Cakecakecakettycake!

Finally, I am a NeoMillionaire! Still a long way to go before I reach the best bank account, but then I am enjoying spending some of my hard earned neopoints! I've only been playing this game for the last seven and a half years... Selling off some of those codestones helped.

I seem to have developed a rather nice recipe for lemon cake. I'd give you the recipe, but it doesn't have one. I take a big glass pyrex dish, marg it up. Throw about a mug and a half of selfraising in a bowl, three eggs, a splash of milk, some lemon zest, about half a mug of marg and equivalent of sugar in, and mix. Splat some lemon curd in margy dish, throw in mix. Bung dish in microwave, give it about 10 mins or so, and mix some lemon juice, water, syrup and cornflour in a hot pan until it turns slightly jellyish. "I loved your cake. I like cake!" Pretty much the best review one could want. Hurray! We also tried a syrup version, and I intend to do a raspberry one next year. Thanks to Himself for the raspberry tree sketch.

Film: Mirrors. Quote: "ding ding ding ding ding" I liked it, especially the first boo. I can't believe everyone else fell for the second boo. You all should be embarrassed - I laugh at you.

HouseBunny: Sadly, not as funny as some previous Happy Madison films, and draws the attention of large groups of noisy, rustly women. "Better than I expected, quite humorous. Wasn't quite the normal thing I'd go and see." Well, it was a girly film. A case of, rather than stick it in the fruity, gamble your money on the film. It might be worth it, or alternatively, you've just lost a couple of quid.

Dragon Update: Tsammy Dragon is 18.5" long now, and loves his baths. I did him a fresh, slightly warm bath and he threw himself in. Sloshed water everywhere, scooching about with his head underwater, happily blinking and coming up to blow bubbles. Kuleana is her usual demure self, lounging comfortably in the soft dig of sand she's made in her tunnel, quietly observing the world. She can be tempted out with morios, but if she's in a real sulk, all a morio will do is tempt out a nose and a long sticky tongue... BLAT!

His "word" of the week: "Ucluxium - the stalky bit that snaps off a leaf." Disclaimer: NOT a real word. Yet.

Quote of the Day: "summon the seven dragons of reggae" - scientology quote from an IAB clip.

Un-civil thinking from a civil servant...

I'm technically a civil servant now! My company is heavily owned by the gvt, and we hit an all time low of 50p per share. Just to think, it was at 189p just before I left for holidays. I don't know, I take a week's holiday to do nothing, and the whole industry falls apart without me! My nan says "Serves you right for taking holidays!" Never mind, a nut doughnut is enough to make it better for me! (Image not actually my building, but a very cool building in London nearby my company HQ. They do the world window cleaning championships at this site by the way!)

I had to laugh when I went to visit my local petstore; I stopped to look at the adverts in the window, the usual puppies, kittens, small furry animals, when I noticed there was one proclaiming the merits of a rabbit. An Anne Summers rabbit! Another personal favourite when it comes to local shop signs has to be at the "Real China", a big Chinese style buffet house, with a slightly modified sign outside reading: "We Hop To See You!"

Word of the week: Gratisfaction. Self explanatory.

I also have an impressive collection of 59 codestones now!


Quote of the Day: "Oh, this looks quite good. Oh, that was quite good. Length of review directionally proportional to game." His Review of Jericho the Game.

(Non-) Working Week.

Sods law for you, I get a weeks worth of holiday to relax and do little to nothing, and I get His cold. Oh well. I'm just glad not to be at work this week - the financial sector are in a bit of a flap. D'ya think this will be the "recession age"? I mean, we've had "Roaring Twenties, Turbulent Thirties, Swinging Forties, Nifty Fifties, Swinging Sixties, Super Seventies, Big Eighties, the Decade of Decadence"... Is this the "Niggling Noughties"?
M'fishies have got a nice new tank layout - someone was getting rid of some tunnels for hamsters, so I bagsied them. The fish have now got a funky, brightly coloured pair of joined, slopy tubes and bends to swish around, sit on and sleep in. Erwin thinks they're great and has being going round and round and round as is his wont. He likes going in circles! Snekeh has a shiny new heatbulb (which I promptly burnt myself on "psssssht!") and is sleeping under her waterbowl. The dragons are just getting bigger.

Films:
Taken: "About as scary as hiccups" sums it up nicely in His Lordship's words. Everybody was raving about it, I didn't think much to it. A bit too James-Bondey for me. Don't get me wrong, I like 007, but this was a bit... meh. An action flick with a predictable outcome. I liked the outfits in the sales scene though.

