Every Time I Sit Down To Write A New Blog Post, I Get Distracted By The Bloggess

Not that this post is about Jenny; it's actually about something I saw in the news today - and I've just remembered what it was.

The UK has a census coming up and in that census, there is precisely one question that's voluntary - "What's your religion"?

The last time around, 390,000 people put "Jedi".

This year, I'm joining them. *You must do the same.

It's not as much of a protest as sitting in Tahrir Square chanting, "Mubarak must go", but it's a start.

What are they going to do - blow up a planet to bring us into line?

Or perhaps they'll offer us a choice between death and something else.



* Old Jedi mind trick.

I Couldn't Go To BlogHer '08 Because I Don't Have A Vagina

But based on eyewitness reports, transcripts, live blogging, some rather shaky video footage, hearsay, gossip, rumour and guesswork, I have finally managed to assemble fabricate the following docu-drama.

Bloggess vs Dooce


I am totally going to get sued for this.

Domestic Bliss

Mrs Farty has decided she'd rather have a shower cubicle than a bath - whatever a "bath" is - so we've been shopping around and found just the thing. We've found a reputable plumber, i.e. one we've used before who didn't rip us off, and he set to work today carefully removing the old bath. (We can probly get a few bob for it on on eBay.)

Then he took one look at the floorboards and said, "These are rotten, look!" And ripped one out with his bare hand. Sure enough, we remembered the bathroom flooding a few years ago after the drain pipe worked loose from the bath, but thought we'd managed to dry it out with a dehumidifier running flat out for two weeks. Wrong.

Not only are the floorboards rotten, so are a couple of the joists supporting them. I had a momentary mental image of Mrs Farty, sitting in the bath, crashing through the floor and into our neighbour's living room. "Air hellair, jahst thort Ay'd drope een four a cappa tea, don't-choo-know?" Then I remembered we live on the ground floor.

A quick phone call to the insurers confirmed our worst fears: "If you check the small print in the policy, you'll see that you're not covered for fraud. Nyer nyer nyer."

So we called a joiner, who raced around to Farty Towers toot sweet to assess the damage - about £240 plus labour. Plus parts. Plus callout fee.

Perhaps I should arrange an electrician, glazier and painter while I'm at it?

Random

Tagged, sort of, by Cream.

Seven random things about me.

1. I've read Virgil's Æneid in the original Latin.
   Becoz wen u git a Classical educashun u don' git no choice.
   It wiz sumthin aboot a big fight. Lots o' fights. Stick the heid in!
   The only bit I can actually remember was where the adventurers found tables laid out with food and drink, but as soon as they sat down to eat, winged harpies came and attacked them. ISTR Ray Harryhausen made a superb animation of this for Jason and the Argonauts.


2. I've spent the night with a gay man.
   No, just talking about what we were planning to do with our lives. I don't remember the details, probably because we were pretty stoned at the time, but in the end he decided to emigrate to South Africa as a mining engineer. Hmm...gay man, South Africa, 1980, AIDS explosion just about to happen. I never heard from him again.
   Everyone should have at least one gay friend.


3. I've won prizes for my computer animation.
   One was of the sun overhead in a blue sky, morphing into the rocket exhaust of a spaceship coming in to land.
   The other was of a giant ant attacking a beach buggy, which then grew progressively bigger until it transpired that the buggy was about to run over the normal-sized ant.
   I miss my Amiga. Sniff.


4. I've destroyed a pressure cooker.
   Must.remember.to.put.water.in.before.closing.lid.


5. I've had my pen stolen by Arthur C. Clarke.
   He was signing autographs and when he finished mine, he calmly put my pen in his inside pocket. When I asked for it back, he opened up his jacket and asked, with a cheeky wink, which of the several dozen that he'd nicked that morning was mine? I let him keep it.


6. I was born with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, but had them surgically removed as a baby.


7. Number six is a load of bollocks. I do have a pigeon chest, but how boring is that?

If you feel like doing this, meh, knock yourself out.

I'm off to the Canada in a few days, and if my sources are correct they don't have t'internet over there, so it'll probly go quiet here for a bit. Be good to each other.