the complex selfie

hi there

not much really, i just thought that on the basis of my last post some of you might for some particular or peculiar reason want to see one of them Al Pacino endorsed cigarette lighters in action.

it is not too often that i like pics of my good self, but these two seem to have come out decent enough! must try and remember the angle for future use!

it was, as the title suggests, rather tricky to get a selfie of the Pacino endorsed lighter in action. i mean, i didn't get light meters or anything like that on the go, but just getting it so that i could use it and take a halfway decent picture which would let you see that it is indeed one of the Al Pacino ones was not a straightforward thing. i suspect i took somewhere around a minute to ninety seconds in the planning stage, which is an outrageous amount of time in selfie-world.

i can imagine a few people around the world tut-tutting (hello, Dad) at this apparent promotion of smoking in these selfies, but i really do not think there is anyone out there in the world so lacking in ambition that they consider me a role model or in any other way be influence by. well, except for that twat who hacked my email and facebook, of course. and that's someone i would encourage to play with fire. sad, mean but true.

just for good measure, then, here is the second picture indicated as being in existence.

so there you go. how does the lighter perform? in a satisfactory way i suppose, it serves its purpose and has done all that i have asked it to do. i have no complaints, and if someone asked me if i would recommend, suggest or in any way approve of cigarette lighters that were endorsed (apparently) by him out of Dog Day Afternoon and that one where he played an angry, foul-mouthed Cuban, the name of which escapes me for the moment but i think his character was called Scarface in it, the answer would be yes, certainly. except the one with that film on it.

and that's that for now!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

shopping adventure

hello there

for those of you who expect, and indeed as far as they can enjoy, regular updates here, please allow this opening to act as the expression of an apology for the inactivity here of late. hope and interest have not been abandoned by your humble if not nimble narrator; i have just had a lack of time and indeed a lack of content for you.

let me try and fix that here, then, with a few images and words that will i hope be of interest to someone somewhere!!

i went off on a shopping adventure today, as indeed the title of this post suggests, but not all of these pictures are from the actual trip of today. some, indeed most, are, but this first image is not. so let me not be accused of trying to claim that it is or was.

here, for the benefit of my dear friends and family over in South Africa (yes, beloved mother-in-law, if you have clocked how to get to this page i do include you), is what (at time of writing) R50 gets you in respect of sweetcorn.

erm, yeah.if you went into a store in Johannesburg, or pretty much anywhere in SA (except the infamously overpriced Cape Town of course) and they tried to charge you "about" R50 for that, you would in all likelihood punch the proprietor of the store in the face. this, however, of course is not a land where the magnificence of sweetcorn grows all free and wild, so one needs to pay for the costs of import and that.

i say about R50, but it could of course be R60 or more by the time you read this sentence. the exchange rate is not a pleasant thing at all to look at. as a point of fact, i think The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, probably has his people looking at it right now in advance of his gig in Johannesburg on Saturday and is watching as a break even-slight profit margin is turning into a whopping loss.

the currency is in freefall, and whilst some are trying to blame it on Turkey and Argentina (the latter always being an ace thing to blame stuff on), i suspect it has rather more to do with that useless big bald f#@* opening his mouth in public. the world would be a better place if he would just be so kind as to p!ss off to the massive shed he had everyone build for him and stayed there.

moving on, and i drove to the shops today. but not in the car that you would normally associate with my travels. that car, the beast of the road, remains in the sunnier region of Africa, as this picture will reveal to your satisfaction.

many, many thanks indeed to Sinbad and Maria for taking the above somewhat voyeuristic image! good to see the wheels running about in the hands of Jayson, the new custodian of the dream machine. Jayson is probably unaware of the above picture being taken; i can only hope you are enjoying driving it about mate, and call yourself as and when something goes awry with it, as i used to call your good self!

