The Internet Scissors Challenge

I've got loads of pairs of scissors. I'm not boasting, I just have. I didn't set out in life to amass a huge scissors collection. I wasn't one of those children who went around dreaming of scissors all the time. No, it just happened.

You know how it is, you do a favour for someone, they reward you with scissors; you win a prize on Spot the Ball - a dozen pairs of scissors. Do you say no? Of course you don't. Scissors are always handy.

So before I knew it I had a substantial scissors collection.
In fact, I reckon I've got more pairs of scissors than anybody else on the Internet, and to prove it I am issuing the "Internet Scissors Challenge".

Anybody who thinks they can out-scissor me is invited to come and try their luck at 5:30 am on Durdham Down, Bristol (by the water tower) on Sunday 6th August.

Entry is free and is open to nearly anyone(see conditions).

Rules and Conditions

1.People who own scissor factories and/or scissor superstores are not allowed to enter.

2.No employees of sb4444 (International) Inc. or any of its subsidiaries, sub-contractors, PR agencies, nor anybody else employed in a freelance and/or part-time capacity is allowed to enter

3.Each contestant shall be responsible for the transportation of his/her own scissor collection and their removal from the site.

4. The winner (hereinafter referred to as "me") shall be the person declared by the panel of judges to own the most pairs of scissors.

5. The panel of judges will be decided upon by mutual agreement, but will consist of not less than five person of reputable stature, including at least one person who has been trained in scissor counting.
Suitable persons for the judging panel would include doctors, magistrates, police officers(above the rank of constable), medium or high grade civil servants and members of the clergy. Defrocked clergy might be considered under certain circumstances.

6. No scissors made of plastic, paper or stone will be allowed.

7. No magnets allowed on site

8. Random drug testing could take place and any contestant found with traces with steroids will be banned from this and all future contests.

9. No guns or explosives allowed on the site.

10. Please switch all mobile phones off during the contest.

So, there you are. Is anybody prepared to take up this challenge?
Come and put your scissors where your mouth is, and may the best man/woman/person of unspecified gender win.

Butterflies

While the UK sweated through the heat yesterday, I lay on the bed in the cool north-facing bedroom and took photos of butterflies on the buddleia outside.
What an idyllic life I lead. My only complaint is that the butterflies don't open their wings very often, so you have to wait ages to get a good shot.
Got to go to work today though. I'm dreading the thought of carrying all those sacks of coal up to the furnace. Thank goodness it's only a 14 hour shift.

DIY

Gosh, it's far too hot to write anything today; the keyboard is scorching my fingertips.

Officially the hottest July day since Julys were invented.

Soooo.... would you mind writing something yourself. If you could make it slightly amusing/thought provoking/etc. that would be good, but if not any old drivel will do.

Thank you for your co-operation in this matter.


Aaaah, but I've just remembered, I can always pinch stuff off b3ta.
So here's what the BT logo could look like -

Wormeries

My neighbour he makes wormeries,
He makes them strong and stout,
For all the little wormios,
To wriggle all about

He makes them all for different folks,
This one's for a school,
The kids can put their food waste in,
I bet they'll think it's cool

And the worms they will digest it,
Without creating CO2,
What a wonderful service to humankind,
Those wriggly fellas do

G-G-G-Ghosts!!

Above: The dreadful apparition appears from behind a gravestone.
Below: A close up. Poor picture quality, as I was unable to get any closer for fear of being detected.



I managed to photograph a ghost in Greenbank cemetery this morning.
I looked it up in my Observer's Book of Ghosts and Spooks, but couldn't find out what type it was.
It was cutting the grass, so it's nice to see the Differently Alive making themselves useful.
It's often said: "If you can train dead bodies to operate gardening equipment, then that's half of your cemetery maintenance problems solved."
I think I'm inclined to agree with that assessment.

Pigeons

Alex's pigeon video A pair of courting pigeons. A man asks Alex for 50p, then a bicycle shadow moves across the screen, then more pigeons come.

Driving in Bristol Ever wondered what it's like to drive past the new Broadmead development?
Wonder no more.

The Moon

I've seen some nice moon rises over the last couple of nights. It's waning now and coming up later and later each night.
There is an optical illusion that makes the moon look really big when it's close to the horizon. It can look spectacular.

This is what I know about the moon. It might be wrong.

Apparently the Earth and Moon collided a long time ago. The result of this collision was that earth got all the iron and other heavy stuff (that we need for our bodies) while the moon ended up with lighter materials and started orbiting earth.

I've heard that at first the moon covered about two-thirds of the sky and spun around the earth at great speed. The tidal pull was massive, with the sea rising and falling miles at every tide. This was useful again, as it filled the sea with the minerals needed for life to form.

