Fasten your seatbelts; here we go!
Right! It’s on. I’ve got a whole fuckwad* of things to do in the next eight weeks if I’m going to pull this off. I’ll be totally boring and self-absorbed — when I bother to show up at all. That’s my promise to you.
Still, the process by which an American woman and her cat legally emigrate to another country might prove instructive. Think of my journey as a public service. Like Katie Couric’s on-air colonoscopy.
And fifty-eight days from today, if all goes according to plan (ha, ha) we’ll all sit down together (metaphorically) for champers and spotted dick before a roaring coal fire.
Toodle pip, and other gay British stuff!
*Fuckwad: a unit of measurement equivalent to three or more shitloads.
Posted: September 29th, 2008 under badger house, blogging, britain, personal.
Comments: 85
Comments
Comment from Allen
Time: September 29, 2008, 11:29 am
Champaign and Spotted Dick? That sounds like a positively revolting combination. I can see one or the other, but at the same time, not so much.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 29, 2008, 11:33 am
Champagne is a desert wine.
Eh. Brain fart. I actually had to look that up. I’ve spelled it “champaign” several times lately, too. I didn’t realize the city and the wine weren’t spelled the same.
We got Illinois on the brain, Allen.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 29, 2008, 11:34 am
On a related note, Uncle B was able to buy ten extra sacks of coal before the Winter prices kicked in. He’s very pleased with himself.
Comment from Allen
Time: September 29, 2008, 11:44 am
I know Weasel, I didn’t edit it after I saw what I did, thought to myself “yeah I can be a dolt at times might as well let other people in on it.”
Desert Wine huh? Goes well with Joshua Trees ๐
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 29, 2008, 11:45 am
Hahaha. And now we’re even.
Comment from bad cat robot
Time: September 29, 2008, 11:51 am
sacks of coal? Were they carried in by stunted street urchins wearing dodgy tweed caps? I’ve heard that’s traditional.
You’ve got so MANY delights in store, Weas. I predict that you will be precisely midpoint in flight over the Atlantic when you realize you completely forgot to clear out the upstairs closet with the door that always stuck and which contained the hand-embroidered egg-coddlers handed down in your family since the early Pliocene. Plus your dried toad collection. And the human head shrinking kit. And a few other items that would be awkward to explain to the constabulary.
Comment from Allen
Time: September 29, 2008, 11:54 am
Hi BCR. Bad Cat Robot had the most delightful idea for me to give the Eurotourists a real show. When I ride up by the highway, instead of other accoutrements, drape a CPR dummy over the pack horse. A little fake blood, voila!
That’s my kind of practical joke.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 29, 2008, 12:05 pm
Oh no! Something horrible has happened to Resusci Anne!
One of my earliest pleasures in Britain was whipping out my (tiny) pocket knife to peel the wrapper from the neck of a sherry bottle. My soon-to-be in-laws gasped and blanched and opined that it might not be entirely legal to carry such a thing.
It is legal, but nice people don’t carry them there. I’d feel naked without one.
Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: September 29, 2008, 12:21 pm
What? People don’t carry pocket knives there? That’s just crazy. You know, I think that what England needs most is a steady influx of right thinking Americans to teach them how to be proper people again. They seem to have forgotten how.
There you are Stoaty! You’re in the vanguard of a cultural revitalization revolution to rescue Ol’ Blighty from itself. You’re on a mission from God, I’m sure of it now.
Comment from Al ‘Defender of the Enviroment’ Gore
Time: September 29, 2008, 12:28 pm
This ‘Uncle B’ character has just made a very powerful enemy.
Comment from bad cat robot
Time: September 29, 2008, 12:30 pm
Hi Allen! Love of practical jokes is a genetic condition in my family. April 1 was quite hazardous. Cotton-ball cupcakes were a favorite. Extra points for subtlety. My esteemed ancestor who worked in a sheet-metal shop in the early 1900’s rigged a bottle of cheap cologne on a beam over the workbench of a colleague who fancied himself a ladies man. With every whack of the hammer another tiny dribble of Eau d’Scunque landed on Casanova Jr. By the end of the day he had his own atmosphere and no idea how it had happened.