Righteous Kill: Al Pacino and Whatsisname - very good. It was a good laugh, a little predictable, but a worthy watcher. Considering it was free, it was nice for a bit of escapism, however His Lordship sums it up well: "It was... highly forgettable really. The kind of movie that I've watched, forgotten and not going to start raving to Joe Bloggs down the pub - it's just not worth the effort. It was a well directed, well acted peice of movistry, just something to watch."

Death Race: WooYEAH, NOW you're talking. Crammed full of special effects and enough C4 to knock me sideways (visually speaking) this was a proper treat. I was expecting something a bit cheesy, a bit 1980s, but this stomps all over such expectations and leaves you breathless. Please, please don't try to compare it to the original movie "Death Race 2000" - it's nothing as poor, nothing as tame. I was suitably marvelled and gobsmacked. Kudos. "Although there were more boobies in Death Race 2000. Just a statement of fact in comparison of the two." HL.

I have however prepared some of my Christmas presents and have started to design some cards; yes folks, this year you're getting home made ones! Talking of Christmas, I also started shopping for presents - so family, email me and let me know what you/who wants. I have a nice stack of things, but nowhere near finished. That includes you Mum! Whilst shopping, I did have a nice surprise however; I nipped into a charity shop to look for books and discovered a brooch identical to the one I already own. Bearing in mind I bought mine at an antiques store a year ago in Bath for £4, I thought it quite extraordinary to find the exact same design for the same price!

Linkage: Remember the freezer-soup incident a few weeks back? Here's some folk trying something similar for science: http://www.gloriousstench.blogspot.com/ Also, see the original: http://www.stinkymeat.net/

Quote of the week: "Tkk nnnnhh" - some politician failing repeatedly on the News. Well said, sir!

At the Aquarium!

We got a reputed five years worth of good luck today, as returning on the boat, we waved up at the London Bridge and people waved back. (He and I were the only ones to try, so we get luck! Woot!) I did think the bridge sign was just a little obvious all considering, but then I suppose if you're not paying much attention to your surroundings or you're a disaster at directions like me, it could be handy. He thought the tour was quite cool, and came up with a lot of good facts. He does say: "London Bridge. Well, the sign's just a statement really. Why else would you need two bricks that tell you what it is? London. Almost a shame you have to spend money to actually get there."

The Aquarium has a lot of weird and wonderful animals to show, His Lordship discovered Indian Leaf fish and miniature bumblebee shrimp, jellyfish tumbler tanks and adored the rays as usual. I loved the big river tanks, complete with Stone Loaches (one of the Dojo family line). We had to agree, our joint favourite is the Heteroconger cobra. These sweet little fish are very nervous - we had to wait quite some time for them to be relaxed enough to come right out. When they are worried, they hide in their little tunnels, so it's very funny to see these little fish sliding up and down out of the sand!

Some fish clearly didn't appreciate their photo being taken, as these fellas prove; resolutely turning their backs to the camera and quietly focussing on the opposite direction. Although you can't tell from this direction, these guys are quite a metallic green and have big blue spots down their sides... "Oh, the sulky fish! I suppose they were quite nice, but they were just big fish. Big fish that ignored me." They're probably far too used to putting up with tourists with flash cameras. I don't use them round animals if I can help it, either that or I use a constant light so it doesn't scare them.

Quote of the Day: "YOU! Lizard with the beard! I seeeee you!" - Hank and the dragons.

Looking Over London...

We did go on the London Eye (and pay £8 for the privilege of owning a mass produced "personal memory" photo), then went to explore the London Aquarium (where they tried the same thing.)

Once you reach the vantagepoint at the top, the view from the Eye is quite spectacular: a grubby sprawl of buildings, hiding the treasures of ancient monuments and the diamond flashes of the tourist cameras, jewel moments among the kimberlite if you will... But I'm still disappointed that it isn't like it is on TV; the News and Documentaries show everything as so polished, so shiny, so close together - look here at St Pauls, here at Ben, here at yaddayaddayou get it. But it's not, it's scattered amongst grotty grey hulks of concrete and glass, even the greatest towers are subdued and overshadowed by scaffold and crane.

The tube experience is quite, quite unique. I had it in mind of something akin to your standard public transport train, your SouthWest Trains journey. However, even at it's busiest point, the rush-hour to Weymouth on a Friday evening, the SouthWest would still be beaten into submission in a head-to-head battle with the Underground. It's like a cattlevan, pink fleshy livestock crammed in willynilly, hurryhurry to get there fast. I'll give it that, it's a whole lot cheaper and a damn sight more efficient than the bus systems, and a lot more reliable than the black cabs (I won't even consider mentioning the charges for those!) but you really do have to take a deep breath.