so what did i drive around in today? the new wheels, which came about by chance, a quirk of fate, an amicable arrangement and, most importantly, by me having and knowing some very, very good people that i am proud to be able to call friends.

want to see the wheels? of course you do.

well, that's an element of the wheels, i suppose. a very nice little car it is; one that i can drive with relative ease and have neither crashed nor blown up as of yet. and am hoping not to, since my (considerably) better half uses it too and will get quite cross with me if i did.

as for how i came to take ownership, well, a sensational story that is not my tale to tell mostly, but what i can say is that a deal was done with a good friend. i am unsure if Andrew wants his name stating here on my blog so i will not say it was Andrew, instead just show a picture off of him with me. i am the ugly one in the picture.

fantastic to see him, and i certainly hope to see him as frequently as our calendars allow!

on that note i have not gotten around to seeing all that many of the dear friends i have here at home. my new mobility should allow this a great deal more than it has thus far.

and cruising around to see people is very much what i hope to be doing, despite all being true about the somewhat close to astronomical costs of fuel here. they seem to frown upon you taking pictures in stores and of places here somewhat, but never mind, i did it anyway - for the benefit mostly of the aforementioned dear friends and family in SA, check out these fuel prices!

yep, that is around about R25 per litre. ouch, my wallet says i tell you, ouch. however, all things in balance. here the roads are, of course, well built and well managed, and good management is certainly behind the flow of traffic. no sitting burning up fuel for 90 minutes to travel 30kms as was the case in Johannesburg, to be honest!

my chums here are, of course, all always welcome to visit me too in our new home! i mean, i have travelled some 7,000 miles to get back, so i am sure a few will decide to "meet me half way" and travel a handful of miles to see me.

but enough of my exciting and slightly exotic social life, you want the details of my shopping. well, pictures more than my words perhaps, but here comes both. and first off, some exciting foot cream for you, which seems to carry a premium price here.

i am assuming that it is due to it being some Norwegian formula that this footcream was of an eye-watering price to your humble narrator, but my (considerably) better half expressed a wish, if not need, to have some for her toes and that. or whatever elements of the feet this stuff goes on. i do not begrudge her it at all, of course, but methinks i need to look for people selling it for less. i recall from my days and nights growing up that there was and perhaps is a store called Super Drug, let me find the locale of one of their branches if they are still on the go!

yes, i know you can see something that excites you in the background of that picture; i will get to them in a bit. promise.

to put the price, which i have not revealed, of the above foot cream into some sort of perspective for you, it cost more than the combined price of these two items. these two sensational and excellent items, if i say so myfes. and you will say when you see them.

yes. mugs that feature The Who. two of them. well, they were marked half price, so it seemed rude not to get both kinds.

i am sorry, but i am finding the angle i have taken the above pic at has a freaky effect. at the side it is Keith Moon with his head slumped on Roger Daltrey's shoulder, but at a glance it looks like a raised head, full on look at John Entwhistle in his facial hair days. don't know if you can see it or not too, or if it is just me.

anyway, they are mugs of The Who, and thus they are mine. will i be allowing my (considerably) better half to use them? probably not. i might reserve them for just me and visiting friends, so long as the visitors are respectful of The Who. which should be anyone who visits, as it is unlikely that i would befriend or allow into the house anyone who i felt did not appreciate and respect The Who to the correct level. which is high. a high number, if you like.

for some bizarre reason quite a few of you like to see pictures of me on here, so if that one above is not quite enough here is another of me. well, if you can spot me; for i am hiding behind some Mars bars.

one or two (well, two) more pictures of me later, but for now back to that thing that a number of you will have spotted and want to see more - a lot more - of.

my days of smoking are, alas, close to an end. that will be a shock to a few who know me, so let this sentence stand to allow for that to sink in a bit. partially they are drawing to a close because it is bad for you and a silly thing to do and all that, but mostly because of the seriously high cost of the silly, bad habit here. and no i cannot give pictorial evidence of it as they seem to keep the fags locked behind steel doors in the shops.

