On waking up

Waking up is always a traumatic experience. It's like being re-born into the world once a day, forced from your safe womb-like bed into a cold, brightly lit delivery-bedroom, full of screaming alarm clocks, over-enthusiastic radio DJs, and the need to go to work (a brief aside at this point - since the death of John Peel, the average IQ of the British radio DJ has reached a new record low figure of 37 - at one point it had crept up to the mid forties but unfortunately then Chris Evans got a job on Radio 2).

Many years ago I used to be woken in a relatively nice way. Every morning my dog would race up the stairs, crash open the door to my bedroom with his face, and leap onto my bed in a kamikaze display of affectionate enthusiasm and playful aggression. Scientists would probably tell you that dogs are incapable of sporting a mischievous grin - they would of course be wrong.

This arrangement only went seriously wrong once. One of the first times my dog decided to wake me up in this manner, he decided to spice it up with the fun trick of landing with all his weight upon on my testicles. I was fast asleep, drifting on another plane entirely, presumably yet again scoring the winning goal in the cup final, or doing something unspeakable to Belinda Carlisle. I didn't hear him coming, didn't hear his panting breath, didn't hear the door burst open. There are many millions of bad ways to wake up, I'm not sure which is the worst, but having a 30 kilogram golden retriever collide with your swingers at high speed must surely be in the top ten.

We both learned something that morning. My dog learned several new words that he hadn't heard before, and I developed a sort of pavlovian response (which often happens when dogs are around). I would wake up every morning on hearing the thunder of his footfall upon the stairs, and long before he reached my room I would curl up in the foetal position, letting my lower legs and ankles take the full force of his weight, for the sake of my own physical and mental well-being as well as for the sake of my future grandchildren.

So let this be a warning to you if you were thinking about ditching your radio-alarm clock in exchange for a mentally challenged gun-dog. You will need to either develop an acute sense of hearing, or go to bed wearing a cricket box.

Earthshapes

There are some new pictures on the Earthshapes website, check them out and, if you like them, please link to the site - Google seems to have forgotten all about it.

The Vagina Dialogues

The bus

After a night's heavy drinking and christ knows what low-level thuggery, the young man threw a beer bottle over his shoulder, which smashed shattering green glass all over the pavement, and set off at a blistering pace to catch the bus which had just passed him.

"I ain't got no pass" he panted over his shoulder as he got on and stumbled past the driver. "I ain't getting off the bus".

He ascended the stairs and repeated these lines a few more times, loudly, for the benefit of the bleary-eyed commuters who viewed him with a mixture of disgust and weary resignation.

The bus driver switched off the engine and called up the stairs. It was fairly obvious what he wanted, though English was clearly not his first language and his speech was not quite grammatically correct. The young man called back down in borderline-racist mockery, devoid of wit or wisdom. He repeated:

"I ain't getting off the bus".

It didn't look as though the passengers were going to get to work any time soon. Time passed. A middle-aged gentleman decided to intervine.

"Why don't you just get off the bus?".

The young man squared up to him. "Fuck off" he reposted. "I've got a bigger dick than you." It was a dubious claim. Unfortunately, both men were fully clothed, so the assembled passengers would never get to test it's accuracy. "You're a cunt and I'm not", he hypothesised. This was an even more unlikely proposition, as this time there was plenty of evidence available, all of it flatly contradicting this theory. "Or maybe I'm the cunt and you're, you're the fucking...best bloke in the world." This was a bit more like it and it appeared that the young man may slowly be getting somewhere, though there was still an unmistakeable note of aggression in his voice.

Several of the male passengers on the bus started to look more directly at the young man, measuring him up, wondering if they should make a move. It was left to an old lady to take the matter in hand.

"Would you like me to pay your fare for you?"

"Thank you, you're a gentleman" he mumbled, causing the old lady to erupt into fits of laughter. The young man followed her down the stairs, but the bus driver refused to take the fare. The old lady offered to hand over the money if he would get off and wait for the next bus, but the young man decided that this was not an acceptable offer, and instead preferred to stand his ground and shout obscenities at the driver. But he was beaten, and he knew it. The coup de grace was administered, cleanly, coldly and efficiently.

"You've had too much to drink, and you have been behaving very badly."

And with that, the young man meekly accepted a few coins from her and staggered off the bus in search of a can of special brew. The bus resumed it's slow crawl to London, it's passengers turning back to their books and newspapers.

Unusual experiences on over-the-counter drugs #1

Is it just me, or have you noticed that when you've taken too much ibuprofen, your fingers seem to grow much longer than they usually are? This makes it very difficult to type, but presumably could make up for that by making it easier to retrieve loose change from down the back of the sofa. I'm not sure, I haven't tried that yet.

As I see it, there are 3 possible reasons for this effect.

1) I have discovered an unusual and as yet unreported side effect of heavy ibuprofen use, wherein your fingers temporarily grow significantly longer than normal.

