Flossing waste of time

Has there ever been a human activity devised which is more messy and mind-numbing than flossing?
(Well, to answer my own question, yes there has but flossing is the subject of this post and you have to start off somewhere).
I hate flossing. The dentist said it's good for the teeth and he recommended I start doing it but he didn't say how stupefyingly awkward it was.
You rip off a length of floss then slide it about between your teeth, usually lacerating your gums in the process. Then you flick it out, covering the bathroom mirror with flecks of blood and stale food globlets and move on to the next gap.
You work your way along, frequently forgetting which bit you've already flossed.
By the time you get to the molars at the back, you end up pulling a face like a Jap with a stroke and your fingers are slipping and sliding along the floss tape which feels like a vaselined-up tapeworm.
When you've finally done, you've got a length of unhygenic gob goo on a wire and a feeling in the brain that asks if it was all worth it.
All that fuss and buggering about.
Huh.
I deserve a plaque.

Nose for power

This man is standing as leader of the Tory Party.
He is pointing to his very small and very broken nose.
I don't think he should stand as leader.
The bloke who broke his nose should.
Perhaps he tried to sneak into the New NaziParty Conference disguised as an 82 years old heckler and was twatted by a Stormtrooper strategically placed to stifle dissent.
If he matches it with two cauliflower ears and a thick lip, I might consider voting for him.
Until then...I'm voting for the Great Schnozzola.
Now Dat's What I Call a Nose.

Footnote (or Nosenote): As Charles Darwin recalled in his autobiography, he was almost denied the chance to take the historic Beagle voyage on account of his nose.The ship's captain, a student of physiognomy, did not believe that a person with such a small nose would possess sufficient energy and determination to complete the task.
Mr Davis, please take nose, er, note...

Learning process

Life is a learning process. Obviously.
Remarkably, the older I get, the more I learn and the wiser I get.
But the one thing I can't seem to get in my head is that advice passed on in a sincere attempt to help is seldom if ever acted upon.
So why do I still do it?
Some things, we never learn.

Chubby

Say hello to Chubby. But say it quietly as he's having a nap.
Chubby is a cuddly baby greenfinch who has started to grace our windowsill birdfeeder.
He is absolutely massive as you can see from the above picture.
Instead of simply feeding from the container, he gets in it, feeds to his heart's content and then usually falls asleep.
The other birds have to try and squeeze their heads between him and the feeder, although three of them got fed up with it this afternoon and started to peck at his back to move him.
It will be interesting to watch him turn into a sleeker model - if he hangs around or doesn't eat himself to death.

PS I have just seen a swallow feeding in the sky:surely one of the last stragglers of the year.

Bug me not

If there's a site you'd like to look at but you have to register first and you don't want to do that or you want it to remain private just go to BugMeNot and, like as not, there will be a pre-registered user name that you can use yourself without the hassle of registering. What a nice idea.

Harum scarum

I was taking a walk on the lonely fells early yesterday evening when a large brown hare jumped out of a tuft of grass and headed away in a zigzag motion.
He got to about 40 yards away, then stood up on his hind legs and turned to look at me.
What a magnificent animal I heard him cry.
And he was right.
I am.
But he was even more so.

Caw!

This is weird.
I sometimes go for an early morning stroll to wake myself up.
On occasion, I will take a handful of peanuts to leave out under the hedges or trees for the local bird populace.
I haven't taken any nuts with me for a few months but previously I was followed by several crafty crows who usually spy where I have thrown the nuts and then go and hoover them up.
Remember, I haven't taken any nuts out for a long time, so the crows stopped following me.
Yesterday morning, I placed a handful of nuts in my pocket and went out for the stroll.
The crows followed me for the first time in months!
They flew down from the high sycamores, trailed behind me,then waited at their customary telephone pole and swooped when I surreptitiously threw down the nuts.
I followed the same route in the afternoon without any nuts (no jokes please) and there wasn't a crow in sight.
Nature often leaves me wondering.

Guess who's back?