Comment from Allen
Time: September 29, 2008, 1:11 pm
Dammit, I missed the Turkey Vulture Festival, and the Annual Rubber Duckie race on the river. Hot doings in the valley this past weekend, but I was drunk.
BCR, I loved your idea. I’m going to try to do something about it.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: September 29, 2008, 1:38 pm
Al Gore, eh?
Damnit. Should have bought 20.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 29, 2008, 1:39 pm
Weaz, Enas may be onto something: you can be our advance force over in Jolly Ol’.
The idea of Uncle B rubbing his hands and cackling gleefully over a bag of coal really cheers me up.
OK – make that 20 bags.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 29, 2008, 1:43 pm
You should understand, then, that it’s ten bags of coal over and above the coal bunker, which is nearly full.
That’s right. We have a coal bunker.
Comment from Jill
Time: September 29, 2008, 1:46 pm
“…hunker in the bunker…well that’s alriiight by meeeeee…”
(apologies to Monsieur J. Tull)
Comment from Allen
Time: September 29, 2008, 1:58 pm
A coal bunker, cool. Hey, do y’all have powder monkeys for keeping the cannons primed?
Comment from Jill
Time: September 29, 2008, 2:14 pm
http://www.tekkarats.com/images/animals/powdermonkey.jpg
๐
Comment from Allen
Time: September 29, 2008, 2:22 pm
Aagghh! Jill, I was not prepared for a rat with orange eyes. Good one. ๐
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 29, 2008, 2:25 pm
Neat eyes, Jill. That rat commands some respect, I dare say.
A coal bunker AND a greenhouse. Badger has it made. Plus his estate grows machine guns.
I think he should build a big-assed trebuchet and fling his neighbor’s sheep. Where, you ask, should he direct his fire? Who cares. Thataway.
Comment from Allen
Time: September 29, 2008, 4:01 pm
“Fasten your seatbelts: here we go”
No kidding, melting, melting, markets. Ooooff. The good news is that SlowJo gave me another moment. He said something about he and Obama coming up with the surge in Iraq. Bwahahaha, you go Joe.
Comment from Lemur King
Time: September 29, 2008, 4:14 pm
Terminator Rat or Rat of the Beast. Nice. Or rabid. That would be not-good, like this poor lady found out… (‘ware the space)
http ://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,429921,00.html
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 29, 2008, 5:34 pm
Holy javabean, LK!
You’d think it woulda squealed a bit while being brewed? Maybe she was taking a shower.
Comment from Old Grouch
Time: September 29, 2008, 7:19 pm
“woman and her cat”
I take it Damien never turned up? ๐
Comment from Jim
Time: September 29, 2008, 7:48 pm
Can I jsut say fuck off. We don’t want your type in the UK.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 29, 2008, 7:57 pm
Shhhhh…everybody be quiet…don’t scare him. I collect them.
I know it sounds cruel, but if you withhold food for a few days, you can tame them. Really, in the long run, it’s a much happier life than they would ever have in the wild.
Hello, Jim! I’m a friend. No, friend. Really. Would you like a carrot? Sure you would!
Comment from porknbean
Time: September 29, 2008, 8:00 pm
Hey Jim, you need to fuck right off into the ocean, because your type is probably what destroyed the UK. F*cking wanker.
Comment from porknbean
Time: September 29, 2008, 8:01 pm
Sorry weasel…your warning came as I hit ‘post’.
Nah…can’t tame the rabid. You gotta shoot ’em.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 29, 2008, 8:01 pm
No, Grouch, he vanished. And if he turned up today, it would be awkward: he outlived his vaccine and would have to start from scratch. It takes seven months to get a cat or dog legal to immigrate to the UK.
