UFO Confectionery

This is for Robyn and Sassy.
Sherbet flying saucers! Woohoo!


These things were everywhere when I was a kid but now I can't find 'em for love nor money.
They were basically rice paper with a little bit of sherbet inside; the rice paper would stick to the roof of your mouth and the sherbet would choke you.
Bliss.

Klaatu Barada Nikto!

Monday Melee

As Old Knudsen foresaw with astonishing prescience in the comments to my last post, it's Monday and it's another fucking meme.
Time once again for the festering pile of crapulent moaning known to the world as Fracas Monday Melee.
I know you're fed up with me loving Mondays so today I will make a special effort to be as miserable as the rest of you goitres.
Hey ho, here we go …

1: The Misanthropic.
(Name something - about humanity - you absolutely hate).
This week I have been mostly hating humanity's sheer trashy tastelessness and in particular the wearing of those stupid fucking trousers that stop short halfway down your shin. What the fuck do you people think you look like? Drooling fucking idiots with stumpy legs; that's what.
They are an offence against all that is good and decent in this world.

Guys: Ten years from now you will see those photos of yourselves in stupid short fucking clown trousers and sandals (SANDALS!) and shoot yourselves in the head in shame. Save time and do it now. It's a mercy killing, believe me.

And girls: These things are about as far from elegant as it is possible to get. They make even great legs look ugly. When you wear them you are saying :"Look at my dumpy, short, stupid, ugly legs. I am a moron with no sense of style whatsoever and should be shunned and not allowed out in daylight."

Just so you know.

2: The Meretricious:
(Expose someone or something that's phony, fraudulent or bogus).
Canyajustitis.
My boss is a severe sufferer from this bogus disease that affects incompetent managers.
He'll wait until after the departmental scheduling meetings (Departmental Meeting: A meeting where you go in sane but depart mental), when I am fully booked up with an insane workload for the next month, then sidle up in his pointy-headed little way and say "Can you just do this?", "Can you just do that?", "Can you just fit this little job in?" and try to fit several more crappy little jobs that he should really be doing in to my already overloaded schedule.
Bastard.

3: The Malcontent:
(Name something you're unhappy with).
The word "taupe".
That's not a proper colour. I've never seen taupe in a fucking rainbow.
Get rid of it.
Now.

4: The Meritorious.
(Give someone credit for something and name it if you can).
My neighbours, Jerry on one side and Marion and John on the other, for restocking my wine rack when all I did was feed the cats and water the plants for them. Lovely people.

5: The Mirror.
(See something good about yourself and name it).
I'm going to die one day. Woohoo!

6: The Make-Believe:
(Name something you wish for).
Sherbet flying saucers.
I can't find the little buggers anywhere these days.

Scenes From The Class Struggle In 日本語

Fuck me!
I've done a whole year of Japanese classes!

So here are some photos from our final lesson … er … party:

Class of '07
l-r: Sam, Dive, Lyn, Louisa, Camilla, Dead Dude, Shona, Gandy,
and the lovely Mayuko, our long-suffering Sensei trying to hide under the table.

Camilla and Louisa. God, I love being back in school!

Gandy makes "Mochi-Man".

Mayuko Sensei and her yummy sushi.

Mochi-Girl.
A new breed of superhero.

Shona makes lemonade interesting.

And we play silly games.
Yaaaay!
Can you guess who the competitive ones are?

Camilla, Dead Dude and Shona get dancing to Camilla's J-Pop CDs.

er … I think this is some weird sex thing …

Sayonnara until September, guys.

A Stencilled Rat Writes

Okay, dweebs. The Blue Rubber Cat has hijacked Dive's blog again and asked me to keep an eye on the dork while he's shopping in London.
"Not only does he stick his hand up my arse" the Cat told me, "but he's done a post on going shopping! SHOPPING! … First it was Tiffany Lamps, then fucking spice racks, then ironing, ferChrissakes! Keep an eye on that fucker. I don't want him coming home in a dress."

So here I am, Banksy's Rat. Your guest blogger for today. Dive has walked past me thousands of times over the years, but this time I'm following the fucker.

So what's the first thing he does? Goes to see Big Gay Alex for a haircut.
Big Gay Alex likes to giggle and say "Going down, sir?" when he pumps that stupid hydraulic chair of his. Today we learn that Alex is thinking of getting married.
Holy Crap! I pity to poor bastard who marries him. I mean he's BIG! Like American Fat! (Note from the Blue Rubber Cat: I'm gonna have to trademark that phrase after all the hilarious whining the Yanks did after Dive first used it) That guy wears his mumu skin tight. If he rolls over in bed it's Goodnight Vienna. One "Squish" and it's all over.