The lacewings are back hibernating in my shed.
I like lacewings. They're such a delicate creation with long flimsy diaphanous wings which make them look like little insecty angels.
They presage the colder days and they leave the shed when it's getting warmer, so they're like a natural barometer.
Last year there were dozens of them. I have to remove my old jackets from the shed because they hide in the sleeves.
Let's hope there's no repetition of the January gales which took the roof off the shed, causing some of them to perish.
They are Nature's own pest control and do a brilliant job eating greenfly.
Well, somebody has to.

True

An interesting fact I learned at the weekend in the course of my net furtlings.

Morecambe-born Red or Dead fashion designer Wayne Hemingway's father was mohican-sporting, war-dancing Mohawk Indian former wrestler Billy Two Rivers who ran away with "Spend Spend Spend!" pools winner Viv Nicholson when Wayne was only three.

Fancy that eh? Born in Morecambe...

Face off

FIVE men and seven women — all severely disfigured — have been shortlisted in the “face race” to receive the world’s first face transplant.In the next few weeks the 12 applicants will visit the renowned Cleveland Clinic in the United States, which will select the first recipient of a new face from a cadaver.

Whose face would you want? I think my choice would be somebody sophisticated like Cary Grant but knowing my luck I'd end up looking like a cross between Doddy and Willie Nelson.

Foot balls

I love how footballers speak.

They say things like: "He's went and put it wide".
"The referee has went over to speak to him"
"Yous can't do things like that in front of the ref"
"He's headered it over the sticks"
"He didn't hit it with his favoured left foot".
"He's did it - he's scored!"

School must have been shutted when they wented to it.

Goats' Cheese

Everywhere you look, there's goats' cheese on the menu.
This is not good.
I don't like goats' cheese. It stinks.
I could heave just thinking about it.
The worst cheese I ever had though was a sheeps' cheese. It is called
Pecorino.
I was at a posh dinner once when I had the misfortune to put some of this foul stuff in my mouth.
I was nearly sick and had to spit it out into a napkin in front of my amazed dining companions.
I have a mate who is highly allergic to egg.
He has to enquire at every meal whether or not there is egg in it.
On several occasions, he has inadvertently eaten egg and instantaneously projectile-vomited all over the table, then had to be taken to hospital.
It's best you don't invite me or him to a dinner.
That is all.

Little Scotlanders

The Scottish National Party has complained that there was too much UK-wide coverage of England's cricket triumph in the Ashes series. England's victorious cricketers celebrated their defeat of Australia in a series for the first time since 1987. The SNP's Christine Grahame said the level of coverage given to a sport, of "only marginal interest in Scotland," left her stumped.

Personally, I prefer the taste of that fine Scottish export, the single malt, to that of sour grapes.
She probably doesn't even know that there's an ever-more successful Scottish national cricket team.
From what I can gather, they were even clapping England's Ashes win in some bars in Edinburgh. That's a first.
Weren't we as chuffed when the Scottish ladies won the Curling gold at the Olympics?
Such narrow-minded blinkered parochialism can only leave these Little Scotlanders looking even more desperate .

Staying safe

Several neighbours have asked me to help with sorting out computer problems. The trouble is they have no anti-virus;no firewall and no spycatcher stuff on their machines. I find this unbelieveable. The amount of bugs I had to shift off their machines was incredible.
Everyone should have (at least) the following freebies:

AVG Anti-Virus. Keep it updated.

Spybot Search and Destroy

AdAware

Microsoft Anti-Spyware (XP only)

Anthem

We are a nation without an anthem. By we I mean England.
It brought the situation home to me when watching the Ashes celebrations in Trafalgar Square this morning.
It seems that everyone wants us to adopt Jerusalem as the English national anthem but what is the point?
No-one seems to know the words.
So what good is an anthem that nobody knows how to sing?
What are the alternatives?
Rule Britannia? Well it's a cracking easily-joined-in chorus but it's patently not about England.
God Save the Queen? Everyone knows at least some of the words but it's about the Queen and not England. Too much association with GB.
Land of Hope and Glory? It always brings a lump to my throat but some see it as somewhat imperialistic. I favour it above the others though as it has a unparalleled fervour about it and the build-up to the rousing chorus adds to the anticipation.
Perhaps we need a competition for a new English anthem.
And we need to re-discover our heritage. Where did all the English folk songs go that we were taught in primary school? Too un-pc or what? Oh No John No John No John No...

