Tired of hearing about idiot things I've done?
No?
OK, one more.
In today's episode, I embark on the path to world domination by testing the feasibility of starting my own land-based navy by turning a normal everyday people carrier and a laser printer into a submarine hunting death-dealer.
Some time ago, I worked for a certain West-Midlands based builders' merchant - who shall remain nameless, but according to their radio adverts, They're 'Where the Trade go'. My job with them, amongst other things, involved the upgrading of the IT at their stores around the UK.
The senior management, in their infinite wisdom had decided that the IT team didn't, at the time, require the use of a van and we were expected to use our own vehicles to transport the equipment to site - The inventory for a single store usually comprised half a dozen tills, cash drawers etc, half a dozen PCs with all their associated doo-dads and gee-gaws - and a number of laser printers.
Now, at the time, I had a Ford Galaxy people carrier, which was nicknamed by all and sundry as 'The Van' - My boss would often say things like;
'Vet, grab a couple of printers, stick 'em in the van and toddle off to install them at <insert store name>.'
(The reason I got called Vet may, or may not, be covered in a later installment.)
So, I became the go-to guy for country-wide 'humping and dumping', which I didn't really mind as I got paid mileage, and it got me out of the office, often for days at a time. On this particular day, the first day of land trials for The Chimping Navy, I'd been tasked with delivering some kit to the Reading store, this was just a quick jaunt down the M40, a couple of hours there, a couple of hours eating a fry-up and fiddling about in the store and then a couple of hours back - Simples!
The only jam in the DVD player was that it was raining, not heavily, but wet enough for you to not want to stand out in it, well unless you were a particularly statuesque young lady in a thin, white top. Now, as many of you that have owned a Ford Galaxy will know, they have a couple of little design faults. Firstly, the 'Brain' that controls the central door locks sits in a little cutout, under the carpet, in the passenger-side footwell. Secondly, when it rains heavily, the passenger footwell floods. Either of these problems, on their own, aren't show-stoppers - But taken as a pair... Well, you can imagine the constant hilarity.
I set off down the M40 with a spring in my.. erm... step and a song in my heart. Everything was right with the world and the rain was just heavy enough that constant wipe was too much, but intermittant wipe was not enough - I have since realised that the car had variable wash/wipe - But at the time I couldn't be bothered to read the manual. Around halfway down the motorway, I noticed that the footwell was filling with water - I made a mental note to drill some holes in the floor when I got home, I was getting pretty bored with the carpet smelling like a rancid Afghan (That's the breed of dog, not someone from Afghanistan - I have no idea what these wonderful and ancient people smell like when they go off).
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a flashing light on the dashboard. Looking over, it turned out to be the 'Your boot is open' warning light - It wasn't doing the whole 'You're running out of petrol' type flash that you get from your petrol guage, it was more a sort of 'Now it's on, now it's off, no, on, I mean off,' jittery type of thing. I had just enough time to think,
'Hmmm... that's odd!'
When the boot flew open - and one of the Dell laser printers I was carrying, transformed, Bumblebee-like, into a depth charge. Now, I don't know how many of you have ever thrown electrical equipment out of the back of a moving vehicle at 70Mph, but it makes a bloody great noise.
As the scene unfolded in slow motion in the rear view mirror, I saw the printer hit the tarmac and bounce, it then started to spin, and hit again. This time it disintegrated, seriously, there wasn't a piece bigger than my thumb left at the end. The look on the face of the lorry-driver behind me was a picture - He did his best to avoid the wreckage, but he still managed to run over the toner cartridge - Hooo boy, that made a mess. But I had other things to worry about, I was hemorrhaging paperwork all over the rainy motorway, and my boot was still open. I pulled onto the hard shoulder, got out, and slammed the boot shut. I almost missed the feint *click* of the central-locking, but my worst fears were confirmed when I tried to open the door... Locked. With the keys AND my phone inside.
I cursed my choice of wearing a thin, white shirt to work that day and started to walk the half-mile back to the emergency road-side telephone in the suddenly heavier rain. I explained to the nice lady on the phone that 'there was some debris' on the road and that I needed a locksmith, she told me that she'd dispatch someone to take care of the mess, but I was on my own as far as being stranded was concerned.
It took them a good half an hour to arrive, by which time I was wetter than a geriatric dolphin's nappy. They gave me a bit of a talking to about messing up their motorway, and how my employer would get a bill, but they thought that I, personally, had suffered enough and they'd see if there was anything they could do to get me back in my car.
The big chap in the waterproof Hi-Vis walked over to my car, pulled the doorhandle, and the door opened.
'Seems OK to me.' He said, with not a hint of a laugh in his voice at all. 'Want me to close it and try again?'
'NO!' I shouted, possible slightly louder than was strictly necessary.
I thanked him, and wondered how long I'd stood in the rain not trying to get into a car that wasn't actually locked anymore.
Luckily, my face was so wet that they couldn't see my tears as I drove off.
Monday, 7 January 2013
Friday, 4 January 2013
Boobs, Melons and Jumper-Lumps
Soooooooo... It seems you enjoy hearing about my misfortunes! - Yesterday on the blog was the most popular so far, with over 100 hits and 72 of those on the 'Barnaby Wilde' page itself.
Thanks guys, you made a bald man very happy.
The idea for today's Blog was suggested by my dear Wife, in a 'Well, they liked that, so they'll probably like this too' kinda way - But it'll only be short.
I'm a confirmed Asda (Walmart) shopper - They're cheap, you often don't get food poisoning from their own-brand range and the opportunity for shenanigens is quite high. I mean, you try the sort of crap that you'd quite happily get away with in Asda in Sainsbury's and you're looking at being escorted from the premises quick-smart by a security guard with the peak of his hat so close to his face that he looks like a jobsworth Judge Dredd.
I quite enjoy just wandering around the place and looking at the people - I mean, don't get me wrong, it's no People of Walmart - But it gets pretty close on occasions, you get a few people in their pyjamas and crocs, who I just assume to be escaped mental patients, but most of the time things are pretty sensible.
That is, of course, until LARP season starts...
For those of you who have managed to live your lives without encountering LARP, it stands for Live Action Role Playing - Dungeons and Dragons but with a far higher incidence of personal injury - Rubber swords, people dressed as elves, the whole nine yards. Hundreds (literally) of people congregate in the grounds of the old Leper Hospital up the road and bash seven different kinds of poop out of each other with maces and swords and hammers made of sponge-foam and Duct-tape. It would be all too easy to dismiss these people as boobs, really, it would, but when you see the obvious time and work they put into their costumes and how seriously they take it, they demand a certain respect. Add a bit of cleavage, and a fair smattering of acne cream and shampoo and some of those guys could be classed as cosplayers. (I'm not going to explain that one too - You can't be on the Internet and not know what a Cosplayer is - look it up, it'll be educational) That is, right up until you see them in the cream cake aisle at lunchtime, with a basket full of sausage rolls, scotch eggs and chocolate flavour milk - The studded leather jerkins, ring-mail vest, thigh boots and studded flails lose a bit of their mystique under those circumstances.
But you didn't come hear to listen to me opine about people who choose a different entertainment lifestyle, you came to hear about things that caused my physical pain and/or embarassment.
I show off... A lot... I mean, give me an audience and I behave like a five year old. It's the main reason for this Blog. I'm constantly being told to grow up by my children and I often turn around after shower-juggling a couple of (full) wine bottles in any shop I've not previously been banned from, to be confronted with the rapidly retreating rear-ends of my family as they melt into the crowd slowly repeating their manta - 'He's Not With Us... He's Not With Us...'
One time, I performed a trick that I'd seen in a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon, where you run down a supermarket aisle throwing a watermelon to yourself. You know, that's when I found out that real-life physics and cartoon physics work slightly differently. I don't mean you can't do it, you can, the first three or four throws work perfectly, but as you gain speed, you have to throw the watermelon further and further ahead of yourself...
You've worked out what happens next already, right? I knew I could count on you.
Watermelons make an absolutely brilliant noise when they hit the floor from about 10' up, and the pieces go for miles - I think that I might have actually spread my arms wide, slowly spun around in a circle to the assembled audence and cried 'Tah-dahhhh!'. The look of horror on my wife and daughter's face was worth the price of entry alone. I'd never heard my wife growl before, and it's not a noise I care to get her to repeat.
'Pick... It... Up...' She growled,
'What?' I replied, as innocently as my ear to ear smirk would allow,
'The melon, Pick... It... Up... Now..."
'Yes Dear.'