So over millions of years the moon revolved around the earth, the tides kept rising and falling until their constant rhythm sung life into existence - that's my theory anyway.
Some of these new creatures would be stranded by the tides; some would survive and decide they liked dry land and would consider trading their flippers for legs.

So good old moon! As well as being instrumental in bringing about life on Earth, it looks pretty too.

As it rises later and later into the early hours of the morning, it starts to take on a sickly orange-yellow hue and seems to have trouble getting out of bed. Until it disappears for a bit to re-appear as the evening crescent moon and start growing again.
Anyone living to 80 years will experience about 1040 moon cycles.

Were the moon landings faked?

Cymraeg

Cymraeg is Welsh for 'Welsh'. Although I was born and bred in England and have no Welsh connections, I did live in Wales for a while and I'm interested in the Welsh language.

Some form of Welsh was spoken all over southern Britain before the coming of the Saxons. 'Wal' was the Saxon word for the Britons, hence Wales and place names like Walton - meaning the settlement of the Britons.

The Welsh language was in decline in the 20th century until protests led to it being more widely used on everything from road signs to official forms. In the 80s the first all-Welsh TV channel, S4C, started up and the language really took off from there.

Welsh is more widely spoken than a lot of English people realise. In places like Lampeter, it is the language you hear at the supermarket checkout or shouted by drunks in the street at night - at least I think it was Welsh, some drunks are a bit incoherent.

Although I obviously don't speak Welsh, I have picked up a little bit from roadsigns etc. and I've made up a little song.

It's sung to the old Welsh tune Llwyn Onn - The Ash Grove

Dim Parcio, Dim Parcio, Dim Parcio, Dim Parcio,
Dim Parcio, Dim Parcio, Nadolig LLawen
Repeat this verse

Croeso y Cymru, Croeso y Cymru, Croeso y Cymru
Mae hae'n bwrw glaw,
Dim parcio, etc.

In English - No Parking, No Parking, No Parking, No Parking, No Parking, No Parking, Happy Christmas.
Welcome to Wales, Welcome to Wales, Welcome to Wales, it's raining.

Not bad for a first effort, is it? I don't think I'm quite ready for the Eisteddfod yet though.

More links

b3ta TV PilotA 20 minute long video made by b3ta. What b3ta would be like if it was a television channel. I think you can pause and watch bits one section at a time. Like the website - hilarious bits, questionable taste, lots of clever stuff.

Wheelie Bin Decorations

Paperclip Collection

If you like looking at pictures of paperclips then you're in for a treat!!

I have decided to open my paperclip collection to the internet. So feast your eyes on this little lot...

















Although this posting was planned weeks in advance and had a team of skilled Blogeronis working on it, I'm afraid we've been upstaged by events.

Yes, there was some young whizz kid in the news who has swapped a paperclip for a house. Very clever, we're all really impressed.
He can't have been a true paper clip collector. No genuine collector would ever part with his paper clips for material gain.

I might be interested in swapping one of mine for a tropical island. Either uninhabited or occupied by people who would make me their king/god. I could probably manage that. I would be prepared to sacrifice any of my paper clips for that, except the yellow one with red spots.

Postscript: Since I put this post up, I've been inundated with messages from people asking if they can become paper clip collectors too.

Well, I always say that anyone can do it providing they have the dedication, resolve and the inner mental strength. Of course there'll be bad times when you just can't find a new paper clip for love or money. But it will all seem worth it when that oh-so-special paper clip appears in your hand.

However, I would like to give a few words of advice -
1. Never kill or seriously injure anyone just to get their paperclips. Obviously there may be times when you'll have to defend your collection from those you suspect of wanting to steal it, but remember very few paperclips are worth a human life. Even if you get away with it, you'll feel bad about it for days afterwards.

2. Keep a sense of proportion. Paperclips aren't the be-all and end-all of life. Just dedicate a few hours a day to collecting clips, and carry out other activities in the remaining time. I often wonder how my life might have turned out if I hadn't been so obsessed with paperclips.

3. Never push paper clips into any bodily orifices. It can lead to embarrassing scenes in the local Accident and Emergency Unit. Why are people so nosey?
Also, never push paper clips into anybody else's orifices without their express permission. Especially strangers on buses. They can get very stroppy about it.

Glass Budgie

I recently found half a glass budgie on my allotment. I'm not trying to boast about it or anything, I just did.

I wonder how it got there? Possibly my allotment was the temple for an ancient budgie worshipping cult? You never know.

Also, some people down the road from me, when you look in their window, there are large paintings of budgies on all the walls.