Pommy Power!

Hello Little Urn!

Ranting for Professionals

Hey there Mr or M\s or Mrs Blogger.
World\job\spouse pissing you off?
You like to rant about things?
You thought you could rant eh?
So did I.

Uh Uh.

This is what you call a rant.

Bob ain't happy folks...

Jaws 4

"Help. Help. It's stuck..."

Queue what?!

TESCO, Britain’s biggest supermarket, is looking to open cash-free stores.
Director Philip Robbins-Jones told trade magazine Retail Week: “Beyond the next year, we will consider developing a cashless store.“The time spent by retailers handling cash is, frankly, embarrassing.” A cashless store would include faster checkouts, shorter queues and better security.

Faster checkouts? Shorter queues? Cobblers! He obviously has somebody doing the shopping for him does Mr Robbins-Jones.
Have you seen what it's like recently? On the odd occasion when I have had the misfortune to venture into these emporia, this is what happens:
There's some person in front of you with three items in their trolley.
"Do you want any help?" asks the checkout person.
"Yes - I'd like some help in paying for it" is the reply.
The checkout person smiles wanly. Well she's not friggin heard that one since the person in front said it has she?
Then the goods are run over the barcode things - usually 50 times each (or entered by hand when they fail to register).
"That's three pounds twenty two pence".
Then the customer starts fumbling in their purse\wallets to find the right card.
Then the checkout girl swipes the card.
Then there's a pause while it connects to HQ.
Then there's the old Chip and Pin routine.
The customer painfully and slowly presses the buttons - and gets it wrong.
"Erm, I know the first two numbers are my birthday, plus the age of the dog - and he's eleven or is he twelve?. "
Turning to the person behind "I'll get it right in a minute. ..isn't it funny how your mind stops working when you're in a hurry...?"
You give them a chimp grin back, showing more teeth than you knew you had.
You want to scream: "Well no it's not friggin funny and I am in a piggin hurry! So get your arse in gear, put your meagre purchases in a plastic bag and sod off out of here."
Then there's the:"Do you want cashback?" palaver.
"Erm, let me see. I might need some money for going to the hairdressers later. Could I have sixty pounds?"
"It's a fifty pounds limit"
"Oh, righty ho, Fifty pounds it is".
The checkout jockey slowly counts out the money....
Then the customer gets the receipt and then they decide to pack.
And you're stand there with a white beard; your kids have grown up and left home and had kids of their own and your bag of frozen oven chips has defrosted and your organic carrots have all rotted and you have to start all over again.
And that pillock from Tesco thinks cashless shopping is a good idea?
I'll tell you what's a good idea Mr Robbins-Jones.
Cash-only supermarkets. (It's what it was invented for). Or not shopping there in the first place. Knock the "super" off "supermarket"; do your shopping there and you'll get it for half the price - and no stupid chip and pin.
Cashless supermarkets?
Don't even go there...

That's rich

A CONSERVATIVE MSP has become the first senior figure in the party to call publicly for the Tories to go into the next Holyrood election promising to use devolution’s limited financial powers to cut the basic rate of income tax for Scots. Brian Monteith, who quit as his party’s finance spokesman two months ago, made the demand on the day a poll showed that a party offering in 2007 to cut tax north of the border would be “more likely” to attract voters.

He also promised that if they voted for him, he would parade up and down Sauchiehall Street wearing nothing but a tartan thong, juggling with a pair of live haggises and singing "I Belong Tae Glasgow".

Political opportunism? D'ye think so?

Shout for Sam

Q: Who would you prefer to see greeting underperforming England players at half time?

OR

As an England football supporter, I can't remember a game where I was shouting for the opposition to get another goal - but I did last night.

