One of the lesser-known harbingers of Summer
Once every week or two, we like to take a long drive up the coast to our favorite fish and chips shop (they still cook in beef tallow!) and do a little shopping. Every time we drove up last Summer — every single time — there was a young man standing on the side of the road who gave a stiff and enthusiastic Heil Hitler! to every car that went past.
Clearly a tard or mong of some description, he always wore earbuds and carried an iPod. I’d love to think he was listening to das Beste des Adolphenschpechen but it’s probably just “Teletubbies: Oops-A-Daisy”.
When Autumn came, he was gone. As his usual post was near a trailer park, we assumed his family had a seaside Summer rental.
Welp, you guess it — my ol’ bud Heil Hitler was back this afternoon, heiling his heart out. Summer’s here!
I just got an email that began You’re getting this email because you blog about stuff real guys like. Since they’ve obviously taken time to learn about me and my blog, I figured I’d help them flog their crappy bourbon.
Actually, it might be good bourbon. I don’t know. I’m not a bourbon drinker. Anyhow, the blog that sends most unique users their way gets all sorts of fabulous prizes…some for me, some for you. It doesn’t seem likely we’ll be that blog, but if I win anything, I vow to pass whatever it is on to one of you.
Somehow, “Buffalo Trace” doesn’t sound like something I want to put in my mouth.
March 26, 2010 — 9:56 pm
Comments: 35
Gesundheit
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. (Yeah, that’s right. I can still hear your thoughts. The injections don’t help at all). You’re thinking, “geez, Stoaty — you live in an Olde Worlde socialist paradise now. What do you care from Obamacare?”
Well, I own sixty acres of American scrub cedar and rattlesnakes out near the old Gore place. We call it Rancho Plan B. I pay American taxes and vote in American elections. I brush my teeth humming Yankee Doodle Dandy and insist on saying aloominum and skedule and coming home once a year to stock up on Jimmy Dean country sausage and Bounty paper towels.
But seriously — clown nose off — it matters here. You have no IDEA how much things in the US matter outside the US, in the general force and direction of world politics. The old saying when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold should probably be updated to when America sneezes, the rest of the world gets AIDS, Ebola and a side order of flesh-eating bacteria.
The interconnections in the UK catch me off guard. I was having a cup of coffee and a scone in a cafe in town yesterday and the lady at the next table over heard my accent and wanted to tell me all about her upcoming vacation in California. That happens a lot. So much for the taciturn Brits.
The BBC’s obsession with all things American is deep and malignant. You would not believe how much of a typical broadcast day is about the US, one way or another. I used to joke that Radio 4 could work a George Bush joke into the gardening program, but I think the Obama infatuation is even loonier.
During a radio interview of the English singer/songwriter Alison Goldfrapp a couple of days ago, the interviewer remarked that her most recent album was very upbeat. “Why is that?” he said out of an abso-fucking-lutely blue sky, “because of Obama?”
So you’d better believe the BBC has reported every twist and turn of the Obamacare saga in minutest detail. Absolutely zero insight, but minute detail. And you know what they’re rooting for.
The tug-of-war between freedom and the state is played across international boundaries. Pull hard, Yanks!
March 25, 2010 — 11:35 pm
Comments: 26
Happy St Paddy’s Day!
One of Uncle B’s London clients phoned this afternoon. He was going to be in Brighton this evening, could we meet him there to touch base? As it happens, it’s someone we’ve been meaning to go up to see for some time, so it had to be yes.
Thing is, there are many swift, direct routes to Brighton from London, including an excellent fast train service. So Londoners assume (as we once did) that it would be even easier to get to Brighton if you lived on the Southeast coast.
It’s not. It’s narrow, twisty backroads and lots of them.
And then we got lost in Brighton and couldn’t find parking (and when we did, it was nearly £10 for three hours). And then the Polish cab driver dropped us off in the wrong place and swore it was the right place.
To our surprise, there was not a meal on offer, so we were forced — forced — to burn through the snack table like buzz-saws, stuffing our faces with Pringles and Doritos and reduced-fat chive-flavored Philadelphia cream cheese. It was oddly homely.
And the way back was everything the way there had been, plus fog. I mean, a real Sherlock Holmes / Jack the Ripper, cotton-wool thing off the sea. We kept an eye out for the Phantom Hitch-hiker.
Anyhoo, it’s 12:30 and we’re just in. If I’m going to maintain the sacred tradition of getting puking drunk for St Paddy, I’d better hurry up.
There’s not an Irish bone in my body, but I believe in observing the sacraments.
March 18, 2010 — 12:33 am
Comments: 22
Clueless on the hoof
Yep. This year’s crop. I’m pretty sure that one ewe didn’t squeeze out all nine of those lambs, but she was the designated babysitter.
None of the ladies was happy to see us. Two old dears got so agitated, they started head-butting each other really hard. I didn’t know lady sheeps did that.
Anyhow, congratulations nachogranny! Peter Graves folded, in the shortest Dead Pool so far (following the longest Dead Pool so far. Isn’t death funny?). If you would like your delicious spotted dicks, sir or madam, be sure to give me a mailing address. If not…I totally understand.
We start over next Friday, 6pm Weaseltime (note: we haven’t gone to daylight savings yet, so that’s 1pm East Coast and 9am West Coast). All prior guesses are tossed out and we start from scratch, m’kay? So y’all get busy poaching the best choices.
