Internet Pisser

So, where have I been since last Wednesday?

Well there was this tornado, see; and it picked the whole house up and blew it into some weird TechnicolorTM country and when it landed there was this pointy-nosed bint squashed underneath it and she was wearing these rather divine red shoes which were just my size, so naturally I nicked them and then all these vertically challenged people kept dancing round and singing, and somehow I had a basket with a small, yappy-type dog in it who was named after the Japanese word for tampon (とと) …

Rather more prosaically I have been at home for a long weekend and totally unable to get a connection good enough to even load a blog page.

Fuck.

And I'm back in London for one day only, so I'll be out of touch again until next Monday.
Ah, the downside of living somewhere beautiful but isolated. Crap internet connection, no mobile phone signal (which pleases me greatly as I don't have one and it means anybody popping in to see me has to talk to me instead of rudely yapping into their hand while I sit there twiddling my thumbs) and no satellite TV signal (which is great because I don't have satellite and don't watch telly anyway).
The internet is a pisser though.

So that's where I've been and that's where I'll be until Monday.
I might even write something worth reading then.
But not today.

er … Pt.2

I remember her laugh (see previous post).

If you can picture the sound of a hyena being beaten with bagpipes (go on, try it);
then
(a) that's what she sounded like,
and
(b) you're a little bit weird.

And Another Thing …

Continuing on from the previous post, I just remembered my favourite J-W anecdote.
I wish I could claim credit for this one but it was actually an ex.

Hennyway, the J-Ws came a-knocking and she answered the door.
After a brief but uninspiring round of repartée, they asked:
"Do you believe in the theory of evolution?"
To which she snapped back:
"Of course! My boyfriend's an animal!"
Then she collapsed into shrieking fits of hysterical laughter while the poor J-Ws stood there for a minute or two before sidling off, somewhat discomfited.

Absolutely true.
We lay on the hall floor and laughed and made monkey noises for ages after they'd gone (I didn't have a telly in those days so there was little else to do).
Hey ho.

Après-Vie? Non, Merçi

"Not so much an afterlife; more an après-vie." - Arthur Dent.

There was a bit in the 'stupid questions' section of The Guardian yesterday asking if anybody had actually been converted by the God-botherers on their doorstep.
Quite a few, it turned out.
Someone raised a good question, however. It seems that in Jehovah's Witness Heaven there are only a finite number of places available; something like 114,000, though that's from memory so correct me if I'm talking out of my arse (again).
It explains why they go away so quickly when you don't answer the door; they don't want to create too much competition for places.

I like the J-Ws; they are always ready for a chat but never come equipped with the answers to any tricky theological questions, just an entertaining array of confused and worried expressions and a sprinkling of risible platitudes. They usually catch me when I'm mowing the front lawn, then they seem rather eager to get away … I can't think why.

The last time I snared them I had just boiled the kettle so I made them tea and we sat around on the lawn and flicked through the Watchtower.
'That looks familiar', I thought … There was a big illustration that had been copied straight from one of Kurt Busiek's Superman graphic novels (yes, I'm that sad); a gap-toothed grinning old Chinaman and a happy white family with a baby. They told me that was what Heaven would be like … Hmmmm …
"So if you die of old age you end up a rickety old guy in Heaven?" I said, pointing to the rickety old guy.
Some amusing confused expressions and murmuring between themselves.
I pointed to the baby.
"And if you die in infancy you're stuck as a baby forever?"
They decided that perhaps you went to Heaven as whatever you wanted.
"So I can look like George Clooney?" (this was a while back) …
After that, they seemed in a hurry to finish their teas.
"Do you actually have copyright on that illustration? That's a Kurt Busiek painting."
And they were off.
Next time they come knocking, go answer the door. It can be a fun way to spend a few minutes. If you smile a lot it really spooks them.

Which brings me round to après-vie, the afterlife.
I'm happy with there being no God and no afterlife. I really don't understand why some people feel the need for such things but I accept that they do (sorry, Robyn, I know we disagree on this one, and you've heard all of this crap before so you can go have a coffee).

I mean, an afterlife?
For ever?
I don't know about you but that little bit of late Sunday afternoon just before teatime bores me to homicidal distraction … Douglas Adams correctly called it "The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul" … so the prospect of living forever gives me the creeping horrors.
When I die I will be dead.
That's it.
Anything that was me - other than a six foot length of compost - will cease to exist.
A few nice buildings and some music will carry on for a bit, but the person writing this drivel will not.
And that is such a relief.
As for my saggy old body, I had originally planned to leave it to alternative comedy, but apparently that's illegal. It would have been great to have it kicked around a stage or blown up for a laugh, but there you go … the law's an ass but it's still the law.
So wrap my mouldering corpse in a sack and chuck it in a hole.
On unconsecrated ground, please.
With no marker.
It's only bloody compost after all.

London's Crispy Landmarks

Anyone planning a trip to London this year?
Well you can skip Greenwich unless you like charcoal.

Some of us at the office like to take the river taxi from Westminster down to Greenwich and sit at the tables outside the Cutty Sark pub with a nice pint and admire the view.
It used to be pretty impressive, as pub views go. This and the picture at the bottom were taken on our last visit to the pub.

