Forthcoming holiday
I'm just posting this very short piece because I am going back to New Mills tomorrow for a month to see my Father and after an absence of eighteen years, to see how the town and surrounding areas have changed.
My muse has deserted me lately, so hopefully when I return at the end of November, she will be in full flow again.
Having read the latest weather forecast for the next few days with minimum temperatures of -4C and -5C and coming from Melbourne where the maximums have been in the mid to high 30's, this could be a bit of a shock. But I like extremes of temperature anyway.
Published Date:
28/10/2008
Modified Date:
28/10/2008
Mobile Pheromones on Mass Transport
Mobile Pheromones
Just in case you think that this is a typographical error, you are dead set wrong, a ‘Pheromone’ according to my dictionary is “a chemical substance secreted and released by an animal for detection and use by another, usu. of the same species”.
Now, you can make of that what you will, but my understanding is that the chemical substance being secreted is intended to stimulate sexual desire in the other “usu. of the same species”, so that they will get together for a good old fashioned bonk, to propagate the species and have a good old time while they’re doing it.
So, go figure, if this is nature’s way of attracting ‘mates’, why have we created a multi billion dollar industry to try to camouflage our natural ‘pong’, which should be attracting “usu. of the same species” by the dozen.
Thus we get to ‘Personal Hygiene’
Now, being a Pom, I can’t say that I’m fanatical about this. I believe that you should keep yourself reasonably clean, so that you don’t become overly smelly and offensive to other people, who have absolutely no interest whatsoever in procreating with you.
Let’s face it, it doesn’t make for a good start to the day, if you’re trapped in a crowded train with your snot-box stuck in somebody’s smelly armpit. This was not what Mother Nature intended at all, (let’s face it, mass transport has nowt at all to do with the propagation of the species, or does it?).
Of course, if you’re vertically disadvantaged and your schnozz is firmly implanted in the groin of someone of the opposite sex, pheromones can cause some very strange reactions, but we’ll leave that alone for the time being. Although you could look back at one of my earlier postings concerning the ‘Gnomes of Zurich’, (I can’t be bothered, so I don’t really expect you to be either.)
To continue, when I was working in an office, I thought that it was incumbent on me to shower and shave every morning, which I did from Monday to Friday. Even then, I never went overboard and used soap and shampoo in moderation only, none of your bath gel, conditioners or any other exotica for me.
Afterwards a quick shave with a spurt of cream and that was it, no after-shave and maybe a quick roll-on of deodorant, if my fellow train travellers were lucky. I could never see the point of arriving at the office smelling like a pox-doctors clerk. After all you were supposed to be there to do something productive, not reproductive.
I can’t really say that I was much better when I went out at the weekend, on the hunt. Let’s be honest here, if nature had meant us to attract members (I use the word guardedly) of the opposite sex, she wouldn’t have invented pheromones and instead our sebaceous glands would be secreting Chanel or L’homme.
If somebody could distill Eau de Pheromone, you could throw a bucketful over your head and you’d be fighting off nubile young maidens at the local disco with a three foot piece of four-be-two. You’d probably stink like a rancid buffalo, but I don’t reckon you’d be too worried about it.
So, the point of this so far is, don’t go overboard with the showering, you’re not doing yourself any favours by destroying your natural secretions which keep your skin healthy and acne free and you’re not doing yourself any good by smelling like a sugar plum fairy (unless of course, you’re that way inclined).
With ‘real workers’ i.e. blokes who work up a bit of a sweat doing physical work, there isn’t a lot of point in showering before you go to work and then sweating your mattocks off as soon as you get there, so they generally shower at work or as soon as they get home.
Unless of course, the missus is turned on by the pheromones and then they might be dragged into the boudoir, but I won’t go down that path either. (I’m beginning to think, that I’m a bit of a prude!).
So there you have it, go easy on the showers, although I must admit that when I was in the Philippines, the in-laws were providing me with a case of beer every morning and it was so hot and humid that I was walking around like a mobile Trevi Fountain.