So anyway, when he comes outta there he heads over St.James's Park. We're having some serious weather here; floods, storms, tornados, plagues of locusts, the lot. So this is St.James's Park at lunchtime in July.
Note to Robyn: Bring a brolly when you come over.

Even The Mall ain't exactly thronged with tourists. Though the "fucking huge flag" salesman seems to have had a good day.

So then Dive disappears into the Royal Academy to look at the Summer Exhibition, which he says is seriously good fun except the stupid bastard checked his camera with the security folk instead of smuggling it in so all we get to see are Jake and Dinos Chapman's outsized Kiddies' Dinosaurs in the courtyard. My money's on the T Rex.

And then he emptied a couple of Japanese supermarkets of all their stock for his party tonight and staggered back across the city, just in time to get caught in this huge thunderstorm.
Boring fucking shopping.

Bring back the ranting I say.

Gone Shopping

Day off today. I'll be trawling round London's Japanese supermarkets gathering ingredients for tonight's end of year party at college for our lovely Japanese class.
Yes, I will take a camera.

In the meantime, feel free to amuse yourselves.
If you've got no games to hand, then masturbation is fun.

Revolting Colonials

I'd been preparing a nice lefty rant today, taking key phrases from the Declaration of Independence and contrasting them with events and political statements from more recent years (and both parties) to show how those wonderful principles have been eroded and degraded by successive administrations.
But then I thought "Fuck it. Let the buggers enjoy themselves."

So Happy Independence Day to Robyn, Sassy, Rich, Prudence, Ame and Bear, Maria and Bing and Liv, Terroni, Fresh Hell, SLS and Frances and to all who sail in you.
Woohoo!

Meanwhile, over here on the side of the pond that still can't get rid of our parasitical monarchy, newly unelected Prime Minister Brown has announced the removal from the Executive of the power to take the country into war; that power so abused by the disgusting Bliar.
It will henceforth revert to being a Parliamentary decision, so George, when you invade Iran you'll be doing so without us you warmongering bastard.
Perhaps this could be the start of our own Declaration of Independence from the USA. Here's hoping.
"Yee" - and probably "Haa" as well.

Enjoy your fireworks.

Just A Quickie

First off; welcome back Alan Johnston.
Nice to have some good news from Gaza for a change.

On an entirely unrelated matter, huge thanks to Peahen for pointing me at Monkeyfluids. Hee, hee and hee again.

Don't Jump

Hokay.
Back to the fragrant joys of long distance commuting.

Some of you may remember the statistic (absolutely true - I have meticulous records going back many years) that my rail company has to date provided me with more trains that have burst into flames than trains that have deposited me at my destination exactly on time.

And I may have related the 'delightful' feeling of screaming horror when my two alarm clocks - at opposite ends of the bedroom - go apeshit at four-forty every morning and propel me out of my lovely bed to stagger blindly down the landing toward the shower.

And my minimum seven hours a day travelling to get to work and back (thank God I love my job).

And my amiable feelings toward my fellow travellers (anyone who has not read the advice contained in this link should do so now. I mean it).

And the odd things that I have to put up with on the train, such as being invited to fornicate with cultists, the erotic yet weird thumb-sucking girl and the happy time I spent with the one-armed man …

Well today, for the edification of non-commuters I am going to talk about jumpers.
By jumpers I mean the selfish, fucked-up worthless pieces of shit who jump in front of trains.

Apparently not everybody shares my deep sense of joy at Mondays. Over the past five Mondays we have had three jumpers. And that's only because there were no trains to jump under on the other two Mondays; one was a bank holiday and so the line was closed for engineering works, and on the other the overhead lines fell down so no trains could run anyway …
There may well have been jumpers on those days too, but the most they could have hoped for was a twisted ankle from landing awkwardly.

We do get an awful lot of these useless fuckwits on my line. And though it is by no means exclusive, Monday seems to be the most popular day to piss Dive off by making my journey home a couple of hours longer than the three and a half hour pit of misery that it already is if everything runs smoothly (which it does on average once a year).

