Phobia

My name is Duck and I am a Globophobic.

I am afraid of balloons.

Really really.

For me, being in proximity to inflated latex is akin to entering a room with a lion in it. Heart pounding, blood pressure rising, hysteria, panic attacks and occasional fainting.

I take only small comfort from the fact that it is considered one of the top ten strange phobias in the world.

Most of my close family and friends know this and balloons are not in evidence at events that I am known to be attending. The Little Ducks understand and don't bring balloons home from parties.

One of the hardest things I have to do each year is pass under the balloon arch at the start of the Great Manchester Run. I have to do it or the electronic timer tag thingy on my ankle won't record my achievement.

It occasionally provides an opportunity for me to embarrass myself in public.

Which is nice.

At the height of the Glazer protests at Old Trafford last year, fans took to bringing yellow and green balloons to the game. My fellow fans in the North Stand were treated to the unexpected sight of me freaking out and screaming like a banshee when hundreds of green and yellow missiles rained down from the second and third tiers directly onto my head.

It took some persuasion for the stewards to put away the straitjacket and and stand down the men in white coats.

But to those who mock and scoff and torment people like me with strange phobias, beware!

Anatidaephobia is the fear that somewhere, somehow a duck is watching you.

Really, really.

In the weird and wonderful phobia charts, it's right up there with globophobia and its sufferers are subjected to the same level of mockery.

But sometimes there is method in the madness.

Ducks are in fact evil*.

Personally, I think one look into our cold, beady eyes should tell you this, but the big, fat, funny beaks lend us a benign, comic air.

Animal spin-doctor supremo Beatrix Potter did a fabulous propaganda cover-up with her delicate, anthropormorphic creation - Jemima Puddleduck - to the extent that parents willingly expose their offspring to certain death in parks and ponds around the country, with only slices of bread to pacify the ducks' voracious appetites.

So I was mortified to find the true nature of Duckkind exposed on Facebook this week. With no thought for the mass panic that could ensue, someone published this:

So now the world knows our secret** and anatidaephobics the world over can continue to sleep uneasily in their beds.


* Not as evil as rabbits, but getting there.
** Don't worry. The medication keeps me totally under control***
*** Although I couldn't entirely vouch for Tiddler.

Speaking in Tongues

I never hear the polite, quiet little text alerts on my mobile. Particularly if it's buried deep in my handbag or in my pocket.

Bli Guinness originally provided me with The Butler, but if the phone is within earshot of colleagues, Mrs Duck Senior or the Little Ducks, I then have a mad scramble to cut him off before he offers to tell callers to F**k Off.

Not good.

But now I have R2D2* - alerting me to the arrival of new texts with a cacophony of clicks, whoops and whistles - long enough and piercing enough to be heard anywhere.

I love it and I love the reaction it provokes when my pocket suddenly erupts with noise in a public place.

Yummy Mummy and I were queuing in the Fish Bar in Benllech, when R2 piped up from my jeans.

I let him finish, then turned to the man next to me who looked puzzled.

'It's a text translator' - I offer, by way of explanation. 'It means you don't have to get your phone out to read texts. it reads them out to you.'

'That's cool' - says he nodding in approval.

I wait a few seconds to see if there is a whiff of irony about him, but all I can smell is salt, vinegar and gravy.

I continue - 'Of course, you have to be able to speak R2D2, to understand the message....'

More sage nodding, 'Oh, absolutely' - he says.

I wait a few more seconds for the wet fish of enlightenment to slap him about the face then give up, collect my freshly fried cod and head for the car, avoiding the tumbleweed blowing gently down the hill to the bay.

*Actually it's just a recording of a child's toy, but sounds uncannily like the famous little droid. Funnily enough when I was looking for an image of R2 for this post, the first image I selected came from this site. I have downloaded a translation of Picture of a Duck. Just trying to work out how to post it here.

Flicking the F's

So last week, Sister in China, Junior, the Little Ducks and I were on our annual camping holiday here in Anglesey - joined at various times by Yummy Mummy and H, Mr. and Mrs. Panther Hunter and Cub, the Ginger One and Mr. Duck Senior.

