Hanlon's Razor should have a health warning

Tell the charm school that they've failed and we want a refund

2005-03-08T12:32:00.000Z

My boss's boss, the uber-boss (aka the fat controller, for reasons that are obvious) has spent the last two weeks at a residential course. His good mood on returning seems to have lasted a whole day, and we're back to cowering behind our desks, afraid to stick our heads over the metaphorical parapet.
He's very much akin to a viking raiding party in my mind, in as much as he turns up, makes a nuicance of himself and then sods off again (usually early). His working week seems to run from eleven on a Monday to half past twelve on a Friday, while leaving before I do most days.
Life is unfair.

But on thinking about it, I'm glad that life is unfair. Wouldn't it make you feel so much worse if you deserved all the terrible things that happen to you?

Congratulations Jon on getting your very much truncated but none the less printed letter in the torygraph. Shame you put didcot as your address.

"Hands off blue"* and other rants

2005-02-15T14:29:00.000Z

* Paddy O'Brien (referee of the England - France game on Sunday), repeatedly.

It has to be said, how the hell did we manage to lose that?
We missed as many points in penalties as the french scored. It also has to be said that if neither of your two kickers can find the posts with a tracker dog and a ouiga board then stop trying to score penalties. Especially from the half-way line. Kick to the corners, they're bigger.
It doesn't really strike me as surprising that Charlie Hodgson's confidence was completely and utterly shot, taking kick after kick at ranges best described as marginal to not-a-hope.
The only one that I can really find fault with was that shockingly bad drop-goal attempt (or was it a miscued kick to the corner?) at the end.

Royal Weddings

Honestly, I will garrotte the next person who asks me for my view on the upcoming royal wedding. I DO NOT CARE. I don't think that it's any of my business what they get up to.

Pubs Closing on Time

This unfortunate trend should be stamped out mercilessly. Honestly, if the Hare starts closing at 11pm it will go out of business, as the drunkards only usually start arriving at 10pm at the earliest. Unless that is the idea, have it go out of business and convert it into housing?

Germaine Greer and the Hunting Debate

I saw a fascinating documentary over the weekend, about the cruelties of fox hunting and other countryside ways of life that are normal. It's always entertaining to see the prejudices expressed by an Australian feminist authour and academic (just to show you my prejudices, what the hell do you have to do to get a PhD in English and French Literature, other than read a lot of English and French books and write about them?). Mmmm yes chasing foxes is cruel, but when the chase ends the fox is either dead almost instananeously, or it escapes. The alternatives are relatively few, of course we could lamp the foxes (shine a bright light in their eyes and then shoot them with a high-powered rifle when they freeze), or rather we could if we had enough marksmen to do it, and they had rifles, but guns=bad, and I'm sure that most foxes that are shot are hit by pellets from a 12-bore, limp off and die of either starvation or gangrene. We could gas them in their lairs or poison them, but that isn't very humane. Bearing in mind the statistics that the more or less impartial producers include, the best way to control fox numbers is to drive around a lot and electrify the railway lines.
I think the most entertaining part of the programme was when she met up with an urban pest-control officer who firstly shot a caged fox in the head at a range of inches, distressing her no end. He then proceeded to tell her the effect that rat poison has on those other cute urban mammals that everyone likes, black rats. Much to Dr Greer's abhorrance, black rats that eat rat poison bleed to death internally, once again very humane.
Having watched the programme I've reached the conclusion again that hunting isn't unduely cruel in comparison with, say poisoning, or being hit a glancing blow from a passing car.
And also that Dr Greer, as an expert in the fields of feminism, publishing and literature shold be kept away from people whose expertise is based in more practical issues, like reality, for the good of all concerned.

The Cricket

I think Dan is right England-Batting-Collapse is only one word. Still, at least they're home now, so no more humiliations until the summer.

