Flower Power

The Cactus that Merkio gave me has flowered....

The face of the king

At my Bro's having a barbie when Elvis appeared in the Sky...

I like it, I want it, I'll take it off your hands...

On Friday my bro, father & I went on a pilgrimage to that most holy of places, Lords. And took the water. Possibly the severe weather warning should have been a clue. I have never seen rain like it in this country. The outfield was standing water & at one point you couldn’t see the far stand. My little bro suggests we go to a pub. Don’t worry, he has directions to a good real ale pub & we can get a taxi.
There are no taxi’s. He gets confused about which pub we are seeking. So instead of looking for our nice real ale pub he’s searching for ‘a pub that specialises in Japanese beer (???) and Grolsh (ugh) but has attractive art deco furniture & a selection of paintings by local artists. Fortunately he does not find it & we finally arrive, sodden, at a respectable little boozer & grab the last table. By the toilets. Which my Bro uses spectacularly. They are forced to open all the doors & windows in the place. So we settle down for a long afternoon. Only to be informed that they are resuming play at 2. We scarcely have time to consume three pints before we grab a taxi back to the ground for a fine afternoons cricket.

In the evening we return to Chelmsford & pop into the con club (I know, but it’s a good club & my need for cheap beer outweighs my social conscience) for a swift several. Big Boy Chad arrives & we play cribbage with the legendary Peplow. Not once does he have the right number of cards in his hand. It’s a unique comic experience.

All in all, a grand day out

Lets Twist again..

Went to my friend Lynn’s 40th the other week. It was a 60’s party. And so there were lots of girls in short skirts & knee boots, which is nice. Provided you go in & out in roughly the right places (and all of my female friends do) ladies 60’s fashion is rather attractive. May it soon return. Unfortunately this is not so for the boys. Consider phsycadelic extras in a bad Cheech & Chong movie with big perms. See my point. (Some of you may remember that film classic the wild women of wonga – lots of attractive women & ugly blokes). Still, a good time was had by all. Well, certainly by me, which is all that really matters.

All Bound for Moo-Moo land

Apparently group of schoolchildren (aged 14 to 15) on an outward bound course called out the coastguard when they found their route meant crossing a field containing a group of that most deadly of predators – cows. Ok. I guess that if your from the city and have never come face to face with a cow before they are pretty big. But the coastguard? Cliff rescue, lost at sea, killer shark, ok, call the coastguard. But Cows? No. Call, well, I don’t know. Cowline? The Bovine defense leage? Captain Cow? Ok. I see the problem. No obvious point of contact. No doubt that nice Mr Cameron is already creating an opposition post for minister of cow defense. But until he gets elected you have to make do. But surely, you ‘ask Jeeves’ if cows are a life threatening condition. Google ‘deadly cows’. Contact the RSPCA or even, if the cows are giving you evil cow vibes, the police. But not the coastguard. Bah and Pah. The youth of today.

In other news I read that in order to promote a cleaner city, officials in xigong are paying a bounty on dead flies. Hmm. That’s not going to backfire horribly now is it.

A kidnapped lion has been freed in Gazza. A Welshman has returned from Canada for his friends wedding a year early. The UK’s biggest dog is unhappy with the media attention. Ditto Kate Middleton. There super-casino that was to revitalise Manchester now won’t.....Slow news day?

Hang on. What’s this I read? People with lots of moles age more slowly. Seriously. Apparently if you have large numbers of moles you will age more slowly than your less moley counterparts. Ok, massive increase in the risk of skin cancer, but given the complete lack of sunshine this summer I don’t see that as a major problem. Heh. I’m covered in moles. I have more moles than MI5. I am the mole man. I’m gonna live forever.

Unless, of course, I’m mauled to death by a killer cow.

The world wife carrying championships were held in Finland this week. As doubtless you sports fans know, this fine event requires you to carry your partner over a 250 meter course resplendent with obstacles including hurdles and a pool. The event was won by Estonian couple Madis Uusorg and Inga Klauson.

And the prize. A plasma TV and your wife’s weight in beer. I like that second part of the prize. Gives you a whole new set of factors to consider when choosing a partner. Do you pick a skinny bird, giving you a better chance of victory but not much of a prize? Or do you pick a fat girl, wrecking your back but giving you a years worth of beer if you win? With complex factors like this to weigh up its no wonder I’m still single…

Dr Dumbarse

So, looks like the recent car bomb attempts in the UK were carried out by a bunch of doctors. Does this worry you, too? Not for the obvious reasons. But lets look at these ‘bombs’. Basically, a pile of gas canisters, a lot of petrol, a few bags of nails & a mobile phone timer. So what’s supposed to happen? Well, the mobile phone ignites the petrol, The car turns into a fireball which causes the gas canisters to, well, not explode. Apparently, when gas canisters go up the valve goes & rather than exploding they turn into a sort of rocket propelled torpedo. That’s why firemen recommend standing well back & just letting them go off. Not to nice if your in front of one, but hardly mass carnage. The nails presumably just melt. That’s if it all works. They didn’t. And it turns out that the bombers had kindly left a contact list on the mobile to make life easy for the police. Oops.

Are you seeing my point? It’s the sort of crappy unsophisticated bomb attempt that I would expect from a psychopathic six year old who never quite understood the Blue Peter Tracy Island instructions. Its all well & good if the terrorist is a retarded beetle farmer from the foothills of Stupidostan, but not what you expect from a trained medical professional. Now, I’m obviously not recommending explosives 101 as compulsory study for medical students, but I really question the wisdom of letting people to dumb to type ‘bomb making’ into Google treat patients.

Of course, the fact that they apparently want to kill and maim lots of people probably doesn’t jell too well with the Hippocratic oath either. Presumably they didn’t put that on the C.V.

Reminder

The annual ‘cooking in the rain’ fest at chez Rich is just a month away on Sat 4th of August. Kick off about 2pm. Hope to see many of you there...