Here’s the thing…he’s chipped. It’s part of the deal. So there’s an outside chance somebody took him in thinking he was a stray (my neighbors say he was super friendly) and won’t realize the error until the first time they take him to a vet. I could get a call years from now telling me he’s turned up.
But I’m guessing he got hit by a bus. He was that kind of go-to-hell cat, bless him.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 29, 2008, 8:03 pm
Oh, it’s okay, PnB. Trolls are a precious global resource, shared by all. I wouldn’t dream of claiming sole ownership.
They’re like the wind and the water and fart gas…they long to be free.
Comment from Dawn
Time: September 29, 2008, 8:08 pm
Jim sounds rather American, doesn’t he?
If he was really British wouldn’t he have said something like…
I say bugger off, we don’t want your duff ‘ere in the UK.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 29, 2008, 8:19 pm
There are many astonishing things that emigrants learn, Dawn. One of the most astonishing to me was realizing how many stupid, illiterate Brits there are.
Masterpiece Theater gave us the incorrect impression that Britain is a nation of sooper geniuses. A very considerable percentage of Brits are as sharp as a sack of wet mice.
Comment from Dawn
Time: September 29, 2008, 8:27 pm
Probably another buck Fusher. Banal.
I learned that word from a Mountain Dew commercial.
Comment from LemurKing
Time: September 29, 2008, 8:34 pm
Ackshully, I think that not only are trolls a precious resource, their numbers are dwindling. Could it be that they are simply too stupid to reproduce after a certain number of inbred generations? How tragic. I’ve always wanted to stuff and mount one, put it on display with my Jackalopeโข trophy.
It’s only through control of hunting permits and careful conservation efforts we can continue to enjoy them for generations to come.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 29, 2008, 8:38 pm
A troll. An American troll named Jim.
Rats. I missed him.
Wait, Weasel. You mean all Brits aren’t educated and super sophisticated? But…but…they all talk with that oh-so-educated British accent? you must be mistaken!
Comment from LemurKing
Time: September 29, 2008, 8:40 pm
An American Troll Named Jim.
Either sung to the tune of “The Beverly Hillbillies” or it is a song sung by Gordon Lightfoot. Has a hell of a ring to it.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 29, 2008, 8:58 pm
With apologies to Paul Henning:
Come and listen to a story ’bout a troll named Jim
A poor commenter – barely got a word from him.
He was sneakin’ up on Weasel, when she faced him fair ‘n square
Then he burbled off in silence, or to spread his crap somewhere.
Somewhere else, that is. A Kos Kid? Yup. Could be.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: September 29, 2008, 9:02 pm
Hello, Jim.
Would you dare give me your address?
Or can we just guess the rest?
Comment from porknbean
Time: September 29, 2008, 9:02 pm
Masterpiece Theater gave us the incorrect impression that Britain is a nation of sooper geniuses. A very considerable percentage of Brits are as sharp as a sack of wet mice.
Lumme some Masterpiece Theatre.
If one reads the innernet Brit papers or Dalrymple, one realizes quickly that they have just as many parasitic imbeciles….some with the added bonus of a cool accent.
Comment from Jill
Time: September 29, 2008, 9:50 pm
http://www.squirrelunderpants.com/
Warning: shows nekkid skwerls.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: September 29, 2008, 9:51 pm
I’m afraid it’s true, PnB.
I was discussing this with her Ladyship earlier this evening and we were waxing lyrical about a mutual hero, Mr. Jefferson (it’s pillow talk for mustelids).
I pointed out that he (and the other colonial radicals) hadn’t sprung fully formed from Jove’s head – that they had drawn on a wellspring of libertarian thought that originated here.
Ol’ Stoaty, quick as a flash (as stoats do) rejoindered that while this was true, we had exported our decent folk to the said colonies – which is also true.
