The strange case

This is a strange case. I have a dear friend who emigrated to Australia, lots of people emigrate to Australia and I am really not sure why. Clearly the Neighbours effect has a lot to do with it, such babes as Jane, Annalise, Beth and Felicity (as well as the obvious Kylie) being big factors for the boys whilst the girls are attracted to this bleak red desert by stud muffins such as Mike and Henry.

Beth....

Jane.....

Annalise...

And of course Felicity.....And for the ladies, Henry...

And Mike...As I am sure you will agree, the Neighbours effect results in significantly more men than women volunteering to pop to the other side of the world (many, having seen the pictures above would crawl there using only their tongues as propulsion given half a chance). To me of more significance is the amount of deadly wildlife species that lurk over there, if the crocs, jellyfish and sharks don't get you then the funnel webs (at least 40 species of) and snakes (over a hundred known venomous snakes) surely will.....even the famous and apparently harmless and comedic Duckbilled platypus has a hideous dark side...

The Pus.............

Platypus can defend themselves using a hollow claw like spur attached to their back feet which they use to inject platypus poison,( yes I know! Platypus poison!). The effect of this poison on humans has been documented a only few times in history (it should be noted that rumours exist that Dwarfs have a similar spur, although it is not thought that they produce poison).

The Spur...

There are at least 25 elements in platypus venom. When the poison enters a victim, one protein in it causes blood to flow to the area of the sting, acid in the venom causes a burning sensation, another protein lowers blood pressure, causing shock and fainting, and certain components dissolve tissues and blood vessels, allowing poison to spread more rapidly. The strongest element of the poison works directly on the receptors to nerves that register pain (basically makes all the pain receptors sing like pavarotti), for this reason, Morphine has almost no effect. In one case of a man being stung on the hand, the Doctor involved was forced to purposely damage the main nerve running through the arm using a large needle in the elbow to ease the pain!

For a really good dit on the threat posed by nature in Oz pop along to here

Anyway, my mate (lets call him G) went to Oz. Now, I am convinced, or was until this weekend that the following thing happened to him, however, he completely denies it ever happening, so this could be a strange case of me imagining a episode in somebody else's life which never actually happened..

Driving along a desert road in his 4x4 (work issue - rugged and dusty), G noticed that the evening was developing a stunning sunset.

Now my mate G loves a sunset more than most, following him once in a car on the M4 I was amazed to see his vehicle suddenly start to drift slowly across the three lanes of traffic, this worried me, had he died? I then noticed stage left a really pretty sunset and realised G was watching this rather than the road....this was confirmed when G suddenly 'came to' and took control of his car averting possible disaster.

So G, being a romantic soul at heart and having a bit of time, decided to stop and enjoy the spectacle. Pulling over to the side of the road, he clambered (after checking for death dealing wildlife) on top of his vehicle and lay there to watch the show.

Now, Australians are known to be a reasonable practical down to earth lot (I suspect a fair few of the original bunch of criminals hailed from Yorkshire) and are not given to flights of fancy like my mate G. Pretty soon another vehicle came along the road, the driver saw the vehicle pulled up alongside and as is the protocol in the outback in Oz assumed a 'breakdown situation' had occurred (which can be fatal in the outback, dehydration and Kangaroo attacj the main causes of death), and pulled up to offer assistance. A short exchange followed between G and the good Samaritan during which G explained what he was doing, at the end of the exchange the Good Samaritan (clearly feeling duped) roared away from the scene with the words "you stupid Pommie bastard"

And apparently this never happened! I have 'spun' this dit many times over the past few years and it has always been well received. I have three choices in this strange case, let the dit die, change the name of the hero and continue to tell it as an urban legend, or I can decide that the sort of flake who pulls off the road in a heavily Platypus invested country to watch the sun go down is probably lucky if he can remember what he had for breakfast in the morning let alone details from several years ago and carry on spinning the dit as before....

The Wastes of Yorkshire

I do not know too much about the north, its cold and full of pragmatic types who still wear caps and race pigeons. For this reason when faced today with a trip across two northern counties (The peoples rebublik of south Yorkshire and north Yorkshire I think) I decided to arm myself with a print out form Google maps, what I did not account for was the google map program being written by a monkey.

The monkey I think was responsible for my extended trip......
(yes he is quite cute, but he has no business advising me road travel)




I am attending a course at a swanky government college, unaware of the credit crunch or indeed off cuts in spending, this place is cheerfully situated in a 'finchley park' esque old manor house to the north of York, complete with landscaped gardens, cosy wood panelled rooms and unnecessary but well appreciated expense and luxury..the sort of place you imagine we British have everywhere...stern receptionist and a union flag flying above an ornamental flowerbed, these places are an endangered species as anyone (stand fast the MET) will tell you. To imagine it better imagine the polar opposite of the DVLA center in Newport...


Anyway, I flew into Leeds-Bradford airport (make a bloody choice) from Plymouth airport (note, not Plymouth -Exeter or Plymouth-Saltash), this I confess could be seen as an extravagance and perhaps on reflection I should have toiled up the country on a train but seeing as I have only had 17 flights this year, bike to work and planted four tomato plants in the summer (all died - no sun) I think I am pretty far ahead when it comes to carbon capture......

So, now up north in my nifty performing rental ford fiesta off I set...google.....google....it is pointless listing a roads name on the directions when the road in question does not have any bloody signs on it...multi map give you towns to head to, not google, a 38 mile journey took me over 2 hours..I was threaders...suddenly I was in the midst of the desolate (although quite charming) Yorkshire countryside on unnamed roads..lost. I had to ask a Yorkshire man..sadly he reacted to my southern accent as I imagined his Dad would have reacted to me if I had shouted 'Gott in Himmel!" at him whilst I packed away my parachute having just arrived from Saxony in invasion force 5 during the last war by last war I mean Vs the Germans - a proper foe)...

With a Yorkshire flea in my ear for being unprepared I had to back track all the way back to the last major road mentioned by the google monkey and go the long way round using major arterial roads rather than the pokey lanes suggested by monkey boy.

