SQUIRRELS PINNACLE II

Tiger prawn anyone?

2005-01-06T07:06:00.000Z

Last night I took the old pater out for a curry at his local Indian.
I was tempted by their 'special' starter which was described as

Freshly grilled tiger prawn in a delicious sauce conjured up by our own chef

Now I took the word 'prawn' to indicate prawns. Wrong, it really was ONE prawn
lying in a sickly gloop with the consistency of treacle and so sweet it made my teeth itch.
For 'all' this they charged me £4.25.

Did I complain?

Did I bollocks. I smiled sweetly and said it was delicious, when I really wanted to ram
this pathetic little shrimp up the waiters arse. But being typically English, I didn't.

What is it that is ingrained into our psyche that we must retain our dignity within a
restaurant and never make a fuss?

Probably 'cos the rest of the grub was delicious.

Two sides of human nature

2005-01-05T15:33:00.000Z

Is it just me, or is anyone else thoroughly pissed off with watching news reporters going on and on about the terrible tragedy which befell Indonesia, Thailand et al?
Everytime I turn on the TV I am presented with the same video clips, the same rows of bodies and the same grieving faces, young and old. I'm surprised that any relief
work is getting done at all with the media throng that has descended upon these poor
people.
Yes it was an appalling tragedy and help must be given, but even as I write, there is a debate on the TV about how much dosh each country is giving and shouldn't other countries be giving more.
Shut the fuck up the lot of you. Who really cares how much each country gives, as long as it is something.
Once again the Yanks are the whipping boys and yet they are doing more now with their military than all other countries combined. Even that isn't good enough for some wankers who are now maintaining that the only reason the USA upped the ante concerning the amount of aid given, was to show them in a good light helping a Muslim people out instead of blowing the shit out of them.
We have both ends of the spectrum here.
One side of the Human Race showing ordinary Joe Public of ALL nationalities, putting their hands in their pockets and giving what they can. Holidaymakers of ALL nationalities caught up in this mess and staying on to help the local people get their lives back.
The other side is governments bickering over who should do what instead of getting their thumbs out of their arses and actually doing something practical.
The media pouncing on every story that has a whiff of scandal or sensationalism for the sake of good copy. The perfect example being the "story" of the young Swedish boy who had been abducted by some paedophile, whereas it has since been discovered that the poor lad was a victim of mistaken identity and is subsequently now missing and the kid seen being "abducted" was in fact a German boy being taken from the hospital by a relative.
Fuck checking the story out guys, let's just sell more newsprint.
Thank you for ordinary people.
You know who you are.
Your keeping me sane.

My first rant of the new year - krip.

Looking towards 2005

2004-12-13T08:52:00.000Z

I'm going to be on hiatus probably until after Christmas and the New Year for the most part. We have Little Princess coming over and I want to spend as much time as I can with her. The next couple of days are going to be hectic, so I won't have time to write.

I know that my zillion of readers, i.e., fans, will be disappointed, but real life has to take priority. Also, if anything really relevant appears on the horizon, like the cure for the common cold has been discovered; or that the moon really is made of swiss cheese; or that there is one terrific sale of land on Atlantis, I do believe that the major news outlets will be on hand to report any and all first hand.

So, just in case you are not able to hear from me beforehand, here goes:

2004-12-08T09:56:00.000Z

For Christmas, Santa is bringing some pantomime tickets for Little Princess's stocking. Krip has wonderful memories of going when he was a kid. Of course, both Little Princess and I have never gone to a pantomime. We don't do pantomimes in America...we do the ballet "The Nut Cracker". Santa picked Cinderella. It, if anything, will be interesting.

I have been told that Little Princess will either love it or hate it. I only hope that if there is any screaming coming from our seats, it will be from excitement and pure delight, and not from sheer terror. And I'm only describing my reaction.

Right now, I'm having visions of trying to explain to her father why our Little Princess is having these strange nightmares, explaining to him what a pantomime is.

Wait until I have to explain why Little Princess is going to the pub on Christmas Eve and not to midnight Mass...sigh..

2004-12-08T09:50:00.000Z

Remember that stupid black bird that I wrote about last month? Well, he's still flying into our window. Actually, flying is too tame of a description. He's taken to flinging himself into our window.

I do believe he has a screw loose.

2004-12-06T14:33:00.000Z

I am just so proud of myself. After our jaunt up North, I have decided to start going on long walks with the mutt. We are now in a regular groove - the mutt and me. We now walk at least four miles a day, totaling 28+ miles last week. At first the going up and down the hills was not making me a happy camper, but now I am rather enjoying it.

I like walking the route we're going because we hardly encounter another human being nor their dogs; only cows, occasional signs of the wildlife out there, and today our first sighting of goats.

2004-12-06T14:06:00.000Z

Have you every noticed that after spending half a day raking leaves, you go out the next morning and they are back again? Kind of reminds me of dirty dishes, dirty laundry, and dust. It's just like after having washed all the dishes, one mysteriously shows up in the sink; or no matter how much time you have spent washing, drying, and ironing laundry, you open up the laundry basket and lo and behold there's dirty laundry; and after cleaning the house, not a half a day goes by without seeing that damn dust again.

So, like washing dishes, laundry, and cleaning house, sigh, as long as there are leaves still clinging to the trees there will be an ever-ending amount of leaves blanketing the garden.

And this is all much to Krip's chagrin!

REMEMBER THIS AT CHRISTMAS TIME

2004-12-03T20:18:00.000Z

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and
female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December.
Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring.

Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa's
reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.

We should've known... ONLY women would be able to drag a fat-ass man in a
red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.

Today's Joke...

2004-11-30T14:09:00.000Z

HILLARY'S BIG NAVAL INSPECTION

November 30, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton today is visiting the biggest naval base on the East Coast as part of her role advising Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on making the military more efficient.more

Bwahahaha!! God this is just too funny! Hill and Bill have always detested anything to do with the military, no matter what branch it was. When Billy Blythe became the prez, in 1992, we got a taste of what it would be like with him as the commander-in-chief when his minions looked up as some of our Air Force jets flew over, asking:
"what in the hell were they doing here."
And the reply:
"ah, don't sweat it, they belong to us now."

And at their first state cocktail party, Billy and Hilly Blythe used top ranking officers in the armed forces to be the waiters - in full uniform, I might add. These are just two incidents of eight long-ass years of the co-presidency under Bill and Hill.

They had no respect for the military, and believe me when I say, that they have no respect, still, from our military.

Hillary on any sort of committee having to do with the armed forces is definitely a....joke!

THE NORTH

2004-11-29T15:08:00.000Z

We just got back last night from a nice long weekend up in Derbyshire. Cold, but beautiful country.

It was great to be able to go walking on the moors and let the mutt run to his hearts' content without worrying about him getting run over. He had a blast and after 3 days of running about chasing anything and everything, he slept the whole way back, and has been sleeping for most of the day today.

We went to a real pub. The kind where everyone sits down and talks about everything under the sun. Where everyone knows everyone and actually says hello. Where people treat you like you have lived in this hamlet all your life, instead of just meeting you that weekend, and actually seemed to have enjoyed your company.

We had a great time; great food, great drink, and overall, a grand time all around. We hated to have to come back down south again.

If we ever win the lottery, we're heading up to THE NORTH, to a little hamlet in Derbyshire, to a kind and more gentle livestyle where the only time that matters is when the pub opens up...and like our friends said to us, "you'll never regret it, and you'll never look back."

Our friends had a chance to get out of the rat race and took it. Maybe we'll get lucky and do the same. Hope so. Until then, we'll just have to visit this lovely piece of land up in THE NORTH once in a while, if just to relax and mellow out.

Dolphins Protect New Zealand Swimmers from Shark

2004-11-23T15:02:00.000Z

WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A pod of dolphins circled protectively round a group of New Zealand swimmers to fend off an attack by a great white shark, media reported on Tuesday. more...

Now this is a great story! Always heard that sharks were afraid of dolphins.

Eeeuuwwww

2004-11-20T14:27:00.000Z

Sad commentary..

2004-11-18T13:45:00.000Z

FURY AT RACIST CHANTING
The beautiful game turned ugly again last night - with England's so-called friendly with Spain marred by racist chants.

England's black players, most notably Shaun Wright-Phillips and Ashley Cole, were subjected to monkey chants from thousands of Spanish fans in Madrid. more

We watched some of this game, and remarked how badly they played. In retrospect, perhaps England was off because of the racial remarks by the Spanish spectators. We did see where David Beckham, as captain of the team, was trying to sooth the other players.

I only wished that England would have come back and whooped their asses for the remarks made. Perhaps we will have another chance to.

2004-11-18T13:24:00.000Z

Why is it that when you blow in a dogs face, he gets wound up and tries to bite your nose off?
But the instant you wind the window down in the car, he sticks his head out into the slipstream, tongue hanging out and looking as daft as a brush.

2004-11-17T09:52:00.000Z

Mutt vs Squirrel

2004-11-17T09:14:00.000Z

We have this squirrel who is determined to get to the bird feeder this a.m. It's driving the mutt absolutely crazy; which, in turn, is driving me absolutely crazy. Mutt winds up bouncing off the walls whenever he even catches a glimpse of said squirrel. While said squirrel appears to have a smile on it's face everytime he sees the mutt bouncing off the walls. It's been going on now for about two hours.

And now, I'm starting to go slowly around the bend.

Dam..

2004-11-16T14:13:00.000Z

Just a little money-laundering.