The locals were very concerned by this phenomena and thought I was melting, (or maybe they were throwing coins at me for some other reason). In those circumstances I was showering five or six times a day, no soap mind you and collecting the coins out of my ‘Y-Fronts’.
Finally, cleaning the old gnashers, I can’t start the day without that, even though I gave up the coffin sticks thirty years odd years ago and stopped over indulging in the grog five years ago. My gob still feels like the bottom of a bird-cage in the morning and the second thing I do is reach for the Macleans. I leave the first thing to your lurid imaginations.
Cheers for now,
Skull.
Published Date:
06/10/2008
Modified Date:
06/10/2008
Cooking
Cooking.
The Good Lady Wife (GLW) is away for a couple of days attending her friend’s wedding in Adelaide, she’s taken my daughter with her, so that just leaves me and the son to look after the Chateau and ourselves.
She’s a tad worried about this, because she thinks we’re both incompetent, in my son’s case she is quite correct. However, I’m a completely different kettle of fish. I looked after myself for the twenty years between leaving my Dear Old Mum and meeting the GLW.
Actually, my Mum taught me how to cook, to be honest she wasn’t the greatest chef in the world, but she knew what my Dad liked to eat and I grew up to love her meals. I had two sisters, one two years older and the other two years younger, but neither of them were particularly interested in comestibles, which left me.
This may have worried my Dad, as he probably thought I was a bit of a ‘fetlock’, the nearest thing to a horse’s hoof’, but he needn’t have worried on that score and my culinary skills have served me well in later life.
Not only am I well skilled with the skillet and the pot, I am also a very clean cook, not for me the throwing around of peelings and spilling ingredients hither and yon. After I left home at the tender age of eighteen, I could only ever afford 1 pot, frying-pan, plate, mug, spoon, knife and fork and a potato-peeler, of course. This necessitated keeping them all clean for future usage.
To get to the present, I’m currently cooking up beef mince, with onions, oxo-cubes, salt and pepper (which my Mum would have approved of), but I have also added Soy, Sweet Chilli and Tomato sauces and a half-spoon of MSG, which would have my Dear Mum turning in her grave.
I have also got the spuds peeled and ready for boiling, but I haven’t yet decided whether it’s going to be a Shepherd’s Pie with a cheesy crust, or ‘Tatties and mince’ a la Scots, or just throw some peas in and make it Mash and Mince. I could even toast some bread and have mince on toast. I might even cook up some rice and tell the ingrate that it’s ‘Beef Chop Mein Chow Suey’. Damn! I forgot the cabbage and the bean shoots, maybe next time.
Cheers for now,
Skull.
Published Date:
27/09/2008
Modified Date:
27/09/2008
Hitch-hiking in the UK in the '60's
HITCH HIKING
I’ve been doing it since the age of about fourteen, in the early days I had to walk everywhere and if I heard a car coming up behind me, more in hope than anything else, I would stick out my thumb. This very rarely had any result, but it didn’t take any effort to try. I was usually doing this between New Mills and my not so local, ‘Local Boozer’ in Whaley Bridge, ‘The Shady Oak’ which was about three miles away.
About a mile of that was along the Peak Forest Canal and there wasn’t a lot of point in thumbing along there, as there were very few boats or barges and they wouldn’t have picked me up anyway. In those days there was still the occasional horse-drawn barge, but I could walk quicker than the old nags anyway. Returning back from the pub was a bit hazardous, but I only got my feet wet a couple of times.
When I went to University, it became a much more serious affair; I had to get from New Mills to Cardiff, about 250 miles away, definitely not walking distance. Back in those days, if you were wearing a duffel coat and Uni scarf and carrying a sign saying Cardiff in bold letters. It was fairly easy to get lifts, often with truck drivers, going long distances and wanting someone to talk to.
Nearly everybody who picked you up was friendly and appreciated a listener, even more than a talker. I became quite adept at carrying on conversations with people from all walks of life, or just sitting there listening to their trials and tribulations, with the occasional grunt of acknowledgement.
