Happy car

Oh happy day. My motor is all better, thanks to the nice car doctors. I'm well chuffed, especially as now I won't have to rely on public transport/cattle trucks to move me around the city. Of course, car-mending comes at a price. This time round it was a rather hefty KRW 332,886. You may notice that I've not given the price in £'s. I just thought it would oh so exciting to give it to you in South Korean Won's. I could just have easily given it to you in Venezualan Bolivars (Be 755,066) which is fine if you live in Venezuala. Not so good if you live Bury St Edmunds.

Anyway, the car is back and my freedom has been restored. Mind you, I have to admit that my rather fabulous wife has actually chauffered me to and from work a couple of times this week. I felt like bloody royalty being driven door to door. The only problem was that my wife felt the need to take the chauffeur role to heart. She's invoiced me for £119.

That's VND 3,574,744.93 (Vietnamese Dong) if you're interested.

Getting fruity

In response to my recent post about what to do with my pears, I had a winning suggestion. Obviously I could have chosen the 'steamed pears with pheasant and roast parsnips' or 'glazed pears with wild rasperries and devon cream' but there was only one clear winner. One kind respondent suggested chucking the pears in with a load of booze and just necking the lot. Subtle? No. Fun, easy and morally reprehensible? Definitely.

10/10

Public transport snob?

I think I may be a public transport snob. OK, I know I am. It's not my fault, honestly. The thing is, I've always had a car. As soon as I could drive I saved up like madman and bought my first car. It was a Ford Nail or a Vauxhall Turgid I think and it gave me unbridled, low-speed, leaky, smoky, bald-tyre freedom. It was wonderful.

So imagine my horror when my current car (not a 'Nail' or a 'Turgid') became poorly the other day. Until I can get it to the garage on Friday, it's meant - public transport. Dear God. Now I know millions of people, including you dear reader, utilize buses, trains, trams and rickshaws every day without batting an eyelid.

However, no-one will ever convince me that standing ('cos all the seats are taken) on a packed, sweaty/freezing bus full of fag-smoking baked-beaners, mad old women smelling of tinned fish and hordes of grotty kids yelling "bovvered?" at each other whilst forcing everyone on the bus to endure the latest ditty by Slipknot as it blares out of a tinny mobile phone speaker, is preferable. Preferable to relaxing into my comfy, sweet smelling car as I pop a CD on whilst slipping the gear into waft mode and cruising sedately home. Perfect. So call me a snob, but really, is there anything better than driving yourself to where you want to go?

Taxi!

Brilliant words - number 1

Mallemaroking. Not only is this a great word to read and to say, it also has the most specific meaning of any word I've ever known. So what does it mean then?

It actually means 'The carousing (drunken merry-making) of seamen on board Greenland whaling ships'. Now how specific is that? Not just merry-making on any ships, but whaling ships and not just any whaling ships but ones only from Greenland! So you can't go mallemaroking on a Portsmouth to Le Harve ferry with a load of Danish social workers. Oh no. Only hammered sailors from Greenland hunting arctic whales just off the Faroe Islands will qualify.

Perhaps there's a word for deluded old men, wearing pyjamas, shouting at traffic in Kidderminster on Friday afternoons.

God, I hope so.

A lovely pair

In lieu of anything interesting to write - see the lack of postings recently - I am letting you know that we have a lovely pair of pear trees in our garden. Oh yes. And the good news is that both trees have produced a bumper crop this year. Nice one global warming.

The bad news is that I don't know any pear recipes, other than 'pears with a bit of ice cream' which is not the most imaginative culinary creation. I've tried to invent some but 'pears in gravy', 'pear and liver roulade', 'stir fried pears' and 'pears au tripe' just don't seem appealing. Or edible.

So, if anyone has an exciting, vibrant and cosmoplitan suggestion as to what I can do with a lovely pear, please drop me an email and I'll give it a try.

Or I could just let them all rot.