Beavers Weave Stolen Cash Into Dam

GREENSBURG, La. (AP) - It was probably the world's richest beaver dam. Beavers found a bag of bills stolen from a video poker casino last week, tore it open and wove the money into the sticks and brush of their dam on a creek north of Louisiana Highway 48. Major Michael Martin of the East Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Office says bills used to build the dam were still whole. more

Pure terror

2004-11-15T13:05:00.000Z

Body of Caucasian woman with blonde hair found in Fallujah: marines

FALLUJAH, Iraq (AFP) - The body of a blonde-haired woman with her legs and arms cut off and throat slit was found lying on the street in Fallujah, a notorious enclave for hostage-takers, marines said.

"It is definitely a Caucasian woman with long blonde hair," said a military official, who cut open a cover that had been over the corpse.

The gruesome discovery was made as the marines moved through the south of Fallujah, hunting out the remaining die-hard rebels after a week of fierce fighting to regain control of the city.

"It is a female... missing all four appendages, with a slashed throat and disembowled, she has been dead for a while but only in this location for a day or two," said Benjamin Finnell, a hospital apprentice with the Navy Corps, who had inspected the body. more

Day in and day out, on the nightly news we had to hear of the alleged atrocities that were alledgely done on the innocent prisoners by some of our troops. Day in and day out, we have been hearing about all the innocent victims of the Iraq war, the wounded, etc. However, what we haven't heard is what is happening to true innocents that have been kidnapped by these people. Well, this is what happened to one woman.

I often wonder what the press would have been like if WWII was going on right now. I suppose Mussolini, Hitler, and the Japanese that backed these men and their philosophies would have been just freedom fighters...freeing the world from the Jews, the Catholics, the gypsies, the crippled, the mentally ill. Don't know. I do know, though, that this woman was killed. Brutally killed. I think that her last thoughts of these people that slaughtered her could not have been that they were rebels or insurgents, her last thoughts were of pure terror(ists).

2004-11-15T09:44:00.000Z

Yesterday was a beautiful day! We took the mutt out and went for a six mile walk in the countryside. The sun was shining.We had no wind. In fact, I was able to take my fleece off, and walk around in a sleeveless top. Absolutely glorious. Couldn't ask for a nicer day. Wonderful.

Today, we're paying for it. It's cold, cloudy, and back to blah.

Welcome to Monday.

2004-11-12T13:38:00.000Z

George and Osama decided to settle the war once and for all. They sat down and decided to settle the whole dispute with one big dog fight. They agreed that they would have five years to breed the best fighting dogs in the world and whose ever dog won would be entitled to dominate the world.

Osama and his dog handler Mohammed found the biggest, meanest Dobermans and Rottweilers in the world, then bred them with the biggest, meanest Siberian wolves they could find. From the litters, they selected the biggest and strongest puppy and trained it day and night to fight to the death. After five years, Osama and Mohammed came up with the biggest, meanest dog the world had ever seen. Its cage needed steel bars that were five inches thick and nobody could get near it.

When the day came for the dog fight, George and his dog handler Boudreaux showed up with a nine-foot-long Dachshund. It was the strangest looking dog anyone had ever seen. Boudreaux said it was a Cajun Dachshund. Everyone felt sorry for George and Boudreaux because they knew there was no way that this poor excuse for a dog could possibly last 10 seconds with Osama's big, mean animal.

When the cages were opened up, the Dachshund slowly came out of its cage, wagged its tail, then waddled over towards Osama's dog. The Doberman/Rottweiler/Wolf snarled and leaped out of its cage, then charged the poor Dachshund. But when it got close enough to bite the Dachshund's neck, the Dachshund opened its mouth and ate Osama's dog in one bite. There was nothing left at all of the snarling beast.

Osama came up to George and Boudreaux shaking his head in disbelief. "We don't understand how this could have happened. We had our best people working for five years with the biggest, meanest Dobermans and Rottweilers, and the biggest, meanest Siberian wolves in the world. How did you do this?"

"Da's easy," said Boudreaux the Cajun. "We 'ad our bess plasic surgins workin' fo' five year for to make dat alligator look like a weenie dog."

Madam! What were you thinking?

2004-11-11T18:28:00.000Z

Pole dancing classes for British children cancelled after uproar

LONDON (AFP) - A plan to teach British children the risque art of pole dancing, usually the preserve of strip bars, has been cancelled after an uproar from child welfare groups, the teacher said.

Dance teacher Sarah Davis announced pole dancing classes for children over 12 at her studio in Birmingham, arguing it was a demanding activity which would improve fitness.

The routine -- at least, the version seen in late-night joints -- usually involves a scantily-clad female draping her limbs around a pole in a sequence of highly suggestive poses.

But the children's charity Childline, which campaigns on behalf of abused and at-risk youngsters, condemned the lessons.

"At the least this is misguided, at worst it's an outrage," said its chief executive Carole Easton.

"There are hundreds and thousands of other, much more appropriate ways in which children can keep fit, enjoy sport and dance."

Davis said that because of the outcry, she had decided to restrict classes to adults only.

What can I say. This rather speaks for itself.
Sigh...

Imagine, this guy was happy to see our soldiers

2004-11-11T11:58:00.000Z

Hostage Discovered in Fallujah Prison
Thursday, November 11, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. troops found a hostage imprisoned in Fallujah (search), the military said Thursday. The man, who appeared not to be a Westerner, was chained and malnourished.more

Apparently, he was a taxi driver who had been taken hostage about ten days ago. He had been beaten, electrocuted, and starved.

It's going to be interesting to see what more is found throughout Fallujah before this is all over. Hopefully, they will be able to find all the hostages alive.

11th Hour, 11th Day, 11th Month

2004-11-11T11:50:00.000Z

Today is Veterans' Day in the United States, and today is Rememberance Day in the United Kingdom. I want to express my gratitude to all the men and women who have served and are currently serving in both of the Armed Forces. Our countries owe you a great debt.

Thank you.

2004-11-11T10:01:00.000Z

We have a young male blackbird hanging around our garden. He flies from the feeder perch to the fence onto youngest's bike and back to the feeder. He's also trying to get into the house via the window. He has spent the last hour flying in this triangle. He cocks his head, listening to the television. Seems fascinated by it. Guess I've recruited another Fox follower.

I know that he is a young male blackbird because, after looking him up in a book, male blackbirds have orange (yellow) bills and young ones have black ones. His bill is a combination of the two, so I figured he must be the equivalent of a teenager.

I put out some raisins to go along with the feed I put out. I could almost see a smile on his face for those. I'm really enjoying his company today.

Keeping my fingers crossed that he will be back tomorrow.

2004-11-10T15:28:00.000Z

Business Owner Arrested After Allegedly Spanking Two Employees

RED BANK, Tenn. -- The owner of a shaved ice business was arrested after two employees claimed he spanked them for making mistakes at work.

Paul Eugene Levengood, 57, was charged with two counts of sexual battery after the 19-year-old women complained.

One of the women told police that on her first day at the Tasty Flavors Sno Biz, Levengood made her sign a statement that said: "I give Gene permission to bust my behind any way he sees fit."

Police Sgt. Jay LaMance said the women likely accepted the spankings instead of leaving immediately because they were "brought up to respect anybody who is an authority figure."

One of the women told police Nov. 1 that she "was shocked at the incident but could not leave because she had no transportation." The other woman said she continued to work for Levengood for more than a year after she was spanked and that he told her "either she could be spanked or be fired."

Police say one of the women reported that on Oct. 30, her fourth day on the job, Levengood called her "into the back room of the store" after she forgot to put a banana in a smoothie drink.

She said that as punishment Levengood "bent her over his knee and spanked her behind 20 times." She said that a day earlier he "snapped a photograph of her behind" as she reached for a bottle on a shelf.

Levengood was freed on $2,000 bail pending a Nov. 16 court hearing. His franchise in this Chattanooga suburb was closed Tuesday.

At the company headquarters in Minneapolis, sales manager Tom Novetzke described Levengood as a "very Christian person," adding that "We've never had a complaint."

Hummmm, this shows it pays to understand the fine print.

2004-11-10T15:03:00.000Z

Maybe these guys can go over the ITV.

Half of BBC staff face the axe

The BBC is planning to axe as many as 50 per cent of jobs across the board, insiders revealed today.

A raft of cuts is being designed to prove the BBC is giving value for money before a review of its 10-year royal charter in 2006.

High-ranking sources say earlier rumours of 6,000 losses from 28,000 staff may turn out to be a wild underestimate. (more here)

Let's take a poll

2004-11-09T13:46:00.000Z

Okay, everyone out there! Let's have a of show hands...how many people are surprised at the outcome of this poll taken in France.

Yep. That's what I thought.

All you in the EU, better continue to watch your backs.

2004-11-09T09:56:00.000Z

"What..no Santa Claus?" cries out Virgina.

Well, according to The Sun, the big bad bosses, shall I say, Scrooges have declared no Santa to be at Birmingham's famous Bullring.

SANTA will also be missing from these shopping centres: Brent Cross, North London; Buchanan Galleries, Glasgow; Swansgate Centre, Wellingborough, Northants; Clayton Square, Liverpool; Prospect Centre, Bradford; Whitgift Centre, Croydon; Oracle Centre, Reading, Berks; Merry Hill Centre, Dudley, West Midlands.

Santa will also be missing at shops on Oxford Street as well. They don't have any room for him. Any room. Maybe they will have people posted at these places to let the disappointed children all around the United Kingdom know that it is for their best interest. After all, some adults would be so distraught at seeing this jolly old figure.

What's next...no Dicken's Christmas Carol? No carolling period? No going to the ballet to see The Nutcracker? No Christmas themed movies? No decorations, Christmas cookies, parties, music? No nothing?

No Virgina, you nor your friends will be able to see Santa this year. The Politically Correct crowd is trying to take him away from you. You can always e-mail him your wish list. At least until the PC scrooges of this world figure out how to band that too.