It also paid to know where the hell you were going and choosing the right place to hop out. A couple of times I got stranded just north of ‘Spaghetti Junction’ (a motorway interchange in the Midlands of the UK and a hitchers nightmare). I assume that it’s still there to this day and should be treated with respect by any prospective hitch-hikers reading this. Not that there are likely to be any of those.
One time in the late sixties, me and my mate Tutty drove down to Cornwall in his clapped out pick-up truck. We were both long-haired ‘Weekend Hippies’ and after a couple of days I was succeeding with the ladies (for a change) with my headband, cowbell and muslin shirt and he wasn’t. He spat the dummy and left me there and drove home.
After another couple of days, I was penniless and my new found friends didn’t want to know me anymore. I didn’t really have much of a choice so I started to hitch home. Cornwall and Devon are not the best places to get a lift in the middle of the holiday season and things were looking grim. The traffic was bumper to bumper, but nobody was in any mood to stop
After about four hours a family with a load of kids in the back drove past shouting abuse about “Bleeding Hippies” and the kids pelted me with half-eaten cheese sandwiches. This was a bit of a godsend as I hadn’t eaten for nearly two days, so I picked them up and ate around the bite marks, (I have my pride!!).
I eventually got picked up by an old couple and when they found out I was starving, they gave me a couple of apricots. I’ve never been particularly fond of the furry little rascals and they are not the best source of nourishment on an empty stomach, but they meant well.
They dropped me off at a turnoff, just as it was turning dark so I decided to spread my sleeping bag on a pile of gravel at the side of the road. I dug a bit of a depression in it and thought it looked fairly comfortable. Appearances can be deceptive however. After a while, I gave up trying to sleep and sat at the side of the road, after a couple of hours a bikie came along on a Harley and offered me a lift.
He drove for a couple of hours and dropped me off somewhere south of Bristol and after that it was apiece of the proverbial to get back home. I found out later that Tutty’s truck had broken down on the way back and he’d had to hitch with a bloody great tarp on his back full of our worldly possessions.
That little experience didn’t put me off hitching, because I still had a couple of years of getting to and from Cardiff but it did teach me a couple of lessons. 1) Don’t try hitching in SW England during school holidays. 2) Always have a few bob in your pocket and 3) Carry a couple of Mars Bars and packets of Smoky Bacon Chips and a hip flask of something strong or at the very least a six-pack of whatever takes your fancy.
To be continued.
Cheers for now,
Skull.
Published Date:
23/09/2008
Modified Date:
23/09/2008
Driving, a drinkers perspective.
Driving
You obviously don’t need an IQ above about 60 or any other attributes, either physical or mental, to drive around in any sort of two, four or even 46 wheeled vehicle, powered by the internal (infernal?) combustion engine. It only takes about ten minutes on any road in any country in the world before this becomes blindingly obvious.
Personally, I have never owned a licence to kill and have always stuck to the ‘joys’ of public transport or preferably ‘Shank’s Pony’ or the bicycle to get me from point a) to point b). This is not due to any particular desire on my part, to do my fair share of keeping the earth ‘green’ and free of noxious fumes.
It’s more due to the fact that me and the infernal combustion engine seem to be incompatible. This not only applies to vehicles, but also lawn-mowers, whipper-snippers (brush-cutters), chain-saws and any other thing that uses petroleum/crude oil derivatives. They are all in a conspiracy to kill me.
I learned this at a fairly early age, when I was about 15 I bought a motorbike from a ‘friend’. The first time I took it out by myself, I’d been shown how to start it and that was about it. I drove around in a circular route around my council estate, but I had no idea how to change gears or stop the bloody thing.
I ended up going round and round at different speeds, until a couple of hours later I ran out of petrol. I then pushed it home and later sold it for half of what I’d paid for it. Not to be beaten by this, a few months later I bought a moped from a different friend, who rode it round to my place.
