Emergency Broadcast! This is (Not?) a Drill

Because a drill sounds like this: BlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDeckerBlackAndDecker.

Anyway, people of the West Midlands, it is my humble duty, as an (in no way) internationally recognised member of the Pato Banton memorial Emergency Safety Broadcast team to deliver the following serious news update:

-oOo-

The West Midlands in general and Birmingham in particular is on the edge of invasion.  A foreign power has taken hold of the populace and guerrilla terrorist attacks have already started with devastating results.  You will already have noticed the signs, but do you know the cause?

Are you ready?

Can you help us fight back against the insidious horde?

If you don't, your way of life will be forever changed.  Do you currently live in a comfortable house with a cat, a dog, or some fish? - Well think again, when the unleashed plague has finished with you, you'll be sitting in a pile of ash, cuddling the remains of something that may be your deeply loved pet but, looking at it from a different angle, may well be a piece of fire-resistant foam out of that sofa that you got from eBay - And your fish will have boiled dry, or possibly exploded - We didn't really test that bit in fairness.

What am I talking about? What could possibly hope to destroy a area with a population of 5,000,000 or so people, What vile, uncompromising foe could be sneaking into our most loved metropolitan area where everyone has a slightly funny accent?

I'll tell you...

I can hardly bring myself to say it...

It's... It's... Chinese paper lanterns... There, I said it.

Do you remember, back in July, the fire at the recycling plant in Smethwick?  Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rubbish were mysteriously and completely burned, causing a firestorm of such epic proportions that it may well have been visible from the surface of Mars, probably.

When questioned by BBC local radio, a worker from the company, who had turned up for work as normal, not noticing either the mile high flames, nor the fifty mile long plume of smoke, had this to say:

'Err.. I don't know really, we just collect the recycling, then recycle it.'

Wise words there, a rare insight into a world that we don't often get to look at, I think you'll agree.

The local Council take the threat so seriously, that it is now a criminal offense to launch Chinese Lanterns (or, as they are more rightly called in all of the professional literature 'Fiery Paper Death Balls of Death with added dripping Death-wax') from any of the local, council owned parks - This is punishable by a fine of up to, but not exceeding your total Council Tax rebate amount.  And will be levied by specially equipped Park Services Rangers, once they have shot the offending FaPDoBODWADDoWs out of the sky using a highly modified Super Soaker and a battery operated hand-fan from the Pound-Shop. (So, if you could just hang around for a few minutes whilst they do that, promise not to run off or anything during the process and then pay him - Exact amount only, no change is carried by members of the parks service for personal security reasons - That'd be great.)

Don't add to the problem people...

There's a very real danger that a cloud of FaPDoBoDWADDoWs could bring down an airliner.  A real, live airliner people! For instance, a Boeing 747 flies at an altitude of, ah... well, I don't really know, but it's pretty damn high I'm guessing. And the lanterns? they probably fly at exactly the same height at least I should think.  Imagine the damage that a tiny amount of paper and two matchsticks worth of bamboo could do to a couple of tonnes of rapidly spinning, razor-sharp titanium blades... Imagine it!

Carnage! - It would be like The Hindenburg all over again, if the airliners were made of canvas and full of hydrogen it would be anyway... Which they might be for all you know, you're not a aeroplaney-designer person. Oh! the Humanity!

Also, there's the ever-present problem of wax drippage.  Clouds of as many as four lanterns have been spotted over the Small Heath and Erdington areas and locals have complained of warm exudations falling from the skies and landing in their hair, faces and mouths, often to the accompaniment of 70's guitar music.  The relatively minuscule amount of this oddly opalescent liquid that has been spat out, rather than 'accidentally' swallowed has been gathered, scientifically tested and found to taste a bit like wax (in most cases).

Experts have told us that 'large amounts of scalding hot wax falling onto unsuspecting people' rates quite highly on the United Nations 'Probably best not to do that' list.  In fact, it sits right in between 'Water-boarding civilians in their sleep' and 'Using nerve-gas and blaming it on one of the other big kids in the playground'  Obviously, we wouldn't just pass on potentially inflammatory statements like that without testing them first.

