Mixed Bag

Sorry – but I have to mention Pointless again.  There was a pair on yesterday who seemed to be very cleverly matched by God.  The question was to name a member of the Labour Government between 1997 and 2010.  She said Boris Johnson and he said Kenneth Clark.

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I would now like to welcome back to our local ants.  They’ve been away on their ant holidays listening to their ant music.  They suddenly returned last Sunday which coincidentally was the day the clocks went forward.

When I walk the dogs, my mind does tend to drift off in all sorts of strange ways so I started wondering where they’d been on holiday.  I came up with the following list: -

• Antarctica
• Argantina
• Southanton
• Northanton
• Nantwich

I suppose there are loads more…

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Tomorrow is April Fools Day.  It’s also my birthday.  I think it’s a great birthday.  When I was a kid, I hated it.  I now realise it’s a very easy one to remember.  When I was at school there were to other kids in my class with the same birthday.  Three kids out of thirty sharing the same birthday.  What are the odds of that?  Ian Wraith and Julia Rushworth.

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Why?

Part of today’s ramblings is – why do stupid people go on TV Quiz Programmes?  As I’ve said before, I’m a big fan of Alexander Armstrong, Richard Osman and Pointless.

There have been some fantastic answers on this over the last few weeks – my favourite being the Geordie woman who thought Twickenham was a First-Class cricket playing county.

One young girl thought General de Gaulle was the leader of the armed forces during the French Revolution.  Another youngish woman when faced with the question of naming a best-selling author said “I don’t know any authors”.  Why show yourself up in front of millions of people?

Do these people have an extra chromosome?  Perhaps they are lacking the chromosome which gives normal people self-awareness.  As Rabbie burns said – “Oh w’u'd some pow’r the giftie gi’ us, to see ourselves as other see us”.

Whilst on the subject of the infamous Mr Burns, I think he is also associated with the saying – “If at first you don’t succeed, throw the bairstard o’er yer heed”.  My favourite poem of his though is – “Upon the hill there stood a coo,  it musta moved it’s no’ there noo”.

Going back to thick/stupid people – what on earth are they teaching kids at school these days?  Eeh – when I were a lad if you didn’t know your 29 times-tables you’d be thrashed within an inch of your life.  Kid’s today don’t even know what a bloody inch is!

That reminds me of an old joke – best told in a Yorkshire accent.

Yorkshireman’s wife of fifty-plus years dies.  He goes to the funeral home and the discuss what he wanted etching on her gravestone.  I would like “She was Thine” says the man “as she was very religious”.  This is agreed with all the other paraphernalia about her being a wonderful wife/mother/grand-mother etcetera.  The man goes back after a couple of days to examine the stonemason’s work.

The wording is perfect – except he’s put “She was Thin” instead what was requested.  The old man isn’t upset but says “You’ve missed out the ‘E’”.  “Go ‘ave a cuppa tea lad and I’ll put it right for thee”.  The old man goes back in  half an hour to discover the gravestone now reads – “Eeh she was thin”.

I wonder why you never read on a gravestone about the miserable, rotten, old fuckers of this world?  I think I’ll write my own before I pop my clogs.

Something along the lines of…

HE WERE A GRUMPY OLD SOD

HE NEVER ADMITTED WHEN HE WAS WRONG

MIND YOU IN FAIRNESS HE WAS USUALLY RIGHT

WE TOLD HIM NINETY-THREE WAS TOO OLD TO RIDE HIS MOTOR-BIKE

HE WAS A GRUMPY OLD SOD BUT HE WILL BE MISSED

 

So then and or but?

If you don’t like people (i.e. me) having a good-old moan then stop reading now.

When I were a lad many many moons ago, I went to Grammar School.  I once saw someone on F/B who said they’d been to Grammer School – the mind boggles!  I must have listened some of the time when I wasn’t gazing at Linda Brewins.  Ah, lovely Linda my first love and the first girl I ever snogged properly.  She finished with me, the rotten cow and went off with a Modern Schooler.

Back to the point Steve…

I don’t remember much about English apart from ignoble is the opposite of noble and don’t start a sentence with any of the words in the title of this blog.

I have just finished reading a book by a guy called Glenn Cooper.  He’s written a few books but this was the first I’d read and it was called The Tenth Chamber.  It was a readable enough tale but about six times a page, Glenn would start a sentence off with “and”.  The story must not have been compelling enough because I started noticing his grammar.  Don’t tell anybody this but I found myself with a pencil in my hand (no idea how it got there) and started crossing out the “ands”.  The sentences all made the same sense.