Don't believe them though, there is a Santa Claus. Really, there is. He's in your heart. Bury him deep though, keep him out of sight. Keep him safe. Don't let the Politically Correct crowd find him. And maybe, just maybe, you will be able to bring him out some day to your children. You'll draw the curtains, dim the lights, get the cookies out that you secretly and lovingly baked, put the music on really low, and proceed the yearly ritual of telling the story of Santa Claus, Father Christmas. How things were before Big Brother took over the planet.

2004-11-08T13:20:00.000Z

What a blah day today is. Just came back from the wood with the mutt. Today reminds me of a bar or nightclub in the daytime, with it's lights on; tatty, old, and dirty.

Well, the rush is on to clear out Fallujah of all its rats and roaches. Want to wish the Americans, the other coalition troops, and the Iraqi soldiers luck and God keep them safe. It's not going to be a cakewalk; but hopefully, it'll do the job once and for all.

Heard where the French, namely, Chirac was cosy[ing] up to Arafat and the Palestinians, letting them know that they, the French, were the Palestinians best friends. Boy! Do both groups deserve each other. I kinda feel sorry for Arafat and his cohorts, well not really, but the French as your best friends? Damn, they've gotta be desperate. Watch your back boys.

Hot damn! I just went under Google Seach Images to get a pic for a blah day, and what popped up in the pics was Brad Pitt in the nude...frontal nude no less. Now that definitely brought a little ray of sunshine for me on this blah day. However, it wasn't quite what I was looking for, so I came up with something else.
Brad, blah? A lot of words could describe him...but blah ain't one of them.

Remember, remember the 5th of November and other stuff...

2004-11-05T18:26:00.000Z

It is now 6:30 in the evening, and I am just now getting on to be able to post. Our site has been down for posting since eight or so this morning. Boy was I ticked!

Anyway, I don't want to write about politics anymore. I gave it this week, but am rather tired of it all. Not 48 hours after the election was called, the pundits are discussing who will be the next candidates (for both parties) in 2008. Damn, can't they just take a breather for cryingoutloud!! Reminds me of a pack of rednecks fighting over the sorry remains of a person who they just laid in the ground. Bunch of hyenas.

Well, today is Guy Fawkes Day. The fireworks have started already. The mutt is somewhere in the bathroom, I think he has jumped into the bathtub. He'd be in the drain if he could - kinda got the idea that he hates the noise from the celebration.

Talking about fireworks. I think it's down right inconsiderate of Mr. Fawkes to have decided to carry out his dirty deed on the 5th of November. It would have been so much nicer if he had decided to go forth and destroy in say August or so. This way, the future generations wouldn't have had to freeze their asses (arses, for my English readers) off while celebrating outdoors.

Krip asked me last night if we celebrate the 4th of July with bonfires and a burning effigy. And I answered, burning effigies of your good King George? No, we don't. We just do the fireworks thing. Although, it did get me thinking. Perhaps we could start that tradition right here in Merry Old England next 4th of July...whatd'ya think?

Smile...just kidding, really.

2004-11-04T09:59:00.000Z

You know I wasn't going to write about this. However, after looking at Drudge and having these banters screaming at me, I thought that this column by Janet Daley in The Telegraph is worth reading. It's long, but every single word is right on target. These are the last few paragraphs.

Bush's 'crime'? Just being a patriot

...So, no - George W Bush is not hated here and in Europe because he removed a genocidal tyrant in Iraq and failed to anticipate the chaos that followed.

He is hated because he is the embodiment of everything that the United States is, and Europe is not: not just enormously powerful, militarily and economically, but brashly confident and fervently patriotic. Where Europe is steeped in historical guilt and self-loathing - so immersed in its own unforgivable past that it is trying to fashion a constitution that actually prohibits national pride - America is profoundly proud of the success of its own miraculous achievement.

What it has succeeded in doing is cracking the great dilemma of modern history: how can disparate and ethnically diverse people live together? How can people of differing and deeply felt religious convictions survive, with their beliefs intact, in a single unified country - evangelical Protestants such as Mr Bush alongside practising Catholics with Jewish roots such as Mr Kerry - without their cities turning into Belfast or Beirut?

The answer lies not in the post-religious, anti-clerical mania of the European Union which has just rejected a commissioner for espousing mainstream Catholic principles, but in that patriotism so despised by European elites. It is the unifying force of national self-belief with all those ridiculed school rituals - pledging allegiance to the flag, reciting the preamble to the Constitution - that makes America whole and at one with itself.

Bush is the personification of that unashamed America and that is why Europe cannot bear the sight of him.

Thank you, Ms. Daley, for putting down in black and white how many appear to be towards America. This is one American who is grateful for your insight.

Krip keeps telling me it's only the media that feels this way; however, it's the media that sways the masses, because the masses are sometimes just to lazy to think for themselves. Robots. It's easier to be a robot sometimes. Right now, I believe it's the in thing to be a robot...

Beware of the dog who doesn't bark

2004-11-04T08:18:00.000Z

There is a piece out of the The Telegraph that rather sums the whole election up. You need to wade through the American Embassy party comment, the similarities of the Torys of this world and the American Republicans; however the last couple of paragraphs of this piece says it all on why President Bush won and won big:

Republicans shyly make their presence felt

....It certainly went quiet in the American embassy in the early hours of yesterday morning. The cinema in the basement was packed with several hundred diplomats, journalists and politicians of every hue; Charles Kennedy, David Davis and Denis MacShane were all of the party. Whenever Larry King announced a new gobbet of good news for Kerry - based on the exit polls - a roar of approval went up from about half the audience.

Whenever a bit of good Bush news got through, despite the best efforts of the pollsters … complete silence.

And, all the while, across the Atlantic, the Shy Republicans were silently flooding into the polling booths.

We came out to do our duty; quietly and with determination. It reminds me of the old saying. "When you see two guard dogs, it's not the dog who is barking his head off and frothing at the mouth that should give you pause. It's the other one - the quiet one.

And the fat lady finally sang.

2004-11-03T21:05:00.000Z

There's an old saying...it ain't over until the fat lady sings.

Tonight, I watched Kerry's concession speech. It was the first time, and only time, that I have ever had the will to sit through a whole speech of Kerry's. This is the first and only time that I have ever wanted to sit through one of his speeches. I only hope that I never have to sit through another one again.

And tonight, I watched President Bush's victory speech.
I am so happy that this campaign is over. I am so happy that, not only has President Bush won, but also that more Republicans were voted in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The election is over, the President won, and the fat lady has finally finished her song.

God Bless President George W. Bush, and God Bless America!

2004-11-03T14:04:00.000Z

I understand that this is going to be the concession speech that Monsieur Kerry is going to give. This will be the one time that I will not push the MUTE button.

2004-10-31T13:46:00.000Z

Yesterday we went to Camden Market. Got there around 10am, opening time. We intended to find Christmas presents for everyone on our list. Wound up getting one present, and that one was for my youngest. To say the market was overwhelming would be an understatement. There was just so much; too much to choose from. Either we were afraid that if we found something at one stall, another would have something even better. Or if we got a great deal at one place, another would have given us an even better deal. So in the end, we just got the one thing - and that present was one we didn't see anywhere else. What we wound up doing was eating our way through the whole day. The smells from all the types of food was wonderful! The day turned out to be one of the prettiest we've had in a long time. And this all brought out the crowds. By the time we left, it was knee-deep in people.

The best part was the train ride back. It was quiet. And that was sweet.

2004-10-26T15:40:00.000+01:00

John Peel is dead.

Somehow I cannot believe it. My teenage years were spent listening to his dulcet tones.

Wherever you are John, keep playing those funky toons.

R.I.P.

2004-10-26T13:50:00.000+01:00

Like the sidekick says, I cannot wait until these American elections are over.

They seem to have been driving us mad all bloody year.

I, and a lot of other poor souls subjected to this hollywood farce they call a Presidential election, am not in the slightest bit interested about Bush v Kerry. Why indeed does the British media give so much air time to our cousins over the water?

All I need (apart from my lovely wife…grovel) from the good ol’ USA is my weekly showing of ‘American Chopper – The Series’. Good, honest American working folk,

2004-10-26T10:25:00.000+01:00

There are two people in this household who will be sooo glad when the American election is over. Me, the American, and Krip. Both for different reasons.

I cannot watch the "National" news over here anymore. I get disgusted with the news presenter creaming himself over Kerry and literally holding his nose when he needs to mention Bush. Thank God we get Fox News here.

And Krip is disgusted because their "National" news gives so much time to our election. It's always the top story of the evening. The top story. Is nothing going on in all of the United Kingdom that our election is top news?

You'd think that the United Kingdom was electing the President of the United States. Oh...wait a minute...they do think they are able to elect our President.

Krip asked me if we give so much play to the U.K.'s election.
No. We don't.

So,until this is over on November 2nd, we will continue to watch shows like American Chopper or umpteenth re-runs of Location, Location, Location. Beats the news.

Be careful, you Brits and the rest of Europe, be very careful. You might be getting what you wished for.

And making a cup of tea isn't gonna cut it when things get a bit hairy.

2004-10-25T19:41:00.000+01:00

I watched with disbelief tonight on my regional news.

The local council visited a graveyard to test all headstones against the possibility of them being a hazard to the general public.

If the stones toppled after being subjected to certain pounds pressure, they were left where they fell. This of course caused great distress to the deceased relatives upon visiting their loved ones last resting place.

Now the council are saying that the headstones that they tipped over are a trip hazard and should be laid flush to the ground.

We are becoming such a litigatious society that soon you won't be able to fart for fear of people becoming possibly overcome by the effects of last nights curry.

