Aaah those were the days (Part 9,142)

In the series of observations on how the modern world blows and everything of yesteryore was glorious, witness the wonder of ECONOMY (!!!) class in 1960, and tell me in all seriousness that you would settle for Easyjet?

I rest my case

Things that make you go Bleargh

Dear old Mr Handy has started to produce a bucket list on his blog. I have decided to do the same thing, however this is a bucket list of things I will never do, as they would make me sick. In a bucket.

Saves the embaressment of other "accidents"

Eat brains. I'd rather starve, even if I were a zombie

Watch Coronation Street.

Watch Eastenders

Watch Simon Cowell

Watch ITV. 

Go wing-walking, for a variety of reasons, primarily because no-one wants to see a shaved bear in a cowgirl outift flying along withe greatest of ease while shitting her considerable pants. No-one ever.

Try a Thousand Year Old Egg - chinese delicacy my eye, it's a rotten, green egg, and that's that.

Skydive (see above for pant related reasons)

Abseil (ditto)

Bungee Jump (and again)

Hold a spider, of any size or description. Too many eyes by 6, too many legs by 4. Nuff said

I'm sure the list will continue to expand, but for now I leave it at that. I would rather like to leave the house occassionally and not be confronted with a crowd of unmentionables (wing-walking spiders showering me with rotten eggs maybe - could happen.....)

And Many Mooorrrre.....

Happy birthday to me. Well nearly, apparently I arrived on the scene at 7.00pm, so I am officially not yet an old bird, but instead still a spring chicken.

Mind you, today I feel like a oven cooked chicken. It is so hot in my office and the fan I have behind me (yay, you're the best, woo-hoo) is just stirring the soupy air around - charming. And I know we shouldn't complain, but, hell it's the British way.

We are just not designed to operate correctly and efficiently in heat. Other countries may laugh at the way we work through the hottest time of the day, but what they don't appreciate is that we never know when the next warm spell may come around - every second counts and we can't be wasting time on siestas.

Also, once I go to sleep it is impossible to a) wake me up or b) get any sense out of me. Pretty much a normal working day...

Suddenly - FOOD!

Proving that I have an audience (small it may be, but it is vocal), I present to you: pizza.

So, Mr Noodles, from now on I shall photograph all unusual or interesting grub for you to look at!

how about some lemon with your G&T?

I now know the reason why I didn't do this before - now I feel bloody hungry. Correction, hungry and hot. Damn.

Sub-Normal Pop

JEESUS!!!! I Nearly pooped.

Scary news of the day; Sub Pop turned 25 years old yesterday. This news is disturbing the Force greatly.

I remember the halcyon days of Mudhoney, Nirvana, Afgham Whigs, Sleater Kinney and Codeine (who I saw once playing in Eliot College dining hall to an audience of 6).

Thing is, with the obvious exception of Kurt Cobain, they are probably all old and weird looking now. Mudhoney played at the top of the Seattle Space Needle at the birthday party, and sort of managed to look reasonable and not too much like the american equivalent of real ale drinkers (beardy weirdy wearing faded too-small t-shirts with obscure logos).

At least they haven't let themselves go as far as poor Jay Mascis (Dinosaur Sr - Hah, I crack me up) who looks like a shortsighted version of Gandalf the White. I'd be afraid of hip breakage occuring in the midst of an epic rendition of Little Fury Things (or maybe Little Things That Make Jay Furious...for instance toffees he can't chew, bus queues, people who don't remember rationing, the light channel and that bloody Hitler....)

1936 and all that...

By now the whole bally world knows about Andy Murray winning Wimbledon; strange thought that the last time a Britisher won the thing the world was a very different place;

• We hadn't landed on the moon, or even thought about it.
• World War 2 hadn't started (in fact there was a swastika flown at Wimbledon!)
• Computers hadn't been invented (but Alan Turing was publishing the basics)
• Superman was yet to make his debut in comic form, but the Green Hornet was on radio
• Every kid in America was obsessed by Joe DiMaggio
• Every criminal wanted to avoid the first Director of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover
• Hitler opened the Olympic Games in Berlin (but Jesse Owens taught him a lesson)
• The Hoover Dam came into operation (has the concrete cured yet?)
• Edward VIII abdicated, and the press just left him alone?!

As I say - a very different place indeed. Longer trousers for one thing.

Lawks - here come another one!

More wonderful things!

I have discovered a website which I should have started. But I didn't.

www.bookshelfporn.com

The Word on the Street

Forgive the pun, but I stumbled upon this on Stumble Upon, and now I want my house to be this colourful.