the above did not, however, stop me from investing in items that ignite cigarettes in the mean time. especially as the items are apparently endorsed by one of the finest actors the world has known.

oh yes, Al Pacino cigarette lighters. ace! if we assume that these are an official product, for i see nothing on them telling me that they are unofficial, it is sensational that Mr Pacino, or "Al" as i presume to be able to call him, so much money have i invested in watching his fine films over the years, has chosen to endorse a product of this nature. good for him, i say.

does, you may well ask, a similar ruling exist for use of these lighters by my (considerably) better half as is the case with the mugs of The Who? yes, partially. i mean, i love her and that, but she has a habit of "hiding" lighters, just like her mother. but in this case there is one of them she can do exactly what she likes with. i think you know which one.

if you don't, well, as everyone should know, there were only ever two films made of The Godfather. some try to say "no, they made a third one", and in the eyes of those people i am a denialist or something. if, and only if, they made a third one, it would probably have been total rubbish, and Pacino would probably have looked like he does on one of them lighters in it. so that lighter is something she can do what she wants with.

other shopping? sure. assuming you have no real wish or need to see milk, bread, eggs and things like that, my quest for smells continued today somewhat as i invested in other deodorants that seems reluctant or unwilling to call themselves deodorant. you can refer back to the moaning post i did on that subject earlier in the month if you like, but in short i am baffled as to why sometimes things are no longer called what they are.

anyway, here is the deodorant that does not have deodorant written on it that i bought today, mostly as they were cheap or on special offer.

the two Nivea ones were bought due to them being "buy two for this much lower price" offer; the other one, Sanex, purchased on the basis of it being a quid or so. hopefully they do work out as good ones, as i was less than impressed with the ones i bought before. that i mentioned that i wrote about before too, so for ease of reference, go on then, here is the link to it for your reading pleasure.

of the ones i got before, the blue adidas one was a major disappointment, smelling as it did of some sort of lemon scented ant and bug twatting chemical. fingers crossed, then, that Nivea and Sanex like their customers to smell better.

apologies, by the way, if this blog post has felt disjointed in some small or large way. as i have done it i have been interrupted, but not necessarily disturbed, by a random wandering estate agent, a member of Her Majesty's esteemed postal service, an unsolicited text message soliciting a review of services, the need to tend to the fire that keeps our house warm(ish) and the urges of my (considerably) better half to have speaks with me.

in regards of one of them things, another picture of me? sure, why not as i do the fire.

quite a tricky angle to get, that one was, but i think i did it quite well. also i switched the flash off on the blueberry so if the fire flames feel funny in shade that would be why.

some more images of those class mugs of The Who that i got? certainly, with one showing off the price paid. and yes i have taken the stickers off.

that thing i said about Keith Moon's resting head looking like the bearded Entwhistle looks way more pronounced and obvious in that picture, does it not? or is it just me?

this next picture just leaves Moon out of it so i do not get myself all baffled and confused by it. this next picture also shows off something ace that i did not buy and did not get today, but was very kindly given yesterday.

yes, ladies and gents, that is a rather smart set of JVC headphones right there. given to me by Gramps yesterday, no less. those of you who know Gramps may be baffled by the idea of him either going out to the shops or buying me a set of headphones. the answer is no on both things that might have you baffled. 

he was, apparently, for some reason given that "set of cans" over Christmas. he was, as you might expect, puzzled by such a gift, and so simply left them in the packet. when i visited him and Gran yesterday he asked if i would have any use for them, a question which had the answer very much yes. so thanks Gramps!

they are no doubt going to get used to listen to The Who at the correct volume at some point, so that picture has worked out rather well. 

and that's just about that to be honest, bar one more selfie of me at the fireplace, doing my best to keep it going and keep warm.

more as and when it happens, i guess, or when i have the time, the pictures and the internet access to do more!