Still, they have a bar here and a roaring fire......

Feeling Jaded

Today I have evolved a jaded feeling, well, in truth I made an enemy of my own future yesterday when I cheerfully decided that the best thing to do with my Friday afternoon was to sink eight pints of top notch English ale....well not all of it was top notch in truth, most of it was sub-standard but agreeably cheap and served cold.

The good stuff I had was Abbot Ale..this stuff is not only isotonic but also 'gets you there' with a cheeky 5%abv and tastes like all the best bits of a Hovis advert.

So now I have in my head an ache...it is one of those head aches where its like having a huge ball bearing in your skull, I am fine if I remain still, but if I move at all (god forbid I bend over) the ball bearing canons around my tortured swede and makes me fell quite dizzy.

The best way of dealing with this sort of headache is to lie quite still in a darkened room and listen to the cricket..I however am involved in the headache unfriendly activity of taking 8 (yes, two fat ladies) eight year old kids to the cinema...

this may kill me I will let you know....

Feet

Most people have a good relationship with feet, they are by and large useful buggers, carrying you around, providing good sturdy nails to pick at when you have a moment and if you are really lucky, providing an assortment of rich dry skin pickings to scratch away at in that blissful period post bathing when you are too wet to dress, and too lazy to dry...(in some cultures, this skin is much prized as a form of medicine and eaten with relish - incidentally I am talking about relish both in terms of enjoyment and as a condiment)

Folk even derive whole livelihoods from feet...as well as the obvious shoemakers and assorted elven helpers there are the shoes sellers, the reflexologists and and of course the chiropodists. When I first heard about chiropody I thought 'Wow', that sounds brilliant, imagine getting paid to whittle away at Cindy Crawford's silken feet! What a brilliant wheeze, a supermodel paying you to fiddle with her feet..

This here is what I am talking about, you can't quite see her feet, but you can imagine the beauties?

Of course, as anyone who has been near an inner city McDonald's will tell you, there are feet out which defy the laws of nature..feet so bad that even the angel feet of Ms Crawford could not compensate for the horrors of having to go skin-on-skin with a pair of fat cheesy scum ridden scabbers......

These pictures have proved so traumatic that I have lost my train of thought...be careful what you search for people, there are things out there on the interweb which should be encased in concrete and buried in the North sea.....I now really feel sick..any chiropodists or whatever they are called should be knighted (for those from overseas this is the British equivalent of getting your 5th McDonalds gold star...

Who am I?

As the readership of The Hog Evolves has grown beyond those which already know me, I have began to realise that I have said very little about my initial state. To fully appreciate any evolutions through which I may pass you should really should be aware of the start state. A butterfly is a wonderful thing but it is truly a marvel when compered to the multi legged worm from whence it came.

I should be clear at this point that my evolutions will not be nearly as dramatic/traumatic as that of the butterfly and that I am not nearly as wonderful, a bad example, think more of an old car being renovated and then used for racing rather than commuting.....maybe

Anyway, for my sins I could be considered a military man having spent most of my life within Her Majesties Armed Forces (for you Johnny foreigners, yes, they are still known as 'Her Majesties - jealous much? Or do you prefer the 'Peoples' or El Presidentes'?).

I evolved during this time from a creature who digs under the soil - a soldier, to one who digs being under the sea..a submariner. This, it will come as no shock is not a natural evolution but one that caused great pain and not a small amount of confusion, for a simple example of the sort of thing I had to go through, I refer you to Manimal.

I think I have revealed enough for now...I shall delight readers at some future point with more intimate details....maybe...

Recently Scared of Dark Dartmoor

I am a cyclist, or more accurately I commute to work mostly by bike, I never bike for pleasure, although pleasure can be had balanced above a pair of gyrating wheels I am told. Recently the mornings have been very dark and cold and unexpectedly, I have found myself evolving a fear of them...

For those of you have not experienced the long trek into the depths of winter whilst living on Dartmoor, let me explain...its a bit shit

Even on the dry days its wet and this coupled with sub-zero morning temperatures creates a very real and scary hazard...black ice. Last year I was cheerfully navigating my way around a bend when all at once I wasn't. Both my wheels flipped (as if propelled) out from under me and appeared as if by magic between me and the sky, shortly after noticing this phenomenon my shoulder (right...my traditional absorber of pain) braced my body against the road providing a useful fulcrum, around which I was able to bring the rest of my body and bike crashing down into the glassy tarmac with more than 3.7 times the force of gravity ...this sort of event has a haunting quality on a mans cycling I have found..

The other fear I have on these cold and windy mornings, is fuelled less by physical reality and more by probability.

Normally as I cycle to work across the moor, I consider it not at all probable that evil beasts roam the vast wastes of the moor..however, on these lonely morning when the only light is cast by my solitary lamp, the existence of things from the outer reaches of imagination seem to become highly probable..

This is the sort of over evolved thing that waits in the dark

If you have ever cycled, walked, or even driven in complete foggy darkness you will know that you are presented with a misty tunnel of light ahead of you surrounded on all sides by a fearsome inky blackness, now on Dartmoor, living things regularly step out of the dark and into your tunnel, sheep, ponies and cows being the prime culprits. Could there be other things, there in the dark, hungry and lustful, who hate cyclists?

There is the fabled beast of Dartmoor for one thing, a giant cat like creature which tears apart sheep and allows farmers to make unreasonable claims for vast amounts in accordance with the EUs' farcical Common Agricultural Policy......and recently there has been a spate of wild boar sightings, as anyone who knows anything about wild boor will tell you - a fully grown male 'tusker' would make quick work of a hapless cyclist, especially if the attack is a surprise right angle smash charge, bowl over thing...

Recently taken on the moor, a boar? Or (more likely) a mutated simian of some sort, capable of over 60 mph endowed with the preternatural cunning of the occult?

I blame American Werewolf in London for some of these fears and the Brothers Grimm for the rest. Although my rational brain is quite useful in setting me straight and I have so far emerged unscathed.... it can't all be rumour mongering can it?