At some point, the conversation turned to Welsh. Not literally - that would require a complete cultural transformation by the majority of the party and a few handy Babel Fish.

No - to the peculiarities and vagaries that constitute the Welsh language, consisting as it does of an alphabet of 28 letters and specifically to its unique pronunciation.

'We're in Benllech' - I explained.

'Benleck?'

No, Benlllllleccchhhhh - (rolling tongue and clearing throat)

'Benleck'

'NO! Ok, try this - Llandudno'

'Landudno?'

No, Llllandidno

'But it's a u not an i'

As per my 45 Things #23, I felt bound to explain as follows:

'It's simple*. In Welsh i's are y's; u's are i's; au's are i's; y's are e's; dd's are th's; si's are sh's; ff''s are f's and f's are v's. Ll's and ch's have no equivalent whatsoever in English and just are. Easy!'

The faces of the gathering began to take on that bemused look you get in Tesco's when they rearrange all the aisles and you end up with Vanish In-Wash Stain Remover instead of streaky bacon to go with your eggs in the morning.

I decided to make it even simpler.

'In short, when Welsh people are pissed off they flick the F's instead of the V's.'

I demonstrated the gesture, which looks something like a shadow puppeteer doing a pair of Playboy bunnies** and walked off in despair, a trail of ll's and ch's drifting behind me.

*Check it here for clarification
** Do try this at home - the gesture, not the Playboy Bunnies, (although feel free if that's your thing, and Hugh Heffner can spare a couple).

Dominatus NotRodentia Interruptus

My suspicions about the NotRats' world domination plans proved well-founded last week when I foiled their plot to recruit and train a rodent army, capable of destroying the delicate balance of power on the planet and turning humans into evil rabbit fodder.

Masterminded by Emma, with Torres carrying out orders unquestioningly, they have been steadily amassing an army of fieldmice from the meadows surrounding Friendly Drive.

Day after day I have cleaned up food scattered about the house by Emma, mistakenly believing she was just fussy and was discarding unwanted items from the foodbowl.

How wrong I was. The food served to entice unsuspecting and innocent countrymice into the house, thence to be brainwashed, trained in the deadly arts of Rodent Dimac, and hidden away under the kitchen kickboards, awaiting the Big Push.

Douglas Adams foretold this years ago, unveiling mice as the real rulers of Earth - only to be dismissed as a brilliant author of fiction, rather than hailed as the Nostradamus of his generation. Future generations of Nobel Prize winners will worship at his teatowel.

I digress.

I was up unexpectedly early to take a train to Leicester, which required a 3-brew pre-departure strategy, so I headed for the kitchen at about 5.30am. Scuttling along the kickboard was a tiny fieldmouse, desperate to reach its bunker. Now, I've spotted them before and done my best to shoo them back out to their natural habitat - investing in humane traps, rather than poison or guillotine them and incur the wrath of animal rights activists.

But this individual refused to cross the back door, despite my best efforts with a soft broom and set off for NotRat HQ. Believe me I did try, but time was a-passing and my tea:bloodstream levels were dangerously low. In the end I took up a pool cue (not my treasured one) and Happy Gilmored it against a cupboard. Instant death.

I paused to reflect on my actions for a second.

Finding my remorse indicator at a safe zero, I brewed up and went for a shower.

Not 20 minutes later, I'm back in the kitchen and there's another one. I scanned the garden briefly to ensure that the first one hadn't miraculously recovered and fought its way back in, but the bloody corpse was still prostrate on the lawn.

I took up the pool cue and despatched the second with an equally decisive blow (unfortunately at the expense of the cue, but it's a small price to pay).

Emma looked on impassively from the lookout deck and Torres took refuge in the wheel.

The next day I rehomed the NotRats with the Cook and her Lover, to let them regroup and draw their plans against us elsewhere.

When questions are asked in the House about the origins of the Rodent War, they won't be pointing the finger at the Ducks of Friendly Drive.

Meeting people with bizarre true stories which they sell to Take A Break magazine or form the basis of a Channel 4 documentary #1

Yes, it's a long title for a blog post. I considered 'Catwoman' which I believe was the title of a Channel 4 documentary on the same subject, but I feared there would be copyright issues. Also I didn't want traffic from pervy Halle Berry fans finding their way here from Google, looking for images of That Catsuit and being disappointed.*

Anyway. On with the story.