The McLibel Two

...who have just been told by the European Court of Human Rights that they should have received legal aid in their attempt to (unsucessfully) defend themselves in court when they handed out libellous leaflets, and proceded to spend the years 1990-7 seemingly trying to delay it as much as possible. Apparently our taxes should have been helping this process.
According to the BBC website "Ms Steel and Mr Morris, both from Tottenham, north London, argued that the government breached their human rights by failing to make legal aid available and because the libel laws obliged them to justify every word of anti-McDonald's allegations contained in the leaflets they distributed."
If I were stupid enough to commit libel, I would expect to have to justify every word of what I'd written, as opposed to an easier system, every other word perhaps?

...and finally, something that isn't a rant

The Phoenix Astronomical Society have built their own copy of Stonehenge, about an hours drive north of Wellington, NZ. Mainly because the original is a bit to fragile to have astronomers clambering over it.Also I feel that it's a hell of a lot more convenient to get to if you're in New Zeland.

Check it out here: http://www.astronomynz.org.nz/stonehenge/stonehenge.htm

JD Witherspoons

2005-02-08T16:06:00.000Z

I looked on their website, there are two pubs equidistant from home, one is in Reading and one is in Swindon. Each are 30.0 km away.
It strikes me as a long way to go not to smoke in a pub, so I'll stick to smoking in my locals.

Rugby on Sunday was fun, apart from the irritating little git who thought that stepping on my ribs a few times when I was stuck in a ruck would be fun. To quote Dan "I was almost annoyed".

Another "woe is me" post.

2005-02-01T10:28:00.000Z

The cretins at high command have just given us a couple of new quarterly reports that we have to run for our VAT return. I can only assume that they intended their use for small quiet departments where not much happens, and the loudest noise is the sound of arteries hardening. In order to fit the report on a page, it needs to be in landscape - not portrait and even then you need to run it at less than 50% of normal size. This wouldn't be a problem under most circumstances but seeing as the report is produced in 8 point type initially, the resulting printout is in less than 4 point type and you need a magnifying glass to read it.

Oh and by the way, between the two reports there's 54 pages of magnifying glass work to be done before the 15th. If anyone sees me talking to a coatrack or large plant in the next couple of weeks don't be alarmed, I've just gone blind (of course if you see me in a car, just run).

On the more entertaining side, the print is so close together that it has raised areas of the pages surface. So somewhere on the 54 pages I've probably got something very rude in braile.

Thackery of the week:

The Hair of the Widow of Bridlington

She was a widow in Bridlington, she was, was the widow of Brid,
Small and bonny at forty-two,
With eyes of very unsettling blue,
And what she thought she ought to do
She did, she did, she did;
Whatever she thought she ought to do
She did, did the widow of Brid.

"My only darling's dead, he is, and all my children grown;
"The house has emptied, all the love-birds flown.
"In place of widow's weeds I'll let my coal black hair grow long:
"As glossy as a blackbird's wing, as cocky as his song."

She found that she could please herself, she could, could the widow of Brid:
Swim in the sea when she felt hot,
Stay in bed when she did not.
And she began to laugh a lot,
She did, she did, she did,
To sing and dance and laugh a lot,She did, did the widow of Brid.

And sometimes she would drop the shopping, leave the bed unmade
And sit till evening on the esplanade.
She'd sometimes go to church and call on Jesus by his name.
She fed as any blackbird would, whenever hunger came.

She learned to play the violin, she did, did the widow of Brid,
And Saturday night in a drinking shop
She jumped upon the counter top
And fiddled till the dancers dropped,
She did, she did, she did,
Stomping upon the copper top
She did, did the widow of Brid.

And she was fond of fishing boats and all their beardy crew
And partial to a salty kiss or two.
And some of them would gruffly whisper, "Marry me and stay".
But blackbirds do their singing from a different bush each day.

She had a massive motorbike, she had, had the widow of Brid,
And so she could, when so she wished,
Ride back home early-morningish
With her hair in the air and smelling of fish,
She did, she did, she did,
And every time of a different fish,
She did, did the widow of Brid.

And though she did no harm the neighbours sniffed, as neighbours do,
And day by day a cankerous rancour grew.
And many a pair of front-room curtains twitched and shook with rage,
For she was wild as blackbirds are and they were in a cage.

