How To Jump Off A Cliff

Tapeworms, Just Who Do They Think They Are?

2005-05-27T07:58:00.000+12:00

And WHERE do they think they are?
....Its dark so it could be Scotland but it's and warm so it isn't..... Has there been a powercut in the hotel?...... Why can't I touch my toes? Room service is very good but the food tastes like shit. This sleeping bag is very thin-and why does it keep pulsating? Will I always be here or is there a light at the end of the tunnel? .......I can see white, looks like porcelain...what IS that at the end of the tunnel?

Open Your Suitcase

2005-05-08T08:49:00.000+12:00

Things banned by New Zealand customs

1.The Patagonian toothfish
2. Rubber hot water bottles

There is a specific NZ law aimd at unscrupulous criminals trying to smuggle in dangerous bed warming devices

Pope Update

2005-04-04T07:05:00.000+12:00

The Pope continues to improve. He is 'alert' says Vatican sources but needs 'lots of rest.' He appears to have solved this problem by resting with his eyes open.

Pope Update

2005-04-02T09:09:00.000+12:00

The Vatican reports, the Pope is 'calm, serene, lucid and has just been to the gym' -though according to insider sources, he HAS cut down his usual number of abdominal crunches and bench presses.

Doctor Second Opinion

2005-02-16T10:11:00.000+13:00

You won't believe this, but I took my blog to another doctor today for a second opinion. He did loads and loads of tests then said things might not be so bad after all! The problem is only likely to be serious-or at worst fatal- if the blog gets over excited. Otherwise, he said, it could have a lifespan of many many years. Great news! hooray! Yippee!! YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS!
HHOORAAAAAA....................................................
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How To Jump Off A Cliff August 2004-February 2005.
R.I.P

Doctor

2005-02-15T16:14:00.000+13:00

I've had to take my blog to the doctor today. It was very bad news. This blog is suffering from a terminal disease. It's hard to take in. Today is sunny and warm, birds are singing, the keyboard is bathed in a lovely golden light. Everything seems fine. But, so I'm told, the blog has only a short while left to live. No flowers please.

Quest Updated, Updated

2005-02-15T16:11:00.000+13:00

My hunch was nearly right, 17 is a prime number. I'd guessed 18 I was only one out which is hardly anything unless you're in a relationship in which case you're suddenly on your own.

Quest Update

2005-02-14T07:29:00.000+13:00

I'm getting good feelings about the number18.More research is needed.My abacus is melting. I'll get back to you.

My Quest

2005-02-13T19:45:00.000+13:00

I feel my life is going nowhere. I need a mission, a goal. I've decided to turn to things of the mind. From now on, pure numbers will occupy my thoughts. I am going to leave my mark on the world by finding the mathematical Holy Grail.
It's a journey which will take me into the unknown. I will boldly explore where others dare not go.I will spend my days in meditation and my nights in a Slumberland Easy-Snooze bed.I will not rest more than eight hours a day until I have succeeded in my quest.
There are far too many people searching for the world's largest prime number so I have decided to search for the SMALLEST one. The journey starts here.

You'll Believe A Whale Can Fly. No I Won't

2005-02-10T17:12:00.000+13:00

I keep meeting people who say to me
"Hey, jumping off a cliff isn't that bad-just build your wings on the way down"
Then, invariably, they smile. A beatific smile with just a hint of triumphant smugness.

Until now I've heroically resisted the urge to smack them across the face with a live eel.
But I've had enough. Be warned. Do not be optimistic in my presence. Keep your vapid soap bubble banalities to yourself. If you're out and about , giving cheery advice to everyone, ponder this first-

You are being stalked by a man with a concealed eel.

Constrict A Sheep

2005-02-09T09:05:00.000+13:00

Checking out the blogs of those who check out my blog I have come across frutiboy.blogspot.com. He is either
1. An incredibly subtle and talented comic writer or
2.A gay Croatian , recently arrived in America who wants to work for NASA. Specifically he wishes to, and I quote
'constrict a rucket sheep.'

Your Fly's Undone

2005-02-08T23:43:00.000+13:00

My Entire Sex Education-I was given a book on banana flies; I was 16 years old.

My parents were invited up to my school for a pre tell- your -offspring -sex education briefing. As soon as they arrived home, dad,sweating and evasive, ran for the garage, leaving mum holding the banana... fly..... book. He was embarrassed, even by insect sex. It was left to mum to lead me though the minefield of erogenous zones, bizarre fetishes and multiple orgasms. She poked her head round the door, said 'here, I have to give you this, your father won't,' and disappeared, (possibly to help dad change his oil).

The pamphlet- along the lines of 'when a mummy banana fly and a daddy banana fly really love each other....'-wasn't really the erotic extravaganza I'd hoped for...

There WAS a small section at the back which attempted to link banana fly and human behaviour and I can still remember the description word for word:- "the man puts his penis in the woman's vagina."
Puts? PUTS? Was 'thrust' not available? What a brilliant evocation of sweaty passion. 'puts'.

Most of the pamphlet was devoted to flies.

"Bactrocera Musae Coitus- A Banana Fly sex book. "

***Banana fly foreplay***
Buzz meaninglessly around the object of your desires.This was a girlfriend getting technique I instantly adopted -with predictable resuts. But hey, who needs a girlfriend when you have an ILLUSTRATED Banana Fly Sex Book.

***The Centrefold Fly***
She lies seductively on hers back, her legs invitingly akimbo. It's either an invitation to rampant sex or she's been sprayed with Deet. She's been sprayed with Deet.
I know how she felt.

***Sex the Banana Fly way***
He comes* out of the sun at three million miles an hour (*premature ejaculation? )and crash lands on her back,impaling her on his enormous one- hundredth- of- a- centimetre- long tumescent dong.Two seconds later it's all over,shes laying three million eggs and he's knee deep in a cow pat having his how -was -it -for- you- post coital breakfast.

South African Lottery

2005-02-06T07:52:00.000+13:00

"FROM: THE PRIZE AWARD DEPARTMENT
WORLDWIDE PREMIER LOTTO, SOUTH AFRICA BRANCH

Congratulations Category A prizewinner! You have been
Selected as one of two winners of the Worldwide Premier
Lotto UK and South Africa Computer Ballot draws and thus
will be a privileged recipient of the Grand draw prize of £
7,500,000 (Seven million five hundred Thousand Great
Britain Pounds only). Winning File Reference number for
your prize is WWPL/UK/SA/ 61-812087; ticket number
003-214-39/A."

I've just won the South African lottery! I can't believe my luck- particularly as
A/ three days ago I apparently won the Spanish lottery and
B/ I don't do lotteries.

"To ensure a smooth collection of your winnings, the
transfer of your prize is to be handled by our Prize
Transfer agents.You are to contact our agents by email
and/or fax within a week of receiving this notice. Please
find full contact details below:
Mr. DAVID ADAMS
Finance Director
Link Finance and Trust.
55 Raleigh Street
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel: (+27) 834831409
Fax: (+27) 11 5075993
Email:davidadams1234@hotmail.com "

.......................................

Dear Mr David Adams 1234!

Bwana! elephanti muchos dollares incredibo .
mi banco accounto numero 467/9967/cww/401/expirio/ augusto 1999-O
bravo bravo bravo! oscar tango charlie delta policio
mugabe mandela oboto spike up bottomo

stupendo

Andio

Protection

2005-02-03T11:35:00.002+13:00

The easy way is not the right way. I've just been reading that there has been yet another increase in sexually transmitted diseases. Kids nowadays, they just won't be told. It was drilled into me, by my gran, 'ALWAYS wear a condom.'
And I did,though it wasn't easy. It kept falling off while I was riding my bike.

The Morning After 5 Glasses Of Jamesons Philosophy

2005-02-03T08:04:00.000+13:00

Many of the stars we 'see' no longer exist.They are so far away, when one 'dies', we don't see the explosion for hundreds or thousands of years.The light picture of the explosion takes that long to hurtle across space. Similarly, when I die, this blog will still exist in cyberspace. This is spooky, it almost makes me believe in something. Something bigger than myself. Space and Cyberspace, is there a connection? Yes, they both have the word 'spa' built into them. Deep.***

*** no more than 2 ft deep. Have a fear-free childhood, but remember kids, water kills.

Black On Black. So Cool. What Do You Reckon?

2005-02-02T20:44:00.000+13:00

.

.

Copyright

2005-02-02T20:36:00.000+13:00

It has come to my attention that other bloggers have stolen my brilliantly creative, ultra- cool 'white text on a black background' design. I only have two options

1.Sue fourteen million, three hundred and forty one thousand, two hundred and twenty six other bloggers (I'm thinking about it so stop smirking. I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE)
2. Change to an even more briliantly creative ultra -cool design, one never before attempted.

Dah, dah, trumpet fanfare-

'Black on black'

(black text on a black background,why, what did you think I meant?)

Identity Parade

2005-02-02T20:22:00.000+13:00

Ok sonny,take a look at these men, do you recognise the guy who molested you?

3 Glasses Of Jamesons Philosophy-Is The Rain Lost?

2005-02-02T19:46:00.000+13:00

'Water evaporates from the oceans and rains on the mountains. The rain flowing off the mountains joins into streams, which join to form a river. The river flows down to the ocean.Water evaporates from the oceans and rains on the mountains.'

Wassa point? It jus' keeps goin' back to where it started from, hic.

Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea

2005-02-02T19:38:00.000+13:00

I have a mammoth's tooth (but doesn't it make chewing difficult, I hear you ask). It's on the desk beside me. I use it as a paperweight. I bought it in York, England, many years ago. It had been dredged up in a fisherman's net from the North Sea.
One tooth and it's nearly twice as long as my hand. Apparently-so the guy in the shop told me- 'a hundred thousand years ago mammoths used to walk where the North sea is.'

I don't wonder they became extinct.

Two Glasses Of Jamesons Philosophy

2005-02-02T19:35:00.000+13:00

If people see faces in clouds, what do clouds see?

Thriller Nights

2005-02-02T10:33:00.000+13:00

'I've been praying for Michael Jackson.'

I'm just experimenting, typing those words to see how it feels.
..........?
.....nothing yet......hang on......???....no, its ok that was just wind.....
...nope, I think I'm fine.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
blahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
eeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwww
yuuuuuuuuck.

oops.Sorry.

Haiku For Capitalists

2005-02-01T07:30:00.000+13:00

If
I could
only buy a fridge
everything would be different.

Traffic

2005-01-31T22:51:00.000+13:00

I've just been checking my sitemeter; I'm depressed to see the largest number of google hits I get are from people searching for 'Vegetable Sex' (See previous post 1/3/2005). I'm depressed because:-

1. I thought my blog was being read for deep, spiritual reasons.
2.I'm worried about a lot of unwanted little potatoes being brought into the world just because some fetishist couldn't be bothered to use a condom. Be responsible, kids.

This Is Hugo At Nursery

2005-01-30T07:23:00.000+13:00

In the 18th century there was a French Count who lived - I believe-in France. He was mathematically minded, an amateur accountant. Every year he measured his infant son and recorded how much he had grown. I guess he and the other accounting Counts would gather round the figures as if they were a photo album (photography not having yet been invented) ' This is Hugo at nursery....this is Hugo and his bucket and spade at Marseilles...'....'Mon Dieu, 'ow 'e 'has grown!'
Here, from the carefully counting accountant Count, are the figures recording the son's growth.
1752...2 inches
1753...1 inch
1754...3inches
1755...2 inches
1756...3 inches.
1757...2 inches
1758...2 inches
1759...6 inches (puberty)
1760... minus 11 inches***

*** in 1760 his son was beheaded by Robespierre

'Ow 'e has shrunk!'

Purple Haze

2005-01-29T13:19:00.000+13:00

I'ts just occurred to me that if Les Paul hadn't invented the electric guitar, Jimmy Hendrix could have been the world's greatest Xylophone player. I think I need to change my medication.

The Jimmy Hendrix Experience

2005-01-29T12:26:00.000+13:00

marimba_gnrl, originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

Purple Haze in an alternative universe

Jesusland

2005-01-29T10:06:00.000+13:00

usa, originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

REUTERS....Canada now officially full ..Canadian border police are catching tens of thousands of American refugees and returning them across the border......Belgium 'we can't cope-the whole of Walloon is a tent city '....Finland 'We can fit another three thousand in if we cut down some pine trees and shoo the reindeer away'....Cuba...we're picking them up in small boats...kayaks....washtubs...it's got completely out of hand....'

Push, Breathe

2005-01-29T08:15:00.000+13:00

Do you get invited to tedious dinner parties? And do you always end up sitting with the same dull, grey people, their conversations dripping around you like stalactites? Well here's how to avoid ever being invited again:-

1.Wait until the food has arrived then
2.Carefully locate a small silence ( perhaps when everyone's taking a mouthful of soup) then
3.Say, brightly, 'did you know the female spotted hyena gives birth through it's clitoris?'

Transplant

2005-01-25T08:44:00.000+13:00

The dot com industry has most parts of the body covered- including 'toes' and 'earwax.'Don't believe me?
www.toe.com
www.earwax.com
www.liver.com
www.smallintestine.com
www.pancreas.com takes you through to a site with lots and lots of pancreases ( pancreai?) involved in activities not normally considered offal- related.

www.finger.com sells.......... duffel bags.
www.deadbody.com sells air purifiers.Do they do a 10 percent discount for legionaires?

www.hair.com has the lastest transplant possibilities for men...

"Bald? No worries! Get your pubic hair transplanted onto your head. Guaranteed to stay curly and dandruff free."
Just remember kids, always use protection-wear a hat.

Orphans

2005-01-25T08:19:00.000+13:00

orphans, originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

Orphans waiting to be posted to www.duck.com

Duck Shed Crap Rabbit

2005-01-25T07:56:00.000+13:00

Try this free association game .Type ' www' followed by the first word or words that come into your head. Add '.com' and see what you get. I discovered two things straightaway:-

1. The internet is a big strange place
2.The inside of my head is a small strange place.

The first three I tried were:-

www.shed.com
www.crap.com
www.rabbit.com

'Shed' sells sheds, 'crap' sells crap (including instant online degrees) and 'rabbit' sells sex toys.

www.duck.com (why am I suddenly fixated on wildlife?) has this message on it's home page:-

" We are a developer of software-based video compression technology. we are not a duck adoption/rescue agency, supplier of hunting gear, or marketer of novelty toys."

If everyone who reads this blog e mails them saying "I have just found a little baby duck who has lost it's mummy and I'm posting it to you" I will-for reasons that aren't yet clear to me- be very happy.

PS I wonder if www.microsoft.com has a message saying "we are a duck adoption/rescue agency , please don't keep asking us about computer software"

Ring,Ring,Ring,Ring,Ring,Ring,

2005-01-24T23:01:00.000+13:00

They're still trying to figure out what to incorporate into the next generation of mobile phones. They're looking for the 'killer application,' something so wonderful, so irresistible that everyone will immediately rush out and buy one.

I suggest all mobile phones should come with the phone number of one true friend.

Someone who,when you really need them, answers the phone,

ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring,ring, ring, ring, ring,

Samaritans Nil, Death 6

2005-01-24T07:42:00.000+13:00

ring, ring, ring

"Hello, is this the Samaritans?"
"Well, yes, this is our main office."
"Whew, its a long walk up here, still you've got a great view, I've come to mend your burst pipe."
"Ah, excellent, its just through the door......NOT THAT DOOR!"
...

Samaritans Nil, Death 5

2005-01-24T07:41:00.000+13:00

ring, ring, ring

"Hello, Samaritans? Im so depressed...
"HI, THIS IS THE SAMARITANS.."
"Hi,I'm so....look, am I talking to a real person here?
YES YOU ARE.
Thank God- you see,that's the thing which has made me suicidal,everything nowadays is automated and so impersonal and I can't take it any more.
I UNDERSTAND, PLEASE TELL ME MORE, I'M HERE TO LISTEN.
Oh thank you, thank you, a real person I can confide in, someone who will understand. What's your name?
"C3PO"
...

Samaritans Nil, Death 4

2005-01-24T07:35:00.000+13:00

ring, ring, ring

HELLO THIS IS THE SAMARITANS...
Oh I'm so sorry, I rang 0172 567492, isn't that you?
"...ALL OUR LINES ARE BUSY AT THE MOMENT....MEANWHILE HERE IS SOME MUSIC" (the sound of 'Millienium Prayer' by Cliff Richard)
...

All Your Decisions May Be Wrong

2005-01-23T08:27:00.000+13:00

Ladies and gentlemen, it has come to my attention
that there is an emergency going on,
you may be in the wrong body.

Or the wrong country.
In fact
all your decisions may be wrong.

You may be kissing the wrong person goodbye
before driving an inappropriate car
to an incorrect place of work.

The house in which you have spent
25 years of your life
may be falling over a cliff.

(You may have noticed your furnishings,
now scattered among the rocks
are in the wrong style.)

Your investments have failed to pay out.
Your clothes are, frankly, a joke.
You holiday in the wrong part of France.

But, let me assure you,at this time of stress
there is absolutely no need
to panic.

For I will shortly be connecting you
to our team of skilled advisors.
Meanwhile, here is some music.

The right music.

©Andy Mortimer 2005

Will You Walk A Little Faster?

2005-01-22T08:42:00.000+13:00

"Will you walk a little faster?" said the hedgehog in a thong,
"There's a policeman close behind me, and he thinks I'm doing wrong.
See how eagerly the creatures of the wood are checking out
if the big man with the truncheon is going to club me on the snout.
Will he, won't he, will he, won't he, will he take me out?
Will he, won't he, will he, won't he, club me on the snout?

You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When he finally gets up to me and tries to make me see
that my furtive little lifestyle is a cause of discontent
for it's the view of the constabulary that I'm most severely bent.
Will he, won't he, will he, won't he, will he take me out?
Will he, won't he, will he, won't he, won't he club me on the snout?

'Excuse me sir I'd like a word,you're loitering with intent,
I'd say youre using dodgy ways to try and pay the rent.'
'daka daka daka dak', the hedgehog's gun replied.
The officer fell to the ground and where he fell he died.

And the moral of the story kids is, never ever mess with a gun toting psychopathic transvestite hedgehog

copyright@The Hedgehog Book Of Fantasies by Hedgehog In A Thong

Samaritans Nil, Death 3

2005-01-21T22:07:00.000+13:00

ring, ring, ring

"Hello, Samaritans? I've taken an overdose and don't know what to do"
"HI, THIS IS THE SAMARITANS.."
"Please, I've taken an ove.."
"WE"RE SORRY, ALL OUR LINES ARE ENGAGED AT THE MOMENT-WE WILL ANSWER YOUR CALL AS SOON AS AN OPERATOR BECOMES AVAILABLE.IN THE MEANTIME, HERE IS SOME MUSIC (up comes The Cheeky Song {Touch My Bum} by The Cheeky Girls)
.........................

Samaritans Nil, Death 2

2005-01-21T19:52:00.000+13:00

ring, ring, ring,

"Hello, is that the Samaritans,my neighbour is on a ledge and threatening to ju.."
"HELLO AND WELCOME TO THE SAMARITANS HELPLINE."
"Yes, hi, my neighbour is outside my 34th floor window and.."
"IF YOU HAVE A PSYCHOLOGICAL DISORDER PRESS BUTTON 1......IF YOU HAVE A DRUG PROBLEM PRESS BUTTON 2......
IF YOU ARE GAY PRESS BUTTON 3.....IF YOU HAVE A RELATIONSHIP PROBLEM PRESS BUTTON 4....FOR ALL OTHER PROBLEMS PRESS BUTTON 5...."
"Oh God, he's going to jump any second" (hesitates, then presses button 1)
ring, ring, ring,
"IF YOU ARE A DEPRESSIVE PRESS BUTTON 1.......IF YOU HAVE A HISTORY OF SCHIZOPHRENIA PRESS BUTTON 2
"Hello???hello!?"
....IF YOU HAVE A HISTORY OF NAIL BITING OR BED WETTING PRESS BUTTON 3......IF YOU ARE OBSESSIVE OR COMPULSIVE PRESS BUTTON 4 SEVERAL TIMES
...

Samaritans Nil, Death 1

2005-01-21T13:54:00.000+13:00

ring, ring, ring

"Hello, Samaritans? I'm feeling really depressed and-"
"HI, THIS IS THE SAMARITANS.."
"Hi, I'm feeling.."
"WE"RE SORRY, ALL OUR LINES ARE ENGAGED AT THE MOMENT-WE WILL ANSWER YOUR CALL AS SOON AS AN OPERATOR BECOMES AVAILABLE.IN THE MEANTIME, HERE IS SOME MUSIC (the sound of 'Can We Fix It' by Bob The Builder)
...

Sniff Sniff, Snort.

2005-01-21T09:48:00.000+13:00

A little hedgehog is snuffling and sniffing along, sniff sniff, snort.Snuff,dribble,crunch,gobble. Suck (he just ate a beetle- or, possibly, is bonking another hedgehog, it's hard to tell in the dark).

The ehdgehof (thats a hedgehog typed by someone in the dark) continues on through the woods; he doesn't realise it, but he's snuffling and sniffing towards the Big Road.

In the distance a tiny pair of lights appears.
Snuffle snuffle, sniff, sniff.
The lights get bigger.
The hedgehog reaches the side of the road, and looks up.He is checking for planes.Nope, perfectly safe.
Slowly, he scrambles onto the tarmac and begins to trundle across.
When he is nearly halfway, he suddenly thinks, 'hello it's getting light,it's dawn already,but it's only 2.30am according to my Rollinaballex watch'. He glances sideways up the road.

Barely fifty metres away and hurtling towards him at over 100 mph is a Lexus LS470 SUV.
Instinctively,because the car is nearly upon him, he curls into a ball

Perhaps the wheels will pass either side of him?

Not a chance. The massive reinforced steel Lexus bumper hits him full on.

The car ricochets off the tightly curled hedgehog and soars through the air, before crashing upside down a hundred metres away and bursting into flames.

The hedgehog uncurls and proceeds across the road. Sniff sniff, snort.

copyright 2005@ The Hedgehog Book Of Fantasies by Hedgehog In a Thong.

For You, Hedgehog, The War Is Over.

2005-01-20T20:06:00.000+13:00

Last night I went on the net and found a chatroom called German Lifestyles. I gave myself the name "Hedgehog With A Thong'
and sat there for an hour.I'm confident this means something but I'm not sure what.

From The Series 'Only Humans Have Yesterdays'

2005-01-20T20:00:00.000+13:00

nude, originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

Love

2005-01-20T14:43:00.000+13:00

some lives don't build day by day
picking up stones the ordered way

gathering the gradual pile

sometimes, in a moment
after waiting a lifetime for a life
a life comes all at once

and, believing only in patterns
the usual walk along a beach
the familiar meal for two
the obvious line in a bar

believing only
in not believing,
standing in a garden
of purely geometric shapes

the meteorite strikes
and everything you had
is gone
and everything you have

you have

©Andy Mortimer 2005

I Now Pronounce You Corpse And Wife

2005-01-18T13:52:00.000+13:00

'French woman Christel Demichel married her dead boyfriend 18 months after he died in a car accident, in a ceremony allowed under French law.'

Part of me thinks this is sad and wonderful and very moving. The other( bad taste) part of me is going:-

Will she walk down the aisle with him in a pot?'
'Can they exchange rings, I mean, does he still have something resembling a finger? '
The vows will probably be difficult - it's fairly safe to say the groom will be inaudible.
Will she says ' till death do us part'. If she does it's a very short marriage.
The honeymoon..................let's not think about this.

By the way, you might like to know marriage between TWO dead people is traditionally possible in China-so long as a medium confirms that neither of the departed have gone and got married in the afterlife.

Becoming A Belgian

2005-01-18T13:24:00.000+13:00

Twenty five million concerned American citizens have now e mailed, asking to become Belgians.(see 'Thyl Uilenspielgel' post) Many of them have been in hiding since the election,a large number had taken to the woods and disguised themselves as trees. Unfortunately, a few chose to do this in a logging area which means several hundred Democrats have now become coffee tables. Things are bad and getting worse. Some non-coffee table Americans are even pretending to be Canadians. On my last flight from LA to Wellington I sat next to a charming couple who said they were from 'Southern Canada'. When I enquired exactly which part they looked embarrassed and said 'er, it's called Florida.' You see how desperate things have become?

Unfortunately, my contact in the Belgian embassy has now confirmed that Belgium is full up.I'm making enquiries to try and place the remaining seven million homeless American refugees; Finland has some space, apparently. I will get back to you, I promise. Meanwhile, please stay in your tent and keep warm.

Bis'ahai Shashlik!

2005-01-17T17:14:00.000+13:00

Most people in the world follow a religion. Up to 95 per cent of humans, according to the Center for Religious Tolerance. This means, at any one time, millions of devout individuals will be praying or meditating (or playing a game of 'pin the head back on the hostage').
Bjorn Svelte, professor Of Human Biology at the University of Stockholm has spent years studying the religious habits of mankind. Now he has published his results-results which many will find startling and disturbing.For his main conclusion is this- WORSHIPPING MAKES YOU FAT.Yes, praying and meditating is bad for you. Listening to a Rabbi, Mullah or Priest burns zero calories. Sitting motionless in church hour after hour will turn you into a Lard-Ass before you can say Hallelulah, 'God is great' or 'Bis'ahai Shashlik!'

In his seminal study, Professor Svelte fed an 'Elvis Snack**-essentially a high calorie meal- to religious volunteers. Then, he weighed them twice - before and after they'd attended the church/temple. Professor Svelte also studied rare examples of 'evangelical/aetheist' twins to see if their belief-differences translated into health issues.
The results were unambiguous-and deeply worrying. He found that, on average, the religious were more likely to put on weight, have heart attacks, suffer strokes and get chronic piles***. his staggering conclusion is this- believing in God is actually likely to kill you. Putting it another way, attending church statistically reduces the number of people attending church (though the number of funerals increases, so, in terms of church -related activities, it's not all bad news).

Religious leaders have acted swiftly to try and contain the damage, deeply concerned that belief in a deity will- rather than bequeathing eternal life - actually SHORTEN life . A group of senior religious figures have joined forces with the Discovery channel to form 'Recovery', a production company making fitness videos specifically aimed at the religious . The first group of DVDs are already on sale.

RECOVERY DVDS

'Jet Ski-ing With Jews!'
'Weightlifting The Rosicrucian Way!'
'Synchronized Swimming For Sikhs' (includes a special feature on turban waterproofing techniques)
'The Boxing Buddhist'
'Rugby And Rastafarianism'
'American Baptist White Water Kayaking Full Immersion Techniques'
'A Branch Davidian On Ice'
'Greek Orthodox Water Polo'
'The Missionary Position-Yoga For The Godly'
'Zoroastrianism Archery' (' become the target')
'Step Aerobics The Islamic Way'
'Pentecostal Ping Pong'

**Elvis snacks were obtained from the 'Kings Cookbook', a collection of Elvis' favourite meals. An example :-

1. Take one haunch of whale meat and carefully trim all the fat off. Throw the meat away, fry the fat in one jar of peanut butter, garnish with lettuce and lemon juice, serve immediately, before it congeals.

*** 'Religious Piles' syndrome is thought to occur because many Christian church seats traditionally don't support the buttocks. There is also some evidence that the anal sphincter is more likely to prolapse in people who spend a lot of time with their arms in the air.This may explain the otherwise baffling similarity in hemorrhoids statistics between evangelical Christians and Wallpaper Hangers.

Nuns Don't Wear Thongs

2005-01-15T21:43:00.000+13:00

Welcome to our online Catholic bookshop.Here are our latest titles:-

'101 Things To Do With A Nun'.

Hundreds of pages of practical advice and helpful hints-a veritable treasure trove of knowledge! Chapter headings include
* Nuns and Rugby
* Scuba Diving With Sister
* Why Nuns Love Helicopters
* Nun Beach Etiquette

' Bun Run Stun Gun Nun'

Sister Mary's riveting account of her controversial, sometimes violent mission to feed the Street children of El Salvador

'Everything You Wanted To Know About Nuns But Were Afraid To Ask'

This fascinating book includes hitherto secret information which has only just been de-classified by the Pope.Discover for yourself:-

***How nuns run*** "A nun flat out is, in many ways, like a Stealth bomber."

*** Why Nuns Bounce***. "Barnes Wallis was inspired to create his famous dam-busting bomb only after visiting St Hildas Nunnery on the Isle Of Wight in 1941

***First Aid for Nuns*** " A wimple makes a great torniquet."

***How Nuns See in the Dark " Nun's special spectacles are individually blessed by the Pope's own Optometrist."

Order any of the above before the end of January 2005 and get our lavishly illustrated pamphlet ' Real Nuns Don't Wear Thongs' absolutely free!

Advert

2005-01-15T08:55:00.000+13:00

Now available- JESUS JUICE!

Orange juice made from evangelical christians!

guaranteed pure!!

freshly squeezed !!!

no added ingredients!!!

NB contents may settle over time

The Life Of Snails

2005-01-14T21:42:00.000+13:00

. . . . . . . Snail going for a gentle stroll

.................... Very determined snail singlemindedly pursuing goal.

.... , ....... , ..... Singleminded snail who insists, nevertheless, on having proper tea breaks.

..........?.??..??? Singleminded snail suddenly having doubts as to wisdom of chosen path

..---.....--........--.... Over- ambitious snail optimistically attempting to get airborne

...zzz.......zzzz.. Sleep walking snail

......$$$$$$! Snail who has won the lottery

...............!!! Snail undergoing sudden religious conversion

.+. .O. Snails hanging around waiting to play noughts and crosses

,,,,,,,,,,,,, Snail tiptoing

...sigh.... Depressed snail

...SIGH... Very depressed snail

(.) Trapped snail

#.>#.>#.>.... Snail being pursued by a porcupine

. Snail fired from cannon
/
......................................................................................
......................................................................................
.................................. Snail winning the marathon

......'sod it'. Snail attempts the marathon but gives up with bad grace

Ultimate Christian Wrestling Mission

2005-01-14T07:32:00.000+13:00

" UCW is an exciting Christian Outreach Ministry that uses Professional Wrestling as a vehicle to minister to the world. UCW is a family oriented company, focused on clean and spiritually educational entertainment. UCW exists to minister the Gospel of Christ to the Lost and to see lost souls saved. Our long term goal is to have prayer placed back in public school. With your help, and the help of other dedicated Christians, we will achieve just that. UCW is carrying out the Great Commission of our Lord."

I'm not making this up.

Thyl Uilenspiegel

2005-01-13T07:49:00.000+13:00

As we are all aware, a terrible and cataclysmic world event has recently taken place; yes, George Bush has been re elected to the White House. Millions of concerned Americans are now asking what can be done. Many feel ashamed to be associated with republican policies and want to disassociate themselves from Bush's America.Hundreds of thousands of citizens have actually considered leaving America;they are planning to seek refuge in some other, kindlier, saner place, and embrace a different,more humane way of life. But where can they go, what can they believe in? Don't despair, there is an answer and here it is. Become a Belgian.

It's possible that converting to Belgianism may never have crossed your mind,but think carefully about it, there are some distinct advantages.

BECOMING BELGIAN- IMPORTANT ADVANTAGES FOR AMERICANS.

1. You gain a history! Unlike America, Belgium has a past. 2000 years of it.
2. You can see the world without travelling! With a modest telescope you can spot half a dozen countries from your Belgian window -without even getting out of your Belgian bed.
3.You will learn to negotiate! Belgium has been invaded by everyone -Romans/Spanish/French/Germans/Austrians/Dutch-so Belgians know how to cut a deal.
4.You get to have an unpronounceable hero-Thyl Uilenspiegel.
5. You get to fulfil that James Dean fantasy! Check out this quote 'The Belgians are critical of any form of authority... tax evasion is one of the national sports... There is an individualistic, anti-authoritarian attitude'

What are you against, Johnny Brussels ? Whaddya got? Well, we got...we got...mmm what has Belgium got?

6.It has nothing! From the world's point of view you are effectively invisible! Unlike Holland (tulips/cheese) or England
( warm beer/bad teeth-or is it bad beer and warm teeth?) Belgium has no internationally recognized defining characteristics (in a recent survey, thirty seven percent of Belgians didn't realise they were Belgian). Belgians are culturally invisible. Astonishingly,and unforgivably, Tintin isn't a worldwide phenomenon.***
7. You are safe! Terrorists maps don't have Belgium on-it's too small to show up on an atlas

***click here to savour Belgian genius in all its fullness

Neighbours,Everybody Needs Good Neighbours

2005-01-12T20:49:00.000+13:00

Every word of this is true.

The man who lives next door is a keen D.I.Y er. For the past six years he has hammered, sawed and drilled his way around his house(BANG, WHIRR,WHOOSH). Huge lorries regularly back up his drive, revving their engines, discharging their loads (BRM BRMM, BANG BANG BANG CLATTER) He employs workmen who shout to each other all day long over the trebly racket of their transistor radios (BRIANNWHERESTHACIRCULARSAW INCE,INCE,INCE BABEE I LOOOVE YOUUU). He has an Alsatian which barks and howls for hours on end.(WOOF WOOF, HOWEEEEEEEEE) He has several noisy kids who scream and cry and skateboard and play football all day long. (OOYYYY NOOOO ITS MINENOITISNT ARGHH THWACK BADOING) He has installed a spa pool (WHIRR WHIRR WHIRR) and every kid in the valley comes and sits in it.(HAYY WOWWW BRILL WHOOPPEEELOOKATMEIMAFISH)When he isn't DIYing, he works from home mending electric lawnmowers and strimmers(CHUG CHUG CHU...CHUG CHUG CH..DAG DAG! DAG! DAG! BRMM BRMM, DAG!DAG!DAG! DAG! DAG!)

Yesterday he put his head over the fence and complained the frogs in my pond were too noisy.

I.Q

2005-01-07T19:11:00.000+13:00

IQ TEST

1. It takes two men twenty three years to construct a model aardvark from used cigarette butts.Is this a good use of time?
2. John has 12 oranges,Bob has twice as many as Kate who has half as many as Allan who has just stolen two of Johns'.
A/ Who is most likely to have an upset tummy?
B/ Which smartass is most likely to get beaten up?
3. What do these have in common- Yugoslavia,Cambodia, Belgrade, Oklahoma?***
4. What number is next in the series: Oceans 11, Oceans 12, Oceans...?
5. John weighs 150 lbs, Bob weighs 200 lbs, Kate weighs 220 lbs. This isn't a question , just salacious gossip.
6. If the Inuits have 40 words for 'snow' and Australians 20 words for 'sheep', will an Inuit sheep shearer be more verbose than an Australian igloo builder?

***clue-NOT bombed by Canadians.

You Want Answers? You Got Answers

2005-01-05T21:11:00.000+13:00

1. Did a huge flying saucer land in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 and aliens get out?

Who are you calling an alien? I was aiming for Venus but had the star-map upside down.

2.How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin?
This is easy to answer:
A/It's a misquote, it's actually 'how many angels can fit on the point of a needle'.
B/The point of a needle is to sew things.
I can't believe I'm deigning to engage my massive brain with such a simple problem.

3.Why is my supermarket checkout queue always longer than the others?

It isn't but it LOOKS like it is; this is due to the DOPPLER effect -As you approach the checkout, the light waves bouncing off the queue are compressed towards the observer ie you. The intervals between waves diminish, which translates into an increase in the apparent length of the queue. The only other possible explanation is that there is a retard at the front.

4.Does God exist?

A/click the link in this post's title.
B/ All the people in 'A' could be wrong. I think it's a good idea to separate out wanting something to be true from it actually BEING true. I know someone who wants to be Halle Berry's tapeworm but it's not going to happen.

5.How do ships get into bottles?

This is the wrong question, what we should be asking is, 'who's making these giant bottles?'

6.Is space infinite?

My head says 'No', my heart says 'yes.' My liver is sitting on the fence.

7.Is there a meaning to life?

Yes, and it's definitely not golf.

8.How do ships get out of bottles?

This information is classified, there's a war on

9.Do bees dream?

Yes, bees have small but vivid dreams. Never wake a sleeping bee (NB It's fine to shout at ants).

10.Was OJ innocent?

Yes, absolutely. Orange Juice has never committed any crime.

11. Is there life before death?

There can be but you have to work at it. Practice giving not taking. Take someone out to dinner. Me.

12. Is there life on other planets?

There are rumoured to be giant antelopes on Saturn but it IS just a rumour.For more information check out

Giant Antelope Scam
M'boto Avenue
Nigeria

13. What are next week's winning lottery numbers?

43,65,12,8,11,22,

**Disclaimer- The lottery is in Togo,West Africa/the numbers may appear in a different order or in different combinations or not at all/the prize is a warthog.**

14. Can pigs fly?

Yes, pigs are amazingly good at flying.The reason you don't see more of them in the air is because they are absolutely crap at taking off and landing.They invariably trip over their ears while taxi-ing.They also have problems landing at 165 mph because there's no way their fat little legs can keep up. On touchdown, pigs often blow a leg and slide down the tarmac squealing. Due to friction, they rapidly become thinner and sometimes catch fire . The bad news is they're in agony; the good news is, they smell delicious.

15. I've also had a question asking me if classic rock is still popular. The answer, generally, is yes, particularly marble and slate- though it has to be said very few people nowadays are interested in siltstone.

The Big Questions- Answered.

2005-01-05T14:25:00.000+13:00

1. Did a huge flying saucer land in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 and aliens get out?
2.How many angels can you fit on the head of a pin?
3.Why is my checkout queue always slower than the others?
4.Does God exist?
5.How do ships get in bottles?
6.Is space infinite?
7.Is there a meaning to life?
8.How do ships get out of bottles?
9.Do bees dream?
10.Was OJ innocent?
11. Is there life before death?
12. Is there life on other planets?
13. What are next week's winning lottery numbers?

These questions and any others you care to send me will be answered in tomorrow's post 'You Want Answers. We Got Answers.'

Don't Think 'Wave'

2005-01-05T13:36:00.000+13:00

tsunami, originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

Haunted

2005-01-05T08:23:00.000+13:00

Until I came to New Zealand I'd never heard the word tsunami. Then I came across this warning in the back of the NZ yellow pages telephone directory.

'If you can see the wave it's probably too late.'

Nothing in my experience had prepared me for the size of the threat implied by that terse phrase . Sadly, I wasn't the only one. The word 'wave' is misleading -don't think 'wave' think 'twenty -metres- deep- ocean- wide- white- water- river .'
A few months ago I wrote about tsunamis.I've reproduced the original post below. I've also added a photograph from the asian tsunami disaster to help anyone who, like me, couldn't imagine why a wave would be a big deal.The people in the photograph, including a father with his child, had opted to head TOWARDS the approaching wave, viewing it as an interesting natural phenomenon.You can see from the expressions on their faces that, even at this stage, many haven't realised the danger.

REPOST-TSUNAMI

It sounds like a noise associated with sneezing, or a type of italian meat ('Tsunami on Rye please') but it's actually an enormous rushing wave, created by an earthquake. The New Zealand Yellow Pages has this succinct advice:-

'If you can see a Tsunami it's already too late.'

This is because 1) a Tsunami moves a teensy bit faster than a normal wave and 2) A Tsunami is also a tiny bit bigger than a normal wave.

Consider the following table.

Normal wave= 10 mph. Tsunami= 500 mph
Normal wave= 1 metre high. Tsunami= 30 metres high.

The earthquake which creates a Tsunami can be thousands of miles away from the land hit by the wave, so warnings are rare. One of the signs of an approaching Tsunami is, paradoxically, the sea level rapidly dropping(as a prelude to it suddenly rising back with a vengeance).

Another sign of an approaching Tsunami is thousands of screaming people tearing up the beach.

Out at sea a Tsunami can hardly be felt-the pulse or ripple is only about a foot high-but, as it approaches land, it 'bottoms out' and a huge wave appears.

Folks planning a beach holiday in sunny NZ may possibly be perturbed, nay distressed, by the Tsunami menace, but the Ministry Of Tourism, in a pamphlet entitled 'R.E.S.T. Relax, Enjoy and Survive your Time in New Zealand', has assured holidaymakers there's no need to panic.Here's a quote from it:-

'There is no need to panic'

Ministry Of Tourism

See? Just follow these simple Ministry approved precautions.

1.If possible, plan your beach holiday in the mountains, a guaranteed Tsunami- free zone(but remember to keep an eye out for avalanches).The mountains are far less crowded than the beaches and there are no sharks, giant electric eels or deadly barb-tailed stingrays either.There IS the Mountain Weta but it usually sleeps during the day, unless it's hungry.

2.If you ARE on a beach and see a Tsunami rushing towards you DON'T PANIC (because panicking won't stop you dying horribly). Save your breath, you'll need it for drowning.

3.If you have a beach umbrella, make sure you push the pointy end deeply into the sand then you can try hiding behind it. Good luck.

4. Speaking of good luck, bring a lucky rabbit's foot with you -except you can't because it will be confiscated at the airport (see previous posts). It may be better, therefore, to bring a 'Joan The Wad lucky Cornish Pixie' instead.Joan is 'guaranteed lucky or your money back' (J T. W. is also guaranteed 100 per cent high quality plastic substitute). And make sure your next of kin know your holiday details, your death could be a lucky little windfall for them;it's an ill wind,(or wave)that does no-one any good.

5. If the ocean suddenly drops by three and a half metres it's definitely time to start shaking the sand off the towels and packing up that picnic hamper. Again, don't panic, but if you can get off the beach and into the mountains (where you really should have been in the first place)in less than a minute that would be brilliant; it also increases the odds of at least one member of your group surviving,if only as a crippled, waterlogged vegetable.

6. If an old psychedlic- painted VW campervan, with 'Kiwi Dangerous Sports Society' written on the side, suddenly pulls up and a bunch of dudes with wrap around sunglasses, blond dreadlocked hair and large surfboards start running down the beach then run UP the beach as fast as you can-you have only seconds left to live.

7. If all else fails and you are stuck on the beach as the thirty metre high, five hundred mile an hour wave hurtles towards you, try and go with the flow-you probably will anyway.Don't fight it. Above all, don't keep your mouth open (breathe through your nose, try not to scream) because if the wave hits you with an open mouth you will blow up to the size of a bouncy castle and then explode.So keep calm and breathe normally.People with naturally pointed features have a better chance of survival in this scenario.

But hey, let's keep things in perspective,Tsunamis in NZ are fairly rare (ish) and you're much more likely to be killed crossing the road (see next post) or by an earthquake or a volcano or a herd of wetas or an angry young florist or a feral housewife or a small town local with a worritah and a grudge against everyone who isn't a small town local with a worritah...

...Or by landing at Wellington airport on a runway which is really far too short for jets but we need the tourist dollars before we can extend the runway to make it long enough for jets. I think that's what's known as a 'paradox'.Or is it a 'scam'? Or possibly a 'fuckup'?

Anyway welcome to New Zealand,Kia Ora!

PS The airport's by the beach.

Blue Peter

2005-01-04T08:28:00.000+13:00

I feel I should be writing more about my daily life,like blogs are supposed to do. Here's yesterday: got up, read paper, walked dog,played guitar,watched dvd, went to bed. Is it really worth storing that in a time capsule and burying it in the Blue Peter garden?

Blue Peter is a famous Uk children's programme, it's been running on BBC since the late 18th century.Check out the link in this post's title.

Things are buried in the Blue Peter garden so future generations can find out what life was like in the twentieth century.

One of Blue Peter's ex-presenters has just died but she hasn't been buried in the B.P.garden, it's against THE LAW OF ENGLAND.(When a man in the UK wanted to bury his wife in the garden the local council strongly resisted the idea. They argued it would very bad for the neighbours ; he argued it would be very good for the roses.)

On Blue Peter they make things out of egg boxes. When the programme first aired it was 'live' and week after week the hapless presenters, Peter Purves and Valerie Singleton (who often looked like they were made out of cardboard too) would try and wrestle the recalcitrant raw material into something fabulous.In the early episodes this would be a dolls house or pencil case; nowadays its an eggbox videophone.

Their efforts invariably produced a crumpled, soggy , stained piece of cardboard dripping in glue, so every week a switch became necessary.This sleight of hand- swopping the congealed mess for a pristine finished creation made by the BBC's team of artists and engineers- was always heralded by the immortal phrase 'AND HERE'S ONE I MADE EARLIER.'

Blue Peter also had lots of animals in the studio; these invariably behaved like-well like animals actually.
This presented certain problems because in BBC children's TV, animals don't :-

1. Shag with abandon in front of the cameras. For the guinea pigs, rabbits and dogs there was something very seductive about the studio environment . As a child I distinctly remember a weekly procession of brightly coloured animal genitals erecting themselves into frame before Aunty Valerie or Uncle Peter hastily dashed in front of them and blocked my view.It's a good job they never had a Blue Whale on set- if it got excited it's dong could have collapsed the ceiling.

2 Poo all over the floor.They once had an elephant in the studio whose bottom exploded everywhere-the entire studio was a foot deep in elephant diarrohea-you would think they'd have had the sense not to feed it three wheelbarrows full of figs before the show wouldn't you? The presenter, John Noakes, was dragged round and round by the defecating animal and ended up ski-ing all over the studio on a wave of poo.

3.Die. This last problem was solved by having lots of identical Blue Peter tortoises called Timmy ;when one Timmy croaked, it was thrown away behind the set curtain and the next Timmy was wheeled on.***

** Keen eyed viewers had, for years, viewed with suspicion the large amount of tortoiseshell jewelry worn by successive presenters.

Page 467,932-A Penis

2005-01-04T08:19:00.000+13:00

Penis, originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

Vegetable sex 2

2005-01-04T08:15:00.000+13:00

Here's a brief guide to the 700,000 web pages devoted to 'vegetable sex'. I do all my own research.

page 675,004 ...An interesting article on how vegetables copulate. I particularly enjoyed the section on Cauliflower foreplay.
page 323,779...The religious cult known as the Exclusive Brethren were forbidden from growing or eating any vegetable whch resembled any human or animal sex organ.Only the Welsh Onion was deemed safe (except in the Rhonda valley)
page 2345..more on the Catholic Church's policy of banning vegetables associated with sex .The Jerusalem Artichoke was widely suspected of involvment in BDSM practices.Among the poor peasant farmers of 17th century Florence the crinkly cabbage was known as the 'poor man's vagina.'
page 134768...a rare picture of a banana that doesn't look like a penis
page 467,932... a picture of a penis that looks like a Brussels Sprout.

Yes Sir Mr President

2005-01-03T11:35:00.000+13:00

Yes Sir Mr President, originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

George Bush's Bill Clinton impersonation

Vegetable Sex

2005-01-03T09:11:00.000+13:00

If you accidentally type the words 'vegetable sex' into Google you will discover over 700,000 pages devoted to the subject.The following information is from the webpage of the Vegetable Society (Check out the hyper-link contained in this post's title).

'Asparagus. A classic in the aphrodisiac world. Whether boiled or steamed the asparagus is an effective stimulant. This erotic shaped vegetable is best cooked and consumed whole. Eat for three consecutive days for the most powerful effect. '

I think eating asparagus for three solid days may well have a powerful effect but- and I don't want to be Mr Unromantic here- unless you're into scatalogy, there's nothing particularly erotic about the object of your desires stuck in the toilet all night, having a prolonged dump.

'Almond. Like many nuts they are associated with passion and fertility, their aroma is alleged to excite women and is therefore a common ingredient in creams and soaps.

Peanut soap hasn't really taken off though has it? I knew a woman who became sexually aroused by the word 'peanut';she was dyslexic.

Avocado. ' To the Aztecs this fruit was known as ahucatl, which means 'testicle'. In the confessional Catholic priests forbade it to their parishioners.'

They were forced to eat cumquats instead, which have no sexual connotations.

'Bananas. As well as an erotic shape the banana has also been associated with erotic energy in the Tantric tradition. '

The banana has an erotic shape? Am I missing something here-it doesn't look anything like a breast.

'Chilli Pepper.It helps stimulate the circulation and contains capsaicin, a substance known to induce a temporary high - be careful not to become addicted. '

I once inadvertently bit into a raw chilli in India (they had hidden it inside an omelette). It was like childbirth of the mouth.

'Celery. Its stimulating effects are well known in Sweden where the famous Swedish author Hagdahl described celery as 'straight forward arousing'. '

This says more about living in Sweden than it does about sex.'I spy with my little eye something beginning with 'P'. 'Pine tree?' 'yes, my turn.I spy with my little eye something beginning with.....'P.' Penis? 'Almost, it's 'Pinus' -Pinus Sylvestris the Scots pine.'

'Carrots. This root vegetable was used extensively by early Middle Eastern royalty to aid seduction. '

Hi,I've just got in from the desert, if you let me shag you I'll give you this fabulous carrot necklace.

'Figs. This erotic, fleshy fruit is said to act as a powerful sexual stimulant. Ritual copulation followed the arrival of the new fig crop in Ancient Greece.'

Funny, it never happened to me as a teenager collecting rhubarb in Leeds

'The fig is said to have been Cleopatra's favourite fruit. In some Southern European countries wedding guests throw figs at the newly weds, as a sign of fertility. '

Good job her fave fruit wasn't a turnip.

'Mustard. Believed to have a powerful effect on the sexual glands, a folklore remedy for impotence recommends rubbing the male member with mustard.'

I'm not making this up, honest..

'Chocolate. One of the undisputed kings of aphrodisiacs. Chocolate has been used to stoke the flames of passions all over the world. Its powers on the sexual appetite have led to a chocolate ban being imposed in some monasteries.'

I sense an advertising possibity here

SNICKERS- EVEN GIVES MONKS ERECTIONS!

Venice, a couple in love.

2005-01-02T09:18:00.000+13:00

Venice, a couple in love., originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

www.hornyhorns.com

Ulysses By Heinz Joyce

2005-01-02T08:24:00.000+13:00

I am a voracious reader-I read everything, even the labels on sauce bottles. Especially the labels on sauce bottles. OK,only the labels on sauce bottles. My favorite sauce bottle label is Ulysses by Heinz Joyce. What I particularly like about Joyce sauce is the ease with which it gushes onto my plate, in a veritable stream of consciousness. Some people don't like stream of consciousness sauce because it splatters everywhere- as streams (and indeed some rivers) are prone to do- and may suddenly leap to a new topic, like a goat being pursued by a desperate Alaskan

I'm pondering what wisdom I've accumulated lately. Each passing year reminds me that I'm growing older;there must be some knowledge, some experience I can pass on to the next generation. My life can't be a complete waste of time. Perhaps I'm experiencing another life-crisis ( how many can a man have? I started when I was 14 and I haven't stopped since- at this rate I'd have been better off having periods instead-here comes the hate mail).
I may have to seek meaning in philosophy , perhaps it's time I revisited existentialism again ,faced up to Sartre, looked him squarely in the eye. But which one?

Things I Have Learned Through Personal Experience

1.Don't clean razorblades by running your finger sideways along them
2.If you don't know how to build a wall don't try and construct one 3 metres high made out of very heavy stones and then stand below it as it falls over on top of you.
3. It's always best to eat yoghurt by sucking it off the spoon, blowing it doesn't work.
4.Don't let wasps meditate in your trousers.
6. Don't leave a bored dog with a bucket of coal on a white carpet.

Goats Have Fetishes Too

2005-01-02T08:05:00.000+13:00

www.hornyhorns.com, originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

Sometimes ordinary sex just isn't enough.www.hornyhorns.com

Sartre At The Optometrists

2005-01-01T22:12:00.000+13:00

Sartre At The Optometrists, originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

Ok, Jean-Paul, try the second line down again
'A.....G.....T, no I, no....merde!'

Menage A Trois

2005-01-01T22:00:00.000+13:00

The French philosopher Sartre famously said 'every day we must make our lives anew.' Sartre, who invented existentialism, was a man of singular vision. He was also a man of double vision . Throughout his life, France's finest spectacle makers tried to help him but, despite all their efforts, he was never able to read any lower than the first line of the french eye chart. The big question is, how much can we trust a man who,for much of his life, thought his lover, Simone de Beauvoir was twins?

www.hornyhorns.com

2005-01-01T21:46:00.000+13:00

On Honeymoon Together, originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

Sometimes petting just isn't enough.

Horny Horns.

2005-01-01T11:55:00.000+13:00

Free Willy.

'you'll believe a boy and a whale can be friends.'

www.hornyhorns.com.

'You'll believe a man and a goat can be VERY good friends.'

So, Real Tit.

2005-01-01T11:44:00.000+13:00

There are 202,000 google pages devoted to 'Janet Jackson's nipple' and yes I do all my own research.Worryingly, there are also over 3000 google pages on 'Janet Jackson's niple' and even 138 ages covering (not sure 'covering' is the right word to use here ) 'Janet Jackson niplle.' It would appear that, for some poor illiterates, interest in things sexual comes before learning to spell correctly. As Aristotle said 'what times and what people.'
An anagram of Aristotle is 'so, real tit.'
(Or was it Plato? hope not, he's hopeless for anagrams.' A plot' that's all you get. Hopeless.)

Most bizarrely of all, there are over 112,000 google hits for 'Michael Jackson's nipple.' This is because Michael and Janet are actually the same person.To become Janet, all Michael has to do is cunningly add a breasty contraption.

Michael Jackson With Breasty Contraption And Hair Extensions

2005-01-01T11:42:00.000+13:00

Michael Jackson with Breast Implant and hair extensions, originally uploaded by aboriginesdream.

2005

2005-01-01T08:20:00.000+13:00

Happy New Year everyone.
In New Zealand it's already 2005. We may be a half assed little place where F*** all ever happens but we crossed the time zone line ahead of virtually everywhere else (the Chatham islands don't count because...because...because I can't find them on my map).Now, all over the world, people are ringing in the new year in their own inimitable little ways, celebrating according to their own rich cultural traditions:-

* In England,half the nation are outside in the dark, jumping up and down in the pouring rain, pissed out of their minds, throwing bottles though the windows of the rest of the nation who are watching some prat in a kilt with red hair, bony knees and a bladder under his arm murdering an ancient celtic air, superimposed over a picture of Big Ben.

*In Sweden, people dance naked in the snow and whip themselves with birch twigs to remind themselves they have another whole year coming up living in a place where there's nothing but snow, birch trees and badly scratched buttocks.

*In Tibet,friends and families visit one another, all bearing the same gift, a small potato. The possibilities are endless. Making a Mr Potato Head, having roast, boiled, baked potatos for supper, making chips,pooling the potatoes and going outside to make a 'potato man', having a potato ball fight ,mashing the potatoes and sledging on them etc

I predict it's going to be a year of ups and downs and occasional furtive little leaps sideways. A year of smiles and tears, hopes and fears, bad rhymes and cliches.There will be good days and bad days , bad hair days and big hair days. People may be forced to flee to emergency hairdressers to have their hair relaxed. In 2005 people will be born,people will grow up, they will have children and die. 'Blimey', they will say on their deathbed, that all happened a bit fast, I didn't expect to be getting married when I was only three months old.Yes, it will be a busy year.

Time for some New Year Resolutions.

1. I will try not to use the word 'ocelot' this year.
2.If I DO use 'ocelot' I will not use 'ocelot' a lot.
3.I will not be nasty to George Bush
4. I will explore the art of anagrams.An anagram of George Bush is 'beg, hog user'
5. I will not waste half a page of writing just to set up one feeble little joke. I will be succinct.
6. I will stop having 'six cereal mixes' for breakfast,I have so many half opened cereal boxes it's ridiculous. It all started 30 years ago when, just to fit in with the crowd, I accepted a bowl of sugar puffs from a so called 'friend.'All too soon I was hooked. In in an effort to save money, I began rolling my own weetabix; today I have a major cereal habit, my life revolves around wheat based products and the casual promise of a free plastic cartoon character- folks, my life is out of control; I'm in real danger of murdering someone to feed my addiction.I'm turning into- a cereal killer.

Keyboardicons

2004-12-31T09:35:00.000+13:00

I'm beginning to hate that stupid smug smiley face which appears a million times a day on the internet, grinning in it's annoyingly self satisfied smirky way.

Last night I went to bed brooding over Mr Smiley. See how deep my life is? Brothers and sisters, something happened during the hours of darkness. I had a dream.

I was naked, covered in honey and riding a goat...

Anyway,that's my business.*** However, after I'd woken up and showered (it took ages to get the honey and goat hairs off) I suddenly had a thought-why not devise a simple communication system using the device which is 'bundled' with every computer ie the so called 'keyboard.' Couldn't this rectangular plastic crumb receptacle-try this test-turn it upside down over a plate; see, enough breadcrumbs to cover a trout- couldn't it be used as a way of communicating with others? I realise this is a really left- field suggestion, but hey, lets run it up the flagpole and see who salutes it.Anyway, frankly I haven't found the keyboard very useful for hanging my keys on- they're always falling off . I tried hammering small nails into it; better for the keys but it made my computer spark. Modern technology, it's SO temperamental isn't it?

Ok, soon I will reveal my embryonic keyboard code. Feel free to send in suggestions for developing this new-gee what shall we call it-mmm....not sure...how about 'language'. how does that sound? Just some shapes I threw together.

:)

oops, bugger. Bad habit.Sorry

:(

***It's my business but it can be your business too if you care to subscribe to my new bestiality website www.Horny Horns.com

I Have A Crystal Ball (That's Why I Walk With A Limp)

2004-12-30T10:08:00.000+13:00

Having predicted the tsunami (see previous post 'Xmas Time, Weta and Wine') I have now set up in business as a soothsayer.

Predictions for 2005 from Mystic Mort.( Just cross my Palm Pilot*** with Silver.)

1.In 2005 it will definitely rain. Somewhere.
2. George Bush will not move to the left.If he does move to the left it will only be to get a better view of the next golf hole.
3. There will be no 2005 olympics; they will be postponed until probably 2008. Shiver at my predictive powers, oh world.
4. Donald Trump's hair will get it's own reality series.
5. Americans will continue to use the word 'like' as a comma.
6. Michael Jackson will not release a cover version of Elton John's song entitled 'Don't let your son go down on me.'
7. Britney Spears will get married.To Whitney Houston. They will have a child called either Whitney Spears, Britney Whitney or We-Have-A-Problem-Houston.
8. The Beatles are unlikely to reform.If they do reform, I predict George will not move around a lot on stage.

*** Am I the only person in the world who thinks 'Palm Pilot' is a good euphemism for a compulsive masturbator?)

Big Giant Head

2004-12-29T22:13:00.000+13:00

Blogger.com (in the 'your profile' section) keeps asking me questions. The latest is:-

'When you open your eyes underwater do you ever worry that you will drown?'

Well, Blogger dot com.

1. I worry that I may have eaten too many funny mushrooms because I don't remember diving in any water.
2. I live on a hill.Is this an answer? Possibly as much as yours is a question.
3. If I AM underwater at the moment I think I'm probably worrying about my lungs, not my eyes.

Are there any questions we should be asking blogger.com?

A/ How does it feel to be a big clever computer, able to make zillions of calculations a second and ask quasi-philosophical questions?
B/Would you feel as clever and omnipotent if we pulled your plug out?

Mind My Child

2004-12-29T21:56:00.000+13:00

So I'm driving along and in front of me is another car with a sign saying 'MIND MY CHILD.' I suffer from cultural dyslexia so I don't understand this sign. It's shorthand for something but what? I try and weigh up the options, mentally filling in the gaps.

Do you MIND MY CHILD?...(ie do I , as the unfortunate driver sat behind you and forced to look at it , object to it's stupid cross-eyed baby face gurgling back at me ? Yes I do)
Please MIND MY CHILD for a few hours so I can go and have some fun...(understandable- but no thanks-anyway don't worry, it will leave home in another 17 years)
MIND you don't crash into MY CHILD because it's more precious than anybody elses kids.(really? Even though it's so ugly?)
MIND you don't crash into MY CHILD that's all I'm bothered about (So if I want to take out anyone else in the car that's fine?
If your granny is in the back seat it's ok to mash her to granny-pulp?)
I've MINeD MY CHILD...(yup, that will stop anyone stealing it, bit drastic though)

Head Start

2004-12-29T08:53:00.000+13:00

'The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.'

Harlan Ellison

Hello and thank you for purchasing your own head. Please read the instruction book before operating.

INSTRUCTION BOOK

1.Turn on the brain. (many heads now come partly automated. It's suprisingly easy to eat pizza and have opinions on everything without ever switching on the cerebellum, so double check the brain is on. If it IS on you should be able to see a light in the eyes)

2. Find the IQ dial and turn it all the way to the right. If it jams a third of the way round contact the help line immediately or resign yourself to becoming a PE teacher.

3.When the brain is turned on, connect it up to your modem, TV aerial, telephone line and electronic media feed.CHECK THE PREJUDICE FILTER IS DEACTIVATED, otherwise the really useful stuff will be filtered out before it gets into the brain for processing.

4. Your brain needs feeding daily otherwise it will atrophy and you will end up joining a cult. The brain needs a balanced diet. Fox News is to a balanced brain diet what Donald Trump is to sensible hairstyles. Finger foods like crossword puzzles and calculus in the park are fine, but also take the time to have three balanced meals a day. A Rupert burger and Murdoch fries for breakfast dinner and tea will lard up your nerve endings in no time. Be sensible kids.

Mission Statement

2004-12-29T08:33:00.000+13:00

Some of my best friends are Americans. I have been to America at least a dozen times. I have driven coast to coast. I was last there about six weeks ago, filming in New York. I made a pilgrimage to Ground Zero. I am not anti-American. I AM anti-the-republican- world- view; I think it sucks .
I have issues with people who won't think outside the square-like evangelical Christians (I used to be one a looooong time ago, but I'm ok now praise the lord). I'm not into America- bashing, I'm into America -and- the- rest- of-the- world including -Britain- questioning. I confess I'm not convinced the people who should be questioning America( Americans) are doing so in sufficient numbers.

Conceptually, I don't 'buy' the war on terror . I don't believe the complexity of the world can be reduced to a shoot out at the OK corral.

Oh Dear

2004-12-28T20:15:00.000+13:00

I've just received the following e mail (see previous post 'trueconservativeman')

'Hey Andy- It wasn't a single guy in a boat who founded America. It was twelve Christians who prayed for hours before signing it. The reason they came here was Christain freedom. Our countrys curancy has "In God We Trust." Most of us vote in a church. Go figure who needs some blood flow to the old brain cells there. Let everyone celibrate their own holiday- but whats so wrong with keeping Christmas Christmas? Tell me if your aborigines have been treated well. We have many cities and towns here named after their native american heritage.- Lynne'

The only Lynne I've ever met was an evangelical Christian from Liverpool;she firmly believed the earth was created about 5000 years ago. I remember her once saying the fossil record,dinosaur bones, rock strata etc were simply devices invented by God to test faith. Sigh. I think this is a different Lynne;I'm sure she's a really nice person and I'm not into slagging individuals off so I will keep this general.***

MY PHILOSOPHY

I'm not sure about anything.Most of the time my thinking goes something like this:

'the world is very complicated, politics is complicated,life is complicated, it's hard to know whats what.'

As Woody Allan says 'don't ask me about the universe, I don't even know how the can opener works.'
..........................................................................
What worries me is someone, ANYONE, who says, unequivocally, that they DO 'know'. I tend to think the reason they 'know' is that they've bought into a system (there's a lot of them about) and , in doing so, turned off their own brain;or at the very least imposed a 'glass ceiling' on their thoughts-ie decided to mentally operate in a closed system.

EG. 'The bible is true/ how do you know?/ Because it says it is.'
EG. There are fairies at the bottom of my garden/ how do you know?/ Because theyre waving at me now.'

I really really don't want to get into the things people do in the name of their God,suffice to say everyone is convinced their particular deity is the winner of the Ms God Beauty Contest. It's a faith thing, rational thought need not apply.

*** I will not slag lynne off. I will not.. oh bugger it... Lynne, pin your ears back:
1. Even if two hundred people prayed for three weeks while dancing naked round the boat with buckets on their heads, so what? Can't you see a difference between their circumstance then and yours now? They lived in an Oprah-free world, you might wish you do but you don't. Can you separate the Pilgrim Fathers myth from reality? There's a couple of books I could recommend but they're banned in the 'Land Of The Free'. Perhaps, if you really wanted to, you could sneak across the border into Canada and buy them, but I'm sure you feel that if something isn't allowed by the authorities you wouldn't want to read it anyway-which is precisely how the USSR system used to operate.

2.This blog is written in New Zealand, aborigines are indigenous to Australia which is three hours flying time away.The original people here were, and are, Maori. You see , that's what worries me. When you're in the middle of the world's only hyper-power, Australia and New Zealand are the same thing. You want to be confused with a Mexican ?

In a recent survey over fifty percent of Americans failed to find a major country on an unmarked map. That unmarked country was ...America.

Paws For Thought

2004-12-28T16:39:00.000+13:00

DEMOCRAT 'Guns kill people'
REPUBLICAN 'Wrong. people kill people, '

REPUBLOMAT 'Er, I think you will find it's people WITH guns,chaps.'

What kind of country has it built into the constitution that they have 'the right to arm bears'
This is crazy, bears kill more than enough people as it is, just with their paws.

Foreign Policy

2004-12-28T14:43:00.000+13:00

It's simple. There are Goodies and Baddies. The Goody rides a white horse.The Baddy is either A) black,B) tanned to the point of swarthiness or C)rides a black horse. The Goody is ALWAYS on a white horse; If the Goodie's horse looks black its only because it's covered in oil (political point alert)

Justice =the Goodie shoots the Baddie.
Terrorism =the Baddie shoots the Goodie.
Free trade = the Goodie swops a handful of beads for the Baddie's horse
Freedom= doing the above without apology or explanation.

Trueconservativeman (Is it a Bird? Is It A Plane? Is It A Twat?)

2004-12-28T08:47:00.000+13:00

thetrueconservative.blogspot.com, is a revealing read. Read it to find out what happens when blood to the brain is cut off at an early age, (probably by wearing a school tie that's far too tight or, wishful thinking, not tight enough). His (oh yes, 'it' will be a he) latest article exhorts us to put the 'Christ' back into 'Christmas' (by the way he also advocated putting the 'Bush' back into the ' White House '- we need to carefully monitor this guy's medication. More morphine, nurse).

He has a point. Actually, and unfortunately, he has lots of points. One of them seems to be that America should be a Christian country*** because a guy who got out of a small boat a few hundred years ago and 'discovered' America ('indians, what indians?'.. thwack..arrow....splat. 'oh those indians'...coffin please nurse) used to read a bible occasionally.

***Not, of course, a Christian country in the sense of giving all your wealth to the poor and washing the feet of lepers...'Hi, I'm George,lets soap up your toes, oops they've come off in my hand , sorry fella.'

But trueconservativeredneckandalltherestofhisbodytoo is right (far far right). Not only should we put the 'Christ' back into 'Christmas' we should also put the 'nuk' back into 'Hannukah'. Surely this is as least as important? Without the 'nuk' we are left with the name 'Hanah' which is not only silly and girlie but is, without the 'nuk', tragically mis-spelled. Hey, while we're at it, we could put the 'Saddam' back into 'Iraq'.

Manhattan comes from the Algonquian Indian word, believed to mean "isolated thing in water." Mmm.

Perhaps we should also put the 'Algonquian' back into ' New York'?

Xmas Time, Weta and Wine

2004-12-25T22:29:00.000+13:00

Xmas in New Zealand. Woken at dawn by the tsunami alarm going off. Run screaming into the bush, stark naked, and cower for an hour and a half. Get covered in sandflies (they bite anywhere without a sun tan-use your imagination). Eventually given the all clear. The alarm sensor had been miscalibrated; the killer wave was only 20cm high and travelling at 5 miles an hour; it had been created by a passing duck.

Xmas moments 2004.

* The smell of roast Weta drifting on the breeze (that will teach the little buggers to squat in the barbie).
*A lone bagpiper across the valley playing 'Scotland The Brave' with great enthusiasm. No skill, just enthusiasm.
*The sound of empty sauvignon blanc bottles rolling gently down the hillside.
*Lots of laughter and merriment. Unfortunately it's coming from next door.The neighbours are having a party but haven't invited me(perhaps because I'd been standing naked outside their bedroom window at dawn,screaming with fear and covered in sandflies?)
*Presents. A hammock, books, gourmet food , malt whiskey.I had hoped for a trepanning kit but , hey, maybe next year.
* Visitors. A kiwi, a South African,an Irishwoman and two Americans who pretend to be Canadians,(it's a George Bush thing). They spend half an hour trying to argue that Boston is, in fact, in Canada. I find it hard to believe them, despite their insistence that the boundary was drawn in the wrong place because 'the map maker sneezed while drawing the line'.

Mole Sex

2004-12-24T17:42:00.000+13:00

Did the earth move for you?

Mayfly! Mayfly!

2004-12-24T16:51:00.000+13:00

The male mayfly lives for just one day. In the morning he hatches and flies off into the early summer sunshine (or, if hatched in yorkshire, the early summer pouring rain). At about midday -the exact timing depends on the quality of his chat up line- he picks up a female and, on the wing, they mate. Immediately after sex he falls into the river and is eaten by a passing trout- even before he's had a post-coital cigarette. 'how was it for you?' 'I'm d..y...i...n...g.' splash.

Such a short life. Would he have lived to a ripe old age if he hadn't carelessly wave his todger at the first passing female? Was membership of the Mile High Club his undoing-ie, is sex on the wing lethal? Did he accidentally crash into a tree while fondling her antennae?

Apparently, the problem is that he's dying OF a shag (as distinct from dying FOR one). A mayfly is like a bee which, once it has stung someone, pulls away, leaving the sting and a vital bit of it's anatomy still in the victim.

This is why, on beautiful summer days, hundreds of male mayflies spiral towards the water,willy-less, clutching their groins in agony; above them, the females are still flapping desperately,trying to stay airborne, each one overloaded with his madly pulsating wedding tackle embedded in her.

Apparently, the male mayfly's member is so persistent, it's still pumping away on autopilot as she loses the battle with gravity and hits the water.

Embedded

2004-12-24T07:54:00.000+13:00

Meanwhile back on the Antiques Road Show,the expert is chatting to a new couple.

Expert. 'Now you've brought along this vase.'
Man. 'How..?'
Expert. 'And it really is beautiful isn't it?'
Woman. 'How mu..?'
Expert. 'Just look at this gilding around the edge!'
Man and woman. 'How...?'
Expert. 'And the delicate, transluscent glazing.'
Woman.'How much?'
Expert. (carried away with enthusiasm) 'And this charming scene depicting a picnic by the river!'
Man. 'How much is..?'
Expert.'with the spaniels gambling and frolicking.'
Man.'..it worth??'
Expert.'Now this is a very desirable object,even though there's a piece missing from the top.
Have you ever thought how much it might be worth?
Man and woman . 'No, never.'
Expert.'Well would you , considering how desirable it is, ever sell it?'
Woman. 'Never, it's a family heirloom, my stepdad used to beat me with it when I were a girl;it has mental value.'
Expert.' I think you mean sentimental value.'
Woman. 'mental. I wasn't brain damaged before.'
Man.' The missing bit's still embedded in her skull.'
Expert. 'Does this affect your life in any way?'
Woman.' No, I'm a perfectly normal bowl of muesli.'

Cue end music.

The Toenails

2004-12-23T10:19:00.000+13:00

The Antiques Road Show. A fabulous TV programme syndicated all over the civilized world. Please write in and tell me if you've never heard of it, then I can cross your country off the civilized list.

A couple, Mr and Mrs Toenail, dressed like down and outs, covered in council house alsatian dog hairs.
In front of them is a hugely ornate Louis 14th sofa.

Expert. 'Well this is a fabulous piece isn't it, it's handsome bronze escutcheons supported by a nicely scrolled and ornate apron and standing on fluted cabriole legs with acanthus motifs handcarved in walnut ; feather and down cushioned with swan head finials.Tell me, where did you find this?'

Mrs T. 'It were in't shed.'

Expert. 'And do you know how it got in there Mrs Toenail?

Mrs T. 'Me uncle dumped it in there'

Expert. ' And his name was...?'

Mrs T. 'It were me great great great, bugger I can't remember, it's been in there ages,great,great, great, great ...great times fourteen...me 14th Uncle...uncle...L..uncle.....L...'

Expert.'Louis the 14th!?'

Mrs T. 'I don't know how many teeth he had.'

Mr T. 'Louis the Fourteenth, Doris, not Louis the four- teeth.'

Mrs T. 'Aye, that'd be him.'

Expert. 'Well, this is amazing, what have you been using the sofa for Mrs Toenail?'

Mrs T. ' Me ferrets sleep on it.'

Going for A Song

2004-12-23T09:39:00.000+13:00

The Antiques Road Show. A fabulous TV programme syndicated all over the world, though possibly not Portugal.

Sat on the table is a small ornamental piece of complete tat. Sitting to one side is the antiques expert.Behind the table are a middle aged, middle class couple.

Expert. 'Now how much have you insured it for?'
Man. ' A million pounds.'
Expert.' right, I see. Now if we turn it over and look on the base, you see this mark on the bottom?'
Woman. 'Ooooh yes'
Expert.' Well this is a 'T', do you see it there?'
Couple 'Mmm.'
Expert. 'Well this means it was made in Taiwan.'
Man. 'Oh yes.' (interested)
Expert. 'Now I have to say, we've never had anything made in Taiwan before on the Antiques Road Show.'
Couple 'Oooh it's very rare! (under their breath) spend, spend,spend, buy a BMW.'
Expert. 'mmm,now if this mark was a 'T' with a circle around it then this would have been made by Tourette who created exquisite, simple rude objects d'art.Such pieces are much sought after and worth countless millions in the open market.'
Couple. 'Wow!!'
Expert. ' But it isn't.'
Man.' It used to have a circle round the 'T' but we rubbed it out.'

All That Jazz

2004-12-22T07:26:00.000+13:00

In the last 48 hours, I have had a bad aural infection. Once in a cafe in Wellington, the second time at a party.This infection is called jazz.On both occasions I became surrounded by people with wild uncontrolled facial hair,(some of them men) wearing brown jumpers,nodding their heads to the same coma inducing beat duh DER duh, duh DER duh, duh DER duh. I can understand (though not forgive) wrinklies who insist on accumulating twenty two thousand records which all sound exactly alike, but why in God's name are the youth involved? In the cafe, two members of the band were barely out of their teens. It was sad to see they'd given up on life so early.

For the oldsters it's the only sort of sex left.This is indeed fitting- after all, what is jazz but musical masturbation ie a triumph of technique over restraint.Never play one note when twenty three will do.Here comes my solo, look out ceiling.

THE RULES OF JAZZ

1. Any note can be played over any other note or chord -so long as the player's head bobs around like one of those plastic nodding dogs tasteless people have in their cars;this somehow validates the ghastly atonal racket for the listener .
2.The more dissonant it sounds, the better.Dissonance,in jazz circles, is deemed to be clever - tune up while facing the audience and they are likely to applaud.
3.Adore the triplet-for jazzsters it's not a weedy, feeble ,furtive little excuse of a beat, it is GOD, and, as such, must be worshipped.Beardie-weardies never tire of its inane mind numbing rhythmn, just as some people never tire of eating ryvitas.
4. Play as quickly as possible, eg a hundred and eleven notes to the barf, sorry bar.The number of notes is only limited by technique and the chances of the instrument catching fire.
5. Solos are measured in aeons, not bars.
6. While the soloist is wanki- sorry, improvising, everybody else in the band must nod their heads furiously a la nodding dog in the back of a ferrari being driven down a farm track at 150 mph, pretending they really do know what the sad git with the trumpet is on about.
7.Time signatures should sound like betting odds, and the top number must be an odd figure, the bottom figure an even one eg 7/4 or 29/2. 'And they're off and its John Coltrane out of the gate.... but with eight furlongs to go here comes little Oscar Peterson...bugger he's fallen over the piano.'
8.A drum solo, invariably, involves slowing down to a crawl and playing against the beat, before inadvertently losing it and going completely out of time.The drummer then attempts to regain the beat by frantically clawing his way back up the drum kit,accelerating as he goes,finishing by hitting every drum a hundred times a second to show it who's boss.Cool.
8. Jazzsters always play behind the beat. Really laid back instrumentalists play so far behind the beat they are just beginning their solo as the rest of the band are half way through the next song. Dissonant.Nice.Zzzz

The Domino Effect

2004-12-19T07:59:00.000+13:00

If one person in a room yawns, the person next to them will also yawn. Gradually the yawn travels round the room.This is because yawns subscribe to the 'Domino Effect';whether this means dominos subscribe to the yawn effect is unclear. Having once watched a group of wrinklies in a pub playing dominos for 3 hours I would suggest it does and they do. Pensioners,they just fritter away the hours and days don't they . At your third stroke it will be ...time to die.

Anyway, the scientific theory is this: yawns are contagious because, in our evolutionary past***, if an individual stopped breathing in enough air,his brain would send a message saying 'for christs sake breathe you bonehead, you're going to pass out.' So, he yawned, to suck in some badly needed oxygen. And, because humans were gregarious, it was useful for the whole group to yawn because they would be running out of air too. Hence, the domino effect.

(*** I apologise to various American states for this unproved theory being mentioned as if it were true. Obviously it's just as likely that God invented the world about a thousand years ago and buried all the dinosaur bones in the ground just to test our faith.)

Now, accepting that cavemen were really so stupid they could forget to breathe-and, as each only had an IQ of about 40 IE the same as a PE student, I accept this unreservedly-given that,why is yawning genetically programmed to be contagious but other, equally important bodily functions aren't?

Let's travel back in time, millions of years , to Africa and the dawn of the human race. Here are a tribe of Neanderthals*** only one of whom has enough brain power to regularly go wee wees.(*** or there weren't any Neanderthals, God's just kidding around again-though perhaps this could be a good time to look up the word 'capricious')

The tribe has been binge drinking-there's a muddy stream nearby and it's friday night-so, consequently, each Neanderthal now has a bladder the size of a medicine ball- and growing.The hours pass, uncomfortably. Three thousand cavemen in increasing agony, but too stupid to know what to do.They've tried blowing their noses on pieces of leaves or standing on one leg and howling but, frankly, it hasn't helped. Then one, the Einstein of the group, finally recalls what to do and cleverly starts pisses down his leg.

The others stare at him blankly, making no connection.

'ur.....why...dur...is.....his....leg....melting?'

By this time, urine (under enormous pressure) is starting to fizz out of their ears.Shortly afterwards the whole tribe wetly explodes and, thus, the rift valley is born.

My point is this, why is there no biological domino effect for toilet activities in humans? Crapping isn't collective.This genetic flaw has had serious consequences in the past and may well do so again in the future.Although, of course, the reverse may also be true ie future the in again so do well may and past the in consequences serious had has flaw genetic this.

Next week. How a combination of mass flatulence and the 'ripple effect' wiped out the dinosaurs. And you thought it was a meteorite, tsk tsk.

Ant

2004-12-17T07:28:00.000+13:00

The first, and possibly the last, in an occasional series of Basic English lessons,inspired by my time in London.On my last day in the capital I was asked 'please, square Trafalgar, where is he?'

Consequently, I have devised my own system for the effective teaching of english, based upon my years of experience as a teacher****

LESSON 1 Common English Words In Everyday Use.Trust me.

ANT ...An insect which scuttles around collecting dead things
ANTIC... An ant which hasn't found any dead things and has consequently developed a nervous mannerism.
ANTIQUE... A very old ant.
ANTELOPE... An ant which is learning to gallop.
ANTIQUELOPE...An ant who should know better at his age than to start taking riding lessons
ANTHROPOMORPHIC...an ant who thinks humans are really ant-like.
ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM... An ant who lives in an old church and doesn't want it to be pulled down.

**** a PE teacher.

Moist Double Glazed Rabbi

2004-12-16T06:48:00.000+13:00

It's 29 hours since I begain travelling from London to Wellington, New Zealand. Here is a summary of my journey to date:-

1.Number 52 bus to Ladbroke Grove.
2.Tube to Hammersmith.
3.Tube to Heathrow.
4. Hang around 3 hours, buy a 'duty free' mini I pod costing 7 pounds more than in the Apple shop in London.
5.Fly 7 hours to Dubai.
6. Wait an hour an a half. Try and sell i pod to an unsuspecting arab.
7.They're all more suspecting than I'd hoped. Fly 12 and a half hours to Sydney with unsold i pod.
8.Wait 2 hours in transit.What a lovely shade of brown these airport chairs are, I could spend all day looking at them, gee how the time just flies by, bugger I have to tear myself away and go sit on a plane.
9.Fly 3 hours to Auckland, wait 2 hours in transit. Chairs here are slightly darker brown. Fascinating, fascinating.
10.Fly an hour to Wellington.

I think I may have jet lag.Observing my behaviour , I've caught myself doing the following :-

A/Sitting, ravenously hungry, in a Sydney transit lounge, with no Ozzy dollars then, after half an hour,suddenly remembering that the coloured plastic rectangles in my wallet are called 'credit cards' and can be used to buy things.
B/Trying to open the window on the plane.
C/Remembering that you can't open a window on a plane but thinking the reason for this is 'because it's double glazed.'
D/Forgetting, when asked by customs staff, where I'm going and where I've come from.
E/Getting mixed up between airport signs saying 'arrivals' and 'departures'.My train of thought goes something like 'well I'm an arrival because I've, er,just arrived but I'll be departing soon so, er....'
F/Falling asleep in the aircraft toilet while in the middle of peeing.
G/Getting a third degree burn by trying to stir my coffee with my thumb.
H/Having a persistent daydream that Michelle Pfieffer is on board but dressed as a rabbi.
I/Thinking it was a good idea to engage the man sitting next to me in conversation,whilst knowing
ONE, he would be sitting next to me for the next twelve hours and TWO, that he was reading 'Tractor Weekly.'
J/Becoming overcome with murderous rage because the passenger in the seat ahead of me has the temerity to put his seat into the reclining position.
K/Eating the moist towellette.
L/Complaining to the stewardess that my moist towellette is undercooked.

Sperm Wail

2004-12-15T11:41:00.000+13:00

A middle aged couple, watching TV, a documentary about whales.

HE 'Do you know how much sperm a sperm whale produces?'
SHE 'no.'
HE (wistfully) 'No, neither do I.'

Well, a Sperm whale produces a gallon of sperm a day,eight frothing pints of it every twenty four hours, (AND with every eight gallons he gets a free glass). The sperm is stored internally until he finds a female.

Unfortunately it's a big ocean out there and there aren't many other whales around. And every day,no matter how much he tries to forget females and, instead, focus his mind on plankton , seaweed and the beautiful sunsets you get at sea, he is still churning out a gallon of jizz a day-nearly two tonnes of the stuff a year.By then he will have enough free glasses to open his own bar- though whether or not anyone would fancy drinking there is another matter. The reason Sperm whales grow to 100 ft in length (as any seaman will tell you) is that they're full of semen.

Flashforward a year. He swims frantically up and down the ocean; fins crossed, in agony. Every square inch of his body is stuffed with sperm; he's bloated with it;his body is under enormous pressure.As is he. Where have all the bloody females gone?

Half a mile away, a Saga cruise ship full of old age pensioners bears down on him-the wrinklies have paid half their children's inheritance to go on a whale watching trip. Startled, he looks up and spots the enticingly curvy bottom of the ship approaching; this instantly triggers more sperm production.But by now there's simply no room for any more , he's full to his fin tips

LOOK OUT, THAR SHE BLOWS!

The exploding whale takes out nearly a hundred pensioners, killed by sperm hitting them at several hundred miles an hour. Many of them see it hurtling towards them but fail to take evasive action- they don'tt recognize what it is.

It had been far too long since they'd last seen any.

Steve The Particle

2004-12-06T01:55:00.000+13:00

I'm staying in a house in Kensington, London, at the moment; I rent a room there.The house is owned by Brigitte. She is one half french, one half english and two halves bonkers. She has been described, accurately as 'forty going on eighteen.'

It's 6.10am now and Brigitte's party has just finished. Silly old me had foolishly intended to sleep through the night,an ancient anglo-saxon ritual Brigitte utterly fails to comprehend.'You will sleep when you're tired enough ma cherie' she laughs, eyes twinkling affectionately, shrugging her shoulders in her inimitable french way (ok, in her inimitable HALF french way, one shoulder). I grimace back the english way ie, slumping my shoulders, peering through gummed up eyes and grinding my teeth ,while a little voice in my head keeps ,repeating 'buy an axe, kill the bitch.'

Brigitte's latest on, off, on, off, on boyfriend-a garcon young enough to be her son-is 'on' again.This human light switch has just hurtled across on the eurostar from Paris-presumably after assuring his mum he would brush his teeth and finish his homework the minute he returned.

At 11pm, he trots down Brigitte's path, just as I was going to bed,panting and wagging his tail .Shortly afterwards various other sophisticated suburbanites she's acquired from rent-a-riot (Sloane square branch) turn up to help celebrate the rekindled romance.The all-night partying only stopped ten minutes ago at 6am. I've just crawled out of bed-where I've been staring at the ceiling for the last five hours-and crept quietly into the kitchen (so I don't wake them ).

Why, why, why should I be so considerate??? I'm reminded of George Orwell, who retreated to the uninhabited scottish island of Jura to write Animal Farm, only to have someone else move in to the adjoining cottage, intent on learning the bagpipes.As the days wailed by, Orwell, increasingly full of seething (but typically repressed) british rage, eventually asked the guy to let him know if the sound of writing was disturbing the other's bagpipe practice.

We British do 'snippy' so well.

Anyway, back in the kitchen I moved twenty seven cans of Fosters, five wine bottles, a bottle of vodka and three overflowing ash trays from the table to make way for my marmite and toast.Setting my coffee cup down ,it wobbled;underneath was a piece of plastic tube.Then, while eating my shreddies, I discovered, underneath the cereal bowl, an old credit card and a large metal razorblade, both liberally covered with white powder .And I had so nearly come out during the night with my box of tissues;I thought the collective sniffing was flu .

The second person in the house is Tania who is from South Africa, workls for EMI and is normal.

The third person is Steve The Particle.

In Wales people refer to each other as 'Jones the butcher ' or 'Evans the baker.'So, even though neither I nor Steve are Welsh, I refer to him as Steve the Particle. Because it's my blog, so cope, ok?

Steve is a particle physicist. He is large and shambles around in an even larger dressing gown, constructed from a very large number of particles.

What does a particle physicist do ? Well, I have exhaustively researched this over the last three minutes because Steve is sitting across the room from me, shaking his head from side to side like a bear rudely awakened from hibernation three months early. The party got him too.

PARTICLE PHYSICS-A SUMMARY.

Lots and lots of people spend years and years digging a huge tunnel and installing two giant catapults, one at each end.Then, simultaneously,very small bits of stuff are catapulted at each other.Most of the time the bits miss each other because

1.They are very small
2. The catapult operators left school without an intermediate gnvq in catapulting.
3.It's hard to accurately fire a catapult made from enough knicker elastic to cover the collective arse of America.

Sometimes a bit of stuff hits the other catapult operator which tends to result in a radical rearrangement of HIS particles.

Very, very occasionally, two small bits of stuff(by the way, 'stuff' is a technical term, some scientific jargon is unavoidable here, please bear with me)collide and break up.This is very unusual. Breaking up is hard to do. But when it DOES happen, Steve and his dressing gown are there to check out the action.

Interestingly, if you reverse the process and force particles together, the result is a massive explosion. This is known as a 'party', the aftermath of which I am now struggling to survive. Ok, I have to make another coffee;it will take some time, I have to check the floor for hypodermics.

Cybersex

2004-12-05T01:39:00.000+13:00

Australians, the most balanced people in the world. They have a chip on each shoulder.
Also, they invented cybersex. This makes them, for reasons I will now explore, the most highly sexed people in the world. Metaphorically, they have a penis on each shoulder, in fact a penis and chips twice; it sounds like a friday night takeaway in Glasgow.

Cybersex started in Australia in the 1950's. Many men lived solitary, animal -filled lives in the outback ,where women were thin on the ground. Of course some women were fat on the ground too, but this was because they'd tripped over a sleeping wallaby, as you do when you're waddling along and can't see your feet.

Anyway, frustrated guys began to communicate their erotic yearnings to sultry beauties in exotic far off places, Paris, Brazil, Scunthorpe to name but two.In similar fashion the lonely young women would return their lustful fantasises to the sweaty cork-hatted stockmen, the correspondence moving inexorably from fore-play to two-play to wiping down the ceiling.

The only fly in the ointment (ok, there were flies in everything,including the butter,hey this is Australia) was that the internet and computers hadn't been invented yet.

So Outback Man, alone in his tin roofed shack somewhere in the Gibson desert, would hurriedly scribble

'I'd like to unbutton your blouse with my teeth'

before tremblingly licking a stamp and, in a hot, uncontainable flush of desire, post the letter. Then it sat in his mailbox for a week before Wally the postman got around to collecting it and took it to town. Another couple of days later it would be put on a pickup truck and slowly driven a thousand miles to Sydney and loaded onto the first of several airplanes, vans and bicycles on it's journey around the world.

Seven weeks later he would receive a reply,

'Mmmmm. And then what?'

Unfortunately this meant he would either have to maintain an erection for a minimum of three months and a maximum of permanently as, letter by letter, he slowly removed all her clothes, took her upstairs to the virtual bedroom, drew the non existent curtains and manouvered her onto the imaginary bed.This also assumed she didn't request some fantasy meat feast pizza and a bottle of cyber wine Chateau Lafitte 1964

The above is a best case scenario;things could be, and often were, a lot stickier (mmm unfortunate choice of words)

He COULD receive, after nearly two months, a reply which said,

'actually I'm wearing a T shirt'

or, worse still, his letter could come back with a sticker saying,

' the cost of an Australian first class stamp has recently risen;to ensure this letter will be delivered to the recipient, please attach the proper postage.'

Scramjet

2004-12-05T01:13:00.000+13:00

Scientists have recently tested the Scramjet, a revolutionary cross between an airplane and a rocket, which will, in the future, enable passengers to travel from London to New York in an hour.

New York is five hours behind London.

This means, according to my calculations, passengers will arrive in the Big Apple four hours before they set off.

What worries me is that four hours before a flight I'm usually in the bath-it's nice to freshen up before a journey-so, travelling by Scramjet, I could suddenly appear in Times Square stark naked and covered in soap.

Mugabe Hippo Kayak Desert

2004-11-28T21:38:00.000+13:00

Er, yes, sorry, the blogging has sort of ground to a halt.The blogging manual rule number one states clearly
1.Blog a little every day.

Well sorry, I can't -because at the moment I have no life except work/sleep (and now sleep too seems to be increasingly optional)
Last week I worked monday to friday (50 hours);add in the 295 bus journey (see previous post) and that's 65 hours.
Then on Saturday I flew from London to New York, filmed for 15 hours on Sunday,filmed 8 Hours on Monday, flew back overnight, went straight to work and worked 10 hours a day until Friday,travelled up to Leeds, filmed on Saturday, now it's Sunday. Today I go back to London and start a 50 hour week, except that on Wednesday I fly to Slovakia to interview a woman called Lucy whose boat overturned in Hippo Alley in Namibia and then she was bitten by everything in Africa except Robert Mugabe.The guy I interviewed in New York was kayaking across the driest place on earth, the Atacama desert in South America.No, this is true.Crazy but true.

So blogging is likely to be very very thin for another two weeks at least.I hang my head in shame.

Men Who Stare At Goats

2004-11-16T04:38:00.000+13:00

Last week there was a programme on TV about 'Psy-ops'. This was a top secret American initiative,designed to see if humans had deep psychological powers which could be harnessed by the military.Millions were poured into this venture.

Was it possible for a man, purely by the power of thought,to stop a goat's heart from beating?The following thoughts occur to me.

1.No it wasn't
2.If ,after years of effort, he succeeded, so what?
3. If, after years of effort, he succeeded, mightn't the goat actually have died of old age? (or boredom)
4.Er, are we really sure goats are the main enemy, guys?
5. Was the war on goats another battle between good and evil,'us and them', an attempt to separate the,ahem, sheep from the goats?
6.What is the connection between the men who stare at goats and the 'My Little Goat' book George Bush loves reading? I feel a conspiracy theory coming on.
7.Are we really one hundred per cent sure that goats possess weapons of mass destruction?***

***An exploding udder doesn't really count