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!