if this post has in some small way helped or inspired your shopping adventures, well then so much the better!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

blankety blank

hey there

i was flicking through the television channels earlier this evening and was delighted to see that someone had taken the wise decision to broadcast an episode of seminal quiz show Blankety Blank. it was with particular delight that i saw it was an episode from its classical era, when Terry Wogan was the host. at some point someone took the decision to get Les Dawson to do it, a move that led to it, perhaps inevitably, going very lowbrow. i always assumed that they actually wanted Les Dennis to do it but someone made a typing error.

anyway, i got even more excited when i saw that one of the celebrity guests on the episode was none other than the oddly still not Knighted unless i missed it Paul Daniels. my joy did not stop me, you will no doubt be pleased to see, from taking a quick picture of it to post here. and here it is.

that Paul Daniels was able to find the time to appear on Blankety Blank tells you of the prestige and status associated with getting the nod to be a part of it. at the time this episode was recorded, dating it as best i can on the basis of the inches of the collars on the shirts, Paul Daniels at that time would have been busy with his own TV show, busy working on the scripts and soundtrack for WizBit, busy perfecting the premise for his own quiz show, Every Second Counts, and of course indulging Debbie McGee with some raunchy wand waving. it takes some doing to wedge a recording session with "Woges" into that schedule, i imagine.

no, sorry, i have no idea who that chap called Peter at the top is, except that he is called Peter.

related to quality like the above, i am not at all sure when it is over the last twenty years that Barry Norman stopped doing the film show on the BBC, but i am assuming it is the case that he has, for he seems to have taken a somewhat different direction with his life. a very good friend did that "tag" thing on me on the below picture.

and why not, indeed. sadly, i am led to believe that Barry Norman's premium pickled onions are not available with any particular ease or generosity north of Kent. not sure why this is, except maybe for some sort of prejudice against the north that Baz may have developed whilst living and working in London (innit). it could be the case that some sort of "regular" or "lower grade" variant of his pickled onions are allowed to be sold in the more southern areas of the north; i shall have to investigate. would be ace to try them, really. not that i particularly like pickled onions as such, but i do like Barry Norman and thus if this is the sort of thing he wants people who like, or appreciate, him to eat, so be it.

right, more posts, hopefully of this quality, as and when something interesting crops up!




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wanderings

hello there

well, for nostalgia fans, here's a post along the lines of why my dear family and much treasured friends started reading my blog in the first place - an update on how we are all doing. well, when i say me, i mean the interesting ones, as there are no pictures of me here, you will be pleased to know.

first up and as you would expect it's my (considerably) better half. when she is not busy sucking away with gay abandon (see post on vacuum cleaner for clarification), she has found an inspired, new to her love. that love would be in the form of a Littlewoods catalogue.

those familiar with what this is will be wondering, outside of the lingerie section, just what is so special about that. well, she has not seen one before, so got all giddy when it came through the door. and now she takes it with her everywhere.

yes, indeed that is her outside with it.

for those unaware of what a Littlewoods catalogue is (if i have the spelling right, and i have no doubt the child of the condiment phoenix shall let me know if not), basically it does what it says - a massive catalogue, from which you can buy loads of things, from a company called Littlewoods. once there was a rival to this catalogue - Kays, i think it was called.

anyway, to ram home the point, as it were, here is another picture of her reading it, eying up the goods on offer, wondering where my credit card is.

onwards, then, and to some actual wanderings as the title of this blog post suggested might well feature.

in order to allow my (considerably) better half some top level catalogue reading today, i decided to take William off for a stroll, or if you like wander. our destination was both known and unknown to me.

it fell into the realm of known because Gillian and Gran had mentioned it to me over the years, those two having discovered it some time ago and being quite impressed. unknown, however, because as i knew more or less where it was, i had never actually been there myself. i was confident we would find it, so we set off, and did indeed find it.