They came and broke her window panes, they did, of the widow of Brid,
Spat upon her cycle shed,
Dragged her out of her Sunday bed
And cropped her hair and shaved her head,
They did, they did, they did;
They chopped the hair and shaved the head,
They did, of the widow of Brid.

And when her sobs and hiccups stopped she tidied everywhere,
She cleaned the shed, she swept up all the hair.
Some few of them came back in shame to ask her would she stay,
But if you ever startle blackbirds, blackbirds go away.

She sold up house and bought a wig, a wig, did the widow of Brid,
And unrepenting, undeterred,
She thundered off to cause a stir
In poor old bloody Scarborough,
She did, she did, she did.
"Forget the spit and the window pane.
"Bugger Brid! I'm still the same.
"My hair will always grow again."
It did, it did, it did.
"My hair will always grow again."
It did, it did, did, did, on the widow of Brid.

Bet this doesn't make it on to "have your say"

2005-01-24T21:30:00.000Z

Blah, blah, blah JD Witherspoons are banning smoking in their pubs, big hoo ha, much free publicity.
Debate on BBC website, usual breed of rabid anti-smokers and "never-drink-there-again" lot. Here's the question and my answer, bet it doesn't make their page:

Are you put off by the smoke in pubs? Do you think smoke-free pubs will increase numbers of customers? Do the government proposals go far enough?

Well, to answer the question (which seems to be unfashionable these days), no. Seeing as I smoke, smoke in pubs does not bother me.What exactly does the final part of the question refer to? The government could hardly go much further, short of introducing birching as a punishment for people who smoke near anyone and everyone else. Pubs do make more money from food than they do from beer. However, there are a great many private members clubs that don't serve food and would be greatful for the cash.Wouldn't it be ironic if the course of this legislation was to force smokers up and down the country to join their local rugby clubs just to be able to spark up over a pint.
Oh, and congratulations on not having the iCAN link pointing to the "substance abuse" section like you did last time.

By the way, where is the nearest Witherspoons pub? I can't remember ever seeing one.

Evolution of the Hedgehog Autocatalytic Processing Mechanism

2005-01-17T15:46:00.000Z

It's the time of year when all and sundry start applying for research grants, I've just spent the last 6 hours doing nothing more than ploughing through research applications looking for mistakes. The problem is that most mistakes tend to be ommisions.
So I've spent 6 hours of my life looking for things that aren't there, and the only way of spotting them is by knowing what should be there to look for and finding it isn't, unless of course it is and it's just plain wrong.
Still, I must look on the bright side, there is a light at the end of the tunnel (it's a train coming the other way). The deadline for things to be at one of the research councils is 5pm on Wednesday, so Thursday and Friday should be quite quiet. Unfortunately it means that today and tommorow, and especially Wednesday (when people suddenly decide that they want to apply) whil be utter nightmares.

Wait, I've just found out that England have won the test match by 77 runs, so life can't be all bad after all.

Thackery of the day

It Was Only a Gypsy

I am a handsome policeman. I am bold and versatile.
My wife is white and beautiful, with breasts of alabaster.
When I hurry home to her, she whispers with a smile,
"What did you do today, my big blue hero?"

"There was only a gypsy,
"A ragged, shaggy blackguard of a didecai.
"Up to no good. I did what I should:
"A little physical persuasion and he passed on by.

"But now I grow impatient to enjoy her juicy beauty,
I surge to the rising rhythms of those breasts of alabaster.
"No," she cries, "pray tell me what you did today on duty -
"Tell me more about this hairy gypsy!"

"It was only a gypsy,
"A ragged, shaggy blackguard of a didecai.
"Up to no good. I did what I should:
"A little physical persuasion and he passed on by."

"But tell me, pretty darling, will you tell me, in your turn,
"Who placed those fresh wild flowers in your breasts of alabaster?
"And when you smile, between your teeth, still wedged, do I discern
"A sprig of whisker from another's moustache?"

"It was only a gypsy", she sighed,
"A ragged, shaggy blackguard of a didecai,
"Up to no good. I did what I could:
"A little physical persuasion and he passed on by.
"It was only a gypsy boy,
"A ragged, shaggy blackguard of a didecai–ai-ai,
"Up to no good. I did what I could:
"A little physical persuasion and he passed on by.