Watch and be inspired.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/324fat/:1ci6jP2SD:l0GHOL$5/www.streetartutopia.com/?p=10554/

Badda Bing

Being away on holiday when the news of James "Gandalf Flan Flinger" Gandolfini's death was made public was a surreal experience.

Hearing excitable italian radio presenters chuntering on in foreign, then hearing and understanding "The Sopranos" was strange to say the least; especially while being in what we were assured was a hotbed of Sicilian nationalism and mafia stronghold.

I fail to understand how anyone could gather the energy to commit any acts of organised crime when it is so hot. My theory falls down slightly when looking at the places where crime flourishes; they all tend to be a bit on the toasty side. Maybe the heat makes people so angry and sweaty and irritable that they just have no alternative but to organise hits, scoff cannoli and cheat on their wives. Very odd.

Well, we successfully avoided being made into fish food, or being forced to become models for very fashionable (but a bit pinchy) concrete footwear, and find ourselves back home, where all we need to worry about is the government spying on us, the NHS falling apart at the seams, and with the onset of Wimbledon, the forthcoming apocalyptic rainfall.

Oh to be a goodfella (or moll). In the immortal words of the man himself......

"You know my feelings: Every day is a gift. It's just, does it have to be a pair of socks?"

What I Want for BIrthday Part #2

Screw world peace and a cure for (I quote) "the cancer" (Mr Handy knows of what I speak), I would like this please to store my presumably space-age drinks in.




Alas, the only drinks seen in Star Wars are Aunt Beru's weird blue milk (not hers personally) and whatever low-alcohol pee Luke drinks at the cantina.

I bet Darth's a single malt man and Chewie loves a pint of the black stuff. Han would love lager, Leia strikes me as  Baileys girl.

And Luke loves a Shirley Temple. Obviously.

Close Encounter of the Nerd Kind

I have been too busy to conduct this inane conversation with an uncaring world, but Friday afternoon seems to be panning out to be quite quiet, so I seize the opportunity like a nettle!

Mr Handy has a yen for UFO's and I recently watched a documentary about a very peculiar incident that took place in Todmorden; about a dozen police-persons in various locations around the village saw strange lights in the sky - and all of them stuck to their story (even when faced with an "expert" who claims what they saw was a bus: see - the ding dings were needed).

Let's see if, as mere bottom feeders, we can tell the difference. Hmmmm (strokes chin)



Well, I expect that expert has a perfectly reasonable explanation for his frankly bizarre claim. Just like the second expert who stated that the lights PC Plod saw racing across the sky, and changing direction every half second, was a meteor.

Again, let's see. Hmmmmm (beats head against wall)



Well, I know that my taxes are being well spent by brainiacs, dweebs, wonks and eggheads. Bravo Science, Bravo!!

A Subject Steven Spielberg Chose to Ignore For Some Reason

Oh, so that's the solution....

Elvis has left the pupae

Check out the quiff, the sardonic smile, the awesome sunglasses. He never died en toilette, he just bugged out!

A World of Wrong And Yet So Funny

Elementary...

I am on Linkedin....BAZINGA!

A rat race...damn I crack me up.

Yes, against my better judgement but with pressure from the Powers That Be, I am now able to troll the working world for suitable links. It all smacks of Facebook stalkery to me, but veiled in a veneer of professionalism.

Obviously, the first thing I did was search for anyone I know from school or university to see how badly off they are. Wow, was that a big mistake. Here I am, within spitting distance of my college, and most of my chums (or mortal enemies) are hither and yon around the globe doing all sorts of exciting things.

Oddly, I am not consumed with jealousy; instead I am quietly pleased that I have successfully avoided the rat race and can scuttle off home and be there in less than 10 minutes. Hooray!

What I Want for My Birthday - Part #1

This. This is what I want, preferably life size, and preferably with some form of food smoker arrangement in the belly of the steel beast.

knock knock knock Penny knock knock knock Penny

I have a new love - move aside, Dr Gregory House, take a hike Sherlock, week quietly Tony Stark.

All hail the greatest of them all, Dr Sheldon Cooper, Smelly Pooper, Sheldor the Conqueror.


He speaks Klingon, folds his socks, has a  special seat, won't eat orange chicken (masqerading as tangerine chicken), and is a genius.

How very strange it is that, in my youth, physicists and nerdly types were bullied, sent to coventry and given swirlies. Now - can't get enough of the wonderful stuff.

I AM BATMAN!!!!

Faith in the Essential Niceness of People - Restored!

Well hello to you too!

Yeah baby - I'm BACK!!!

Due to unforeseen and frankly bizarre blog relating oddness, I have been incommunicado for a couple of weeks. Not for want of trying I can assure you, but for some reason Google decided to re-write Canterbury Tales in arabic - more like Cairo Tales.

