I'm in a strange mood today. I have random, uninvited attitude.
It seems that every time I open my mouth at the moment, something feisty jumps out without first consulting my brain.
Is Blind Date still on the telly these days? Perhaps I should apply.
I'd probably win, and get to spend a day go-karting with a complete dickhead who has plaited hair and short trousers and who fancies the Cadbury's Caramel bunny.
Result.
I seem to have inherited three slices of cheesecake.
How is it that the people around me seem always to covet cheesecake, yet refuse it when it's actually offered to them?
I'm feeling a little disheartened today.
With coffee, of all things.
How can it be that something that smells so good can sometimes simply fail to deliver in the taste department?
I'm not saying that coffee never tastes good: I happen to love coffee. I'm just saying that sometimes coffee smells outrageously gorgeous but then doesn't live up to its promise.
Perhaps the coffee in question – the coffee that broke my heart – just wasn't strong enough on the day.
Who knows?
That said, I bought a box of those 'instant cappuccino' sachets the other day (admittedly from Poundland – it seemed like a money-wise and, therefore, clever idea at the time). Once water was added, they smelled a bit like brown rice. And they tasted like the water brown rice had been boiled in.
So, I guess, coffee doesn't always smell good either.
It usually does, though.
Although, now that I think about it, it's probably just as well that everything I like the smell of doesn't taste good, or I'd probably have developed quite a nasty Creosote, matt emulsion and petrol habit by now.
Not mixed together, of course. What a silly thing for you to even suggest.
I can't seem to find it on the Internet anymore, but there used to be a place that sold life-size (8') replica aliens – from the movie of the same name.
Admittedly, they were a little too expensive – and pointless, if I'm entirely honest – for me, but I came up with this idea.
I'm not a big fan of spiders, as you may or may not know, and it has been known for me to approach friends and family members for help in removing them from my home.
I remember thinking that it would be funny to set up a life-size alien in my bath, then call my dad and ask him to come over and dispose of a "nasty-looking beastie".
It would probably be funny right up until the moment he walked into the bathroom and had a coronary, anyway.
I met an interesting man today.
I was driving to Bath to visit some friends, and I stopped off at some motorway services, fancying a coffee.
It turns out that – randomly – WHSmith's now have a cappuccino/latte/espresso machine. It's self-service, so you get an empty cup and operate the machine yourself. Then you take the finished drink to the till.
Well, I pressed the buttons, watched the froth ooze out, added some sugar, and finally popped a plastic lid on the resulting concoction. Then I went to pay for it, and the guy behind the till rang up latte without even asking me.
I asked him how he knew what drink I had, and he informed me that he was "magical in ways I will never understand".
Just how do you possibly respond to that?
I'm possibly missing the point here, but why would I want to spend money and time out of my day on buying and applying make-up that's designed to make me look like I'm not wearing make-up?
"It's you, only better." And slightly poorer. And with a bit less time on your hands.
I've stumbled across a curious superstition. Apparently, if you drop an umbrella on the floor there will be a murder in the house.
Unfortunately, I don't know where my umbrella is, so I can't put this to the test.
Once I've found it again, however, I shall carelessly lob it around for a bit and see what transpires.
I'll shall now be adding cadaver to my list of top words.
I think I like it because it reminds me of the word cad, which in turn makes me think of moustached Terry-Thomasesque characters.
In fact, it gives me fantastic images of well-dressed plummy zombies sporting military moustaches and ambling around in dressing gowns, smoking jackets and/or leather flying helmets, giving their victims broad gap-toothed smiles right before eating their brains.
Now, I think that would be a jolly good show.
I'm beginning to suspect that there's some kind of strange magnetic field around the Bedford area that causes people's indicator lights to fail.
Through some miracle, however, it seems to leave brake lights intact.
Although, at night it also strikes the occasional set of headlights.
I've been told that the sole surviving family cat is getting old and poorly.
This is not good news.
I'm now in danger of reaching a terrible score of 100% dead cats. This is unacceptable!
Still, I'll believe it when I see it; my sources do have a tendency to be a little overly-dramatic about these things – she's only 16, and she's probably just got a bit of trapped wind, or something.
The cat, that is; not my source.
It would appear that I have some competition in the top quality poetry writing stakes:
If you sneeze on a Monday, you sneeze for danger;
Sneeze on a Tuesday, kiss a stranger;
Sneeze on a Wednesday, sneeze for a letter;
Sneeze on a Thursday, something better;
Sneeze on a Friday, sneeze for sorrow;
Sneeze on a Saturday, see your sweetheart tomorrow.
Sneeze on a Sunday, and the devil will have domination over you all week.
I find the final line especially powerful. It really rolls off the tongue.
Source: www.corsinet.com
Exactly how bloomin' difficult is it to get in the correct lane when using roundabouts?
You see, I thought that it was quite straight-forward, but – having experienced yet another near-miss this morning with some numpty or another – you'd think it was bloody rocket science!
It isn't even as if there aren't massive signs making it more than abundantly plain exactly whereabouts you should be sticking your car.
Lane discipline, people, please!
End of rant.
I'm thinking of having a car sticker made up with the Police Trap Car logo on it.
I reckon that putting one of those in my back window would guarantee that nobody will ever break into or try to steal my car.
Maybe we should all do that.
Maybe all it would take to totally eradicate car crime is a few thousand square yards of thin plastic and a supermarket car park.
It's incredible that nobody thought of it sooner.
