Baffled

I'm confused because jeans, which I bought the other day, proved to be too long. This is strange because I always buy the same leg length (29 ins just in case you want to buy me a pair) and I measured them and they were exactly the length as advertised.
I had them shortened by 1.5 inches and now they fit much better. The only answer is that I'm shrinking, but 1.5 inches seems an awful lot or another answer could be that I've always bought my trousers too long. Hmmmm?

Damn, where is it?

Two young men, one each living either side of us has left home this weekend. On one side for further education and on the other to join the army.
Given the position of their bathroom and the proximity of our respective houses we could, from time to time, hear the army hopeful having a shower. The music blared out and after a short silence you could hear him shout, "Mum can you pass me a towel?"
Move this forward to next week and think about the reaction to, "Sarge, can you pass me a towel?"
A quick lesson in growing up will ensue methinks.

Wind farms

I have just driven from the Spanish border in France to Calais. I must have seen in the region of 50 wind turbines, probably more, throughout this 800 mile journey and, unbelievably, only 3 were actually working.
Something is very, very wrong here. They are very expensive to build and maintain without getting into the cost of land rental and subsidies.
We wouldn't ever let that happen in the UK, would we?

A Yorkshireman

What qualifies you as a Yorkshireman? Whilst I am proud to mention that Yorkshire, if considered as a country, came 12th at the last Olympics and 5th at the recent commonwealth games, I have always questioned whether I can consider myself as a Tyke.
I believe that I was conceived in Yorkshire (sorry if that's a tad too much information) but born in Bristol from an Italian mother and a Liverpudlian father. I was raised in Yorkshire from about age 3 and spent all of my formative years here but I'm still not sure. I'm stateless, a man with tomato stains down his shirt front and hub caps under his arm.
Just in case you need a bit more information about what constitutes a Yorkshireman this sums it up. Translations are available.

'Ear all, see all, say nowt;
Eyt all, sup all, pay nowt;
And if ivver tha does owt fer nowt -
Allus do it fer thissen.

Taste of things to come

I saw a robin on the lawn yesterday. What's going on? Confused of Yorkshire.

At long last, a ferret

We were in the pet shop buying supplies of wild bird food and dog treats and the assistant asked us what breed of dogs we had.
He hadn't heard of Beaucerons and jokingly Jan said, 'they're big' a lot bigger than a ferret. 'Oh I love ferrets he said, I've got three. One of which is an albino. All my friends have ferrets.'
'Do they bite,' Jan asked?
'One does,' he said, but the others are fine. You have to get one, they're great pets.'
'You're the first person I've ever met who owns a ferret,' said Jan, and, before she could buy one, I got her out of the shop.
'Never joke about ferrets in Yorkshire,' I said, 'they won't understand and you might get hurt.'

A mystery solved

While out and about recently I'd noticed that certain folks were under dressed. Under dressed as in, 'it ain't that warm why are you wearing so little?' Then, after a while, it dawned on me. The under dressed were almost all heavily tattooed. What was more important to them, was showing the world their tattoos and not how cold they were.
Personally I'm not keen on tats and my dislike started when David Beckham started several years ago. I can understand the odd, out of the way tattoo, administered when you are young and foolish and probably pissed, but not the heavy all over 'body art' that you'd wish you had never had done when you get to old age.
Spare me all the socio mumbo jumbo about body art over the ages and freedom of expression, it just doesn't look too good. I can only assume that the man above is self employed. YMMV.

Doctor bloody Who

A long time ago, when I was young, I watched and enjoyed Dr Who. It was, and still is, a sci-fi children's programme with lots of goodies and baddies, implausible plots, a stupid 'time machine the tardis,' and just a hint of sex.
50 years later it is still going strong and it is still a children's programme. Why do the BBC trail this bloody programme as if it's some great meaningful blockbuster. We have been reminded time after time that the next series starts on August 26th with the latest incarnation of 'The Doctor' and his sidekick. They will no doubt face the latest new evil characters as they travel through time and space and will of course exit victorious. I'm sure that children will enjoy it but surely it gets puffed out of all proportion? 

What if.................

What if the Hokey Cokey is really what it's all about?

