Monday, July 27, 2009

New bank holiday planned

I see that our wacky Government have come up with another crap idea.
"The Government is considering a new bank holiday to honour those killed at work, according to reports".
- Yahoo News.
There's not much chance of being killed at work in these days of mass unemployment.

You stand more chance of being killed by a car mounting the pavement as you stand in the queue outside the Job Centre!

Thinking about it though it seems a good idea really, more holidays can't be a bad thing. Why stop at "Persons killed at Work Day"? Let's have a "Killed at Home whilst Messing about with Electricity Day" or "Killed by Angry Partner when Caught Shagging the Neighbour Day"?

It would make more sense if we had a public holiday on April 23rd to celebrate our patron saint, St George; or Cyril, or whatever his name was (I asked some schoolchildren who our patron saint is and they didn't have a clue!). After all, other countries have a holiday on their patron saints day. I once had a French diary and I noticed that EVERY day was dedicated to a saint; some days even had TWO saints on it! I think that soon they will have to add a few extra days per year to accomodate the new Saints.

But I digress. Of course we can't have a day off work to celebrate St Georges Day, that would be considered an act of provocation inasmuch as 'inciting hatred' against the ethnic minority and might harm 'cultural relations and diversity'. Anyway, according to the various forms I have to fill for my weekly pittance the words 'England' and 'English' don't exist anymore.

Another thing . . . .and another thing is that I had better stop here because I'm getting angry, and might say something that the boys in blue might regret and pay me a visit!

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posted by Keith at 2:36 AM   24 comments

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Easy Calligraphy

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posted by Keith at 2:44 PM   7 comments

Saturday, July 25, 2009

A New Pigdemic?

I noticed that my imaginary friend, Peter the Pig, was a funny colour this morning.

"Are you alright?" I asked him. "Not very well today," he replied, "I think I've caught that effing 'Human Flu' that's spreading around the imaginary pigsties at an alarming rate".

"No, I don't think so. You're just imagining it! It's probably nothing trivial, after all you did sink a lot of beer in the pub last night" I said, but I was thinking that if he died I would be set up for imaginary bacon sandwiches for life! And I wouldn't have to clean out his imaginary pigsty, filthy beast!

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posted by Keith at 6:33 AM   6 comments

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Age discrimination

Todays post is on a separate page. Click here if you are over 60.

All you youngsters click here.

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posted by Keith at 3:45 PM   8 comments

My friend Ted

I have a friend named Ted. He is the local Storyteller, and he asked me if I would put some of his 'Tall Tales' on t'internet.

Now, let me make this quite clear, I do not accept any responsibility for the smelling pistakes, the grammar or the somewhat dubious claims he makes in his tales. The stories are reproduced exactly as he writted them. He said that if I changed them in any way he would send his cousin, Eamon O'Orton, the tallest leprachaun in the world, with his invisible Irish Wolfhound called 'Murphy', to sort me out!

I'm not saying he's weird, but he has certainly fooled most of the residents of our little town into believing that he is sane. He is a member of "The Irish Indoor Hang Gliding Club", and a patron of the "Earl Shilton Home for the Bewildered". He made his fortune by inventing the black highlighter pen (here) and non-stick adhesive tape.

I have made a start on the webpage and the first three stories are here: http://earlshilton.org.uk/ted.html

Being of local interest these tales probably wont mean a lot unless you live in our little paradise. Come to think of it, I don't think they will mean much to the majority of people who actually live in Earl Shilton!

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posted by Keith at 12:10 PM   4 comments

Friday, July 17, 2009

Sheds anonymous


While sorting through the archives I came across this picture of me from my old blogpage and I thought "Why not?". Perhaps some of my new readers never saw it.

Now that Herman, the most famous tortoise on the Internet, has his very own shed, perhaps Q will get one soon. . . .

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posted by Keith at 1:30 PM   10 comments

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Never, NEVER. . .


I did. Now what can I do with all these stones??

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posted by Keith at 4:35 AM   10 comments

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Who's Mr Morse?

I had a rare visit from my 10yr old nephew, Jack, today. He came into the Computer Room/Amateur Radio Shack for the first time. His eyes were like saucers as he gazed around at all the sophisticated equipment sparkling on the desk and shelves; transmitters, communications receivers, wavemeters, multimeters and microwave equipment etc.

"Wow!" he exclaimed, "Bloody great! Can I have a go on it?" "No, it's all top secret spy equipment" I replied.

