Troops too fat to fight

Apparently, according to the radio news, some soldiers are considered too fat to fight.
When I was at school I didn't get in a lot of fights, but I got in a few.
In my experience, big fat guys made for fairly formidable opponents.
Mind you, we didn't have rifles back in those days. Maybe you don't have to be such a good shot to hit a big fat guy as a little skinny one.

Jobs for genius people

I saw a job ad in the paper today, and at first I got quite excited.
Must know Flash animation techniques.
Yes. I know that!
Must be proficient in programmes such as Photoshop and Illustrator.
Yes. I am that!
Must be able to interpret complex information and convert it into a visual format that would be accessable to all users in a dynamic educational delivery environment.
Well... I wouldn't have worded it that way, but yeah, I can do that. I have done that. I have created interactive presentations which explain to people how wireless broadband works, even though I have no technical idea myself how wireless broadband works.
Must have experience of Java script, HTML, XML, PHP.
And a PhD in nuclear physics.
Okay, I made that last bit up, but I mean to say, how can they ask so much for a job that pays £18000 a year?
You are either a designer or a programmer. I don't even know what XML stands for. (xylophone markup language?).
It appears to me that you would effectively need at least two university degrees to be eligable to apply for that job. One in an art based discipline, and another in a science based one.
It is like advertising for a qualified chef in a new restaurant who must also be able to install and maintain a plumbing system within a dynamic restaurant food delivery environment.
They are two completely different jobs.
Now, I don't have a huge amount of experience in the computer industry, but when I did, the designers did the designing, and the programmers did the programming.
I never met any one who could do both things well. And I met some pretty talented people.
Either young people have evolved into multi-tasking Leonardo da Vincis, or I am just as stupid as my P6 teacher always told me I was.

Blossoms

Hooray! The blossoms are out in Merville at last.
Without meaning to sound gay, I love the pink blossom trees. They make the neighbourhood look so pretty.

Crosh!

I haven't seen this in years! (it was on itv4 tonight)

Conan, what is best in life?

Crush enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women.

I've always found that works for me too.

Also. The bit where he punches a camel has to be considered as one of the best moments in the history of cinematography.

John Humphries Zippy from Rainbow

Is it just me? The supposedly hard hitting Radio 4 journalist just strikes me as rude, tactless and stupid. He asks a question, then interrupts the person while they are trying to answer it. He seems to love nothing more than the yapping sound of his own voice. And he can't even tell the time. He is forever saying it's half eight when it's actually half seven.
Maybe they need Geoffrey on the morning show, just to rein Zippy in from time to time.
"Now Zippy, don't you know it's rude to talk over people?"
"Wha...What? I wasn't being rude, Geoffrey!"
"Yes you were Zippy. Now let the Prime Minister finish what he was saying and don't interrupt."

Culture breaks down

Well, I have just been to the theatre to watch "The History Boys" by Alan Bennett.
I have to say I have changed my opinion about Alan. Whereas I used to think he was good, I now think he is sh*te.
With onions.
It was possibly the worst thing I have ever seen, and I've seen Hollyoaks.
I would like to try to tell you what it was about, but it didn't seem to be about anything.
The acting was of the kind that made you want to just stand up in the middle of the theatre and shout," You're sh*t! Get off the effing stage you w*nker!"
The play itself was so dull it made an hour feel like a decade.
The funniest bit?
Someone said the f word.
The man beside me positively rolled about laughing at this point, as if saying the f word is in and of itself somehow hilarious.
It isn't.
The f word isn't funny on stage. The only people who can use it for true comic effect are soldiers and builders.
I have heard soldiers and builders use that word in a way that approaches fine art.
When comedians, writers and actors use it, it is just a cheap way to get a laugh.
One of the best ones I ever heard was when this guy I used to work with walked into the yard where there was a lot of rubbish piled up.
"Right" he said, "We need to get all this f*cking sh*t out of here."
Then his seven year old son walked into the yard and innocently said, " Daddy. Where's all this f*cking sh*t going to go?"
Now that was funny.

The Columbo format

I love Columbo. You get home from church or whatever and there he is.
Great early afternoon Sunday entertainment.
The weird thing about Columbo is that it is so different from any other crime fiction.
Because you know right from the start who did it. You would think that would totally spoil the suspense of a crime story, but for some reason in Columbo it doesn't.
You know who the murderer is right from the start, but the suspense comes from how Columbo is going to figure it out.
He usually homes in on some really trivial thing that no-one else would notice, and that's how he solves the case.
"There's just one thing that's bothering me. You see it just doesn't seem to add up."
And I love the way he always talks about his wife.
He doesn't have a wife.

Malcolm Young's guitar

Why is it so big?

You don't hear this so much nowadays

"And for those of you watching in black and white, Sunderland are playing in the dark shorts."