Tiddler had grommets fitted in his ears last week to improve his hearing and also had his adenoids out, to allow him to breathe through his nose. He and I had an overnight stay on Jungle Ward in our East Lancs. General Hospital.

There was a 14-year-old girl in the bed opposite Tiddler who'd been in for 10 days and I was curious as to why.

So when Tiddler fell asleep, over a late brew and a flick through the Celebrity trash magazines piled high on her bed, I asked her why she was in.

In matter of fact tones, more suited to providing a stranger with the correct time or directions to the local library, she informed me that she was in to have a hairball removed from her stomach, for the third time!

She's been pulling out and eating her own ginger hair since she was two, and has twice before had to have a giant hairball surgically removed from her stomach. She even showed me the scars.

They suspect she has another one now and she was going for a Barium scan the following day to establish just how big this one is.

As I struggled to digest the information and formulate an appropriate response, she commented on the lead article of You'll Never Fucking Believe What Chavs Have Done Weekly magazine featuring a 14 year old Trailer Trash kid still breastfeeding from his 22 stone mother:

'My cousin's still breastfeeding and he's 8. And my other cousin has a club foot.'

We didn't get a chance to say goodbye the next morning because she was in with the psychiatrist!

I could have stayed forever.

*If that is you. Can I suggest you go here?

Your Very Good Health!

The Manchester Run is less than 3 months away and my target of 55 minutes for this year seems enormous at present. After breaking my ribs and getting swine flu last year, my running regime has been somewhat sporadic and I find myself carrying a few extra pounds and horribly unfit again. Boo.

I can't do diets - my maths is too dreadful for counting calories or points and I'm colour blind, so the whole red days/green days malarky is a non-starter.

I don't think I could do slimming pills - the TV ad for the leading brand is enough to put me off. They're called 'Adios', the soundtrack is Burn Baby Burn and the active ingredient is Fucus.

Adios, Burn and Fucus.

Seriously?

It sounds more like the executive committee of the Assassins Guild than a diet aid.

Speaking of diet aids, I was in Holland and Barrett last week for dried blueberries and Dead Sea Mud (tagging along, not shopping).

They really need to rethink their marketing strategy or at least employ doormen to vet the losers trying to gain entry, in the same way posh clubs only allow beautiful people in.

It promotes itself as a health store, yet its customers are the very worst advert for their products. The shop is packed with fat, wheezy pensioners, dragging their tartan trollies while they stock up on prunes and cod liver oil; or pale, obese men eyeing up the instant muscle powder.

Everyone's a before, not an after*.

No, it has to be running for me - and soon - before my clothes start to protest even further.

It could be worse. JP and Tiddler were having a oneupmanship contest in the back of the car recently - largely involving threats of exposure to school mates, regarding valentines, love and girls worth kissing. It was about even, until Tiddler stuck the knife firmly in with:

'If you do, I'm going to tell everyone at school you're secretly fat!'

Game, set and match, Tiddler. There's no comeback to that.


*although if they're taking Adios, they may never reach after.

Tags 'R Us

Whilst I continue to hate shopping, I have discovered a hidden, shopping-related talent which I am considering as a career change.

I am excellent at tagging along.

Yummy Mummy and I recently spent a Wednesday and Friday out (with lunch obv.) looking for curtain and blind fabric for her dining room. The dyslexic leading the colour blind.

I tagged along.

It's relatively simple. You trail about a yard behind, hold shopping bags, alert shop assistants, nod in agreement in all the right places and feed parking meters. Oh and go in search of suitable candidates for purchase, having been given a very strict set of instructions.

As a bonus by-product, you also make purchases - three dogwood trees, 3 must-have-because-they're-perfect-for-your-kitchen-and-you-like-them-and-you-just-broke-your-favourite-anyway-mugs, new school trousers for JP and a place to get curtains made (finally!)

So the shopping also gets done without you even noticing.

It's Brilliant.

But that's what husbands/boyfriends are for, aren't they? you counter.

Yes, but here's the thing. They complain; can't gossip and tag along at the same time because that's multi-tasking; won't share a pain au chocolat and not everyone has one.