Captain Pugwash lives on

Ahoy there me hearties. Well things are good. Especially when the young children of today are, for some unfathomable reason, introduced to kids shows of yesteryear. Yes indeedy dear reader. My wife and I were availing ourselves of our local Tesco when I espied a fantastic sight - see the photo. Yes, it was a Captain Pugwash kiddies ride!

Not only was it a Pugwash ride, but the evil Blackbeard was also there - see the photo. So well done to Tesco for keeping old kids TV shows alive and kicking (subject to payment of 50p) and allowing a brand new generation of little 'uns to experience the joys of proper childrens's programming.

Excluding Andy Pandy, which was crap.

Sleepwalking

A guy I work with told me something amazing. He apparently sleepwalks from time to time. However, when he was at college he also had a few part-time jobs which meant he was getting extremely tired.

One night, he collapsed in his grotty, student-style bed. When he woke up, he was on the bus; on his way to college; fully dressed and with his rucksack over his shoulder. Now he swears this is true and if so, it is really unbelievable.

It reminded me of a show that was on telly a couple of months ago which was basically about people who had billy-bifters (sex) whilst they were asleep! Seriously, how wrong and bizarre is that?

Mind you, it saves on the cost of a romantic meal I suppose.

Ear ear

You know those ridiculous-looking bluetooth headsets? Well, if you do use one because you really need to, I apologise but honestly - they are just hilarious and are worn exclusively by blokes trying to look like someone from Star Trek who's expecting an intergalactic message from the chief Klingon at any second. Sorry, but they just make me laugh.

So imagine my joy today when I saw my first ever woman who was wearing one and not only that, she was about 50 as well. Now that amused me enough, but wait - this is the best bit. She had colour-co-ordinated her earpiece with her outfit! Her Klingon headset was blue and black, as were her earrings and she was wearing a black suit with a blue scarf. She still looked berserk with a lump of plastic nailed to the side of her head, but she was doing it with style.

Don't think she'd have looked as good in just her support tights though.

Vive la 2CV

The Citroen 2CV was, surely the greatest car ever made. I owned two of the quirky little French motors and can honestly say they were the most fun you can have in a car without visiting the back seat. The Citroen 2CV was born in 1939 and was intended for use by French farmers as a way of lugging spuds and sheep over rough terrain. However, the day after production began war was declared which was really inconvenient. Thus, the car had to wait until 1948 to be unveiled to the world. Sacre bleu.

Sadly, the last 2CV's were produced back in 1990 so they are becoming more and more rare. I owned two of them and obviously, I gave them names. These names I felt suited their character and eccentric nature: Stan & Alf. May they rest in peace.

So why were/are these berserk vehicles so great? Here's my list:

The gear stick poked out of the dashboard and all the gears were back to front.
The engine was air-cooled so didn't over heat or freeze in the winter.
It had a crank handle to start the engine if the battery died.
You could take the whole back seat out and use it as a sofa - in fields.
The suspension was so soft you could mount kerbs without noticing.
It could corner faster than any car on the road - really.
You could put a brick on the accelerator to give you cruise control.
The air-conditioning was just two metal panels that lifted up under the windscreen.
The whole roof rolled back so you could have a fantastic convertible.
Everyone pointed and laughed at you - making you feel special.

So next time you see a car like the one in the photo (it's the same as Stan), give the driver a cheery wave, a smile and knowing look that says "you may be a funny little man in a funny little car, but a bit of me, just a bit, is really jealous"

Tres bon.

1.5 x 2 = 7

My wife and I decided to go for a nice walk in the countryside the other day. We went to a place she and her family used to visit years ago. They used to hire bikes and enjoy a leisurely cycle ride. Lovely.

The only thing is, my wife got her memories and details a bit mixed up. We were supposed to walk for a mile and a half until we got to the cycle hire place and a car park. Then we'd have a nice mile and a half stroll back to where we started. Unfortunately, this wasn't exactly what happened.