Between her breasts a hedgerow nosegay,
In between her teeth a tell-tale whisker.
The house is full of clothes-pegs.

Much Surreality

2004-11-25T13:16:00.000Z

I've found this wonderful waste of time called Samorost, superbly surreal stuff.

Have a look...

http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/~xsvobod4/amanita/samorost/intro.html

Random thoughts

2004-11-05T15:53:00.000Z

I'm bored senseless, my boss is on holiday today, her boss always leaves before lunch on a friday. The two lasses in the office next door aren't in today (one never works on a friday and the other is on holiday).
The girl I share an office with has gone to a dentists appointment, the turn-up rate for academics on a Friday is shockingly low. The department is peaceful and tranquil. Unfortunately I'm bored senseless, with nothing to do but sleep at my desk and abuse my works internet connection.

Can anyone come up with any suggestions short of writing my memoirs?

Another quiet day at the office

2004-10-26T10:55:00.000+01:00

This morning the traffic going into Oxford was bad. This may not surprise many of you, but just as eskimos are reputed to have however many hundred words for snow, but people who drive into Oxford on a regular basis have a similar system for traffic.
Today a lorry broke down between the Botley and pear tree roundabouts. When I joined the queue of stationary traffic was just round the corner from the Marcham interchange. I heard on the 9:15 traffic report (about 40 minutes after I wished I'd turned off at Marcham) that the queue now stretched back as far as Milton (about 12 miles).
If one broken down lorry can inflict this much chaos on a major road just by breaking down, in a week where the traffic shouldn't be that busy (half term) what the hell is going to happen if there is an accident when it's busy.
I fear for the future.

On a lighter note...

Saturday was Daisy's party at the Eystons, and a good time was had by all (at least until they woke up the following morning). My pictures are all on the wall of shame...

Come back Dan, your club needs you...

2004-10-09T20:35:00.000+01:00

Played rugby this afternoon, on the bench for the second team. As seems to be the traditional can't-organise-a-pissup-in-a-brewery moment we discovered we didn't have a referee. Well, discovered is a bit of an overstatement, it got to kick-off time and he hadn't turned up.

I spent the first half, and most of the second half watching our game (being refereed by one of their players) and the third team game going smoothly and without any problem. We lost to Shire Hall, the thirds won 81-5 against Abingdon 2nds. Oh, and the first team won as well.

I really would rather play for the third team than the second team, the second team strikes me as being to Rah (Dan'll know what I mean, although probably no-one else will) whereas the third team epitomises the age-old traditions of Course Rugby (I'll lend you the books) but I can't see the point of turning up for a game (that kicks off at 3pm) at 1pm. I know we front-row forwards aren't terribly bright, but even we can manage to tie our bootlaces in less than two hours...

Theory still holding good

2004-09-30T18:57:00.000+01:00

My grand theory is still holding, this morning it was raining. It rained almost constantly until about half past twelve. At on o'clock the animal rights protestors arrived and the sun came out.

CWoS Update

2004-09-24T16:16:00.000+01:00

I've now got a picture of Ollie in there, demonstrating the sad and tragic consiquences of being so relaxed that she couldn't keep her eyes open, while surrounded by your "friends".

Of course, none of them would dream of taking advantage of the situation would they now?

Cyber-Wall of Shame

2004-09-16T17:38:00.000+01:00

Those eagle eyed among you might have just noticed that there is a new link on the right hand side of the page, this goes towards the pink part pics, but not quite to them, so I can use the link to inflict a whole 30Mb of photos that people really shouldn't have posed for onto the public. The photos are all in the "My Documents" folder. So far it's just the pink party, but I'll keep it for future events, now that I've got a link to it.

"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."
- George Bernard Shaw

There is a reason for Jerome's existence after all.

Pictures

2004-09-14T10:34:00.000+01:00

I've been beating my computer with a large heavy blunt object, and I've finally persuaded it that you shouldn't need to be on the list (which only has my name on it anyway) in order to look at the pictures, so please ignore most of my posting below, and just go straight for the link...