Walking on water

Not only that, but also turning water into wine.
Much as I respect Jesus and everything, these miracles strike me as just being a bit of showing off on his part.

As if life's not bad enough.

Your parents decide to call you, "Dave".
And as you grow up, the resentment gradually accumulates, until at the age of about sixteen you suddenly turn around and scream at them, "Was that the best you could come up with?!"
I think it would be better to give children ridiculous names, like horses in the Grand National.
"And here we are now, it's Fuck the Pope followed by Alternative Carpark, and Touch Me I'm Sick in a close third. They come up to the first, and, Oh! Fuck the Pope has fallen!"
...Later in the race... " So it's Risk it for a Biscuit heading for the line, but Oh! What's this? It's Dave! It's Dave streaming through! And it's Dave! It's Dave for the National! And at the finish, Dave wins by a nose!"
... It's never going to happen.

On that bush (a dream)

So I was standing somewhwere, can't remember where. This guy walks up and says, "Did you just pee on that bush?"
I said, "No."
He said, "Well why is it all wet then?"
I said, " I don't know, maybe it's been raining."
He said, "What? Are you an idiot? It hasn't rained in four days."
I said, " I definitely DIDN'T pee on that bush!"
Then he just walked away.

Dreams are weird.

Universal answers

When you are ten years old, here are the only answers you need to any question posed by a grown-up.

Yes.

No.

I don't know.

Big lads did it and then ran away.

Nuclear weapons

Here we go. This is going to take a while.
A quick way to sum it up would be...

"Nuclear weapons?"
"What?"
"Nuclear weapons?"
"What? Me?"
"Yes. Nuclear weapons?"
"No."
"Those guys over the way just bought loads of them."
"Really. How many did they buy?"
"Loads."
"I suppose I'd better have twice as many as them. How much are they?"

This is where it gets bitter and twisted.
I will use capital letters to suggest my anger and disgust to the reader.
THEY COST ABOUT £25 BILLION. WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WORST RECESSION IN LIVING HISTORY. WE DON'T NEED THEM BECAUSE WE WOULD HOPEFULLY NEVER BE SO MORALLY CORRUPT AS TO USE THEM. SO WHY?
why?

The Pope and Easter

I have to say I was extremely disappointed with the Pope yesterday.
I switched on the TV expecting to see him rolling Easter eggs down a hill, or going on an Easter egg hunt in his back garden. But there was none of that.
He was just standing there on a balcony, dressed up like a berk, whittering on in some old language that I couldn't understand a word of.
Who wants to see that?

Half price ten pixel spacer GIF sale

I currently have about my person a number of ten pixel spacer GIFs.
These are high quality ten pixel spacer GIFs and are available in a range of colours, although most of them are white. Some are black, and some are d789ea, which is a kind of mauvey sort of purple, but most of them are white.
Ten pixel spacer GIFs are invaluable if you need to add a ten pixel space in a GIF format on a website you might be designing for example.
I have often used ten pixel spacer GIFs myself. But don't take my word for it...

"These ten pixel spacer GIFs are great. They are precisely ten pixels, and offer the optomised small file format that is so good for use on the web."    E.Gary Gygax (inventor of nerd-fest game Dungeons and Dragons.)
"I think I bought some about a week ago. I'm not really sure. I was pretty drunk at the time."    Lou Reed (Velvet Underground singer.)
"I HAVE BEEN MORE THAT SATISFIED WITH MY TEN PIXEL SPACER GIFS! WHY NOT TRY TEN PIXEL SPACER GIFS YOURSELF AND FIND OUT HOW GREAT THEY ARE?!"
Barry Scott (Shouty Cillet Bang man.)
"I have often found that my websites don't look quite right, and the insertion of a ten pixel spacer GIF here and there makes them look a lot better."   Dave Dick (Graphic Design Specialist.)  

So there you are.
If you would like to order some ten pixel spacer GIFs, contact me now. Because this is a limited offer, and if you fail to avail of it, your websites may suffer from a lack of GIF based ten pixel spacers.

Getting paid

Getting paid is brilliant, isn't it?
You do a bit of work that you're good at, and then someone pays you for it.
It seems reasonable.
It happened to me the other day.
This guy asked me to paint a picture for him. I painted the picture. I phoned him up and said, "I've finished that picture you asked me to paint."
He came round and said, "That looks great." And he paid me, and took the picture away.
Let's look again at the important part of those last few sentences.
He paid me.
Large corporations unfortunately, don't seem to want to work this way.
You secure a contract with them and submit an invoice.
About two months later you start to think, I wonder when they're going to pay me?
So you phone them up, and nobody seems to know quite what is going on.
So you wait another couple of months and then you phone them again, a little bit more vehemently this time. "Look, it's been four effing months now. Where's my effing money?"
About two months later you get a cheque.