what we found, as in the destination, was a rather splendid and magnificent playground, much to the delight of young William.

a rather splendid and magnificent playground that, weirdly and strangely, we had all to ourselves. it seems that no one else felt a rather cold, misty Wednesday afternoon in the final throes of January was the ideal time to go to a playground. they obviously do not have the William outlook on such things.

i managed to take only a couple of pictures as it was some work to keep up with William. he was very excited indeed, and went charging around to have a go or two on absolutely everything!

no doubt i will be getting daily requests to take William up to play there from now on. as it is a most excellent walk up, and a fun place to play, i would suspect i will accommodate the anticipated requests as often as i can!

William was not the only one to have an exciting Wednesday, for his brother was not left out. James was delighted that his school uniform had at last arrived, as he was very eager to get it on. here he is getting dressed this morning!

not sure what we did as parents that was right, but James has really taken to an academic life. which is very, very good indeed, and long may it last! we did have concerns about him going to a new school in a new land, but it's been all good, actually great, so far!

speaking of another land, those of you who follow me on that facebook thing will be aware that i have been responding to the requests of the friends of my (considerably) better half to put up many pictures of her wrestling with the cold weather. here is one such picture for those of you who want nothing at all to do with that social network business.

yes, that's her outside in her fancy dressing gown, and indeed the picture is presented in the class quality of a Commodore 64 mode one with the scan lines most certainly on!

enough, you might well say, of my (considerably) better half and her shenanigans. far be it from me to argue or disagree with you. let me take you back to the weekend, then, since i could not be bothered to sort the pictures out into any sort of discernible chronological order.

on Sunday i found myself awake a good deal earlier than i had intended and left wondering just what it was i would do with the day. an answer came via the magic of that blueberry messaging thing and my Aunt Susan, who suggested that either or both of the boys might care for a walk around the village.

with it being windy, wet and touches of rain prevailing, James was having absolutely none of it, deciding that everything outside of the house said "stay inside the house and watch films". William, however, was as you can see raring to go. as i soon was as a consequence.

off we all went, then, for a most splendid and pleasant stroll. Susan was of course with us, as indeed was young Natalie, who we shall simply refer to as being a cousin of William and James. there is probably a more elaborate and correct variation of the title cousin that should be used, but really, who cares?

all were more interested in walking than they were stopping for pictures, but as i had gone to the effort of taking the proper camera, with partially charged batteries in it, with me, they agreed to a few images being recorded!

we walked some considerable distance, and impressively William did not get tired. he did not, as young children are sometimes prone to do, get bored either. i believe both are related to the fact that there were many puddles for him to jump in and walk through, testing the patience of his ultimately triumphant wellies to the max.

also the promise of an ice cream kept him going towards the end of the journey. and Natalie.

much as was the case with the playground, for some peculiar reason on a cold, wet Sunday afternoon in January these two were the only ones who opted for ice cream as being the best thing to have to eat. perhaps their decision will blaze a trail for others to follow, but i suspect that it might perhaps not.

no, i didn't have an ice cream. i tend not to like the things on the best of days, even if, as was the case with these two, they come from the finest and greatest ice cream place in the known universe.

a last picture for now, then, and due to the vagaries by which blogger now uploads images, it is another of James showing off his new school uniform. he is also showing off something else.

no, not my (considerably) better half and his beloved, dear Mum who has sneaked into the picture, but the Anakin and Obi-Wan toys that i bought for them earlier in the week. you may recall that they had "hidden" them and thus i could only show the back of the box before, so there you go, there are the actual figures.

and that will do for this update! it is late, and i have a rather unexpectedly busy day ahead of me tomorrow!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

some hard, expensive Valentines Day sucking looms....

hi there

as regular readers, or not so regular readers who navigate the menu over to the side before reading on, will know, i have already treated my (considerably) better half to a most magnificent, romantic and dare i say downright sexy Valentines Day gift in the form of an ironing board. you might find it odd that i have returned to the subject, then, but apparently another gift of love was required.

