Into the Depths of Darkness

A few weeks ago you may recall that I recounted the story of Johnny Potato VC - a potato I found in the dark depths of Master Benedict's rucksack.

Now, dear readers, I must own up to being a slack mother because after discovering the potato I looked no further - I was so distraught/gobsmacked/ashamed to look any further. Until this morning. When I discovered this:

A tube of Morrison's tomato puree which has, obviously, seen better days.
It's a miracle Master Benedict has not caught bubonic plaque.

But that's not all I found. Oh no. I am afraid the contents of Master Benedict's bag were gross beyond all imagination. Everything was stuck together in a tangled mess of decomposing food, mangled paper, bottles, wrappers and some hideous gooey stuff.

Down in one corner I found this:

I know you're asking yourself - what is it? That, my friends, is the box in which Master Benedict keeps
his gum shield. It's stuck to a decomposing food wrapper. I know, I know - it's almost inconceivable he would
actually remove anything from that box and stick it in his mouth - but then again he's a teenager and oral hygenine isn't
at the top f his agenda. 

Oh amongst all the crap I also found this:

That is a door safety chain and a packet of decomposing food  - I've know idea what kind of food as it is unrecognisable - as were the decaying (I think) sandwiches. Still, at least it's still in the packet as opposed to all the other stuff...

You know, when I lifted the door chain out of Master Benedict's bag some really terrible thoughts crossed my mind.  

Had Master Benedict mugged a granny on her doorstep? 

Was he planning to barricade himself in his bedroom and play Call of Duty for a month?

Or perhaps he planning to lock me in my study and therefore subject people all around the world to a merciless barrage of overwrought blogging? 

Anyway, luckily, just as I was ringing social services and musing over the potential ramifications of Master Benedict's diabolical plans, he informed me that he had made the safety chain in craft and design lessons at school.

To which I say..

Why can't they make something useful in those lessons?

Like a Porsche Carrera.

Why is it that they always make something you don't need? Like a three-legged stool that no one but Rumpelstiltskin would use. Or a necklace moulded out of metal which is so heavy that if you wore it would look like you'd had a stroke. Or a hand-stitched napkin that looks someone has vomited on it?

Why I ask you? Why? What drugs are all these craft and design teachers on?

Anyway folks, you know what the discovery of the tomato puree means? It means that very shortly I will have to continue the story of Johnny Potato VC. You can read about my discovery of Johnny Potato HERE and part one of his true (cough, cough) story HERE.

See you soon!

A Personal Picture Post

Well I don't normally do these kind of intimate posts. But today is an exception. This is because I was up in our loft room having a bit of a tidy-up and came across some old photos of me and thought Yippee-Do I can make a quick blog post of this! (Sincerity is my middle name.) 

So folks, this will be a deeply revealing pictorial post about me rather than a written one which really is rather lucky for you lot cos normally deeply revealing blog posts from writers involve hideous tales about depression, failed relationships and fifteen-year struggles to publish debut novels after twenty billion rejection letters and amputation below the knee.

Or something like that anyway.

So lets get on with it!

One of my more flattering shots taken at Halloween around 2006/7. Not many children come
to visit me anymore. I am so sad about that.

Evidence that my ability to burn anything started a long, long time ago. This was me on my birthday which fell on a Shrove Tuesday in around 1984.

Me and Mr T at a New Year's Party back in the early 2000s. I made the masks which drew favourable comparisons to
our real selves....

God I look good. This one was taken in about 2004 when obviously I still looked hot and had pert breasts.

I'm on the left in the leopard skin. Pulling faces is second nature to me. Here it was at university
in a production of The Country Wife in about 1984/5

So there you have it. A deeply revealing post featuring some of my most photogenic shots.

Ho hum.

Hotel Horrors and Birthday Books

So after a few days break from blogging and the A to Z challenge, I'm back!

Now for some of those days I was transfixed by the TV coverage of the UK General Election, but for another three days I was at a tennis tournament with Master Benedict during which I spent two nights in a rather grubby hotel in London.

"Grubby" seems a suitable description for that hell-hole of a place. In fact, I could spend the whole blog whinging about it. Briefly; the shower only had two settings (freezing cold/scalding hot) which was made even more difficult to regulate because the handle fell off, the room keys didn't work, two of our rooms were in another building, they didn't take credit cards and (horror upon horrors) there was no bacon and tomato ketchup at breakfast. However, instead of whinging too much and boring the pants of you all I shall sum the experience with this short tale...

After discovering that the keys to the rooms didn't work, I went back to the reception whereupon they gave me new keys with this parting throwaway line:

"Oh by the way, there might be trouble in the room in between your rooms tonight."

Yes, that's right, the hotel had not only booked half the team in another building but also with a room in between them where some delinquents were apparently going to be hanging out and partying all night. Because, as the hotel receptionist knowingly told me, "They knew this kind of thing."

Now I am not sure if I was meant to be impressed by this worldly knowledge but at that moment I turned from the polite and patient Housewife Extraordinaire that I normally am into a vitriolic middle-age woman with a forked tongue.