Did you know: It's possible to fit an entire watermelon in one of those small plastic bags that come on a roll in the fruit and vegetable aisle? Providing you make the pieces small enough that is. The cashier, when we went to pay, was pretty confused too. She tried to put it through as melon slices rather than a whole watermelon.
My wife made me explain what had happened.
Then she made me apologise.
I felt very sorry for myself.
I have not been allowed to forget this momentary lapse of judgement since, as every time my wife meets someone new she introduces me thusly,
'This is my Husband, he likes to throw fruit at himself in Asda.'
I think it makes me sound mysterious and interesting.
Another Asda moment that has entered the annals of Dandy history started with an innocent trip to the shops to get the ingredients for a summer picnic. It was the middle of the kids summer holidays and the store was pretty busy. The weather was hot (well hot for the UK - Maybe 25 deg Celcius) and most of the clothing worn by the customers was of the shorts and t-shirt variety. In fact, some of the female customers were wearing less, with vests and the occasional bikini top on display.
Mrs Dandy had chosen to wear a somewhat structural top with what are called, I believe, spaghetti straps, which served to accentuate her more than ample feminine charms. I use the phrase 'served to accentuate' here as a synonym for the more vulgar 'struggled to contain', and obviously it was only so long before I resorted to childishness.
I waited until we were surrounded (mostly) by adults, turned to Mrs Dandy and... well... made the action with both of my hands that indicated that I thought my wifes... erm... jumper-lumps were some kind of squeaky-toy.
What happened at this precise time helped convince me of my Super-Villain status.
The 'Honk-Honk' noise actually sounded, in perfect time with the squeezing of my hands. I looked down at my hands as if looking at them for the very first time. The surrounding shoppers looked at me, at the rapidly reddening Mrs Dandy, at my hands, at her upper ladies area - all with their mouths hanging open.
I burst into raucous laughter, which, luckily proved infectious and of course I tried to do it again - But this time I was thwarted, it seemed that this particular Super-Power was a one time only deal.
It remains a mystery to this day, completely unexplained and unexplainable. We did see a guy dressed as a clown a little further around the store making baloon animals, and he did have one of those old-style car horns with the black rubber ball, but I don't think that had anything to do with it.
See you next week, Dandy-Fans
Thanks guys, you made a bald man very happy.
The idea for today's Blog was suggested by my dear Wife, in a 'Well, they liked that, so they'll probably like this too' kinda way - But it'll only be short.
I'm a confirmed Asda (Walmart) shopper - They're cheap, you often don't get food poisoning from their own-brand range and the opportunity for shenanigens is quite high. I mean, you try the sort of crap that you'd quite happily get away with in Asda in Sainsbury's and you're looking at being escorted from the premises quick-smart by a security guard with the peak of his hat so close to his face that he looks like a jobsworth Judge Dredd.
I quite enjoy just wandering around the place and looking at the people - I mean, don't get me wrong, it's no People of Walmart - But it gets pretty close on occasions, you get a few people in their pyjamas and crocs, who I just assume to be escaped mental patients, but most of the time things are pretty sensible.
That is, of course, until LARP season starts...
For those of you who have managed to live your lives without encountering LARP, it stands for Live Action Role Playing - Dungeons and Dragons but with a far higher incidence of personal injury - Rubber swords, people dressed as elves, the whole nine yards. Hundreds (literally) of people congregate in the grounds of the old Leper Hospital up the road and bash seven different kinds of poop out of each other with maces and swords and hammers made of sponge-foam and Duct-tape. It would be all too easy to dismiss these people as boobs, really, it would, but when you see the obvious time and work they put into their costumes and how seriously they take it, they demand a certain respect. Add a bit of cleavage, and a fair smattering of acne cream and shampoo and some of those guys could be classed as cosplayers. (I'm not going to explain that one too - You can't be on the Internet and not know what a Cosplayer is - look it up, it'll be educational) That is, right up until you see them in the cream cake aisle at lunchtime, with a basket full of sausage rolls, scotch eggs and chocolate flavour milk - The studded leather jerkins, ring-mail vest, thigh boots and studded flails lose a bit of their mystique under those circumstances.
But you didn't come hear to listen to me opine about people who choose a different entertainment lifestyle, you came to hear about things that caused my physical pain and/or embarassment.
-oOo-
I show off... A lot... I mean, give me an audience and I behave like a five year old. It's the main reason for this Blog. I'm constantly being told to grow up by my children and I often turn around after shower-juggling a couple of (full) wine bottles in any shop I've not previously been banned from, to be confronted with the rapidly retreating rear-ends of my family as they melt into the crowd slowly repeating their manta - 'He's Not With Us... He's Not With Us...'
One time, I performed a trick that I'd seen in a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon, where you run down a supermarket aisle throwing a watermelon to yourself. You know, that's when I found out that real-life physics and cartoon physics work slightly differently. I don't mean you can't do it, you can, the first three or four throws work perfectly, but as you gain speed, you have to throw the watermelon further and further ahead of yourself...
You've worked out what happens next already, right? I knew I could count on you.
Watermelons make an absolutely brilliant noise when they hit the floor from about 10' up, and the pieces go for miles - I think that I might have actually spread my arms wide, slowly spun around in a circle to the assembled audence and cried 'Tah-dahhhh!'. The look of horror on my wife and daughter's face was worth the price of entry alone. I'd never heard my wife growl before, and it's not a noise I care to get her to repeat.
'Pick... It... Up...' She growled,
'What?' I replied, as innocently as my ear to ear smirk would allow,
'The melon, Pick... It... Up... Now..."
'Yes Dear.'
Did you know: It's possible to fit an entire watermelon in one of those small plastic bags that come on a roll in the fruit and vegetable aisle? Providing you make the pieces small enough that is. The cashier, when we went to pay, was pretty confused too. She tried to put it through as melon slices rather than a whole watermelon.
My wife made me explain what had happened.
Then she made me apologise.
I felt very sorry for myself.
I have not been allowed to forget this momentary lapse of judgement since, as every time my wife meets someone new she introduces me thusly,
'This is my Husband, he likes to throw fruit at himself in Asda.'
I think it makes me sound mysterious and interesting.
-oOo-
Another Asda moment that has entered the annals of Dandy history started with an innocent trip to the shops to get the ingredients for a summer picnic. It was the middle of the kids summer holidays and the store was pretty busy. The weather was hot (well hot for the UK - Maybe 25 deg Celcius) and most of the clothing worn by the customers was of the shorts and t-shirt variety. In fact, some of the female customers were wearing less, with vests and the occasional bikini top on display.
Mrs Dandy had chosen to wear a somewhat structural top with what are called, I believe, spaghetti straps, which served to accentuate her more than ample feminine charms. I use the phrase 'served to accentuate' here as a synonym for the more vulgar 'struggled to contain', and obviously it was only so long before I resorted to childishness.
I waited until we were surrounded (mostly) by adults, turned to Mrs Dandy and... well... made the action with both of my hands that indicated that I thought my wifes... erm... jumper-lumps were some kind of squeaky-toy.
What happened at this precise time helped convince me of my Super-Villain status.
The 'Honk-Honk' noise actually sounded, in perfect time with the squeezing of my hands. I looked down at my hands as if looking at them for the very first time. The surrounding shoppers looked at me, at the rapidly reddening Mrs Dandy, at my hands, at her upper ladies area - all with their mouths hanging open.
I burst into raucous laughter, which, luckily proved infectious and of course I tried to do it again - But this time I was thwarted, it seemed that this particular Super-Power was a one time only deal.
It remains a mystery to this day, completely unexplained and unexplainable. We did see a guy dressed as a clown a little further around the store making baloon animals, and he did have one of those old-style car horns with the black rubber ball, but I don't think that had anything to do with it.
See you next week, Dandy-Fans
Thursday, 3 January 2013
Barnaby Wilde (Pt. 1)
Talking about my trike yesterday reminded me of some of the good times that I'd had in the past on various three wheelers, thought I'd jot some of 'em down so that you could see just how much fun customised motorcycles can be.
I remember the very first time that I rode a trike, thinking back, it was probably a sign - I should have quit whilst I was ahead. It had a 1275GT Mini engine, with a gear linkage made from plasticine and cocktail sticks. When you changed gear, it involved a stirring motion, akin to the one you see in any cartoon where witches and cauldrons are mentioned - The gear you actually got at the end of this process was as random as you'd expect. I rode from the house of my very good friend Scots Mick (He of the Chilli recipies fame - See last years blog) to my own house, some four miles in total. Along the way I clipped the apex of every, single corner - In this instance, you should take 'clipped' to mean rammed into, mounted the pavement and then careened off the other side. In fact, a number of times, I clipped the apex of several perfectly straight roads, which didn't even have apexes.