it seems i unwisely set down a marker with my gift, one that a good friend, Mike, decided to outdo. Mike, you see, decided to get his (considerably) better half a bucket and a mop, which equals two gifts. so he expressed love 100% more than i did, apparently.

there was no way i was getting my (considerably) better half a bucket and a mop, not when she has both a scrubbing brush and knees, so i had to get something else. a vacuum cleaner it was, then.

yes, that's right, the image above is indeed an image of the box of it taken via the medium of Commodore 64 mode with the scan lines on; a feature which means there is at least one decent, user friendly aspect to the average iTwat device. if you download it and Apple doesn't delete it when urgently fixing some Japanese matter on your device.

being the romantic type sometimes, i of course allowed my (considerably) better half to go right ahead and select whatever vacuum cleaner it was that would set her heart all a-flutter. on the provisio, of course, that it was well below a certain value. oh what a surprise it was when she exceeded that value, by some distance, with her selection.

i was given assurances that the extra money was required and well worth it, as some top level sucking would be assured by the larger amount invested. as this in many respects follows the logic being pursued by my good chum Spiros and his economic model involving Portuguese ladies of a certain age and certain appearance, i agreed to go along with the view of my (considerably) better half. in particular, yes, as i basically stopped listening after "sucking" was mentioned.

surprise surprise, then, that the device for the extra money seemed to be different/better than the other, more modest in price ones on offer, in respect of it being purple. i suspect i, or rather at this stage those nice people at the credit card company, have been duped.

still, James seemed to be most impressed with it.

as for the more conventional sort of Valentines Day gift, well, funnily enough an unsolicited one of them did in fact arrive today too. but not for Valentines Day and not for my (considerably) better half, although this did not stop her from opening it up.

that fine, fine box of Thorntons chocolates arrived with a nice note of apology concerning a recent incident with a business i am not prepared to name. very kind of them, especially as i told them that the incident in question was far from major and very easily fixed. far be it from me, however, to refuse the gift that they insisted on sending. especially as it would be very, very difficult to return it now that the boys and my (considerably) better half have had a rather good gander and indeed a go at the contents.

some of you dear readers will be romantic whilst one or two will be, in a sense, hopeless. to combine those two factors and make you hopeless romantics, here you go - the chocolate and the vacuum cleaner together, representing all possible aspects of Valentines Day, in one nice, Commodore 64 mode picture.

for those of you who for some strange reason are not enamoured with the excellence of Commodore 64 mode camera pictures, here is the vacuum cleaner in all its glory in the best picture a blueberry phone can take.

what's it like? 2000W of throbbing, purple-headed sucking, by all accounts. my (considerably) better half reckons it is ace, so there you go for a product review.

i would very much like to think that this is me and Valentines Day done, really, but i have a suspicion this will not be the case. if i end up getting yet more gifts, i will be sure to present illustrated moans here. so you've been warned.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

middle of the road, prog rock wannabes predicted major terrorist attack with album cover

hi there

well, the title says it all i guess. some genius / bellend has taken the large amount of free time they apparently have and used it to work out that Supertramp, the band mentioned in the title, predicted the 9/11 terrorist attack on New York some 22 years before it happened.

rather than alert the authorities about it, Supertramp apparently decided to be complete bastards and instead hid the information in the cover for their seminal, celebrated by some album Breakfast In America.

here is the album cover as you know it.

and here is where and how they hid their prophecy.

yes, the reversed letters of the UP of Supertramp "suggest" 9/11 as a date, the album being called Breakfast In America reveals (roughly) the time of the attack and a glass of orange juice is usually regarded as being symbolic of an explosion. what a pity they did not give a clue to the year.

right now i imagine people are looking at the album covers of the peers of Supertramp - bands like Toto, REO Speedwagon and Kiss - hoping to find clues as to what the future holds.