What is this country coming to? I am thinking of forming my own republic where it would be compulsory to have the occasional accident. Anyone interested?

ACCIDENT

Now there's a word you seldom hear these days. As a kid (many moons ago), I regularly came home from school with the odd scrape or bruise after a bout of British Bulldog (remember that) or a kick around in the playground. In those days you just got on with it and accepted that life now and again can bloody well hurt. But that is what it is all about. Life has to be experienced to live. I am afraid that today's kids are not getting the benefit that I had in the fifties/sixties.
It is a wonder that they don't wear clothes made from cotton wool.

Water, water everywhere...

2004-10-20T09:55:00.000+01:00

So Saturday night, we saundered down to our pub to have some dinner, drinks, and general conversation with a few friends.

The dinner was so so. I stuck with safety and got a steak & onion sandwich, kinda hard to screw that up; however, Krip had his heart set on sausage, mash, and peas. He got £4 quid quality. As he said, "It filled a hole." Pretty boring meal.The beer turned out flat, and our friends' conversations were more or less as flat as the beer. So we decided to head back to the hacienda. And watch a movie that we had borrowed...

If you get a chance, see this movie. It's called Open Water. It's, well, its one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. I don't mean Freddie with the Chainsaw type of scary, I mean real-life scary. This movie so unnerved me that I didn't sleep well for the next two nights. Kept thinking of it. Open Water is a great movie. It's a well-produced movie. The actors were wonderful. It was soooo real. Damn good movie.

And I never, ever want to see it again.

Hmm...could it be?

2004-10-19T13:47:00.000+01:00

We've been getting calls, at least once a day now for a couple of weeks, suggesting that we have a fabulous prize! Pretty exciting...right?

Only thing is, even though the contest has suggested someone in our household entered, I didn't enter any contest; Krip says he didn't enter any contest; and I really don't think the mutt entered any contest either - he's not that dumb. So we can't figure out who did...ghosts.

Anyway, according to the recorded message, if you really want to, you can send a self-addressed envelope to such and such. However, if you want to know quicker, you can just pick up the phone and call a particular number for just £1.50 a minute, 3 minutes minimum.

Doh!! That's at least £5.00 for that particular phone call. Which makes matters worse, the woman caller gives a different name at different times; different addresses to send the envelope to; and different telephone numbers.

What'cha think...might be a con?
While Krip didn't fall for the phone call, he did send a self-addressed envelope. He's feeling very optimistic that we might have won something. Right.

Sucker....

Just a quivering...

2004-10-19T13:30:00.000+01:00

When the sun starts to set around here, our mutt turns from a Dr. Jekyll to a Mr. Hyde in the closet kinda dog. He's become very paranoid about the fireworks, and has turned into a real boy scout; you know, be prepared. During the day, he has become the shadow I never had, and at night the mutt manages to do the vanishing act, usually in the bathroom.

Think he might be suffering from shell-shock.

What the...

2004-10-17T13:19:00.000+01:00

Twenty minutes to one this morning, we had our first round of fireworks go off a couple of doors down from us. The mutt went biserk! Thought he had been shot. Quivering behind a chair. Won't even begin to tell you how we felt. Needless to say, our hearts damn near stopped.

Ten minutes after one this morning, we had our second round of fireworks. By this time, the mutt was hiding in the bathtube. And nothing was going to bring him around. Krip jumped out of bed and screamed out the window...

"Quit setting off those fucking fireworks!!! If you don't knock it off, I'll call the police..."

Then Krip proceeded to race around the house, in his birthday suit I might add, looking for his cricket bat, fuming the whole time...saying such things as

"Someone's going to die tonight..."
"Where's the fucking phone. Where's my fucking bat..."

"Sweetheart, the cops aren't going to come to the house for a bunch of morons setting off fireworks..."
"And...you can't go out of the house dressed like that...with no clothes on!"

"I'm going to go outside and see where the fireworks are coming from.."

"Well, at least put your robe on for cryoutloud!"

So around 1:30 this morning Krip is standing on a chair, peering over the fence and eyeballing the house with said criminals who so rudely interrupted the whole neighborhood by setting off a round of fireworks.

No one came to our rescue. No lives were lost early this morning. And Krip's cricket bat is safely put away in the closet where it belongs...until the next time.

2004-10-16T10:08:00.000+01:00

One of funniest shows on tv here in the U.K, in my oh most humble opinion, is a "game show" called QI. It's on Friday night. I laughed so hard during it, that I wind up missing most of the dialogue and have to have Krip repeat what they say. It's hilarious! Last night they had Rich Hall as one of the four on the panel. He's an American from my neck of the woods. He was making a joke about his aunt, which he pronounced ant, the same way I pronounce aunt I might add. Of course that caused an eruption of laughter from the host and from the rest of the panel. I thought it was extremely funny when he rolled his eyes and pronounced aunt again like the English do. Funny, funny show.

Which brings me to this. Mr. Hall was funny. He was himself. And then we have watched other American entertainers on other shows, i.e. Richard Dryfus and Cybil Shepherd comes to mind. They come across as complete twats. What is it with some of the American actors. What a bunch of numbnuts. They think they are coming across as so suave, when in reality they look and act like complete idiots.

Oh well. On the flip-side, Rich Hall you were a joy to watch, you made my night.

Who's country is this anyway...

2004-10-14T14:36:00.000+01:00

Excuse me. But since when do the Brits or any other country have the right to manipulate our voting system? According to this article some British citizens seem to have forgotten that we won the Revolutionary War, and no longer belong to them; so therefore, they can't dictate whether we vote or not, and more importantly who we, Americans, want for our president.

I am so glad to see that the Brits have their house so orderly, that they now feel that they can decide what is best for their neighbor's.

P.S. If the lovely British Isles are so enamored by Mr. Kerry, why don't you just vote him in for your Prime Minister.

Footballs Prima Donnas

2004-10-14T13:50:00.000+01:00

I see the Welsh players were whingeing about not receiving the same amount of dosh as their English counterparts.

Excuse me. Sorry for sounding old fashioned, but surely any football player would crawl over broken glass for the opportunity to represent their country. Yet these overpaid underworked ego maniacs are demanding even MORE money for bashing a ball around a muddy field.

If it were up to me (and I suspect, the majority of genuine football supporters) I would pay them bugger all.

I would love the chance to visit all parts of the globe staying in the best hotels with every sycophant under the sun kow-towing to your every desire. And they want to get paid as well?

Strewwwwth!!

Too cool

2004-10-13T15:16:00.000+01:00

WooHoo..wouldn't this just be the ultimate rush?

JACKSON, N.J. -- This is an architectural artist's drawing of a proposed roller coaster to be opened this spring at Six Flags Great Adventure -- a thrill ride that accelerates to 128 mph in 3.5 seconds and rises 456 feet off the ground. (09/29/04 AP photo)

Boldly, in black and white...

2004-10-13T08:28:00.000+01:00

Mr. Steyn only put down on paper, boldly in black and white, what the mass majority of people really think, but won't say publicly because we are all afraid of sounding too harsh and cold-hearted. It's a great piece. And it's the truth. I suppose that's why it couldn't be printed on paper.

THE QUALITY OF MERSEY

Today, for the first time in all my years with the Telegraph Group, I had a column pulled. The editor expressed concerns about certain passages and we were unable to reach agreement, so on this Tuesday something else will be in my space.

I'd written about Kenneth Bigley, seized with two American colleagues but unlike them not beheaded immediately. Instead, sensing that they could exploit potential differences within the coalition of the willing, for three weeks the Islamists played a cat-and-mouse game with Mr Bigley's life, in which Fleet Street, the British public, governments in London and Dublin and Islamic lobby groups in the United Kingdom were far too willing to participate. As I always say, in this war the point is not whether you're sad about the dead people, but what you're prepared to do about it. What "Britain" - from Ken Bigley's brother to the Foreign Secretary - did was make it more likely that other infidels will meet his fate.

I suppose the Telegraph felt the column was a little heartless. Well, this is a war, and misplaced mawkishness will only lead to more deaths. In The Face Of The Tiger, I wrote as follows about the first anniversary of 9/11, when coverage was threatening to go the way of Princess Di and mounds of teddy bears:

Say it isn't so

2004-10-12T15:00:00.000+01:00

This article rather unnerves me. I hope that this is not how the majority of the Brits feel about us, Americans, living here in the U.K. I can't speak for others, but when I am asked 'what are you doing here?' I assume they are asking me why I want to live here. I politely tell them that I fell in love with a wonderful Englishman; and since this is his home; his job is here, his family is here, and his friends are here; I therefore, live here too. I am trying to adapt.

Do I get upset after reading articles in your newspapers? You bet I do. Do I get upset watching or listening to the different media? You bet I do. Mostly it's because I don't believe Brits get the same treatment on the otherside of the pond. Maybe I'm wrong. Yes, we are known to rag on about the Germans and/or French, but not the Brits. Oh, I'm sure that you get comments over your accents, how a cuppa tea fixes everything, and such. Hell, I still get it wrong when I am trying to decipher someone from Liverpool and someone from Scotland (mea culpa); however, my ear is becoming more and more in"tuned" with the different nuances/accents that flows around me. And I can honestly say that no one has ever taken me for anything but somewhere down South - sometimes it can't be pinpointed, but that's okay with me. Doesn't bother me. Just don't call me a Yankee as in from somewhere up North...not a Yank...that I get all the time.

However, the amount of loathing of these people in this article seemed to be is just shocking to me. I hope that I never come across such Brits - the anger, the hatred - I can almost taste it.
What's the old saying...With friends like these? Who needs enemies.

2004-10-12T10:31:00.000+01:00

I just finished a long post on my thoughts on the presidential campaign. I talked about what I thought about Monsieur Kerry and President Bush. How others felt about them. How the world perceives them.
Then I chucked it.

