Signs of the times

Sign on bank: We can loan you enough money to get you completely out of debt

My friend, Paul, sent me these pictures. I thought they were very funny so decided to share them with you:

Apologies to all who came here and didn't find any pictures! If you REALLY want to see them you'll have to let me have your email address.

Saturday Photo Hunt - Happy

Almost gave up on this one. Then I found this at a local shop, which made me happy. Because it will replace the one that was stolen from my front garden last year. They're called Darren, Dwayne and Derrick. And they will sit happily now in my back garden.

Well, it's one way to remember them

... I went from adolescence to senility, trying to bypass maturity ... - Tom Lehrer

I love Tom Lehrer.



Thanks to meeyauw for leading me here. Enjoy............

Why there can never be true equality

The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots - Rebecca West

You can guess just how interesting my life is at the moment. Yesterday I did try to do something original from my own brain but it required me to scan an old photo, which came out about the size of a postage stamp, so I gave up. I'm posting quizzes, funny pictures sent to me by friends and now one of those numerous emails that people like to circulate. However, this one did strike a chord:


Men Are Just Happier People — what do you expect from such simple creatures?
Your last name stays put.
The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves.
Chocolate is just another snack.
You can never be pregnant.
You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
You can wear NO shirt to a water park.
Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal.
You never have to drive to another petrol station restroom because this one is just too icky.
You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
Same work, more pay.
Wrinkles add character.
A wedding dress is £5,000 but a formal suit rents for £100.
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.
The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
One mood all the time. Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
You know stuff about tanks.
A five-day holiday requires only one suitcase.
You can open all your own jars
You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend. Your underwear is £4.95 for a three-pack.
Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
You almost never have strap problems in public.
You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
Everything on your face stays its original colour.
The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades!
You only have to shave your face and neck. You can play with toys all your life.
Your belly usually hides your big hips.
One wallet and one pair of shoes, one colour for all seasons.
You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
You can "do" your nails with a pocket knife.
You have freedom of choice concerning growing a moustache. You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.
Equality? Never.

Shhhh********

Now, I am not a history buff, but I tell you, I don't remember Louis XIV spending his days pulling hippie hair out of drains! - King of the Hill (1997)

My friend Judy sent me this the other day:

I think she saw it in Guildford. Thought people in Guildford were to posh for that sort of thing.

Icon see clearly now

I think that's just another word for a washed-up has-been - Bob Dylan

You Are a Purple Crayon

Your world is colored in dreamy, divine, and classy colors. You hold yourself to a sky high standard, and you are always graceful. People envy, idolize, and copy you without realizing it. You are an icon for those who know you. And while it is hard to be a perfectionist, rest assured it's paying off! Your color wheel opposite is yellow. While yellow people may be wise, they lack the manners and class needed to impress you.

What Color Crayon Are You?

See........ I'm an icon................ chortle, chortle.......

Be afraid, be very afraid

There has to be evil so that good can prove its purity above it -

Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism

You Are 44% Evil

You are evil, but you haven't yet mastered the dark side. Fear not though - you are on your way to world domination.

How Evil Are You?

Saturday Photo Hunt - Two - Aug 18

Have had a really busy week so haven't put a great deal of thought into this effort. But anyway, here 'tis:







Two pictures of two little ducks; quack, quack; 2 x 2

Research: what you do instead of working

In a prime-time address, President Bush said he backed limited federal funding for stem cell research. 'That's right', the President said, this is a quote, 'the research could help cure brain diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and whatever it is I have'. - Conan O'Brien, Talkshow Host

A team of researchers based at the Health and Safety Laboratory in Buxton, Derbyshire have spent a month and £12,000 of taxpayers money investigating The Role of Towels as a Control to Reduce Slip Potential in the hope that, at the end of their study, they could could reach a conclusion on the weighty matter of whether or not to use a towel to step onto after bathing. Unfortunately, the research was 'complicated' and they couldn't come up with any significant results.

