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January, 2008:

Money, it’s a gas.

I made a late night stop at the petrol station last night in order to get my diet coke fix. I find that drinking carbonated caffeine just before bed is vital in order to attain that feeling of exhausted insomnia that I’ve come to know and love. Ahead of me in the queue to pay was a woman who was trying to provoke the lady behind the till into a debate about the current high cost of fuel.

I don’t understand the reasoning behind things like that. It’s not like the poor beleaguered cashier has a hotline to the BP board of directors stashed under the counter:

“There’s a woman here in Huddersfield who’s complaining that it costs her nearly fifty pounds to fill up her tank these days sir. I think it might be time to reduce the costs to below £1 a litre again”

“Thanks Maureen, we’ll see what we can do”

It’s the same thing in fire safety lectures. Every year the NHS makes me attend one of these in order that they can absolve themselves of all responsibility when I accidentally burn down the hospital. And every year you can guarantee that half way through someone will start whinging about the 1996 European regulations on Fire extinguishers. These dictate that instead of the traditional collouring of red (water ) cream (foam) black (CO2) or blue (powder), all different types of extinguishers should all be coloured red, but with a small cream, black, or blue band signifying it’s contents.

The levels of distress and fury that people can whip themselves into over this issue is absolutely incredible. The legislation was brought in twelve years ago, but for some reason they seem to believe that ranting about it to a moonlighting firefighter in a drafty NHS training room is somehow going to get the regulation’s overturned. The worst thing is that these idiots inevitably make the session over-run, thus negating the only positive aspect of mandatory training courses – the possibility of sneaking off home early.

Mind you, the woman at the petrol station did have a point. Fuel prices are rather high at the moment. It was £1.07 a litre last time I filled up. But I’m certainly not going to embarrass myself by complaining to the petrol attendant about it. No, I’ll be far too busy complaining about the price of their diet coke to do anything like that. (“£1.60 for a two litre bottle?! It’s not like they have to pump it out of the ground! Get me the chairman of Coca-cola on the phone right now damnit”).

“It’s all Greek to me” Sunday

Listen, I don’t care if you don’t like this new regular feature, we are going to keep doing it and keep doing it until you DO like it. OK? It’s a bit like broccoli, but without the foilc acid.

Like last time I’ve take a short film synopsis from the listings page of a TV guide and fed it into Bable Fish, an online translating service. I then translated the synopsis from English into Greek, and then from Greek back into English. The resulting gobbledygook is posted below and your task is to try and identify what movie the passage refers to.

Today’s review is from Jan 12-18th edition of TV Choice, and is a particularly easy one I think.

Touching, resourceful drama. The [actor] plays tortured time superior employee FedEx which plane is shattered in the Pacific Ocean. The He’s washed on a island deserted and have only his spirits and certain parcels FedEx in order to him they keep live. It’s a brilliant and moved film with the [actor] that surpasses as soul that is submitted in much more by one dramatic natural transformation. (2000, US)

Last week’s winner was Carla from Blah Blah Blog-o-licious, and what a week she has had. Not only did she become reigning world champion of “It’s all Greek to me” Sunday, but she also persuaded her husband to pose on her blog wearing a tiara. If success can do that for Carla, just think what it could do for you!

Saturday Review

A periodic look at stuff I’ve been consuming recently.

Children’s Book: The Skipping Rope Snake

51YQARNZJDL._AA240_.jpgI object to paying £5 for a children’s picture book. I appreciate that that’s the going rate for them these days, and I even recognize that it’s probably a lot more difficult than it looks to produce them. But five pounds? That’s half a CD!

To be honest though, we very rarely pay full price for our kids books, tending to get them from discount retailers like The Book People or borrow them from the library. But if I had paid £5 for the Skipping Rope Snake you could bet that I’d have stormed round to the bookshop the next day and demanded every penny back. It is, I’m afraid to say, completely pants.

The illustrations are innocuous enough, but the text is awful. It was written by celebrated British poet Carol Ann Duffy. I’d never heard of her until I googled her just now, but apparently she was in the running for Poet Laureate after the death of Ted Hughes. Now I’m not completely opposed to poetry. I’m a big fan of Simon Armitage, John Hegley, and Micheal Rosen to name but three. But the art form does try my patience on occasion. It’s practitioners have a tendency to be up their own arses, and I suspect that Carol Ann Duffy is no exception.

My main issue with the book is that it just doesn’t flow. If I had a degree in English literature I’m sure that I’d appreciate all it’s clever rhymes and intricate rhythms. But I don’t; and surprisingly enough neither do my children. The whole book reads like some experimental Jazz improv: all stops and starts and random beats. And like experimental Jazz it is excruciating to have to sit through and leaves you with a faint feeling of inferiority as you worry you aren’t clever enough to “get it”. Pah!

You can buy The Skipping Rope Snake at Amazon. But if you send me the postage you can have our copy for free.

The cure for all the world’s ills?

Someone told me recently that any situation, no matter how sad, can be made infinitely less distressing merely by the addition of the Benny Hill theme music. I decided to test this out with the movie that Channel 4 recently designated the biggest tear jerker of all time.

Mmmm, I think the jury is still out on this one. Perhaps I should devote the entire of next week to investigating it.

Perhaps not.