The BBC have lost the plot

Is it me or does anyone else get annoyed when the BBC blurs people's (and children in particular) faces? I used to think I understood why they do it but now I think it's just plain stupid.
The other day they blurred out some aggressive tweets that the news item was referring to. I could just about make out that it was a list of tweets. How stupid is that. Why show something that you can't see? It doesn't make sense. Just don't show anything, wouldn't that be better? Or are we not intelligent enough to to be able to understand what they are saying?
How does a blurred image help? Perhaps they should have a caption beneath the blurred image saying, 'here's a blurred image of what we mean.' The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
I include a blurred image above just in case you are so stupid that you can't work out what I'm talking about.

Can't get over it

Neither Jan nor I can quite get over 'the weekend' syndrome.
It's a strange sensation that leads you to want to 'go out' or feel that you should do something a bit more relaxing or special at the weekend.
Neither of us has worked full time for nearly twenty years but still the feelings persist. A weekday is a regular day but weekends are special, it's all very strange.
What makes it all a bit more strange is that we don't do anything special at weekends anyway.

Gimme a break

It's been eating away inside me, I've got to say it, but does anyone really give a toss about who the next Dr Who is?
In search of the next bit of mind numbing news, the BBC treats us all like 12 years old and even creates a special programme to announce it. Talk about dumbing down.
Dr Who is essentially a childrens' programme and has forever featured in the early Saturday evening schedule. I used to watch it as a child. I'm now a big boy and have moved on. There are no doubt some adults who watch it, but purleese, this is not worthy of 'news' slots.
Come on BBC get your act together.

Testing times

We've had visitors all week and have been taking in all (well nearly all) the attractions suitable for a five and two years old.
Anyway, as if looking after family both young and old wasn't enough, I'm sitting on the edge of my bed when I drop something on the floor. With a bit of effort I get down on my hands and knees and start searching blindly under the bed, when it suddenly dawned on me that I'd forgotten what I was looking for.
In the seconds between dropping it and looking for it I'd forgotten what it was I was looking for. Either the travails of the week were getting to me or it was a sign of increasing old age. Scary.

Another use for WD40

'Help me separate these, I've tried everything,' said Jan.
'Yeah, no problem,' said he. Except there was a problem and they wouldn't shift. Somehow two ceramic flower pots had got stuck one inside the other and they wouldn't budge.
'OK, which shall I break,' said he.
'I like them both,' said she.
'OK, I'll try one last thing before I break one,' said he. 'Where's the WD40?' Frankly I didn't think it would work. After about four minutes when lots of heaving and straining I put them to one side to wash my hands.
Suddenly there was a cracking sound and then, after another few seconds, another. Bingo, they pulled apart relatively easily.
Who's your daddy?

Oh no!

Look, I know I shouldn't but I've been giggling all morning after reading this article in The Telegraph. I wonder how the tree huggers felt?

Not as young?

Friends from France arrived last Thursday and left Monday morning.
We had a day in the country on Friday with a trip to the Theakston Brewery and lunch in Masham. A quick trip to Pateley Bridge to buy some great pork pies, delicious ham and a small pork joint on Saturday, because our visitors were out visiting relatives in York. A trip to Harrogate on Sunday to meet another friend from France (who now lives in the US - keep up) and have lunch, and that was about it.
So apart from a little driving, several meals out and a lot of laughs, it was all fairly tame. Monday, after they had gone, we went back to Harrogate to see my mother and come  Monday afternoon we were shattered.
OK maybe we did a bit more than I thought. The one who should have been more shattered was Jan who prepared quite a few meals. All in all a hectic but fun weekend.

Is it a vegetable?

This is interesting. I only scored 60%. How will you do?

Damned if you do

Has anyone else noticed the amount of negative press at the moment? I'm starting to find it quite wearisome and unnecessary. This article summed it all up nicely for me. It's almost as if, post Leveson, with nothing salacious to write, newspapers are struggling to publish balanced and sensible criticism and or comment.

Is there dog in it?

My tastes and taste buds are all over the place at the moment. This has been developing for several months now. The other day  I saw an article on eating curry for breakfast and thought, mmmmm I'll have a piece of that.
Anyway, we're lying in bed this morning and my beloved asked me what I wanted for breakfast.
'A little byriani,' I said.
'What?' she shouted at me. And then the argument started.
After a few minutes of argie bargie Jan said, 'OK, I can do you some rice with a little Korean curry sauce mixed in,' (left over from a meal on Saturday). I nearly fell out of bed in surprise.
Wow, come on boys and girls, is this service or what?
I wonder what I can dream up for tomorrow?

How old was the flapjack?

And there I was trying to stay away from a food theme. Take a look at this.