I talked about these articles from The American Thinker, and The American Spectator. The difference between "the cowboy President" who believes in bringing the fight to the terrorists with the armed forces, rather than the "smooth, suave, botox European" who believes there is no real threat or one that can't just be taken care of by the police and/or courts like they take care of organize crime. Then I chucked it.

I don't want to discuss the Bush bashers/haters. I don't want to discuss Saddam, the lack of WMD's, etc. For fucks'sake, why don't we just let him go. Give him his country back. Let the French, Russian, et al. go on taking money for bribes like they did for the U.N. Oil for Food. This way he will be able to build himself back up - albeit without his two darling sons. But hey...easy comes, easy goes.
So I chucked the whole thing.

Instead, I'm going to replace our summer clothes for our winter ones. Put away the sandals and my summer heels, and replace them with my boots. Put the shorts away, the filmy tops, my bikini, and replace them with sweaters, tights, and flannel shirts.

My opinions aren't worth diddly-squat. Neither are the pundits'. Neither are all others' out there bleating, yapping, and gnashing their teeth either for or against what's going on in this campaign.
Just chuck it all.

Winter is coming on quick. The presidential election is not coming quick enough.

Well, it happened....again

2004-10-09T13:25:00.000+01:00

We've had another translation mess up today. At least I didn't insert foot in mouth like I usually do. Need to give a little background information before I can get into the meat of the story.

I tend to have Krip go to the supermarket about every-other-week in order to cut down on the spending. I know that when he goes, as tight as he is, he'll get just what's on the list and that's it. Absolutely no imagination - if it's not on the list heaven forbid he might actually be in a thinking mode and pick up an item that we might be running out of (unless of course it's something that he might need - but that's another story) When we both go, I somehow get into there is going to be a major catastrophe at any moment kinda attitude, and much to Krip's chagrin buy too much.

However, today was an exception. I had written down "luncheon meat." For me, as an American, luncheon meat loosely means meat you eat between two slices of bread with perhaps added ingredients, primarily for lunch; i.e. ham, salami, turkey; anything that would go into a sandwich.

Well! Not for Krip. Luncheon meat = SPAM. So now we have a tin of SPAM on our shelf. The good news is though, if we should have a major catastrophe in this country,we will at least have our SPAM and baked beans available on hand to eat.

Or I guess, one morning we could go ahead and have a big fry-up of eggs, chips, baked beans (for Krip),and of course, SPAM.

I'm sorry, but not shocked

2004-10-08T14:36:00.000+01:00

If the news that is coming out is true then terrorists went ahead and executed Ken Bigley. I am sure that there are so many people who are shocked that he was killed, not even counting his family and friends. I'm not. I never believed that the terrorists would release him. What I did believe though, was that these terrorists obviously enjoyed playing their mind games with their captives and with the rest of the world. That's why they are called terrorists...they played with Mr. Bigley's family, his friends, his country and then they killed him.

Just like they killed his two American colleagues.

These people are not even worthy to be called animals. These things have made it their mission to strike terror in the hearts and minds of not only the people that they have captured, but everyone that is associated with their victims - family, friends, nations. They are heartless, savages in the truest sense of the word. They are terrorists. A bullet is too good for them. I wish that when each terrorist is captured that they would experience the same death as they doled out. I wish that the mothers, wives, daughters of their victims were able to get ahold of them and personally escort them to the netherworld.

I know, if wishes were horses...

2004-10-07T13:33:00.000+01:00

You know what? I want to whinge for a change!

Why do these outsource telemarketeers think that I should feel honored to be the one phone number out of a ca-gillion phone numbers in the whole wide world to win such-and-such.

Damn, it just pisses me off to run at a break-neck speed down the stairs to answer to some asshole claiming - in their broken pigeon English, I might add - that I have just won some dumb-ass prize and if I would just spend a few pence (cents) dialing them back at 0900 etc., that I can claim this wonderful prize.

As Krip would say...Bollocks!!

I'm not thrilled, overjoyed, excited, nor do I feel honored......just annoyed.

Who cares.....

2004-10-07T13:12:00.000+01:00

I wanted to write about the general apathy found in today’s society, but I couldn’t be arsed.

Lost in translation

2004-10-07T09:35:00.000+01:00

Doh!! I had to call the Royal Mail Post Office this morning, and no I didn't get any royality; however, I did get a very lovely woman on the other end of the phone. Anyway, I called up because we had gotten a "second notice" (the first one being written on a piece of junk mail) of a packet left in blue box with nothing else on it. So I'm thinkin', "Sidekick, what does this mean?" Just couldn't figure it all out.

So I bit the bullet and called the Royal Mail Post Office to ask why we got a second notice and what could a blue box possibly be. The lovely Royal lady was very nice, mystified, but nice. So she went to check if they had any packet with our name and address in any sort of blue box.

Well! Before she could return to me to tell me that no they don't have any packet in a blue box or any other color box with our name and address on it, I decided to look out our front door to where our recycle box, which dear readers, you've guessed it, just happens to be a blue box and lo and behold....there was a packet!!

The Royal Mail carrier had put the packet in the blue box outside our door. Been there for two days now.

Erm, I learned a new word...packet means package. And I also learned that our Royal Mail carrier likes to leave notes instead of ringing doorbells.

Sweet, doncha think?

My nut's bigger than your'n

2004-10-07T06:56:00.000+01:00

So you’ve hunted down your prospective victim. It’s been sitting in that churchyard all year round plumping up its fruit for this day and this day alone.

You arrive with your best chums. Equally snotty nosed and grubby. Scabby knees on stick insect legs hanging out of the obligatory short trousers like two pieces of string.

After a swift consultation, you go to work on the search for a suitable weapon. The favoured tool for the job was a stick. Roughly the size of your average urchin. It must have the aerodynamics of a brick, or just as handy was a brick itself, though being only little rascals this choice was suspect as it was less likely to reach its intended target.

A steady aim was taken and once happy, your mighty stick was hurled skyward. Slowly it would pirouette upwards only to miss that treasured booty and fall to the ground. Repeatedly you would lob that damn stick upward only to feel the disappointment of failure.

Showered with treelike debris you persevered until at last, success. The stick hits timber and down it comes, narrowly missing one of your mates, you pounce on this treasured orb. Frantically trying to prise open the kernel to gain access to one of nature’s wonders of the world. Spines are ignored in your haste to get to the inside.

Then you have it. Glistening in your grubby little paw like a prized marble, you stare at it in awe.

“ I reckon this could be a tenner” you mutter. “Nah” says one of the gang, “that’s easily a twentier after you’ve baked it a bit and soaked it in some vinegar”.

And so dear reader, we once more go unto battle in the school playground. Having nicked one of Dads boot laces, you pit your prize conker against all others.

WITHOUT THE USE OF FUCKING SAFETY GLASSES

What the...

2004-10-06T14:44:00.000+01:00

hell is going on? I'm looking at our blog and noticed "November 2004" for archives. Now, in my youth, there might - and I emphasize might - have been times when I partied for a night or two, and woke up not remembering where I had been, who I had been with, etc. However, in all my wildness, I have never skipped a whole month. So for a split second I was scratching my head, thinking, "damn, Sidekick, it's not November yet, is it??"

Uh, don't know how it happened, but somehow the date was changed on my last blog composition and so it read November 6, 2004 and not October 6, 2004.

Ghosts.

2004-10-06T13:21:00.000+01:00

What a beautiful day. A real taste of Autumn. I love this time of year.

Days like this make me very nostalgic of days gone by, such as...
I can remember visiting my grandparents and while there, going down to the vegetable stand to buy and eat sugarcane. Jumping and running through pile of leaves, much to my Dad's chagrin. Days like this bring back American football games and hearing my Dad and brothers whoopin' and hollarin' at the television when there is either a touchdown or someone drops the ball, homecoming parades, marching school bands, school dances, and quick kisses in the school hallway or under the bleacher. Getting Indian corn, dried corn husks, and pumpkins to use as ornaments on porches. Carving pumpkins into Jack-o-Lanterns, and drinking hot cider and eating powder donuts after trick-or-treating on Halloween night.

I love the almost frantic pace of the squirrels harvesting their stashes of nuts for the winter; not only the crunching of the leaves underfoot while walking in the wood, but the leaves swirling down from the trees by the gusts of wind.

I love the colors of the leaves on the ground; orange, yellow, brown; contrasted by the cornflower blue of the sky - a winter sky coming. It's getting to be a little nippy. Not cold, just nippy. I think that even though Autumn is the season where plant life tends to 'die/hibernate' to be reborn in the Spring, it is also the season that makes me feel, at least, the most alive.

Hopefully, we will have many more days like this before old man Winter decides to come a'visiting.

2004-10-05T15:51:00.000+01:00

Been thinking. What a wonderful age we live in. Computers, the internet, cell phones, etc.

I am able to sit here and listen to an American radio station while typing on the same computer in England - via the internet.

I am able to see my daughter, who lives in the States, everyday on a webcam - live.

I am able to read any/all news that I desire from my chair here - even my hometown newspaper.

I am able to call my daughter twice a day, whether I'm sitting in my garden here, Victoria Station in London, at a campsite in Wales, or a quick daytrip in France.

I can do all of this thanks to all those that people considered "nutters" for going that extra scientific mile to bring this information age to us.

2004-10-05T14:55:00.000+01:00

Well, well, well. I managed to do two loads of wash and defeated the rain gods! Damn, if I don't feel just sooo righteous.

Took the mutt out for a walk today, and literally ran into an 18 month old right ditzy bull terrier. After she bugged him for around a quarter mile; he relented and well, I've never seen our mutt play with another dog. Guess he fancied that little girl.

