Miserable fucker

At the risk of turning this blog into a list of things I hate (Too late?)

I caught the end of yet another climate change show last week.
It never ceases to amaze me, how there seems to be an endless supply of money available to make these kind of doom and gloom shows.
It seems to be the modern equivalent of those people that used to walk around, wearing a sandwich board, shouting, "The end is nigh!"
I've not managed to watch anything that contained proof that we humans are causing the impending end of the World, yet we always seem to be getting the blame.
My own personal belief is that the earth's climate is changing but it's just a natural change. It will happen, despite any actions that humans take.

Dinosaurs are generally thought to have died out as a result of an ice age (climate change). I'm not sure if it was as a result of their excessive use of fossil fuels or their excessive use of 4 X 4 vehicles. Whichever one it is, we seem to be repeating their errors.

The late, great Sam Kinison said that whilst watching a show about a desert tribe who suffered starvation every year because of drought, he came up with a solution to the tribes suffering. "Don't fucking live there! MOVE!!!"
A bit crass maybe but not completely unreasonable.

And on that note, I've grown bored with this subject in mid composition!

Maybe I'll take another crack at it some other time.
Until then, live long and prosper.

Pigeons

I hate pigeons.
The phrase, "rats with wings" completely sums them up, for me.
I don't know how true it is but I actually believe them to be disease, flea ridden creatures.
Despite this belief, I'm just like the majority of other men, and pretend to be indifferent to them.
It wasn't until I observed a man today, that I realised that it's not just be but most men.
Eight or nine pigeons startled (As they always fucking are!) by a bus, suddenly took off in the direction of this man. He tried his best to remain calm but when one of the pigeons got a little too close, he waved his arms around and ducked.
I could see that he was annoyed but I knew that, that (that, that, that...) was partially because he felt that he'd embarrassed himself over a stupid bird.
I've seen young women run screaming in similar situations, which seems to me to be the sensible reaction.
I don't believe we should all react like we're starring in the movie, 'The Birds' but there's an acceptable medium.
If you feel like you're almost being attacked by pigeons, feel free to wave your arms and make some noise, without fear of embarrassment.

I'd like to apologise ahead of this post.
I'd like to...
This is going to be another language gripe. Hence the non-apology.

A genuine apology to Lily though, for turning part of an email conversation into a blog post.

Today's whine is about the phrase, 'Elephant in the room'.
Although I understand it's meaning and it's origin, I feel that it's far too abstract. Especially to warrant it's current popularity.

An elephant is just a large thing that it would be hard to ignore, in the suggested place. It would be possible to substitute elephant with anything of great size and the phrase would retain just as much relevance.
We may as well be using the phrase, 'Everybody's ignoring the big thing in the room'.
Please refer to some suggestions below;

Everybody's ignoring the buffalo on the barbecue.
Everybody's ignoring the battleship in the duck pond.
Everybody's ignoring the spaceship on the roof
Everybody's ignoring the rocket ship in the garden
Everybody's ignoring the blue whale in the armchair.
The later being my personal favourite.

If you're the sort of person who uses the elephant in the room phrase, I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage you to try blue whale in the armchair instead.
I think if we all start using my version, we could ease the elephant out of the room!

Alternatively, I could just be ignoring the blue whale in the armchair, that I'm far too easily aggravated by issues of complete unimportance!

You decide

Untenable

It always amazes me how the use of certain words can become almost fashionable.

Like the overuse of like the word like. Nine times out of ten it's use actually involves using more words than are necessary. Like, why would you do that?!

The one that is currently being used to the point of annoyance (I know it doesn't take much to annoy me!), is the word 'untenable'.
It's a word that's been around for hundreds of years. I'd heard it a handful of times in my life, yet more recently, it seems to get used in a news item every other day.

The occasion that I found most amusing was when the footballer, John Terry was quoted as using it.
This is a man whose level of ignorance, resulted in him being accused of racist name calling, during a football match!
Yet, when faced with the decision of ending his international football career he came up with the word untenable.

Yeah, right!

Ahhhh Mr Bond....