I was being followed by Mick in his car, in case anything fell of the trike, including myself. We had planned to take the trike to a van hire company where one of 'the boys' worked, so that we could get one of the tires re-seated as it was leaking. Now, before I relay the punchline I have to explain that this particular trike was fitted with what we, in the trade, call 'Ape Hangers' - These are a particular type of handlebar, designed by the devil himself, to make any type of motorcycle that they're fitted to virtually uncontrollable. They do give you that Concussed American Starfish riding position that seems to be popular (or was in the 90's at least.) - Take a minute, Google them, see what you think.
So, we pulled into the car park and I changed down to 2nd gear and attempted to pull into a parking space. Of course, what actually happened was that I accidentally hit the 'Gamble' button on the gear selector and got 1st. This caused me to go skipping across the carpark with the front end in the air (thus rendering the steering inoperable) and punched the back quarter of a parked van with my left fist. Have you ever punched a van hard enough to leave a dent in it the shape of your fist? - It really hurts... Of course my assembled friends ran to my aid, checking that I hadn't done any irrepairable damage to myself - Actually, no, what happened is that they stood, having to lean on each other because they were laughing so much. I think one of them actually wet himself - Especially when they showed me that the trike had skidded to a halt about 12" from a 6' drop.
On another occasion, I left work at 06:30 in the morning to discover it had snowed quite heavily during the night. The snow was deep enough that the rear axle was dragging in it, which played merry hell with the handling. I managed to wrestle the trike out of the industrial estate by bouncing gently off the pavement kerbs as I couldn't see exactly where the road finished and the pavement started. Once out onto the main road, things got a little bit easier as the virgin snow was replaced with black slush. I admit that I got cocky, fishing the back end out on purpose and spinning the rear wheels. Of course, as so often happens in these situations, I got bitten in the butt.
As I approached a busy traffic island and tried to brake, nothing happened - Well, nothing involving slowing down happened, a number of things involving going in the wrong direction took their place. In the 60' trip across the island, the trike spun through 540 deg - A full one and a half turns, with me hanging onto the Apes for grim death. Luckily the other vehicles using the island at that time of the morning managed to avoid me completely. When the trike finally came to rest on the wrong side of the road I had to wait a good ten minutes before I carried on my journey - Not because I was shaking (though I was, like a Portuguese Man O'War with Parkinsons), but purely because the vacuum that had appeared between my clenched sphynchter and the seat meant that I couldn't move.
My final recounting (for this morning at least) involves a trike that didn't actually belong to me as such, it belonged to a young lady that I co-habited with for a while and was powered by an 850 Reliant Robin motor. Don't laugh, it's a great engine when you strip all the fibreglass body from around it. It used to suffer every once in a while from the carbs freezing, but other than that it was bulletproof.
Anywho, we were on our way back from doing the weekly shop (one of the redeeming qualities of trikes is that they can usually carry more cargo than a bike) in the pouring down rain. You know that rain where you just have to look out of the window and you're soaking wet? Well it was heavier than that, heavy enough to frak with the electrics and cause misfires. So, it took a while to get home, sometimes on three cylinders, sometimes on two, but not very often on all four. I chanced to look down between my knees as we pulled onto the drive and noticed that a couple of the HT leads (The leads that go to the spark plugs) were 'tracking' - This means that they were making pretty blue sparks and dumping their precious electricity somewhere other than where they should - In this case they were swapping it between themselves and also with the cylinder head, very kind of them, but not exactly what you want in a perfect world.
N.B. The next two seconds of this story involve the complete disconnection of my hands from my brain.
I thought to myself, 'If I just seperate those leads, I bet it'll run a whole lot better.' Now, the HT leads on a Robin carry about 30,000 volts (as opposed to the 240 volts in the sockets of your house) at an amperage, luckily, just below that required to stop your heart stone dead, so obviously I reached down and went to move the cables apart. The belt I got was sufficiently strong to lift me off the seat, throw me to the ground and cause me to lie in the rain, jumping around and laughing uncontrollably for a good few minutes. Do not try this at home kids, in fact, do not try this anywhere. Again, the reaction of the assembled onlookers was almost terminal merriment.
Bikers are generally a caring bunch...
Below is a picture of my new baby - Well, new might be stretching it a bit - Latest is probably a better bet. She hasn't bitten me yet, but I'm sure she will, given enough time. (Plus you get a free photo of my Daughter, mugging uncontrollably for the camera)
-oOo-
I remember the very first time that I rode a trike, thinking back, it was probably a sign - I should have quit whilst I was ahead. It had a 1275GT Mini engine, with a gear linkage made from plasticine and cocktail sticks. When you changed gear, it involved a stirring motion, akin to the one you see in any cartoon where witches and cauldrons are mentioned - The gear you actually got at the end of this process was as random as you'd expect. I rode from the house of my very good friend Scots Mick (He of the Chilli recipies fame - See last years blog) to my own house, some four miles in total. Along the way I clipped the apex of every, single corner - In this instance, you should take 'clipped' to mean rammed into, mounted the pavement and then careened off the other side. In fact, a number of times, I clipped the apex of several perfectly straight roads, which didn't even have apexes.
I was being followed by Mick in his car, in case anything fell of the trike, including myself. We had planned to take the trike to a van hire company where one of 'the boys' worked, so that we could get one of the tires re-seated as it was leaking. Now, before I relay the punchline I have to explain that this particular trike was fitted with what we, in the trade, call 'Ape Hangers' - These are a particular type of handlebar, designed by the devil himself, to make any type of motorcycle that they're fitted to virtually uncontrollable. They do give you that Concussed American Starfish riding position that seems to be popular (or was in the 90's at least.) - Take a minute, Google them, see what you think.
So, we pulled into the car park and I changed down to 2nd gear and attempted to pull into a parking space. Of course, what actually happened was that I accidentally hit the 'Gamble' button on the gear selector and got 1st. This caused me to go skipping across the carpark with the front end in the air (thus rendering the steering inoperable) and punched the back quarter of a parked van with my left fist. Have you ever punched a van hard enough to leave a dent in it the shape of your fist? - It really hurts... Of course my assembled friends ran to my aid, checking that I hadn't done any irrepairable damage to myself - Actually, no, what happened is that they stood, having to lean on each other because they were laughing so much. I think one of them actually wet himself - Especially when they showed me that the trike had skidded to a halt about 12" from a 6' drop.
-oOo-
On another occasion, I left work at 06:30 in the morning to discover it had snowed quite heavily during the night. The snow was deep enough that the rear axle was dragging in it, which played merry hell with the handling. I managed to wrestle the trike out of the industrial estate by bouncing gently off the pavement kerbs as I couldn't see exactly where the road finished and the pavement started. Once out onto the main road, things got a little bit easier as the virgin snow was replaced with black slush. I admit that I got cocky, fishing the back end out on purpose and spinning the rear wheels. Of course, as so often happens in these situations, I got bitten in the butt.
As I approached a busy traffic island and tried to brake, nothing happened - Well, nothing involving slowing down happened, a number of things involving going in the wrong direction took their place. In the 60' trip across the island, the trike spun through 540 deg - A full one and a half turns, with me hanging onto the Apes for grim death. Luckily the other vehicles using the island at that time of the morning managed to avoid me completely. When the trike finally came to rest on the wrong side of the road I had to wait a good ten minutes before I carried on my journey - Not because I was shaking (though I was, like a Portuguese Man O'War with Parkinsons), but purely because the vacuum that had appeared between my clenched sphynchter and the seat meant that I couldn't move.
-oOo-
My final recounting (for this morning at least) involves a trike that didn't actually belong to me as such, it belonged to a young lady that I co-habited with for a while and was powered by an 850 Reliant Robin motor. Don't laugh, it's a great engine when you strip all the fibreglass body from around it. It used to suffer every once in a while from the carbs freezing, but other than that it was bulletproof.
Anywho, we were on our way back from doing the weekly shop (one of the redeeming qualities of trikes is that they can usually carry more cargo than a bike) in the pouring down rain. You know that rain where you just have to look out of the window and you're soaking wet? Well it was heavier than that, heavy enough to frak with the electrics and cause misfires. So, it took a while to get home, sometimes on three cylinders, sometimes on two, but not very often on all four. I chanced to look down between my knees as we pulled onto the drive and noticed that a couple of the HT leads (The leads that go to the spark plugs) were 'tracking' - This means that they were making pretty blue sparks and dumping their precious electricity somewhere other than where they should - In this case they were swapping it between themselves and also with the cylinder head, very kind of them, but not exactly what you want in a perfect world.