The sad fact is that miserable, cowardly little lice like Kos ‘Jim’ exist in abundance here. Due to the pressure of geography, wars, demographics, immigration, the proximity of ‘Europe’ and sheer brute stupidity, we now suffer from an overabundance of collectivists.
You have too, of course, but the famed ‘rugged individualism’ of the USA (may the gods bless you for it) has still managed to prevail – even in the teeth of the onslaught from your Left which, sorry chaps, is possibly even madder than ours, at times.
So, yes – we have scum here and we have a legion of rank madmen in our politics.
But we also have that core of cranky Anglo-Saxons that begat Jefferson. And, among us, we have a deep love for, and affinity with, our kith and our kin in the Anglosphere.
Being a badger, I live in the very deepest English countryside. After a few ales down at the Jolly Predator, the politics of Real England is pretty much indistinguishable from the politics of East Moosejaw, Texas.
Stoaty will fit in just fine here. Indeed, she’ll be a much-valued reinjection of what we were all about until the filthy disease of socialism was invented and spread like the plague.
Comment from LemurKing
Time: September 29, 2008, 10:06 pm
Sadly Uncle B, I’ve been darned lucky to find anyone who has actually read the Federalist Papers and so they don’t understand the very context that you’ve put all this in just now.
For example, they don’t realize that separation of church and state actually got it’s roots in defiance of state-sponsored (state institution) of religion – namely, declaring that one church was to be the church of England. Or that freedom of speech originally meant political speech and being imprisoned for talk that did not please those in power. I don’t mind taking freedom of speech some number of steps further at all because it increases, not removes, freedoms.
Ok sorry to horn in on your pillow-talk.
Comment from porknbean
Time: September 29, 2008, 10:10 pm
Shoot Jill, you can go to Build-a-Bear and get underpants that fit squirrels for just a few bucks.
Comment from LemurKing
Time: September 29, 2008, 10:45 pm
ok pnb I obviously came into that portion of the thread cold. Underpants for squirrels sounds really odd if you don’t know the context of the conversation. That’s what I get for only half paying attention.
Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: September 29, 2008, 11:51 pm
Nuthin’ better than cranky Anglo-Saxons!
I actually don’t have a drop of Anglo-Saxon blood. It’s a peculiar mixture of German (after the Germanic tribes moved north to become the Saxons) and Czech*, and I think there is some Irish, and of course Cherokee (everyone in Texas is part Cherokee), and (as family legend has it) black.
*Seriously? McCain saying “Czechoslovakia” instead of “the Czech Republic” is a major gaffe? Are these people for real?
Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: September 29, 2008, 11:59 pm
On a completely unrelated note – I got my big-assed HDTV! WHOOT!
Comment from porknbean
Time: September 30, 2008, 1:16 am
My grandmother was from Czechoslovakia. Most everybody else was German. Though, way back on my maternal grandfathers tree, there was a…shhhh….*whispers*….a Fwenchie. Also a baronet. Somewhere on my dad’s mostly German side, is a touch of the Irish
HDTV huh? I thought there was a depression going on. Or something.
Congratulations!
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 4:26 am
I had a German grandma and a Fwench grandma. Otherwise, the whole entire fambly tree is Brit of some description, as far as I know. And I got the pasty, spotty skin to prove it!
Beverly Hillbillies. Ha! Did I ever tell you guys Earl Scruggs was my dad’s best friend when I was a kid? ‘Strue. My dad was a huge fan, and he contrived to meet Earl when we moved to Nashville from Chattanooga. He convinced Earl to buy a house in our neighborhood, a block up the street (before that, they lived in a trailer somewhere). The Scruggses inhabit many of my early memories. Sweetest guy in the world, seriously.
And if you don’t know who Earl Scruggs is or what that has to do with the Beverly Hillbillies, please don’t tell me.
Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: September 30, 2008, 8:45 am
No, McGoo. In fact, that was how Incognito Mosquito solved one of his cases – the Flea family was attempting to impersonate a baron’s family, and called the kid a baronet.