Even as laid back as I am, I found myself swept up in the urgent nature of the city when trying to traverse the tube and on a couple of occasions, Himself and I almost ended up seperated by trains. It got to the point where we had to agree beforehand where we were going, and for the first one to arrive to wait for the second! His view on the whole thing: "Slow doooown!" At least you don't need to say that with the Eye.

Quote of the day: "Oh, this 3is3 si3lly!" Laptop seizures produce 3s.

Natural History

I cannot believe just how BIG the place is. You couldn't do it in a couple of hours like so many people say you could. We spent about six hours there in all, and still we didn't see all of it! My feet hurt, but I didn't notice until much later, because it was just so breathtaking, so much to take in, so much to consider and converse upon. His Lordship noticed some lovely roundels set into the walls through some of the halls, and thought the silvery cubes of natural pyrite were the best, "like transformers" in its angularity. To give you an idea of the size of this rather fabulous cluster, each of those cubes are roughly... I'd say about fist-sized. So yes, it was a big, big chunk of raw, unprocessed beauty. I love the way Nature manages to give it such perfect angles and sleek, shimmery sides!

His Lordship still has a wonder for the bigger reptiles, so we spent a while peering at the marvellous remains of the dinosaurs. I never realised just how huge, or how small, the variety in general. I mean, I liked dinosaurs when I was little, but WOW! The triceratops's horns are wider than my calf, and the beak of this prehistoric bird thing we saw was longer than His arm and a about the same again deep. He liked "all the skeletons they had there and stuff in the giant rahhh section, it was cool to see all the skeletamanons and the coolness and stuff. It was cool, just all the ewrrrrr and aaaaauuuuurrrr, you know." Complete with claw-hand gesture-suggestions.

The modern day reptiles collection was a little small, and the poor old beardie they had on display wasn't the finest of it's kind, but then I suppose that's understandable. I prefer mine alive and interactive really! Talking of lizards, Kyle didn't half sulk when we got home, she doesn't like it when we leave her for a few days, even when she has Hank for company. However, the shingle skink was a nice example, it's head and tail were the same size - to confuse predators. (Sadly the camera went flat, so here's a nice Mesolite crystalform for you. He says it's a very "cute" peice.) There were all kinds of animals, birds, crustaceans... He liked the Alaskan King Crab, I felt sorry for the Griffin Hawk and we both had a chuckle when He stood next to one bird and asked "So which one's the Dodo?"

We also spent some time having a good poke about in the sparklies section, for all of you know my love of true gems. My personal favourite is Hope; the cursed dark blue diamond, she brings fever, death and destruction. At 45.52 carats, she's said to be the biggest of her kind, however the curse isn't truly accepted. Said to be stolen from a great Hindi statue, but the other eye has never been found. Sadly, the photo didn't work out as it was such a dark blue, so here's an amazing HUGE opal boulder.

Talking of colours, I recently discovered they used more C4 explosives in the Dulux paint explosion advert than they did on that "Saving Private Ryan" film, which is quite impressive! "Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways." - Oscar Wilde. Here's a question for Mr Wilde, would the C4 spoil the colour, or doesn't that count? In the meantime, as we wait for time travel to be developed, here's a nice little shot of some unusual pink, white and black metamorphic granite... P.S, it's about six foot tall. That's some rock!

I also adored the Pain collection of Burmese sapphires and Pigeon rubies, as shown in all their funky brights in this clip.
"Abra-ca-duh!" Amy Wong as the Cute Fairy Of The North, Futurama.

Totally Tourists.

A touristy day round London, two very poor people looking at very expensive things mostly, Bentley's driving down the road silky-quiet, a stroll round Tiffanys to discover an entire year of my life is worth roughly one Spessartite ring. (Image of similar cut gem thanks to crystalscrystals.com) We watched Porsches glittering like airbourne fish, had a look at some marvellous frilled boots in Jimmy Choos, looked at bespoke suits in Saville Row, leaned on a superbly squishy Diesel store (honest!) and admired ridiculously high heels in Yves St Laurent. All of which were probably similarily expensive. And you know what? London is grubby.

On the other hand, I was delighted to find a touch of either Olde England, or blatant sci-fi tourism attraction. Sadly, it wasn't decked out inside, so no, he wasn't in - but why would I need an alien when I have a man JUST as weird to travel around with? Actually, it made me laugh, inside was painted plain white, empty bar for a little sink in the corner. I'm still not sure what all that was about. Did you know, last year, Doctor Who was classed as "classically English", just below tea with scones or crumpets, and just above Cricket. I did notice an awful lot of cranes and scaffolding around - a lot of the underground stations are having huge rejuvination plans in process, as well as most of the monuments being cleaned up.