The pink party aftermath

2004-09-13T17:43:00.000+01:00

Apologies to everyone for not writing sooner, unfortunately work got a bit frantic, to the point where I had to actually work rather than writing my blog and wishing I was somewhere else. Anyway, I've had a chance to put all of the pictures from Dan & Jerome's infamous pink party online. They're in my yahoo briefcase here:

http://uk.f2.pg.briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/rufus_trotman/lst?.dir=/

But don't go rushing off to there just yet, I've got it set so it'll only let you in if I've put your yahoo ID on the list, so email me (or call me, or something) and let me know what your ID is and I'll add it.

rufus_trotman@hotmail.com

or alternatively leave your ID as a comment (only available to the first five lucky readers)

R

Its raining

2004-08-10T09:18:00.000+01:00

The glorious traditional British summer has returned, its now raining so much that there are two roads closed in Oxford because of flooding, and amazingly enough neither are on my route to work.
Unfortunately I've "volunteered" to do another stocktake which would have meant that I'd be spending the hottest week of the year in our nice cool underground stores bunker if it wasn't raining as much. Now it means that I'm spending the week stuck in a hole in the ground with inadiquate drainage. Never mind.

Returning to Niue (oh, how I wish) they seem to be recovering nicely from cyclone Heta, the most important part of any society has returned to normal. The Alofi Rugby Club Bar is now open Wednesdays to Saturdays "4pm till late". I'm fascinated by the Niue parliament, with a population of about 2,000 having 20 MPs means that a full 1% of the population are members of parliament, if the same ratio was to be applied in Britain then there would be in excess of 60,000 MPs. Doesn't that sound like a horrific prospect?

Where I want to emigrate to.

2004-07-26T09:44:00.000+01:00

Once again in a fit of utter despair, I've just spent a happy week at an Open University summer school. The entire week was spent making complex ions of Nickel and Copper, mostly phosphines, and drinking heavily in the evenings. I'm now back at work and I'm posting this in order not to have to deal with the 44 emails that people have sent to me despite the fact that I had set up my out-of-office reply telling people that I'm still not (all) here.
I've learned a number of useful new words from my time up there, and very few are chemistry related:

Polydactyl: Having more toes than is typical (my lab partner's cat is polydactyl)

Noisome: Poisonous, but unlikely to be very effective as a poison as it smells so bad

Pyrophoric: Spontaneously combusts in air (incidentally these are the four words that you least want to hear when there is someone from High Command's safety office in the lab)

I've come back and found that all hell has carried on as usual in the office in as much disarray as I left it in, with an additional weeks worth of random garbage piled on top.

I've decided that as well as buying a boat and living on the Thames, I'm also going to emigrate to Niue.

Niue is a Pacific island, roughly 2400 km northeast of New Zealand has a population of less than 2200. It strikes me as a paradise island, it even has its own Rugby Union, with (I think) six teams. They also have the Hash House Harriers a "beer drinking club with a running problem"

It is also the home of numerous Peka (Flying Fox) and Uga (Coconut Crab, grows up to 4 kg in weight).

I've also just found out that there is a house for sale there, 2 bedrooms (1 en suite) complete with 12' x 24' swimming pool for NZ$ 110,000 (less than £40,000) as well as one of the two vehicle rental places on the island (NZ$380,000 (just over £130,000)).
Admittedly there are the minor problems of typhoons and the fact that there are only two restaurants and two cafes on the island, but I'm sure that I could manage.

Another good reason for living on a boat

2004-07-09T09:46:00.000+01:00

At 4:25 yesterday afternoon it started raining. I know it was 4:25 because that was when my uber-boss left. By 4:45 everyone was running around panicking as there was water coming back up through the drains.
By the time we had found (less easy than you'd think) and hammered bungs into as many of the drains as we could get to, and mopped up the worst of the drain water lapping around the lab floors (lapping, makes it sound like waves lapping on a tropical beach somewhere (now there's wishful thinking for you)) it was 6:30 and all of the roads away from by concrete carbuncle of a building were impassable (traffic forever going one way, mainly because of the foot of water on the road the other way. I didn't even try to go until about 9:30 (did the sensible thing and adjourned to the pub).

