August 2006
You are currently browsing the articles from United By Yucca written in the month of August 2006.
In a shock announcement, Louisa Preston, BBC London’s morning news presenter, was revealed as one of the Goa’uld system lords.
Her CV states that she is a keen swimmer, enthusiastic about current affairs and energetic destroyer of the Tauri. The BBC said in a statement yesterday;
We are keen to promote equal opportunities across the entire galaxy, and this includes parasitic imortal worm creatures
 |
 |
| Apophis |
Louisa (look at the eyes!) |
Written by exmonkey on August 30th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on General.
Content provider BBC1 are busy promoting the latest in their ‘Test the Nation’ series.
The show will no doubt be hosted by Ann Robinson (or some other leathery C-lister) who will bark multiple choice questions at a hand picked panel of other leathery C-listers and a selection of hated general public. These will be comprised of a group of Hair Dressers (in yellow), Police Officers (in blue) and paedophiles (in brown). These disparate groups and you at home will be able to see what your IQ is by answering such questions as:
Which footballer has been morphed in the monkey like face of Wayne Rooney?
a),b),c) [insert a bunch of footballers here - i can’t remember their names]
d) another monkey
My question is - How does knowing which goon’s image has been morphed in which other goon give us any insight into the IQ of a hairdresser? Unless the real test is to see who knows what morphed means?
By the way, the answer is of course d).
———————————————————-
useful link: Mensa page on how to train for Test the Nation. I kid you not.
Written by exmonkey on August 29th, 2006 with 6 comments.
Read more articles on General.
Well, my cycle ride home today hit a new low.
After flicking the finger at a motorist who tried to cut me up and then left his fist on the horn whilst driving inches from my rear wheel, the said driver then overtook me (this was on the A2 through New Cross), swerved in front of me, rolled down his window and spat at my face.
Firstly, I know I shouldn’t have reacted in the first place… but I consider hand gestures to be DEFCON 5 in the road rage range.
I’d like to think that the reason I didn’t hurt his car or react in an even more violent manner was because I took the moral high ground and decided to be a better person.
The truth is, I wasn’t quick enough. I really wanted to do him harm.
I have calmed down now - AND I STILL WANT TO DO TERRIBLE THINGS TO HIM. And this really annoys me, because the pacifist bit of me is appalled. I would love to get in a time machine and revisit the event, and apologize for the rude finger and explain why I did it - unfortunately another bit of me wants the time machine so that I can go to work on his car and/or face with a length of steel pipe.
Isn’t it lucky we don’t carry guns in this country. It’s easy to see how, in the heat of the moment, access to a weapon that can deliver instant lead anger at 1220 m/s would be a bad thing – even in the hands of such a reasonable person as me (sic).
Written by exmonkey on August 22nd, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on General and cycling.
In a recent poll (commissioned by health drink firm Lactofree), people were asked to name the most annoying things in their lives, ‘ex-smokers’ came fairly high up the list. Ninth in fact.
I am an ex-smoker, and I know that I can be a bit annoying about smoking. But I can also remember what it was like to be a smoker; A fact that smokers often forget.
Here’s what I remember about ex-smokers (from when I smoked 40 rollups a day).
1 - When someone told me they’d given up several years before, I thought - ‘you never really smoked properly did you?’
2 - When an ex-smoker asked me why I smoked I told them that I liked it. I even believed it sometimes.
3 - Ex-smokers made me want to smoke more.
Why did I react in this way?
Here’s my theory. Your inner smoker is afraid. Mainly he’s afraid that you’ll stop smoking - because then he’ll die.
He’s afraid because he knows a secret that he’s not sharing with you - that smoking isn’t that hard to stop.
What I found out is that stopping smoking is stupidly easy to stop - all you need is the right frame of mind. Previous attempts to give up had failed, partly because I continued smoking tobacco in spliffs, partly because I was it expecting to be really hard but mainly because I was in the wrong frame of mind.
Right, this is sounding like an advert on how to stop smoking - and this is the problem with being an ex-smoker. When you’ve smoked for 15 years, and you suddenly stop without any real problems, it’s like a veil being lifted - and all you want to do is grab smokers by their metaphorical lapels and shake them until they see sense.
Unfortunately this will never work - it never worked with me, and I met a LOT of irritating ex-smokers.
So as an irritating ex-smoker I apologize to all those I know who smoke, but seeing you smoke cigarettes and keeping schtum is like not being able to mention that you have an axe sticking out of your back.
Oh and BTW - and mints/aftershave/perfume etc can never disguise the stink of it - the smell of stale tobacco on your breath is one of the worst things to endure at close quarters. No one ever told me that when I was a smoker, but I bet a lot of people thought it.
Written by exmonkey on August 21st, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on General.