Research that did come up with results was that done for child trust fund provider Family Investments. 530 women with young children were interviewed about their pregnancies and it was found that just 22 per cent of due dates had been accurate to within 2 days. A consultant commented, 'There are a huge number of births that are overdue.' I'm not sure what the point of this research was but it was stated that 'pinpointing an exact due date can relieve anxiety for families, wrongly predicted dates can cause difficulties in the planning, such as booking maternity and paternity leave.' It's amazing that no-one has yet claimed compensation for not being given a precise date! I didn't realise that this was a subject that needed research. I thought EVERYONE knew that babies arrived just when they wanted to and not according to plan!

Saturday Photo Hunt - Row - Aug 11

This sculpture, Inner Compulsion by Peter Randall Page, are at the entrance to the Wellcome Trust Millennium Building, adjacent to Wakehurst Place, which aims to house seeds from 10% of the world's flora by 2009 in their seed bank.

These beautiful gardens and the house, at Ardingly in West Sussex, are owned by the National Trust and funded, administered and maintained by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. I was last there in the spring and the magnolias were magnificent. Here are some more pictures for your edification:



Enjoy.

Kitchen Kapers

Well in the words of Harry S. Truman, if it's too hot in the kitchen, stay away from the cook - All in the Family (1971)


I was having a bit of a clean up in the kitchen the other day (I do sometimes, y'know) and thought I'd give you a bit of a conducted tour:

These little cuties sit on the windowsill behind the sink (hence the water splashes). I got them a few years back on a long weekend visit to Swansea and they've kept their eyes on me ever since. I'm not sure if the cat is, in fact, a tiger going by his markings. But then all cats think they're tigers, don't they? They don't usually sit this closely together, just in case they fight.

This is my digital radio which I acquired a year or two ago. I went to Currys, much against my better judgement. And walked out in a huff as I knew I would. Went next door into Argos and discovered I could get exactly what I wanted using my Nectar points. Great result!

This little chick looks after my rings'n things.

A cookie jar which holds, not cookies, but milk bottle tops and cans for recycling.

Thing for putting washing up things in. Boring.

I burn candles with appropriate smells in this.

My carnivorous fly catcher, Felicity

Tea?

or coffee?

or even better???:

I'm finishing with this wonderful gadget. If my house was falling down and I could rescue only one thing from the kitchen it would be this.

Do you struggle with cling film? Does it cling to everything other than what you want it to cling to? Usually itself? Do you waste more than you use? Do you throw it across the room in anger and frustration? Then this is for you, a cling film dispenser. From the indispensable Lakeland.

Guilt!!

What's with all these awards? They're always giving out awards. Best Fascist Dictator: Adolf Hitler - Annie Hall (1977)

I am very remiss - the lovely Welshcakes nominated me for this award over a week ago and I haven't thanked her publicly. Well, to make up for it - oh......my.........God.......... thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Welshcakes, I'm welling up.

Not only do you receive this honour but you also have to make you own nominations, 5 in total, of those bloggers that you believe to write in an informal, chatty, friendly way. OK - here we go: Clare (lovely girl), MaryB (one of my first blogging friends), Jo (and not just 'cos she's my baby), Tuscan Tony (seems like a lovely chap and loves voluptuous women) and Scroblene (writes my kind of nonsense).

Congratulations all.

Good old days.....

A friend just emailed me this. Seen it before but, just in case you haven't, wanted to share it:

DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...?

It took five minutes for the TV to warm up?

Nearly everyone's Mum was at home when they got home from school?

Nobody owned a purebred dog?

When a shilling was a decent allowance?

You had to be home when the street lights came on?

Your Mum wore stockings that came in two pieces?

All your male teachers wore ties

Female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?

You got your windscreen cleaned, oil checked, and petrol pumped, without asking, all for free, every time?

Cereals had free toys hidden inside the box?

It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?

Schools threatened to keep kids back a year if they failed. . .and they did?

When a Ford Capri was everyone's dream car?