N.B. The next two seconds of this story involve the complete disconnection of my hands from my brain.
I thought to myself, 'If I just seperate those leads, I bet it'll run a whole lot better.' Now, the HT leads on a Robin carry about 30,000 volts (as opposed to the 240 volts in the sockets of your house) at an amperage, luckily, just below that required to stop your heart stone dead, so obviously I reached down and went to move the cables apart. The belt I got was sufficiently strong to lift me off the seat, throw me to the ground and cause me to lie in the rain, jumping around and laughing uncontrollably for a good few minutes. Do not try this at home kids, in fact, do not try this anywhere. Again, the reaction of the assembled onlookers was almost terminal merriment.
Bikers are generally a caring bunch...
Below is a picture of my new baby - Well, new might be stretching it a bit - Latest is probably a better bet. She hasn't bitten me yet, but I'm sure she will, given enough time. (Plus you get a free photo of my Daughter, mugging uncontrollably for the camera)
Wednesday, 2 January 2013
Low resolution
So we're well into the New Year now, I mean, I'll still be writing down '12' at the end of the date for... Oh, I don't know... Maybe the next six months or so, but 2013 is definately here to stay.
Now, I've never been one that subscribes to this idea of setting myself unattainable targets, or even attainable targets for that matter. But there are some things that I will try to do this year. Actually, 'try' might be putting it strongly - What I'll probably do is carry on as normal and then if I accidentally do any of these things, I'll feel all smug and self-important and tell you all about it.
1. Get more involved in Burlesque.
I've been nipping at the edges of burlesque for some years now, the words 'Flamboyant' and 'odd' are ones that you could quite happily use to describe me (amongst several others of course, but those are the two I'm highlighting now) and I think that that sums up my feelings on Burlesquerie. It's not all about the strippers, although I'd be lying if I didn't freely admit that that is a part of it. It's more about the whole feel of it, the anachronism, the ostrich feathers, the music. Although I think the main thing is that it's one of the few 'Glamour related' pastimes that is totally non-judgemental where body shape/size are concerned. Real sized people are welcomed with open arms, and a lot of the professional artistes can't be described as stick thin by any stretch of the imagination.
2. Shine at my chosen career
This one is probably the most unlikely in fairness. I've been doing what I do, jobwise, for about thirty years now. I'm pretty good at it, it (just) pays the bills and I tend to get a lot of repeat business, in that places I've worked at, or people I've worked with, tend to ask for me if they have things that need doing that I can do. Thing is, this has virtually nothing to do with the fact that I am any better at these things than anyone else - It's usually because I make people laugh, at the same time as doing a half-assed job. The ability to fit into an already established team with the minimum of discomfort has been a mainstay of my repertoire for a long time. But now I've moved from being a contractor to being a permie, I might just have to get good at what I do.
3. Draw more
2012 will be forever remembered as 'The year when I actually started actively selling my stuff Internationally' - I've always been a 'hobbyist' as far as my artwork is concerned, drawing mainly for pleasure and I'd considered myself firmly in the 1st. year art student school of drawing. I mean, I'd designed a couple of tattoos for friends and family that they seemed happy with, but I'm certainly no H.R. Giger. I need to practice more, copy some stuff by more talented people than myself - I might even post it, and give a shout to the people I am hopelessly plagurising - If'n I remember that is. I might specialise in erotica, that always sells well, what with the Internet being populated almost exclusively by perverts.
4. Work on my Anger Management issues
I hit my alarm clock with a 2lb lump hammer last night because it wouldn't let me change the alarm time - This did not enhance my general user experience, my wife is buying me a new one today... (And no, you don't need to know why I keep a lump hammer by the side of the bed)
5. Finish my bloody trike
I have a rather lovely Honda VF1100 trike in my garage - All blue with silver flames (See flamboyant, above) , it was the love of my life until I sent it away to have it professionally finished. The dilligent and trustworthy professional I sent it to had a few problems and he ended up having it for a number of years (rather than the number of months that he originally quoted) and I kind of lost momentum. The damn thing's been sat there for over a year now with no real progress being made. It needs maybe a few hundred quid throwing at it and days (rather than weeks) of time. I seem to always find a reason for not looking at it, ranging from 'There's something else we need to spend the money on', through 'It's raining' to 'I've found some beer that I'd forgotten I had'. This really isn't good enough, I seem to be coming across as a bit of a procrastinator. In fact, I would be the King of procrastinators, but I can't be bothered - All bow down before your regent, Prince LazyAss the fifty-third - Bathe in my reflected protraction.
6. I will stop feeling guilty for doing things that I enjoy.
Actually, this one's probably never going to happen either. Maybe it's just my made up middle-class sensibilities, or maybe I'm just too gorram passive-agressive - As the Offspring once sang, 'The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care (Right, yeah!)'. I tend to show this particular nonsensical defect by going without so that others don't have to... Makes no sense at all - I earn the vast proportion of the yearly family income, why should I feel guilty for buying myself the occasional PC Game or Ladyboy? No-one berates me for spending my own money, it's all self-contained - I think I'm probably not as well adjusted as I thought I was?
Anywho, enough of my bleating, I hope you've found something here to help you rationalise your own impending failure to keep to your arbitrary resolutions. After all, if a Super-Villain such as myself can't hit his own targets, what chance have you guys got?
(Feel free to use this as an excuse to your nearest and dearest)
Now, I've never been one that subscribes to this idea of setting myself unattainable targets, or even attainable targets for that matter. But there are some things that I will try to do this year. Actually, 'try' might be putting it strongly - What I'll probably do is carry on as normal and then if I accidentally do any of these things, I'll feel all smug and self-important and tell you all about it.
1. Get more involved in Burlesque.
I've been nipping at the edges of burlesque for some years now, the words 'Flamboyant' and 'odd' are ones that you could quite happily use to describe me (amongst several others of course, but those are the two I'm highlighting now) and I think that that sums up my feelings on Burlesquerie. It's not all about the strippers, although I'd be lying if I didn't freely admit that that is a part of it. It's more about the whole feel of it, the anachronism, the ostrich feathers, the music. Although I think the main thing is that it's one of the few 'Glamour related' pastimes that is totally non-judgemental where body shape/size are concerned. Real sized people are welcomed with open arms, and a lot of the professional artistes can't be described as stick thin by any stretch of the imagination.
2. Shine at my chosen career
This one is probably the most unlikely in fairness. I've been doing what I do, jobwise, for about thirty years now. I'm pretty good at it, it (just) pays the bills and I tend to get a lot of repeat business, in that places I've worked at, or people I've worked with, tend to ask for me if they have things that need doing that I can do. Thing is, this has virtually nothing to do with the fact that I am any better at these things than anyone else - It's usually because I make people laugh, at the same time as doing a half-assed job. The ability to fit into an already established team with the minimum of discomfort has been a mainstay of my repertoire for a long time. But now I've moved from being a contractor to being a permie, I might just have to get good at what I do.
3. Draw more
2012 will be forever remembered as 'The year when I actually started actively selling my stuff Internationally' - I've always been a 'hobbyist' as far as my artwork is concerned, drawing mainly for pleasure and I'd considered myself firmly in the 1st. year art student school of drawing. I mean, I'd designed a couple of tattoos for friends and family that they seemed happy with, but I'm certainly no H.R. Giger. I need to practice more, copy some stuff by more talented people than myself - I might even post it, and give a shout to the people I am hopelessly plagurising - If'n I remember that is. I might specialise in erotica, that always sells well, what with the Internet being populated almost exclusively by perverts.
4. Work on my Anger Management issues
I hit my alarm clock with a 2lb lump hammer last night because it wouldn't let me change the alarm time - This did not enhance my general user experience, my wife is buying me a new one today... (And no, you don't need to know why I keep a lump hammer by the side of the bed)
5. Finish my bloody trike
I have a rather lovely Honda VF1100 trike in my garage - All blue with silver flames (See flamboyant, above) , it was the love of my life until I sent it away to have it professionally finished. The dilligent and trustworthy professional I sent it to had a few problems and he ended up having it for a number of years (rather than the number of months that he originally quoted) and I kind of lost momentum. The damn thing's been sat there for over a year now with no real progress being made. It needs maybe a few hundred quid throwing at it and days (rather than weeks) of time. I seem to always find a reason for not looking at it, ranging from 'There's something else we need to spend the money on', through 'It's raining' to 'I've found some beer that I'd forgotten I had'. This really isn't good enough, I seem to be coming across as a bit of a procrastinator. In fact, I would be the King of procrastinators, but I can't be bothered - All bow down before your regent, Prince LazyAss the fifty-third - Bathe in my reflected protraction.