I wanted Northern Ireland to bang home a few more against an England team bereft of motivation; bereft of ideas and bereft of management.
From having the potential to be among the best in the world, they have turned into a team who play boring football led by a boring manager.
I wanted them to get hammered so that the Swede would be kicked out and replaced by an Englishman with heart and soul. As a Bolton supporter, I am even willing to donate the services of Big Sam Allardyce who, rest assured, had he been manager last night would not have been sitting on the bench meekly chewing his nails like Eriksson did. He would have been on the touchline chewing the balls off his underwhelming team.
And as for that undisciplined bit of a kid Rooney the Looney, Sam or Warnock or Pearce would have cuffed him round the head till he could hear The Bells of St Mary's rattling round his empty skull.
We have the players. We don't have the team. We don't have the manager.
Big Sam's the man.
A big English man with a big English heart and a big English bellow.
Bring him on and bring him on soon.

Strike a light

Light a candle:
that the England cricket team may not be as crap as the useless-as-a-one-legged-man-at-an-arsekicking-contest England footy team and that we may give them Aussies a right tonking and send them home Ashes-less and crying into their tinnies.
(Although I somehow fear the worst).
Click here to inflame the situation.

Thanks IOS.

Thank you to the Independent on Sunday for making Raised By Chaffinches Blog of the Week.

Beat this.

I spotted this incredible piece of illiteracy in a catalogue shop in Kendal.
And they say A Levels are getting easier....

Smoke gets in your eyes

MORE than 17,000 Britons have gone blind because they SMOKE, it was revealed yesterday.The shock statistic shows the link between fags and sight loss is as strong as that between cigs and lung cancer. The cigarettes cause a form of blindness called Age-Related Macular Degeneration, known as AMD. Smoke destroys cells in an area at the back of the eye named the macular. And smokers do not absorb nutrients from food essential for good eyesight.

I was amazed by this.
Just shows how using little white sticks can lead to you using a big white stick.
It won't stop the "You could die walking across the street" brigade. Mind you, they're more likely to die crossing the road if they can't see where they are going. Funny how things turn out isn't it?

Wells of wisdom

As I was watching some of the little people bathing in a shallow, one of them was seized with cramp and began drifting downstream. The main current ran rather swiftly, but not too strongly for even a moderate swimmer. It will give you an idea, therefore, of the strange deficiency in these creatures, when I tell you that none made the slightest attempt to rescue the weakly crying little thing which was drowning before their eyes.

HG Wells. The Time Machine.

In a makeshift grave on the streets of New Orleans lies the body of Vera Smith. She was an ordinary woman who, like thousands of her neighbours, died because she was poor. Abandoned to her fate as the waters rose around her.

Independent

Cheers Blair

Went for a drink yesterday afternoon. The night before, there had been a pitched battle in the middle of the town with about 50 people throwing bottles at one another and scrapping in the streets.
About a dozen police cars turned up, blocking off the town centre and a fleet of ambulances ferried the injured to hospital.
It was 9-45pm.
Thankfully, things will be so much better as these people starting drinking sensibly and responsibly when Blair's 24-hour drinking regime comes into play soon.
Won't they?

Katrina

Looking at the coverage of the unfolding aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, a few things strike me.
It's hard to tell what's real and what isn't about parts of America these days. The whole thing looks like a cross between a remake of the Tsunami disaster and Mad Max.
You have reports of children being raped and gangs of lawless lunatics shooting at troops and rescue helicopters - the very people who have actually been sent to help them. Sharks and crocodiles swimming in the main streets of New Orleans. Fats Domino in the middle of it.
People preying on one another like savages. Hell - what is wrong with their minds? Surely they should all be helping one another. There's no Blitz spirit there. Something is radically wrong in a society like that. That is almost as frightening as the hurricane itself.
And somewhere in the background, a little voice seems to be whispering "Kyoto..."
When Bush junior and senior and Bill Clinton came together on television the other night, it seemed like they were more concerned with defending each other than defending the people. It was like some old boys club closing ranks.
Surely, this is a wakeup call to be less material, more caring. More prepared too.
Where is the help? Where is the leadership? Where is the organisation? Everywhere, people are dying on a scale unimaginable in the world's greatest superpower.
It isn't a great advert for our friends and allies. The world is watching and judging.
I truly hope those poor people get help. And soon.