Its Christmas - sort of...

As you get older things which you never understood become clear and things which were once second nature slowly but surely become unfathomable.

Nobody tells you this...I am now, clearly, but normally its kept hushed up for some reason.

Example; The Video / DVD recorder, when I were a lad, I was constantly used as an 'on call' recording engineer by my parents, there I would be faffing around with some marbles and barbie dolls, when I would be summoned to the front room (or lounge / drawing room if you please) to deliver technical 'know-how' to my otherwise competent parents. How do we record? Where is the recording? It just flashes? etc etc...I had, it must be stressed no formal training in the wonders of modern Japanese hi-techery. Somehow my growing mind seemed to understand the thought process used by Mr Toshiba as he came up with ever more complex programming systems.

To be honest, I thought this was a 'life skill', it remained with me throughout my twenties and then suddenly, BOOM! I have not a clue...I have to agonise for hours with instructions and remotes, trawl the Internet forums searching in vain for a similar problem that some youth has glibly resolved..sadly for me as well, my kids are not yet in the zone of technical whizzery so the DVD recorder sits idly under the telly mocking my middle aged incompetence.

I have I should say, discovered an antidote to this particular electronic challenge, and that it the Personal Video Recorder - the PVR (I have a TOPFIELD and its called the black panther!). Folks, if you do not have one of these gadgets - get one, it makes recording shows no more difficult than putting on shoes....and this is important, because once you get to the age when putting on shoes is a problem you will of course struggle with the PVR (as my Nan God bless her, would testify on this blog if computers did not scare the living bejesus out of her).

So a good example of knowledge deserting us as we get older, but we gain stuff too!

As a young child the thought, the very idea that it was even remotely possible for Christmas to start too early was beyond joke. How can Christmas, come to early? Its clearly the best time of the year -why wait. Older folk were constantly moaning on and on about decorations being up too early and carols on the radio being inappropriate -Losers! Get a life! Enjoy it you fools for tomorrow it will be just a memory, like smoke!

Those thoughts have gone!

Is it me, but has Christmas come too early this year? If you start before December and finish after January then that's a whole 1/12th of the year in Christmas mode! Surely it loses some of its meaning and grace when you have to listen to Slade for a full 840hours! Just how much good cheer can you have?

Hang on....I like young Hogs view best, it seems gloriously untainted by cynicism and bad whiskey...

Bugger it all, I'm going to get a tree!

School Homework?

When I were a lad one of my biggest bugbears was homework, from an early age it loomed over my free time like a giant black slug, always squiggled on your shoulder ready to suck any joy I could extract from my rigorous monging regime.

The only way to 'salt the slug' was to bang out the homework as soon as you got it, but my inner Spaniard always shouts 'Manana! Manana!' at such noble initiatives....

For those of you not familiar with the process of salting a slug (not everyone lives a semi-aquatic existence on the northern fringes of Europe, I imagine folk from nice warm places are not menaced by slugs in the same way?) it involves dropping quantities of weapons grade sodium chloride onto the vegetable munching terrors -this simple process causes the slug to give up and go away and, I have it on good authority that it is a 97% humane procedure.

Here I am trying to reason with a slug (this one was salted soon after this attack your heart will sing to hear)





I thought homework was over when I finally left the education process after university, but, as any gardener will tell you, slugs are harder to shift than the slug pellet manufacturers would have us believe in their marketing brochures ( I caught a slug eating the pellets, remarkable - salted his ass good and proper).

Turns out when you have your own kids the whole process starts again, this time with the added bonus of not getting any credit for it...my point is this, why do kids need homework?

Most of this work - by its very nature, is done by parents, example 'Make a collage of pictures of bridges you have cut out of magazines, prepare a short story about a bridge to go with your picture'

What? Who - do teachers, in the farthest reaches of their under active, militant, I'll strike over nothing if you will, non-competitive, thank god its Friday minds, think will actually do this? I am unlikely to send my 6 year old off to the shagging newsagent with a fiver to buy magazines about bridges, some scissors, craft knifes and a tube of glue - the old bill would have him as soon as he rested on a park bench, another sad example of feral youth.

Having avoided the police and arrived home, am I supposed to send him off with a pair of scissors and the glue to create his collage....a sticky bloodbath, the best I could hope for would be for rivers of glue to somehow seal the bloody wounds before I got to the hospital.....

If all the work required of my spawn cannot be completed within school hours, then extend school hours! It is as they say, not rocket science (although I am not sure they are allowed to teach that in school anymore). The work could then be completed overseen by qualified teachers rather than exasperated parents who would really rather be doing something else of an evening (normally involving crushed grape juice).

Had I wanted to be a teacher (the endless holidays, tidy 9 to 3 hours and the free parking do appeal) I would have been a teacher, yes, homework is a charming window into their delightful world of 'speelings and sums' but frankly they can keep it at school where it belongs, I reckon...

To Freeze or not to Freeze

My relationship with Freezing is evolving, marked by a slow thaw...

Before I go on, I should point out what type of freezing I am referring to, I am talking about the freezing of dead things to prolong shelf life, freezing live things to shorten life is a completely different art, and I would hazard a guess at it being mostly illegal (maybe not in Russia which seems to take a different view on these sorts of things).

Live freezing in Russia!

I am also not, today at least, talking about being freezing, this dit does not concern 'baltic-ness' or it being a bit 'pearl harbour'* , chankers or even harry ice-ers, no this dit merely concerns freezing.

My spouse (Buddha bless her orange robes) is an avid devotee of the whole freezing process.

I have on occasions received nasty lip burns when returning to my dinner after a comfort break only to find it frozen solid - chicken, bread, eggs, flowers, peas, anything I am about to use etc...

For her the exciting idea that ANYTHING can be preserved indefinitely is enough to see most things frozen even if only for an hour.

You will understand the frustration this can cause I think, if like me you have ever spent a fruitless 10 mins trying to chip a loaf of bread apart so that you can help yourself to a marmalade sandwich (this process would have killed Paddington, or at least left him streaming with blood).

