Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit...



There is an annual contest at Texas A&M University calling for the most appropriate definition of a contemporary term. This year's term was -- 'Political Correctness'

The winner wrote:

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."

(With thanks to 'Gill' for a superb pictorial reminder...)

Wednesday, 24 March 2010

Computeredactive...




Elias Sagtrouser was having trouble with his computer recently so he called Eric, the 11 year who lives old next door to the yard, and whose bedroom looks like Mission Control, and asked him to come over. Eric clicked a couple of keys, typed a few commands and solved the problem.

As he was walking away, Mr Sagtrouser called after him, 'So Eric, what was wrong'?

Eric replied, 'It was an ID ten T error.'

Now our erstwhile Supplier of Building Requisites to the Needy and Underused didn't want to appear stupid, but nonetheless inquired - 'An ID ten T error? What's that? In case I need to fix it again.'

Eric grinned . . . 'Haven't you ever heard of an ID ten T error before?

'No,' The perspiring Mr Sagtrouser replied.

'Write it down,' said Eric, 'and I think you'll figure it out.'

So Squire Elias wrote down:

ID10T

Mr Elias Sagtrouser has cancelled his account because he used to like Eric, the little bastard...

Saturday, 20 March 2010

Prog rock...


Last evening, BBC4 had a 'soaked in indulgence' programme, with loads of earnest faces and eventually, some down to earth discussions about what the early seventies were all about for music.

With leathery tongues firmly lodged in aging cheeks, most of the young dinosaurs (those who are still with us that is; or maybe not...), put up a pretty good argument for what was really a great time to experiment.

There was a small snippet about the instrument above, which I'd never even heard about, and now I definitely want one! The clip showed Tony Levin from King Crimson really making this Chapman's Stick sound marvellous.

Incidently, they also showed a very old clip of Genesis playing 'I know what I like' live. There's a line in the song which goes: -

"Sunday night, Mr Farmer called,
he said listen son, you're wasting your time,
there's a future for you in the fire escape trade,
come up to town"!


I'm pretty sure this must be a reference to a firm I used to know well, now long gone. S.W Farmer and Sons had a factory and head office in Lewisham, and were well established steel fabricators and erectors. I reckon there are still some of their specially designed fire escapes still clinging to crumbling walls somewhere!

Not a lot of people know that...

And finally, a sad farewell to Lesley Duncan, who died last week. ''Love song'' was on a triple compilation album, The Music Makers', which we bought for £1.50 about then. It really was - and still is a beautiful song, and often wafted around the first ever Turrets on the old Dansette.

Saturday, 13 March 2010

GPs...!




Mr and Mrs Scrobs are utterly delighted to announce that they are now officially Grandparents, due to their YD, aided and abetted by Mr YD, becoming parents to Miss YD’s ED, yesterday morning!

ED is now officially Aunt to Miss YD’s ED, and JRT is somewhere around there as well...

Have you got all that?

The sound of tills ringing in that delightful baby shop in Tenterden will equal any church bells rattling out today! This may well be equalled however, by the continuing popping of corks...

We really need good news like this every now and then!

Wednesday, 10 March 2010

New security in its simplest form...



Mr Elias Sagtrouser has installed a new scanner at the entrance to his yard. This will identify anyone carrying explosives in the simplest way imaginable!

It is a small booth (actually, an old shower cubicle left over from a redundant site originally sold on by Quentin ffoxley-Cabbage), and the customer enters through the folding glass door.

If the visitor is carrying explosives, the special piece of kit on the wall triggers a blast of 50,000 volts, which immediately explodes the said visitor, and vapourises him or her to total oblivion.

Funnily enough, Mr Sagtrouser has no worries about anyone getting into his establishment and blowing theselves up!

Sometimes I think this man should be in charge of national security, but he's too smart for that, and also has to work for a living.

Saturday, 27 February 2010

The break-up of a once great country...

Before


After

SCRINGE

Members of the Scrobs Commune for Reality, Information, Nolledge and Grand Excellence (SCRINGE), are utterly devastated to learn that one of their favourite counties, Dorset, has broken away from the mainland, and will continue to disrupt the weathermen's bonuses for at least the next three weeks!

The Chairman of SCRINGE, Mr Stourton Winterborne-Stickland, was understandably almost sober when he reported to the Quinquennial Committee during some sort of meeting in ‘The Eight Bells’, that the new Met Office computer, which has been built in Widdleplopsplashgigglewhoopsie, (a small hamlet outside Dorchester), and designed to calculate the eight times table in just under three hours, is so heavy that the old county just groaned last Thursday, and decided to drift away into the English Channel!

Latest reports mention that parts of Weymouth have actually arrived in St Malo already, and several tables have been booked at ‘Le Fat Stoopede Rosbif’ for a slap-up meat meal washed down with pints of Calvados flavoured stout. (Engleesh cash only, £30.50 per tete inclooding pooding).

Miss Amelia Okeford-Fitzpaine, a trainee marble inserter from Purbeck, awoke on Friday, to find that her cottage was approaching Guernsey at three knots, while her small cat, Blandford, was sitting in a tree on the mainland, wondering what to do next!

“There I was, nearly relocated on a Channel Island, and with not a stitch to wear”, she said to anyone who bothered to listen. But she realised her mistake on being shown pictures of herself, well kitted out with three loosely rivetted Swanage-knit jumpers, a forage cap from the Poole Offensive, and a natty pair of orange chainsaw protective trousers.

Members of the A354 Protection Society (A354PS) held an emergency meeting just outside Alderney, where most of the alcohol from the previous night had nearly been washed away by the tide. Nothing was decided as the fumes overtook the whole lot of them and one by one, they slipped into a comatose state, except for the Treasurer, who actually managed to slip into the Secretary’s room in a moment of unprecedented passion.

He was refused at the second jump, but recorded in all the sports columns of the new Continental Press Agency for the new Colony to be known as ‘Saint De La Dorsette’! It joins the new 'Devon Colony Des Anglaises', floating somewhere near Quimper, but keeps wobbling, because everyone keeps giggling because they think it is a silly name for a town!

A spokesman for The Met Office, Mr Arthur Weather, admitted after intensive questioning by reporters, that his performance-related bonus (£4,500), from the previous fortnight’s sleep-ridden ‘work’ had not actually taken into account the desertion of the old English Counties. He was in fact looking at a photograph of small piece of cloud somewhere in Essex, and quite forgot the time!

The Mayor of Avranches, Monsieur Vin-de-Pay-Asyouearn, is planning a small reception in ‘Les Jardins de Lychett-Minster’, where he will welcome all the good Citizens who decide to stay, with a good slap-up fish meal and a pooding the size of their old neighbour, the Isle of Wight, washed down with anything left over from the party when most of Cornwall was washed up a few weeks ago.

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Return from "Rabbit proof fence"...



For some time I've had the full music version of the movie, but have never seen the film itself, partly because there's one particular piece which moves me so much, I have to confess that watching the tale unfold might be a little too much for the old emotions.

But this story was on the box the other night, and I stayed up and was totally immersed! What a stunning yarn, never mawkish, mainly factual (probably, with licence), but how on earth the authorities got away with it I'll never know. It beggers belief that several of my friends went over in the sixties, and this was going on even then!

Just for the record, this is the piece which always reverberates...