Journal Entries
These anagrams are rather fun...
Posted Oct 26, 2006
...It's a little like being at a masked orgy.
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Latest reply: Oct 26, 2006
Pumpkin Frenzy!
Posted Oct 23, 2006
Last year I carved the neighbours' pumpkins to raise money for Oxfam.
This year I've volunteered to sit in the window of my local Oxfam shop and do them. Well...I *say* 'I've volunteered'. Strictly speaking, my wife has volunteered me, but it's such an excellent idea that I'm not complaining.
The scam is that people btink me their pumpkin and I carve it into something fancy. I have to say, I'm quite the dab hand. One of last year's is featured on The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's site. The store manager is trying to get the greengrocer across the road to donate some pumpkins that we can sell, too.
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Latest reply: Oct 23, 2006
Territorial Urinating.
Posted Oct 2, 2006
I became the victim of an assault at the weekend.
A situation has been building up withone of my neighbours. She believes that there s an 'unwritten rule' that she owns the entire road in front of her house. I believe that I have a small circle of paper in my windscreen which entitles me to park on any public highyway, other than where parking restrictions are in force. This has sometimes meant overlapping into her space - although always, out of common decency, leaving her with more than adequate parking space (we're talking Sherman Tanks...the SI unit of road measurement). But she has confessed an inability to perform basic manoeuvres required as part of the National Driving Test...and besides - 'it's an unwritten rule'. We've had her shrieking at our door several times recently and have had to close the door in her face. It's been quite amusing sometimes watching her nip out to move her car as soon as we move one of ours. Frankly, we don't care where we park - but we don't want to be bullied into meeting her bizarre whims.
Anyhow...it degenerated further on Friday evening. Her ex-husband approached me in the street and said he wanted to 'Sort out this parking situation once and for all.' I explained calmly that we don't have a situation and went to get into my car. The situation got more and more heated (on his side), with yelled threats that he was going to "
ing slash [my] ing tyres, and then come back and ing do them again!" Eventually, despite my best Crisis and Agression Limitation and Management techniques, it led to his squaring up to me, shouting 'Come on, let's just go for it right now!' and pushing me in the chest. I just stood there, arms by my side, and said 'Now don't be silly. I'm not going to fight.' (Naturally, I had my attack points worked out though 
And I'm a hefty bugger!). I got the heat down until I could be reasonably sure we weren't going to get a brick through the window, made a show of shaking his hand...and then gave the police a full statement. The Polis reckon they've got him on Breach Of The Peace, and might even get Assault to stick. Whatever...it's bound to put the fear of god into the eejits.
Oyoyoyyyy...what bizarre behaviour from grown adults. In terms of assault...sure it's at the minor end of the scale. I must admit, though, that it left me more shaken than I'd have thought. And I'm livid that my four year old son, who was in the car, had to witness it.
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Latest reply: Oct 2, 2006
The MySpace generation
Posted Aug 28, 2006
An ex-colleague of mine has a son who's a drummer in a rather famous band. He managed to buy a small hotel and retire on his son's proceeds.
Another colleague has a daughter who's currently the featured artist on the front page of msn uk (http://uk.msn.com/ - scroll down to the bottom and look for Marie-Claire Lee). She's in a competition whose winner is the person who gets the most downloads.
My colleague also fancies a hotel and would really appreciate it if anyone could help him to rig the vote. I can't vouch for the music. The only description I've been given is 'a bit like Sheryl Crow'
(Not my kind of thing - but then neither is my other colleague's son's stuff).
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Latest reply: Aug 28, 2006
Rust in pieces
Posted Aug 1, 2006
I put my car in for it's MOT test today (explanation for USAnians: A12921581
)...and it's been declared dead. Big Eddie from the garage says it's not worth repairing.
I'm not at all sentimental about cars (It was a Fiat Tipo, if you're interested). It's just a tad inconcvenient because it means I'll have to schlep on trains and buses until I can find a suitably affordable replacement. We were going to replace it next year anyway, and Big Eddie's looking out for something at around £200 to get me through until then, at which point I can re-sell for the same (old cars don't depreciate 
).
No surprise, I suppose. I've been driving it for the last six months with a noisy exhaust. The car's most notable feature - besides doubling as a mobile compost heap and newspaper recycling facility - was it's paint job. A few years ago I parked it under a sycamore tree and it got coated with a varnish-like resin that's imposible to remove and which became encrusted with dirt.
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Latest reply: Aug 1, 2006
Edward the Bonobo - Gone.
Researcher U803114
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