I Don’t Like Dogs

Posted By Mark on Mar 20, 2007

When I was a wee young thing doing wee young things such as riding my awesome Raleigh Grifter XL (red and black, three gears, weighed close to four tonnes) in the cul-de-sac in which I was brought up, there happened one day an incident that scarred me mentally. The cul-de-sac wasn’t in a great neighbourhood and many of our neighbours could be classed as dirty, stinking, thieving, Gypsy scum with dirty, stinking, thieving, Gypsy scummy kids. The mental scarring (the story behind which I’m about to impart in a moment) may have coloured my memory somewhat but – I don’t know – the pictures seem pretty accurate. Some of these swine lived – it seemed – fifty to a house and considered the small lawn in front of their abode to be the perfect place for naked, shit-stained babies to crawl among the rusting shopping trollies, twisted plastic detritus, and collected brickwork from classic walls of yesteryear. And every extended family owned a dog; one of those ones that runs a lot, slathers more, and barks at everything. On the day of my mental scarring I was riding my awesome Raleigh Grifter XL (red and black, three gears, weighed close to seven tonnes) in the quiet (traffic-wise) yet noisy (kids ‘n’ canines-wise) cul-de-sac. Of course it wasn’t really a Raleigh Grifter XL (red and black, three gears, weighed close to eleven tonnes) but rather an interplanetary attack craft with atmospheric insertion and combat capabilities. The handle grip that turned once four hundreds lbs/ft of torque was applied and shifted up and down the gears doubled as a weapon selection panel. An advanced aiming-with-the-front-wheel system was used for targeting. Sound effects by yours truly. Those cars parked on the left? Pirates running stolen cargo out of the Jovian system. The lamp-post outside number 13? One of the new laser sentry posts with the incredible computer-controlled firing guidance technology installed by the ginger-bearded Sinclair Corporation. I’d taken some damage – ran over a mine disguised as a lump of flint – but the Raleigh Grifter XL (red and black, three gears, weighed close to fourteen tonnes) interplanetary attack craft with atmospheric insertion and combat capabilities was a tough little fighter. The pirates were streaking through the atmosphere in flames, the sentry posts were mangled and scorched lumps of metal, the day was mine. When you’re as good as I was you make enemies. In this case dirty, stinking, thieving, Gypsy scummy kid enemies with dogs that run a lot, slather more, and bark at everything. As it turned out the dogs also obeyed the command of "attack him!" shouted out by...

Total Rubbish

Posted By Mark on Mar 16, 2007

The BBC reports here that: More homes could soon see the end of weekly bin collections, after official research said there would be no hygiene problems if rubbish was well wrapped. And it then proceeds to explain that – according to the government – it will be better for the environment if we have refuse collected fortnightly instead of weekly as it will mean less bin trucks on the road and more incentive to recycle. Recycle what though? The things I put in my bin are the things I can’t recycle. That’s the point. I have a recycling bin. It’s for the things I want to – and am allowed to – recycle. The things I can’t recycle – food, plastic bags for some reason, bottle caps, etc. – go in the bin in my kitchen until it is collection day. Wednesdays, not that you care. Under the new scheme I have to keep old food in my kitchen for up to two weeks – eurgh! – or place the bag outside the house for perhaps anything up to 13 days. Note that we’re not allowed to put things in bins outside; it’s bags only or the binmen won’t collect. So, upshot is – with summer approaching and global warming warming and warming – we’re soon to invite all manner of health problems around; maggots, flies, rats the size of turtles, homeless people away-day trips. And all for … what? The environment? Don’t make me laugh. It’s to save money, of course. But whose? Council taxpayers? Hahahahahahaha … you fool. No, you can expect that council tax bill to keep going up or, at worst, freeze temporarily meaning you’re paying the same for less service. Wow! Where do I bend over again? Now, on the same day (ooh, coincidence) as this claptrap we also hear this: Homes across Britain are wasting a total of 3.3m tonnes of food a year, a report is expected to reveal. The study, by the government’s waste body Wrap, will say households dump just under a third of all the food they buy, although half is inedible waste. Aarghhhh! We’re wasting almost a third of the food we buy! Well, almost a third except for the half of the almost a third that it’s impossible to eat. So not really almost a third at all. Almost a sixth. It’s really not that difficult to work that one out. [Professor Lang said] "A third of people are throwing away food that’s cooked and left on the plate. This is just ridiculous." Professor Lang won’t let you have any dessert and you’re not leaving the table...

