3/31/2003

Post Denmark come down :  I have deleted about 115 emails today. Hurrah
posted by Garreth at 3:52 PM

3/27/2003

Snappy snap :  More kodak moments that never made it into text. In the last few weeks, I've been eating, drinking, dancing, and getting as far as the pub at the start of the anti-war protest but never leaving it, and going to sunny Cambridge...
posted by Garreth at 8:47 AM

I don't think I'm the second coming or anything :  but I am being tempted, during Lent, by the devil in a dark blue can. You know how it is when you wake up at 5:30, can't sleep and make the mistake of going to work. To spice things up, and work through your hangover, you decide to use your mouse left-handed. You mis-spell something - in my case I spelt tenant as tennent. Before you know it, you've found a review of tramp juices. Your mind, cut off from oxygen due to festering fry ups sapping your haemoglobin, starts to wander. Four pack of Special Brew. Hmmm. Tennents Super and black. Yummm. But no, I'm only half way through lent. Must.......not......drink........lager. Gneuuuuurrrgh. Thank God (Or 'Dad' as Jesus never claimed he was called) for White Lightning. Not sure how the temptation is going to be dealt with in Copenhagen this weekend.
posted by Garreth at 8:04 AM

3/26/2003

SMS of the month :  Last five days to get your entries in for the much covetted SMS of March award.Current favourites:

• THE POPE DID NOT PLAY FOOTBALL FOR POLAND. THOUGH HE WAS A GOALKEEPER FOR AN AMATEUR JEWISH TEAM IN HIS YOUTH
• Are you up and looking for fun? just had a failed date and want to have fun. are you up? Gawain
• Had a wicked time :-) off to a fat party near stains xLx

Snack 'o' the day :  This reporter likes to thing that he's been around the chemical block a few times. Possibly stopping at the crack-house, shooting-gallery, and club toilets on the way. Or maybe just at the chemical block on the side of the urinal. But chocolate covered coffee beans, they blew me away. Dry mouth, inability to talk properly, sweating, feverish, twitching - all the hallmarks of a good day in. (Like a good night out, but without taking LSD and going to bullfights)
posted by Garreth at 10:34 AM

Collect :  Apparently, in a sweeping generalisation I read in the Guardian, boys are prone to collecting things. I am a boy. I have variously collected watches, shoes, and money in the past. Collections of foreign banknotes used to excite me - the Australian swim-proof plastic backed dollar, the indestructable Dutch Vim-proof snorting Guilder. It was not a true collection - for one thing, I never took trips to the Bureau de Change (and what is that French moniker doing in common usage anyway - do we travel around the globe running through doors marked 'sortie' when a fire alarm goes off? No, we look for that perfectly English word 'exit'. Do we look for signs saying 'cafe' when we want to eat? Erm....). I never went to currency exchanges and asked for one from the top row, two from the second row, and two from the other rows and paid for them. Collection of foreign banknotes was done in the country from which they were issued. That was the fun of it. Now, I just collect English currency. I got so much of it, that I had to keep them with a bank so that I didn't inadvertantly exchange them for pork pies and bacon sarnies. (Pork pies are hard to collect - every time you get to about four, you have to start eating them. Ooooh, the jelly.)

Now all I collect is strange items from bars. I don't actively collect them, more like they find their way into pockets by the time I wake up. Shot glasses, and matchboxes (usually with bar names and adresses which are useful for retracing the previous night's steps) are a favourite. I haven't found a condom machine in my coat for a long time, which has got to be a good thing. I don't think I really collect things any more, does this mean I'm not a boy?

posted by Garreth at 7:01 AM

3/24/2003

Angels with dirty faeces :  Angels with Dirty Faces? Mingers with too much make-up more like. One of the Sugababes' parents have called her Mutya, which is only one a few letters away from munter. 'Nuff said.
posted by Garreth at 4:01 AM

3/23/2003

Conspiracy and the weblog :  Television is rather passe. If it was any cop, punters would get a balanced view of world events from channels with diverse backing. The media wouldn't be in the hands of a minority. But heck, TV is old hat. What about the interweb? The punternet?

"Ooooh the cost of publishing is now much lower than it was in the nineteenth century. Everyone can have their say. Isn't that soooper? We can all have a voice. Even that little chap in Iraq in the middle of a war in which the media is normally another instrument of mass brain damage in the hands of the marauding imperialists"

Not really, no. I think t'internet, as it's known oop north, has lowered the bar for publishing in terms of both cost and skill. The chap in Iraq might have a really interesting blog - I can't tell as the URL has an underscore in it. Which some proxy servers, such as the one I use, don't like. The digital equivalent of wrapping a newspaper in an iron bar, so that only people with very large letterboxes can have it delivered.