I could hire myself out. Yummy would give me a good reference I'm sure - especially since I spotted the purple, silk fabric she eventually bought (gold star for me). They'll be queuing up to hire me.

This could be my millionaire idea. I could start a matching agency - pairing shoppers with suitable taggers-along.

Watch this space. Oh, and email me if you have shopping plans. I'll check my diary.

Man in the Mirror

I was followed to work this morning.

That is, the same car was behind me for most of the journey - not actually stalking me.

Looking in the mirror, I could see the female driver giving her male passenger a tongue lashing of epic proportions - and not in a good way.

She never stopped for the whole journey. Every time I glanced back her hands were gesticulating wildly - finger pointed accusingly about four inches from his face.

At each traffic light, I braced myself for the impact of her pink Honda Jazz on my big-ass Megane's big-ass bumper. She clearly wasn't focused on the road ahead.

She kept taking her glasses off, waving them in his general direction, then replacing them on her sharp, narrow nose, all the while keeping up the tirade of abuse.

I was fascinated by his response, which was to remain completely impassive and unresponsive. I checked the mirror again to make sure he hadn't committed suicide on the way - death being a preferable alternative to spending another second being harangued by a Professional Harpy (First Class).

Or that maybe he was one of those inflatable car buddies women carry around in their cars so as not to look like they're travelling alone.

It was only when we neared the city centre that I spotted it.

The tell-tale white cord, surreptitiously snaking up out of his collar and into his left ear - out of sight of the harrassing harridan.

He was tuning her out by tuning into his iPod.

I'm guessing it was 'Every Day I Love You Less and Less' by the Kaiser Chiefs

Immortalised

The fabulous Notkeith has once again come up with a brilliant, original illustration to accompany the more bizarre of my posts.

Thanks NK.

If you haven't already checked out his wonderful drawings, go over and take a look now.

From last week's Bike Shed goings-on:

Behind the Bike Shed

Illustration by Notkeith

A secure bike shed has been erected behind our offices, next to my parking space. Electronic passes, locks and cameras have been installed to assist the green-conscious in their bid to offset the carbon footprint from my big-ass Megane.

Despite the security, there has already been a theft from it, so the powers-that-be have turned to more extreme measures to protect the contents.

The Megane is a very duck-friendly motor. No keys, just a card that has to be about my person, which in proximity to the car, opens and locks doors, windows, sunroof, activates alarms and immobilisers and switches wipers, lights, CD player and engine on and off - so no fumbling about in handbags in the rain looking for keys.

Brilliant.

However, in the last three weeks, when accessing or exiting my car by the bike shed, the Megane has failed to respond to the card signal. Mmm. This has meant standing next to it, trying all the doors and windows, shouting, jiggling my handbag and even in desperation, fishing the card from its depths and waving it about in the general direction of the car. 

Still nothing.

It's definitely not the card, because it's functioning normally at every other location the car is require to pass time. Nevertheless, I tried bringing along the spare card and waving the two together in a bizarre, synchronised ceremonial car-activating dance, with appropriate swearing as backing music.

Nothing

Now, bear in mind that it's usually cold, dark and rainy when I arrive and leave work, so hanging about by the bike shed, arguing with a stubborn red car is not my first choice for recreational activity at the beginning and end of the day. I've even resorted to removing the little battery disc from the card, licking it and putting it back*. I probably would have been better pointing it through my head à la Clarkson.

I can only conclude that a spell has been cast over the bike shed, or an invisible forcefield placed around it by its owners. Either that or it's a time portal for bees to return to their home planet, and the Megane is cleverly resisting its gravitational pull.

Either way it's unstoppable, so I've thrown in the towel and moved spaces. Now at a safe distance of 20 yards, normal service has been resumed.

Although I fear for the little Fiesta, still parked there, at the mercy of whatever demon is at work.

*This did actually work a couple of times.

Typo

I have realised that I am gradually working my way through explanations of my 45 Things.

Today #27 - 'I remember everything'.

These days that's not quite as true as it has been in the past, and so I resort to leaving myself aide-memoires in my phone - especially for blog material. If I don't make a note straight away - exact wording of the Little Ducks' entertaining observations, for instance, then I can't recall them perfectly and the moment is lost.