Then he spotted the morse key, a bog standard type dating back to nineteen hundred and frozen stiff. "What's that?" he asked.

"That, my lad," (I was always a patronising git),"is the 'self-destruct switch'. If I hear a knock on the door and it's the Fuzz, I press that down and the whole shed and everything in it vapourises!"

He went the colour of parchment and took two steps back, glancing at the door to make sure it was open. "Really?".

"No, you plonker, it's a morse key". To which he said "What's 'morse'?"

I thought 'I dont believe it, he's kidding me'; but he wasn't!

"Well, it's like this. In the days before iPods and computers, and even before (deep breath. . .) microphones, the only way to communicate over long distances was by sending dots and dashes to represent the alphabet, for instance 'dah dah dit dah' meant C, and 'dah dit dit' meant D. Get it?"

Blank look.

"Why have you still got one then?" he asked "Wouldn't it have been easier to use a mobile phone?"

It was at this point I threw him out of the shack.

Don't they teach the kids anything in history nowadays? Do they even teach history? He hadn't got a clue who Faraday, Samuel Morse, Marconi or Logie Baird were!

Well that's not quite true, he said that he had seen Yogi Baird on the telly.
posted by Keith at 9:28 AM   8 comments

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Pages missing

It has been brought to my attention that my webpages, including this one, are sometimes not available. This is because my hosting company are "currently experiencing server problems" and are sorry for any inconvenience.

So if you are not able to see this page at present (?) please don't worry, you're not missing much anyway! You're probably better off not reading my drivel.


In the meantime here is some music. . . . . .

Drat! the phonograph doesn't work now! Sorry.

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posted by Keith at 1:11 AM   7 comments

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Bloody annoyed!

IS BLOODY USELESS!

For years I have use Skype without any bother, so stupidly I downloaded the latest version. Now I can't log on no matter what I try. I have changed my password repeatedly and it always says "Your password has been changed", but I STILL CAN'T SIGN IN!

I have followed all the help and advice rubbish on this page, but still the little window keeps saying "Signing in" and after a while it says "Wrong password".

I have checked their webpages and I cannot find anywhere where I can contact a living human being to help me. There are pages full of 'helpful' suggestions; none of which work.

They keep sending me reminders that I will lose my credit if I don't make a call! How the fuck can I, when I can't get into it! I had an email this morning from their automated-robot machine telling me that I only have 4 days left, so it looks like I shall lose my credit and all my phone numbers and contacts unless there is a miracle. I can't even talk to the robot-machine because it's a 'no-reply site'.

The trouble with services on the net now there is so many security measures that you can't get into your own sites. Another example is my online bank account. I know what my name, secret codeword, and password is because I've used them for years, now I'm told that I can't sign in because I'm not me!

Is there another online service similar to Skype? Because quite frankly I have spent that many hours trying to get into my account, and trying to find someone there to help me that I'm REALLY pissed off now and never want to see the word "Skype" on my screen again!

End of rant. I'm off to the pub now. SKYPE? Merde!
posted by Keith at 6:59 AM   9 comments

Monday, July 6, 2009

Walkers - A wheel problem!

I am going to hand over todays post to a very good friend of mine, Mrs Jessie O'Orton, who has something she wishes to say. So without further ado, over to Jes. . . .

 "As an occasional cyclist I am becoming extremely alarmed at the increased use of the pavements [sidewalks, to people in the colonies - ed] by pedestrians.

If this practice continues and becomes more commonplace, what are we cyclists going to do about it?

Some of these pedestrians, especially the very old ones, frequently pull out in front of us and could easily cause us to be thrown off our bikes. This also applies to young mothers with their pushchairs who suddenly change direction without warning! Blind and partially sighted people are a danger when they wave their white canes around. If one of these sticks went through a cyclist's wheel there could be a terrible accident.

I do feel that the time has come for these pedestrians to take more care and follow the appropriate code. This would of course mean that some of the older slow moving people, who hamper the somewhat faster cycles, would have to walk at the very edge of the pavement leaving a clear path.

The use of "walking bells" should be encouraged, especially by people who wear trainers and soft shoes; no audible approach you see! This can be quite startling to a less experienced cyclist. Again there may be a nasty accident, with the cyclist needing counselling.

A far greater menace to cyclists are the young children on skateboards and rollerblades who show no respect for the poor cyclists who cannot manouvere as quick as them. I think they should use the roadway along with all the other fast moving vehicles.