I was most amused to discover the name of the to-be-biggest building in the UK: Shard of Glass. I thought that was brilliant, because with the local accent, it sounds just like "Shard of Arse"- anyone who knows my family will know this is a colloquialism for a particular type of flatulence! Turns out that "Darth Vader's Helmet", another odd glass building, leaks through the roof and that the "Glass Gerkin", designed by the same man, regularly used to drop panes out onto the streets...

However, what made me laugh most might well have been the set up to a classic joke: "How many Londoners does it take to change a lightbulb?" In this case, literally two and a cherrypicker. Health and safety gone mad?

Quote of the Day: "Oh NO! I think I've STOPPED!" - His Lordship, when a tube train pulled away at the same speed as he was walking at.

Insanity.

I was determined to get over this needle phobia, especially since the 10mg of Daizepam the doctor gave me last time I had to have an injection didn't work and I went into shaky shock. I got sick of having panic attacks at seeing one on the telly, in a mag, on the street. You'll be pleased to know it's somewhere very discreet , so no-one normally sees it. Surprisingly, my mother thought it was very nice - which baffled the hell out of me, I can tell ya! I was impressed with the blokey, Chris at Crewkerne's Skin Ink - he's lightning fast. Done and dusted in about 10 minutes flat.

Oh dear though, you get what you pay for with London hotels. This room is only one step up from a dartmoor cell, in that the bed isn't bolted down and the toilet has a seat! Never mind, we've had a good laugh at having to fill the kettle up in the shower because it has a great big bathtap for a faucet...

His Lordship forgot his jacket, so we weren't allowed into the Ritz for dinner. Ah well. It looked fancy anyway, but probably prices through the roof. We went to Dino's instead, where they served us some nice lasagne verde. My review: Good if you just want to eat. Not what you'd call fine cuisine, but certainly yompable. The pudding with mille de fleur was a bit strange, but the cheesecake was amazing! (Mum says banana and mashed potato go well in a sandwich)

We went to look at the Tate Modern too today - my personal favourite was the pointless kitchen table and chair - lovingly painted in 3D on white formica laminate cubes by Richard Artschwager. He likes Cubism, not my cup of tea, I much prefer the humorous shades of Matisse, but we both appreciated the "Fluxchess" and other Flux works, like the "instructional" box of art. Example on some cards:

"3 States of Yellow: Yellow Yellow Yellow. Yellow Loud. Yellow Red."

"Umbrellas:

• 1 Umbrella.

• 2 Umbrella."

We weren't allowed to take pictures in the Tate, or at least, not of the artwork - so here's our interpretation of the Tate.

Quote of the Day: "Morrison's corn beef hash: crap. French batteries: crap. Kiddeminster: crap. The canal was lurking behind the flippin' bushes!" The Trainmaster's review.

Big Up the Yays!

This is a YAY post.

YAY 1: The tribunal with the council finally finalised, His Lordship has been given back a small amount of what he's owed. We have closure at last, less stress.

YAY 2: His Lordship passed his driving test first time! Huge Congrats!

Yay 3: Ben and Jerry's was half price the other week! We tried the pineapple and passionfruit "Jamaican Me Crazy" flavour - definitely fruity, I'd have liked more passionfruit sauce, but very light. The Cookie Dough is just superb as always, and Hank discovered the delights of Phish Food, with its chocolatey marshmellowy goodness.

YAY 4: I've been transferred into the bigger branch and been given jobs I enjoy a heckuvalot more!

YAY 5: His Lordship got a new temporary job! Not for want of trying, it's just this town is a bit tough for work. I may have mentioned previously that Tesco recently laid off all it's Uni students for lack of wages locally, but he's beaten them all to the peg and landed a nice job in a brand new camping store. Mum says: "At last, I can tell people He's camp!" Shame it was only for fitting of the store, but it's brought in a little more money.

YAY 6: I have Martin Clunes's new book, signed to me! Woohoo! His Lordship popped into town to get me "A Dog's Life" specially, so huge thanks to Him for being wonderful. And being able to meet a TV Star when I wasn't able to.

YAY 7: I have a pair of pants, signed by Martin Clunes!

YAY 8: Work have given me an extra week's holiday at random! Score! So we took a trip to London - coming soon.

Related Quote of the Day: "Are they Ready Salted?" - Martin Clunes himself. Very "Men Behaving Badly"! Good on you, sir!

Tapirs, Tamarins and Tortoises...

