Result 2

I know what's been keeping you awake at night: did Stense try the chilli, crab and lemon spaghetti recipe I sent her last week, and what did she think of it? I know, I've been losing sleep over it too. This afternoon, I was relieved to receive the following endorsement via text message:

Did I tell you that the crab recipe was absolutely delicious? Thank you!

To which I replied:

No, you didn't, but I already knew that, thanks!

Seriously, though, you should give some of the recipes a go some time. You'd be doing yourself a big favour. They have all been tried and tested by Yours Truly, they are all (therefore) pretty damn easy, and they are all extremely tasty. This evening, Jen and I had the spaghetti carbonara, and there were only two words to describe it: fan tastic!

Combustion engine

Every so often, Carolyn sends me an incomprehensible text message. And she's not even one of those tw@s who use stupid abbreviations; Carolyn spells and punctuates impeccably. Her latest effort went as follows (I have replaced certain numbers with x's for privacy reasons):

None available round here. xxx/xxxx, xxx/xxxx, xxx/xxxx, xxx/xxxx, xxx/xxxx. Could you check in your area?

I phoned her back straight away. She burst out laughing when she heard who it was: "I take it you got my text message, then," she said.

It turned out Carolyn wanted me to pick up some stuff for her at Argos. "It's an absolute bargain," she explained. "Don't you think a combustion engine will make a great Christmas present for Aran? Well, for the Christmas after next, maybe?"

I suppose any kid who asked for a water butt for his birthday will be delighted with a combustion engine for Christmas. Even if he does have to wait for over a year.

Robbed

Carolyn came second in her accidental trampolining competition. Apparently, during her second routine, she landed on one foot off her backdrop and they wouldn't mark her after that, so she got a really bad score.

That's ridiculous! Landing on one foot has got to be harder than landing on both. It stands to reason (no pun intended). I mean, if Tiger Woods had won the Open yesterday standing on one leg, we'd have said he was a genius. If Dago Maradona had hopped through the entire England defence beforehand, we might have stopped harping on about the Hand of God incident by now. If Jonny Wilkinson's last-second drop-goal to win the 2003 Rugby World Cup had been made without the use of his left leg, we'd have said it was the most amazing drop-kick ever.

It was a fix. Carolyn was robbed.

The Encore Game

I had a good-old chin-wag on the phone with Stense on Friday. She told me she was going to a jazz concert being given by one of her friends.

Jazz Club
Nnnniiiiice!

So I took the opportunity to tell her about the Encore Game:

The Encore Game is a partial misnomer, because it can be played at any point during a music concert, not just during the encore. It is best played when the artist is between tracks, and is making polite banter with the audience. At such points, some pillock from the audience will usually call out the name of their favourite song by the artist, hoping that will in some way encourage them to play it. Other pillocks then usually join in. It's all a bit embarrassing.

Anyway, as the calls begin to subside, you make your move, shouting out:

D E V I L   W O M A N !

It always gets a laugh, and, on one of the occasions when I tried it, the Archdrude himself was good enough to admit that he didn't know all of the words.

Important Notes:

  1. Do not attempt to play the Encore Game at a Cliff Richard concert. People will just think you're a pillock, rather than a postmodernist comic genius. Mind you, if they're at a Cliff Richard concert, who are they to cast nasturtiums?
  2. The Encore Game should not be confused with The Devil Woman Game, even though they might appear very similar to non-aficionados.

Trainspotting

Hebden Bridge Times: Station Goes Off the Rails

Commuters at Mytholmroyd Rail Station watched in horror as a man injected himself with what appeared to be heroin in the middle of a busy platform.

Good job he didn't light up a fag as well: he might have landed himself in real trouble.

The Ys have it

New Scientist: This is no way to save the whales

For a graphic example of science being abused for political and sentimental ends look no further than the debate over whaling.

I'm not going to comment on the above article (the bulk of which is locked away behind a New Scientist, subscriber-only paywall), but cop a load of the author's name: James (I kid you not) Hrynyshyn!

Do you see what he's done? He's taken his real surname (which is presumably some foreign equivalent of Harrison) and replaced all the vowels with the letter y. That is so totally cool.

Some time ago, I toyed with the idea of changing my name to Richaard Caarter in a sort of tribute to Søren Kierkegaard, but this idea with the ys is so much better:

Rychyrd Cyrtyr, just imagine that! Don't you just love the (for want of a better word) Welshness of it?

Or is it just a tad too Lynyrd Skynyrd?

Case of mistaken identity

BBC: Hoylake ready for golfing glamour

…Hoylake, a former fishing village nestled on the Wirral peninsula, is playing host to the world's best golfers and the 600 members of the media that follow them.

It is providing a profile boost that not even George Clooney can overshadow as Open play gets under way at the Royal Liverpool course for the first time since 1967.

There's a perfectly simple explanation for 'George Clooney' having been spotted at the Open this week. You should be able to piece together the explanation yourselves after consulting the following stories from the Gruts archive:

David v Goliath (Goliath winning)

I know it's a hell of a claim, but I don't think I've ever been quite so ashamed of a British government of any political persuasion:

BBC: Minister urged to condemn Israel

Margaret Beckett repeatedly rejected calls by MPs on all sides to condemn Israel's actions in the Lebanon.

The foreign secretary said she had condemned Hezbollah but bowing to MPs' demands on criticising Israel was not the most effective policy.

I'm sure Mrs Beckett would claim that condemning Israel for is blatant over-reaction in the Lebanon would make it harder for us to broker a peace deal in future. A peace deal is clearly of highest priority for Tony Blair and George W Bush: they have cleared their diaries for this time next week to have a chat about it. Anyone might think they were employing delaying tactics.

‘To Hizbullah With Love!’
Photo by: Khawaja

In the meantime, Israeli parents are getting their children to scrawl messages onto shells that will be fired into the Lebanon.

That should help a lot.

It must be great to have God on your side.

Buisness intrest

To what on earth is this once-great country coming?

Call me old-fashioned. Call me pedantic. I'm probably both. But this sort of thing goes some way to explaining how we managed to lose an entire sodding empire: