Jando

Following in the footsteps of Aubrey, Gamba, Emm and MaryJaen I type my 8 again because I'm too busy but probably won't want to do much work until I'm panicking.

1.  My first trip in an ambulance was after I'd been hit by a black cab which hadn't indicated its intention to turn into the road and so I started crossing it.  It hit me, sped up (I was on the bonnet), braked suddenly (I fell into the road) and then all of its passengers jumped out to help me.  The ambulance took me to hospital and they put a neck brace on me and told me not to move.  I was in agony, mainly because I wanted to do a pee and I couldn't get up.  My work sent round the member of staff I liked least at the time to keep me company.  Triple torture.  The police prosecuted the driver and when we went to court the driver's barrister accused me of making a complaint only because I'd been hit by a cabbie.  All my friends said I should claim compensation, but I just wanted to forget everything and I sort of felt sorry for the cabbie.

2.  I tried a brown chicken stew from a West Indian restaurant last night.  I won't be having it again - the chicken was mainly gristle and bone, the rice and peas had a grainy texture and the flavour just seemed to be a heavy dose of curry powder.  I hardly ate any of it so I drank red wine and ate peanuts instead.

3.  When we were younger, my brother and I made up a Dalek song that went, "Exterminate a-ha, a-ha.  Exterminate I like to boogie."

4.  If I could change one thing about my body it would be never having to wax/pluck/or shave unwanted hair ever again.  Weightloss I reckon I could do single-handed.

5.  The first time I hitch-hiked was from London to Manchester with a friend.  We set off on a whim after being in the pub on a Friday night and got a lift from Fulham to Waterloo in a car with 3 merry lads, went from Waterloo to the Watford Gap with a couple of blokes who were border-line dodgy, then got a lift in the cab of a lorry from the Watford Gap to Manchester airport.  From there we got a cab to my friend's halls of residence.  The way home, after having no sleep all weekend is a bit hazy - I remember waiting at a service station for ages in the middle of the night and then got a lift from a couple of guys in a van who gave us hot, sweet tea and sandwiches and let us sleep all the way to Earls Court.  The trip started a short career as a hitch hiker to see my friends at Uni around the country.  I was in self-destruct mode at the time and each time I arrived safely it was like being told I was meant to be alive.  Yeah, yeah - very mellow dramatic.

6.  My spiritual home is the Yorkshire Dales.  It is where my mother is from and where my father grew up.  Whenever I go back there I feel as though I could just burst with pride at the beauty of the countryside.  When I was little my mother told me that you need never ask anyone if they're from Yorkshire - if they are, they'll tell you within 10 minutes of speaking to them and if they're not then ...

7. Every afternoon, after Captain Pugwash had finished on the television, my brother and I would go into the garden, I would climb up the lilac tree and get a couple of twigs, we'd strip the bark and eat the white bit in the middle.  We called this delicacy Captain Polio.

8.  My dream home would have 4 bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, study, sitting room, couple of bathrooms, high ceilings, big garden and a cleaner.

Actually, this isn't exactly what I wrote last night - I couldn't remember them all so I changed them.

just ain't meant to be.

Stupid fingers just accidentally deleted a long post.

Thank you and goodnight.

p.s.  Re tomatos, "Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit.  Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad."

... and anyone else who is lactose intolerant and teetotal.

Cornish Pasty

Yes, my blogging has reached new depths.  Who knew there was a cesspit at the bottom of the drain?

... or anyone else supposedly 'lactose intolerant'.

Scrumpy

... but seeing as I've opened up my outlook to see 241 unread emails and I can't find a clear space on my desk, I thought I'd defer total immersion in all things work for a few minutes.

That done, "Hello my voxy friends and neighbours" - I've brought back some rum 'n' raisin fudge for you all to enjoy - the bonus is that it is virtually fat-free.  (Arf.  Virtually - geddit?!)

A gift from St Ives

Please see email below which my friend received from her company:

"Subject: 10th Floor Kettle
Importance: High

My friend and her colleagues are, understandably, letting off considerable steam about this.

Quiet here, innit?

You should change your battery or switch to outlet power immediately to keep from losing your work.