Shape-Shifting, Time-Travelling, Sentient Frog

Posted By Mark on Mar 15, 2007

Before this precise moment right now I was a worker in the sewage system under one of China’s secret industrial cities. Let me tell you about the sewage system under a typical secret industrial city of China: full of sewage. No, full of sewage. Picture this: obloid tunnels a little over man-height with the detritus of dirty humans and dirtier machines up to the chest. Barely liquid enough to flow towards the outlet and the inland sea and us workers would wade through it checking for anything that might cause a blockage or – increasingly likely – made from a material we could sell on. Metals, wood, body parts, that sort of thing. I was a sewage worker for a little over three years. You had to have certain skills and my controllable gag reflex was one of them. Also, great night vision. Now, they – meaning the Chinese authorities – knew I had great night vision and that’s because … Before I was a worker in the sewage system under one of China’s secret industrial cities I was an agent conducting espionage on behalf of the Panamanian government. Spies aren’t born; they’re made. And I was made into one hell of a spy following recruitment. Bionic implants, gene technology, directed memory training, the works. Panama keeps below the radar but they’re years or decades ahead of most other countries in these fields of expertise. Hence the night vision. On that last mission I’d timed my swim across the Pacific to coincide landfall at Lianyungang with the very early hours of the morning. I remember laying in the surf watching the shoreline for any signs that I’d been spotted and eventually sprinting into the cover of the treeline but not much else comes back once the stun grenades popped. I’d been sold out somewhere along the line and walked into a trap. I was transferred to sewage duties following a fruitless interrogation. They’d never have broken me and they knew it. During the questioning I kept thinking back to the second world war because … Before I was an agent conducting espionage on behalf of the Panamanian government I’d been working with some of the top Nazi scientists towards the end of World War 2. There were a number of projects on-going: invisible submarine technology, laser tanks, channel-hopping jet packs, radar-jamming butterflies. Everything your average Fuhrer thinks might tip the scales in his favour was there. I was assigned to Department K; breaking the chronobarrier. Now we knew that the barrier could be broken and we knew there was at least one direction it could be broken in –...

Burgled

Posted By Mark on Mar 13, 2007

While I and my other half slept an intruder entered our house. The intruder came in through the front door and was either a locksmith or had a copy of our keys. The intruder stole equipment from my house and then left, closing – but not locking – the door afterwards. That’s the sort of carelessness that could let another intruder in! Strangely, the door is new (under 9 months old), uPVC, with a Euro 5-point lock. Our old door was wood, warped, and could be pushed open by a butterfly alighting on the locking mechanism during summer months. But now we get broken into. If I was a suspicious person I’d be suspicious right about … now. We did not forget to lock the door. Even if we had, merely closing the door requires a key to open it. And we did not forget to close the door either. But enough of the woeful blogging. Who wants to hear woeful blogging? What can you do to prevent burglaries? According to the police, there are a number of things you can do to reduce burglaries: live in poverty – burglars have hearts or something and respect the personal space of the poor, don’t advertise your expensive things – a burglar’s ire rages at the showiness of those who work hard and reward themselves, keep your toilet seat down – burglars are drawn to the smell of wee, stop reporting the burglaries – they’re only doing it because it’s fashionable. As with most aspects of modern policing these guidelines are rubbish. It should not be up to the individual to reduce the risk of being burgled; rather it is society as a whole that needs to make burglary less appealing to the thick-browed. But how? The neOnbubble Anti-Burglary Initiative The current system of picking up offenders with stolen goods, giving them a talking to, picking them up again with stolen goods, giving them a community service order, picking them up again with stolen goods, warning them it’s their last chance and fining them, picking them up for not paying the fine and increasing the fine, picking them up for not paying the increased fine and being in possession of stolen goods, giving them an increased fine and another community service order, … and so on for three years until a jail sentence of around two weeks is deemed necessary doesn’t work. I propose a new system which I call the Maiming Of The Face system. The Maiming Of The Face system works by maiming the face of perpetrators. A first-time burglar, for instance, would be given a surgical hair-lip and...

Caution Horse

Posted By Mark on Mar 9, 2007

French Wine

Posted By Mark on Mar 7, 2007

I’m half-Irish, half-English, and five thirds ethanol. This makes me somewhat of an expert in the ways of alcohol and in my state of constant inebriation I’m also not averse to flinging my wisdom to the four winds with not a care in the world as to where such knowledge lands. Today I’d like to introduce you to wine. Specifically: French wine. By and large, French wine falls under the taste category of "le fucking awful". There is one type of red wine in France and three types of white wine. The red wine is vinegar. Some of it is vinegar in bottles marked "vin de table" and some of it is vinegar in bottles marked "chateauneuf de vinegar" but the vinegar is there, nonetheless. The full-bodied red wine of France lacks body and wine, preferring the consistency of water vapour to the former and a heavy dose of vinegar to the latter. If you pop into a poisson and chips shop in downtown Paris they ask if you’d like some salt and burgundy with your order. White wine is either dry, chardonnay, or champagne. The dry wine isn’t just dry; it’s uberdry. Those little packs that come in your computer accessories marked "silica gel" that you can’t hold in your hand without dying? Those are crystals of dry, white, French wine. You get more moisture from mixing a Vodka Martini with an equal measure of Campari than from French white wine and that’s the cocktail that sea sponges are born from. Chardonnay is, of course, the most common and vilest wine grape on both this planet and that other grape planet around Arcturus. When I think of a white wine to drink I think: I want something refreshing, flavoursome, chilled. Okay, chardonnay is flavoursome – I’ll give you that much – but ham-flavoured grapes just aren’t my thing. Doesn’t anyone else taste the meat in chardonnay? I’m not one of those people who swills wine around in my mouth, pulls in air over my tongue, spits it out and says "mmmm, essence of girl guides frolicking in a meadow with hyacinths growing under a nearby bridge beside a mango-laden hedge, home to singing starlings" because I can never even pick out the taste of blackberries in blackberry wine. But I can taste the pig in chardonnay. I may be wrong but it is my solemn belief that chardonnay grapes are grown on hillsides formed from the rotted-down carcasses of a massive boar-culling. They are tended by genetically-modified pigs who walk upright shooing away greenfly and excreting pig breath and pig faeces in equal measure upon the vines until...