Animated hormones

One of the papers this weekend ran yet another "Is Jessica Rabbit the sexiest cartoon character…" article, which is becoming almost a greater cliché than the Flintstones MILF debate. Wilma vs. Betty has become a tad tired but still goes a-rumbling on (if you need to know: Wilma, because I've got a thing about redheads). Even some twenty-somethings at work have this argument (outside Game of Thrones seasons). It's odd that we have these reactions to what are, after all, just drawings. One of my friends at school fell in love with the black lady in the Tom and Jerry cartoons because he reckoned she had a lovely singing voice and thick ankles.

I'm above this sort of nonsense, of course.

Knackered

In the scheme of things I've good a quite comfortable life: I have a job and food on the table; a house and a bed and a small warm woman; and generally speaking nobody's trying to kill me on a daily basis.

I have to remind myself of that. I feel massively burned-out at the moment. Work is work and barely worth the mention (if you're desperate to know: the workplace is utterly fucking stupid at the moment and shows no prospect of getting any better). There's only so much utter stupidity you can be exposed to on a daily basis without its starting to chip away at your self-confidence.

Not been a weekend for recharging batteries - quite a lot on this week and not much space for getting some kip and not worrying about the time.

We must be due a bank holiday soon...

When was the last time you sang along to a PFI initiative?

It's a busy weekend. Customer-facing workers will be knackered.

 Meanwhile...

Pipe and slippers and the missus and the nippers

I've just found myself standing on the doorstep shouting at The Cat I Do Not Have as she strolled down the path:

"Have you washed behind those ears? Be careful with the traffic, don't get yourself knocked down. And don't be late back in!"

A chap walking down the road glanced over at me and shook his head.

"They don't listen do they? Bloody kids."

Promises I make myself.

I will not do any posts about the Battlestar Lollipop.

I will not do any posts about the Battlestar Lollipop.

I will not do any posts about the Battlestar Lollipop.

Architect's drawing of staff lunch time break-out area

Ah nice...

That nice Savannah has given me a nice award:
 
There is a catch: "the award comes with a small request and that is to answer the four questions listed and then to pass the award along to those bloggers who recently touched/moved/inspired YOU!"

1. If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?
I'd live near the sea with a decent cliff top walk nearby that allowed for a bit of decent seawatching.

2. If you could repeat any age which would it be?
I'd like the energy I had when I was about seven. And the world-weary cynicism that went with it.

3. What really scares you?
People. Seriously. En masse they terrify me. And when I think about the things they'll do "for the right thing" I get the screaming ad-dabs.

4. If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be?
If I were to tell you I would be in breach of the terms of my being bound over to keep the peace.

"so there it is. grab the pic and the questions and then nominate another blogger or bloggers who've recently touched you! i nominate the following and really do hope they'll particpate!"

Well now... not including Savannah's splendid selection (which you'll have to go and see for yourself), I'll nominate

• Pat, who is always splendid;
• dinahmow, who is fun down under;
• Libby, who makes you think a bit quietly;
• Pearl, who has more energy than is good for her;
• Macy, who I hope is loved-up and full of chocolate at the moment;
• zmkc, who makes me smile; and
• Wendy, who makes me think harder than I should do sometimes.

And when Blogger stops being such a silly sod about opening comment boxes I'll let them know they've got an award from me.

Heavens. You *all* deserve the award!

In those days while half the world was pink

No power on Earth shall pull it down.

The gentler sex

Some of you may wonder what things are like the other side of the hills. Let this be a warning...

Damsons in distress

It's not been much of a Spring so far but, appendages crossed, it's at least not been all that wet. It's been cool and mostly dry-ish this past couple of weeks, which has brought out the bumblebees and the odd peacock butterfly. The damson tree, which had a shockingly bad year of it last year, is now completely awash with blossom, which I hopes bode well. The combination of bees, blossom and lack of torrential rain may result in a decent crop this Autumn.

As I wrote that last paragraph I noticed that there was a huge queen bumblebee in the kitchen. Typical. I go to the effort of putting three bumblebee nest boxes out in the garden, as yet unused, and the bloody things decide they fancy settling down under the fridge.

Turkish delight

I noticed that there's a new barber's next door to Uncle Fester's Diner. I have to point out here that Uncle Fester's Diner does exist and it's just down the road from Railway Cuttings. I was taken by an exchange between the owner and one of his schoolboy customers:

Child: "Are you really Uncle Fester?" 

Uncle Fester lookalike: "Fuck off."