However, the prompts can sometimes be a little obtuse.

I try to keep them short, especially if I haven't got my glasses on and can barely see the screen - never mind press the right keys on the miniscule Nokia E71 keypad. So from time to time, I cannot for the life of me remember to what they refer.

This is compounded by predictive text.

Last week I left myself a note that reads:

Obituary Want Knobs. Marilyn Monroe. Mismatch

I kid you not. I have been wracking my brains trying to fathom this all week. WTF? - seriously.

Facebook came to my rescue this lunchtime when the photographs from Saturday's Hallowe'en party were posted and there is a great one of a friend , dressed as Marilyn Monroe

with her partner Obi Wan Kenobi.



Owen Goal Update:

For the first time, Michael's projected tally is over my bet threshold.

11 minutes against Blackburn and once again, no goal - business as usual.

BUT. 90 minutes against Moscow and an important goal.

He must be due an injury about now....

Appearances: 14/17
Minutes Played: 521
Goals: 4
Goal Frequency (mins): 1:130
Goals Per Appearance: 0.21
Projected Season Tally*: 13

* Calculated as follows: His average playing time per appearance (37 mins), goal frequency (every 130 minutes or 3.5 games at current minutes per appearance rate), number of possible appearances left (27 Prem games and c12 cup games), and appearance frequency (currently 82%). So 39 games x 82% = 32 appearances. 32/3.5 = 9 more goals

Run That By Me Again

I know how déjà vu works.

Look away now if you've heard this before.

Or don't.

Because you probably haven't.

No matter how you set them up, Scalextric cars never perform equally. You know the track length is exactly the same in each lane and it should be a fair race, but the design is fatally flawed.

The track comes in pieces that clip together and the joins are never perfect. Unless you devote permanent space to it, you are constantly dismantling and remantling so bumps, gaps and imperfections appear and the yellow car always loses.

And so it is with how the brain processes new information and how it stores long- and short-term memories. Robert Efron tested an idea at the Veterans Hospital in Boston in 1963 that stands as a valid theory today. He proposed that a delayed neurological response causes déjà vu. Because information enters the processing centres of the brain via more than one path (your imperfect racetrack) it is possible that occasionally that blending of information might not synchronize correctly.

Efron found that the temporal lobe of the brain's left hemisphere is responsible for sorting incoming information. He also found that the temporal lobe receives this incoming information twice with a slight (milliseconds-long) delay between transmissions -- once directly (the red car) and once again after its detour through the right hemisphere of the brain. If that second transmission (the yellow car) is delayed slightly longer (the ill-fitting join after the cicane) then the brain might put the wrong timestamp on that bit of information and register it as a previous memory because it had already been processed.

And that explains the sudden sense of familiarity.

Ta da.

Things You Encounter When You Haven't Got Your Gun #7

ITV is showing the Star Wars movies over the coming six weeks.

I rub my hands with glee, and then wonder why - since I own the DVDs and can watch them any time I like (and do).*

But here's the thing. If a movie I like is showing on TV, I have to watch it.

Just because it's on.

Late at night, when I should be piling up the zeds ready for Morningtime, ITV 2 will decide to show The Wedding Singer.

'I'll just watch the first 10 minutes', I tell myself.

97 minutes later, satisfied that nothing has been added or taken away since I last watched it, (which may have only been a fortnight before), I warm my milk and crawl to bed.

Star Wars is scheduled for Saturday afternoons. So no sleep issues.

But they're showing them out of order. Episodes 1-6 instead of episodes 4-6, then episodes 1-3.

'1-6 is chronological, it's sequential. It makes perfect sense.' argues Mills' Mess.

No, No, No, No, No.

You must watch episodes 4-6 first. It's the Law - or should be.

You have to meet Vader before you meet Anakin. You have to finish episode 6 and wonder about the awful chain of events that led him to the Dark Side. The essential tragedy of Vader, which is key to the whole series has to unfold in episodes 1-3, with you absorbing it with the benefit of foresight, (or should that be hindsight?)