This was more like it, I mistakenly thought, a motorised bicycle you beauty! I rode it around the same circle outside my house and after two circuits, it coughed and stopped and I was never able to start it again. So I sold it for next to nothing, which was marginally less than I paid for it.
After that I decided to stick with my trusty bike, at least I knew how to start it and change gears and stop it, where and when I wanted to. This happy state of affairs lasted until I was about 18. Walking, cycling, delivering papers, picking up fish and chips for a Friday supper on my bike, mowing the lawn with a hand mower, clipping the hedge with a pair of shears, idyllic!
To this day my Dad doesn’t drive and my Mum never did, both of my sisters learned how to, but never having driven with either of them, I shall leave it at that.
The first accident I was involved in was with a friend of mine, we had driven from New Mills to Carlisle to watch Man. City play and had almost arrived home. As we were going through Disley a woman reversed out in front of us from a driveway and my mate slammed on the anchors, the road was icy and we did a 360 degree turn and stopped within inches of her. The silly old bat panicked and and accelerated back into us.
A few years later, driving from Aberystwyth with a girlfriend of mine, my mate (a different one) managed to put us into a ditch and narrowly missed driving into a river. Alcohol could possibly have been involved.
In the same year, driving back from my local pub another mate (not a local) misjudged the treachery of a leaf strewn, wet, icy, winding road and we smashed head on into an oncoming car. He was hospitalised for four months with a ruptured spleen and I was lucky, only getting a broken arm and a few cuts. Alcohol was definitely involved with both drivers.
After that, when I had returned to England, I was involved in a smash with the mate that had driven into the ditch, returning from a disco we hit a patch of black ice and skidded at speed into a crash barrier, he was badly hurt but I only had scratches and bruises. We were both pissed.
In South Africa, I was also involved in a few accidents, the first was when a girlfriend was driving through an African ‘Township’, a little girl of about six ran out into the road. My friend hit the brakes but we still hit the girl, she went over the bonnet, over the roof and ended up on the road at the back. I remember the ice cream she was carrying hitting the windscreen right in front of me.
Luckily, we hadn’t been speeding and it was a VW Beetle, which was the main reason we hadn’t ‘collected’ her, she was shaken but all right. When I got out of the car, I was surrounded by angry natives who would probably have lynched me if she’d been killed. My friend was shaking like a leaf and could scarcely drive us out of there. No alcohol.
Another time, me and ‘Wee Jock’ were driving in his pickup truck over Kloof Nek, the pass between Table Mountain and Lion’s Head, a tortuous road that ends in a sharp right turn, if you miss the turn you hurtle over a cliff into Table Bay. We’d gone about a third of the way down and were picking up speed. Jock said “Damn, the brakes have gone”, I thought he was joking but he wasn’t.
We were still picking up speed and then came to a turn on the left, so Jock took it almost on two wheels and we smashed straight up the back of a parked ‘late model’ Mercedes. Neither of us was hurt and the insurance paid for the Merc, but not the truck, which was a lot better than feeding the fishies and sharks in Table Bay. No alcohol.
My last accident in South Africa was when me, Chalkie and Steve were taking Steve’s car back to Rhodesia to sell it, this was a good excuse for a holiday. We were driving down a dead straight road through the Karoo, when a truck we were following, suddenly decided to turn right. We were going at a fair clip and the truck stopped at this crossroad in the middle of nowhere.
Steve had a choice of going up the back of him, hitting a metal post marking the crossroad or flipping into a roadside ditch. Chalkie was screaming “We’ll all be killed” and I was frozen stupid, Steve did a magic bit of driving and we chicaned between the truck and the post, just scraping the truck.
We stopped just past the crossroads and went to check the skid-marks, on the way back to the car Chalkie kicked the ‘Metal’ post and it bent, it turned out be made of plastic. In the meantime the African truck driver had disappeared into the distance without a backward glance, thus confirming Steve’s racist, Rhodesian opinions and who could blame him? He’d just lost a few hundred Rand on the resale value of his car. No alcohol involved.