The blogging phenomenon just means that things are harder to find under the deluge of crap that is being piped round ever faster in the internet sewer. I should know, I pollute it as often as I can. More turds later.
posted by Garreth at 1:25 PM

Hot date :  Bring your beards and red suits, get those tickets to New York booked for December, and meet me for the 2003 santacon.
posted by Garreth at 11:21 AM

3/21/2003

Grind :  Anyone who tells you that playing the Getaway isn't a chore is wrong.
Who wants to sneak about without being seen? No-one. Who wants slow cars, and traffic on narrow streets? What you want is escapism, not realism. It'd be like setting up a nightclub, and then getting people to do domestic chores in it. Oh wait, Lemon Jelly already had that idea.
posted by Garreth at 9:10 AM

3/19/2003

Bowling shirts :  What a truly great idea: a shirt with magnets for buttons. Easy to get in and out of, with no zips, poppers or buttons to fiddle with in emergency robing or disrobing situations. This is what I thought when I got my first shirt with magnetic buttons. My belly played peekaboo with the world, as I ripped open my shirt, only to allow gravity to swing the dangling magnets to their mates in a matter of moments.

Now, ten pin bowling is nonsense. The harder you try, the worse you get, and the more likely you are to dislocate your shoulder while projecting the bowling ball into a neighbouring lane in sheer frustration. Every few years, I forget how annoying the 'sport' is, and agree to go again, which happened last week.

Without any cash, I headed to the Tube. I tried to purchase a two pound ticket using my debit card, thinking I could pick up cash from a cash machine later. It wasn't recognised. I tried my credit card, as the queue of ticketless people mounted behind me. This was rejected too. Seven times. I was frustrated before I'd even got my bowling shoes on. I looked around at the huffing queue over my shoulder, smiling weakly as I tried my debit card again. No joy.

I resolved to find an ATM, reasoning that the ticket machine must be out of sorts. I was getting later and more frustrated by the second as I found the first ATM. Small queue, only a few minutes waiting. In with the debit card. "Bitte ihre PIN angechrieben". OK, in with the pin number - a promising sign I figured. The ATM spewed out a page in German, which my schoolboy Deutsche led me to believe was an invitation to choose a language to proceed in. "Darf ich die Jacke apflegen, Herr Professor?" etc.

The language choice didn't include English, which was puzzling. I figured my French was better than my German, and pressed the appropriate button. The ATM looked at me. I looked at the ATM. Nothing happened. I pressed the button again. Anything refused to happen. I tried the 'German' language button. The ATM failed to leap into action. I pressed the other indeterminate language, again nichts. Appealing to the 'cancel' button yielded sweet f.a, although I swear that the ATM was smirking at me by this point. Another queue building up behind this tardy bowler. Arse.

I waited until the machine grew bored of silently taunting me. It beeped a little and then spat out my card. For some reason, I decided to repeat this painful procedure. In my frustration, my powers of deduction had failed me. It seems obvious now that the magnetic strip on the card that had been sitting in my wallet in my shirt pocket next to the magnetic buttons of my stupid bowling shirt for the last half hour was corrupted in some way. It took me a while and several more ATMs to figure that out. I didn't make it to the bowling meet in the end. Maybe I don't have to go for another few years now.
posted by Garreth at 7:29 AM

3/17/2003

SMS Freudian Slips of the Week :  T9 is a convenient way to enter text into a mobile phone using just nine number keys. The phone automagically guesses what you're trying to say and comes up with words that fit the combination of digits you type. My phone, for example will guess 'of' when I type '63', and I have to scroll through the possible words that could be represented by '63' to get to 'me' if that's what I want to say. When under the effluence of aclihol it is often easy to choose the wrong word. You can inadvertantly invite people to come out for swift 'riots' rather than swift 'pints' or 'shots'.

I plan to use this defence in court. I really did mean pints. Honest M'Lud. Kind of like a "Let 'im 'ave it" for the post-nineties phone user.
posted by Garreth at 7:58 AM

3/14/2003

Toilet wall grafitti grew up :  Always worth writing a work colleague's phone number on the back of the song request slip, before slipping it under the pile of slips for the attention of the ex-con running the karaoke machine along with a description of the most attractive and drunk girl in the bar.
posted by Garreth at 9:01 AM

Pubs of Hammersmith - Hop Poles :  Conveniently situated opposite a cash point, the Hop Poles offers a commanding view of people scurrying up and down King Street. This recently renovated pub is a great place to enjoy a beer, maybe a fight, and some big-screen sports.

