... and getting smaller every day.
Either that, or I've put some weight on.
01/09/2009
29/08/2009
One of the problems...
with being so vain;
every time I go to cross the road, and it says "Look right", I stop and think "Yes, I do, don't I?"
every time I go to cross the road, and it says "Look right", I stop and think "Yes, I do, don't I?"
16/08/2009
A conundrum.
Why are they called "energy-saving" light bulbs...
when my eyes have to work twice as hard to read anything under them?
when my eyes have to work twice as hard to read anything under them?
12/08/2009
Super, smashing, lovely.
News reaches Pickle Towers of an English actor obtaining a part in a US superhero adaptation movie - and NOT playing the baddie!
Yep, it seems that the part of Odin the Allfather has gone to Brian Blessed, possibly the only actor who would have to turn down his natural speaking voice in order not to drown out the God of Thunder.
All of which makes me think; if I was casting The Mighty Avengers purely from our spectred isles, who would be in the running.
AntMan : Ray Winstone. Best line of dialogue "Oi mush! Watch where yer puttin' yer xxxxin' feet!"
The Winsome Wasp : Jeanette Krankie - no special effects needed to shrink her down to size.
The Might Thor : Lenny Henry. Controversial casting there, I know, but imagine what depths could be bought to the role by someone who could deliver King James Bible English in a Dudley/Jamaican mum accent?
The Incredible Hulk - That grumpy faced bloke with the Walrus moustache who does the adverts saying "Had an accident at work? Not your fault?". Face it - he's big, and you wouldn't like him when he got angry. Mind you, you probably don't like him when he isn't.
Iron Man - Stephen Moore. Qualifications - already experienced in playing metal men, and his Marvin catchphrase "I've got a terible pain in all the diodes down my left hand side" could easily be adapted for Tony "Shrapnel Nuts" Stark.
Captain America - John Barrowman. Face it, he's every-bloody-where else.
Yep, it seems that the part of Odin the Allfather has gone to Brian Blessed, possibly the only actor who would have to turn down his natural speaking voice in order not to drown out the God of Thunder.
All of which makes me think; if I was casting The Mighty Avengers purely from our spectred isles, who would be in the running.
AntMan : Ray Winstone. Best line of dialogue "Oi mush! Watch where yer puttin' yer xxxxin' feet!"
The Winsome Wasp : Jeanette Krankie - no special effects needed to shrink her down to size.
The Might Thor : Lenny Henry. Controversial casting there, I know, but imagine what depths could be bought to the role by someone who could deliver King James Bible English in a Dudley/Jamaican mum accent?
The Incredible Hulk - That grumpy faced bloke with the Walrus moustache who does the adverts saying "Had an accident at work? Not your fault?". Face it - he's big, and you wouldn't like him when he got angry. Mind you, you probably don't like him when he isn't.
Iron Man - Stephen Moore. Qualifications - already experienced in playing metal men, and his Marvin catchphrase "I've got a terible pain in all the diodes down my left hand side" could easily be adapted for Tony "Shrapnel Nuts" Stark.
Captain America - John Barrowman. Face it, he's every-bloody-where else.
04/08/2009
02/08/2009
The ultimate in pointless, frustrating activities.
Try this:
Lift your right foot about six inches of the ground.
Draw clockwise circles in the air with your big toe.
While still drawing those circles, write number 6 in the air with your right hand forefinger.
Yep - your foot is now drawing anti-clockwise circles, isn't it?
Just one more try and I'm giving up forever...
Lift your right foot about six inches of the ground.
Draw clockwise circles in the air with your big toe.
While still drawing those circles, write number 6 in the air with your right hand forefinger.
Yep - your foot is now drawing anti-clockwise circles, isn't it?
Just one more try and I'm giving up forever...
25/07/2009
23/07/2009
What goes around...
... comes back in the nicest way. Esteemed quill-flourisher and HTML specialist Bernard O'Leary was kind (and clever) enough to turn my rudimentary Excel macro-driven Plottomator into a tasty little piece of HTML (eyes right, people). Then he pressed the button, got himself a prompt and wrote a short story based on it which has made runner up in the Guardian short fiction competition. Check out guardian.co.uk/books on August 1st. Check out the Plottomator any time. It can't make you a prize-winning author, but it might just give you the seeds of an idea.
14/07/2009
Don't have a cow, man
Lots of lip-flapping on the news this morning about the plight of the British veal farmer, and how our veal is less cruel than Continental veal (well it would be, wouldn't it?)
But tune in to me here, brothers and sisters; do you know where milk comes from? And Oxo cubes?
Take one cow, take one of those machines they use to crush cars that don't have road tax. Put the cow in the machine and press the "Go" button. Stand back and be amazed as milk pours out. And what's left? Now we are on a wavelength, brothers and sisters; an Oxo cube.
Don't believe me? Try this. Pour a pint of milk into a bowl. Drop in an Oxo cube. Stand well back.
PLUS
EQUALS
But tune in to me here, brothers and sisters; do you know where milk comes from? And Oxo cubes?