And besides, the agony of Vader's terrible revelation to Luke in episode 5 is lost, if you already know.*

Totally out of order.

* As an aside, does anyone else use the Force to open automatic doors, or just me? I started doing it to impress the Little Ducks when they were very little, but now find myself doing it whether they're with me or not.
** Of course, if you're a young thing and you saw Toy Story 2 before you saw Empire Strikes Back, the whole thing is spoiled anyway.



Owen Goal Update:

19 minutes on astroturf in Moscow and once again, no goal.

Appearances: 10/13
Minutes Played: 338
Goals: 2
Goal Frequency (mins): 1:169
Goals Per Appearance: 0.20
Projected Season Tally*: 8

* Calculated as follows: His average playing time per appearance (34 mins), goal frequency (every 169 minutes or 5 games at current minutes per appearance rate), number of possible appearances left (29 Prem games and c14 cup games), and appearance frequency (currently 77%). So 43 games x 77% = 32 appearances. 32/5 = 6 more goals

Maximum Break

What's one better than a 147?

Well, this week, a 146.

Mrs. Panther Hunter and I do a regular Tuesday quiz at the Local Pub. We mostly come away with a respectable score, but usually behind either The Burks, The Occasional Table, The Wacky Racers, Us In The Corner et al.

Once, we came away with the last place sweets, but we never, ever get our raffle ticket drawn for the Jackpot Question.

Until this week.

Mrs. Panther Hunter's ticket, #147, is pulled out for the £100 Rollover Jackpot and she elects me to go up to answer the question.

- It is on publishing - the industry in which I work.
- It is about J K Rowling - an author whose works I have read.
- It is an obscure reference to some law suit against some minor publishing house - of which I have never heard.

Boo.

I retake my seat and apologise to my partner.

The next ticket drawn is #146 - my ticket!

- It is on books - my thing again.
- It is on a book I have read - The Big Sleep
- It is by an author I know - 'Raymond Chandler'.

Mrs. Panther Hunter and I split the £100 and go home happy.

The next day, I get an unexpected £25 cashback cheque for my car insurance. £75 up on the week. We celebrate with new astroturf boots for me, JP and Tiddler.

I also win an eBay auction for a red lace Christmas party frock - for £3.

Tonight we have invested in a lucky dip national lottery ticket..... This time tomorrow, we'll be millionaires.

Owen Goal Update:

With his broken fanny fixed, Sicknote was back on the field for the home game against Bolton and managed 82 minutes without a goal.

Appearances: 9/12
Minutes Played: 319
Goals: 2
Goal Frequency (mins): 1:160
Goals Per Appearance: 0.22
Projected Season Tally*: 9

* Calculated as follows: His average playing time per appearance (35 mins), goal frequency (every 160 minutes or 4.5 games at current minutes per appearance rate), number of possible appearances left (29 Prem games and c15 cup games), and appearance frequency (currently 75%). So 44 games x 75% = 33 appearances. 33/4.5 = 7 more goals

The Vanishing and Mass Suicide

I watched a great BBC4 documentary recently about the fact that 1/3 of the UK's and US's bees have died.*

The Acting State Apiarist - (what a great job title) explained that they are calling this phenomenon Colony Collapse Disorder.

Am I bothered? I asked myself. I don't have a sweet tooth, so I don't like honey. What's the big deal?

The purple gardener in me should have known better. Bees are responsible for 80% of all pollination in the world.

In the world of flower sex - bees are the King Pimps in gold chains and Hummers. Without them, the planet's flora goes celibate, frustrated and ultimately barren.

Forget global warming. This is literally the end of the world, unless we all pitch in with Q Tips and endless patience, or stick velcro on the backs of wasps to catch pollen so that they can finally perform some useful function on the planet.

In the US, bees get shipped endlessly around the 50 states, purely to allow plants to procreate. The entire almond crop of California alone, which is a mindboggling 80% of the world's output requires 10 billion bees each year for 3 weeks to bear fruit, and almonds are the #1 horticultural export of the US, worth $2 billion annually. The Death of Bees is a seriously-serious economic problem.

I can sense that I still haven't entirely captured your interest yet. I don't like almonds either so it doesn't seem like a great loss. But here's the thing.