Those books were filled with terrible, usually bug-related, puns, and they starred a detective who was a mosquito. Haven’t thought about them in years.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 30, 2008, 9:11 am
Ah! Thanks, Mrs. P.
Now, about clarinets… ๐
Scruggs, as in Flatts & Scruggs? Woot. They can really pick.
Comment from Jill
Time: September 30, 2008, 9:25 am
A baronet is a female court member unable to have children.
She’s a little baron.
>ducking to avoid the thrown shoes<
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 30, 2008, 9:44 am
Theo over at Last of the Few caught the latest depiction of the Large Hardon Collider …. here.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_3QqO8EXd-II/SOIOPP6dTJI/AAAAAAAAYuo/Q8tybCw_QtQ/s400/Hardon.jpg
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 9:46 am
The very same, McGoo. Do you know what professional musicians do on their days off? They play music. The whole band used to come over to our house and play for fun, because we had a big livingroom.
So I have, in fact, played backup behind Earl Scruggs. In the livingroom.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 9:47 am
I had a feeling that wasn’t a typo, McGoo.
Comment from apotheosis
Time: September 30, 2008, 9:59 am
^ wtf nsfw kthx
Comment from apotheosis
Time: September 30, 2008, 10:01 am
* please specify metric or imperial fuckwads
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 30, 2008, 10:04 am
You know me well, Stoaty.
That is impressive, Weaz. F&S were, like, world-class. Whoa.
Now I remember; your fambly is musical. Doesn’t your dad play the bagpipes or sumpin equally strange? Ocarina? Diggery-doo?
{Dammit. I typed into google “define: dijery doo”, it came back “did you mean digery doo”, I said yes(wanting the correct spelling), and it came back with “don’t know what you’re talkin’ about”. God-damned smart-ass computers}
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 10:11 am
Bagpipes, banjo, guitar, fiddle, cornet, keyboards. Lots of stuff. Loudly and not particularly well.
Poor bugger is very deaf and a bit arthritic, so he has some excuse. He was better when he was younger (second-place Tennessee state cornet champeen of, like, 1938 or something. He swears he would have aced the championship if he hadn’t blown an eardrum before the contest).
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 30, 2008, 10:15 am
Is a cornet a small corn?
It’s my understanding that playing loudly is more fun, especially if one doesn’t play well. Or hear well. Best wishes to Dr. Sir Weasel.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 10:31 am
Yes, McGoo. And a hairnet is a small hairn.
He especially liked to practice the banjo in the bathroom, on account of the acoustics. Drove my mother nuts. That, and when he would stand at the foot of the bed (my mother slept more hours in the day than a Serengeti lion) and play that old bluegrass favorite, “Mother’s Not Dead, She’s Only A-Sleepin’.”
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 10:43 am
Mother’s Not Dead. Heh. Listen to the audio. Man, that brings back some memories.
Wow. Back up and check out the whole collection. Hoo! I know what Weasel’s doing instead of work today!
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 30, 2008, 10:43 am
“…liked to practice the banjo in the bathroom…”
That’s very strange, Weaz. I like it.
Now that was some good ol’ down-home sangin’.
Comment from Allen
Time: September 30, 2008, 11:02 am
Heh, my fambly is Finnish. We have a bunch of weird names in there. Saomi, Tuomi, Onni, so on. No, Finns don’t do ludfisk, that’s those filthy Norwegians.
Weasel, Earl? He played at the house? Oh my.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 11:06 am
I was almost there the day Earl met Doc Watson, but Doc was hospitilized for appendicitis and had to cancel.
I think we’re getting to the place where the internet is a small intern. And that’s not a good place.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: September 30, 2008, 11:07 am
YAY! Congratulations!
Oh and if you were klassee like I am, you’d pronounce champagne, sham pahg nee and you’d always know how to spell it. Course, people don’t know what the hell you’re talking about when you pronounce it that way, but facts are usually irrelevant with me.
