I've not really had the chance to post this weekend.
Spring is here and a young man's fancy turns to love.
An old git's fancy can't go there, so it turns to spring cleaning and furniture-wrestling.
So far this weekend I have dropped stuff on myself, slipped over and banged various bones, spurted blood and been swathed in bandages and fallen out of the attic onto my head.
It's been a bit if a bloodbath, but fairly normal for me and spring cleaning. And I think I came out on top in the end.
So I have nothing to post about and am cheating by putting in this crappy piece of filler.
Sorry, but my head hurts.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Origami Food
Fiendishly clever, these Orientals …
Toddle on over to the desk of my lovely and freshly coiffured "very personal assistant", 外人ガールさん, and you'll discover just how clever.
I had to take a late train home last night because we had a jumper. We usually get at least one jumper a week, which always pisses everybody off because the trains are stopped for a couple of hours while some poor sap has to pick up all the lumps of meat and hose the slippery bits into the verge.
So anyway … whenever we have jumpers I duck into わさび and pick up some sashimi and onigiri for the journey home.
Last night, this really pretty girl asked me "What are onigiri?" (not exactly the question I would have liked from her - which was "Tell me more about this Earth custom you call 'kissing'" - but it was better than nothing).
So for the rest of you … This is onigiri:
Yup. It's a triangular lump of pressed rice, usually with a stuffing such as pickled plum or tuna or - in this case - sesame and seaweed; my favourite.
When you open it, you find those fiendishly clever Orientals have kept the nori separate from the rice (to stop it going all soft).
And when you open the inner package, you find that they have helpfully pre-folded the nori so that it wraps itself automatically around your rice ball, origami style.
And there it is: All nice and wrapped up, ready to eat, with the lovely papery-crunchy nori keeping your hands from getting all messy. How considerate is that?
Yum …
This has been a somewhat boring but hopefully educational public information announcement.
Toddle on over to the desk of my lovely and freshly coiffured "very personal assistant", 外人ガールさん, and you'll discover just how clever.
I had to take a late train home last night because we had a jumper. We usually get at least one jumper a week, which always pisses everybody off because the trains are stopped for a couple of hours while some poor sap has to pick up all the lumps of meat and hose the slippery bits into the verge.
So anyway … whenever we have jumpers I duck into わさび and pick up some sashimi and onigiri for the journey home.
Last night, this really pretty girl asked me "What are onigiri?" (not exactly the question I would have liked from her - which was "Tell me more about this Earth custom you call 'kissing'" - but it was better than nothing).
So for the rest of you … This is onigiri:
Yup. It's a triangular lump of pressed rice, usually with a stuffing such as pickled plum or tuna or - in this case - sesame and seaweed; my favourite.
When you open it, you find those fiendishly clever Orientals have kept the nori separate from the rice (to stop it going all soft).
And when you open the inner package, you find that they have helpfully pre-folded the nori so that it wraps itself automatically around your rice ball, origami style.
And there it is: All nice and wrapped up, ready to eat, with the lovely papery-crunchy nori keeping your hands from getting all messy. How considerate is that?
Yum …This has been a somewhat boring but hopefully educational public information announcement.
Friday, March 09, 2007
What's On Your Desk?
Thanks to Prudence and her lovely cats and to Robyn and her slightly disturbing green rubber finger puppets for this one.
Post a photo of your desk so we can picture the mess you are sitting in when you blog.
This is my office mess …
Three Mac G5s, a Macbook Pro, some green tea bags, a Cuba Soldarity Campaign mug, my Japanese homework and some mess.
And this is my home mess …
A couple of iMacs, a Macbook Pro, a pink stress pig and a poster of Che.
Apologies in advance to GG, but I am your boss, so I can have more Macs than you. Hee hee …
Now let's see some pics from the rest of you reprobates.
And no whingeing "Mine's too messy."
No excuses.
Post a photo of your desk so we can picture the mess you are sitting in when you blog.
This is my office mess …Three Mac G5s, a Macbook Pro, some green tea bags, a Cuba Soldarity Campaign mug, my Japanese homework and some mess.
And this is my home mess …
A couple of iMacs, a Macbook Pro, a pink stress pig and a poster of Che.
Apologies in advance to GG, but I am your boss, so I can have more Macs than you. Hee hee …
Now let's see some pics from the rest of you reprobates.
And no whingeing "Mine's too messy."
No excuses.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
What Is All This Crap?
I did that stupid "Visual DNA" quiz thing that Sassy and Robyn have done.
Only Blogger told me there was an error in the html so I can't post it.
Well bugger Blogger, bugger "Visual DNA" and bugger html with a splintered gatepost.
If anybody is remotely interested in what the quiz results said about me, I'll paraphrase them for you:
I am a fat, ugly, balding, extremely overtired and irritable forty-eight year old loser who hasn't had sex since the Boer War and isn't ever likely to again. And I hate quizzes.