The bees are not just dying........

they're disappearing.

There are no bodies.

There is conjecture that it's a virus, or chemical poisoning from the years of ingesting pesticides and whatever else they spray crops with these days, but that does not explain the lack of corpses.

Beekeepers are checking their hives, only to find them suddenly empty, save for a few scattered bodies. And we're talking billions and billions of missing bees - worldwide. If I tell you that it takes 2,200 trucks to transport California's almond bees alone, you can get a sense of the scale. The landscape should be knee deep in stiffening workers and drones.

So theories:

Where are they all?

Have they gone into hiding, fed up of globe-trotting prostitution as a lifestyle?

Are they being stolen to some purpose? Are Evil Rabbits planning some elaborate world takeover?

Have the 456 swapped their drug of choice for getting high from children to honey?

Answers on a postcard please.

Things have taken an eerie turn on Friendly Drive as well. I came down the other morning to discover that the stick insects have committed suicide en masse. All inexplicably dead, in one go. No change of diet or environment or anything.

I can only assume that they've heard about the bees and chose death before privet deprivation.

*Clearly I have no life.

It's In The Bag

There are days when I’d like to be 10’ tall.

Like when I’m standing in Heaton Park with 70,000 others, struggling to catch a glimpse of Noel and Liam on the big screen, never mind the actual stage.

Yummy Mummy and Mr. Yummy Mummy gave up and retreated further back to enjoy a better view and avoid the golden showers*.

Luckily everyone was dressed for the wet weather we’d had all day and I was wearing Bli Guinness’ waterproof coat not mine, so no real harm was done.

The concert was awesome. Barman and I threaded our way to the barriers at the front and bounced to the music as part of a 70,000 strong choir extolling the virtues of Cigarettes and Alcohol.

The layers of clothing did provide plenty of concealed areas in which to smuggle cans of Strongbow**. I chose the back of my jeans and felt very pleased with myself when they went undetected at security. But hats off to Pops, another regular at the Local Pub for cheek and inventiveness and a new gold standard for smuggling.

He’d heard that a friend had smuggled in two boxes of wine the previous day by removing them from the cardboard boxes and concealing them in a 40GG bra worn by his girlfriend. He duly bought his own, ditched the box and arranged the bag down the front of his jeans and under his waterproofs. He made his way to security and was dismayed to see that the boys and girls in Hi-Vis jackets were conducting body searches.

His left breast is patted. - ‘?’

‘Mobile phone’

His right breast is patted - ‘?’

‘Pack of Hamlet cigars’

Her hand moves lower…. – ‘??’

‘Colostomy bag.’

‘Oh. In you go, Sir.’

Genius.



Update: once again Notkeith has come up with a fantastic original cartoon to go with my words. Thanks a million. Do go and admire his brilliant artistry here.

*Seriously, I get why you’d pee in a cup to avoid the queues at the 40 toilets (the amount deemed adequate for 70,000 people who’d been drinking all day) and also to guard your place near the front, but why feel the need to fling it in the air? If golden showers are your thing, that’s fine, but surely reserved for the privacy of your own home.

** Can’t do the black stuff in cans. All kinds of wrong and lager is just a golden shower in a can, IMHO.

Tockholes and Treacle

I do Local Walks with Local People at the weekends, following on from the inaugural walk at Grasmere in August. Last weekend, despite the rain, Two Socks, Bli Guinness and I ventured to Tockholes. Now I don't know if it was the proximity to Hallowe'en and Bonfire Night, but there was a definite spooky feel to the afternoon.

When we entered the woods, there was an extraordinary avenue of trees with black, twisted trunks, set against a burnt orange carpet of leaves on the floor, and an ominous dark sky. The photos don't do it justice.

We proceeded along the Witton Weavers Way through the woodland, over swollen streams to the Roddleworth Reservoirs. Feeding into the reservoir was a river of Guinness - opaque dark waters with white foamy edges. We restrained Bli from jumping in at this point.

Crossing the streams involved a variety of bridging mechanisms including a cambered cicane, designed to be taken at speed, or risk falling into a Guinness tributary.