I hate the way that in order to retrieve even the simple frozen waffle packet from the freezer you must risk hideous cold injury, that's if you can feel anything in your hands after the giant ASDA chicken has tumbled onto them causing, and I know this is to be a medical term, 'crushing injuries'.

Lets not go to deeply into the disappointment of tucking into a steaming bowl of recently defrosted soup only to realise to late that you have just re-heated last years stewed rhubarb - or worse, the chicken fat your thought might come in useful, somehow, oneday perhaps....

I am struggling now to understand the title of my own post as these horrific memories wash over me..ah yes..my dance with the freezing process has changed due to the re-introduction into my life of cider.

I, like most youths grown in the south of Britain (not sure what happens up past Gloustershire but I suspect it involves Newcastle Brown Ale, coal and dirty women), had an early introduction to fermented apple juice, often in an outdoor setting and using a straw and a plastic bottle. This brief early acquaintance had for me, put cider firmly into the 'lets not go there this side of Armageddon' bracketl, along with white lightning, Pernod & black and babysham.

But now I find it has been reborn, chilled on ice and served in a glass it turns out to be a cracking solution that thorny problem - the cheeky school night tipple. Added to which, I have it on the authority of a major curly headed fitness coach with dodgy bowels, that it is THE DRINK when it comes to losing weight; Isotonic, low calorie and counts towards your five-a-day..I think.

The new mothers ruin?

Clearly to have cider on ice, you must have ice, and hence the love evolves

* Anybody of a PC nature should look away now....Pearl Harbour - A nip in the air.

The wedding

I want to discuss weddings but it is too late and I am too drunk, but I will, later, remind me. In the meantime let me quickly, before the sandman takes his glorious hand to me, mention the best way to experience a wedding without having to go through the rigmarole of going to one.

There is a pub...in Glasgow, near the station (railway not air - mongs) which is just peaking out of an under pass and I swear, every time you go there, be it at 1300hrs , 1700hrs or 0100hrs you walk into the same scene. A wedding breakfast.

As well as benefiting from a very cheap pint of 'heavy' you also benefit from being transported, instantly into the last two hours of a working class wedding (I use this term merely to paint a picture), the term I was going to use was 'council estate but I have deemed that too inflammatory given the ongoing class war.

Anyway, whenever you walk in, , and I do mean whenever - there will be;

A couple of old grandparents vaguely moving on the area formerly known as a dance floor.
An uncle will be singing.
Various cousins will be beyond drunk, lecturing at will and befriending in an inappropriate manner anybody who stops moving,
Ill matched couples will be snogging and groping oblivious to their surroundings
Tired looking kids will be playing 'IT'

Note: There will be a particularly pissed Scot banging on about the English, this is common at MOST weddings but I accept not all.

You should go.

Where is it? you will know when you have found it, be brave, its a friendly place but please remember 'no shandy' and 'two pint pissers' will not be tolerated.

The Sneeze

I have recently developed a cold, I will not talk in this instance about the much vaunted 'man flu', although I have (as most males have) suffered at the hands of this little dancer, my cold clearly worse.

First the positive, it makes me sneeze quite a bit, I quite like to sneeze, I find it a powerful natural vibration and can revel in the control I am allowed to lose as the sneeze, and with it I presume some of the virus, exits my body. I have never (knowingly) been possessed but I imagine that the inevitable exorcism (I watch movies like everybody else) would be like a series of powerful sneezes....delightfully purging you whilst setting the spirits free to feast on other unfortunate souls.....another bonus of the sneeze is the obvious signal it sends to other people about your state of health, no need to look sad and shivery here. Girls are especially vulnerable to the sneeze and quickly fall prey to its wonderful sympathy generating properties...feel like a hot cup of cocoa? Try a few sneezes first and watch the women folk fight to make it for you....

Actually, writing down the positive has made my cold feel alot better, well I feel better, which I guess means the cold feels worse? The little viral army that is encamped in my sinus' must be feeling a little less secure and that is good.

I have thought about trying to contact the virus through occult means, maybe I could strike a deal with the devil (as it were), if the virus were to withdraw a little of the misery (free up the nose and head areas). I would be willing to go and sneeze in rich hunting grounds rather than lock myself away in a darkened room and feast on lockets.

For the blood price of a few days relief, I would gladly wander old peoples homes and homeless shelters sneezing freely and allowing the virus to spread unchecked amongst the tired and vulnerable members of society......just a thought..

Tuesday Afternoon 1603.03hrs - again.....

1603.22hrs
The air creeps closer than before
A sentient night waiting to fall
Sweeping past tired thoughts, clogging minds
Wrapping, sucking, pressing
Invisible webs of the future clutch and hold
Hunting down hope
A bristling spider of the past
1603.57hrs
Bright eyes grow dim and fluid
The candles last cheap flicker
Limbs, muscles, flesh hangs still
No carbon here, no support
Heart beats flicker in dead skins
Waiting, watching, for release
The freedom of despair
1604.08
Time for a cup of tea methinks........

The Flower

Seed embedded in cool soil, moist air clings,

Skin flows on skin, the rivers meet
Embraced now by life, splitting, reaching,
Breath no longer mine, I breathe you,
Roots move deep, sucking life,
Never too much, immersed, lost,free,
Entangled now, light in dark, giving , receiving,
No boundaries here, only touch,
Does the valley end, the mountain start?
No more self, just heat, so much heat,
Colour waiting, yellow mother comes,
Who was I?
Silken robes burst free, the sky weeps,
Thoughts trickle away on salty streams,
Velvet blood shines, both new and old,
Pulses slow, mist rises, flesh cools, panting,
The display falters, perfection drops to decay,
Becoming less whole, apart, hysterical loss,
Alone, the ground whispers the memory,
Only one mind, two creatures, only one mind
A flower...