Nothing we didn't already know.
Stupid fucking quiz.
Only Blogger told me there was an error in the html so I can't post it.
Well bugger Blogger, bugger "Visual DNA" and bugger html with a splintered gatepost.
If anybody is remotely interested in what the quiz results said about me, I'll paraphrase them for you:
I am a fat, ugly, balding, extremely overtired and irritable forty-eight year old loser who hasn't had sex since the Boer War and isn't ever likely to again. And I hate quizzes.
Nothing we didn't already know.
Stupid fucking quiz.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Z Street Blues
Effusive thanks are winging their way to Malta, to find Dina at Malta Daily Photo.
She has been so good as to travel across the island to Marsa and find Zerafa Street.
I apologise, Dina, for "borrowing" these two photographs, but they are the only pictures I have seen of the street where I started my life.
Actually, I popped out into the world at the David Bruce Military Hospital in Imtarfa, but that doesn't exist any more.
This is where we lived when I was a baby; 121 Zerafa Street, Marsa.
I'll have to ask Mum where the building is/was, but it's kind of spooky seeing the street after all these decades.
This was me at the time, laying on Dad in my big pants. I don't remember any of this but apparently I was there in lovely sunny Malta.
I get kinda blue thinking that I've never been back and that even if I do go, there's nothing left that was there forty-eight years ago. I only know one word of the language, which makes me feel guilty as well as blue.
Oh, well …
At least I have the photos now. Thank you again, Dina.
…
Addendum:
Dina must have got Mum in a nostalgic mood, too as she has just posted this photo (which I have nicked … sorry Mum):
This is cute little me with Mum and my Godfather, Pete (Hi, Pete!), who we still see a lot of. He's great. He was in the Merchant Navy back then and this is taken on board his ship in Sliema Harbour. I'll bet it looks different now; probably all hotels and tourist stuff.
Thanks once again to Dina for setting all this off.
She has been so good as to travel across the island to Marsa and find Zerafa Street.
I apologise, Dina, for "borrowing" these two photographs, but they are the only pictures I have seen of the street where I started my life.
Actually, I popped out into the world at the David Bruce Military Hospital in Imtarfa, but that doesn't exist any more.
This is where we lived when I was a baby; 121 Zerafa Street, Marsa.I'll have to ask Mum where the building is/was, but it's kind of spooky seeing the street after all these decades.
This was me at the time, laying on Dad in my big pants. I don't remember any of this but apparently I was there in lovely sunny Malta.I get kinda blue thinking that I've never been back and that even if I do go, there's nothing left that was there forty-eight years ago. I only know one word of the language, which makes me feel guilty as well as blue.
Oh, well …
At least I have the photos now. Thank you again, Dina.
…
Addendum:
Dina must have got Mum in a nostalgic mood, too as she has just posted this photo (which I have nicked … sorry Mum):
This is cute little me with Mum and my Godfather, Pete (Hi, Pete!), who we still see a lot of. He's great. He was in the Merchant Navy back then and this is taken on board his ship in Sliema Harbour. I'll bet it looks different now; probably all hotels and tourist stuff.Thanks once again to Dina for setting all this off.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Childhood Trauma And The Lemur
Old Knudsen's War on Lemur Terror seems likely to last as long as Dubya's War on Sanity. He's at it again this morning. I would seriously advise you not to click on the smiley face in his top picture though (except for Ame and Lynn, who may well enjoy it).
So I got to thinking what has caused the poor old bugger such lemur-related trauma.
A quick visit to my shrink and some regression therapy revealed the true cause; something so horrific that I had suppressed it for the past forty years.
Ladies and gentlemen; meet Johnny Morris (of TV's Animal Magic) and one of his pointy-toothed flying legions of attack lemurs.
Don't be fooled by the fact that he's currently laying dormant in an English cemetery; he only waits for the next passing of Halley's Comet, when he will rise up and his hordes of lemurs will cover the earth, slaughtering man, woman and child in a kind of cute and fluffy armageddon.
A couple of other slimy, lurking things were hidden in my subconscious and surfaced at the same regression session. They made me realise just why our generation of Brits has grown up in quite the peculiar way that we have.
The first is Crackerjack (CRACKERJACK!!) …
For those untutored in such horror, every time the dumpy black-and-white man uttered the dread word, every schoolchild in the country had to shout it out, otherwise he would come round at night and interfere with us.
"It's only this big, and if you're a good girl, I'll give you pencil afterwards."
This is the scary and exceedingly creepy face of childrens' presenter Peter Glaze, übermeister of Crackerjack (CRACKERJACK!!). The whole programme revolved around this dodgy-uncle type man and his sidekick forcing frightened children in school uniforms to carry out pointless and embarrassing tasks for his pleasure.