(interesting side note - while attempting to find amusing city names beginning with C, I found none in Iran, UAE or Saudi Arabia - who knew?)

Anyway, sidling past the sickly crone that is Google, I have plunged into the welcoming embrace of Bing, and all is well (for the moment).

Returning to my ongoing rant about the modern world, a moment of madness a couple of weeks ago. Street outside Casa Del Bear was filled with armed police and snarling alsations, all trying (as it turned out) to flush out a tramp with an air rifle from the murder house at the end of the road. In spite of being told to stay indoors by the fuzz, me and Mr Handy hung out of the window waiting for something to happen.

Bearing in mind, nothing interesting ever happens in our street, I was horrified to find the following dropping out of my mouth after about 10 minutes:-

"This is boring, can't we fast forward?"

I am horrified. It seems that modernity and all it's naughtiness has managed to get past my Vulcan logic block. I can see no other option than to spend the weekend in silent contemplation surrounded by the written word. I shall report next week.....

Hooray - Happy Belated Easter!!

It's the return of Zombie Jesus, but this time the humans are fighting back!


Speaking of Zombies, Mrs Thatcher has croaked thus robbing my friend Dave of his fantasy dinner party which seemed likely to consist of him screaming "WHY" at Mrs T over the entrees.

So, to make him feel all better (after his terrible appetite problems) - this one's for you Dave.

or...little man, why you no bring more fish?

Storm in a Face Bag

How dare you call me John Merrick.

I'm all for being nice to people (believe it or not). I'm all for being nice and kind and understanding to old people, animals, you name it, I think we should all just rub along together.

BUT when I read this in The Scotsman (of all places), a small part of me died. The world has gone stark staring bonkers, and while I fear I may be repeating myself by getting back on this particular mental merry-go-round, see for yourself.

A TELEVISED impersonation of the hideously disfigured Victorian John Merrick, by comedian Ross Noble, has been ruled to be “at the margins of acceptability” by the BBC Trust

Reasons why this is so annoying.

1. John Merrick is dead. Not just dead, but completely and utterly dead. So very dead. Deady dead dead dead.
2. The description of him as being "hideously disfigured" - well, that may just hurt his feelings...IF HE WAS ALIVE.
3. When he became dead was a very long time ago.
4. He had no children.....due to being, well, you know, THE ELEPHANT MAN
5. Ross Noble was acttually doing an impression of John Hurt doing an impression of a dead bloke. As far as I am aware, John Hurt was never told he was "at the margins of acceptability". In fact, he may even have got an Oscar for dribbling and wearing a bag on his head. That's talent for you.

And this damning inditement comes from the BBC Trust, the same arbiters of good taste who decided that Jimmy Savile was a lovely chap, just a bit gropey.

I give up.

The House on Poo Corner..

If only....

Having welcomed two new additions to the household (Betty and Joan the cats) and still caring for Lando the Hamster, I have come to the realisation that Casa Del Bear should be called Caca Del Bear.

The whole house smells of a heady combination of lovely furry animals, cat poop and hamster wee (which, let me tell you is like industrial waste - some actually started to eat through my workstop like alien blood. Which makes me sound like I live in a hovel, but it was only free of the cage for a couple of minutes - seriously, you could break into bank vaults with this stuff).

Long story short, Husband is on permament litter duty and I have developed a penchant for Febreze. How I long for the days when the only offensive whiff in the house was Camembert.

Thought for the Day

And if the romantic ladybug didn't just make you MELT

Then this vintage, skunk-suicide valentines card may just ring all your bells. Either the skunk is really depressed or believes itself to be Rasputin -what other excuse could there be for the drowing/ shooting overkill (ahem). I still think this is way cooler than cutesy wutesy ickle bunnies and puppies.

Gimme All Your Loving

Happy Valentine's Day World!

I Can See for Miles and Miles...

Jazz Fan

In an attempt to improve myself, I have paid close attention to the 1000 Albums You Must Listen to Before You Die,and have downloaded Miles Davis "Bitches Brew" and am currently listening to it.

Maybe listening to it is the wrong phrase to use. Maybe suffering through it would be better. I keep telling myself that jazz is supposed to be difficult to understand, and that maybe like classical music it gets easier with each listen. However, the current track "Feio" (a mere 11.50 long) features a noise like grinding teeth, no discernable tune or rhythm and a lot of random fart sounds.

Jazz Spam

Oh well, I tried. Maybe I should just accept the fact that I am designed for the simpler and less synopated things in life.  I think I'll stick to grunge, 80's bubblegum pop and the occasional 1960's girl group-fest for my musical jollies and leave the jazz to chin stroking weirdy beardies.