6. I will stop feeling guilty for doing things that I enjoy.
Actually, this one's probably never going to happen either. Maybe it's just my made up middle-class sensibilities, or maybe I'm just too gorram passive-agressive - As the Offspring once sang, 'The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care (Right, yeah!)'. I tend to show this particular nonsensical defect by going without so that others don't have to... Makes no sense at all - I earn the vast proportion of the yearly family income, why should I feel guilty for buying myself the occasional PC Game or Ladyboy? No-one berates me for spending my own money, it's all self-contained - I think I'm probably not as well adjusted as I thought I was?
Anywho, enough of my bleating, I hope you've found something here to help you rationalise your own impending failure to keep to your arbitrary resolutions. After all, if a Super-Villain such as myself can't hit his own targets, what chance have you guys got?
(Feel free to use this as an excuse to your nearest and dearest)
Monday, 31 December 2012
That wasn't the year that was.
Well, I suppose - As it's the last day of 2012, I should do some sort of hoitsy-toitsy review of the year... High points, low points, mid points - What trended on Twitter, how many people found the Blog interesting, how much my personal Facebook index flopped around like a halibut in a Zumba class.
But I'm not going to, I have a memory like a sieve and the few things that I can remember actually happening, I can't remember when it happened or to who and with what.
I might make some stuff up I suppose - Hey, that might work - In fact, that's what I'm going to do! A month by month guide to things that didn't happen in the last year.
January.
An early news report from Khazakstan informed us that civilian contractors were transporting a Sperm Whale by air, using one of those huge Russian sky-hook style helicopters and an intricate system of thin straps and pullies - It turns out that the whole thing had been organised by an Italian company and the instructions had been translated from Italian to Khazakstani by the same Icelandic chap from the Dutch East Indies who writes out the instructions for Ikea. Within minutes of taking off, the poor cetacean suffered terminal garroting and fell into six neat pieces. Luckily, local villagers were able to follow some supplementary instructions, and fashion the remains into three free-standing bookcases and a very avant-garde table-lamp.
February.
Shoppers in Sheffield, UK, were startled to find that due to an issue with autocorrect at a local advertising agency, a launch event for the BluRay release of the X-Men origin film 'Wolverine' had become a little more feral than expected. Where the original instruction had been 'Make sure the guy in the Wolverine suit gets to Meadowhall by 09:00' - It appeared on the Talent-Wrangler's iPhone as 'Make sure you release 900 live Wolverines in Meadowhall - Guy'. In the ensuing chaos, four people were bitten to death - two seriously, one by a policeman.
March.
March will be remembered, more than anything, for the temporary repealing of the laws of conservation of momentum by the US Senate. The reason that this was a temporary change was that not much research had been done beforehand and no-one realised that this would make any form of 'Coasting' impossible - This alienated one of the largest US demographics - i.e. The 15-35 year old, itinerant, disallusioned skateboarding company director - And Google threatened to launch a class-action suit due to lost productivity at its HQ, as no-one was able to use the swings and slides.
April.
Apple fanboys were shocked to learn that they had been taken in by a complex ruse perpetrated by Samsung. An email had been sent to anyone with an @overpricedtoy.com or @moremoneythansense.org email address, offering them the chance to take part in the new Beta Test of the printable iPhone 5. The 'dupes' queued for hours at their own home printers, after being told that the device would be launched at 00:00 on April 31st, a completely new day, that would only exist for the Apple glitterati - At 11:59 on the 30th, a print job was generated that printed out a picture of a house-brick with a smiley-face painted on it by a duck. The joke was on Samsung however, as this proved to have slightly greater functionality than the standard iPhone 5.
May.
Plans were unveiled by NASA to recreate the original Starship Enterprise in Earth orbit. The $60 Billion dollar project stalled however, as not enough people could be found who were willing to be boarded into the walls for the entire five-year mission and operate the sliding doors whilst making the 'Shhhht' noise.
June.
June played host to the hottest day ever recorded in the history of the known universe. It occured when an office party prank at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland went horribly wrong. A group of scientists, bored with making drinks that changed colour indicating the arousal level of the drinker, decide to see what would happen if you accelerated a shish-tikka-donner mixed kebab (with extra salad) to lightspeed. The effect was devastating, but thankfully shortlived. As the chilli sauce reached 299,792,459 m/s its quantum state changed to anti-chilli and a small, but quite fragrant sun was instantly created - raising the local temperature for Western Europe to approximately 74.2 bajillion degrees.
July.
On the 8th. Due to an unusual weather pattern, 95% of the world's remaining 17,600 White Rhino performed The Timewarp - from Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror show. The quake produced when they all initially 'Jumped to the left' caused massive flooding in Botswana and large cracks to appear on the peak of Kilimanjaro - It's not known why the remaining 5% didn't join in, but the prevailing research shows that they were probably Mama-Mia fans.
August.
August shall be remembered for the temporary cessation of all sporting activity on the UK mainland - Absolutely nothing competetive happened. TV programming that would normally have been sport related was replaced by re-runs of Come Dine With Me. Even conkers was outlawed. Anyone caught flouting this new ruling was taken to Sebastian Coe's underground hideout and birched ruthlessly until they'd learned their lesson.
September.
Danish inventor Myrtryk Von Hunboltzon premiered his world-beating new invention - The Cat-a-porter, a method of instantly transmitting cats from place to place globally. Initial trials proved effective as cats of all sizes, colours and personalities were transmitted around the world. Unfortunately, it all turned out to be a massive con, as the cat that was being 'transported' was in fact, being minced by hidden equipment and not transported at all. All Von Hunboltzon had actually invented was a device for spontaneously creating cats out of thin air.
October.
The world of Fortean Research gained another martyr in early October as Brigadier Hawksworth McTavish-Silverplib (Retd.) completed his two year stalk-fest of the Beast of Bodmin in spectacular fashion. The Brigadier, known to local Beastarians as 'Mad Dangler McTavish' due to his habit of hunting the beast a Magic-tree car air freshener tied to his genatalia to mask his scent, was believed to have cornered the animal in a disused barn. His mangled remains were discoved in various places scattered around Cornwall. He is survived by an English Springer Spaniel called Leonard.
November.
Almost nothing of any note happened in November, the tides continued in their sploshey up-down motion, birds flew south, cheese matured and the complex system of checkes and balances that we call life continued unabated. Right up until the point where every man, woman and child who lived through the 1980's was discovered to have been some kind of pedophile or assorted rapist, sheep worrier or sodomiser. Apart from Bruce Forsythe, he was outed as a vampire and ritually staked by Tess Daley on the set of 'Strictly Come Dancing'
December.
Hollywood news that peaked in December was centered around the revelation that Kristen Stewart, 'Star' of the Twilight films and Snow White and the Huntsman, did not actually exist. She was outed as a completely digital construct by her ex-partner Cedric Pattinson. When questioned by a representative of the Jo McCarthy Rights for Real Humans group, Pattinson admitted that he thought it strange that Stewart dissapeared every time there was a power outage at their shared apartment in East Compton, LA. However he thought that this may have been due to her childhood spent in California. It was also discovered that it was during one of these power outages that her facial expression subroutine had been deleted.
Well, there you go, a month by month list of things that didn't happen in 2012 - I hope to continue making youse guys shake your heads in mild disbelief in the new year.
Let me leave you with a quote from my good friend Pedro Vader that I think sums this year up.
'If you stick your hand right inside, and I sort of make a sawing motion like this, do you think you can feel it?'
But I'm not going to, I have a memory like a sieve and the few things that I can remember actually happening, I can't remember when it happened or to who and with what.
I might make some stuff up I suppose - Hey, that might work - In fact, that's what I'm going to do! A month by month guide to things that didn't happen in the last year.
January.
An early news report from Khazakstan informed us that civilian contractors were transporting a Sperm Whale by air, using one of those huge Russian sky-hook style helicopters and an intricate system of thin straps and pullies - It turns out that the whole thing had been organised by an Italian company and the instructions had been translated from Italian to Khazakstani by the same Icelandic chap from the Dutch East Indies who writes out the instructions for Ikea. Within minutes of taking off, the poor cetacean suffered terminal garroting and fell into six neat pieces. Luckily, local villagers were able to follow some supplementary instructions, and fashion the remains into three free-standing bookcases and a very avant-garde table-lamp.