Last night, my arrival at the Hop Poles was heralded by the sirens of an ambulance. What I presumed to be the first casualty of the night was stretchered away from the bar as I ordered my first drink. The young girl's evening had been diverted to casualty at just 7pm. By 7:30pm, the Karaoke man had arrived, as had a gaggle of school girls. It was like the Somme. They didn't last long, each time one fell, other, younger troops arrived to fill the gap. At about the same time, the guy who manned the toilet arrived. Get away from me with your imitation aftershave, and no I don't need help to wash my hands.

In other bars, people are paid to man the toilets. Presumably to stop too much unlicensed drug traffic, to ensure the pub owners get their cut. It's a thankless task - dealing with drunk people all night in the urine-soaked climate of the local meat market. But I figure the Hammersmith toilet man is not employed by the Hammersmith pub directly, but is supplied by the local firm. In a sinister kind of way. And is probably a heavily armed, well-paid, full-on villain.

Setting something of a precident, we escaped the Hop Poles without too mnay more incidents.

Rating - 4/5 for entertainment and shoolgirls.


posted by Garreth at 5:09 AM

3/12/2003

Balls :  Chinese Boxing, as Wu Shu Kwan is locally known, is a great way to get fit, meet new people, and let them beat seven shades of sweet bejesus out of you. Beating the sweet bejesus out of beginners like myself is a good way to sell official chinese boxing merchandise - such as pads, groin guards, gloves, and gum shields. I vouched for shin guards first. Foolishly, after being kicked in the family jewels three weeks ago, I decided to upgrade my kit by getting gloves. The best form of defense is attack they say.

Last night, a new friend got a pretty solid kick in the nose during practice. The nose was glad of the attention and glowed red, as all of the blood in my friend's face rushed to the front of his nose. It probably wanted to see who was knocking its nostrils.
Later on, I fought a leviathan amongst fishmongers. He punched me a bit in the face. My blood wasn't interested in seeing the outside of my face, for which I bless my lazy corpuscles and immobile platelets. The instructor enthused that I should tuck my chin in.

She didn't mention anything about my family jewels, which must evidently hang out when I fight. Patrolling my groin, giving the finger to my opponents legs, generally being boisterous and attracting too much attention. I'm very attached to my knackers. But last night, when a Spaniard's foot crashed into them, I thought that I wasn't. At the time I thought of my battered friend's nose, and the enormous redness and swelling thereupon. I felt the stomach-churning twist of a knife in my abdomen. I saw stars. I couldn't hear anything for a few moments as my body doubled up. Cycling to work this morning wasn't really an option. Even now, every key-stroke brings back the ache of remembered pain to my trousers. Wu Shu Kwan, through their army of heavy footed sales reps, have kicked their way into another sale. I have ordered a groin guard.
posted by Garreth at 1:04 PM

Scum :  A good friend of mine used to be a recruitment consultant. I used to live with a used-car salesman. I have never knowingly socialised with an estate agent.

In Germany, being a doctor or engineer makes you a pillar of society. In the US, being a lawyer or a doctor makes you a respectable citizen. In the UK, being a recruitment consultant makes you scum in the eyes of many. My good friend obviously is not scum.

"Hi I'm weasel from IT recruitment scum. How are you?"
"Ginger peachy. How are you?"
"...I'm good."
(no-one has ever asked him that before I'm sure, hence the pause in the assault of weasel-patter)
"I haven't spoken to you before but you're in my database, so I thought I'd get back in contact with you about your requirements"
Click. Bzzzzt.

posted by Garreth at 10:34 AM

3/11/2003

A load of Tommy Tank :  Some gonzo psychiatrist has said that watching Thomas the Tank Engine, with its multiple train crashes, will impact small impressionable children. They might not want to use real trains. They may be scared of being burnt alive in a twisted hunk of privatised rolling stock.

What about us 'adults'? What about all of the adults who see those news shows with real train accidents? In the UK, we've had some splendid ones in the last few years. In India, you have sabotage on the tracks and hundreds of people getting charred and speared at the drop of a wet leaf. What about us? Do we want to get on trains?
posted by Garreth at 12:59 PM

The end of a year, the beginning of an era :  Birthdays - a time for celebration. A time for gifts. And a time to give people the bumps. Four things spring to mind about Carol and Jimmy's birthday extravaganza.