If a child was successful, they would be rewarded with a pencil (yes, a pencil); and if they failed, he would give them a cabbage (yes, a cabbage).
Why am I the way I am today? Because of this man and his ilk.
And then there was Jimmy Edwards …
What can one say about this man? Just look at those magnificent whiskers! Would you leave your small boy alone with him?
Thought not.
Somehow, the BBC was seduced into approving a TV series (a long-running and hugely successful TV series) about a dodgy old man caning young boys in school uniforms on the bottom.
I give you "Whacko!"
This was the programme that influenced the sexual development of the whole post-war "baby boomer" generation of Britain.
Please take this into account before judging anything that Old Knudsen or myself may write …
Talking lemurs, cabbages and caning …
Have mercy on us for we know not what we do.
So I got to thinking what has caused the poor old bugger such lemur-related trauma.
A quick visit to my shrink and some regression therapy revealed the true cause; something so horrific that I had suppressed it for the past forty years.
Ladies and gentlemen; meet Johnny Morris (of TV's Animal Magic) and one of his pointy-toothed flying legions of attack lemurs.Don't be fooled by the fact that he's currently laying dormant in an English cemetery; he only waits for the next passing of Halley's Comet, when he will rise up and his hordes of lemurs will cover the earth, slaughtering man, woman and child in a kind of cute and fluffy armageddon.
A couple of other slimy, lurking things were hidden in my subconscious and surfaced at the same regression session. They made me realise just why our generation of Brits has grown up in quite the peculiar way that we have.
The first is Crackerjack (CRACKERJACK!!) …
For those untutored in such horror, every time the dumpy black-and-white man uttered the dread word, every schoolchild in the country had to shout it out, otherwise he would come round at night and interfere with us.
"It's only this big, and if you're a good girl, I'll give you pencil afterwards."This is the scary and exceedingly creepy face of childrens' presenter Peter Glaze, übermeister of Crackerjack (CRACKERJACK!!). The whole programme revolved around this dodgy-uncle type man and his sidekick forcing frightened children in school uniforms to carry out pointless and embarrassing tasks for his pleasure.
If a child was successful, they would be rewarded with a pencil (yes, a pencil); and if they failed, he would give them a cabbage (yes, a cabbage).
Why am I the way I am today? Because of this man and his ilk.
And then there was Jimmy Edwards …
What can one say about this man? Just look at those magnificent whiskers! Would you leave your small boy alone with him?Thought not.
Somehow, the BBC was seduced into approving a TV series (a long-running and hugely successful TV series) about a dodgy old man caning young boys in school uniforms on the bottom.
I give you "Whacko!"
This was the programme that influenced the sexual development of the whole post-war "baby boomer" generation of Britain.
Please take this into account before judging anything that Old Knudsen or myself may write …
Talking lemurs, cabbages and caning …
Have mercy on us for we know not what we do.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Monday Melee
Another sign I'm getting old: it's Monday already and I'm sure we've already had a Monday this week … The older I get, the faster time flies out the window and the less I can remember of it.
So; let's have another grapple with Fracas Monday Melee.
1: The Misanthropic.
(Name something - about humanity - you absolutely hate).
This week I have been mostly hating humanity's inexplicable inability to find me sexually attractive.
2: The Meretricious:
(Expose someone or something that's phony, fraudulent or bogus).
The lovely letter I received from my rail franchise operator informing me that they were ceasing the practice of paying us compensation for delays and at the same time raising prices by eleven percent "to provide a better service for commuters."
er …
3: The Malcontent:
(Name something you're unhappy with).
The fact that Guinness Marmite is only to be available for a limited period.
4: The Meritorious.
(Give someone credit for something and name it if you can).
Scarily enough, I'm going to give credit to my IT department. Just lately, they've been throwing new Macs at me as fast as I can catch them. My current tally is four G5 desktop monsters and a new, top end Macbook Pro. Hoorah for IT (something I never thought I'd hear myself saying).
5: The Mirror.
(See something good about yourself and name it).
I look pretty good from four thousand miles away.
6: The Make-Believe:
(Name something you wish for).
The dead to rise up and party (sorry; that's twice in my life I've used that as a verb).
So; let's have another grapple with Fracas Monday Melee.
1: The Misanthropic.
(Name something - about humanity - you absolutely hate).
This week I have been mostly hating humanity's inexplicable inability to find me sexually attractive.
2: The Meretricious:
(Expose someone or something that's phony, fraudulent or bogus).
The lovely letter I received from my rail franchise operator informing me that they were ceasing the practice of paying us compensation for delays and at the same time raising prices by eleven percent "to provide a better service for commuters."
er …
3: The Malcontent:
(Name something you're unhappy with).
The fact that Guinness Marmite is only to be available for a limited period.
4: The Meritorious.
(Give someone credit for something and name it if you can).