After 45 minutes walking, I expressed extreme surprise that we hadn't managed to walk the 1.5 miles already, especially considering that normal walking pace is 3-4 miles per hour. Anyway, we trudged on and on and on. Finally, we arrived at the (now) legendary cycle hire place and car park. Ah. We seem to have walked 3.5 miles.

A small oversight. However, this meant a 3.5 mile return trip and although the scenery was really picturesque and the weather gorgeous, 7 miles was a tad more than we had planned. We made it back OK, but were just a teeny bit fatigued. Mind you, we had a cracking time. We met plenty of people (mainly on bikes though) and chatted constantly the whole way.

We didn't discuss maths though.

Cup winner

Following on from my previous post, I've had a huge number of emails. Well, several. Anyway, the winner of the (fictitious)cup is Lukasz from Poland who contacted me to say that his ex-girlfriend had undergone surgery for a breast augmentation. Unfortunately for Luk, his good lady's new boobs were so large that he was actually scared to go near them. He finished with her just 2 weeks after the op.

So my sympathies to him for a clearly un-nerving experience. Mind you, I can't actually imagine being scared of a lady's bosoms. As the lyrics in Cornershop's song 'Brimful of Asha' said "Everbody needs a bosom for a pillow".

But perhaps not a duvet as well.

Plastic Fantastic - or not

I was in the pub a couple of nights ago and the conversation arose (well, I started it) about false boobs. OK, now enough sniggering. This was a serious psychological, physiological and sociological discussion. No really, it was.

The question I posed was: "Would you ever have a boob job / want your partner to have a boob job?" Now, admittedly, the sample size was a bit on the small size (five people) but the result was unanimous. A definite 'no'. Now this discussion was only based on women wanting a new 'set' for cosmetic reasons.

Some of the ladies said that whilst they might like a, er, 'fuller' figure, they definitely wouldn't want surgery to achieve a desired look. The blokes approached it from a slightly different angle. They thought that 'falsies' usually looked really obvious and often ridiculous. I suggested that the reason for this was that often women wanted to look considerably enhanced or improved following surgery. This is partly due to the feelgood factor but also due to the amount of money spent. BUPA hospitals charge around £4,500 for a 'breast augmentation' so if you're paying that sort of cash, you want value for money. Thus, some women will go from an 'A' cup to a 'DD' in one afternoon. Now that's what I call inflation.

Anyway, the other thing people said was that false boobs actually feel false and this was a big no-no for the chaps. One of the women mentioned that nowadays the implant itself can be inserted under the muscle rather than just under the skin. This apparently gives a more realistic look and feel. However, I began to feel a bit ill at this point so I can't go into more detail on that.

In summary, whilst false boobs may look great under clothing, when unleashed they look un-natural and even amusing. They don't feel like they should and are generally seen (by five of us at least) as undesireable and un-sexy. What do you think? Email me your thoughts (God, no photo's please) and I'll publish the results. Just click the email link on the right of the page.

The best email wins a cup. Sizes AA - G available.

Pretty in pink?

Do girls really love the colour pink that much? Apparently so. According to research both girls and adult women are strongly attracted to the colour. The marketing departments of many stores really capitalise on this and that includes Sony who have recently released the pink PS2 (click on pic above to enlarge) and the pink PSP. I think both of them look vile. They belong in a Parisan massage parlour from 1906.

However, the research clearly shows that pink is seen as feminine by most people. Veronika Koller from Lancaster University conducted some detailed investigations into the whole subject of colour and how it is used and perceived by the public. She found that 76.3% of respondants (to her questionnaire) strongly associated pink with femininity. She goes into exhaustive detail about the whole subject, but fails to answer one critical question: We know lasses like pink, but why do men choose really crap colours like beige, taupe and battleship grey then? She doesn't say.

Personally, I don't think you can beat maroon.