I noticed that the new place was advertising "Turkish shaves." Turkish shaves? I asked The Small Object of Desire who told me that it's the proper stuff with hot towels and that. The sort of thing you see in the fillums. I have always hankered after one of those but convinced myself that they don't exist in real life. And they're doing them down the road.

If you find yourself eating a sulky meat pie that keeps harking back to the 1930's you'll know the back story.

I've seen it in the adverts

My dad saw a piece in the paper about these vibrating knickers, so he had to point it out to us when me and The Small Object of Desire went round for lunch.

"It's alright, I'm safe enough," my mum said. "It's not like he ever uses the 'phone."

One of those careers the nuns didn't tell me about

The lady at the chip shop is a bit stressed out at the moment because one of her dogs is pregnant and is being a bit snappily hormonal. "I wish I hadn't had her done now," she said.

She had dreamed of having lots of little baby doggies roaming round the house with mummy and daddy dog looking on in loving attendance. Unfortunately he wasn't much up to it so she had to arrange for her bitch to be artificially inseminated.

"Well, it was a couple of hundred pounds cheaper than having her serviced by another pedigree dog," she explained.
"Did they use a turkey baster?" asked Frog.
"Summat like," she replied.
"You mean to say that there are people going round being professional dog wankers?" I asked.
"Oh aye. That was the thing: I couldn't ask her that on the 'phone, could I? 'Hello, do you wank dogs?' I rang her up and I had to stop and think and in the end I said: 'Do you artificially inseminate dogs?' and she said: 'Well, not on my own; the dogs have something to do with it themselves.'"
"Bloody hell," said Frog.
"So I got my dog and took him round to her. 'Don't drag him across the floor!' she yelled at me. 'He's only got little legs he'll be no good with a blister on the end of it!' Not that he was much good anyway. An hour and a half it took her, just for a little teaspoonful."
"Didn't she give him a magazine to look at?"
"No, she should have done."
"That's something we need to bear in mind when they make us redundant," remarked Frog.
"What?" I asked, "Dog wankers?"
"It's a living. We could put adverts in newsagents' windows; 'Pet Owners! Does your pet need a wank? Call us now on...'"

The problem is that it's rather more dignified than the jobs we're doing at the moment.

Do you want dandelion & burdock with that?

By the merest chance I heard the very last edition of "ITMA" being played on Radio 4 Extra the other day (Radio 4 Extra is what we have to call Radio 7 these days now we have to pretend that the BBC doesn't have more than 6 radio stations so as not to upset the Daily Mail). I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it; ITMA generally being something I admire for its craft and delivery but don't much laugh at. I'll have to hunt down some more of the later editions.

Bill Oddie was acting as Comedy Controller for a couple of hours and was working to a thesis that though he loved radio programmes like this at the time they've not aged all that well because a lot of the material would have worked better as television programmes because the performers were, essentially, variety artistes and actors doing variety acts. There's a lot to be said for this argument, particularly as his next exhibit was "Archie's the Lad!" with ventriloquist Peter Brough and his dummy Archie Andrews.

But there's also a lot to be said for the counter-argument that there's a lot of television that should have stayed on the radio. And not just because Peter Brough's lips moved. The Telly Goons are a prized part of my childhood memory but they were only ever a nineteenth-rate version of the colour and invention of the real thing on the radio. Similarly: Jimmy Clitheroe's knees. How scary were they at Saturday tea time?

And there's no way, shape or form that Round the Horne could ever have been on the television and kept much of its magic.

I'll be coming back to that...

And breathe...

I suppose I should say something about the wedding, having whinged on at length about it throughout March.

Well... it was a lovely day, the food was excellent, the service was good, the bride was radiant and the groom was as happy as a dog with two tails (a cleaner version of what he said himself). The bridesmaid looked lovely (we have argued - at length - about this) and it all went very well. Good stuff. Very nice, thank you.

And the good news is that The Small Object of Desire and myself are still together despite the combination of job stresses and both of our deep-seated aversions to weddings. Personally, I don't have any objections to marriage so long as it's something you can go away and do and then come back and tell people: "guess what we did this morning" without sulks all round. If that's what you could do I think The Small Object would be a lot less averse but she'd still not be comfortable about it, not even if she were allowed to wear a Patrick Stewart onesie and Doc Martins for the doing of it.

So now we're going through a period of reaction to the stresses of the past month or two where we're all lovey and nice to each other. It's enormous fun; it would make you sick.

At the end of times

I was going to write a desperately serious post about all them things that are assailing us in the news.

A consoling thought instead...