So with your safety in mind, we spent over £14,000,000 million pounds of your money (what with it being your safety and everything) on dripping wax onto people from various heights.  We found that from any height above six and a half feet (or, two meters or so, if you happen to be French) the wax cooled and solidified before it had time to cause any damage, between zero feet and six and a half feet, the wax was warm, but not hot - and felt much like that feeling you get when you get drunk and poke your finger into the melted wax of a candle, stuck in an empty Mateus Rose bottle, in a cheap Italian Restaurant, that you've taken that new girl from Accounting to in the hopes that she'll say 'Oh! Mr [State your name] No-one's ever made me feel like THAT before'.  To ensure completeness, we dug a large hole fifteen feet deep, in the middle of the A38 dual carriageway and tested to see if wax dropping from negative heights would be hotter.  Unfortunately, despite numerous, increasingly expensive tests, we were unable to both make the wax drip upwards and also to make the lanterns float below ground level.

(Please note, due to completely non-related funding cuts, the New Birmingham Library will close with immediate effect.)

And so the warning ends.  Be vigilant and report any sightings of these potential infernos to your local police, fire service and/or religious organisation.

Wake up and smell the bamboo people!

Bamboo?

Gods! I'd never thought...

You don't think it might be the Pandas doing it do you?

MESSAGE ENDS - Your normal programming will resume momentarily...

Those pesky Colours

Actually, that sounds a bit racist doesn't it?  Unless your first thought was about washing machines that is, then you have my sympathy.

Well, that's completely not what I'm talking about, I mean actual colours, red, blue, green and yellow, things like that.  (I'm also not talking about Taupe, beige or camel - As, if you're a man, these aren't even real colours).

Something that I've always wondered, often at four o'clock in the morning, when it's raining and the cat's singing along to a particularly interesting bowel movement that she's having,  is - 'What if the colour that I think is red, is the colour that you think is blue?'

Do you know what I mean?

I don't mean 'I wonder if I'm colourblind?' or 'Is that a reddy-blue or a bluey-red?'  I mean, what if we see colours completely differently?

When you're a toddler, you learn the colour of things by example, your caring parents may have bought you one of those books with the cardboard pages that have pictures of cars and trucks and bunnies and chicks, opened it at a random page and gone 'Look at the Blue Car, lookit... Bluuuuueeeee caaaaaaaar... Can you say Bllluuuuuuuuuuuueeeeeeeeee Caaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrr?' and after a while, your little sponge of a brain will make a quiet clicking noise and go 'The shape that the large, strange lady with the breath that smells of vodka is pointing at will now be categorised as "CAR" and its predominant colour is described as "BLUE" - File: save.'

From then on, everything that is that colour that can be thought about, touched or put in your mouth is described as Blue.  The same can be said of 'YELLOW CHICKS' or 'RED FISH', you get the idea...

But what if, something in between the camera that we call an eye, and the computer that we call a brain is wired differently?  What if the colour that your parents call 'Blue' is recognised in your head as the colour everyone else calls 'Red'?  How would you ever know?  Your friends would be sunbathing in the Summer under a bright Blue sky, and so would you, but unbeknownst to everyone (even yourself) you're seeing a Red sky... But you've been taught that that colour is actually called Blue.

You see, that's the problem with subjective things... only one person (The Subject themselves.) actually knows how they're experiencing something.

Same thing applies to smell, how do you know that the smell that everyone else smells when they say 'I love the smell of of freshly cut grass!' isn't actually the smell of an elephant with explosive diarrhoea - Not only would you not know, but you would also have been conditioned to believe that it was a nice smell! - Hot buttered toast could have the smell of a tramps gusset, fresh paint could smell like a burning duck (not a roasting duck, but like, what you'd smell if you went down to your local lake with a can of Lynx and a lighter.)

Your nearest and dearest could, to you, smell like a mixture of week old sweat, dried on urine and regurgitated spam vindaloo... Much like the chap who sat next to me on the bus to Nottingham yesterday,  But to you it smells like what we would all describe as expensive cologne and soap (which you've been taught to think are awful smells...)

I mean, I have no idea whether this actually does happen, and neither do any of the world's leading scientists, which by default makes me as least as intelligent as them... More so in fact, as I'll wager my left kidney and half an unused testicle that most of them haven't even thought about it.

Maybe colourblindness is actually your brain rebelling against your conditioning?

This demands further research... I'm going to buy a baby from eBay and give it different, random names for all the colours and smells, just to see if it'll work... Although, I guess that everyone in the world would have to be in on it...

You'd support me wouldn't you people of the Internet?

Internet people?

Hello?