February.
Shoppers in Sheffield, UK, were startled to find that due to an issue with autocorrect at a local advertising agency, a launch event for the BluRay release of the X-Men origin film 'Wolverine' had become a little more feral than expected. Where the original instruction had been 'Make sure the guy in the Wolverine suit gets to Meadowhall by 09:00' - It appeared on the Talent-Wrangler's iPhone as 'Make sure you release 900 live Wolverines in Meadowhall - Guy'. In the ensuing chaos, four people were bitten to death - two seriously, one by a policeman.
March.
March will be remembered, more than anything, for the temporary repealing of the laws of conservation of momentum by the US Senate. The reason that this was a temporary change was that not much research had been done beforehand and no-one realised that this would make any form of 'Coasting' impossible - This alienated one of the largest US demographics - i.e. The 15-35 year old, itinerant, disallusioned skateboarding company director - And Google threatened to launch a class-action suit due to lost productivity at its HQ, as no-one was able to use the swings and slides.
April.
Apple fanboys were shocked to learn that they had been taken in by a complex ruse perpetrated by Samsung. An email had been sent to anyone with an @overpricedtoy.com or @moremoneythansense.org email address, offering them the chance to take part in the new Beta Test of the printable iPhone 5. The 'dupes' queued for hours at their own home printers, after being told that the device would be launched at 00:00 on April 31st, a completely new day, that would only exist for the Apple glitterati - At 11:59 on the 30th, a print job was generated that printed out a picture of a house-brick with a smiley-face painted on it by a duck. The joke was on Samsung however, as this proved to have slightly greater functionality than the standard iPhone 5.
May.
Plans were unveiled by NASA to recreate the original Starship Enterprise in Earth orbit. The $60 Billion dollar project stalled however, as not enough people could be found who were willing to be boarded into the walls for the entire five-year mission and operate the sliding doors whilst making the 'Shhhht' noise.
June.
June played host to the hottest day ever recorded in the history of the known universe. It occured when an office party prank at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland went horribly wrong. A group of scientists, bored with making drinks that changed colour indicating the arousal level of the drinker, decide to see what would happen if you accelerated a shish-tikka-donner mixed kebab (with extra salad) to lightspeed. The effect was devastating, but thankfully shortlived. As the chilli sauce reached 299,792,459 m/s its quantum state changed to anti-chilli and a small, but quite fragrant sun was instantly created - raising the local temperature for Western Europe to approximately 74.2 bajillion degrees.
July.
On the 8th. Due to an unusual weather pattern, 95% of the world's remaining 17,600 White Rhino performed The Timewarp - from Richard O'Brien's Rocky Horror show. The quake produced when they all initially 'Jumped to the left' caused massive flooding in Botswana and large cracks to appear on the peak of Kilimanjaro - It's not known why the remaining 5% didn't join in, but the prevailing research shows that they were probably Mama-Mia fans.
August.
August shall be remembered for the temporary cessation of all sporting activity on the UK mainland - Absolutely nothing competetive happened. TV programming that would normally have been sport related was replaced by re-runs of Come Dine With Me. Even conkers was outlawed. Anyone caught flouting this new ruling was taken to Sebastian Coe's underground hideout and birched ruthlessly until they'd learned their lesson.
September.
Danish inventor Myrtryk Von Hunboltzon premiered his world-beating new invention - The Cat-a-porter, a method of instantly transmitting cats from place to place globally. Initial trials proved effective as cats of all sizes, colours and personalities were transmitted around the world. Unfortunately, it all turned out to be a massive con, as the cat that was being 'transported' was in fact, being minced by hidden equipment and not transported at all. All Von Hunboltzon had actually invented was a device for spontaneously creating cats out of thin air.
October.
The world of Fortean Research gained another martyr in early October as Brigadier Hawksworth McTavish-Silverplib (Retd.) completed his two year stalk-fest of the Beast of Bodmin in spectacular fashion. The Brigadier, known to local Beastarians as 'Mad Dangler McTavish' due to his habit of hunting the beast a Magic-tree car air freshener tied to his genatalia to mask his scent, was believed to have cornered the animal in a disused barn. His mangled remains were discoved in various places scattered around Cornwall. He is survived by an English Springer Spaniel called Leonard.
November.
Almost nothing of any note happened in November, the tides continued in their sploshey up-down motion, birds flew south, cheese matured and the complex system of checkes and balances that we call life continued unabated. Right up until the point where every man, woman and child who lived through the 1980's was discovered to have been some kind of pedophile or assorted rapist, sheep worrier or sodomiser. Apart from Bruce Forsythe, he was outed as a vampire and ritually staked by Tess Daley on the set of 'Strictly Come Dancing'
December.
Hollywood news that peaked in December was centered around the revelation that Kristen Stewart, 'Star' of the Twilight films and Snow White and the Huntsman, did not actually exist. She was outed as a completely digital construct by her ex-partner Cedric Pattinson. When questioned by a representative of the Jo McCarthy Rights for Real Humans group, Pattinson admitted that he thought it strange that Stewart dissapeared every time there was a power outage at their shared apartment in East Compton, LA. However he thought that this may have been due to her childhood spent in California. It was also discovered that it was during one of these power outages that her facial expression subroutine had been deleted.
Well, there you go, a month by month list of things that didn't happen in 2012 - I hope to continue making youse guys shake your heads in mild disbelief in the new year.
Let me leave you with a quote from my good friend Pedro Vader that I think sums this year up.
'If you stick your hand right inside, and I sort of make a sawing motion like this, do you think you can feel it?'
Friday, 28 December 2012
Take me to your Lederhosen
I'm feeling self-referential this morning, so I'm going back to a subject that's close to my gizzard.
Alien Abduction...
People who know me and/or have visited Dandy Towers will appreciate that the first floor library is mainly comprised of Science Fiction books, a smattering of Horror, many, many 'Fo' dummies' books and an English to Dutch phrasebook. I like a getaway from reality to be a getaway and how much further can you getaway than to the thirteenth bifurcated throne-room of Emperor Fun'dun'kmant'ine the Socially Inept who happens to command a fleet of ten thousand gravity-powered, cloakable, Star-Killerons and is father to the shrew-gratingly beautiful F'nurk'ma'chewb'utfutnut, whose attributes are both talked about in and visible from, low orbit.
I'm not biased, I like everything from the high space opera stuff as described above to the 'It was Earth all along' shock twist in the tail, OMG I'm so original, genres. I've been reading this sort of stuff for the best part of forty years and I've read pretty much all the basic stories, and some of the not so basic ones, there can be some stuff you really have to think about, like;
Boy meets girl, girl turns out to be thousand year old alien and runs away. Girl meets other boy, boy dies bravely in intergalactic war, boy revived by enemy soldier. Spaceship turns out to be the killer, girl turns out to be the spaceship. Boy turns out to have imagined the whole thing, Both boys are the same person. Girl is one of the boys' Grandmother, but not the other's.
You see, with my training and experience, I understand all that - I mean, it helps that I wrote it, but still... You'd think I'd be immune to all the associated Sci-Fi tomfoolery. But the whole Alien Abduction stuff does tend to put the wind up me a bit - I can read about it, no problem - I've got many books full of accounts from people who claim they've been abducted, taken aboard your actual spaceship, by your actual aliens and either been viciously subjected to vicious experimentation or given a bit of a tour and had a lovely chat about the threat of impending thermonuclear war and dropped off with only an itchy sub-dermal implant to remember them by.
I think I might just be a bit gay about the idea of being being anally probed - Hang on, that might not be right, I mean I'm really not a fan of the whole idea.
You know how in the horror films, you've got the soon to be victim, running through the forest in the middle of the night, being pursued by (If it's a decent director) a half-glimpsed monster, when she comes across a rickety woodshed, forces her way inside and slams the door. She immediately feels safe, even though we've previously seen it tear a train apart using only its nipples and eyebrows. Well, you don't get that respite from alien abduction, most abductees are asleep when they're 'taken'. You might get a bright light and a wooooo-wooooo-wooooo noise if'n you're lucky, but that's about your lot until you wake up in a white room full of the little grey dudes with the big black eyes giving it the old 'This might sting a bit' routine as they plunder your nether-regions with a nuclear powered eggwhisk.