I don't normally lose my rag. But when I am told that my team might be disturbed by rowdy part-goers I kinda thought that the hotel ought to be speaking to the occupants of the offending rooms, and not me, about the protocols of staying in a hotel.

Ugh. What can I say? London's changed a lot since I lived there. And not all of it for the better.

Anyway, now I've got that whine over with ... I can continue with another! Last Thursday, son No 1 came home to cast his vote in the General Election and to give me a book as a belated birthday present. The book was this one:

Now I am rather partial to thrillers so I quickly flipped it over and read the blurb which was not the usual format and consisted of some lines taken from the book:

"Your mother...She's not well...She's been imagining things - terrible, terrible things...."

"Everything that man has told you is a lie. I'm not mad....I need the police."

"None of what she claims is real."

"If you refuse to believe me, I will no longer consider you my son...."

At which point I wondered if the gift was a subliminal message. I duly raised my concerns with Young Sam who merely laughed.

Hmm.

I wonder what I'll get for my B-day next year? I have a feeling it won't be bath salts.

Blogging A to Z: Z is for Zachary the Inventor

There was a young man called Zachary

Who invented a very big battery

One day it corroded

Ruptured and exploded

And blew Zachary into lots of tiny tiny pieces

Well I like to experiment with everything on this blog. Poetry is obviously is not my forte. Although perhaps slightly better than my haikus.

Oh well. You can't win 'em all.

A is for Arses and Aidan   B is for Bullshit  C is for Chinese Crispy Duck and the Conservative Party.  D is for Diarrhea, Dinosaurs and Depauperation  E is for Eulogy for the Earth  F is for Ferrero Rocher G is for Guns and Girls   H is for Hope and Horny Jelly Men 
 I is for Igloos, Ignorance and Iguanas   J is for Jason Statham   K is for Kings and Kinkiness

  L is for Love, Loss and Laughter, M is for Moaning and Monopoly, N is for No, O is for Oranges P is for Johnny Potato VC R is for Random Musings, S is for Snot T is for thongs U is for Uranus V is for Voters and Voting, W is for "W" words that really annoy me , X is for "X" the kissable letter, Y is for bloody awful noise called Yodelling

Blogging A to Z: Y is for that Bloody Awful Noise Otherwise Known as "Yodelling"

What I want to know is how do people in Austria and Germany live with all that unbearable yodelling echoing down the mountains, blasting around your head and giving you 24 hour non-stop migraines?

It's no wonder Hitler was insane. No doubt he spent a tortured youth being subjected to hours of incessant yodelling. It must have been like having severe tinnitus whilst simultaneously having your head trapped between two cymbals.

You know, I'm really surprised some great historian like A J P Taylor never came up with yodelling as a suggestion for the cause of Hitler's insanity.

So I'm going to change all that today. Now my historical credentials are excellent as I have a degree in History and this means that no one can challenge my expertise (much). The fact that I haven't looked at a history book for thirty years should be not be an issue as, luckily, I read The Daily Mail which keeps me up to date with all the latest facts and historical opinions.

So, in my capacity as a historical expert, on this day, April 29th 2015, I am putting my theory out to the world.

Hitler was driven insane in his youth by merciless and relentless high-pitched yodelling.

As proof of this I am now going to use musical evidence in support of my claim.

You can easily see from this video how yodelling causes insanity as the gentlemen starring in it has taken to wearing a chimney brush on his head and wearing trousers that are too small for him.

Now in Britain this sort of attire would lead in to incarceration in a lunatic asylum. In Germany and Austria is it leads to madness and an obsession with world domination.

So there you have it - my theory proven. I await my Nobel Peace Prize for research in due course.

A is for Arses and Aidan   B is for Bullshit  C is for Chinese Crispy Duck and the Conservative Party.  D is for Diarrhea, Dinosaurs and Depauperation  E is for Eulogy for the Earth  F is for Ferrero Rocher G is for Guns and Girls   H is for Hope and Horny Jelly Men 
 I is for Igloos, Ignorance and Iguanas   J is for Jason Statham   K is for Kings and Kinkiness

  L is for Love, Loss and Laughter, M is for Moaning and Monopoly, N is for No, O is for Oranges P is for Johnny Potato VC R is for Random Musings, S is for Snot T is for thongs U is for Uranus V is for Voters and Voting, W is for "W" words that really annoy me , X is for "X" the kissable letter

Blogging A to Z: X is for X the Kissable Letter

It's time for one of those really tricky letters;

X

Now in order to get some inspiration for this post, I went onto one of those online dictionaries to look at words beginning with X. Sadly, this left me rather depressed as I didn't know most of them which is a tad embarrassing because, at my age, I should probably know more x words other than Xmas and xylophone. Anyway since it's nearly 11pm and I am too lazy old to absorb new information, I've decided  I'm going to simplify the matter and just talk about the letter X all by itself! Hurrah. I love keeping things simple!