Nothing much else happened after that, until the second time I went up to the mines in the North West of Australia. I had just been convinced to get my learners permit and get a full driving licence, all you had to do up there, was drive a vehicle to the local cop shop, drive around a few dirt roads and drop the cop off back where you’d picked him up. No problems about reverse parking or rubbish like that, piece of the proverbial.
After a couple of months I was sitting having a Black Duck or ten, when my mate Andy came into the club and said “Skull! You need a hobby”. To which I wittily riposted “I’ve already got a hobby, drinking!” Anyway, the swine talked me into going with him to the motocross circuit that the workers had built in the middle of the scrub. This was a place where they could show off their motor bike riding skills
.
It’s a well-known fact, (or maybe I just made it up two seconds ago) that males deprived of female company have to exert their machismo in a number of ways. Two of these are shooting small furry animals and catching stupid, aquatic beasts. Other ways are to purchase loud, noisy, vehicular forms of transport, four-wheel drives, boats, and motorcycles.
There are also other things like acquiring overly large TV’s, stereos and VCR’s. But to get back to the main point of this aside, Motorcycles! Andy drove down to the track on his 250cc track bike and then went back to pick up his putt-putt step through Honda 50.
I mounted this fiery beast (the Honda) and he gave me a quick run through of how to brake, accelerate and change gears and then sent me on my merry way. I rode around the track in a clockwise direction, at a speed of about 20mph, a couple of times and then stopped and told him it was bloody boring and it would be a good idea to go back to the club. He suggested that I go around in the other direction a fair bit faster.
Just to get it over with, I turned the beast around and started off and accelerated to at least 30mph and came to the first bend. I ran off the track and was heading for a ditch, instead of braking, I mistakenly accelerated and parted company with the Honda 50. Heading in the general direction of the treetops, I landed with a horrible crunch on my right shoulder and head. I managed to stand up, but discovered that my right arm didn’t seem to be operating as it should.
The poxy engine on the bike was still running, so I gave it a few hefty kicks, Andy came running up to see if I was all right. He didn’t seem to appreciate me kicking the crap out of his bike and checked it out first to see if it was damaged. He then turned his attention to me and when I told him I’d broken my arm he asked me if I could move my fingers. When I replied in the affirmative, he told me it couldn’t possibly be broken. I told him that he was a very silly count and should get me to the sick bay.
After an excruciating trip on the back of his bike he got me to the sick bay, where the ‘nurse’ examined me. I have no idea where he got this title but it certainly wasn’t from the Royal Flying Doctors. He prescribed two salt pills and an aspirin (his prescription for everything from syphilis to dengue fever) took a large slug of brandy himself and told me to transport myself to the hospital in Port Hedland.
I talked Lofty a mate of mine (who was about 5ft 5in, as opposed to Lofty the foreman who was 6ft 15ins, this was Australia after all) who drove me the 72 miles to the hospital. That is how I know the exact distance from Goldsworthy to Port Hedland, it hurt. At the hospital I was X-rayed and a very nice, efficient Aboriginal nurse confirmed that my arm was indeed broken. There was one small problem though, it was bust right up at the top, where the arm joins the shoulder and they couldn’t put a plaster cast on it.
The best she could do was stick a cotton wool pad in my armpit and bind it tightly in bandages to my torso and put it in a sling. At least she gave me a painkiller that was a bit stronger than an aspirin. Lofty and I left and the return journey was a lot more comfortable than the original. When we got back to the mine we went to the club and everybody had a good old laugh at my expense. But at least they kept buying me beers, hoping that I’d fall over on the other arm. Good guys those miners, great comedians.
The next day I had to go for a shower but couldn’t quite manage it. So I left the dressing on and didn’t bother. The second day was the same, by this time the stench from the pad in my armpit was becoming offensive, to say the least. People were giving me a very wide berth and the ones with more sensitive olfactory senses were blanching and running off.