And that's the other thing... If you'd asked a bunch of kids in the '60's to draw you an alien, you'd have got a mix of wild and wonderful pictures from two-headed parrots to octopus footed centipedes and everything in between. Do that now and the chances are you'll mostly get the picture that most of you just thought of (OK, apart from you people who misread 'AN' alien as 'THE' Alien) - You know, the little dudes with the pear shaped heads, massive black eyes and no visible genitals, known by one and all as Apple Store Employees... Erm... I mean Greys.
It's something I've been thinking about for a while, is this image being drummed into us? Are we being made ready for a big 'reveal' by a conglomeration of Western Governments? So that when the curtain is pulled aside and it turns out that we've had Zarp and Plurb from Zeta Reticulii coaching the direction of mankind's development since the Roswell crash we all just go 'Ah, right you are then'?
I read recently that according to a recent study even young babies recognise pictures of Greys as being a 'thing' rather than just an abstract shape. This brings up another two questions;
1 - Why are they able to do that?
2 - Why would anyone be doing that research?
I think we should all be desperately worried - Either that there's an alien invasion going on by stealth - Or I'm as mad as a donkey wearing lederhosen on a tightrope.
Either way, no-one's sticking anything up my butt, without at least buying me dinner first.
Alien Abduction...
People who know me and/or have visited Dandy Towers will appreciate that the first floor library is mainly comprised of Science Fiction books, a smattering of Horror, many, many 'Fo' dummies' books and an English to Dutch phrasebook. I like a getaway from reality to be a getaway and how much further can you getaway than to the thirteenth bifurcated throne-room of Emperor Fun'dun'kmant'ine the Socially Inept who happens to command a fleet of ten thousand gravity-powered, cloakable, Star-Killerons and is father to the shrew-gratingly beautiful F'nurk'ma'chewb'utfutnut, whose attributes are both talked about in and visible from, low orbit.
I'm not biased, I like everything from the high space opera stuff as described above to the 'It was Earth all along' shock twist in the tail, OMG I'm so original, genres. I've been reading this sort of stuff for the best part of forty years and I've read pretty much all the basic stories, and some of the not so basic ones, there can be some stuff you really have to think about, like;
Boy meets girl, girl turns out to be thousand year old alien and runs away. Girl meets other boy, boy dies bravely in intergalactic war, boy revived by enemy soldier. Spaceship turns out to be the killer, girl turns out to be the spaceship. Boy turns out to have imagined the whole thing, Both boys are the same person. Girl is one of the boys' Grandmother, but not the other's.
You see, with my training and experience, I understand all that - I mean, it helps that I wrote it, but still... You'd think I'd be immune to all the associated Sci-Fi tomfoolery. But the whole Alien Abduction stuff does tend to put the wind up me a bit - I can read about it, no problem - I've got many books full of accounts from people who claim they've been abducted, taken aboard your actual spaceship, by your actual aliens and either been viciously subjected to vicious experimentation or given a bit of a tour and had a lovely chat about the threat of impending thermonuclear war and dropped off with only an itchy sub-dermal implant to remember them by.
I think I might just be a bit gay about the idea of being being anally probed - Hang on, that might not be right, I mean I'm really not a fan of the whole idea.
You know how in the horror films, you've got the soon to be victim, running through the forest in the middle of the night, being pursued by (If it's a decent director) a half-glimpsed monster, when she comes across a rickety woodshed, forces her way inside and slams the door. She immediately feels safe, even though we've previously seen it tear a train apart using only its nipples and eyebrows. Well, you don't get that respite from alien abduction, most abductees are asleep when they're 'taken'. You might get a bright light and a wooooo-wooooo-wooooo noise if'n you're lucky, but that's about your lot until you wake up in a white room full of the little grey dudes with the big black eyes giving it the old 'This might sting a bit' routine as they plunder your nether-regions with a nuclear powered eggwhisk.
And that's the other thing... If you'd asked a bunch of kids in the '60's to draw you an alien, you'd have got a mix of wild and wonderful pictures from two-headed parrots to octopus footed centipedes and everything in between. Do that now and the chances are you'll mostly get the picture that most of you just thought of (OK, apart from you people who misread 'AN' alien as 'THE' Alien) - You know, the little dudes with the pear shaped heads, massive black eyes and no visible genitals, known by one and all as Apple Store Employees... Erm... I mean Greys.
It's something I've been thinking about for a while, is this image being drummed into us? Are we being made ready for a big 'reveal' by a conglomeration of Western Governments? So that when the curtain is pulled aside and it turns out that we've had Zarp and Plurb from Zeta Reticulii coaching the direction of mankind's development since the Roswell crash we all just go 'Ah, right you are then'?
I read recently that according to a recent study even young babies recognise pictures of Greys as being a 'thing' rather than just an abstract shape. This brings up another two questions;
1 - Why are they able to do that?
2 - Why would anyone be doing that research?
I think we should all be desperately worried - Either that there's an alien invasion going on by stealth - Or I'm as mad as a donkey wearing lederhosen on a tightrope.
Either way, no-one's sticking anything up my butt, without at least buying me dinner first.
Thursday, 27 December 2012
Bandits at 2 O'Clock! What do I do until then?
I remember it like it was yesterday (even though it was over twenty years ago). I'd launched from a small airbase on the eastern border of Finland, the one it shares with what is now Karelia - But was at the time, as far as we were concerned, just another part of the western USSR. I was flying low and slow, trying to minimise my radar signature, not easy in such a mountainous region.
The sanctioned mission was simply to destroy a train, transporting tanks and ammunition to fortify the small, but strategically important town of Onega, but, as ever, I had maxed my weapons loadout, as there were always brownie points available for hitting targets of opportunity. It took me almost an hour of flying over barren steppe to find the target, it was on an uncharted line just west of Pavlovskaya. I could just see SAM sites on the edge of the detection range of my passive radar, not close enough to bother me of course, but worth remembering all the same.
looping around to bring myself onto an intercept vector, I thumbed the weapons select switch until the AGM-65E(i) came on-line, my centre MFD showed an image of the train below and I checked the range. 20 Clicks, within range but only just, I waited for a few seconds until I'd closed to 15, rotated the stores bay open and then launched the first missile. No matter how many times you do it, the jolt of the munition dropping away and the roar as the rocket engine engages is something you never get used to.
The small screen showed me the weapon's track as it sped towards the target at over 1,000 KpH. Seeing as I wasn't paying, I thought that I'd send in another one to keep it company. I launched the second Maverick, rotated the bay closed and turned south-east, realising that the air would soon be filled with MiGs looking for payback. The first missile chose that second to hit and I saw the plume of flame, the screen changed to show the track of the second missile, just as it detonated inside what must have been the ammunition storage car, this second explosion dwarfed the first and caused the almost instantaneous derailment of the entire train.
Looking down at the battlemap, I noticed that I'd received a message from an E-3 orbiting high overhead. It seems that my secondary target had been confirmed as a Typhoon class nuclear submarine due to be launching from the repair-base at Severodvinsk - I had to destroy it before it made it to the safety of the polar ice-cap. I set the waypoints and headed north towards the coast. As I cleared the foothills of the mountains and started across the vast swages of pine forest, I detected several mobile SAM sites blocking my way to the north, I should have known that it wouldn't be that easy.
I lost altitude again until I was skimming the treetops, knocking the powdered snow from their top branches with the vectored exhaust from the turbo-fans, I canted gently to the left and headed out over the White Sea. The missile launch alarm caught me completely by surprise, I hadn't seen a radar site come online anywhere close enough to detect me. I'll admit that I panicked, I'd become complacent after a ten completed mission streak returning a plane to base without a scratch had earned me a place in the base's Sierra Hotel... Big mistake!
The threat classification system identified the inbound as a Grail, with passive infrared guidance. That explained why I hadn't seen a SAM site come online, somewhere behind me was a Russian soldier who just happened to have a Grail-launcher with him, and no doubt a field radio. Things were going to get hotter from now on. A barrage of flares confused the rocket for long enough for me to try to get out of range, in case he had a similarly equipped friend. I knocked the throttle forward and ordered the terrain-following autopilot to hug the waves, coming around in a long, slow loop, I set course south-east again, intending to fly right down the throat of the sub-pens.
It only took a few minutes for my forward cameras to make out the base, there wasn't much to see, a collection of hardened concrete boxes descending into the water, huge steel pressure doors blocking their entrances. All except one, one door was wide open and in front of it floated the massive, 40,000 tonne bulk of the target. My radar showed SAM sites lighting up all around the docks like killer Christmas decorations and I realised that a low-altitude run might be the best way to take out the target, but it would leave me with around twenty four S-75s trying to tear chunks out of my rear end as soon as I ran for it.
