

Holy crap, was it windy today, or what?

At lunchtime, I rather stupidly took a stroll down to the Pier Head in Liverpool to take some snaps. I now know what the River Mersey tastes like. It tastes like Golden Wonder ready salted crisps.

I'll admit it, I'm a rather heavy chap, but I was nearly blown arse over tit at one point, as lamp-post fittings crashed to the pavement on all sides.

It was fun, in a daring-man-of-action kind of way.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say, it was so windy, that the wind powerstations of the nation must have generated at least 3 Watts of power before they were taken offline for safety reasons.

Right on queue

I don't claim to be the world's most patient man when it comes to queuing, but I usually manage to to bite my tongue and suffer in silence—with just the occasional, very British tut thrown in for good measure. But last week, they really were taking the piss.

It started at Tesco on Thursday. I'd queued very patiently while the man on the checkout had an item-by-item conversation with the elderly lady in front of me. She then took out her purse and paid in coppers.

But, when it finally came to my turn, the checkout man just stared at my bottles of wine on the conveyor belt and began to rearrange them. I coughed politely, and he rearranged them some more.

"That's a particularly good one," I said eventually, pointing at an Aussie Shiraz. It was the only way I could think of catching his attention.

"Ooh! Really?" said the man, who then proceeded to hunt around for a pen and copy down the name of the wine onto a piece of paper. "I might try that one next," he said.

Then, on Saturday, I spent what seemed like 20 minutes standing behind some bloke who was evidently going for the high score on the local cashpoint machine.

Either that, or he was emailing home.

Previous queue-related zaniness:

email admin note

I just spent a couple of hours tweaking my spam filters. Emails from all my usual correspondents (including people who usually leave comments, but sometimes email) should get through unaffected.

If, however, any of you suspect your emails aren't getting through to me, please re-send them with the word 'carrot' included anywhere in the title.

(This is not a wind-up, by the way.)

The :-

Whatever happened to the colon-dash punctuation mark. You remember the thing:

:-

It seems to have gone the way of bowler hats, Texan bars and white dog poo.

When I was a kid, we were taught that we should always introduce a list with a colon followed by a dash. But nowadays, all you ever see is colons. Granted, the colons look a lot tidier without the dashes, but I wonder who it was who decided that the dash was no longer necessary. Perhaps they thought it looked a bit too much like one of those godawful smilies. A smiley without a smile.

I seem to be spending far too much time worrying about this sort of thing these days.

The colon-dash, eh? Sounds like some sort of sponsored charity event in a hospital.

Tomorrow's headlines today

BBC: Leo Sayer quits Big Brother house

Seventies pop star Leo Sayer has walked out of the Celebrity Big Brother house on the day he was up for eviction.

It is thought the 58-year-old quit the Channel 4 show after knocking down a door with a shovel…

Model Danielle Lloyd said she thought Leo had quit because he was "worried about being rejected" by the public.

All together now…

I won't let the show go on!

Actually, Sayer's actions are clearly a pathetic attempt to remind viewers of his biggest hit, which he will now, no doubt, be re-releasing. Just listen to a few of the lyrics:

Baby, there's an enormous crowd of people
And they're all after my blood
I wish maybe they'd tear down the walls of this theatre
And let me out… let me out
…
Baby, I wish you'd help me escape
And help me get away
Leave me outside my address
Far away from this masquerade

Coincidence? I'll leave it to you to decide.