Is this thing on?

Leviticus 19:28

Tattoos, they're great aren't they?

I realise that that might have sounded sarcastic, but no, I think they're great - I have tattoos, Mrs Dandy has tattoos, the Mini-Dandy wants tattoos. I've even designed the odd one (the very odd one in some cases)

Tattoos, tattoos, tattoos...

There are a few things that are still legal that are so divisive, there are two standpoints, you either love them or you hate them. No, hang on, that's Marmite... Marmite AND tattoos? Actually no, there are three standpoints, People either love, hate, or have no strong opinion on them at all.

Sorry, I came over a bit 'Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition' there didn't I?

Right, today's Blog's going well so far isn't it? Do you get the feeling that I haven'y really thunk it through?

Do you know someone with a tattoo? I don't mean one jabbed into their skin with a pin melted into a toothbrush handle by someone called Fat Malcky in the exercise yard of your local Government internment Centre during Exercise Hour. I mean a work of art, often costing hundreds or even thousands of pounds, performed by a qualified, registered artist under sanitary conditions with some degree of skill.

Is that person a baby-eating psychopath? Chances are that they aren't, chances are that they're well adjusted people who would not think twice about giving you their last carrot if you were short of one for your Sunday Lunch, or for use during a quiet night in on your own (Either way, they won't want it back).

So why the general vilification of the tattooed?

Well, I think it might be because the general populace, the huddled masses, Jane and Johnny Vanilla, can't tell the difference between tattooed people and people with tattoos.

What do you mean you don't know the difference either? C'mon people, work with me here!

Tattooed people are those who think about it first, ponder long and hard whether they should get some ink, think carefully about the content and placement, decide how it can be covered if that's a concern for them in their chosen sphere of employment, save up the money, listen to the artist's opinions and suggestions about subtle changes that can be made to improve the design, sit quietly and still, biting their lips as the job is done, then religiously following the aftercare instructions and ending up with a product that they're all to happy to show off.

People who have tattoos are those who, for instance, after Jeremy Kyle has finished, think 'I know, I'll have a duck tattooed on my eyelid'. Hunt down the back of the sofa, fail to find enough cash, raid their kids' piggy-banks for the fiver required to get it done by 'Our Sonia's boyfriend's brother' who does it in his bedroom at his Mum's house with a kit he bought from eBay, get the bus to some dismal Council Estate, wait for the shell-suited scrote to get back from scoring himself some weed, find out that he doesn't know what a duck looks like and then get convinced that what they really want is to have his thirteen year old, pregnant, girlfriend kiss your backside and then get it tattooed over, Manage to get the price down to three-fifty by showing him their cleanest Primark bra (But not doing what he wanted them to do to get it for free, because even they have standards), then going back to their council flat, letting it get infected and scratch at it until it looks like Nigel Lawson.

Easy mistake to make for the uninitiated I suppose...

-oOo-

As is becoming traditional, I leave you with a story told to me by a tattooist of my aquaintance.

One, quiet, sunny afternoon, a squaddie came into his shop and asked for his unit's insignia to be tattooed on or about his person. First of all, he didn't have a copy of what he wanted, so the artist Googled it and printed it out. He couldn't decide whether he wanted it black and white, or full colour, so the artist quickly did a black and white copy so that he could choose.

Then he couldn't decide where he wanted it, and after about three quarters of an hour, he decided to have it on his bicep. He took another half an hour to decide how big he wanted it.

After all of these questions, the artist thought that maybe a tattoo wasn't for this particular person and tried to convince him to go away and think about it, but try as he might, the squaddie was immovable, he wanted it done, and done now, so that it was healed for when he was sent back to... Erm... Afghanistan or wherever.

So an hour and a half later, the deed was done, the squaddie was happy, the artist was happy that the squaddie was happy, money changed hands and they went their seperate ways.

All was well until the next day when the phone rang at the studio.

'Hello, Circling Dragon Tattoos, how can we make you more attractive?'

'Oh, Hi, I came in yesterday and you tattooed my unit's insignia on my arm?'

'Yes, I remember... Is there a problem?'

'No, no, it's great, really, there's just one thing...'

'OK, what's that?'

'Well I've tried on my fatigues shirt, and it won't roll up high enough to show it off, so I wondered if you could move it down onto my forearm, .'

The tattooist was still laughing when he put the phone down, walked out of the shop, and threw himself under a bus.