Oddly enough, when I looked outside at 4:30, the animal rights protestors had all gone, my theory seems to be holding...

Wanted: A female Billy Kershaw

2004-07-08T15:27:00.000+01:00

Song of the day:

The Ballad of Billy Kershaw
by (Guess who) Jake Thackray

He was small and baggy-trousered, he was nondescript and shy,
But in his breast there burned a sacred flame,
For women melted and surrendered when they looked into his eyes.
(Little Billy Kershaw was the name, by the way,
He worked as a country ploughman, so they say.)

Oh Lothario and Casanova, mighty Don Juan,
Those legendary goats of days of yore -
Billy was better, with his eyes closed, on one leg and with no hands!
(A trick which he could actually perform, by the way,
Spectacular, but dodgy, so they say.)

He never did it for the profit of it, never for applause,
Only the silvery laughter that it caused.

There was a difference in that Billy Kershaw never picked the best,
The beautiful, the golden ones that most men would,
But the ugly ones, the poorest, the despised, the dispossessed.
(Where else would a hunchback get a cuddle, by the way?
Harelips can kiss, or so they say.)

And so the shop-girl with the whiskers, or the limping shepherdess,
The squinting barmaid (her with the pocky skin),
Even the horse-like countess with the teeth and meagre breasts
(Which in fact had often harboured Billy's chin, by the way,
Haughty but snug, so they say).

He never did it for the profit of it, never for applause,
Only the common comfort that it caused.

Many a poor distracted Catholic, rating Billy over Lourdes,
Came smiling down his staircase, all her frenzy gone.
And the husband, far from angry, would be chuffed that she was cured
(And buy him a pint in the local later on, by the way;
Horses for courses, as they say).

He responded to the colonel's widow's desperate appeal
In the colonel's house upon the colonel's tiger skin,
And in the potter's shop, the potter's wife upon the potter's wheel
(Which was steadily continuing to spin, by the way,
A right tour de force, so they say).

But never ever for the profit of it, never the applause,
Only the passing happiness it caused.

But soon the news of Billy Kershaw and his life-enhancing powers
Became across the county widely known,
And by his cottage gate the coachloads waited patiently for hours.
(The drivers made a bundle going home, by the way,
Their caps were full of silver, so they say.)

And the village did a roaring trade in teas and souvenirs,
In ash trays and the local watercress.
Until Billy, disillusioned, simply ups and disappears.
(Leaving no forwarding address, by the way,
Could be anywhere at all, or so they say.)

But it was not for the profit of it, not for the applause,
Only the consolation that it caused.

If there should be a sad, neglected, wretched woman in your life,
It could well be that Billy's near at hand;
Perhaps your auntie or your daughter, or your mother or your wife.
(And when did you last see your grandma, by the way?
No genuine case is ever turned away.)

He's no rascal, he's no charlatan, no mountebank, no snob;
Whoever you are, he'll treat you just the same.
He is small and baggy-trousered, and he does a tidy job.
(Little Billy Kershaw is the name, by the way;
He worked as a country ploughman, so they say.)

But never ever for the profit of it, never the applause,
Only the common comfort that it caused.

If you find that Billy's ballad is extravagant, or trite,
Offensive, irrelevant, or untrue,
That may well be, but here's a moral which will make us feel all right
(A moral which may well apply to you, by the way;
Takes one to know one, as they say).

If you're ugly, if you're weak, or meek, or queer, form a queue
And the rest of us will travel from afar
And systematically we'll do to you what Billy used to do -
But more regular and always twice as hard, by the way,
Mea culpa, mea culpa, as they used to say.

Post Chicken(less) lunch rant

2004-07-05T11:43:00.000+01:00

Well, it all went about as smoothly as could be expected.

We "borrowed" the tables and chairs from Denchworth village hall (a dawn raid, well almost dawn, we had to wait for Dan to regain conciseness), coincidentally the pony club decided to give us back our tables and chairs at about the same time.