... try these 14 simple tests.

[Apologies for the extremely lazy blogging, but these just had me crying at my desk.  Luckily no-one else is in yet.]

Test 1
Women : To prepare for pregnancy, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front. Leave it there for 9 months.
After 9 months remove 5% of the beans.

Men: To prepare for children, go to a local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself.
Then go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office. Go home.
Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2
Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild.
Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior.
Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Test 3
To discover how the nights will feel:
1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4 - 6kg, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 12pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.
4. Set the alarm for 3am.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.
6. Go to bed at 2.45am.
7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs in the dark until 4am.
9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off.
10. Make breakfast.
Keep this up for 5 years. LOOK CHEERFUL.

Test 4
Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems:
1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that no arms hang out.
3. Time allowed for this: 5 minutes.

Test 5
Forget the BMW and buy a practical 5-door wagon.
And don't think that you can leave it out on the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don't look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment and leave it there.
2. Get a coin. Insert it into the CD player.
3. Take a box of chocolate biscuits; mash them into the back seat.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Test 6
Getting ready to go out:
1. Wait
2. Go out the front door
3. Come back in again
4. Go out
5. Come back in again
6. Go out again
7. Walk down the front path
8. Walk back up it
9. Walk down it again
10. Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
11. Stop, inspect minutely and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.
12. Retrace your steps
13. Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.
14. Give up and go back into the house.
15. You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Test 7
Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.

Test 8
Go to the local supermarket.
Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child.
A full-grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.
Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight.
Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.
Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Test 9
1. Hollow out a melon
2. Make a small hole in the side
3. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it side to side
4. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon while pretending to be an aeroplane.
5. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.
6. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.
7. You are now ready to feed a 12-month old child.

Test 10
Learn the names of every character from the Wiggles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney.
Watch nothing else on television for at least 5 years.

Test 11
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out:
1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains
2. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds and then rub them on clean walls.
4. Cover the stains with crayon.
5. How does that look?

Test 12
Make a recording of someone shouting 'Mummy' repeatedly.
Important: No more than a 4 second delay between each Mummy - occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet if required.
Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next 4 years.
You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Test 13
Start talking to an adult of your choice.
Have someone else continually tug on your shirt hem or shirt sleeve while playing the Mummy tape listed above.
You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Test 14
Put on your finest work attire.
Pick a day on which you have an important meeting. Now:
1. Take a cup of cream and put 1 cup of lemon juice in it
2. Stir
3. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt
4. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture
5. Attempt to clean your shirt with the same saturated towel
6. Do not change, you have no time.
7. Go directly to work

Are you a go-getter or do you wait for good things to happen to you?
Submitted by sleepybear.

I was waiting for a good QotD to come my way, but it looks like I'll have to go out and get one.

Sorry, that's not entirely fair, sleepybear - it's not as bad as some; I just wanted an excuse to shout at something and to be honest, I've been disappointed - couldn't you have asked something like,

"What is the wettest water you've ever put your hand in?"

"Tell us how you butter toast."

"How great is vox?"

"Show us how you kiss arse."

"What is the worst STD you've ever had and who gave it to you?"

"Have you been affected by suicidal thoughts recently?  Bonus question: What did you do about them?!" ?

Welcome to a week of PMT.

(Mother's Day was lovely, by the way - homemade cards, lots of glitter, two new games for the DS and lunch at Bodeans - can't do a link for some reason.  Arse.) 

I was hot.  As hot as a volcano.  In fact, I was in a volcano and I kept on jumping on rocks to get higher and higher, out of the way of the rising lava.  And I was so, so hot, but not in a sweaty way; in a dry, arid, burning way.  Whichever way I turned there was no breeze, no space to cool down and when finally I'd made it out of the volcano, I was sent back down to the bottom again, only to have to start jumping and climbing my way out again.  And while all this was happening, all I could hear was Elvis,

"You look like an angel
Walk like an angel
Talk like an angel
But I got wise,
You're the devil in disguise"

Note to self: do not play Mario on DS or watch "Lilo and Stitch" when you're ill - especially not just before you go to bed.