At some point, the conversation turned to the Slaughtered Lamb - and the Locals' sage warning not to stray from the path. By sheer coincidence at the end of the walk, we found ourselves in our very own Slaughtered Lamb, aka the Royal Arms Pub.

From the stereotypically creaky door, to the tiny stone-floored rooms, filled with the scent of woodsmoke from the real fires in the blackened grates, the atmosphere was distinctly Local. Think Royston Vesey.

But definitely not unfriendly. There were more dogs than people for a start, which is never a bad thing. The home-cooked food was fantastic and plentiful; the beer interesting - from Warsteiner for Two Socks, to Tockholes Treacle Ale for me. There were even old-fashioned treacle lollipops in a jar (we bought several), and an eclectic-bordering-on-surreal music shuffle on the jukebox. The pub is always in the Good Pub Guide and we will definitely be back.

Unlike the individual who left his underpants on the reservoir emergency helpline sign. I know fresh water is the life blood of the nation, but I can't condone going to the extremes of stripping down to the buff to plunge in to save it.




Now where did I put that Brita filter?...

God Squad

I lunched in Kro Bar with a former colleague during Freshers Week.

Oxford Road is filled with open-topped buses, balloon-bedecked floats, rollerbladers, sandwich boarders and leafleters urging the new student intake to join their clubs.

As I wait for my wild mushroom and stilton ciabatta to arrive, a rapper in black shades with a mike and an amplifier starts up on the opposite side of the street. Eminem he’s not, but it sounds good and goes down well with the fresh-faced hopefuls wandering up and down looking for freebies, the Maths Building or the nearest cashpoint. His entourage unfurl a banner and fix it to the railings behind him, rolling their fists and bobbing in time to the rhythmic and hypnotic monologue. They proffer leaflets to the passers-by.

‘Live A Real Life with Jesus Christ.’

And not a tambourine in sight!

Faithless were right. In the 21st Century, God is A DJ.

What's in a Name?

The Second Hand Car Dealers have just had a new baby. She arrived a month early, making Tiddler look like the Hulk in comparison.

All is well with Mrs Second Hand Car Dealer and Baby Scrap, but it is strange having a really titchy one around now that the Little Ducks, the Little Yummy Mummys and the Little Second Hand Car Dealers are all growed up and in school. We all look on with a touch of envy until she screams, pukes and poohs and then envy turns to relief and double-checking of condom use-by dates.

Only D is slightly disappointed, Scrap's big brother who wanted a baby brother. He even had the name all picked out - 'Spiderman Jeff'.

Eat your hearts out Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow.

We have baby girls of our own arriving in the next couple of weeks - to coincide with JP's and Tiddler's birthdays. Torres and Emma will be joining us in Friendly Drive. They are sugar-intolerant, have orange teeth and their cage at the Pet Centre has a big 'Sold' sign on it. Oh, and another one saying 'We are not rats'.

The Little Ducks can't wait.

A Bollocking Or Two

Dear Tooth Fairy,

Thanks for nothing, you lazy-arsed git.

You know, JP was pretty excited, finally losing that lone front tooth after weeks of being called Nanny McPhee. We spent ages finding a box to put the tooth in under his pillow, since the official tooth box is at the old house.

I know it was a very long, hot day, and a couple of beers were consumed, but how could you let it slip your mind?

Imagine the scene on entering his room to wake him this morning when his first act is to reach for the box under the pillow and his beautiful face drops when it's rattling with enamel rather than nickel and brass. My heart sank.

I comforted him, saying that you must have had a really busy night, and perhaps you hadn't realised he's moved and that you would DEFINITELY come tonight.

But we both know the truth - you totally forgot, didn't you? Just what kind of magical, mythical role model are you?

Duck


In other news.

My brother, The Ginger One, who has been accused, man and boy of having ants in his pants on account of his inability to sit still, found out exactly what that metaphor means on Sunday.

After sitting for a short while outside, he felt a sudden and sharp sting, where only gentle caressing and light licking should take place. He promptly dropped his trousers and boxers, in company, to discover 4 red ants, two of which had bitten him - once on each testicle. Ouch doesn't begin to describe it, apparently and he refused to put his clothes back on, due to the rapid swelling and nauseating pain. Get well soon, Ginger One and let us know when it's on YouTube.