Zoo's are great

Well I'm back from the barren spell of not posting. This was entirely due to having 12 days off work and spending loads of time having fun. This included going to the zoo with my wife - and several hundred other people.

So, the zoo was great. It's a lovely place with no real commercial feel to it and is surrounded by countryside so you feel at one with nature. And elephant poo.

There are a couple of things I really like about zoos. Firstly, the way 'wild' animals are allowed to become ever-so-slightly domesticated. For example, the gorillas have TV's in their enclosures; the orangutans have old cardigans and sheets and the chimps have plastic bins and Ribena bottles. Wouldn't it be great to see a group of mountain gorillas watching an episode of 'Strictly Come Dancing' in the middle of an east-central African rainforest?

The second thing I like is the large open enclosures that are filled with tree stumps, huge mounds of earth, vines, burrows and exotic vegetation, but not one sodding animal. The poor punters gawp for hours in the vain hope of actually seeing an albino hunting-shrew or a nine-footed sloth but to no avail. Just shrubs and dirt.

However, the best bit about our visit was the bonkers-mental monkeys and gibbons who, at regular intervals would go completely bananas (see what I did there?) and start whooping, screaming and "ooh-ooh aah-ing" like furry psychopaths. It was really funny and they seemed to be goading each other in to making more and more extreme noises. Sort of primates with ASBO's.

Oooh, they're little monkeys the lot of them.

Nothing ...

... to say.

Busy holiday

Well I'm on holiday. My wife is too, so that's good. We've got plenty of stuff lined up for the next week or so and, as we're not actually going away on holiday, I'm glad we've got things to do.

It starts tonight with some friends coming over. Then we've got a big family do on Sat, my wife goes 'up North' for a Hen night on Sun and next week we've got meals out, friends to go and see, movies to catch, a wedding to attend and some other stuff which I've forgotten because I've got a memory like a ... a ... er ...

Well anyway, I'm sure there will be plenty of stuff to write about over the forthcoming days. Oh yeah, I watched 'Dog Soldiers' today. It's a cracking little British horror film by the same guy who wrote and directed 'The Descent'. Lots of werewolves and British swearing. Always a winning mix I reckon.

Well, have to dash - our chums will be here any minute and I've got to do my hair. Hold on, I don't really have any hair. Never mind, I'll just fluff up what few tufts I have left and see how it looks. You have to make an effort you know.

Now where are my curlers?

Burger update

Thanks to the correspondent who emailed me (bornthendie@mac.com) to tell me of his rather less than enjoyable experience of a Wimpy meal. Now, for fear of legal action, I will not provide details of the 'alleged' gastronomic disaster. Suffice to say, the phrase 'dripping fat' was used along with several heartfelt expletives.

On the bright side, Wimpy apparently do offer a veggie menu, although my correspondent did not partake of the 'healthy' option due to his carniverous commitments. In summing up his experience of the esteemed restaurant he cannot, unfortunately, bring himself to recommend the food, or indeed, the experience as a whole. It appears that 0/10 is the score on that one. Obviously, his comments are purely subjective and in no way represent the opinions of YBATYD.

Mind you, it did sound completely rank.

Well burger me

A converstaion arose at work today which got us all thinking. Now everyone's heard of McDonalds and Burger King. These meaty, global behemoths are known the world over and have all but monopolised the 'beef in a bun market'. Almost.

Step forward Wimpy! We couldn't believe that this company is still going. We remembered Wimpy from our childhoods when it was the quintessentially British version of the Amercian 'diner' experience. It was all table service, napkins and yes, knives and forks. So quaint and so NOT fast food as we know now it.

And yet, Wimpy survives. A look at their website informs you that they currently have over 250 franchised restaurants in the UK. Two hundred and fifty! It's truly amazing, yet still rather quaint and sweet. Now I'd love to try and recreate that 70's experience by sampling a Wimpy again. However, I don't know if they do any veggie stuff (yes, I'm one of those) although deep down, I sort of hope they don't cater for the modern market. It wouldn't be right somehow. So if anyone has had a Wimpy in the last 9 years, please do let me know.