The first is bellydancing.
The second is a tray of ten B52s.
The third is giving Jimmy the bumps.
The fourth is that none of these fine feats made it onto my camera.
posted by Garreth at 8:59 AM

3/10/2003

My one inch punch - right after my twenty-four inch swing :  The thing that surprised me most about being kicked in the gonads during a sparring session a few weeks ago was how little it hurt. Or seemed to hurt at the time. It was the next day when the incessant dull throb of discomfort was visited upon my wrinkled retainer. It hadn't been a good fight for me. The Wu Shu Kwan senior instructor kept shouting at my fast legged aggressor in an attempt to dissuade him for his brutal actions. She kept encouraging me to use combinations. It's lucky I don't bruise easy. I have resorted to researching one inch punches.
posted by Garreth at 6:11 AM

Jesus made me a bitter man :  They say you are what you drink, so I'm a bitter man. Well, during lent anyway. This 'giving up lager for lent' thing made me a wine, hurricane and B52 man on Saturday too. And a predominantly supine man on Sunday.
posted by Garreth at 3:29 AM

Congratulations :  on the appointment of Jim Brian to the position of my official drinking coach. He has tutored many celebrities in the ways of drinking, and specialises in both stamina, and sprint training, having great personal successes in the 'yard of ale' categories. Under his wings, I feel confident that I can break the three second pint barrier. With his expert guidance, I achieved a personal best of not only drinking a pint of nasty nasty bitter quite rapidly, but doing so on a Tuesday. Thanks Jim.
posted by Garreth at 3:26 AM

Punctuation exception :  Now, exclamation marks are generally considered a bad thing. But there is a time and a place for everything, just ask any canon-firing merkin wearer. Just so with the humble exclamation mark. As the nice lady points out, describing orgasms would be a little lacking without them "Oh yes. Baby. Oh my God. Yes." etc. But unless you're going hell for leather at your keyboard, don't put them at the end of every sentence you type!!!
posted by Garreth at 1:56 AM

3/04/2003

Top tip :  don't let people idley doodle large phalluses / phalli / phallora with red whiteboard markers on your documents before you take them into a meeting. Especially if its a client meeting and the uninvited member is on the page with the diagram that you want to go through.
posted by Garreth at 11:16 AM

Six inches from the start of your intesine :  A colleague of mine can hide liquid in his throat very quickly. I can't tell where it goes. It might go into his stomach. I watch as he challenges other colleagues to drinking races. He has been seen to be a very competitive person. This is why he allows himself to be challenged to speed liquid-hiding competitions. He knows he will win.

I've only seen him do this with drinks in pubs, UK pubs at that. The standard measure of beer in UK pubs is about a pint, give or take head. Nine out of ten cat owners who expressed a preference said they preferred to give head in pubs. A pint is just over half a litre. The litre is a French invention. I don't own a cat.

I can't really tell if I'm competitive. I do wish to hide a pint of beer in my body in less time than my colleague. This involves training, coaching and practice. I have given up lager for lent. Experts agree that it is easier to drink flat beers faster than fizzy beers such as lager. I try to avoid hiding flat beers in my body. They taste horrible. Come to think of it, lager tastes horrible too. Lager shandy is pleasant, but fizzier still. I wish to be able to hide a pint of bitter in my body in under three seconds.

Water and flavoured flat drinks have been my test bed. Five seconds seems to be my current physical limit for hiding a pint. I knew that five seconds was the limit when I tried to do it in four seconds. Water started to come out of my nose. I must, I must, I must improve my thirst.

I haven't managed to find any books on beer hiding, or any "how-to" articles on the interweb. Does anyone have any? Do I have to learn how to suppress my gag reflex and just pour liquid directly into my gut? I have only two months to achieve three second pint hiding - please help.
posted by Garreth at 9:04 AM

Least favourite punctuation of the week :  The exclamation mark. What does it mean really?
"I think this sentence is a bit dull, but punctuation can save it!"

Worse still - the double exclamation mark. It's for Fisher-Price sentences isn't it?
"No Timmy, stay away from that giant mongoose!!"
"Aaarrghh!!!"
posted by Garreth at 4:23 AM

3/03/2003

Tip of the week :  Ensure the man with the stupid piebald mullet who is cutting your hair can speak English, and is not pre-programmed by a Spanish hair dressing factory. I was not so lucky last week. Although the spaniard nodded and agreed with my trimming instructions, I should have noticed the signs of his programming - he kept blurting incomprehensible stanzas drummed into him at the mullet factory, and he would grin and nod when contradicting himself, me, or anyone else who was around.

Rehearse this chant, or get a placard - we need direct action in the salons across the UK:

What don't we want?
Mullets
When don't we want them?
Always
posted by Garreth at 2:13 AM