And, if you live anywhere near me, it might also be worth having a sticker made up that says Police Anti Narrow-Keelless-Boat-Propelled-By-Paddling Silliness Trap Car as well.
I'm seeing a theme emerge each time I visit a supermarket.
It involves a clever new idea that the police seem to have come up with involving trying to stitch people up in car parks.
Yes, it's the Police Trap Car.
For those of you who haven't seen this yet, this is basically a scheme that involves the local police combining a spare car with some surveillance equipment, and then planting it in a public car park. The plan is that – with a bit of luck – somebody will come over all light-fingered and then get caught in the act. And, presumably, arrested.
Admittedly, I'm not entirely certain if these fabled trap cars actually exist, or if (so cynical am I) money has just been spent purely on erecting signs that may function as a deterrent, but – either way – I am now studying all the parked cars with interest and suspicion.
I recently noticed – for example – about ten feet away from the nearest sign, a tatty old red van with open rear doors and tools lying messily in the back. Unfortunately, this is the exact sort of daftly optimistic set-up that I expect from people.
I'm also particularly suspicious of cars that are parked right next to the aforementioned signs. Because that's the exact sort of daftly optimistic double-bluff that I expect from people.
I would like to believe, however, that – in the case of the red van – I was actually witnessing a brazen triple-bluff being carried out by a plucky member of the public.
Although, I suspect that this time it's me who's being daftly optimistic.
Whilst out with friends today, I noticed an interesting sign outside Asda:
Free eye test with every pair of glasses
Or words to that effect.
So, does that mean that you've got to buy the glasses before you get the eye test? What if you buy the wrong ones?
What if, for example, you buy glasses that correct short-sightedness and then have an eye test that concludes that you're actually long-sighted?
Will the staff just point and laugh at you, before calling you a sucker and charging you for the correct pair of glasses?
And, if that happened, would you then have to face the ultimate insult of earning another free eye test, which by now would be of no use to you?
I wonder if the free eye test is transferable. Perhaps, if one person was prepared to be the fall guy, they could get as far as buying two pairs of glasses, then pass the second free eye test on to somebody else; who could then buy the correct glasses the first time around, earn their free eye test and pass it on to somebody else. And so on and so forth.
I think it would work, but we'll come unstuck the second anybody with good vision gets caught up in the loop…
That said, I'm sure a quick poke with a fork could soon fix that.
Otherwise, I've got this nightmare vision of somebody walking into Asda, buying a nice pair of glasses and then having an free eye test that concludes that they had perfect vision all along.
And cue all the gags about hindsight being 20/20.
No ferrets were harmed in the making of this blog.
Not even ones that seem to believe that they are impervious to gravity.
Give it time.
I have in front of me the box for Real World Golf on the PS2.
For those of you who are not familiar with this particular game, this is a console golf game that you can play with a mini golf club, instead of with a traditional controller.
It's especially impressive since – as stated on the game box – it's
"the revolutionary golf game where you swing a club to hit the ball."
What an incredible idea. Revolutionary indeed!
It's amazing, really, that conventional golf is apparently not played that way.
I've recently found myself behind a van advertising Door Solutions.
What a brilliant idea!
The next time I find myself frustratingly bouncing off solid walls whilst attempting to move from room to room, I'll know who to call.
I don't know if it's just a strange effect of the lurgy, but I keep getting cravings for Kinder Surprises – well, not actually Kinder Surprises themselves, but that particular creamy sort of Kinder chocolate.
Frankly, I could do without the Surprise part, as I now have a mounting collection of crappy little plastic toys.
Although I do have one good one, which I'm quite smug about.
It's a little bulgy-eyed guy in a turban meditating on a magic carpet which, through the skillful use of magnets, levitates.
Admittedly, he does boff his head against the top of his little plastic case every time he levitates – which can't do much for his meditation.
But I don't care about that because he can levitate.
And that makes me chuckle, which is all that matters.
A prize goes to anyone who can actually name the book I'm currently reading.
Naturally, I finally succumbed to the lurgy.
I'm not actually half as ill as He was when he had it last week, as it's decided to only attack my chest; my sinuses are fine, but I've got the nastiest cough I think I've ever had. It's making it really hard to sleep.
Not that I expect you to care. The sound of me coughing, spluttering and then swearing extensively under my breath isn't keeping you awake at night.
Unless you're stalking me, and lurking outside my bedroom window in the dark. In which case, you'd be better off staying awake lest you wake up in somebody else's garden or with a canoe on your head.
It's back!
Yes, today saw the triumphant return of Super Noodles Saturday. And there was me nearly posting an R.I.P. blog for it last week.
I really should have more faith in snack foods.
I'm somewhat disturbed that Andie MacDowell's new hair dye even covers those "short wiry" hairs.
I thought that most hair dyes came with instructions that warn against using them for that.
I have just spend a straight five minutes in the kitchen, trying to open a bin bag.
I tried all the usual tricks: blowing on it, rubbing my hands together either side of it, trying to prise my fingernails into the tiny gap – to name but a few.
I almost had it. Almost.
In my desperate and mounting frustration, I eventually asked for help – not something I'd usually do in this sort of situation, but I was so wound up I was about to go into complete and utter meltdown.
Without a word of a lie, the bin bag was then duly inspected, turned upside-down, and opened easily.
I now ask that the rules to be changed so that everyone can do one bloody stupid thing a day without having to be technically labelled an idiot.
