Personal Blogs

OK, first and foreskinmost why is today’s blog called the daily rant when I haven’t posted a blog in ages? What sort of old bolleaux is that, then? Why not ‘the weekly rant’ or ‘the occasional rant’? Come ON get it together, man...

Fair point. Welcome to the occasional rant.

Right.

Finally got my last TMA (tutor marked assignment for the uninitiated) for A210 finished and whizzing through the ether after a major false start where 1450 words in I realised I hadn’t started to answer the question and was answering another far more interesting one that should have been a footnote rather than the essay itself. Oil of the midnight variety was certainly burning last night, I can tell you. I ran out at about 2.30am and had to fill my tilly lamp with ‘Good Oil’ cooking oil, which is made from hemp, instead. It worked quite well but brought on an attack of the munchies and I found myself giggling at the rape scenes in ‘The Rover’, which seemed a bit inappropriate even if it is a comedy. Actually, in case anyone’s reading who hasn’t done A210 (or anyone at all is reading for that matter) I’ll explain that the ‘rape’ scenes aren’t really rape scenes – they’re more in the spirit of Benny Hill chasing a gaggle of Hill’s Angels in naughty nighties (put it on, it melts!) around a park. Very negatively viewed post nineteen-eighties, (quite rightly) but more sexual sadcase than sexual predator, and not really something I’d usually giggle at so definitely a side effect of the Good Oil. And the three packets of Hob Nobs. Probably.

Anyway, it’s gone now, thank goodness, and that’s the end of A210 with the exception of that exam in two weeks and the recommended six weeks of revision I have to do for it. And it’s the skool hols next week, so you can write that off. So that’s the end of A210 apart from that looming exam (can an exam loom?) and the recommended six weeks of revision I need to pack into one week. Oh fuck.

Now I always thought that the fourth dimension was time, but it turns out it’s the curve effect on women’s eyelashes from mascara. Who’d a guessed?

Regular readers will probably recall me mentioning the duck pond I pass on my daily constitutional (not a euphemism, though passing a duck pond would be a remarkable feat, I concede) and the mad duck lady who’s taken it upon herself to protect the flora and fauna therein. Well this year we have a pair of Canadian geese and a trio of pug-fuggly goslings who have taken to menacing the mallards and m’ladies who usually congregate there. Have you seen how much shit Canadian geese shit? It’s horrible – like walking through a Max Sennet film set in the aftermath of a custard pie fight. Only the custard is green. And shit. I’m going to write to the Council and get them to order the mad duck lady to clean it up. Well she’s the one who’s been encouraging them. Horrible things – hissing, spitting, shitting machines. No wonder the Canadians are sending them over here. The bastards.

Have you noticed how French and Italian ‘celebrities’ who now live over here all have outrageously thick accents which they never lose, but non-celebrity French and Italian peeps lose their accents quite quickly? What a bunch of cul and culo holes, eh?

On Sunday I went on a ‘Fun Run’ (Ha!) to raise money for scouts. I’ve been saving up for ages and finally have enough to get a pair. JOKE. I went on a fun run to help raise money for my son’s scout troop. The plan was we were going to complete the course together, but when we got there Ben decided he’d rather go round against the clock, so I set off at a leisurely stroll about 10 minutes before the official start expecting that by the time he caught me up he’d have changed his mind and decided to just walk it like any sensible person.  Imagine my surprise, then, when he powered straight past me about fifteen minutes later and disappeared over the horizon. As I say, that was on Sunday and I haven’t seen him since. He phoned me last night to say he was staying over with some scientists he met in East Grinstead. I’m a bit puzzled ‘cos he doesn’t really like science but he seemed happy enough. Said he was going dancing later with John, Tom and Katie, whoever they might be.

The ‘Fun Run’ (ha!) was a nice trip down memory lane, though, ‘cos it took me past the viaduct where I threw a cannonball off a train and felled a tree and the lake where I caught my first ever fish. When I was little the lake seemed like an ocean and the ‘shore’ a rich, verdant blanket of rushes and wildflower, so it was a bit of a shock to see it was more of a waterlogged bomb crater surrounded by Canadian goose shit. It was still pretty, though, if you ignored the shit. When I caught that fish all those years ago it was with a bent pin attached to three feet of line tied to a lolly-stick. I baited the pin with bread and cast the line then embedded the stick in the bank overnight. The next morning there was a rather pissed off little roach dangling from the end of it.

I had a quick look again Sunday but it was gone. I expect a pike had it. That’s another joke by the way. In fact, when I realised (as a child) that the roach had probably been there all night I felt awful – almost as bad as the time I killed a sparrow with a pebble on the annual Oak Road outing to Hastings after tempting it into range with the crust off my jam sandwich. I cried all the way home and had nightmares for a week. I might have even wet the bed; though that was probably just my brother Robert creeping in in the middle of the night and relieving himself  because he couldn’t be arsed to go downstairs to the loo. It took me years to work out what he was doing.

Is it just me, or does the word ‘draconian’ annoy other people too? I’ve never met anyone who used the word who wasn’t an out and out wanker.  It’s very popular on internet forums and social networking sites and seems to be used by the same sort of people who enjoy pointless, gainsaying arguments about pretty much anything that end with a reference to Hitler or Nazis. When not arguing they might use acronyms like ‘lol’ or ‘rofl’ quite regularly – usually in response to things that wouldn’t make me lol or rofl if I’d been up all night drinking Good Oil and eating Hob Nobs... I’ve got a new acronym for people who say ‘lol’ or ‘rofl’ over things that aren’t ‘lol’ or ‘rofl’-worthy. It’s ‘FOUL’, and it stands for Fuck Off U Liar. Feel free to use if the fancy takes, but please NOT in conjunction with the word ‘draconian’.

Boy I needed that! I feel at peace with the world again now. Even the pissy little yap box of a Chihuahua two garden’s away isn’t annoying me.

I’ll save that rant for another day....

:D