Although I wouldn't call myself a Bond movie fan, I went to see the new movie, Sky Fall.
Naively, I thought that since the Bourne movies, the makers of Bond would have to step up their game.
Cold-blooded killers in the Bourne movies spend their time trying to kill, or trying not to be killed. Pretty much what you'd expect cold-blooded killers to do.
However, cold-blooded killers in Bond movies (including Bond) seem to want to have a conversation before killing somebody, usually for no apparent reason. Giving their target the opportunity to escape death.
Luckily the cinema was pretty much empty, so nobody had to suffer the sound of me shouting at the screen, 'Just kill him, for fuck sake!'
To make matters worse, the makers of Sky Fall ( a more apt title would have been Dreadful) decided to make the baddie very camp. Javier Bardem is a great actor but he seems to have been hired to do an impression of Larry Grayson. I spent the movie waiting for him to say, 'Shut that door'.

How did Larry Grayson make a living with a catch-phrase like, 'Shut that door'?
What the fuck did that even mean?
I can't remember if he was complaining of a draught, or if he had a fear of somebody funny following him onto the stage!

I've just realised that you'd have to be of a certain vintage to know what the fuck I'm talking about here.
If you're old enough to remember Larry Grayson, just take a look at the advertising campaign for Sky Fall. I saw Javier Bardem's picture on the side of a bus yesterday and I wasn't thinking, there's that evil genius who was trying to take over the World, I was thinking, 'Shut that door'.
Anyway, go and see Sky Fall, it's great!
Whinge over

Return of Jerry

I seem to have taken more from my own blogs than I probably should.

I found ANOTHER spider in my bath this morning.
However, this time there was no consideration of releasing him into the wild.
I turned on the tap and sent Jerry 2 for the big swim in the sky.
The decision was instant but I was aware that, in my mind I thought, 'he's obviously a stupid spider'.
On the strength of my own blog, that concluded that spiders that get trapped in baths are the least intelligent of the species, I now seem to subconsciously believe that to be true!

Does this make me easily led? Can I be easily led by myself?
How weak willed am I, to have a basic point of view swayed by something I made up myself?

I do realise that I'm putting way too much thought into this. People flush spiders down bath plug-holes every day. And I'm sure that most of those people aren't carrying out self-analyses afterwards.
The only concern that most 'normal' people have is, is the bastard thing dead, as they use the hot tap to wash away the evil spider. Ensuring that, if the spider survives drowning, the boiling water will scaled it's arse to death!

I guess I'm not normal.

A day in the life of...

I had a hospital appointment this week.

It was just a consultation but following the consultation, I had to go for an MRSA swab test.

This involves a cotton bud up each nostril and to each side of the groin.

I will be having an operation (don't worry, it's a minor one) (I don't know why I'm using parentheses to calm readers concerns. I probably only know one of you personally and I'm sure the rest of you couldn't give a fuck. Rightly so) (Are there any rules on how many times parentheses can be used?) (Have you already lost the thread of this sentence? I know I would have. I'd have to go back and reread pre-parentheses.) (I'm just doing this to be annoying now!) but it's unlikely to take place within the next couple of months.

I'm no doctor but would've thought that the swab test would be a pointless exercise with such a large gap between test and operation.

Anyway...

As the nurse was leading me off to an examination room, the receptionist said to her, "Go on girl, go for it".

I didn't know if this statement was regarding a completely unrelated subject, or in reference to me but my uncertainty was set straight as soon as the door to the examination room was closed behind me, and the nurse said, "I said to Agnes (Name changed to protect the guilty by association) on reception, mmmmm Mr Daniels (Name changed to protect...) is very handsome"

For anybody who's not keeping up, I'm Mr Daniels (Name changed to protect...).

I would imagine that with gender reversal (No, I'm not having a sex change!), this would be exactly the kind of situation that could be intimidating for women.

I'm in a room with a woman who has admitted an attraction and is about to carry out a semi-intimate procedure.

To give her credit, she was going to do a groin swab and could very easily have convinced me that I'd need to be naked below the waist but she didn't.

To cut a long story short (and a bit of an anticlimax for anybody reading this) she was very professional. She was very talkative and it turns out that I know her cousin.

She accompanied me back in to reception and said loudly to the receptionist (and anybody else in earshot), "Mr Daniels was lovely!"

It was an unusual experience and in a strange way, very good for the ego.

I guess she was just an incredible flirt, who's not afraid to bring that part of her character into the workplace.

Who am I to judge?