Filled with character: Extensive use of tongue-in-groove
Cottage garden: Two paving slabs with some thyme in a pot
Central location: Backs onto Tesco’s carpark
Good rail links: Railway at bottom of garden
Good road links: M25 at bottom of garden
Landscaped garden: Pebbles and a green painted fence
Cottage: Dollshouse
Popular location: Council estate
Some renovation required: new kitchen, wiring, bathroom, plaster and roof
Written by exmonkey on August 21st, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on General.
Esther Ransom and Lyn Foulds Wood are to present a new consumer protection show on BBC1 called Old Dogs, New Tricks
I would love to lay claim to this title as the product of both my imagination and the reality that both these 80’s TV refugees are indeed dogs, but I can’t. The BBC have actually commissioned a show that sounds like something Charlie Brooker might put in TV Go Home.
Do you think that Ransom and Woods noticed?
****************************
FYI My favorite TV Go Home
http://www.tvgohome.com/2010-2000.html
Written by exmonkey on August 15th, 2006 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on General.
I urge everyone to visit Hammerwood Park (the website is quite interesting also - for internet historians, the ‘web designer’ uses the <blink> tag and the pages haven’t been modified since 1999! A real piece of internet history…).
Where to start?
We were out for a drive near East Grinstead having looked at a couple of houses. We met up with my mother, had a horrible pub lunch at a promising looking but ultimately dreary country pub. Mum suggested that we stop at a country house she’d seen a sign for - the sign mentioned cream teas.
The first indication that all was not as it should be was a sign on the entry road warning drivers that the road was private and ‘unmade’ and that you proceed at your own risk. OK.
We finally reached the tumble-down grandeur of your basic Greek revivalist 18th century stately home. There were a number of abandoned cars in the drive, some agricultural machinery and a couple of mini Unimog type vehicles (which looked cool).
I was scared - but mum saw a sign that pointed to the cream teas. We went round the back of the house, where we found a small group of people being shouted at by a grey haired posh bloke. The moment he saw us he shouted “Your late!”.
My first instinct was to run. Run all the way back to the safety of South East London. But it was to late, he seemed to think we were part of a some pre-arranged tour.
As it turned out, we weren’t the only people to get shouted at for being late. A couple more small groups arrived in short order, got shouted at and joined the tour. We discovered later that they too had just seen the sign and driven in. The posh guide/owner seemed to think that we had all seen the website and journeyed to Hammerwood. He is of course, insane.
There then followed a tour, during which he leapt around like a clown on acid - randomly playing the various pianos, organs and harpsichords that filled every room. These musical interludes punctuated his many rants and diatribes on 1) the nouveaux riche 2) identity cards 3) modernity and 4) how lucky we all are that he is renovating this country house and single handedly saving classical music for an ungrateful world.
This guy is rude, arrogant, unpleasantly posh and completely uninterested (to the point of distain) in answering any questions about his house or engaging with any of the people who are paying £6 to be shouted at.
I recommend it - it is genuinely like some kind of performance art, improv comedy sketch.
The Elgin room - where tea is served
Mental posh bloke, resting on his organ.
Hammerwood park is on the A264 near East Grinstead.
Written by exmonkey on August 5th, 2006 with 17 comments.
Read more articles on General.
I thought I was a good parent.
I’m attentive to his needs, I try and provide a good diet, lots of mental stimulation through imaginative play and interesting new situations… but I am doing my child harm.
How? By not ensuring that he is wearing the appropriate nappy for his stage of development. Clearly I am an uncaring bastard.
According to the adverts, at his age, Milo should be wearing ‘Little Walkers’ pampers. Without these special nappies he will probably never perfect walking. He will probably grow up to be some grotesque cross between Norman Wisdom and someone with rickets.
It gets worse - I should be using another type for night time. Science had provided us with a nappy that actually changes shape as the child digests his food during the night. Without this innovation, I risk letting my son spend a night of misery. Actually there is another brand of nappy that ensures that the child can squirm whilst asleep thus making sure that he physically develops, rather than spending 70 years as a child sized adult.
The near future looks even more bleak, as I have to choose what kind of ‘training’ pant/nappy to put him in and what kind of scented, aloe vera impregnated plastic frog encased arse wipe I should be buying to usher him into the world of continence.
My selfish obsession with using washable nappies in a misguided attempt to reduce my impact on the environment has potentially destroyed my son’s chances of leading a full and normal life.
I guess I just never thought this whole parenting thing through.
(BTW due to the font used on the packaging for ‘Little Walkers’ pampers nappies - I think it looks like ‘Little Wankers’)
Written by exmonkey on August 3rd, 2006 with 7 comments.
Read more articles on General.
feedburner