St Werburgh's

On the other side of the motorway from where I live is a suburb called St Werburgh's. It's a bit more well-heeled than here and the houses cost more. They've got a city farm, a pub called The Farm, loads of allotments and there is a new housing development designed by the local people which looks very futuristic.
There was a festival there on Saturday, but I forgot my camera, so can't bring you any pix. But I will one day.

Anyway, I thought I'd try and find out who St Werburgh was. Here are the results -

St Wereburga, as she was known as, was born in Staffordshire in the early seventh century and died towards the end of it.

She came from a remarkable line of people - her mother was also a saint (must run in the family), St Ermenilda, who, as far as I know, hasn't had any suburbs named after her.
Her granny was another saint - Saint Sexburga. You don't hear much of her, and with a name like that I'm not surprised. Sounds like a good name for a Big Brother inmate.

Her father, Wulfhere, was the son of Penda, a very ferocious king of Mercia, who may have been responsible for various war crimes including the killing of many
Christians (he was a devout pagan).
To be honest, her ancestry is the most interesting thing about her.
She was very beautiful and was wooed by a "headstrong warrior" Werebode, to whom her father was much indebted. But she didn't fancy being Mrs Headstrong Warrior and stuck it out to go into a nunnery.
She somehow landed the job of reforming the existing Mercian monasteries and founding others such as Trentham and Hanbury in Staffordshire and Weedon in Northamptonshire.

Her most famous miracle was to banish some geese that had been wreaking havoc in the cornfields around Weedon. Not a great one for biodiversity then. Before she died she expressed a wish to be buried in Hanbury, but the nuns at Weedon refused to release her body. When a party of people from Hanbury arrived, all the locks fell open before them and they carted her off.

After nine years, and with her becoming a famous saint, it was decided to transport her body to a more conspicuous place. Upon opening the coffin, her body was found to be remarkably preserved. This so impressed her brother Kenred that he gave up his throne (he was the Mercian king at the time) and became a monk

And that's more or less it for St Werbs. Her feast day is February 3.

Poor excuse

Dear Internet people,
Please excuse sb4444 from writing anything vaguely amusing today, but he has a cold.

Yours sincerely,
His Mum

Two Minute Noodles

Today I is been mostly ripping off b3ta websiteagain.

It took two minutes for the penny to drop on this.


b3ta is a good website.

BLOG

When I first started writing this blog, someone told me they thought "blog" was a horrible word. I don't agree.

I think it's great and I'm surprised that it hasn't been used before.

Previously, its only English use was in "Fred Bloggs", a generic sort of everyman character, like "John Doe" in America. But while John Doe sounds like a white collar smoothie, Fred Bloggs was probably a plumber or builder and a bit old-fashioned; I haven't heard the name for a long time.

It's just as well that it hasn't been used much; most similar words such as "slog, flog, bog,etc." are all very coarse, earthy, workaday thingies. Nothing wrong with that, of course, someone's got to do it. But I think "blog" is destined for greater things.

It's already a noun and a verb and it gets mentioned nearly every day on the radio. There are a lot of references to blogs in the current John Prescott story (he claims not to know what they are, by the way).

So blog is here to stay. But it's not enough to know just one word, there are many permutations of the word blog that you need to learn if you want to avoid being mocked by young people in the street.

Here are a few -




Blogosphere - where all the blogs live


Blogerati - people who blog

bloggerisation - induction into blog world



re-bloggerisation - re-induction to blogs for those who have lost their way.



Blogtastic - great

Megablogtastic - one thousand times as great


Blogissimo - great (Continental style)


Bloggin Aids

Blogonium - special paste to smear on your keyboard. It increases your blog creativity by an average of 17.24%

Bloggo - Drink Bloggo to increase your blog creativity.
Also unblocks toilets and removes stains from dentures.

Blogodon - headache pills to counteract the effects of too much blogging.





Blogstopper - large round confection that stops people writing blogs.


Blogshire - fictional English county where everyone writes a blog and no one ever leaves their house.

Bloggingham - capital of Blogshire.

Blogola - form of tombola played by people on the internet.


Dunbloggin - popular house name among retired bloggers


Blogarithm - that rhythm you makes as you taps out those bloggy words.


Bloghole - where lost blogs go.


Blogorooney - blog about Wayne Rooney and/or mis-shapen potatoes.


Spudblog - blog about normal looking potatoes.

Bloganalia - artefacts connected with blogging.







Articles of blog attire

Blog socks
Blog hats
Blog shoes
Blog shirts

*A limited number of hand-knitted blogging socks are available at an extortionate price from this site. Leave a message.Please include a return address and don't forget to state how gullible you are.

Asteroid

Astronomers were over the moon today following the discovery of Asteroid ADXL/359064/ae, the first asteroid ever to be discovered painted like an England flag. The asteroid also has an uncanny resemblance to Wayne Rooney's face.