He lasted about five minutes.
Then he growled at her as if to tell her he'd had enough already.

Cranky old bachelor of a dog.

2004-10-05T08:56:00.000+01:00

Sun's out. Blue sky. Just a little cloudy. So..

It's probably gonna rain today.
An outright deluge.
Flooding, hurricane winds, a real soaking.

There you go.
I've done it.
Hung the wash out.
Two loads.

'Nuff said.

"PC" Gone mad

2004-10-04T19:55:00.000+01:00

"Safety glasses to be worn whilst playing conkers?"

WTF

AAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Military Rejects Kerry by Staggering Margin

2004-10-04T09:04:00.000+01:00

According to NewsMax
"By a staggering margin of 4 to 1, U.S. military personnel have rejected the presidential candidacy of Sen. John Kerry, a new survey by Army Times magazine shows.
With 4,000 full-time and part-time troops responding, a full 73 percent said they would vote for President Bush if the election were held today, reports USA Today, a sister publication of Army Times.

Just 18 percent said they would vote for Kerry, who has based his candidacy on the four months he spent as a Swift Boat commander in Vietnam 35 years ago.
Two-thirds of those responding said John Kerry's anti-war activities after he returned from the war, when he teamed up with "Hanoi Jane" Fonda and trashed his fellow soldiers as "war criminals" and "monsters," made them less likely to vote for him."

Ah,huh..looks like a repeat of 1992-2000 when there was that other guy in office. He garnered a mass exodus towards the "I quit door." Maybe once our troops choose civilian lives over serving in our military because they can't stomach serving under a man who trashed them and has no respect for what they do, Kerry can reach out to all those friends and allies that he keeps boasting about and use their armies.

Troops in Iraq are angry with media coverage

2004-10-04T08:51:00.000+01:00

According to NewsMax
"U.S. soldiers in Iraq are growing increasingly angry over distorted coverage of their mission in Western press accounts, a New Jersey congressman who recently traveled to Baghdad said Saturday."
Talk about an agenda for failure.
Interesting read.

2004-09-30T09:38:00.000+01:00

It's raining and I have two loads of wash out on the line.
Figures...sigh.

Knew meaning for plumping

2004-09-30T07:57:00.000+01:00

Man-shaped pillow for solo sleeper
By Kaori Hitomi in Nagareyama, Japan

AFTER a long night at work as a radio DJ, Junko Suzuki likes to snuggle at bedtime - and she says she's found the perfect partner: a man-shaped pillow.

Linen maker Kameo Corp.'s new "Boyfriend's Arm Pillow" - which consists of a headless torso and a stuffed arm that curls around the sleeper - might make some people uneasy.

But not Ms Suzuki, or about 1000 others in Japan who have bought the pillow, which Kameo says is the first of its kind. The product went on the market last December.
more...

Tiger Woods eat your heart out

2004-09-30T07:10:00.000+01:00

Have you ever had one of those days when everything seems to click into place?

Yesterday was not one of those days, until around four in the afternoon I started my bi-weekly round of golf with my two regular chums.

I played, as a man possessed.

For your information, I normally play off a handicap of 21. Which is never going to get the sports reporters rushing along to see me play. Twice a week I meander around the countryside bashing this little white ball from tree to tree and on a good day I will shoot in the low nineties.

My golf is played more for the craic with me mates than seriously thinking of getting under ninety. The banter flies from fairway to green and some of the comments would never be found on Nick Faldos training video.

Yesterday evening I shot a 78. Yes, 78. Thirteen shots under my handicap and the strange thing about it, is that I did not approach my game any differently than I normally would, but as I said at the beginning. Everything clicked.

I chipped in for a birdie at the sixth and holed another at the ninth. Two birdies in one round. Unheard of.

After totting up my score amid cries of “You fucking bandit”, I immediately rushed off to buy a couple of lottery tickets.

Well why not? When your lucks running……..

I have not checked them yet.

2004-09-29T13:31:00.000+01:00

Just got back from walking the mutt in our nearby wood. I believe that walk was the fastest one mile walk I have encountered in a long time. My legs were dragging my sorry ass so fast, I think I overtook the speed of light. Damn, there were a lot of squirrels in the wood. What? Was there some sort of squirrel convention going on or something? Because it seemed like that there was every single squirrel from England represented, as well as their relatives from the rest of the UK - maybe it was a family reunion. And if they weren't noisy! All that chattering, sounded like a bunch of monkeys. It kept the mutt busy, he was in such a quandry, didn't even know which way was up - there were so many.
Hope next year, the squirrels decide to take their convention/reunion to someone else's wood. I'm still tuckered out.
And as for the mutt? Well, he's snoozing.

"With friends like these...."

2004-09-29T08:00:00.000+01:00

According to Kerry, he would never have sent Americans to war in Iraq to topple Saddam without asking assistance from our allies. [Never mind, that we aren't in this alone. We have the UK and Australia, as well as 28 other countries with us.] When Kerry says allies, he means his two favorite countries in the whole wide world - France and Germany. Well, here's the first half and the last half of the article, which should be a little wake-up call for all those that think Kerry is in the know:

The French disconnection
Despite John Kerry's efforts to ingratiate himself with French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Paris and Berlin avail themselves of every opportunity to disabuse the Massachusetts Democrat of his No. 1 foreign policy fantasy: that, if he is elected president, they will significantly increase their assistance to Iraq and enable the United States to reduce its presence there.
Last week, Mr. Kerry declared that the United States "must make Iraq the world's responsibility" and "I will lead our allies to share the burden." Mr. Schroeder promptly punctured Mr. Kerry's balloon: "We won't send any German soldiers to Iraq, and that's where it's going to remain." French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said his government had no plans to send troops "either now or later." .....

In the end, Mr. Kerry is left with this: He says he wants to start pulling American troops out of Iraq by next summer, with a goal of withdrawing all of them by the end of his first term. His European "friends" have essentially told him to go jump in a lake, making it clear that they have no intention of doing anything to help him. The reasons for this are not terribly difficult to understand. Under M. Chirac, France forged an intricate web of political, economic and military ties with Saddam; it remains angry and embittered by his demise. As for Mr. Schroeder, he would not have been re-elected two years ago if he had not run a demagogic anti-Bush campaign focusing on Iraq. Mr. Kerry's fantasies aside, no matter who is elected president, don't look for substantial help from Europe.

Kerry, Kerry, Kerry...I hate to burst your bubble, but these countries don't love you, you've been duped. Here again, Kerry, as you are a great man only in your own mind...these countries are great only in your own mind. The rest of the world knows exactly where France and Germany stands.
And it's not with you!

Mini Mars bars?

2004-09-27T18:50:00.000+01:00

Latest ludicrous announcement from the nanny police.

"We advise all major confectionery manufacturers to ban the selling of large assorted chocolate bars"

Apparently, this will encourage the 'yoof' of today to eat less sugary (yummy) crap and remain thin and nubile.

What another load of bollox.

I suppose the next step will be rationing our sweetie intake. Anyone seen scoffing more than one Marathon (sorry, I refuse to bow down to the 'snickers' eaters) at any one time will have their arms ripped off and beaten about the head with the soggy end.

Stop the world, I want to get off.

P.S. Hooray for Nestle. They've given them the finger.

A home run...

2004-09-25T16:39:00.000+01:00

Hot Damn! if Mark Stein doesn't nail John Freaking Kerry in this commentary. It's so worth a read. Here's some exerts:

.....[Kerry] barged his way onto the air to insist that he knew better than Iraq's head of government what was going on in the country. One question from his accompanying press corps was especially choice:

''Prime Minister Allawi told Congress today that democracy was taking hold in Iraq and that the terrorists there were on the defensive. Is he living in the same fantasyland as the president?''

...Just for the record, Allawi is not living in a fantasyland. He's living in Iraq, and he begins his day with a dangerous commute across Baghdad's ''Green Zone.'' John Kerry's regular commute, by contrast, is from his wife's beach compound at Nantucket to his wife's 15th century English barn reconstructed as a ski lodge in Idaho. Nonetheless, he's the expert on Iraq and the guy living there 24/7 is the fantasist, and he's happy to assure us the prime minister doesn't know what he's talking about. It's all going to hell, forget about those January elections, etc.

...What a small, graceless man Kerry is. The nature of adversarial politics in a democratic society makes George W. Bush his opponent. But it was entirely Kerry's choice to expand the field, to put himself on the other side of Allawi and the Iraqi people. Given his frequent boasts that he knows how to reach out to America's allies, it's remarkable how often he feels the need to insult them: Britain, Australia, and now free Iraq. But, because this pampered cipher has floundered for 18 months to find any rationale for his candidacy other than his indestructible belief in his own indispensability, Kerry finds himself a month before the election with no platform to run on other than American defeat. He has decided to co-opt the jihadist death-cult, the Baathist dead-enders, the suicide bombers and other misfits and run as the candidate of American failure. This would be shameful if he weren't so laughably inept at it.

I tell you, Kerry will make a great president...in his own mind. With all the homes that this man and that wife of his owns, their most frequently used one is definitely in the State of Fantasy.

2004-09-24T13:18:00.000+01:00

I listened to Prime Minister Ayrad Allawi speak twice yesterday. Once in front of our two houses of Congress, and then the second time in the Rose Garden with President Bush before the media. Both times, I was struck with the eloquence and dignity that this man put forth. All that has transpired for him and the people of Iraq showed in the determination of this man to help create a better country for present and future Iraqis.