On the third day I made Andy come with me to the shower after blaming him for the whole bloody mess. He agreed to take off the bandage but nothing could compel him to touch the cotton pad or soap my testicicles, like a true friend would have done. So I put the sling back on and threw the pad away and had a shower like that. It worked reasonably well and I left the bandage and pad off after that.
The company said that they would fly me back to Perth if I wanted, or I could stay if I could perform a reasonable job in the pay office. I decided to stay on and David had to work twice as hard to cover for me. Rosie, one of the time clerks was especially sympathetic and helped out a lot. After about three weeks and with a lot of exercise, bending the elbow in the club, my arm was just about back to normal.
I think it was around that time that I decided that me and the ‘infernal combustion engine’ were incompatible and nothing has changed in the intervening three decades to make me change my mind.
Cheers for now,
Skull.
Published Date:
21/09/2008
Modified Date:
21/09/2008
Arboreal Problems & Flat Dwellers
Neighbours and Trees
This has absolutely nothing to do with the TV Soap Opera that brought you Kylie Minogue and is apparently watched by millions of British viewers everyday. Although, it is set in a street in Melbourne and I have lived here on and off for most of the last 35 years, I must admit that I don’t know which suburb it is supposedly set in. In fact I have never watched a single episode or even a few fleeting moments.
In years gone by, my Mum used to watch ‘Coronation Street’ regularly and I caught my Dad watching it on occasions and I can still remember Ena Sharples and her fellow hags Minnie and Martha drinking glasses of Milk Stout in the Snug in the Rover’s Return along with Albert Tatlock and Ken Barlow.
I put this down to the fact that the TV was a recent addition to the household and I could be found in moments of idleness, staring transfixed at ‘The test pattern’ and even the little white dot when that had disappeared.
These days I don’t watch it at all, at the last count we had about five of them, with various attachments such as VCR’s and CD players and games type things. They are now so complicated that I never even attempt to turn four of them on.
The fifth one is in my shed a little itty bitty one, that sits next to my printer and doesn’t even have a remote. I bought it from a place like that one in ‘Steptoe and Son’ (Now, that was a good programme) for about fifteen quid and the only time it ever gets turned on is for Test Matches and the recent Olympics.
So, having said that this is nothing to do with TV programmes, I’ve spent the last twenty minutes rambling on about them. This is actually about ‘Neighbours’, the people who live next to you.
When we moved into ‘Chateau Skull’ fourteen years ago after buying it on the spur of the moment. It was an ‘impulse buy’, so impulsive that I only had fifteen dollars in my wallet when I put in the winning bid at the auction.
I was a little taken aback when the auctioneer asked me for a deposit. He was, however, a very trusting person and arranged for me to get the money on the Monday, that being a Saturday.
I suppose that I should have noticed at the time, that the Chateau was situated next to a two storey block of twenty four flats. However, caught up in the euphoria of the moment and overwhelmed by my own audacity, I think at the time I was the only bidder and bidded myself up another couple of thou.
When we bought the place there were quite a few trees around the place which hid us from the neighbours. There was an old oak tree and another type of English style deciduous tree in the front and a Peach, Plum, Apple, Fig and a Lemon tree in the back with some assorted Australian Evergreens scattered along the border.
At first we had a few problems with the neighbours, because some of the flats were government owned and let out to an assortment of what can best be described as misfits and loonies. Eventually though, the government decided to sell them off to private owners, who mainly bought them for their own use or as investment properties.
For a few years everything went swimmingly, the trees grew taller blocking out the flats completely from our view, the neighbours were happy picking the overgrowing fruit and having greenery to look out on. We were happy with the fruit and the privacy to sunbathe in the warmer months and dine al fresco.
Then along came the dreaded ‘Global Warming’, which has resulted in a drought lasting for over a decade, this area is mainly clay and basalt rock and the drying out has resulted in the buildings foundations moving. The flats next door were built on shonky foundations and had inadequate drainage in my humble opinion.
This has resulted in large cracks, so large in fact that herds of Wildebeest could charge through, if they so desired. Luckily for the flat dwellers, such herds do not exist in Albion.