Scientists were wary about attaching too much significance to the find.
One said,"It probably means England will get to the quarter finals and then lose on penalties".


This photo was borrowed from the b3ta website (there's a link on the sidebar) and is part of their "Brits in Space" theme. It's very funny and there are about 15 pages of contributions.

Easter Island

Easter Island is in the Pacific Ocean and its longitude is about 109 degrees west. It's most famous for the spooky statues. I didn't realise there were so many of them - over 900. All fairly similar stylised heads of inscrutable looking people. Apparently the people who made them arrived on the uninhabited island in about 800 AD. They erected all these statues and then disappeared very abruptly leaving some statues half finished. No one knows why.

Today Easter Island's main exports are garden ornaments and ,of course, Easter Eggs.

One little known fact about Easter Island is that it is closer to Kingsdown in Bristol than it is to Greenbank.

999

Well number 999 has been and gone and didn't say anything. Typical bloody internet people. What can you expect from people who call each other "Dude"?
Well, you must be number 1000, dear viewer. So just leave a comment, OK?
If you don't mind.




This is a photo of my blog.

EEK! Nearly at 1000!

I've got nothing interesting to say, but the counter on this site is nearly up to 1000! How exciting!

If you're the 1000th visitor, or thereabouts, please leave a comment.

Gosh, I hope it's someone exotic, not just the usual Herberts.

Oh,no. Sorry, I didn't mean that. No, you're very valued visitors (VVVs for short)both of you, but you know what I mean.
Someone from China would be good. Or Russia. Or Easter Island...

So let's wait and see. Who will it be...?

PS If you are a new visitor, there are(slightly) more interesting posts elsewhere on the site.

The Good Old Days

I found an amazing website on the internet recently. You input your date of birth and the website works out how old you are. I had a go and it turns out that I'm Quite an Old Person. This is good because it means I can remember the Good Old Days, when things were so much better than they are now with all these modern, new-fangled, so-called inventions.

One thing that occurred to me is how much change I've seen in recorded music over the years. When I were a lad, we didn't really have any recorded music. All we had was a radio, and a valve one at that, no transistors. I think the BBC devoted about an hour a week to "Popular Music", leaving the rest of the time free for unpopular music. So radio Luxemburg was our station of choice.

Then my gran had to move out of her large house (that we'd lived in with her for a while) and so we got some of her stuff. This included an old wind-up gramophone. It stood about waist height on four legs and was about eighteen inches square. It didn't have a trumpet horn thing, but there was a speaker underneath the turntable. It was obviously mass produced and I suppose in the 30s/40s it would have been the cheapest way to have your own music.

I remember it being great fun when the voices slowed down and you had to wind it up in mid-song.

The records were all 78 rpm and very thick and heavy The only two records I remember from our collection were Der Fuhrer's Face and The Lambeth Walk.

Funnily enough, I heard Der Fuhrer's Face on the radio the other week on a programme about records banned by the BBC. It was a song poking fun at Hitler, released in 1942 and the Beeb didn't like it for some reason. As I recall, relations between Britain and Germany were rather fraught at that time, what with World War Two and the Blitz and everything, so perhaps they didn't want to inflame things any further. More probably though, it was because they thought it was lower class and oikish.

As for the Lambeth Walk, I can still remember some of the words. I could give a rendition if you like. Oh, go on then, twist my arm -

Any little Lamberf gal,

Wiv er little Lamberf pal,

You'll find them all,

Doing the Lamberf Wawk


Any evening, any day,

Any time down Lamberf way,

You'll find them all,

Doing the Lamberf Wawk


Everything is free and easy,

Do as yer darn well pleasy,

Why don't yer make yer way there,

Go there, stay there.

In fact the last verse is quite prescient because police in the Borough of Lambeth are pioneering a "softly softly" approach to cannabis. Which I think means people can smoke dope in the street and not get arrested. Free and easy indeed.

Anyway, I digress. The point I was making is how much music technology has changed over the years.
The wind-up was old-fashioned even then, and as I got older the electric record player and 33 and 45 records became more accessible.

Then do you remember cassettes coming out? That was late 60s/early 70s, as I recall. You could get players with straps so you could hang them over your shoulder. The first Walkmans, but a lot heavier.

I think things stayed pretty much the same through the 70s and probably the 80s too. Videos came out, but they don't count as they're not really music. I suppose CDs were invented in the 80s but became more popular in the 90s.

And now it's all digital. I've got a little mp3 player. I've tried listening to it, but it doesn't do much for me (although people say it works better with a battery in). I can listen to podcasts should the fancy ever take me and I can't see how music technology can advance much more, unless they invent tiny little bands that play in your head.

But still, it's quite a big change in one lifetime, isn't it?

I hope you're all impressed.