Yeah baby!

“All you’ve got to do is say, ‘John Prescott’ and people laugh.” Peter Mandelson, he said, was detested by everyone, Gordon Brown was “the most boring political interviewee I’ve ever had in my whole bloody life”, and Mr Campbell was a “pretty malevolent force . . . who has been waging a vendetta against me for a long time ”.

John Humphreys - telling it like it is.

Blair acts!

TONY Blair declared all-out war on yobs yesterday as he vowed to bring respect back to society.

Mr Blair put anti-social behaviour at the top of the agenda as he returned to work from his family holiday. He pledged to “change the rules of the game” to protect the law-abiding majority from drunks and louts.

So I wonder how he thinks his "Government's" plans for round-the-clock boozing is going to help the "drunks and louts" situation?Mmmm. More pissheads on the streets. How exactly is that going to help, Tone?

"We'll be tough on drunkenness and tough on the causes of er, oh, forget that..."

I can see what we pay you all that money for now Tone...

Quote:

“I suppose you can’t binge drink any more because lots of people have said you can’t do it. I don’t know who bloody made that up. It’s nonsense. Particularly when you are 40. You can binge drink whenever you want”
"Doing things sober is no way to get things done. I try to explain that to ministers but they don’t get it. Turn up in the morning pissed. You might cope a bit better, love”

And who said that?

Why Ms Louise Casey, head of the Government’s antisocial behaviour unit appointed to clean up our streets.

You couldn't make it up could you?

Disaster

This place is completely coming apart. The hopelessness on the street breaks the heart. The old, the tired, the sick seem resigned to their presumed fate. Death.

"The constant pictures on tv are making my blood boil. How is it that we can stage 100,000 troops across the globe ready to pounce on a moment's notice to take over an entire country, yet we couldn't figure out how to put the resources in place to respond to an obvious disaster in the waiting in our own backyard?

Blogging from the front line of the Katrina disaster:

On Tender Hooks.

The Interdictor

Ernie the Attorney

Donations

Blow me!

Now that I'm drinking again....
I want one of these.

Scottish Power

Scots want more powers for the Holyrood parliament by a margin of more than two-to-one, according to a Mori poll.The findings – that 58% want increased powers and 24% do not – suggest that, even in the face of disappointment at devolution, there remains an appetite for more of it.
More power tae ye! Broon for President I say!
Perhaps if the Scots get their way, we English might be offered the chance of ruling ourselves.
Could I have a little word with you Mr. Mori?

Beating the Booze

As some of you will know, it was my intention to have a booze-free August. Some of you even joined me on this massive endeavour. Thank you for that. Thanks also to my dear wife for agreeing to join me on this daring venture.
I am glad to report that in spite of great temptation: namely some fine Shiraz in the wine rack and a bottle of nicely-chilled Savignon Blanc in the fridge, I managed to see it through.
To be honest, there were some hairy moments: mainly the nail-biting Ashes series, when it would have been easy to succumb to temptation, but on the whole I can't say that I was biting the rug.
It merely points out that it's a habit like any other habit: from biting your nails to watching a favourite soap, even though it's crap.
Thirty-one days is a mighty long time for a bloke who drinks to go without a drop but I'm glad I did it because it mainly shows I'm definitely not an alcoholic. Phew. (Well you never know).

Results:
1. One rejuvenated liver.
2. Two happier kidneys.
3. Self esteem boosted.
4. Empty calories not ingested: approximately 14,000
5. Actual weight lost: three pounds.
6. Money saved: approximately £125.
7. Alcohol units: Minus 220-230 (approx)
8. Missed endings of films: none
9. Good sleep: lots
10: Muzzy heads in morning: zero.

Has it been worth it? Yes. Definitely. It's a nice feeling to know that you're not beholden to anything (if that's the right expression). To see something through to the end. To feel better about your body. Not to mention the money saved and the weight lost. (I was hoping to lose more but it's all those ice lollies I've been eating). Still three pounds is six packs of butter and it seems to have gone from round my waist as my posh dinner suit trousers fit me better now.
I'd recommend anyone to have a month off.

Now where's that corkscrew?