Cricket St Thomas was pretty much funky, lots of happy, healthy beasties running about. The weather held out surprisingly well, so most of the animals were happy to be out in the open to be seen. We saw reindeers shedding velvet, Jango the cheetah being hand fed bits of steak by his keeper, and I was impressed by this rodent anyway. He was quite friendly towards us, even when His Lordship sat by the fence with him to have a natter. Shortly after he pondered down with us to the water and spent some time trying to escape under the bridge, until he tired of it; this capybara we nicknamed "Jesus". He didn't so much walk on water, but he certainly sat on it!

Goats: turns out one of them really likes Jacobs Crackers! They say it's impossible to eat three dry Jacobs in one go, but this goat happily yomped five and went on to consume what looked like several kilos of dry food...

There were birds of all different species and colours, my favourites being the pheasants with their bright shiny plumage, about a dozen species like Swinhoe's and Firebacks, Reeve's as well as your common ones. His Lordship rather liked the kookaburra, with its cream and deep brown plumage and wickedly long, thick beak. We admired the brash colours of the macaws in shades of gold and summer skies, the rainbow of budgies and the sharp witty voices of the cockatiels...

The flamingoes were a lovely shade of carotene dye pink, busily sifting and rummaging around in the bottom of the lake, fed by the capy's stream, but it took us a lot more walking around to find the reptile den. If we weren't looking for it deliberately, chances are we wouldn't have seen it. I get the feeling it was a "takeon" house, homing as it was a pack of rather large snakes, a couple of very large iguana and a few big tortoises - I'm guessing they used to be someone's pets at one time, until they got too big. I would dearly have loved to have had a budget there, update the tanks, fancy up the Iggy hides... But there was a big tank full of fat, shiny hissing cockroaches. The Dragons would have gone nuts if we had taken them to look!

As is habit, I got bitten by an animal - this time it was a young rhea that took a shine to the buttons on my coat. Thankfully, being a baby, they're very easily distracted with long, wavy blades of grass - very tasty you see. Mind you, he's a smug little (well, big) bird, check out that grin... It did surprise me to see them wandering around with the camels, I guess I didn't think they'd get along, what with camels supposedly being bad tempered.

There was also a large gang of lemurs, huge ringtails running around where ever they felt like, as their electric fence didn't work. I get the feeling it wouldn't have been much of a deterrent either way, as they lithely hopped over it! The marmosets and other small sapien-y beasts were of very much the same mind - He and I definitely liked them best; such cheeky little characters!


Oh, we also got lost on an active, armed airforce base and wandered around for a bit until a squaddie rescued us and pointed us to the museum. The Hellcat plane was fanTAStic.

Mega Mish Mash and More (to come!)

Thank you as always for your patience, it's been a busy couple of weeks with everything falling into place. I will be releasing a special blog later, but here's an update of basic stuff for now.

Game News: SPORE! OMFG!!!!!11!!! L33T! Ahum. Anyway, Spore is just downright addictive. It's not a game, it's a TOY. One you pick up, play with, and have to play with a bit more. There's no "Winning" but the diversity is superb. This is my Faitande, a very successful creature - militaristic and carnivorous primarily, but capable of being omnivorous and good at trading. I've just entered the space era...

Garden News: After pulling up several burnybins full of weeds (choking George) and taming the lavender, the front is looking much tamer and the back much wilder - producing prolific amounts of rhubarb. So much so, we gave some to our lovely neighbours to enjoy too!

Motorbike News: Successfully resprayed bike in luxurious Honda Nighthawk, and the repairs only cost £60, quite a lot less than I'd expected. Thanks to the good folks at Bransons for a sterling job. I also baffled His Lordship by bringing home a full load of shopping on my little bike. I don't have a carrybox yet... I'm also picked on by a flashy thing coming back from one dinky village - one of those that goes "30 slow down 30". It flashes when I'm going 25. Rah!

Fail of the Week: Windows error on a games machine! If you spot any great fails, snap it and send it in. email: indigo_blue_fish@hotmail.co.uk (No junk please.)

Work News: See coming post. Have been having a chuckle with customers regarding the current economical climate; one of the branches I work in has lost the carpetting due to flooding. However, the children love the story that burglars broke in, couldn't get in the safe and stole the carpet instead. The adults like the baliffs version...

Dragon News: Tsam is HUGE. He's over 17" long now, making him bigger than Big Girl Kuleana! He's learning to be less aggressive (we use the "squish technique", using the flat of the hand to push down over the head and shoulders if he tries to attack) and he's learning fast. He's also very pleased with US, as he has more independence thanks to his very own "Dragon Slope".