Babies Binary Communication Systems

I am not an expert in babies, but I have had 'charge' of the odd one or two and have studied their ways. In order to try to understand the baby you have too remember two things:

1. They always have a mission or purpose (normally with a real tight time scale).

2. They communicate using binary oral systems.

Point one first (logical eh?). However random a small child's actions may appear they are in fact tremendously busy at all times, interrupting any one of their little projects can cause them to become more than a little agitated.

Take the beach for instance..you decide to walk the little fella (or lass) down toward the sea and he kicks off...why?

Well it may just be that he was under a severe time constraint on moving those shells from a to b, he was, until you intervened, progressing quite well through his little task list;

a. Move 3 shells.
b. Taste Sand.
c. Complete 4m crawling speed trial in southerly direction (practise two emergency stops during this evolution).
d. Fill nappy with approx 4 oz of sand.
e. Gnaw on pebble.
f. Assess interest from parents, if surveillance is low to poor - eat sand.
g. Move remaining four shells.

Also, he knows he only has a limited daylight hours at the beach, this does not leave him an awful lot of time to complete his tasks as it is, let alone having to swan off down to the water (once there he will of course create a new more urgent wave focused list).

Imagine how you would feel if you were dragged off onto some unauthorised activity in the middle of one of your projects. I have recently felt the full force of my little girls rage, when I decided to give her a bottle midway through her 'snap' DVD re-arrangement and electric plug tasting session.

So, neatly onto the title of the post. When I interrupted her session she communicated her displeasure in a certain way, the indications she gave me were I suspect, no different to the indications I would have received had she just had her left arm ripped off below the elbow by a sabre toothed tiger...it may be that she was actually THAT upset (that to her, the DVD removal appeared in her little brain no different to an arm removal), or that she only has a binary communication system which is the theory I favour.

For instance, what has happened...













What we imagine given the verbal communication we receive...










You see, until a certain age the little scamps use an all or nothing binary system to communicate, they transmit either happy (gentle cooing, gurgling etc) or 'life threatening danger '(blood curdling screaming intermixed with little panicked sobs). They is no middle ground.

This system I suspect was designed way back in the day when our ancestors babies often did face extreme situations which required immediate clan action (mammoth attack springs to mind).

These days it can be a little annoying.

Kung Fu Kids

We (my spouse and I) have tried many different activities for the kids as is the fashion. Recently however, we have hit upon a winner... a hybrid form of Kick-boxing that teaches them to use nearly every part of their tiny little bodies as deadly weapons whilst also instilling discipline and wearing them out...magic. Sadly the curriculum does not include some of my favourites as demonstrated by Daniel-sun in the karate kid and 'the lord Patrick of Swayze' in Roadhouse but I am remedying this by teaching them the classic 'crane' kick in my own time.

What parent (male) would not want his little darlings to be yoda-esque fighting machines (see picture) as comfortable with the spinning roundhouse kick to the bridge of the nose as they are with sugar puffs (although I have never been fully at ease with that big honey monster dude, gives me the screaming fear)?

Incidentally, the only known defence against a well executed spinning roundhouse to the bridge of the nose is a straight faint...this also happens to be the principle defense against the flying axe kick to the base of the skull - imoh.


The only downside so far is the disturbing way that the lads are able to 'cheek out' a sweet left hook to my stomach when I am attempting to put them to bed.

Ouch.

PS. For those of you new to this, throughout the blog any words which are a different colour are actually links, which, as links do will take you somewhere nice.

If you are going to drink a pint of sick..don't sip at it...

Recently, as many will know, I had the mixed fortune to visit Lithuania, I alluded to this in a recent post. I made a passing reference at the time to poor smelling ham and I think it is a story which is worth expanding on.

My friends and I, as part of our cultural education process were 'touring' outlying areas of Vilnius, the capital of this once proud socialist republik in order to experience the real Lithuania. Well actually we were trying to reach the famous 'revolving restaurant' but, after walking towards it for the best part of an hour and a half, during which time it had failed to get any nearer we had given up and were marooned, spitting feathers in no-wheres-ville.

Boy, did it get real.

We alighted on a bar cafe situated in a non de-script street surrounded by post war Russian architecture (future generations may one day describe the Soviet planners as gifted, until that point I will describe them as twats). The bar itself had a cosy feel, consisting of two appropriately darkened rooms, one contained a series of wooden dining booths in which locals (old vacant looking folk with poor skin) were chomping merrily away on various stews and meats and the other was what I would call a standard (if small) bar area with a, wait for it, a bar, and a couple of sets of bistro stylie chairs and tables.

We settled in the bar area and were promptly issued menus by what we took to be the landlady. She was middle aged but had a shy beauty to her clearly hardened by years of potatoes and guard duty.

We decided on beers and after a brief discussion, during which time I was shouted down three times, resolved to order some beer snacks. Now, in Lithuania, most menus have a helpful little section entitled 'beer snacks' to aid this process. The menu was written in 'foreign' but contained a little summary of the produce, the first line summary simply read ' Goat' , this snack was discarded as suspicious, the next line read 'Withered Meat', this was clearly a helpful warning that was not wasted on the group and this too was discarded. The third line read 'ham', a safe haven? We thought so and ordered a plate to go with the brews.

The plate of ham arrived looking for all the world like a little Tapas style parma ham nibble, a quick slug of beer later and I tried a piece. Error. I have a pretty cast iron stomach and despite swallowing as quickly as possible was close to inverting my stomach onto the table, another friend (one who can eat an Aussie meat pie without flinching) nibbled at a piece before declaring the plate of special food 'minging'. By this point the incredible smell of the Ham had impacted on the group in general, we decided two things; 1. The Ham was not fit for Western Humans, 2. That we should spoof to see who should eat at least two pieces. (for those not familiar with great game spoof, I refer you here).

10 Min's later and we had a loser (a Welshman - no relevance, just for information) . Once the loser had 'won', several members of the group took the opportunity to announce that had they lost, they was no way on Gods earth that they would have eaten the ham....our victim however was made on sterner stuff, dragging the evil smelling plate of old pork towards him he startled us all by proclaiming-

"Gentlemen. If you are going to drink a pint of sick...don't sip at it..." At this, with quite a flourish, a delectable morsel of rancid squealer was plucked from the plate and thrown into his mouth.