Scarily enough, I'm going to give credit to my IT department. Just lately, they've been throwing new Macs at me as fast as I can catch them. My current tally is four G5 desktop monsters and a new, top end Macbook Pro. Hoorah for IT (something I never thought I'd hear myself saying).
5: The Mirror.
(See something good about yourself and name it).
I look pretty good from four thousand miles away.
6: The Make-Believe:
(Name something you wish for).
The dead to rise up and party (sorry; that's twice in my life I've used that as a verb).
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Up Yours, Winter
I wake this morning to the sounds of desperate arborial grunting and squelching and giggling.
The plum trees outside my bedroom window are at it like rabbits.
Stamens and anthers all over the place. I quickly close the window to avoid being hit by flying pollen.
I do believe spring is in the air.
Bugger!
Another year of watching everything else in the world have sex but getting none myself …
Roll on next winter …
The plum trees outside my bedroom window are at it like rabbits.
Stamens and anthers all over the place. I quickly close the window to avoid being hit by flying pollen.
I do believe spring is in the air.
Bugger!
Another year of watching everything else in the world have sex but getting none myself …
Roll on next winter …
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Not Pregnant
Scary news for womenkind:
Old Dive has decided to get back into shape.
The first part of my new gym arrived last night; a spiffy excercise bike, with lots of heart-monitory stuff and a computer I will never bother to programme. The rest is on its way. I foresee aching muscles, back pain, heart attacks and severe chafing up ahead.
What has brought on this madness?
A couple of weeks back I catch sight of my flabby, middle-aged body in the mirror and reel back in horror!
All of my once fit muscles appear to have sneaked out while I wasn't looking.
My six pack has melted into a bowl of wobbly goo.
I can sense the onset of man-boobs … Man-Boobs! Yikes!
And what's that? … That "thing" sticking out in front?
It can't be! No!
Am I pregnant?
There's a definite bump developing.
Holy crap (as Robyn would say)!
I panic …
No! NOOOO! I can't be pregnant! Not at my age!
And then it all comes flooding back …
That drunken night with Knudsen … The infamous "cock ring" episode …
Oh, fuck!
That awful moment; standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror, holding my 'bump' as the realisation hit me …
Had we taken precautions?
Shit, we'd been sniffing petrol and amyl nitrate all night and watching the Krankies' Honeymoon Video. Anything could have happened!
A quick visit to the lovely Doctor Amanda lays my fears to rest.
It's okay, Knudsen. The Child Support Agency isn't about to come a-knockin'.
Apparently I am suffering from a medical condition known as "fat bastard".
Doctor Amanda advises me that it was indeed me who ate all the pies.
She also says to whip my fat ass back into shape.
Actually, my ass is pretty cute; it's the rest of me that has … er … "relaxed".
So, look out, weemenkind.
Dive is getting back into shape, ready to hunt down the girl of my - admittedly disturbing - dreams.
Tune in again in six weeks, when I sell all my gym equipment and buy a pie shop.
Old Dive has decided to get back into shape.
The first part of my new gym arrived last night; a spiffy excercise bike, with lots of heart-monitory stuff and a computer I will never bother to programme. The rest is on its way. I foresee aching muscles, back pain, heart attacks and severe chafing up ahead.
What has brought on this madness?
A couple of weeks back I catch sight of my flabby, middle-aged body in the mirror and reel back in horror!
All of my once fit muscles appear to have sneaked out while I wasn't looking.
My six pack has melted into a bowl of wobbly goo.
I can sense the onset of man-boobs … Man-Boobs! Yikes!
And what's that? … That "thing" sticking out in front?
It can't be! No!
Am I pregnant?
There's a definite bump developing.
Holy crap (as Robyn would say)!
I panic …
No! NOOOO! I can't be pregnant! Not at my age!
And then it all comes flooding back …
That drunken night with Knudsen … The infamous "cock ring" episode …
Oh, fuck!
That awful moment; standing naked in front of the bathroom mirror, holding my 'bump' as the realisation hit me …
Had we taken precautions?
Shit, we'd been sniffing petrol and amyl nitrate all night and watching the Krankies' Honeymoon Video. Anything could have happened!
A quick visit to the lovely Doctor Amanda lays my fears to rest.
It's okay, Knudsen. The Child Support Agency isn't about to come a-knockin'.
Apparently I am suffering from a medical condition known as "fat bastard".
Doctor Amanda advises me that it was indeed me who ate all the pies.
She also says to whip my fat ass back into shape.
Actually, my ass is pretty cute; it's the rest of me that has … er … "relaxed".
So, look out, weemenkind.
Dive is getting back into shape, ready to hunt down the girl of my - admittedly disturbing - dreams.
Tune in again in six weeks, when I sell all my gym equipment and buy a pie shop.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
One For The Groover
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