No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?

Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like, "That cloud looks like a… “

Playing footy and cricket with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?

Stuff from the shop came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?

When being sent to the headmaster's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home?

And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savour the slower pace, and share it with the children of today?

Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc.

Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!
But we survived because their love was greater than the threat.

Remember Nancy Drew, Laurel and Hardy, The Famous Five, Secret Seven, Biggles, the Lone Ranger, Phantom, Roy and Dale and Trigger at the flicks.

As well as summers filled with bike rides, cricket games, Hula Hoops, monkey bars, cobbers, visits to the beach and "conversation“ lollies.

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say,

"Yeah, I remember that"?

I am sharing this with you today because it ended with a double dare to pass it on.

To remember what a double dare is, read on.

And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care.

How many of these do you remember?

Lolly cigarettes, pogo sticks, marbles,

Home milk delivery in glass bottles with aluminium tops (still get this)

Newsreels before the movie

Sandshoes/Desert wellies

Four digit Telephone numbers

45 RPM records

Hi-Fi s

Metal ice cubes trays with levers

Mimeograph paper

Spud guns

Ford Capris

Twin Tubs

Reel-To-Reel tape recorders

houses made of cards

Meccano Sets

Anglo/Bazooka Joe pink bubble gum

MoJos/black jacks/fruit salads

Two bob for a gallon of petrol

Do you remember a time when...

Decisions were made by "eeny-meeny-miney-mo"?

"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?

It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"?

The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "boy or girl germs"?

Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a catapult?

There were no Saturday morning cartoons with 30-minute adverts for action figures?

Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?

The worst embarrassment was being caught playing doctors and nurses by your parents

Playing cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?

Taking drugs meant the Polio shots at school

Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!!

Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown-up" life ... I double-dare-ya!

What's in a Name

Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwcp is pronounced 'Jackson'. - Mark Twain

Ah! replied my gentle fair,

Beloved, what are names but air?

Choose thou, whatever suits the line:

Call me Sappho, call me Chloris,

Call me Lalage, or Doris,

Only, only, call me thine.

I read some time ago that Peaches Honeyblossom Michelle Charlotte Angel Vanessa Geldof hates her name; her Christian names because they are mostly ridiculous and her surname because of all the unwanted attention it brings.

This got me thinking about peoples names. Unusual names, stupid names (in my opinion), names you could well do without, interesting names. I think I'm going to start noting them down when I come across them. Then, when I'm bored with doing it or feel I've got enough, I'll publish the list.

Top of the list has got to be mine own. Now this is something that not too many people know because it has always been greeted with smirks, giggles or disbelief but, hey, we're not actually face to face, are we? The people who matter already know this. So here goes:

My maiden name was Bogie, common apparently in Scotland but not in England where I grew up. I did not have a carefree childhood, what with being fat and having a name that was an embarrassment. Still, in the end I got married and the name is now a distant (but never forgotten) memory.

For up-to-the-minute name silliness we have, of course, Peter Andre's and Jordan's baby daughter named Princess Tiaamii - Princess because she's their little princess (aaahhh) and Tiaamii being a combination of the parents' mothers' names (Thea and Amy). I tried this out to see what I would have called Jo using this method and came up with Dorvy or Vydot. For PT, using the grandfathers' names, we would have had Hertho or, maybe, Tombert, neither of which are very attractive. It's a good party game though.

Just four here to get me going:

• Charleszetta Waddles (American nun & writer, b.1912)
• Eudora Welty (American author, b.1909)
• Bacchylides (Greek lyric poet (fl. 5th century) sounds a bit like a nasty disease
• Kinky Friedman (American singer, writer & politician) - yes, he sounds like a politician!
  

'til thenext time

No. We are not gonna postpone the rehearsal for some stupid cat - Meet the Parents (2000)

I was going to post about a couple of items I read in the paper todays....... but I need to refer to them and the cat's curled up and fast asleep on it. So I'll do it tomorrow.

Night, night.