There was a pause.

There was a startled expression on our losers face.

There was a retching sound followed by a general panic (had I had access to a personal rape alarm I would have sounded it), our man leaped from the table and quickly located the toilet, mercifully situated not 3 yards to his rear, diving through the door we were then treated to about two minutes worth of loud vomiting noise which filled the establishment.

When our man had recovered himself (we had not and were still suffering 'belly' laughs, as was the landlady) he returned to the table, sadly for him, and joyously for us, the ham remained, one sniff as he sat down was all it took to send him spinning back to the bowl for another round of pro-active body cleansing.

Strong stuff that ham, we were unable to discover its true nature, although it did have a 2mm film of 'mingishness' around the outside of each slice which the landlady (who incidentally ate all the remaining ham with something approaching relish when we returned the plate) described as 'spice', I would describe it simply as 'off'.

Later that day, in another bar, a waitress walking past our table inadvertently caused another major incident when a member of the group caught a whiff of the 'ham' she was carrying, harrowed by the earlier experience and yet being one who had never even tasted the ham, he was forced to bolt to the toilet, the toilet had an odd low door frame, designed I think for dwarfs, and he suffered a nasty head wound on entry before he threw his ring up in disgust.

If anyone can shed any light on the origin or method of production of this Baltic 'ham' I would be extremely grateful.

Flying Fatman tries to kill the hog

The Hog has evolved into a man who cycles..I am one of those rare beasts you see flashing past your steamy windows on a wet winter morning festooned in day-glow yellow and flashing lights..

I cycle for a variety of reasons, some fitness based, others historical, whatever the reason I pay particular interest in trying to stay alive....

I was almost 'taken out' one day by a fat smoking person in an old Granada. And by 'taken-out' I mean 'crushed lifeless beneath the wheels '.

I was cruising along, minding my way, when enter stage right came a fast moving fat smoking person on wheels . And when I say smoking, I do in no way mean it like this....

Monica Bellucci - smoking, hot, agreeable - nice.

But much more like this..

Yes, I mean proper smoking, minging, coughing, wheezing as you drive when you should be watching where the **** you are going..

And when I say fat, I do not mean this....

Cute, chubby in a fun way, huggable..

I mean this....

Sickeningly pale, cheesy and ever so slightly Germanic (I think its the facial hair) .

Anyways, the person, who to all intents and purposes appeared to have had the Ford Granada constructed around their frame (no obvious way 'bean boy' could have left the car by the doors, maybe a removable roof and crane arrangement at his lair), entered my 'space' at about 40 mph without even a sideways glance.

Now my space in this instance was about 12 inches and it was clear that 'bean boy' had not seen me as we approached a pinch point in the road.....How he did not see me is unclear, as I have said, I light myself up like a comet when traversing the roads of England, I can only assume that his withered neck muscles were unable to shift his huge bloated head and that his beady little eyes could not see past his fleshy red cheeks.

I was forced to take action to prevent hospitalisation and this I did by hammering on the near side passenger window with my shiny black gloves whilst simultaneously hurling abuse and panicking (nothing like a multi-task). This combination of visual and oral stimuli managed to reach 'bean boys' brain and after a quick glance in my direction he....did nothing, I on the other hand had a minor crash.

The flying fat man sped off to eat children. If you are a child and see him...Run!! He will look something like this...

Note - Artists impression from my description...

My observations from this?

1. Ford make a sturdy car.

2. Drivers should be banned from smoking (if nothing else it just enraged me more)

3. How did he get that fat so quickly? He can't have been more that 30 years old.

One possible answer to question 3 came, funnily enough on a recent trip to the States (see earlier blog entry). Should you ever go to Walt Disney's world you will be able to hire a little pushchair for you infant (stroller they call them), or if you need it, a quite substantial pushchair for your growing fat kid.

Now, for our kids the policy was simple (stand-fast Scarlett - 8 months), if you are too tired to walk, you are too tired for Disney and its home time. Worked a treat.

However, the sheer amount of 10 -14 year old kids being pushed around in those strollers by sweating parents beggared belief, giant children barely able to squeeze into a double stroller squealed orders at their parents in between sips from giant vats of coke...I shit you not.

A quick bit of math tells me that 'Bean' had visited Disney at age 11, stayed for 6 days and was banned for trying to take a bite out of Pete's Dragon.

Butterfly In the Snow

The focus of my soul has been,
all scent of summer gone,
Almost by chance,
air once lifted, gave hope,
Drawn out of line,
now it seizes life,
A merger of dream and despair.
butterfly in the snow.

A wholeness which was once too easy,
power which was once so envied,
Red blurred horizon,
churns the icy surface,
Broken drops of desperate thought,
vibrant colour swirls on white,
I want a place to land, some warmth.
butterfly in the snow.

Darkness filled with tomorrows tears,
the delicate strength,
Sorrow stained love,
can no more keep,
A need to distill, make pure,
an alien beauty,
The hidden passion.
butterfly in snow.

the hog

Dwarfs are no laughing matter

I have some knowledge of Dwarfs, I had not thought to share it with you but the following story has highlighted the need for public awareness...

It is taken from the grapevine columns of the Pattaya Mail which state:


Freak accident: A circus dwarf, nicknamed Od, died recently in the North when he bounced sideways from a trampoline and was swallowed by a yawning hippopotamus which was waiting to appear in the next act. Vets on the scene said Hilda the Hippo had a gag reflex which automatically caused her to swallow. They added in mitigation that the hefty creature was a vegetarian who had not previously digested a circus performer. Unfortunately, the 1000 plus spectators continued to applaud wildly until common sense dictated there had been a tragic mistake. Police said the trampoline has been sent for forensic analysis.