I became so bloody mad with this fucker that I looked him up on the T’interweb.  Sure enough – he had a website so I sent him a message.  In the message, I soft-soaped him a bit – saying how much I was enjoying his book but then I asked why he started so many sentences with “and” and did he know this was grammatically incorrect?

Amazingly, he wrote back.  He called it “Artistic Licence” and quoted a couple of other authors who also weren’t perfect.  I wrote back to him and said that Roddy Doyle was very difficult to read but four wrongs don’t make a right.

The reason I quoted the very funny Mr Doyle was to show this twat that I’d read other books too!

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They’re there their.  These poor little buggers also get misused a lot too.  As do two, too and to.  Many people use “to” when they mean “too”.

They say the English is a very difficult language to learn.  Tosh.

If foreigners don’t understand words like cough, enough, dough, bough, slough, Slough etcetera, then don’t fucking use them.  Use other words like throat noise, sufficient, raw bread, tree branch, thing what snakes do to get rid of their old skin, Reading etcetera.  There’s always a way round.

What is the point of knowing the plu-perfect or other complicated tense of a verb.  If my Spanish translates as “I go to pub” instead of “I am going to the pub” – so what?  At least they would know I’m not going fucking shopping!

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I could go on but I think nearly five hundred words of pure grumpiness is enough for anyone.  Well done if you managed to reach the end.  You must be a fan.  It’s actually over five hundred words now.

Beaurocracy, Inefficiency and Downright Bloody Incompetence

I love Spain.  I really love Spain.  Spain is a fantastic place to live.  Most of the time that is.  It’s great until you want to do something that isn’t day-to-day stuff.

I am (hopefully) about to embark on yet another new business venture or call it a get-rich-quick scheme if you’re cynical like my lovely wife.  The poor girl’s glass is always half-empty.  She says it has to be to curb my over-enthusiastic bull-at-a-gate mentality.

I know if something seems too good to be true, it usually is.  Time will tell.

The new venture involved opening a new bank account.  I went into a bank in the village – I won’t name it but it’s located opposite Frankie & Louisa’s.  Everyone seems to sing the praises of this bank and I went in last Wednesday to make my initial enquiry.  There’s a lovely blonde girl who works in there who was extremely pleasant and helpful.  She told me it would take me ten minutes to open the new A/C.  She lied bless her.

I had one or two t’s to cross and i’s to dot before I committed to the new bank but went back later that day to do the deed.

I had to produce my passport and NIE paperwork (Spanish red tape) and Blondie realised my NIE had gone out of date last October.  Bugger.  She said that it didn’t matter but to renew it ASAP and take the renewed document in to the bank.  Fair enough.  I also ordered a piece of equipment, without which I cannot start the new “job”.  A couple of days she told me for the new IT stuff to be fitted to my home PC.

I know that a couple of days meant three or four so I waited four days before going back to the bank to pester.  Hello Steefen, I was greeted with.  Where’s my new piece of equipment,  I asked.

Spanish red tape now reared its ugly head – you can’t have it until you obtain your new NIE.  It’s very difficult to become angry with an attractive blonde girl but I managed it.  You’ve just wasted me four fucking days I ranted – managing to rattle the windows with my bellowing.  I then stormed around the bank, knocking things off desks, scattering leaflets, picking up chairs and smashing them against the wall.  what a mess I made – there were telephone, screens, files, folders and papers scattered everywhere.  People were cowering in corners.  The drinking water machine was slowly glugging its contents all over the floor.  Total bloody carnage.

Oh no.  Er…. hang on a minute…

That’s what I wanted to do – instead I just said I was really angry and disappointed.  I received the Spanish shrug as a response.  The Spanish shrug is not quite as good as the French one – I don’t think they’ve been doing it as long.

I now have to renew my Padron (more red tape) and then renew my NIE.  The first task is accomplished in the village bu the second means a trip to the huge metropolis of Murcia.  These trips into the region’s capital are fraught with danger and quite often end up with steam coming out of someone’s ears – mine normally.  The last time MLW and I went on a similar excursion to Murcia I was “spoken to” by one of the security guards (true).

As I said in my opening paragraph – Spain is a great place to live as long as you’re buying a tin of beans.

Ingenuity

Today, whilst My Lovely Wife is watching Desperate bloody Housewives I thought I would tell you a couple of tales of ingenuity -  one quite old and one new.

Pitmen are very ingenious and their ability to improvise is phenomenal.  Most pitmen are not well-educated but as far as intelligence, talent and ability they’re second to none.