I targeted the sub, and selected my single ASALM missile. As soon as I had a positive lock, I rotated the weapons bay open, pulled back on the stick and lobbed the munition into the air, over a tonne of ordinance leaving the plane changed the flight characteristics fairly sublimely and I had to fight to keep from turning turtle. As soon as I had hit vertical, I rolled the plane through 180 degrees and pulled back on the stick, pointing myself back at the base, but this time upside down. Performing (even if I say so myself) a perfect snap-roll, I targeted the four closest SAM sites and launched Mavericks, then let loose the two CSW's that I'd had the quartermaster load on a whim, I'd never used them before, not really trusting the new, so called 'Smart' weapons.
It must have taken only two or three seconds from the start of my attack to the start of my exit run, but it felt like years, everything slowed down almost to the point of stopping, I could see my MFDs refreshing themselves. And I was hammering the chaff and flare release buttons so quickly that I didn't notice the 'OUT' indicators until I was 5 Clicks south of the site.
Three SAM sites had managed to get off a shot before they'd been wiped out in the firestorm (I learned to trust Smart weapons after that) and I was out of countermeasures. There was nothing I could do but get as close to the deck as possible and hope that I could evade them until they either hit something solid or ran out of fuel. I started to jink but the missiles continued to close. This was it, there was no way out, they had three times my speed and they were seconds away from being in detonation range. I pulled hard left and realised they weren't following me... Of Course! how could I have forgotten that the S-75 was guided from the launch station, the same launch stations that were now burning piles of twisted metal.
My self-congratulation was cut short as two of the missiles detonated behind me, luckily their approach vector was too oblique to tear any major chunks out of me, but they caused some minor damage to my control surfaces and as my port engine swallowed some shrapnel, I lost thrust.
There was nothing left but to set a direct course back to base, I had virtually no weaponry left, no countermeasures, no hope of escaping using engine power or maneuverability. My only chance was to keep the plane in the air long enough to make it back over the border to Finland, it didn't matter what happened after that.
Unfortunately, a flight of MiGs had different ideas, I'd made it as far as Lake Onega, not so far from where I'd hit the train. The threat detector was solid red, the air was full of Aphids and Atolls and I made the concious decision not to spend the rest of my days in a soviet prison. The end, when it came was in a riot of alarms and bright colours and if I'm honest, the pain was more from the realisation that I wouldn't be able to get credit for the disabling blow I had dealt.
I leaned back into my chair and stared at the screen, it said 'Retry Mission?' I pressed 'N' and turned off the Amiga - I'd forgotten just how much I enjoyed playing F29 Retaliator
The sanctioned mission was simply to destroy a train, transporting tanks and ammunition to fortify the small, but strategically important town of Onega, but, as ever, I had maxed my weapons loadout, as there were always brownie points available for hitting targets of opportunity. It took me almost an hour of flying over barren steppe to find the target, it was on an uncharted line just west of Pavlovskaya. I could just see SAM sites on the edge of the detection range of my passive radar, not close enough to bother me of course, but worth remembering all the same.
looping around to bring myself onto an intercept vector, I thumbed the weapons select switch until the AGM-65E(i) came on-line, my centre MFD showed an image of the train below and I checked the range. 20 Clicks, within range but only just, I waited for a few seconds until I'd closed to 15, rotated the stores bay open and then launched the first missile. No matter how many times you do it, the jolt of the munition dropping away and the roar as the rocket engine engages is something you never get used to.
The small screen showed me the weapon's track as it sped towards the target at over 1,000 KpH. Seeing as I wasn't paying, I thought that I'd send in another one to keep it company. I launched the second Maverick, rotated the bay closed and turned south-east, realising that the air would soon be filled with MiGs looking for payback. The first missile chose that second to hit and I saw the plume of flame, the screen changed to show the track of the second missile, just as it detonated inside what must have been the ammunition storage car, this second explosion dwarfed the first and caused the almost instantaneous derailment of the entire train.
Looking down at the battlemap, I noticed that I'd received a message from an E-3 orbiting high overhead. It seems that my secondary target had been confirmed as a Typhoon class nuclear submarine due to be launching from the repair-base at Severodvinsk - I had to destroy it before it made it to the safety of the polar ice-cap. I set the waypoints and headed north towards the coast. As I cleared the foothills of the mountains and started across the vast swages of pine forest, I detected several mobile SAM sites blocking my way to the north, I should have known that it wouldn't be that easy.
I lost altitude again until I was skimming the treetops, knocking the powdered snow from their top branches with the vectored exhaust from the turbo-fans, I canted gently to the left and headed out over the White Sea. The missile launch alarm caught me completely by surprise, I hadn't seen a radar site come online anywhere close enough to detect me. I'll admit that I panicked, I'd become complacent after a ten completed mission streak returning a plane to base without a scratch had earned me a place in the base's Sierra Hotel... Big mistake!
The threat classification system identified the inbound as a Grail, with passive infrared guidance. That explained why I hadn't seen a SAM site come online, somewhere behind me was a Russian soldier who just happened to have a Grail-launcher with him, and no doubt a field radio. Things were going to get hotter from now on. A barrage of flares confused the rocket for long enough for me to try to get out of range, in case he had a similarly equipped friend. I knocked the throttle forward and ordered the terrain-following autopilot to hug the waves, coming around in a long, slow loop, I set course south-east again, intending to fly right down the throat of the sub-pens.
It only took a few minutes for my forward cameras to make out the base, there wasn't much to see, a collection of hardened concrete boxes descending into the water, huge steel pressure doors blocking their entrances. All except one, one door was wide open and in front of it floated the massive, 40,000 tonne bulk of the target. My radar showed SAM sites lighting up all around the docks like killer Christmas decorations and I realised that a low-altitude run might be the best way to take out the target, but it would leave me with around twenty four S-75s trying to tear chunks out of my rear end as soon as I ran for it.
I targeted the sub, and selected my single ASALM missile. As soon as I had a positive lock, I rotated the weapons bay open, pulled back on the stick and lobbed the munition into the air, over a tonne of ordinance leaving the plane changed the flight characteristics fairly sublimely and I had to fight to keep from turning turtle. As soon as I had hit vertical, I rolled the plane through 180 degrees and pulled back on the stick, pointing myself back at the base, but this time upside down. Performing (even if I say so myself) a perfect snap-roll, I targeted the four closest SAM sites and launched Mavericks, then let loose the two CSW's that I'd had the quartermaster load on a whim, I'd never used them before, not really trusting the new, so called 'Smart' weapons.
It must have taken only two or three seconds from the start of my attack to the start of my exit run, but it felt like years, everything slowed down almost to the point of stopping, I could see my MFDs refreshing themselves. And I was hammering the chaff and flare release buttons so quickly that I didn't notice the 'OUT' indicators until I was 5 Clicks south of the site.
Three SAM sites had managed to get off a shot before they'd been wiped out in the firestorm (I learned to trust Smart weapons after that) and I was out of countermeasures. There was nothing I could do but get as close to the deck as possible and hope that I could evade them until they either hit something solid or ran out of fuel. I started to jink but the missiles continued to close. This was it, there was no way out, they had three times my speed and they were seconds away from being in detonation range. I pulled hard left and realised they weren't following me... Of Course! how could I have forgotten that the S-75 was guided from the launch station, the same launch stations that were now burning piles of twisted metal.
My self-congratulation was cut short as two of the missiles detonated behind me, luckily their approach vector was too oblique to tear any major chunks out of me, but they caused some minor damage to my control surfaces and as my port engine swallowed some shrapnel, I lost thrust.
There was nothing left but to set a direct course back to base, I had virtually no weaponry left, no countermeasures, no hope of escaping using engine power or maneuverability. My only chance was to keep the plane in the air long enough to make it back over the border to Finland, it didn't matter what happened after that.
Unfortunately, a flight of MiGs had different ideas, I'd made it as far as Lake Onega, not so far from where I'd hit the train. The threat detector was solid red, the air was full of Aphids and Atolls and I made the concious decision not to spend the rest of my days in a soviet prison. The end, when it came was in a riot of alarms and bright colours and if I'm honest, the pain was more from the realisation that I wouldn't be able to get credit for the disabling blow I had dealt.
I leaned back into my chair and stared at the screen, it said 'Retry Mission?' I pressed 'N' and turned off the Amiga - I'd forgotten just how much I enjoyed playing F29 Retaliator
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