Hey ho.
So the beautiful old tea clipper Cutty Sark caught fire yesterday morning and the fire brigade were there in five minutes.
But thanks to Health and Safety legislation they had to just sit there and watch it burn for forty-five minutes while they rousted the on-site contractor out of bed and got him to sign a method statement declaring that to the best of his knowledge there were no gas cylinders or hazardous chemicals on board. Then and only then could they get on and fight the fire … er.
What a bunch of wank.

Thanks to the fucking Health and Safety Executive (the bane of my life at work), this is what the old girl looks like now.

I spend a great deal of my working life hurling colourful profanities at Eric, our Health and Safety Officer.
"You can't go on that roof without a filing a method statement and wearing a safety harness." is one of his favourites.
"Bollocks!" is what I usually reply before going up on the roof and doing what I have to do.

All this is of course driven by the fucking insurance industry, for whom a specially built circle of Hell awaits.
Longtime blogpals will know my views on insurers. If you're new, just picture a lot of swearing.

Hey! What's the difference between an insurance company and the mafia?
If you pay money to the mafia, they'll protect you.

… oh, and they dress better, too.

Thankfully, they were in the middle of refurbishing the ship, so all of the masts, rigging, upper decks and original fittings were off site in storage. Thank to that fluke, one day she will look like this again.
No thanks to the fucking H&SE.
Useless bastards.

Fuck That, Too

I fear there's something wrong with our Rich.
Of late he sounds like he's been working under cover for Hallmark Cards.

Let's just clear up a few things here:
Numero uno: Life sucks.
It sucks huge hairy arse.
A positive mental attitude just gets you shat on.
Every fucker is out to get you.
Helping others just makes you look like a pervert.
Every cloud is a fucking cloud.
Smiling makes you look creepy.
You really do look fat in that.
And ugly.
All the work you do simply enriches other people.
See? They are laughing at you.
Life is a big fat box of fucking misery.
And don't you forget it.

I'm back, even if only sporadically.

Fuck This

Fuck this.

You know me; I like to post something every day, even if it is drivel.
But we're now entering the stupidly busy season at work, so I can't post from here (at least not daily) and I still can't get a connection in the village good enough to even load a blog, so fuck it.
I'll try to post something at least once a week, but between here and the end of October - when things calm down at work - don't expect your daily dose of dross.

Of course, should my internet service provider actually provide an internet service, I will blog evenings and weekends, but that is considerably less likely that the world being overrun by winged space monkeys.

I'm also depressed, so don't be surprised if I shoot myself.
Fuckity fuck.

Norfolk? Flat?

Too busy to rant today, so as a filler here's some eye candy. I took this on the way home from Japanese classes a couple of weeks back. Click on it and it will grow.

Who on earth said that Norfolk is flat and wet?
Ah … Mister Dickens, j'accuse! This is one of the places from David Copperfield. It hasn't changed much.
Why the hell would I want to move to London when I live here?

過労死

The Japanese have - somewhat inevitably - a word for it:
過労死
pronounced かろうし, it means "death from overwork".

Actually, this week has been rather fun.
We are entering our busiest period of the year; being schools Architects, most of our major works have to be carried out during the summer holidays, so everything is on site at the same time. As a consequence, all twelve of us in the "Grumpy Old Folks" department (the Architects) work our asses off between now and October.

My problem this week has been:
- three of us have retired this year and we have not been able to find replacements of anywhere near the quality we need (I've been interwiewing several a week and the word "crap" springs to mind);
- six more are either on leave or throwing sickies;
- of the two people I have here, Pauline is having a nervous breakdown and Heidi is still in training;
- everybody's phones have been forwarded to mine;
- ditto emails;
- I am also - with my Marxist hat on - staff representative for sixty-two of us and for most of this morning I have had a roomful of shouty people with pitchforks and torches who have been burning management in effigy … the natives are definitely revolting. The next committee meeting should be fun!

And I love it!

But it will kill me if it goes on much longer.
And it does mean I have no time to do a proper post, so you're stuck with this drivel.
Hey ho …

Pointy Things

Ame commented yesterday how she misses sushi in Piccadilly Circus.
Well, spring is here, and with it come the fucking tourists, so Piccadilly Circus is now a no-go area and I take my sushi down the road to Green Park.

Here you go, Ame.

Last week I popped back to the British Museum to check out the revamped Japan section, which was closed when Ame and Bear were there.

I couldn't open the cabinet and nick this lot, which is a shame as it would be perfect for wearing on the tube.

Looking closely at these 刀 (Katana) it is easy to see the difference between them and the crappy pressed steel replicas that you can buy these days.
These are fucking scary!
Arse-tighteningly so.
Click on 'em and marvel at the craftsmanship.

I love that scene in Kill Bill above Sonny Chiba's sushi bar, where he unveils the sword he has made for Uma Thurman. These are like that only better.

Check this out:
This is the oldest still usable sword in the Museum's collection. It was made by Sueyuki in the 1100s and is a 太刀(Tachi), or the longer of the two swords carried by Samurai.
It is still in perfect condition and looks so sharp I had to hide my fingers behind my back when I stared at the blade.
Yikes!