Comment from pajama momma
Time: September 30, 2008, 11:18 am
ooops, that was me, but I can’t go back and edit it that it was me.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 11:19 am
S’okay, pj momma. It periodically forgets who people are. I have no idea why.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 11:23 am
Hahaha…speaking of who people are, I just got around to checking Jim’s IP.
Australia.
Comment from Jill
Time: September 30, 2008, 11:43 am
Saw Doc and his son Merle in 2004 here:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3220/2389865222_cd585f8c25.jpg?v=0
We were second row, stage left. That’s the Carnegie Lecture Hall in Oakland, PA…just outside of Peetsborghei, home of the Steelers.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 11:48 am
Gosh, I thought Merle died longer ago than that.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 12:10 pm
Heyyyy…he did. Wikipedia says Merle died in ’85. He plays with Merle’s son these days, though.
Comment from Jill
Time: September 30, 2008, 12:27 pm
Duh. I’m an idjit. I misspoke. I sometimes type faster than my brain can fly.
๐
You knew what I meant.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 12:31 pm
I didn’t, actually. You had me running to Wikipedia in puzzlement.
…where I learned that Doc’s first guitar was a Stella. So was mine. My Stella sucked so hard it wasn’t worth El Kabonging.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 30, 2008, 12:55 pm
You mean the American troll Jim spoofed his internet ID to make us believe he’s in Australia? Wow.
Comment from porknbean
Time: September 30, 2008, 6:30 pm
Meh…baronet has something to do with female hereditary titles.
I couldn’t think straight after the previous night’s 4 hours of sleep. I meant that somewhere back in the family was someone with a small-bit royal title. I hear they are still in the money.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 30, 2008, 6:46 pm
I was just funnin’, Pnb.
But, y’know, I am convinced I should have been royalty. Or at least rich. I just somehow feel that strangers should grovel a bit if I direct a smile at them. It’s only fair…
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: September 30, 2008, 7:01 pm
I’ve always had this dream where I step out onto a marble balcony wearing a tiara and wave, and a sea of people go “huzzah! It’s her!” and throw their hats in the air.
Seriously. I’ve had that dream since forever.
I also wanted to be a saint when I was a kid. And the pastor said, “well, you can’t just be a saint.”
And I’m like, “why not?”
And he’s like, “it doesn’t work like that. Saints are special people called by God for a particular task.”
And I go, “you can’t just work very hard to do all the right stuff God wants you to and become a saint that way?”
And he says “no.”
And I quietly think to myself, “that’s stupid.”
And it is. Where’s the incentive? The logic? I arrived at my atheism by way of religiousity.
Comment from porknbean
Time: September 30, 2008, 7:03 pm
Me too, McGoo. I somehow feel I should have a maid and a chef.
I wouldn’t want the groveling. That would be annoying and worthy of a sentence to the guillotine. Speaking of which….to have the power to lock up certain low-life politicians in a tower…no, better yet, sentence them to hard labor and toilet cleaning…that is a power I would love to indulge.
Comment from porknbean
Time: September 30, 2008, 7:08 pm
I figure if you don’t hear God speaking directly to you to do a certain task, or if you have to ask, then you probably won’t be a saint.
If you read up on saints, many of them met with a terrible fate. I don’t think you want to be skewered or shish-ka-bobbed or decapitated over your beliefs or deeds…….oh wait…you are going to live where certain folks hold up signs threatening that very thing. Be careful what you wish for.
Comment from Steamboat McGoo
Time: September 30, 2008, 9:04 pm
Oh, I wouldn’t mind the groveling from strangers – so long as they weren’t a pest about it.
Now, being a saint…that is intriguing.
Saint McGoo.
The compassionate? Na.
The Indifferent? Harumph.
The Mildly & Absent-Mindedly Obdurate. Yeah. That’s it.
Comment from nbpundit
Time: October 2, 2008, 5:47 pm
Congratulations Stoaty….Heh™
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