Dinner News: We had sauteed ostrich steak (rare, yummy) with bushbok crush and vegetables on Sunday, just to give the boys a shock. I waited until Hank had gotten well tucked in, making noises of great appreciation, before telling him. His face was a picture - but it was too good not to eat!

Blogs To Come: Cricket St Thomas Wildlife Park! Watch out for releases later! Includes Marmosets, the Fleet Arm Air Museum and our slight diversion from the normal path.

Movie News: (Bit of a backlog...)

Babylon A.D: I was underwhelmed. I'm sorry, but I was. Alright, it was very pretty in places, but it's like someone took a whole bunch of old storylines, attempted to hash them together in a big Diesel-powered blender (Gettit, Diesel, Vin Diesel... Never mind) and ran out of substance toward the end of the movie. That's the general consensus from most people I have spoken to. "There was a storyline, but then it gave up, leaving the actors standing there like ninnies." Hank and George are waiting for the European version to come out, in the hope that it explains more. It's an hour longer than the English/US waste of time.

Pineapple Express: Very Cheech and Chong, but more uptodate and oddball. A very funny film, had me in hysterics on more than one occasion. A little overdone, but that's all part of the deal. (Gettit, drugs film, deal... Never mind.) The humanity of the characters really got me, well done guys. This one gets a huge amount of respect, go see it.

Step Brothers: His Lordship felt a little let down. "A bit like a lot of Will Farrell stuff, I'll watch it and then think Was It Worth It." It was very childish, even for a deliberately childish film, but I have to credit them with some amusement, they did a good job of regressive acting.

Disaster Movie: "Wasn't the greatest." Ouch, burn. Not quite up to scratch with the Scary Movies and The Spartans. I did love the variety of silly characters, and played by so few cast members. Some good lyrics and the "Princess" was spot on for me. If you're going to see it, see it for her.

Tropic Thunder: Didn't deserve the harsh writeups it's been getting in the paper reviews. It was a rather splendid rip-off/spoof with some magnificent effects. "It's a mishmash of brilliant blokey films. All it was missing was tits."

Quote of the Day: "Rubber worker and part-time plum." An occupational title I spotted at work.

Silly Saturday...

Well, it's been a manic sort of week from every perspective. I've been shuttled round to a branch down the road, which I thought would be rather good, as they close at 3.30 rather than 5. However, this sort of backfired - the lady that runs the branch likes to START doing the paperwork and suchlike when the doors close. I didn't get out until quarter to 6 on one occasion... The drive there is nice, one long straight and bendy road - I haven't got lost ONCE this week! (Must be a miracle hey?)

Mind you, it sounds like poor Mum hasn't been having an easy week - I'm going to vote my stepfather for this year's King of Fails award. Let me explain. Last Sunday, he thought it would be a good idea to sort out the squeaky floor board in my sister's bedroom doorway before putting the carpet back down, as Mum's been decorating for her. He sorted the squeak, put the carpet down and was taking the last lot of stuff back upstairs... when he noticed water coming through the dining room ceiling. (Interesting note: his brother is a builder by trade, and when he came to do the new bathroom floor, he did the exact same thing - put a nail through the heating pipes and caused flooding.)

Anyway, as it's bank holiday Sunday they had to scrounge various bits of plumbers tape and jubilee clips to last. Tuesday, he manages to do a great job on fixing the hole in the pipe with a new joint. He cleans everything up, takes extra care checking where pipes run, puts carpets back down... Stands up and sets the house alarm off - he forgot the wires to the alarm run under the boards. Mum think he's run his nail through the wire that links the sensors. "He is as much use as a wet fart in a colander!"

Mum also says that you must go buy some Juice Burst Mentos chewing gum in green apple & raspberry. Once you've chewed it a few minutes, apparently it turns into apple and broadbean flavour - "It's great. Until it turns to apple core flavour. Then you get rid of it." (bean thanks to Wiki)

Excuse me a moment... Yup, I've just returned from the kitchen where His Lordship is falling about laughing. He's just taken the lid for the wok out of the cupboard, failed to catch as the shelf fell out, dropped the lid and said shelf. I may have to repair that. Oh well! He was very brave this week and encouraged me to cut his hair for him, so I'll let him off. I've never cut someone's hair before so I was a little nervous, until it turned out to be great fun. Uno pairo clipperythings, lots of hair and lots of "bzzzzzzz" noise. He nearly ended up with a fauxhican, as I'd trimmed down the sides and found the resulting long and wild tuft too funny to stand.

Corrective Note: In "toilet turtle" incident, I would like to assure my readers that my mother was not responsible for said item, she was just unfortunate enough to a) discover it and b) have to deal with it.

