News Update

Anyway, 84 unread blog-related emails in my inbox notwithstanding, I've decided to post first, read later. That can be another resolution. What have we got?

Some police drivers have been given a ticking-off for parking in disabled spaces while they spend a penny. Talk about taking the piss. (I'm here all night, folks!)

The same source reports that Canadian boffins have discovered too much thinking can make you fat. This explains Kate Moss but not Eamonn Holmes.

Meanwhile just around the corner from me in Inverleith, Embra, the Norse God of Thunder, Thor, disturbed an intruder in his Valhallah flat (apartment). A couple of well-placed thunderbolts soon saw the ne'er-do-well leaping from a first (second) floor window. I'm not one to point fingers or that, but maybe Lothian and Borders Police should check out Loki's underwear for flash burns.

Lazyitis sufferer Leo Jackson actually turned up this year at Embra Castle for the New Year's celebrations. Despite pleas from hundreds of screaming girls, Jackson insisted on finishing his set before lifting the portcullis to let them out.

And now it turns out that throwing a stick can kill your dog. Depending on the sharpness of the stick and how good your aim is (I kid, I kid). In order not to choke the poor beast, an expert encourages the use of an over-sized article, such as Eamonn Holmes.

Air New Zealand has just completed a two-hour passenger flight powered by vegetable oil, which causes fewer emissions than ethanol. Or in my case, cheese. Ahhhh, Wensleydale!

After a two-year hiatus (wait), Sleb Big Brother is back. I only know this, obviously, because I was passing through the living room on my way to the kitchen and spotted a gorgeous chick nice-looking girl on the telly and asked Mrs F, "Who's that girl?"
Without a moment's hesitation, she replied, "Michelle Heaton."
"What, off Hears'ay?"
"No, Liberty X."
"Same difference ¹. I never would have recognised her." Checks TV listings. "In fact, no wonder. That's Lucy Pinder."
"Who?"
"Exactly. I thought this was Celebrity Big Brother? And WTF is Tommy Fucking Sheridan doing on it?"
"That's not the worst of it," replied Mrs F. "They've got Latoya Jackson in there too. Look! There she is."
"Looks more like Michael Jackson, to tell the truth. Haven't you noticed you never see them together? I wonder..."

And then, joy of joys. "Oh, look at the funny wee man! Hahahahaha! Wait a minute, that's midget porn star Bullet McCoy! Holy crap! He's like, mega-famous! I hope they don't let him near the booze, that's all I'm saying. That Golden Autograph of his is legendary."

There were probly some other hangers-on and Z-listers there, but my night was made.

Bullet McCoy

¹ See what I did there?

In With The New

For New Year, we visited Favourite Niece - she showed me her puppies and let me play with her chihuahua. She also had a dog.

Have a go at this (thanks, Z).

Your New Year's Resolutions

Get a pet chihuahua Eat less onions Travel to New Zealand Study japanese pop culture Get in shape with roller derby

What Should Your New Year's Resoluton Be?

How bizarre - guess where we're going this year? Maybe I can practice my rollerskating while we're there.

I had to laugh when I saw this article about Jeremy Clarkson. What a twat!

Shlater!

Christmas Is Coming

It's getting a bit nippy now, eh? Five below freezing this week, lovely white frost on the grass and trees and that and I left my fecking camera at home! Bolloxy buggerations.

No, wait. I took a picture with my phone. Better than nothing, I suppose.

No snow here, worse luck. Oh, how I wish I lived in a country with proper winters, like Non-Working Monkey!

We went for our works Xmas dinner on Wednesday. Partridge for starters, then a nice bit of pheasant and a nice cranachan for pudding dessert. The portions always look so tiny in the middle of those huge plates, but you never go away hungry. Or stuffed. Just poor.

I see that tosser Leon won this year's X Factor, and now all the Welsh radio stations have banned his song in protest. Oh, how I wish I lived in Wales!

Last night, my South African son-in-law flew out to New Zealand for a job interview. If he gets it, the whole family will be emigrating in the [thinks...switch to Southern hemisphere, add two seasons, translate to Merkan, take away the number you first thought of] fall. How are we going to break it to them that we'll still be taking our holidays in South Africa, with its beaches, biltong and braais? Oh, how I wish I lived in South Africa!

Not really. Embra is still the best, and here's why:


Merry Xmas, readers! Ho, ho, ho, etc.

Five Things

This meme came from Misssy over at The Misssy M Misssives. Looks like a lot more than five to me, but I never was too good at sums and that, so here goes...

What were you doing ten years ago?

1. 1997 was the first time, except for a very brief trip to Glenshee, that I went skiing on proper snow. There was a works outing to Andorra, so I took Little Miss Farty along for the ride. It's the first - and last - time I skiied on a black run. I know it was 1997, cos I saw observed comet Hale-Bopp at its closest approach from the top of the Pyrenees. With binoculars wot my bruvva had gave me.



2. I met the girl who broke my heart for the very.last.time. She was up in Scotchland to pick up a fridge, as you do, and stopped off in Embra for a visit. We just sat and chatted, in a bar, for an hour, about nothing in particular, but by the time she left, the empty place inside of me, which had been aching for ever so long, had been healed. Which was nice.



3. I discovered the Slippery Nipple, which despite what it says in the Urban Dictionary is Baileys and Sambuca, in the same glass but not mixed.