If you're thinking of jumping, here's some advice.
DON'T!
At least don't do it on my line.
An Intercity train travels (allegedly) at over a hundred miles an hour (HA!).
Sure, when the occasional loco does manage to struggle and wheeze up to speed stepping in front of one is a nice quick way to check out but believe me there's not much left afterwards.
It's not like jumping in front of a tube train or a local stopping service where there are still recognisable bits of you scattered around; with an Intercity it takes the police and rail staff at least an hour to hose what's left of you into the verge and there are very rarely any lumps left that are too big to plop into a bucket.

I've been on a train that hit a jumper. We started braking and then there was this icky banging sound that travelled back down the floor of the carriages as the larger bits of skull or pelvis got bounced between the train and the stones and concrete sleepers.
Then we just sat there for ages, not one of us feeling in the least bit sorry for the twat smeared along the bottom of the train and seeping into the landscape just underneath our feet.
And the poor drivers have to have time off whenever they hit a jumper; we are running out of drivers!

So …
If you really want to end it all, and those nice folk at Samaritans cannot dissuade you, just let me know and I'll happily strangle you.
Just don't jump under my fucking train, you bastard!

Cheetah Fucks It Up Again

Wow!
I never thought it would be possible for Bush to devalue the US Presidency any more than he had to date, but give him his due; in commuting Libby's sentence he has somehow managed it.
In the eyes of the world that hallowed office is now sunk to hitherto unimagined depths in the reeking pismire of debauched corruption.

"One law for me; one law for the rest of you".

It's Independence Day tomorrow.
Jefferson's ghost must be shrieking in vertiginous horror seeing just how far his mighty ideals have fallen.

Truly disgusting.

Monday Melee

Excellent! Another rainy Monday morning.
Time once again for Fracas Monday Melee.
Be warned; the Man Who Loves Mondays(TM) is your host for today.

1: The Misanthropic.
(Name something - about humanity - you absolutely hate).
This week I have been mostly hating our fœtid and pathetic excuse for an outgoing Prime Minister and celebrating his demise.
It's thanks to him and his incomprehensible one man crusade to lick chimp arse that London is once again a target of terrorist bombs, and no thanks to him that they are so crap at bomb making.

2: The Meretricious:
(Expose someone or something that's phony, fraudulent or bogus).
People who don't like Mondays.
Miserable fuckers who want to shoo … oo … oo … oo … oo …oot the whole day down.
What on earth could anyone possibly find to dislike about Monday mornings?

For a start, there's no more housework or gardening until next Saturday.
Work is wonderful (I love my job). Hey, you've only got one life; if you're doing something you hate five days a week then for fucks's sake do something else!
Even on a rainy Monday like today, and with crap trains, the walk from the station to the office is somewhat splendid.
Here are a couple of shots I took this morning on my way in:

Jolly Old Father Thames rolling along.

Our sartorially challenged police enjoying a tender, hand-holding moment.

So stop moaning, you joyless misanthropes. Mondays are lovely. Enjoy the fuckers!

3: The Malcontent:
(Name something you're unhappy with).
I'm not overly ecstatic about the summer cold I caught last week, which is lingering on with the hacking cough of a sixty-a-day smoker and bouts of explosive phlegm-flinging sneezes that leave the inside of the car looking like the aftermath of a bukake party.
ICK! If anybody needs any wallpaper paste I've got lungsful of the sodding stuff.
Oh, if you don't know about bukake, you really DO NOT want to know …

4: The Meritorious.
(Give someone credit for something and name it if you can).
Simon, our delightful structural engineer, for waiting until I had just finished a month's worth of work preparing the construction drawings for Heathfield School before telling me he wants to make every single internal wall 50mm thicker.
I am of course being sar-fucking-castic. The bastard is rather wisely working from home for a couple of days having left me a note to find this morning.
Get the fucking calculations right the first time, you cretin! It's what we pay you for. If you want to come back to a job on Wednesday it's gonna cost you a lot more than the grovelling apology I got on the phone this morning.
Twat!

5: The Mirror.
(See something good about yourself and name it).
I can't sing to save my life and I don't care. Morning walks along the Embankment are perfect for warbling atonally along to my iPod.
Today's screech-fest was Patti Smith's "Horses" album. Apologies to the poor folk passing by Cleopatra's Needle at around half-eight this morning who were subjected to my appalling singalong to "Rock and Roll Nigger".

6: The Make-Believe:
(Name something you wish for).
Every day to be Monday.