Many years ago, I think it was the late ’70s or early ’80s,  the National Coal Board along with many other firms (I think there might have been a law passed) stopped paying their employees wages in cash but instead, everyone was paid into their bank account.  Unbelievably, quite a few miners did not have a bank account and these people were helped by bank employees visiting the pits to give totally unbiased advice on which was the best bank.

This whole thing went seamlessly and was accepted by all parties – particularly the wages department even though some of them lost their jobs.  Mrs Thatcher’s Britain – the old bastard – may she die in severe pain.  Probably.

This new regime did however cause a few problems amongst the workforce.

One guy had always kept thirteen pounds from his wages and “tipped-up” the rest to his missis.  Now however, he had to write a cheque and go to the bank and cash it.  His problem?  He couldn’t spell “thirteen”.  His solution?  Write two cheques – one for ten and the other for three.  Seemples!

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Story 2…

MLW’s first husband had two boys with MLW (she was HLW then).  Two well-balanced, lovely lads they are too.  The ex re-married (his secretary/baby-sitter) and fathered two more children with his second wife – again two boys.  These boys appear to be little carbon copies of their elder step-brothers.  The elder (of the younger two) is quite studious and is destined for university any time now.  The younger one (of the younger two) is dyslexic.

When I was a lad at school the unsympathetic, cruel bastard, teachers would have called these poor little fuckers thick and wiped their hands of them.  Nowadays, as we all know,  kids seem to get their arses wiped for them.  Sorry Jake/Annie if you’re reading.

Right then – back to the youngest of the four brothers…

The school refectory at their posh (private) school, sold coca/pepsi-cola at some ridiculous price.  The young entrepreneur saw an opportunity and acted accordingly.  With the aid of his young mum he bought a load of rola-cola cheaply and distributed these cans amongst his pears.  He was very happy – making a few bob.  All his mates were happy – saving a few bob.

The losers were the school.

They eventually realised that the bottom had fallen out of their cola sales and their enquiry eventually revealed the culprit.  They immediately, as would all schools since time immemorial, stopped these shenanigans forthwith.  The short-sighted wankers.  Surely all budding Richard Bransons should be encouraged?

They did have a bit of a re-think and decided the cola scam could carry-on providing the youngster gave all the profits to the school.  He told them to fuck off.  Good for him.

 

It’s been a while…

My lovely wife is in Ireland this week so I’m watching what I want on TV.  No Shameless, no Holby City, no Desperate Housewives…

I like to watch Pointless and Eggheads and then I mostly turn the TV off until ten o’clock when I can find normally something worth watching.  On the subject of TV – I don’t like the new format of Room 101.

I do miss MLW of course but that little bit of quiet is also nice.

It’s funny, but women seem to need to go “home” more often than men.  At the moment, MLW is away, as is Carol and Jean and Sylvie goes “home” today.  Men are from Sucina, women are from – er… another planet anyway.

To backtrack a bit to Room 101 – oh boy – could I fill Room 101.  For those who aren’t aware – it refers to an Orwellian place where things don’t come back from and the guests on the programme say what they would like to banish from the face of the earth.

One of my latest pet hates is the way loads and loads of people have started talking – you know when people raise their voice at the end of a sentence as though they’re asking a question?  There’s a posh name for it – AI something or other – which is Australian Inflection whatever – them fuckers have doing it for years.

To all you that do it – just fucking stop will you and talk proper English English.  We invented the language and this generation seem determined to fuck it up.

AI? doesn’t seem to have reached Sucina yet.  TF.

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To mention something else Orwellian – I downloaded a great tune a couple of weeks ago.  It’s call The Eye in the Sky by the Alan Parsons Project.  It was released in the early eighties and I love it.

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I would like to inform you that my little gang has a new playmate.  Mr Frank C joined us this week playing pool/ten-pin-bowling and I think we showed him a good time.  He says he’ll come with us next week – we’ll see.

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I walked the dogs last night around five o’clock and it was quite nippy.  There’s a hint that winter might me finally on its way.  Up ’til now it’s been sitting-out-warm so we can’t complain.

We bit the bullet last week and called in a professional to sort out our wood-burner.  This guy was here two and a half hours, made a few minor adjustments and charged us two hundred Euros.  He drives a big car.

In fairness he has cured the problem we were having so was it worth the money?  I suppose it was but I still feel a bit ripped-off.

Ah well – it’ll soon be spring!

A Spanish Proverb

This just about sums Spaniards up…

How beautiful it is to do nothing and then rest afterwards.