Dwarfs as everybody knows are always getting into 'scrapes' and as a result it is always wise to know whether you have any in your vicinity at any particular time...one of the big problems when gathering information on dwarfs is how to tell them apart from the other little folk such as Midgets and large headed children.


I have a solution, the trick to this is understanding a key difference between dwarfs and other folk, namely, that a Dwarf's knees will not bend when he runs. So what? Well, if you have ever seen dwarf moving at speed (see the film Willow for a classic example) you can clearly see a distinctive rolling gait is created by this lack of knee joint mobility....


This gait subsequently causes the head to bob which can be spotted a mile away by a trained observer...


The next question is how to use this knowledge to identify dwarfs for onward processing...the best way I have found (and this method is particular good in a crowd situation where dwarfs are 'free running') is to use french bangers.

A couple of these babies let off at ground level will panic the dwarfs causing them to flee, effectively flushing them out - at this point they can easily be spotted and subsequently netted.


Note: I do of course refer to fictional dwarfs such as the ones found in Disney and LOTR, small people with large heads should not be offended by this piece, because this is no laughing matter.


A dwarf woman showing classic knee non-mobility....

Nothing in Nature is Black

Back in the day, the hog attended a military training course run, by 'Royal'. These Royal Marines, to give them their full title, are widely regarded as the finest infantry on the planet.

I was volunteered to join this bunch of killers in a support role (fixing stuff when it broke) but was expected to prove my worth.

Anyhow to cut what could be an exceptionally long 'Dit' short (Dit: meaning to tell a tale, a story). Royal were training us in the various military arts and today it was camouflage (the art of not being seen). A stocky heavily moustached corporal was leading the lesson. Being Royal, the lesson was being conducted outside, sitting in a leafy wood in a light drizzle, we were shivering softly to ourselves as we listened intently.

You had to be very careful on this particular course with your listening and actions, any perceived slight or failing on the part of the course (approx 100 folk) would be met with a barrage of abuse, often a lot of needless running and quite probably a significant amount of press-ups. Press-up are fun with the Royal Marines because instead of just giving you press-ups there is a routine to follow:

Nasty looking man with a green hat " Front support position, PLACE!!"

At this point all the volunteers on the course adopt the standard 'press-up position. Note: This is adopted despite the terrain, which could be anything from a concrete road, a puddle, a muddy estuary or most disappointing of all, gorse bushes (not normal gorse bushes of course, but ones that have been chemically treated to produce a skin eating rash - that's another story).

Nasty "Arms A-Bender!!!"

Volunteers all bend arms and remain in the press-up 'down' position. Which, if the area is underwater can be frustrating.

Nasty " Stretcher!!!"

Volunteers, who by now are becoming a little self reflective on the whole volunteering issue, Stretch their arms back to the original position.

This then carries on until the group is suitably contrite for whatever misdemeanor has been inadvertently committed.

I digress, back to the lesson - we were given the standard introduction and then the lesson began. This particular Corporal decided to start the lesson with a description of the colours appropriate for military ops...to back up one of his 'claims' about not wearing black clothes he made the statement:

"Nothing in nature is black"

We all murmured in approval as was expected (we were to either murmur in approval or shout "YES STAFF" at the top of our voices depending on circumstance). The talk carried on but the statement was eating away at me. I had accepted a lot of information on this course but this one truth was a truth too far...I raised a tentative hand.

"Yes" said he with a menacing wriggle of his (black) moustache

"With regard you comment that made reference to the colour of nature, What about seals? I mean, I was just wondering and..."

"They are Grey"

" Oh yes, how silly of me, sorry, and Crows?"

Well, I ....not exactly black are they?"

"Blackbirds?" (a master stroke)

"Hmmmmmm"

The course then became emboldened, from the back came "What about Tiger stripes!" Another chimed in "Or zebras, and that's part of their camouflage!"

The course smelled blood as the Corporal struggled to wrestle Royals opinion (for which he would lay down his life) with our empirical observations, attempting to push him our way the course erupted -

"Ants! Coal! Beatles! Coughs! Black Panthers! The Black Mamba, Killer whales! Badgers! Black Widow! Gorilla! Bats! Black Swan! Black Cat!.....etc...."

The Corporal called for silence, a stood there dealing internally with what he had heard..he made a decision and smiled....

"FRONT SUPPORT POSITION PLACE!!!!! ARMS-A-BENDER!!!!"

To this day I still believe nothing in nature is black.

A selection of colourful non-black creatures which can still be found in nature to this day:

A Slow return from Pleasure Island

As I mentioned at the end of last week, I was on the road to oblivion...

I have come back. Slowly.

I often find myself in a similar position to that famous wee wooden fella..Pinocchio. Tempted by friends and selfish thoughts into visiting Pleasure Island. Once there of course, the promises made to the blue fairy (who incidentally I have always had a disturbingly gooey soft spot for) are slowly forgotten and one embarks on a veritable odyssey of indulgence. In Disney's world this resulted in Pinocchio slowly turning into a Donkey, starting with ears and a tail, for me, it tends to start with my liver, kidneys and higher brain functions..

This does not happen to my ears anymore..










However my kidneys do suffer some change......










Of course, like the little wooden guy, a self awareness check-point arrives when understanding the damage being done, you flee gladly (taking as many idiot friends with you as you can) back to reality to slowly recover.

As time goes on, I have found the trips to Pleasure Island have evolved and become less frequent (although no less fun), the transformation into a donkey faster and the recovery to full human functions getting painfully slow.... Its interesting that for all Pinocchio's faults as a heartless wooden toy he never returned, although I have never been swallowed by a whale so perhaps we are even..

As a final note my view of the blue fairy has evolved ever so slightly from the frankly childish image above...to the slightly more realistic view below:

Idle your time away with a solid Mong

I have a hobby which does not normally pass muster on the average 'pastime' list which I call Monging. Monging is for me the term I give to doing nothing in a specific way . It is much much more than this however, simply put:

I have to mong.

There are times aplenty, when I find myself getting irritated and restless and often this is due to a mongless day, my spouse has even ordered me to stop and have a mong when my agitated state starts to get on her nerves.