2) I have discovered an unusual and as yet unreported side effect of heavy ibuprofen use, wherein every part of your body, apart from your fingers, shrinks to become much smaller than normal.

3) My brain doesn't react well to heavy use of ibuprofen and is attempting to tell me this in a way it thinks I will find original and funny.

This being 2007, we will resolve this in the usual scientific way which leaves no room for error or corruption. We will have a vote. I don't have a premium rate number, so please just leave a comment on this blog with your vote in it, and then next time you see me, let me dip my hand in your wallet and take as much money as I want.

Spring is not the most relaxing of seasons

Embankment gardens are a nice place to stop and read a book in your lunch break, and it was there I found myself this afternoon, flicking through a book of short, witty essays by Barry Pain, a new favourite writer of mine.

"HOPE", the book said. "The lazy use hope as a substitute for work. Gamblers use it as a protection against arithmetic. The wise use it in moderation as a preventative of despair."

"Very true, Barry. They don't," I thought, "write 'em like this anymore". As I was musing thus, I looked up and saw three ducks, two male and one female mallard, fly in and land on a small ornamental pond. Nothing particularly unusual in that, but I discovered that I was in the mood for a bit of duck watching, so I decided to settle back, make myself comfortable and have a damn good look at them.

The feeling was obviously mutual, because the ducks decided to take a waddle over in my direction and have a good look at me too. And so they came, bit by bit, until they were stood not 4 feet from where I was sat on the grass. This was a rare treat, it was nearly time to go back to the office but I decided to sit there for a bit longer to drink it all in. Mallards are such common birds that we hardly tend to notice them at all, apart from when we feel the strange urge to encourage children to chuck stale bits of Sunblest at them. It's a shame because they are beautiful birds, the female a pleasing speckly brown all over, the males with stunning multicoloured plumage, their heads a striking irridescent green. They stood there, they looked me up and down, they looked each other up and down, they preened their feathers, they wiggled their bums. And then, without any warning, the two males proceeded to beat the living shit out of each other.

Now, here's a challenge. How can I possibly convey to you the sheer viciousness of the battle that was played out before me? As far as impressive and disturbing wildlife spectacles go, a duck fight is not likely to be high on many people's lists. But believe me, these ducks were really going at it. They jumped on top of each other, they jabbed at each other's backs, they bit down on each other's striking irridescent green feathers and they ripped them out of each other's heads. Bald patches appeared on their faces and bodies, they flapped their wings in desperate attempts to get away, they bit each others wings to prevent escape. Feathers were flying all over the place. I've seen animals fighting before, I've seen domestic dogs attack each other, I've seen huge red deer stags smashing their antlers together in the rut. But I've never seen anything in the animal kingdom quite as violent as this before.

Needless to say, while all this was going on, the female duck was paying absolutely no attention whatsoever.

So here's a message to the gentlemen reading this story. If ever you feel a bit resentful about the things you might have to do to win over a lady, then just think about how much worse it could be. At least you don't have to go up to another man and bite him on the face.

Anyone can be a tabloid journalist

TIMEBOMBS FLOOD BRITAIN!

An influx of foreign made timebombs is flooding the country and making it unsafe for everyone, it was revealed last night.

The government faced claims that if nothing is done, this timebomb "timebomb" could explode in an explosion of explosions.

Penelope Outraged from pressure group Mothers Against Timebombs (MAT) said "It's political correctness gone mad. Not only are these timebombs potentially dangerous to our children, but they are coming from abroad, probably Poland, or some muslim country. This is undermining the position of good, honest, British made timebombs, and is also threatening house prices. Have I mentioned that it's political correctness gone mad?"

Boffins from Coca Cola University have worked out the following equation to monitor the increase in timebombs: T = B + F, where T stands for the total number of timebombs, B is the amount of timebombs already in Britain, and F is the amount of foreign timebombs slipping in through our ports. The scientist in charge of the team of researchers who created the formula, Professor Sellout, said "Can I have my money now please?"

The government have so far failed to respond to these damaging allegations, probably because we couldn't be bothered to phone them up and ask for a quote.

Watch out where the huskies go

It doesn't snow very much in London. When it does, you really owe it to yourself to bunk off work and have a walk, take photos, and generally sod around.

Booleshit mansions is situated in the North London suburb of Crouch End. And this morning Crouch End was looking simply stunning.

We decided to take a walk in the park. You can see Alexandra Palace in the photo below.

And then on to Queens Wood that we know so well, but we'd never seen it in the snow before.

We got lost so we called out mountain rescue. But the dog didn't bring any brandy...

...and as we blundered on in the whiteout, we found evidence of ancient people from Easter Island.

I bet the Easter island men had bunked off work too.

A good blogger, these days, is hard to find

I dunno. Good bloggers are like greenfinches on a bird table, you wait a year for one and then three come along at once. Here are links to some blogger chums of mine. It's all good stuff, please pay them a visit and feel free to leave comments about how much better my blog is than theirs. They are pippyrants, hats off to mr chicken and fannyadams.