Oh dear god, I know why I love Him. I was just taking the hammer into the kitchen to repair the shelf and discovered He's starting to make dinner. He thought He'd save some time chopping veg... He tried to make thin slivers by putting the bell pepper into the winding grater. To my great amusement, the end result is a bowl of green water and a chunk of very odd mush. His thinking was "Well, it grates carrots quite well." He's given up on that as a fail. Congrats, it made the board. And a mess.

Films we've seen recently:
Wild child - yes, I hid on the way in, and hid on the way out. We have unlimited passes for the cinema, I pay a direct debit, and it's cheaper than paying ticket price once a fortnight - great value. Anyway, He was away, I was bored, so I went to the cinema. It's the usual bland reforming US Snobberychild with a bit of obvious "Whodunnit" thrown in. If you have free passes and two hours to waste, meh, it's ok. Just make sure you can get in and out unnoticed.

Mamma Mia - again, He was away, I had unlimited pass and heard lots of good things about it. One person wisely advised me "not to treat it as a comedy, just go to enjoy the music and you'll have a laugh. If you like Abba." Which sums it up quite nicely actually. It's a bit of an older folk's movie, but a giggle if you like seeing Colin Firth dressed up as a punk and then a flare-bedecked, tight and shiny sequinned metallic blue jumpsuit. I won't give the end away, but I was a little dissappointed - I like Mr Firth.

Hellboy, The Golden Army - Exactly what you'd expect if you've seen and enjoyed the first Hellboy movie. We were both suitably pleased (although the young Hellboy was a little bit strange, not quite sure what's going on with the teeth there...) as the mythology, the graphics, and the representation of the Harpy of Death was quite lovely. Although, I expected a bit more of a full on battle, almost Lord of the Ringsy, but not as crap. Anyway, if you've not seen it, please do, this one rates as "Worthy".

Interesting Quote of the Day: "The original version of idiot is idoit." (Idiot is actually a word derived from the Greek ἰδιώτης, idiōtēs - "person lacking professional skill" -ref Yahoo, but if I'm honest, I preferred this one. Read as "I Do It".) - Amom.

Bog Brassica II - and The Return.

I apologise straight away, this post may be a little disturbing for some viewers. For those that don't retain a mental age of approximately oooh, five, then please continue to the next post.

This post is about bathroom incidents. You've been warned.

My mum has been quite rightly grossed out this week, as she's been chasing away a rather revolting leftover with such a character that it's been given the name "Toilet Turtle". Simply, it's a very large poo which pretends it's flushed away, until it slowly reappears in the bottom of the bowl. Repeatedly. You can see where the name's come from if you think about it. Not that you probably would like to!

Our more regular readers may possibly remember me relating the story of "The Bog Brassica" and I'd like to add some more details I didn't have at the time. For those who aren't familiar with it, read on. When my mother first moved into the house I first came to know as "home", she discovered a rather... unusual thing. At some point in a previous owner's history, someone had thrown a quarter of a cabbage in the bottom of the utility room toilet. Surprisingly, instead of just being flushed, it remained and survived. Hell, it THRIVED. I was aware that it had become quite a successful cabbage, but I hadn't realised quite how so. This Bog Brassica had grown itself an impressive root system, then gone on to flower vigorously. "It was brushing the ceiling, it was that big." (Pretty cabbage picture (c) Ian Alexander 1996-2005 )

Mind you, talking of plants in bathrooms, I've had to put Mindel in our bathroom as the humidity in the living room is too low and the poor plant is struggling. (He's a Nepenthes Alata, Devil's Red Pitcher Plant) I'm glad to say he's perking up again, boosting out new leaves with potential new pods, and is enjoying fishfood.

Oh, that's reminded me of an incident at my Ex's, before he was the Ex and I spent a lot of time there. They used to have one of these BIG paper sacks full of potatoes down by the side of the toilet in the utility room (simply for somewhere to keep them) that occasionally fell over. One day, when I nipped in there, I realised it'd fallen over again and discovered a large potato in the bottom of the bowl. Not being the brave sort when it comes to toilets, I called upon His Exness to come and fish it out. He's even less brave than I, and attempted to poke out with a loobrush, whilst his brother looked on, grinning. And was even less brave when it crumbled. Ugh! DBob thought it was hilarious and 'fessed up straight away. I saw the funny side. The Ex just vomited. Bravo!

Quote of the Day: "Boycott shampoo! Demand the REAL poo!" - www.porcelainpoetry.faketrix.com

Lessons Learned.