You'll be eating for Britain you know.

My wife is great

I realised yesterday, that my wife is even more fabulous than I originally suspected. This is good news as I already thought she was rather top-notch and a unique and wonderful person. So imagine my joy when I heard her utter the following two statements:

1. "I'm going to buy a portable DVD player".
2. "I really want to see more football this season".

This was not a dream. It really happened. For a lady/woman/female to actually choose to buy a non-essential, electronic gadget is almost unheard of. For the same lady/woman/female to then add that she wants to see more footie is a miracle on a biblical scale.

For these reasons, I now know for certain that my wife is truly great. Obviously, she's great for a myriad of other reasons, but none are quite as impressive as these two. I am indeed a very lucky man.

I hope she thinks she's a lucky woman.

Wahey! 94!

It's the little things in life that make you smile. And so I'm sure you, dear reader, will join in with my excitement. I've just read my blog figures for the week and discovered that the 'You're Born And Then You Die' pages were visited 94 times last week. Admittedly, the BBC website probably receives 94 hits a second, but hey, I'm happy.

Obviously, my aim is now to top a 100. Then 1000 ... 1,000,000 and finally - the world!! Ha ha ha!

Sorry about that. It's my age. Anyway, please do tell your chums, lovers, neighbours, Euro MP's or even your relatives to pop by and have a gander at YBATYD. Honestly, there's one posting I did which was really very funny.

Well I laughed ...

Sssh! Football

As I've said before, I promise not to mention footie too much on this 'ere blog. However, since my team (Birmingham City - 'the Blues') got relegated from the Premier League last season I've said nothing. So here's a tiny update, although I guarantee that no-one, other than me, is interested.

Anyway, last season we were playing teams such as Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and er ... Charlton. This season we get to play teams like Barnsley, Plymouth, Southend and er ... Hull. Despite the slightly less-than glamorous nature of the fixtures in the 'Championship' there is a definite positive. We've won two and drawn one in our first three games. Actually, we should have won today against Stoke City (see photo) but we managed to miss a penalty. We're really quite good at missing penalties. And getting players injured - but I'll tell you all about that another time.

So for now at least the Blues are doing fine and sitting pretty in fourth place. Will we manage to keep up our good start? Will we sign even more players before the transfer window closes? Will we see the mighty Blues returning to the Premiership where they belong? Will the hearts of every Birmingham City fan be bursting with pride as the tears of joy and undying loyalty for their team pour forth in an explosion of pure love ?

No. But we might finish 11th. Or 12th

Last orders

At last the weekend approaches and what better way to enjoy not being at work than partaking in a bit of classy, international cuisine?

Well we're going to see some friends tonight and we're having a Thai takeaway. Now there's actually a rather interesting fact here. The place where we'll be getting the food from is a fully-fledged Thai restaurant that used to be a really old pub. I think it's a bit of a weird transition - from aged spit 'n' sawdust public house to a modern, oriental dining palace.

I wonder if they've managed to retain that quintessentially British, oh so special aroma that's only found in the gents bogs?

That should blend in well with the Thai Green Curry.

Terrorism

"Sigh..."

Pigeonhole

Here's a new meaning for the word 'pigeonhole'. Yesterday, a pigeon smashed into a window where I work. Nothing special about that you may think but wait - the pigeon actually smashed the first pane of double-glazed glass with his head! The second pane managed to stop him dead. However, he pulled his head out through the hole in the first pane and managed to fly away. He must have been well-hard.

Admittedly, he was fantastically concussed but he survived the ordeal. And the best bit? There's now a hole in the glass which is exactly the same size as a pigeon's head! I think that's just brilliant. I'll get an actual photo as soon as I can.

Now that's what I call a pigeon-hole.