Armed with an engineers report, representatives of the body-corporate arrived, stating that the cracks in the flats were caused by the roots of the trees sucking up all the moisture and demanding their removal. I considered fighting this, but it would have cost thousands, getting alternative reports and court costs etc.
So we decided to allow their removal, provided they paid for it and replaced the trees with others with less intrusive roots.
Looking on the bright side of things, some of the trees were forty foot weeds, the figs, pomegranates and lemons were inedible, the apples weren’t much better and I was sick of plum jam. The leaves were blocking the gutters and we have got a new landscaped garden with Acacias, Japanese Maples, Magnolias and other such exotica and I’m too old to worry about getting a suntan anyway.
Not to mention the fact that I’ve been getting fit working my mattocks off weeding and barrowing cubic metres of mulch.
Cheers,
Skull
Published Date:
15/09/2008
Modified Date:
15/09/2008
The Olympics Continued
OLYMPICS CONTINUED
Over here in the Antipodes, I’ve lived for more than 37 years of my 59 years on this mortal coil, but I’m still considered to be a ‘Whingeing Pommy Bar-Steward’ that last bit was because, if I put the ‘for real word’ down it will be rejected by the ‘Fat Controller’.
This basically means that I am considered to be a bit of an outsider, I’m neither an Aussie or really a ‘Pom’, so I have the best, or worst of both worlds, I choose to think the best. With the Olympics, I am glad to see that the UK is now represented by all four countries. I don’t know what the Mick’s, Taff’s and Pict’s think about it, but I’m all for it. I reckon it’s a great idea.
My adopted country, for some reason seems to think that Australia and the UK have to compete, especially when it comes down to sports. I have to say here that I don’t know many Poms here in Melbourne. We appear to be very few on the ground. Perhaps, I’m mixing with the wrong crowd.
When I ‘worked’ in the Tax Office, I often thought that I was the ‘Token Pom’, taken on just to prove that there was no discrimination. There again most Poms wouldn’t be seen dead working in a Tax Office anywhere. Me included, which is why I spent most of my time there in a semi-comatose posture, I fitted in well.
To get back to the Olympics in particular and sport in general, the Skips love to beat the Kiwis (and vice versa) and the South Africans, but there is nothing they like better than sticking it up the Poms. I guess this has it’s roots in history. You did after all send all your thieving ratbags over here, when the rotting prison hulks were sinking into the Thames, so what do you expect? Gratitude?
To make up for this, they love to point out that they got the better part of the deal, golden beaches, hot summers and cold beer and why not throw another prawn on the barbie? To be honest here, I’ve never actually seen anybody throw, or even carefully place a prawn on a barbie and even if they did I wouldn’t eat it, I don’t like the little dung-eating critters.
Back to the Olympics once more, now Beijing is over and done with, we are looking at the 2012 games in London. This has caused a little concern over here in the Antipodes and the bad press has started already, below is a ‘tongue in cheek?’ review from my most un-favourite newspaper.
CAN BRITS LIFT IN TIME?
“So you thought Beijing was going to be bad, we worried about the smog, the police, the food. Every concern under the sun was aired and most of it turned out to be without foundation.
But now a secret dossier has been uncovered, which reveals the threats that London will pose in 2012 to the health and wellbeing of the crowds likely to descend on the City.
FOOD
You can get every cuisine under the sun in London, each with one universal quality - it has no quality.
From Thai to Indian, Chinese to Pub Grub, it won’t make you ill as such, just sad.
TAXIS
Not one taxi driver in Beijing speaks any English, and after a week in London you’ll dream of those halcyon days as yet another cabbie tells you why national service should be reintroduced, it’s never been the same since Mrs Thatcher left and hanging’s too good for them. Almost enough to make you take the Tube. Almost.
THE AIR
The air of despondency that is. Beijing’s army of volunteers, all happy to help and pleased to see you, will be supplanted by a city of people who won’t give you the time of day as they wallow in their own misery.