Well, at least this week I learned some stuff. I can fall off a motorbike, pick it up out of the road, ignore a bunch of nettlestings, take apart broken bits, fix the vital bits, get back on and continue onto the big roads home...

I learned if you let a bunch of adult males go away for a long weekend, they consume vast amounts of alcohol and pretend not to have hangovers. Apparently this stack is about half of it, plus the remains in the recycling box.

I also learned I'm due to be shipped round a few more branches with work, and then put into one permanently less than 30 minutes walk from here. I'm very annoyed about this - if they'd told me two weeks earlier, I wouldn't be paying £2k for a motorbike.

I discovered it doesn't matter how old you are, you can still be completely potty. I aspire to be both like my mother and the dotty 60ish lady with bright pink hair I met at the cinema. You'll be pleased to know my neuroses are coming along nicely, involving obsession with my workspace and a convoluted system with my savings accounts. Hurray!

The Dorset Naga is grown just 25 miles from me! It causes involuntary hiccups, and registers about over 1 million Scovilles... The first chili to hit such high heats! Check out this brave YouTuber - my mum was greatly impressed. (She appreciates a good chili!)



Related Quote of the Day: "yeah, that was a really nice subtelty of flavours" - American Uruz re: a vindaloo in the UK.

A Whole Bunch Of Fail...

Thinking to save a few pennies while we went on holiday my stepfather turned off the computer in the back, the tv, the speakers, the wireless router ... and the freezer. The family came home and wondered what the smell was, until my brother went to put his icepops in the freezer and suddenly the smell got much, much worse. Salmon, steak, whole trout, whole chicken, a lamb joint, quiches, pizza, mince beef - all mushy in their bags with about 2 inches of "soup" in the bottom. "Today he put my horseshoe up on the kitchen wall, hammered in two nails, then realised that the nail heads were bigger than the holes in the shoe."

Mum says the freezer was much funnier than my favourite: when he left the milk in the fridge while they went on holiday. For some reason he decided to open it and smell it - even though the bottle was bloated and the contents green (and blue and chunky) - and it went *pisssht*

I personally had a fantastic fail on the way to work the other day: I managed to miss my turn, continue down the wrong road thinking "I'm sure this isn't right, but I won't worry yet because I always think that..." and then discover myself stuck on a motorway heading towards Bristol - completely the wrong direction entirely from work. My sense of direction isn't exactly non-existant, it's just flawed to the point of oppositery. Mind you, my grandparents went onto a minor road, and discovered it was a little more minor than they had anticipated. It turned out to be a grassy unclassified roadway in the middle of Norfolk...

"Oh, yesterday he got out his brand new hedge trimmer....and promptly cut through the wire." My stepfather has done it several times apparently and still hasn't learnt.

His Lordship just said "I'm going to buy you a laptray for your computer..." and then paused to think. "Ah. When I find a way to get some money to buy one..." *fail* Bless, it's the thought that counts. And my Big Dragon has just run into the doorframe. Smooth move Big Girl...

On TV, a copper finds a bag on the kerb like the ones he just found in a drug car, opened it to sieze the drugs - got a handful of dogpoo instead.

The Ultimate Fail: Coming home from work, slowing down for a steep corner down the hill, I had the great misfortune to hit a stray hubcap in the middle of the road. I didn't even see it in time, grey against grey - so by the time I tried to a) get out of the way and b) emergency brake - it was far too late. Fortunately, due to said corner and hill, I was already going quite slowly (as am still scared of corners - my bicycle for pedalling has a tendency to whip the rear tyre round on corners - I daren't try something like that on a big motory thing...), but the quick skip over the loose metal/plastic(?) discarded in the street caused my bike to hit the kerb and me to hit the embankment. I am royally cheesed (and muddy). Whilst I managed to come off safely and scoop my bike out of the road before any traffic came down, I have knocked the end off my "handbrake" on the right (fortunately not the one you normally use) and have damaged the left front floorplate (this is actually a strip of siding, not the actual floorplate. That's fine). My skills were sufficient to remove said plate safely and repair my knocked loose mirror bolts, secure my frontplate, but unfortunately not my horn-switch which has disappeared inside my dashboard. So it's all mostly superficial damage, but still immensely infuriating, as I've only had the bike a couple of weeks. The good news: My bike is under warranty, so should be able to get repairs quickly and easily. The wheelfender and gravelrash will be easy enough to spray over. The Branson Blokes have booked me in and offered to fix the panel on for me too. The new parts are less than £30 total, which is even better news!

Image thanks to pixdaus.com.

Fail Quote of the Day: "I went looking for a set of drawers and came home with a piano." - Mad S.