Jen and I are just back from a weekend in the Yorkshire Dales with Hitchin & Soo and their sprogs. Here are the obligatory photos.
Craparazzo
This week, I invented an entirely new genre of photography: craparazzi photography.
Craparazzi photographs are photographs of celebrities taken off-guard, which are so ineptly taken that you can't actually tell who they're of…
Movie star
Last week, during my lunchbreak, I was walking along the Liverpool waterfront with my sunglasses on, cup of coffee in hand, when I notice a young couple looking at me from inside a bus shelter.
As I approached, the lad stuck his head out of the shelter and announced, "'ey, mate! Me girlfriend reckons you look like one of them movie stars!"
The lad's girlfriend went scarlet. I suspect what she had actually said was something more along the lines of "Who does this fat tosser think he is? Some kind of movie star?"
I turned to the blushing girl. "Happens all the time," I said. "You're thinking of either Sean Connery or George Clooney."
Pinsent
If I were rower Matthew Pinsent,
I'd have a son and name him Vincent.
Overheard in Yorkshire antique shop this afternoon
Man looking at Bruce Lee Enter the Dragon poster:
I'd forgotten he were in Enter the Dragon.
To bee or not to bee
It started a couple of weeks back with one of Carolyn's obscure text messages:
R u going 2 your dads on Tues. & can u take your camera?m
I don't know when Carolyn started spelling in such an appalling way, or what the 'm' at the end stood for. Perhaps it should have rung a few alarm-bells. She went on to explain (I use the word loosely):
I wanted u 2 take a special picture of a field of flowers. If I can get a key to the field gate.
I replied that photographing a field full of flowers sounded right up my street.
In other words, I walked straight into it.
Read what Carolyn texted me again. Read it again very carefully: Field… Flowers… Photographs…
Do you see any mention at all of bees? Or of bee-suits?
Carolyn recently took up beekeeping, and, it turned out, she wanted some photos taking of her bees in action. But it was all right, you see, because she had a spare bee-suit, you see.
Her own bee-suit is a rather dapper affair, sensibly camouflaged to make it harder for the bees to spot her. Her spare bee-suit—the one she expected me to wear—was what can only be described as honey-coloured. It was also, it transpired, about 17 sizes too small. Carolyn literally cantered back and forth, jumping up and down in a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt at containing her laughter, as I tried to clamber into her spare bee-suit. I know I'm not exactly the sveltest of chaps, but there was no way on Earth that I was going to be able to zip it up. I couldn't ever stand fully upright in it.
So I stooped at a respectful distance, with my stomach hanging out of my borrowed bee-suit, taking photographs, while Carolyn did whatever it is that beekeepers do. Then we returned to her car, where I tried to get out of the damn bee-suit. In the end, Carolyn had to help me.
"Wait till I tell Jen that you took my clothes off!" I said.
"Just as long as you don't mention it on your website," replied Carolyn. "My niece would be mortified if she knew you'd been wearing her bee-suit."
All we hear is…
A thought occurred to me this week:
If Lady Gaga's middle initial were an 'O', she might be mistaken for a Japanese Queen tribute band.
That is all.
Hay-level results
Anyone who has been following the 'Recent Bookmarks' section in the Gruts sidebar recently (RSS feed here) might be forgiven for thinking that I have become an avid reader of the Daily Telegraph. There's absolutely no danger of that. But the venerable, old rag certainly seems to be taking an eminently sensible, pro-nuclear, anti-wind-powerstation stance when it comes to energy policy. Which is why it get my links. Who'd have thought it? The Torygraph talking sense, and getting its priorities right!
Don't worry, we that we can still rely on the Telegraph to take a somewhat distorted view on reality. For instance, it looks as if the unusually dry summer is going to lead to a serious hay shortage this winter. My farmer friend is certainly praying for lots more rain. When you've got scores of organic beef cattle and sheep to feed over the winter, the price of hay is a major issue for a hill-farmer working hard to make ends meet.
Credit to them, the Telegraph has picked up on this important rural issue. But what slant do they choose to put on the story?
Yes, the Telegraph still understands its readers' priorities.
Me old china
As of today, my babe mate Stense and I have been friends for twenty years.
H O L Y S H I T ! !
Happy anniversary, mate. I believe a present made out of china is in order. Our upstairs loo has certainly seen better days. How are your false teeth bearing up?
Handy with a corkscrew
Last night, some friends and I noticed that one of the waitresses in our local Italian restaurant is rather handy with a corkscrew, so we asked her to demonstrate her technique for the camera:
Admit it, you're impressed.