Then I listened to Kerry. No not from his seat in Congress, he nor his running mate could manage to be there to listen to the speech. No, he was somewhere else, somewhere on his campaign trail. Don't think he was even in the same time-zone as the rest of the world. At least his speech reflected that to me. From afar, the man who wants to be president of my country showed his true colors, at least the colors that he is flying today; as we all have come to realize, tomorrow is another day. Yesterday, I heard him call the prime minister a liar.

A liar.

We are getting ready to have four debates; three presidential and one vice-presidential. What I wish we could have had would have been a debate between this man, Kerry, and Prime Minister Allawi. I would have loved to see Kerry call the prime minister a liar to his face.

That would be one helluva debate. Then we could find out who is really the liar.

2004-09-24T11:58:00.000+01:00

Went riding yesterday evening.
The ride was wonderful.
The sunset was beautiful.
All is well.

explosions and titties

2004-09-23T14:48:00.000+01:00

Elton John Explodes in Taiwan...now that would be a sight to see. Be kinda messy though, doncha think?

I'm sorry, but I don't think anyone's boob is worth that much. Real or unreal.
So who's the real boob in all this?

Knock out

2004-09-23T13:49:00.000+01:00

So, I'm on my way out the door to take the mutt for his daily walk, and the phone rings. Thinking it might just be my darling krip because if you read below, he's really bored to tears and maybe he is calling me to whisper sweet nuthin's in my ear, I race back in tripping over the leash, the mutt attached to it, and the rug. Instead this was my conversation:

me: "Hello?"
outsourcer: "Is this Mr.krip?"
me: "Uh, no..." (for f*cksake, man do I sound like a Mr. anything?)

outsourcer: "I need to speak to Mr.krip!"
me: "He's at work...may I ask who's calling?" (politely, but starting to lose it)

outsourcer: "He's won such and such..." (don't have a clue what he said)

outsourcer: "Does he have a mobile phone?"
me: "Yes" (thinking who is this asshole?)

outsourcer: "Does he have 'pay as you go' or a contract?"
me: "Pay as you go..."
outsourcer: "Tell me how much does he pay..."
me: "No

Click.

People who know me will tell you, don't even tell me what to do; especially some foreigner in some third world country!
This is when I wish we had video phones, then I could have showed him exactly where I wanted him to stick his outsourcing material.

Jerk.

2004-09-23T13:15:00.000+01:00

I think our schizoid doorbell bit the dust. When I got back from taking the mutt out, I found it and it's inners laying on it's back on the ground.

Musta heard us talking about it. Didn't think it would go out and commit suicide, damn.

Oh well, easy come, easy go.

"I don't care who the hell you are, pal...."

2004-09-23T11:45:00.000+01:00

I tend to tune into Fox News Network for most of the day. It's a way for me to be able to get news from back home, as well as abroad, from an American slant. One of the people I really enjoy is Neil Cavuto.
He had a great commentary at the end of his show yesterday. It's all about a particular individual currently ensconced at the United Nations. I was going to just put a teaser out there, but it's worth the whole sha-bang.

U.N.believable

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

By Neil Cavuto

Is it me, or are these United Nations (search) guys just asking for it?

I wasn't too far from the U.N. Tuesday night for an event I had to attend. Some of the streets nearby were closed off and one visibly ticked off U.N. delegate proceeded to tell a policeman, "You don't realize who I am. I must get through."

The policeman responded, "I don't care who the hell you are, pal. No vehicles allowed."

The delegate persisted, as a line was developing.

"Get these people out of my way. I'm very late," he bellowed. By now he was creating a scene.

The officer asked for ID if he wanted to be allowed to drive through. Otherwise he'd have to walk like the rest of us mere mortals.

He was insulted and demanded his driver flash his parking pass.

"Not good enough," the officer said.

Apparently security was extra tight. The president was staying at the Waldorf Astoria, again not too far away.

By now, this knucklehead was apoplectic. He stormed out the car and practically barreled into me. Now mind you, he was about my size, so I'm thinking the walk would do us both good. But he was fuming: Shouting at his assistant something about being very late for a dinner and demanding this assistant — I kid you not — "Remove these people from my way."

So the assistant — all of 80 pounds, the approximate size of my arm — gamely tries to clear a path with all the force of Tinkerbell at a World Wrestling event. I didn't know whether to hit the guy or swat him.

No one moved. No one cared. Most laughed and we all continued on our way. But it got me thinking: My tax dollars are supporting this clown?

Never mind these guys don't have to pay parking tickets. They could practically get away with murder and not be penalized. And they have the nerve to complain about the very security meant to protect these boneheads?

Me? Well, I have to admit, I walked extra slow and made it extra hard for this guy to pass.

Yes, I was the ugly American. But Tuesday night, I was enjoying every minute of it.

Bored

2004-09-23T11:27:00.000+01:00

I am soooooo bored.
Sitting at my bench waiting for a job.
Work within the avionics industry is at an all time low.
Rumours abide.
No major contracts coming through.
My thumbs are over twiddled.
Can’t pull me hair out (it’s too short).
An hour until me dinner.
I’m feeling a bit doom and gloom today.
It will pass.

It's a ding-a-ling

2004-09-23T08:53:00.000+01:00

Our doorbell is schizoid.
It rings when no one is there and doesn't when someone is.
Evidently, it likes to answer CB'ers. You know the "Breaker, Breaker this here is Big John, I'se just cumin' up to I-20, and there's these five smokies gathered 'round just a jawin', so I reckon' it's head's up!" kind of CB'ers.
So the first ten or so times, I would go flying down the stairs with the mutt on my heels, damn near broke my neck one time tripping over the stupid dog; however, I digress, the mutt just barking away and getting himself in a right little tither, only to open the door and no one there. No one, nuthin' .
Just space, wide open space. Damn.

Then poor Krip, taking the mutt for a walk (uh that's another story) locks himself out of the house, and decides to use the doorbell; after all , that's what it's there for, right?
He presses the button.
Nuthin' happens.
He presses again.
Nuthin' happens, again.
After about four times, he is really getting ticked at me....at me!, muttering under his breathe, "where the f*ck can that woman be?"
Because the key to this is that Krip didn't realize that the doorbell was not working and that meant that I couldn't hear the bell.
Naturally, it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the doorbell didn't work and Krip finally knocked properly, and of course I, his lovely wife, opened it gracefully.

This was about a month or so ago.
Still answering the CB'ers, not answering humans.
Schizoid.

Hallelujah

2004-09-22T15:59:00.000+01:00

We beat the yanks AND the aussies in one week.
There is a god.

Ashamed to be British

2004-09-22T13:08:00.000+01:00

Why does this country always treat its servicemen like shit?
I see that those brave little men from Nepal are protesting about this government’s refusal to allow long serving Gurkhas to apply for British citizenship.
These men have for years been laying down their lives in the defence of this nation and the democracy it upholds.
Only recently they were influential in the defeat of the Argentineans on the Falkland Islands and are rightly held in great respect within the British Army.
One man has served and lived in this country for seventeen years. His wife also lives here and they have a son attending a local school. It seems that on the conclusion of his service to Her Majesty, they will have to return to Nepal and live on an army pension much smaller than your average retiring squaddie.
His son was born and raised as a ‘Brit’ and would have to accompany his parents back to Nepal. A country totally alien to him.
There is a famous quotation I can’t recall at the moment, but it basically portrays our servicemen as heroes in times of conflict, but once that is over, they are an embarrassment to be quickly forgotten about.
It’s at times like these I am ashamed to be British.

The Invisible Man

2004-09-22T11:09:00.000+01:00

It was only when I had quaffed my first pint up the pub last night, that I realised that I indeed was The Invisible Man.
No, not the 'slightly opaque man', nor the 'could barely see me man'. I was the actual article. "How did you discover that" I hear you asking yourselves? It was quite simple really. The two barmaids and the landlord were chatting away amongst themselves not ten yards away from me, when I proceeded to catch their attention for the filling up of my pint pot with a (hopefully) lovely frothing glass of Courage Best.
One of these bastions of Britsh pub society glanced my way, so I gave her the old raised eyebrows closely followed by a slight raising of my glass. Standard procedure I thought. Shock, horror. I was promptly ignored. I reverted to plan B. "This never fails", I confidently told myself. Carefully selecting a crisp new ( it was still wet...) fiver from my humble wallet, I casually waved it in the general direction of the barmaids.
GASP. I was ignored AGAIN. Then and only then did it dawn on me that I was invisible. There could be no other explanation. Only a desperate cry of "OI", provided me with the beer I by now craved.
So next time dear reader that you are in the pub and you feel a prescence by your shoulder. Take heart, it's only me gagging for another beer.

2004-09-22T08:00:00.000+01:00

I am so excited! I bid on a cast iron frying pan over at e-bay and won. It's going to be shipped over airmail from the States today, and I should get it next week. I have been trying to find something to fry up chicken in since I have been here. This little beauty is 3" inches deep, and probably weighs in at least ten pounds. Now that's a cast iron pan. Moreover, it's most likely, if not an antique, at least 75 years old; well-used and seasoned.
I can't wait to fix Krip some real southern fried chicken, not the stuff that KFC dishes out.

2004-09-21T16:52:00.000+01:00

Why are smoke alarms sooooo bloody sensitive?
You can always tell when the sausages are cooking, by the perpetual shrilling of the £9.99 lump of plastic hanging off our ceiling.
With the sidekick being somewhat physically challenged, it's always left for moi to perch precariously on the sofa attempting to unscrew said alarm to de-activate it.
And not a wisp of smoke to be seen.

2004-09-21T16:03:00.000+01:00

A bad day at work
A thumping headache
And some arsehole has parked in MY parking slot in front of MY house just slighlty obscuring a sign with the words "NO PARKING".
I want to trash this white van.
Is this rational behaviour? I ask myself.
'You bet it is'. Now where's that sledgehammer?