make of it what you will!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

commerce is our goal

hi there

what can i say other than sorry for the lack of updates, and possibly drab and approaching dull nature of the ones i have done of late, dear reader! i am trying to keep my hand in, but things are very busy here. i can only trust you continue to indulge me!

today i was required to head into town owing to some matters at the bank not going as well as one would have hoped. hey ho, nothing that a signature could not fix. this provided me with the opportunity and grounds to go and do a bit of shopping, something you may well have guessed from the title of this post.

they seem somewhat fussier on this side of the equator about taking pictures in stores than they do on the other. that is, they really don't like you doing it. i did my best, but did not take many (two) as i went about my business. here is the first one, and it's a case of "oh dear" for those of you hoping a certain Welsh bass player and lyricist would move on to a lucrative publishing career.

the pink book you can see there is Nicky Wire's Death Of A Polaroid thing. if the price is not too clear, which i suspect it is not, that's £1.99 they are now asking for it. i think the published price was £30 some 3 or 4 years ago; i myself got it for my (considerably) better half when it went down to all of £10 (i think, might have been £18) not long after release. so if i had waited i could have got 5 - 9 copies of it for the same money.

is it any good? without doubt it is the best ever book to contain practically nothing but small blurry pictures ever created by a Welsh bass player and lyricist. a bold claim, i know, considering the range that covers. i would imagine that everyone who wants the book already has it, hence the low price. however, some Manics fans might be tempted to get a second or third (or tenth) copy of it at that price, just to cut it up a bit and make some class art coated in glitter. us Manics fans do things like that.

as to where a large part of my estate could so very nearly have gone today, and may well go in the not too distant future, behold this partial look at the front display of a store.

never mind all the class Star Wars stuff, look at the top! those are those class Alien action figures that were planned around the film's release but never made it to the shelves at the time. i did not dare look at the price, for whatever it was they probably would have been bought. so by not knowing i could just take it as a given that i could not afford them.

the shop is filled with all sorts of excellent and class things, and i suspect i will be back when funds allow it.

in another store, for those of you worried that i did not purchase class toys today, i did find a rather magnificent set of Star Wars characters for a mere £10. here is a look at the back of the box.

the actual toys / figures is what you want to see? no, sorry, can't do that. the boys have made them vanish somewhere, possibly and presumably to their room. to be honest, the way they attacked the box to get the toys out it is a small wonder that the back remained in such a state that i could present the picture above.

as for the set itself, i quite like how it says it is to "commemorate the release" of some sort of DVD, but also states on the box that the "DVD is not included". i think it refers to that super-rubbish first version of the Clone Wars cartoon; you know the one where the episodes were about 3 minutes long and did not make a great deal of sense. that, now i think, James keeps asking to see, so if they had put the DVD in that would have been rather handy.

as for practical shopping, well i got some jackets and stuff like that. i also decided that a priority was a new mug for me, since my mugs are currently, or at least hopefully soon, to face the same trial by treacherous sea as my boots.

after having a look around at some very, very impressive mugs, i went with this one. for the reasons that it was the cheapest and the most massive.

yes, a Batman mug. it says on the box that it is a 20 Oz mug. i am not sure what it means, but i think it means the size of one that an American would have for their first, small shot of Diet Root Beer at breakfast before the full American sized non-Diet Root Beer arrived with their muesli, grits, pancakes, cheeseburgers and assorted fried animals.

cost? £4 from that shop that the fella who owns the bar-codes does. me happily giving money over that might be spent (ahem) improving the squad of Newcastle may seem strange, but there's a logic to this. the owner has an unusual approach, as many will know. there is every likelihood that my pennies will be given straight to Joe Kinnear to do whatever the hell it is Joe Kinnear does rather than towards paying for some players.

other than the massive Batman logo, it also, rather conveniently or if you will handily, has 'Batman' written down the handle in case you missed who or what the logo referred to.