4. I learned something about flash photography. Take a glass of Sambuca, set light to it, then dip your middle finger in the glass and hold your flaming finger up while someone photographs it. Try it, that's all I'm saying.



5. And didn't Princess What's-her-face decide to drop out of public view that year? Mrs Farty and I left flowers at the Scotch Monument, since everybody else was doing it. And had a wee greet. Shut up.

What were you doing one year ago?

1. Working my butt off on a certain merger. 12-hour shifts, sometimes 7 days a week, hence not much else.



2. I got sick with that winter vomiting bug, probly related to the above, and took a week off work. I would have been climbing the walls with boredom, except that...



3. I found that my new works laptop had full internet access.



4. So I spent my time off work reading Non-Working Monkey's blog from Day One to present day. Is that what they call cyber-stalking?



5. But back in January, I spent the New Year drinking Amarula beside the braai while the kids splashed in the outdoor swimming pool. Guess where? Not Embra, oddly enough.

Five Songs you know the lyrics to:

Oh, now that's hard, I just like to hum along...

1. American Pie by Don McLean. My sister-in-law brought the album (vinyl!!!) back from the USA for me in, feck, a while ago. 1974?



2. Leaving On A Jet Plane by Peter, Paul and Mary. Long before I ever heard of John Denver.



3. Even In The Quietest Moments by Supertramp. (You might want to fast-forward the first couple of minutes.) A good friend of mine was in a band that played a superb instrumental version of this, but they had trouble memorising the lyrics. So I bought it, learned it and, er, oh yes, I forgot that I can't sing. Bummer.



4. Mr Blue Sky by ELO. Trivia note - the girl with the magic smile in this video is the late, great Rosie Vela.



5. Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani. What? A bloke can't be hep with the modern groove? Man.

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

1. Give a big chunk to Greenpeace.



2. Emigrate. Abroad, probly. Somewhere warm. Like. You know. SA or NZ.



3. But not before buying a walk-on part in Doctor Who. How cool would that be? Way cool.



4. Take up blogging full time.



5. You think I'm kidding with 4. I'm not.

Five bad habits:

Only five?

1. Picking my nose. I love a good root around. Surely it's no coincidence that the human nostril is exactly the same size as the Pinky?



2. Snoring, apparently. Mrs Farty accuses me of it, but I've stayed awake all night to check and never once heard myself snore.



3. Hitting the snooze button too many times, then being in a mad dash to get up for work.



4. Speaking before I think.



5. Spending way too much time busy blogging.

Five things you like to do:

1. Blogging. Well, that's a given, innit?



2. Playing Go.



3. Reading Science Fiction. The Good Stuff, like this.



4. Take nice photographs. Not many people know this, but I now have a Flikr(sp?) account. I promise I'll put some more pix up real soon now.



5. Make banoffee pie. Gosh, I haven't done that since, erm, Sunday.

Five things you will never wear again:

1. My cowboy boots. I bought them on my first trip to Merka. Oh yeah, I visit Merka all the time. Four times in fifty years, if you count that weekend in June. Anyway, they were too tight on my poor toes even then. But I do still sometimes wear the cowboy hat (when I think nobody's looking). Gen. You. Wine. Leather.



2. Old Spice. wtf was I thinking?



3. Ribbons in my hair. *sob*



4. A bungee harness. It's like this. One year, Mrs Farty and I went to Blackpool with her siblings, spouses (spice?) and that. We went on nearly every ride. We nearly went on the dodgems (bumper cars); we nearly went on the water slide; we nearly went on the roller-coaster; we never actually went on anything. Everyone was like, "oh, yes, I'll go on if you do". Yeah, right. So the next time we went, I decided to have a go anyway. Not one of those scaredy-cats would go on with me, so it was just me. I went on the Slingshot ride. Gosh, it was such fun! I had to go on the Pepsi Max Rollercoaster just to calm my nerves afterwards.



5. Any kind of leather jacket. No reason, I just don't like them very much.

Five favourite toys:

1. My wee moby.



2. My hand blender. See banoffee pie. Whipped cream in 30 seconds flat.



3. Wumpy, my toy rabbit from when I was, like, wee. Long since disintegrated, but I still remember when he had two eyes. And one ear. And a tail.



4. My Sonic Screwdriver. Really.



5. My blog. Does that count? I play with it enough.

Five things you hate to do:

1. Stop to change batteries. I was thinking of my camera, but you can read what you like into this one, eh girls?



2. Say goodbye to friends.



3. Get up on cold, dark mornings. Boo!



4. Work night shift. Thought I'd gotten away from that one 16 years ago, but I still get roped into it now and then.



5. Diet? Exercise? Hmmm...I'll go for a long walk quite happily. Diet, then. I couldn't forego chocolate.

I'm not tagging anyone in particular, but if you do decide to pick this one up, drop me a line. Ta.

A Black Day For Scotchland

I wonder just how many papers rags will have that headline on Monday morning?

I suppose it could have been worse; to paraphrase Igor in Young Frankenstein, "it could have been raining."

The way I see it, the All Blacks just got lucky - lucky that they were playing Scotland instead of a proper team like South Africa.

Hell, we did better than England: they only lost 36-0!

Scotland 0 - 40 New Zealand