A cigarette by any other name would still smell as foul

no-smoking.jpg
“Daddy, see that sign? That sign means No Fire Whistles”

Fat Dan’s grand slam

As you probably know, this summer I and a group of my friends are going to walk the 78 mile long Dales Way footpath in aid of the Joseph Salmon Trust. As you also probably know I am possibly the most unfit man on the face of the planet. These two facts are not particularly compatible.

There are now 6 months and 14 days left until we set off, and I need to get a move on getting myself ready for it. As Oli so politely put it the other day, most of us need to get in shape for the walk; whereas I need to change my shape. And despite all my protestations to the contrary it’s going to take more than having lite mayonnaise with my half roast chicken and taking the occasional saunter down the canal path.

I weighed myself yesterday and was faced with an unpleasantly high number. It was like looking at my bank statement, but in reverse. Oh why can’t I live in Bizzaro world? Still, there is time to do something about it and today marks the start of the official Dan Dietâ„¢. Basically it’s a combination of the Atkins diet and Weight Watchers; so you can eat fat and carbs and still lose weight! A plan with no drawbacks!

Oh OK then, maybe not. What I’m actually going to do is eat more healthily and get some significant exercise at least three times a week. I can’t face going on one of those weird diets like my mum does where you can eat as much cabbage, quail, and hedge clippings as you want; but only during odd numbered minutes.

My goal is to lose a total of 43 pounds, that’s roughly 1-2lbs a week from now until the 23rd of July. I’ve lost similar amounts of weight before, so I know it is possible. I just need to coax my brain into getting obsessed by loosing weight. Not the most pleasant state to be in, but ultimately rewarding I suppose. It needs to be done at any rate. I’ll keep you updated (unless I fall off the wagon of course, then I shall pretend this post never happened).

Cross posted at the Dales Walk blog

www.alluc.org

www.alluc.org. A vast clearing house with links to streaming videos of just about every cartoon and TV show you can think of. Great in combination with Dowloadhelper, an extension for firefox which enables you to save streaming videos to your computer.

Watching the monkeys at the zoo

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Seven sets of eight things

A long time ago in a country far, far away the delightful Ms CamiKaos tagged me with a meme. Unfortunately I became far too carried away with blogging about He-Man and My Little Pony and other earth shattering topics and so it was placed on the back burner.

However I’ve never been one to pass up an opportunity to talk about myself. Behold, the 8 things meme.

8 things I am passionate about
My family
Consuming comedy
Anti-bullying
Left wing politics
Minimization of streaming schoolchildren by “ability”
Reading and writing blogs
Not being bored

8 Things I want to do before I die
Live long enough that my children can cope with my death
Grow old with Kerry
Live for a while in another country
Make a great train journey
Improve my writing and my photography
Make a difference
Never feel lonely
Create something wonderful

8 Things I say often
Marvelous
Jolly good
Arse
Sweetheart
Banana bonce
I’m just going to check my emails
Evan, no biting!
Grrrrrah

8 books I have read recently
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid – Bill Bryson
Lower Regions – Alex Robinson
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – Paul Torday
Things can only get better – John O’Farrell
Born to be riled – Jeremy Clarkson
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – JK Rowling
The complete Father Brown stories – G.K. Chesterton
The last days of Newgate – Andrew Pepper

8 songs I could listen to over and over again
Songs of Love – Ben Folds
Garden Song – John Denver and the Muppets
Moving to LA – Art Brut
Brian Wilson – Barenaked Ladies
Don’t Dream it’s Over – Crowded House
Pop Singer’s Fear of the Pollen Count – Divine Comedy
Good Man – Josh Ritter
At my Most Beautiful – REM

8 Things that attract me to my best friends
Sense of humor
Intelligence
Liberal outlook
Reliability
Conversationalist
None competitiveness
Emotional stability
Worship the ground I walk on

8 people who should totally do this meme
Deb
Paul
Kerry
Dan
Jeff (the other Jeff, not this Jeff)
Tracy
Kristina
Sam

“It’s all Greek to me” Sunday

At the risk of accidently turning this site into a pop-culture blog, I have decided to complement the sporadic and unpopular Saturday Review with a no doubt equally sporadic and unpopular new feature: It’s all Greek to me Sunday.

The premiss is simple. I shall take a short film synopsis from the listings page of a TV guide and feed it into Bable Fish, an online translating service. I will then translate the synopsis from English into Greek, and then from Greek back into English. The resulting gobbledygook will be posted on the blog and your task is to try and identify what movie the passage refers to.

I’ve done things like this in the past and have always been surprised how quickly people have got the right answer.

So, today’s film review is from the Christmas edition of the Radio Times:

This adventure POW from the director [director] is one from all cinemas of chronicle of big war. the [actor], [actor], and [actor] they link such British stalwarts as [actor] and the [actor] in a total of threads of escapes of collapsing tunnels, headlights of examination and his courages despite the ostensibly insuperable probabilities. (US 1963, 165min)

No prize for this one as I’m planning on doing this regularly and there are only so many parcels I feel comfortable in putting off posting*. However the first person to get the correct answer will get a marvelous jpg badge with which to decorate their blog if they so wish. And there is always the satisfaction in knowing you have beaten the opposition into the dust of course. So get to it.

*I got banned from ebay for my slackness once, so all you previous winners can at least gain some satisfaction in the fact that you haven’t actually paid me anything. I was selling my comic collection at the time and everyone got their purchases eventually (I even refunded the payments on the really late stuff so the buyers got them free). But I have now realized I am not cut out for a career in ebay entrepreneurship.