Take one cow, take one of those machines they use to crush cars that don't have road tax. Put the cow in the machine and press the "Go" button. Stand back and be amazed as milk pours out. And what's left? Now we are on a wavelength, brothers and sisters; an Oxo cube.
Don't believe me? Try this. Pour a pint of milk into a bowl. Drop in an Oxo cube. Stand well back.
PLUS
EQUALS
08/07/2009
Nice Enough To eat
I remember reading somewhere that if you own two hundred LPs, you already own a hundred LPs that you will never again listen to in their entirety. Now how much does that sentence date me?
Let's start the forensics: "LPs". Who knows what "LPs" are nowadays (and I'll excuse all readers of Record Collector Magazine and Mojo)? OK, let's talk about "albums" then.
When I was... oh Lor' - I almost wrote "When I was a boy" there. Forgive me. Once upon a time, an artist released a collection of tracks in a single unit - probably ran to about 20 minutes a side*, maybe three quarters of an hour's entertainment once you had put the first side on, used the sleeve to (*ahem*) "skin up" on, found something to assuage the sudden hunger that seemed to onset just as the needle hit the runout groove, turned the LP over, giggled as the needle missed the vinyl and you grooved to 3 minutes of sapphire-on-rubber white noise, finally found the edge of side two, and let for face melt during the second half of the band's latest opus. There's a reason why Sergeant Pepper's second side is more wonky than side one. They knew you would be off your mash by the time you got to hear it. They knew it, and so they played to it.
Nowadays - maybe even for about the past fifteen years - no-one, but no-blimming-one, has ever bought a CD, stuck it on, and played it from one end to the other. They are all an hour long at least, you can't roll a funny fag on the jewel case, and they are full of filler.
We stick 'em on our iPlod, rip 'em to our PCs and we don't even notice if Monkey Media never shuffles half the tracks onto our speakers. What a waste. A waste of time, a waste of plastic, and a waste of artistes' talents. Make music as expensive as it was in the Sixties, when an album cost the equivalent of about thirtyfive of your modern quids. Limit the bands to thirtyfive minutes, and then we'll see some Rock'n'Roll Darwinism. A quid a minute, that'd sort out the music scene.
That being said...
Just picked up Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal, An Island Anthology 1967-1972 in Harrow Library's Summer Sale. £1.50. This stuff just takes me back to the days when a guy in a greatcoat would sell you a "quid deal" which turned out to be half an Oxo cube wrapped in tin foil.
Maaaaan, Oxo cube crumbled into the contents of a Park Drive - now that was some trip.
And if any of that makes any sense to you, welcome to your fifties. I shall return to the subject of no-longer-listened-to LPs before too very long.
As soon as this beefstock buzz wears off...
* I actually own a Buddy Holly LP which barely makes ten minutes a side.
Let's start the forensics: "LPs". Who knows what "LPs" are nowadays (and I'll excuse all readers of Record Collector Magazine and Mojo)? OK, let's talk about "albums" then.
When I was... oh Lor' - I almost wrote "When I was a boy" there. Forgive me. Once upon a time, an artist released a collection of tracks in a single unit - probably ran to about 20 minutes a side*, maybe three quarters of an hour's entertainment once you had put the first side on, used the sleeve to (*ahem*) "skin up" on, found something to assuage the sudden hunger that seemed to onset just as the needle hit the runout groove, turned the LP over, giggled as the needle missed the vinyl and you grooved to 3 minutes of sapphire-on-rubber white noise, finally found the edge of side two, and let for face melt during the second half of the band's latest opus. There's a reason why Sergeant Pepper's second side is more wonky than side one. They knew you would be off your mash by the time you got to hear it. They knew it, and so they played to it.Nowadays - maybe even for about the past fifteen years - no-one, but no-blimming-one, has ever bought a CD, stuck it on, and played it from one end to the other. They are all an hour long at least, you can't roll a funny fag on the jewel case, and they are full of filler.
We stick 'em on our iPlod, rip 'em to our PCs and we don't even notice if Monkey Media never shuffles half the tracks onto our speakers. What a waste. A waste of time, a waste of plastic, and a waste of artistes' talents. Make music as expensive as it was in the Sixties, when an album cost the equivalent of about thirtyfive of your modern quids. Limit the bands to thirtyfive minutes, and then we'll see some Rock'n'Roll Darwinism. A quid a minute, that'd sort out the music scene.That being said...
Just picked up Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal, An Island Anthology 1967-1972 in Harrow Library's Summer Sale. £1.50. This stuff just takes me back to the days when a guy in a greatcoat would sell you a "quid deal" which turned out to be half an Oxo cube wrapped in tin foil.
Maaaaan, Oxo cube crumbled into the contents of a Park Drive - now that was some trip.
And if any of that makes any sense to you, welcome to your fifties. I shall return to the subject of no-longer-listened-to LPs before too very long.
As soon as this beefstock buzz wears off...
* I actually own a Buddy Holly LP which barely makes ten minutes a side.
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