INFRASTRUCTURE
It took a totalitarian Government with absolute control to to impose on Beijing the necessary building works and venue construction.
By contrast, as if London’s planning laws were not bureaucratic enough, the mayor whose dream it was to host the Olympics and regenerate East London has just been replaced by a bumbling toff, whose pre-occupation is cracking jokes and riding his bike.
BEER
Not just served warm but also fermenting and guaranteed to be alive and kicking inside you the following day.
English “real ale” is barrel conditioned; ie, it’s an ongoing process, so you’ll never be sure of the quality of what you’re drinking until the first mouthful.”
So there you have it my Pommy friends, a preview of the games in four years time. I presume most of you are from Manchester and will probably agree with some of that, although I doubt it.
Cheers,
Skull.
Published Date:
31/08/2008
Modified Date:
31/08/2008
My Olympic Games
The Olympic Games
Well it’s all over now and I’m a bit sorry to see it end, I became a bit of an enthusiast for synchronised diving and weight-lifting and although I’m no expert, I would have given all the divers perfect scores and wanted all the lifters to get those weights from off their chests, to over their heads without falling over backwards.
I have to say that some of the divers and most of the gymnasts were a tad too young for my liking, the females that is, all the males were, too male, I suppose for me, thus proving that my sexual proclivities are normalish.
I did fall in love with the whole of the Netherlands Womens Hockey Team and not a few Beach Volley-Ballers, and Track and Fielders. The swimmers left me a bit cold, but the female water-poloists all looked very cute in their funny little helmets.
Having said all that, I began to wonder what they were all getting up to after they’d finished competing. Let’s face it you’ve got 3,000+ of the world’s fittest young men and women confined together for about three weeks there must have been a fair bit of the old ‘how’s yer father’ going on behind the ‘Birdcage’.
I read recently, that an American base in Antarctica had just received a consignment of 16,000 condoms and there are only about 150 of them wintering over there. Is freezing cold an aphrodisiac or what? Stap my vitals! we’ll all be trying to get into the cool rooms at the local bottle shops!
To get your minds back up out of the gutter, I’ll get back to The Olympics, as far as I can make out the final tally of gold medals had the Chinese well in front of the USA with 51 to 36, although the Yankee Doodles beat the Chinks 110 to 100 on total medals. Giving them both bragging rights although I reckon the ‘septic tanks’ were a trifle off-pissed.
After that came Russia, Great Britain, Germany and Australia. This would no doubt have had Vlad ‘The Impaler’ Putin spewing in his borscht, but he had lost quite a few ‘Stans’ and other assorted territories. It probably didn’t particularly impress Angela either, now that the two Germanies are unified (and presumably drug free).
Living in Australia however, the locals are spitting chips that ‘The Pommy Bastards’ got more than they did, 19 to 14 ‘Golds’ and 47 to 46 medals overall. Never mind the others, what are those shitheads doing better than us for the first time in twenty years, it’s an affront to our sporting traditions “We always beat the bloody Poms”.
To overcome this perceived anomaly one of the local papers, the equivalent of ‘The Sun’ without the page 3 girls, came out with the following report.
“Australia is belting the UK, US, Russia and China despite what the Olympic medal tally says.
Body for body, the Aussies have outpunched every superpower in the world.
Every other nation in the tally top ten has at least double our population and China is 70 times bigger.
Only the weight of numbers has put us behind them.
When the numbers were adjusted to make the games a fair fight for everyone, we also had a a moral victory over the smug UK.”
There was a table showing that Jamaica was #1, Slovenia #2, NZ #3 and Australia #4. Where did the UK finish? Well, if you really want to know, at #20, with the US at #42 and China at #61. For what it is worth, India finished last with one gold for a population of one billion.
Don’t blame me for that, I’m just showing what has been reported in the local press, but it does get better so you’ll have to read my next posting.
Cheers,
Skull.
Published Date:
26/08/2008
Modified Date:
26/08/2008