Everybody broadly agrees that sleep is a useful thing for humans, people do not get criticised for sleeping (well, as long as it within reason), but the waking equivalent - to mong, to daydream to kick back and relax is often referred to as 'lazy'.

I am not saying that I am not lazy, but that it is fundamentally different to a mong. For me the mong is that precious time in any day when you place yourself under no pressure what so ever to do anything, no thinking required...looking out of a window on a rainy day is a classic favourite mong of mine; as is watching dust swirl on a warm afternoon whilst allowing the eyes to go all blurry.

Two classic mongs...

Certain new agers of Buddhists types amongst you may classify these mongs as some form of meditation and this may be true...however, not many people can meditate all the way through an episode of neighbours..

There are others who share some of my beliefs..certain friends and accomplices and there are those such as Tom Hodgkson who have taken the time to set out a lifestyle manifesto which encourages and supports the mong...

It is also of note that it is possible to have a group Mong, this can occur quite by accident but in the right company it is nearly always a joyful experience (best enjoyed in a Public house).

A note of caution on group monging, they can sometimes be dangerous - should the crew of a aircraft decide to 'go a-monging' at the wrong time the results can be sickening. I have experienced something similar when crossing a road with friends....

If only the Germans had won

People. I have just had a reasonable exciting weekend spent marvelling at the people of Vilnius and the extraordinary way they have thrown off the soviet yoke to re-invent themselves as a modern vibrant European people, all be it with shocking tasting ham (and I do mean vom-inducing, I have welsh friend who may never smile again), an old skool Stalin inspired police force (no flushing toilets in there men) , and a frankly suspicious eastern nature which was about as welcoming as a skunk with a bleeding bowel wound.

Most of this is not the point however, the point is on arriving back in the the UK, replete with an empty bank account and the infamous 'beer paranoia' the last thing I really needed, and I do mean the last thing (other than the aforementioned skunk perhaps) was a 3.5 hr delay on a train.

What is wrong with us as a people, we know the trains don't work, we know we will not have a 'good' time using these parodies of efficient public transport and yet still we book tickets, and in what numbers (more than there are seats normally).

Having boarded a train for Plymouth from Reading at 21:04, to be told at 22:44 (near newbury or somewhere) that due to a smally problem we would be heading back to Reading I had but one thought...If only the Germans had one the war, if only Hitler could have sat on his ego (wrt Russia) for a wee bit longer, if the Yanks had just stayed out of what was really; none of their blasted business then perhaps, just perhaps I could have been whisked home in fine style on one of these...Rather than one of these (and yes, for my international readership, this is not a model)...

Oblivion

I am on the train to neverland, there are no stops and tinkerbell is drinking whiskey in my mind. Free our minds from the burdens of thought and comfort them with a blanket of ignorance..

Further Evolution required due to mounting Pole

I have just been touched by what appeared to be an inhuman force. As I have mentioned before, I have taken up Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I am not good but am starting to understand the basics.

This evening I was forced to mount a Pole (not in the SCORES sense) but an apparently human polish guy who also trains at the Gym (there are a lot of Polish guys at the Gym, contrary to urban myth they are not in the UK to fix the drains they are here to learn how to kick ass).






This was NOT the sort of Pole I was mounting...






Anyways (bit of American there) we were moving from person to person 'mounting' them, now the mount in this game is higher than a boy-girl stylie mount, well, imagine you were mounting for the purpose of oral pleasure (boy or girl) and you get the idea. Once mounted, the mountee must try to remove the mounter (you have all been in this position I am sure). There are many techniques and tricks for both dis-mounting the mounter and remaining mounted upon the mountee and as I went around the room things seemed to be working out quite well, I even began to feel a little bit pleased with myself.

Until the Polish Dude (who looks normal by the way, a little broad chested but no freak), there I sat, mounted, waiting for his move..I had him covered I thought. His move turned out to be him elegantly grabbing me by the waist and launching me vertically toward the ceiling, with enough height to allow him to move away so that I would not land on him - for fucks sake.

People should not be allowed to have that sort of power in their arms, its wrong, all wrong, I landed about 4ft away? He must have had freak arms.

As I result of my flying experience I am in the market for a weight belt or an immigration officer. More evolution required.

On reflection his hands were a little like this.....

I should have noticed..

The Eastern Evolution

Growing up in the UK, the East had a strange fascination. For my growing worldwide audience I talk in this respect about those countries, previously led (quite literally by the ear) by the USSR - which lurked behind what was known as the Iron Curtain (it actually looked more like a elaborate deer fence for most of its length buts that's another story).

Anyway, I lived in West Berlin for a few years and can remember staring over the wall into a world which appeared, to my young eyes, devoid of both colours and joy, we all knew that at anytime the Russian Bear would come crashing through the flimsy western front to shatter our ideas and playfulness with a combination of hard steel and technology.

To me growing up, the T-64 Tank was every bit as scary as the bogey man and twice as hard. This part of world was of great fascination to me and I often wondered about the lives behind the grumpy guards on the gates as I tried desperately to get a glimpse of Nikita.

Then, quite suddenly, as everybody was bored, it was all over. Within months Eastern Europe had replaced Scandinavia in every young boys fantasy as the erotic epicenter of the world, the newly free 'peasants' who had up until now appeared as black and white hags morbidly picking potatoes, proved themselves to be a people of vibrant beauty and the longest legs in the world. One of the sparklyest evolutions ever as the pictures below prove!

From this, a lick of paint and a quick re-render to this................

And from this rather dated look, a new wardrobe, a new way of looking at things and most of all a new pair of 'western jeans' to this.....

This has been an evolution to savour, and I intend to this enjoy it this weekend with a trip to one of the unsung places of Eastern Europe, Lithuania's capital city - Vilnius, hailed as the new Prague (or is Prague the old Vilnius) , I hope to bring back evidence for the reader of its glory.

And the most impressive, after a little touch of sun and work in the gym and good diet control, we move from this to this....................