The duck race went smoothly, aside from the rather embarrassing moments of me managing to lose the boat (before everyone got there) and manage to get into the boat while simultaneously sticking my head in the water (while everyone was there).

Dan, you are absolutely right, steak slices from the Baker's Oven are an absolute godsend, and I hope you've managed to get the rest of the scary clown makeup off before you went to work this morning.
Fortunately no-one seems to have discovered my habit of taking the boat, paddling upstream until I'm out of sight and having a smoke/drink/snooze until I can face being nice to people again.

Or of course, when I hear them sending out the search parties...

Pre Chicken Lunch post

2004-07-02T12:12:00.000+01:00

Seeing as I have the joys of the duck race to look forward to again tomorrow (watch all of those pretty yellow ducks dissapearing over the mill floss (is it a mill "floss" or am I making up words again?) while I'm aground because there isn't enough water to support any boat). Why can't I do the beer tent? I promise I won't drink it all, only most of it.

Anyway, I'm sure that's enough of my combined rant / whinge for now, here are some more song lyrics

The Bull
Jake Thackray

On my farm the bull is the king of the yard
He's big and bad and fast, he's strong he's ... hard
All my other animals would readily concur
That he is the one you salute, he's the one you call "Sir"
But my hens, a noisy, flighty flock
Led, of course by my unsubmissive cock
Whenever His Majesty the bull importantly goes by
They dance along behind him and they cry

Beware of the bull!
The bull, the bull is the biggest of all!
He is the boss, he is, because he's big and we are small
But the bigger the bull, bigger the bull, bigger the balls
The bigger the bull, the bigger and quicker and thicker the bullshit falls!

Beware of the bull! The dancing cock is right!
Beware of whoever looks down upon you from a height!
Beware of His Honour, His Excellence, His Grace, His Worshipful
Beware of His Highness, because of the bull
For if the boss, the chief, the chap at the top
Should let a single lump of claptrap drop
The greater the weight and the height he is, the harder it will go
With a grander SPLAT! on the bleeders below ...

The hero arrives, we hoist him shoulder-high
He's good and wise and strong, he's brave, he's shy
And how we have to plead with him, how bashfully he climbs
Up the steps to the microphone (two at a time)
Then down it comes - slick, slithery pat!
If you must put people on pedestals, wear a big hat!
The tongue he's got is pure gold, the breast is pure brass
The feet are pure clay - and watch out for the arse ...

At long last, the revolution comes
And in no time at all we're erecting podiums
Comrades with chests of medals by the balcony-full
After the Red Flag, the galloping bull
The Saviour came especially from on high
To face up to the punters eye-to-eye
No sooner is he dead and gone, there's blessed pulpits-full
Bestride the holy lamb, behold the bull!

These well-known men, so over-glorified!
There's one of them here with his name on the poster outside!
And he is up here like this, and you are all down there
Remember his cock and his bull and mutter: "Beware!"
For when they've done, we clap, we cheer, we roar:
"For he is a jolly good fellow! Encore! More, more!"
How glorious it would be if before these buggers began
We all stood up together and solemnly sang ...

Beware of the bull!
The bull, the bull is the biggest of all!
He is the boss, he is, because he's big and we are small
But the bigger the bull, bigger the bull, bigger the balls
The bigger the bull, the bigger and quicker
And the bigger and quicker and thicker
And the bigger and quicker and thicker and slicker
The
bull
shit
falls!

Sister Josephine - something in the way of lyric of the day (only longer)

2004-06-25T20:24:00.000+01:00

SISTER JOSEPHINE
by
Jake Thackray

Oh Sister Josephine
What do all these Policemen mean
By coming to the convent in a grim limosine
After Sister Josephine

While you Sister Josephine
You sit with your boots up on the alter screen
You smoke one last cigar
What a funny nun you are

The Policemen say that Josephine's a burglar in diguise
Big Bad Norman fifteen years on the run
The sisters disbelieve it "No that can't be Josephine"
Just think about her tenderness towards the younger nuns