my choices were rather wide and varied, to be honest. i could have got a normal / regular mug featuring Bowie, The Who, Led Zeppelin or the Happy Mondays for £8. there was also a crappy grey outline of Boba Fett's helmet one, with the words "he's no good to me dead" written underneath. that was £12. so i think you can see why this £4 won, as impractical and unlikely to be used as it is.

to give a sense of perspective on how massive it is, well, observe.

yes. that big. it might get used as it would save me making a 2nd cup on a morning, wouldn't it. or i could make a 2nd cup of coffee and end up drinking 4 cups of coffee each morning, something that could be quite mental.

and that's about it really. well, i also bought a variation on a loaf of bread and some milk that was of a mostly conventional nature. nothing worth taking pictures of, really.

more exciting updates as and when i have them!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edouard Guillaud

hi there

yes, indeed i was as excited as everyone else when i saw this picture. i thought i would be following French military activities with more interest than usual.

sadly, no indeed that is not his real name. click on these words to get the realy story of this chap.

well done whoever did the photoshop thing though! even better if it was done in MS Paint!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

friday fire

hi there

nothing much really, i just had a most magnificent and splendid fire on the go and felt compelled, if not some sort of obligation, to share it with the world. if Duran Duran can insist everyone in the world look at a picture of them every Friday (refer their facebook thingie) then the least i can do is give people the option to have a look at what i have made burn.

also, here's a short video of the fire on the go. if you like you can make a DVD of it, or loop it or something so it just plays and plays. feel free to pretend you are really sat in front of a fire as you watch, unless of course you are sat in front of a fire as you watch it.

it might be class if i did this every Friday for the people to see. but then i might not remember too, or i might not bother with a fire, or it might (not for a while) be too warm to require a fire.

meanwhile, for enthusiasts of my (considerably) better half in the cold, wearing her ace jacket that has no sleeves on it, here is a picture taken mere moments before she "suggested" that i get a fire on the go.

hope wherever and whenever you are, you are doing most superbly cool!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what's this cable for, then?

hi there

one or two of you might suspect that i am taking the proverbial, as in the p!ss, with this one, but i can assure you i am not. i was inspecting the TV fittings around the home today and discovered a cable that was all too familiar, but also makes no sense at all (at present) to me to have near the TV.

if that to you looks like an old-school PS/2 cable, the kind that would connect a keyboard or mouse to a PC before everyone (except Apple) switched to USB, that's because to my mind this is exactly what it is.

i am baffled by why exactly might have decided to recycle that cable for another use, or otherwise use something that looks like it. it might, i suppose, be an s-video cable, but to my mind (and this bad pic below) the pins are not right for that, and besides it lacks any audio cables near it. 

i think there might be a TV near one of the cables with an s-video port, i suppose i could fanny about a bit and shove it in, so to speak, see what happens. probably not a great deal.

i thought it might have something to do with this whole "freeview" thing here, perhaps it is meant to be a connector to a "freeview HD" box thingie?  i think s-video was not quite as super as it thought in regards of an HD picture. it would be something of a surprise, then, to discover that someone had bothered to mess with s-video technology to make it HD in this world of HDMI cables.

well, if anyone knows what it is - if i am right or if you know exactly and i am well off the right track - do let me know! also i am baffled to see that SCART is so popular here. it was rubbish in the 80s and i thought it had died as a way of connecting equipment in the early 90s. why do so many TV sets made recently have it?

as for those who, as mentioned earlier, believe this is me in some way taking the p!ss, i can show that i am not. a medical practicioner did that earlier today.

the sample i provided was apparently good and satisfied a number of questions. the practitioner stopped considerably short of declaring it to be "the greatest sample ever produced", but i would like to think it was, at the least, top ten material.

right, let me stare at the cable(s) in question, see if looking at them makes me think of something whilst i eagerly await answers from those wise to the ways of what that wire could be for.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!