Speling And gramer

I have a pet hate that eclipses all of my other pet hates. Spelling and grammar. Now I don't want to sound like a miserable old sod or an extreme pedant, but the way some people write these days is abysmal.

If any of you reading this are offended by what I'm about to say then it probably means that you are guilty of butchering the English language and should be flogged to death. Or maybe just told off a bit.

Here are my top six gripes:

1. Alot / alot. There's no such bloody word! It's 'a lot' - two words.
2. Capital letters in Wrong places for no Reason. Aaaaarrrggghh!
3. Their and there. 'We went over there' / 'It was their idea' Two different meanings!
4. American spellings such as 'humor' and 'color'. We are not a US state. Yet.
5. Punctuation. For God's sake use some punctuation in your sentences especially if it's a really long sentence because if you don't it will make people die due to lack of oxygen in their lungs now that can't be a good thing can it
6. Grammar. It is mostly more essential if you are a writer of accurate sentences than if they are incomprehensible. Grammar are very important.

And remember, using a spell-checker does not mean A) the grammar is correct or B) you've actually used the correct word in the first place. OK? Right, I've got that all off my chest now. I feel alot calmer.

Nooooooooo!

Mama mia, it's murder!

I'd never done a murder mystery until last Friday and thought they always sounded a bit rubbish. Well how wrong I was. Oh yes. The whole idea was that we were in Little Italy, New York in 1995. Pepi Roni (Pepperoni, geddit?) had been killed and we were all gathered at the family restuarant to discover 'whodunnit'.

The thing is, you have to stay in character all the time. As you can see from the photo, I made an extremely convicing Italian gangster (Rocco Scarfazzi) along with my 'fiancee' - Tara Misu (genius, that one). The rest of the 'cast' were Mama Rosa, Angel, Marco Roni (they get worse) and the lone Frenchman - Bo Jolais (dear God).

The evening consisted of listening to a tape (it's a very old murder mystery game), reading your characters' speeches and acting your nuts off whilst attempting a convincing accent. The accents were, mostly, appalling. The most fantastically abysmal of these was delivered by my father-in-law who was playing Marco. His accent lurched from one bizarre vocal extreme to another as he butchered the Italian accent, then the New York accent and finally a mish-mash of Welsh and Pakistani. A triumph of enthusiasm over ability.

As it was an Italian theme, we had lasagne, Italian wine and Tiramisu. As the alcohol flowed, the accents became worse and the whole thing descended into a boozy chaos. Finally we discovered (after all accusing each other with varying levels of aggression) that Bo Jolais was the murderer. None of us actually guessed it was him as we'd been so overwhelmed with information, mis-information, wine, poor acting and gargantuan amounts of lasagne that our feeble brains were on the verge of a meltdown. Brilliant.

So, Bo 'dunnit' and we all had a cracking night. I looked the part with my suit, hat, fake cigar and obligatory violin case and loved every minute. In fact I never realised that cold-blooded murder could be such a laugh.

I guess you really are 'born and then you die'. Capiche?

Proud to be .. er .. British?

If you live in France, you're French. I've you live in Nigeria, you're Nigerian. If you live in Chile, you're Chilean. You get the idea. However, if you live in Britain, you're British but also English or Welsh or Scottish or (Northern) Irish. Hmmmm.

If you ask where I live, I can say England or the United Kingdom or Great Britain. Mind you, although these isles are often referred to as either the United Kingdom (UK) or Great Britain (GB), the official title is 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'. Hope you're still with me. It's a country and a sovereign state . Marvelous.

So the 'UK' is a 'political union' made up of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (but not the southern part - Eire). This means that I am both English and British. I think. My passport describes me as British even though my place of birth is listed as England. Wow, I seem to have dual nationality. Er .. possibly?

When I am asked my nationality, I say "British" but if I'm asked where I'm from, I say "England". I don't actually know what the difference is or, indeed, if there is a difference. What I do know is that I wish I could just give a simple bloody answer to a simple question.

Like "Do you like cress?"