Okay, so X  by itself is often used as an abbreviation for "Kiss". Sometimes girlfriends end their texts, emails and letters with a X as a sign of affection but they never do that with a man unless they are in luvvvvvvv - otherwise it might give a man the wrong idea which might be a bit tricky if he turns out to be a Justin Bieber fan. Sometimes when women are really, really in luvvvvvv they do even more crazy things like this:

This picture was drawn by a very, very sad and obsessed woman.who absolutely,
 definitely , 100% positively bears no resemblance to me whatsoever. 

X is also used as an abbreviation for the saying "X marks the spot" which is a way of identifying a particular place. For example, X would mark the site of a treasure chest on a map.

Similarly, I have an X on the front of Mr T's cheque book, his share certificates and his life insurance policy.

X is also used as a signature if you can't sign you name. I have seen this done twice. The first time was when I worked in a shop and a customer needed to sign their name on a receipt. The second time was at a pub when UKIP leader Nigel Farage was signing his tab. (That's a bill behind the bar.) I was surprised Nigel could only put an X on the tab but, then again, he was standing next to Labour leader, Ed Miliband who had put an "O" on his tab. Maybe Nigel thought he was being clever? Hmm. You know, it might have been a Westminster night-on-the-town as David Cameron and Nick Clegg were playing Paper, Stones and Scissors across the otherside of the room and the leader of the Scottish National Party was wearing a funny skirt and blowing raspberries.

Anyway, it will come as no surprise to my UK readers that our MPs ( Members of Parliament) and politicians get up to all sorts of tricks when they're relaxing, especially on Fridays, now that we have taken up the US tradition of "Dress Down Friday" where folks relax a little at work by wearing casual clothes. Anyway, I found a picture of Nigel Farage on the last Dress Down Friday. I thought you might like to see it.

So that concludes my X post. Only two more letters to go. Since I haven't had much time to read other blogs and comment during the A-Z challenge I plan to catch-up on after the challenge is over. In the meantime, it's good night from Nigel and it's good night from me.

Good night. 

X

A is for Arses and Aidan   B is for Bullshit  C is for Chinese Crispy Duck and the Conservative Party.  D is for Diarrhea, Dinosaurs and Depauperation  E is for Eulogy for the Earth  F is for Ferrero Rocher G is for Guns and Girls   H is for Hope and Horny Jelly Men 
 I is for Igloos, Ignorance and Iguanas   J is for Jason Statham   K is for Kings and Kinkiness

  L is for Love, Loss and Laughter, M is for Moaning and Monopoly, N is for No, O is for Oranges P is for Johnny Potato VC R is for Random Musings, S is for Snot T is for thongs U is for Uranus V is for Voters and Voting, W is for "W" words that really annoy me

Blogging A to Z: W is for W Words That Really Annoy Me

Wizard

Whenever I hear the word "wizard" my brain goes numb. But if I hear it in combination with any of the following words: "Harry Potter," "Hermoine," Ron Weasley and "Dumbledore" I pray for spontaneous combustion. If I never see or hear the word "wizard" again it will be too soon.

Weight Watchers

Ugh. For obvious reasons.

Wig.

A word which strikes terror in every living women.

Warhammer

Warhammer is a war game played with model soldiers that cost an absolute fortune and is mind-numbingly boring on a par with Monopoly (see my "M" post.) The manufacturers of Warhammer also have the audacity to sell the soldiers unfinished which means long-suffering parents of Warhammer addicts have to spend hours gluing the ruddy pieces together or sponging paint off the furniture.

Warhammer - the game every parent loves to hate.

Wehrmacht

No particular reason. *cough, cough*

Whiskers

I dislike them on men. I dislike them even more on myself. When people mistake you for Popeye it can be very dispiriting.

Wobbly

A word that has unpleasant connotations and is often used in conjunction with descriptions of my derriere.

Weak

A word that you increasingly grow to despise as you get older as it crops up in lots of forms and precedes lots of words. For example: weak spot, weak knees, weak heart, weak eyesight and worst of all - weak bladder.

Withdrawal

A deeply unsatisfying word. Not one I like to use often.

Wittgenstein.

Because you know that as soon as anyone says "Wittgenstein" they are going to be the most boring dinner guest ever.

Why?

A word that has too many associations with small children, earache and painful car journeys.

Wifi

A word which I closely associate with British Telecommunications (BT) and which has the ability to cause week-long migraines and suicidal thoughts.

Whippet

A legitimate word but unfortunately, if it is interpreted wrongly, can land you in serious trouble.

Wrinkle

A word that grows on you but not in a good way.


You can check out the other Blogging A to Z candidates HERE.

Previous posts:

A is for Arses and Aidan   B is for Bullshit  C is for Chinese Crispy Duck and the Conservative Party.  D is for Diarrhea, Dinosaurs and Depauperation  E is for Eulogy for the Earth  F is for Ferrero Rocher G is for Guns and Girls   H is for Hope and Horny Jelly Men 
 I is for Igloos, Ignorance and Iguanas   J is for Jason Statham   K is for Kings and Kinkiness

  L is for Love, Loss and Laughter, M is for Moaning and Monopoly, N is for No, O is for Oranges P is for Johnny Potato VC R is for Random Musings, S is for Snot T is for thongs U is for Uranus