Thanks to Keith for letting me use his blogpage, and thanks to all you kind people for reading this drivel".

WTFWell, that's it. I (we) would be very interested in your views and comments about this problem.

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posted by Keith at 7:31 AM   10 comments

Friday, July 3, 2009

Offensive

A long time ago, on a different blog site, I posted about how offensive I found the fact that a local pub had put a Union flag doormat outside the entrance for patrons to wipe their feet on.

At that time I, along with several other regulars, decided that we would not use that pub again until the offending article was removed.

As someone who served in the Army for several years and saw some of my friends wounded and killed in a foreign land while fighting for the honour of that flag. Now to see it being abused by pig-ignorant people in this manner makes my blood boil. I did approach the landlady and told her of my disgust. She replied "Well, it's only a doormat, you're making a fuss over nothing!". Great! I hope she didn't mind losing a few regulars.

That pub is now closed for the reasons stated here. I hope that the business of the Union Flag doormat played a large part in the closure, but I doubt it. People nowadays are not patriotic anymore, and don't give a damn about loyalty to their country.

I noticed that the doormat is still outside the entrance, but it's looking a bit weather-worn now. The brewery who own the pub are advertising for new tenants to run it. I hope that if they do find someone, which is very unlikely in the present economic climate, that they will have a bit of common sense and remove the offensive doormat.

In America there are laws about the misuse of their national flag and the disposal of it when it becomes too old to use. I wish we had laws like that here then perhaps the peddlers of toilet rolls with the Union flag printed on every leaf, the Union flag underpants, the towels with the Union flag printed on them for drying your wedding tackle and arse with would disappear off the market.

While we are on the subject there are two all-night corner shops in the district, owned by Asians, that have Union flag doormats now. Do they know what they are doing? Are they deliberately trying to offend? Where are all these doormats coming from?

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posted by Keith at 6:37 AM   5 comments

The End

My garden
Is this the end of the 'Great British Summer'? All 5 days of it?

Last night I was sitting at that very table, enjoying a glass of two of Frances finest falling down juice and watching the sun sink slowly into the west from a clear blue sky.

Aaahh, bliss!

I awoke¹ this morning with a start by a tremendous crash of lightning and a flash of thunder at the un-Godly hour of 8am. Looking out the window I saw that it wasn't a nightmare: the sky was the colour of dishwater and it was absolutely hissing it down.

Well, I thought, at least the weather is back to normal. After the last few days of all that freak sunshine and heat I was begining to worry if the end of the world was at hand. And I hadn't finished reading "War and Peace"!

Bright Blessings to one and all. (Just in case it is the end)

¹ I'm never sure whether it should be "woken up" or "awoken" or just "awoke". No doubt somebody will put me right.

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posted by Keith at 2:03 AM   7 comments

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Dogs die in car

I read today that two police dogs have died in a hot car at the police headquarters at Sherwood Lodge in Nottingham. Apparently the policeman concerned was not on duty at the time, but just visiting and left the dogs to over-heat in the car.

The temperature in Nottingham at that time peaked at 29.4C, enough to kill a person locked in a car! I thought that dog handlers in the police force were trained to look after the dogs in their charge; obviously I was wrong. Even a person with an IQ of -2 would realise that dogs couldn't stand those sort of temperatures, but then we are talking about the police.

I have seen numerous posters around stating "Do NOT leave any animal in a vehicle on a hot day without providing adequate ventilation". The RSPCA are investigating the incident:
"The RSPCA said it is investigating the incident. . . Nottinghamshire Police said the handler has not been suspended. . ."

No, and I don't suppose for one minute that he will be, or even charged! I think that the incident will be written off as "misadventure" or "accidental death".

A statement issued by the Nottingham Police reads:
A statement from Nottinghamshire Police said the welfare of its animals was "of paramount importance".

"We endeavour to take every measure possible to ensure their well-being and safety."

Yeah, right. Didn't do those two poor mutts any good did it?

It takes nine weeks of intensive training and costs more than £7,000 before a police dog can go out on patrol.

The maximum sentence for causing unnecessary suffering to an animal is six months in prison and a £20,000 fine. That is to you or me! It looks like it's going to be one law for them and one law for us.

I noticed on the page where I read this news that "Comments on this item are suspended". I wonder why?

I await the outcome of the inquiry, if there is one.

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posted by Keith at 2:29 AM   12 comments