Giddy-up

2004-09-21T11:15:00.000+01:00

The mother of one of Krip's mates at work has two horses, and she wants me to come riding with her on Mondays and Thursdays in order to help exercise her horses. It was great to be able to groom, saddle up, and ride again. It's been over a year since I have been able to. The horse I will be exercising is a really nice gelding named Leo. Although, he's not mine, it's the next best thing. I am definitely looking forward to Mondays and Thursdays.
WooHoo!

These flip flops are made for walking

2004-09-21T11:09:00.000+01:00

Tickle me blue

2004-09-20T13:18:00.000+01:00

Little Boy Blue quit blowing your horn,
Your party is in a dither,
Your rhetoric is tired and torn.
Well, you get the drift.

Thanks so much to The News Forum Home Page for this lovely picture of our contender.
Giggle.

Madam, your petticoat is a bit tatty

2004-09-20T09:49:00.000+01:00

Yesterday we decided to catch the train to London and visit a site that has been an institution since well before Queen Victoria, Petticoat Lane. Although, we weren't really sure what to expect from this street market, we did find it somewhat a disappointment. On the downside, the market was very crowded; all the stalls carried basically the same items, ie. the linen stalls, the clothing stalls, the shoe stall, etc.; and 95% of the stalls were catered by and for Asians (Middle Easterns for my American readers). On the upside, if you can handle the crowds, it's not a bad place to get souvenir t-shirts; and the food did look and smell inviting, so you can virtually eat your way through the whole market street(s).

I think next time, we will venture out and visit London's antique markets, starting on Portobello Road.

One year anniversary

2004-09-20T09:42:00.000+01:00

I arrived in England one year ago. It's been quite a roller coaster ride. And I'm glad I decided to take that ride.

Ultimate wake-up call

2004-09-18T09:51:00.000+01:00

This is where fact can be stranger than fiction!

Google Lite

2004-09-17T10:17:00.000+01:00

Well, I went on Google, and I can barely contain my excitement! It only took me umpteen minutes to get to page 95 - or 941 out of 682,000 hits - on squirrels to find our humble blog. It was hidden between The Terrorists: SQUIRRELS Protest Golf... and Edinburgh Evening News - Top Stories - Botanics: squirrels are nut...
I think we may have a long-ass way to go...sigh

Worth-less

2004-09-17T08:50:00.000+01:00

Wow! UK women carry that much in their purses?
Let me see what I'm worth, or at least what my purse is worth:
-no cell phone = £0
-don't carry my perfume bottle, too big = £0
-in my wallet, about one bill and one debit card for a bank back in USA = £20
-no house keys/car keys, because we have one car and I don't drive = £0
£0 + 0 + 20 + 0 = 20 whole pounds + change, I might add.
So when I'm out and around, I will make sure I say something out loud, so that any mugger lurking about will go after an English "rose", who has approximately £1K in their purses, and not a little old American "wildflower" with only about £20 worth of stuff.
I wouldn't want the mugger to be disappointed you see.

Ebay Euphoria

2004-09-15T17:03:00.000+01:00

Today I ventured into the world of online auctions.
You are reading one happy camper.
Yesterday I lost out to another bidder for an item I really wanted. Eventually, my rival forked out £157 for said article.
Today, I bid for the same item again (there are four of these ongoing at the moment) and won it.
Here's the good bit. I only paid £117 for it. Boy, I bet the previous buyer is well pissed off.
Waiting those last few minutes crouching over the keyboard just waiting to put in a lightning last second bid certainly gets the adrenalin flowing.
Someone did try to outbid me with sixty seconds to go, but it was below my maximum so didn't register.
And then the sign 'Congratulations, you are the winner' flagged up. I was the proud owner of a top of the range Metal Detector which normally retails at $595.
What a rush. It sure beats trudging around the shops.
Can't wait for it to arrive so that the sidekick and I can go and find our fortune.

Oops

2004-09-15T11:20:00.000+01:00

fanny (noun)

1: the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on; "he deserves a good kick in the butt"; "are you going to sit on your fanny and do nothing?" [syn: buttocks, nates, arse, butt, backside, bum, buns, can, fundament, hindquarters, hind end, keister, posterior, prat, rear, rear end, rump, stern, seat, tail, tail end, tooshie, tush, bottom, behind, derriere, ass]
2: external female sex organs; "in England `fanny' is vulgar slang for female genitals" [syn: female genitalia, female genitals, female genital organ]

Well, the other night at the pub, I certainly learned the hard way that the word fanny definitely means one thing for me and another for Krip, his mates, and everyone else within hearing range.
Innocently, I might add, I happened to comment, "...these stools are hard to sit on. They sure hurt my fanny..."
Well! Damn! At first I thought these people must not get out much if they thought that that comment was the least bit witty. After a lot of gagging, beer spewing, whooping, and eyes bugging out; Krip finally explained that in England, fanny did NOT mean what I thought it meant.
Guess it gives totally new meaning to..."park your fanny right here girl..."
You don't even want to know what I thought a "spotted dick" was.

Most contradictory term

2004-09-14T15:31:00.000+01:00

The USA cricket team....

Nuff said.

Swanky!

2004-09-14T15:04:00.000+01:00

I'd say this gentleman is dressed rather spiffy for blogging.

My Sore Plates......

2004-09-13T15:42:00.000+01:00

If you read the last post, you'll know that the sidekick, mutt and I went on a stroll in the Kent countryside.
After parking the car behind The Chequers pub in the village of Lamberhurst, we saddled up and mosied on out. Once across the golf course, we were confronted with the upheaval caused by the construction of the A21 Lamberhurst by-pass.
Another scar slashed across the Garden of England to placate the gas guzzling vehicles we all rely on to get us from A to B that much quicker. We won't need roads in Kent soon,'cos the whole county will be concreted over.
I often wonder what the world would be like without the internal combustion engine? One thing's for sure, it'll be a much quieter and cleaner environment to live in.
I digress.
Because of the aforesaid intrusion, several of the Public Rights of Way had been closed and diverted around all the construction.
Were they all easily signposted? Were they fuck. We spent the next thirty minutes meandering aimlessly backwards and forwards till we eventually picked up our route once more. Must have added at least a mile to the walk.
Much of this journey took us through several hop fields for which Kent used to be famous. At one time the county used to supply the majority of all hops to the brewing industry. Alas, this is now on the decline, as more and more farmers are grubbing them out and changing to more profitable crops. Much of the beer we drink today is brewed with imported hops. Sacrilege, I think. I blame joining the EU, but then again I blame everything that goes tits up on the EU.
You may just have got the hint that I am not a European.
On reaching the top of a particularly steep hill to the village of Goudhurst, we turned around and were confronted with a glorious vista of the countryside below us. Hop fields and oasthouses et al.
That hill really knackered us, so we stopped by the village duckpond for some light refreshment. The mutt decided to have a paddle in said pond, which didn't amuse the ducks much and then it proceeded to piss down.
That patronising, condescending weather girl (Sian something or other) never mentioned the wet stuff. Being slightly stupid, I believed her and left the waterproofs at home. Needless to say, we got a little damp. No sorry, we were fucking soaked. The mutt thought it was great. The wetter the better.
English weather being what it is, we soon dried out and continued on our merry way.
We entered this farm land and experienced a sight I've never seen before. Hundreds of pheasants all over the damn place. Everywhere you turned, a pheasant appeared. The mutt was going apeshit. He didn't know which way to turn. We've obviously stumbled across a nursery where the birds were being bred for the local shoot. A senseless pastime if you ask me. How anyone can get pleasure from blasting a bird to bits, I don't know.
Thankfully, a lot of the return route involved going downhill and when we eventually returned to the car park, the bloody mutt was STILL pulling as though his life depended on getting wherever we were going quicker than us. He's nearly seven and still thinks he's a puppy. I attribute this behaviour to the distinct lack of brain cells in his nut.
Once back in the car though, we hardly got a peep out of him.
So, nine or so miles later we were pleasantly tired but suitably content with a lovely day out which was appreciated by all and sundry.
Back to work today for a damn good rest.

A walking we will go

2004-09-13T11:25:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, we decided to go on an eight mile walk. Okay, so it turned out to be a 9.162 mile walk. But what's a walk without a few miss-steps? In my former life, you would never have gotten me to go on any sort of walk. Now, I definitely look forward to Sundays and outings with nature and my man. I find it truly amazing that we can get off a motorway, and find ourselves in places that no human can be seen for, if not miles, surely acres and acres.
We came across pastures where a nice shag could easily be contemplated, if there wasn't so much sheep, horse, cow, fox, and/or rabbit dung every few inches. We came across sheep that ran ahead of us, followed us, and finally looked on with expressions that suggested stay - please stay! We walked among horses yesterday, and because I generously shared my mints with them, felt like I was in the middle of a third world city with children begging for more. They followed us all the way to the fence, much to the chagrin of the mutt, nudging us on the shoulder for more.
We saw pheasants, boy did we see pheasants; much to the delight of the mutt. I think my right arm might be a couple of inches longer than my left this morning from being dragged everyway but loose with the mutt.
We had "weather not climate" on our outing; experiencing sun, wind, and rain throughout our walk.
We had just a...glorious day!
Can't wait until next week.

Doh!

2004-09-13T10:40:00.000+01:00

There once was a woman who, while hunting for firewood, came upon a snake...
I think just about everyone has heard that story about how a stupid woman took a snake in and lovingly cared for it, only later to be bitten by said snake. As she lay dying she just manages to exclaim, "How could you do this to me snake? I fed you, kept you warm, took care of you..." And the snake replying, "You stupid woman, you knew I was a snake."
I guess this woman never heard the story.
Stupid woman.