Oh Sister Josephine
They're searching the chapel where you've been seen
The nooks and the crannies of the nun's canteen
After Sister Josephine

While you Sister Josephine
You sip one farewell benedictine
Before your Au Revoir
A right funny nun you are

Admittedley her hands are big and hairy
And embelished with a curious tatoo
Admittedly her voice is on the deep side
And she seems to shave more often than the other sisters do

Oh Sister Josephine
Founder of the convent pontoon team
They're looking through your bundles of rare magazines
After Sister Josephine

While you Sister Josephine
You give a goodbye sniff of benzedrine
To the convent budgerigar
A bloody funny nun you are

No longer will her snores ring through the chapel during prayers
Nor her lustful moanings fill the stilly night
No more empty bottles of alter wine come clunking from her cell
No longer will the cloister toilet seat stand upright

Oh Sister Josephine
Slipping through their fingers like vaseline
Leaving them to clutch your empty crinoline
After Sister Josephine

While you Sister Josephine
Sprinting through the suburbs when last seen
Dressed only in your wimple and your rosary
A right funny nun you seem to be.

On protestors...

2004-06-25T12:00:00.000+01:00

Animal rights protestors are responsible for good weather.

This may strike some out there as an odd thing to say but it is my logical conclusion based on months of careful research. The building site that I work next to is protested every Thursday by animal rights protestors, every Thursday it has been fine. Yesterday there was no protest (England v Portugal?) and the weather was overcast. There were five demonstrators there on Wednesday and ten minutes before their arrival the rain stopped and the clouds parted.

Someone more cynical than me (surely there must be someone more cynical than me) might think that animal rights protestors only come out when the weather is good, but then they would also deny that they are gallantly trying (and failing) to drown out the sounds of hammering that are driving us up the wall with their loudhailers.
As far as I can tell there is no point protesting outside the building site for a number of reasons:

1: The people who make the decisions aren't there.

2: The people who make the decisions don't listen to us (and we work for them) far less anyone else.

3: The "animal torture centre" they keep going on about is still a building site, they haven't even finished the load-bearing members yet.

4: The animals in question will not be cute fluffy primates. Cute fluffy primates cost too much, especially when rodents work just as well.

5: The drilling / hammering / general building work drowns out almost all of what they are trying to say, as do the elderly double-decker busses that pass on a regular basis.

Still, I suppose that it could be worse, they could be mounting a "Save the Malarial Protist" campaign on our other neighbours, they could liberate all of the malarial mosquitoes into the countryside...

A potential candidate...

2004-06-22T16:27:00.000+01:00

I think I've found a potential new home (floating). It's a Horizon 35 broads cruiser in good condition (according to the advert) and has gas heating. If I can find out how to work the attach picture function I'll put one up.

Only one real drawback, it's in Norfolk and I'm not.

Buying a boat

2004-06-21T17:16:00.000+01:00

I'm having fun with trying to escape from the village where I grew up. If I were to save up my entire pay for the next ten years then I'd still fall about £40,000 short of being able to afford the cheapest place to live within a 20 mile radius of where I work.
Whereas other people might be despondant at this, I've set my devious little mind loose on it and decided that...
... I've had enough of this, I'm going to buy a boat and live on the Thames. The advantages of this are numerous...
1) A second hand boat costs considerably less than the land required to erect a small shed.
2) I wouldn't need to go on expensive holidays, I could just take my home out for a spin.
3) If I found myself living too close to an idiot who converts his front garden into something resembling Stalag-21, I can move very easily.
4) Running a boat costs no more than a house.
5) Boats are fun.

There are however some disadvantages.
1) A depressingly large number of the second hand boats that I've been to see fall neatly into the fall-apart-if-you-look-at-them-too-hard category.
2) There is the issue of utilities, if your home moves around, you're going to need a very long extension lead and hosepipe if you want to get from A to B with flowing current and running water.
3) Sewage, like everything else, probably won't be fixed.
4) Moorings are rare in Oxford (at least ones with electricity and water nearby).
5) Telephones, Postal Adresses, Internet Connections, parking places etc.

Should be interesting...

More to follow