March 15, 2010 — 10:44 pm
Comments: 26
Play money…
The long, slow process of replacing my professional artard gear continues — my new scanner arrived this afternoon. First task is digitizing bits of my worthless coin collection.
No, seriously — I collect what real collectors call “lunch money” — heavily circulated world coins that are worth, at most, the value written on the front. Bought them in ten pound lots on eBay (my dealer doesn’t seem to be in business any more). Ten pounds, let me tell you, is a buttload of small change. Took weeks and weeks to go through them all, and every one of them guaranteed to be worth jack shit.
There would always be lots of fascinating and beautiful stuff, though. Mid-19th to the mid-20th Centuries and every continent on the globe.
You could tell a lot about a place from its money. Like, money with pictures of food on it comes from places where people are starving. Money with food and industrial equipment comes from Communist places where people are starving. In the immediate post-war era, the smallest coins in Europe were sometimes made of horrible cheap and nasty aluminum. Oh, and I’ll never forget the first time I turned over a coin and spotted a swastika on it. Brrrrrr — Nazi lunch money!
I thought some coins would make interesting merchandise. You would think that coins, being as public and emblematic as national flags, governments wouldn’t be all anal-retentive about copyrighting their images. You’d be wrong. This’ll be fun to figure out.
Oh, and the coin in the picture was, I thought, the one time I put one over on the bulk coin people. Without the holes (which were used to make it into a button or charm), a George III sovereign like that would be worth upwards of £1,000. But I’ve been digging around, and that there is almost certainly Victorian brass play money, worth nuffink.
So it’s consistent with the general high quality and value of the rest of my collection.
March 9, 2010 — 11:20 pm
Comments: 7
You’re welcome!
I saw today’s Drudge headline about the Obamacare bill — titled Push! Push harder! — and I was going to give you a graphic of Barack Obama attending Nancy Pelosi in the delivery room. But when I started assembling photos for the montage, it was clear right away there was not enough mind bleach in the whole wide world to clean up that mess once I made it.
So instead, I give you — the lady whose lips are made out of her vagina!
I am absolutely fascinated by these things. It’s a whole genre of trashy rags here. The high end is comprised of magazines which report the goings on of television programs as if they’re actual news, right the way down to these ones, with the lady whose fake tit exploded in Sainsbury’s. There are probably four or five at this tack level at our local newsstand.
I’d buy them every one, if Uncle B didn’t give me the hairy eyeball. Instead, I stand and read the covers while he shops for…I don’t know. Candied lamb spleens or whatever. The headlines on the front are the best part, anyhow.
And I wouldn’t be too smug, Americans. All this means is that Britain’s really dumb people still read for entertainment.
March 4, 2010 — 11:08 pm
Comments: 62
Cussing works!
My departure from the States was messy. Selling up and moving to a whole ‘nother country is like that. To make sure I had stuff covered during the transition, I didn’t cancel any accounts before I left. I took my last copy of all my bills, made a big pot of coffee and sat down to cancel them once I was safely on the other side.
That’s when I discovered that 800 numbers don’t work from the UK.
Well, they ring. But the bit where you input your account number using the keypad, or press a number for which department you want…that doesn’t take. And that’s often the very first thing you hit on the way in, so you can’t get past it to a human being.
That’s when I discovered that a whole lotta companies ONLY give you an 800 number these days.
No mailing address, no customer service email. Just a phone number. I feel sure that’s a breach of some consumer protection legislation somewhere, but there you go.
That’s when I discovered the ‘fuck you’ exemption.
Guess what? Many voice recognition systems have been programmed to recognize bad language. If you get frustrated and start shouting wirty-dords down the line, you’ll get connected to a human being, pronto. I learned to explode with profanity the moment I came up against a robot voice. I hope somebody’s grandma wasn’t “monitoring the call for quality control.”
It worked for all of them but Checkfree, my bill paying service. Bastards have been leeching five bucks a month out of my account for a year — which I can ill afford, but five bucks, you think, “oh, screw…I’ll work it out before next month.” No, I haven’t worked it out, but I did find an email for them tonight, so we’ll see.
I just wanted to share the thing about the cussing, in case you find it useful. I’m all about the household fucking hints up in here.
February 24, 2010 — 6:43 pm
Comments: 24
Oh, now they’re just trying it on…
Laughing at place names is immigrant’s delight — I did it in Rhode Island, too. Come to think of it, I did it in Tennessee, and the Weasel family were founding members.
But, honestly, Tickle Cock bridge? Yes, it was so named for the obvious reason. It’s a local makeout spot, apparently, though it doesn’t look very romantic to moi. When the council discreetly put up a plaque designating it “Tittle Cott Bridge” a local geriatric support group, Voice for the Elderly, howled and waved their walkers about and threw tapioca until they changed it back again. Really.
Unlike the four families who live on Butt Hole Road, who took up a collection to change the name to Archer Way. They didn’t so much mind continually replacing the sign, it was the snapshot-posers that got to them.
For your enjoyment, the thirty rudest place names in Britain.
I notice they don’t include Pratt’s Bottom. I still want to have tea there some day.
February 18, 2010 — 7:44 pm
Comments: 22
Writ in sand
That there is an image by a man named Benjamin Zobel (1762-1831), made entirely out of sand. To create this one, he dribbled sand from little paper funnels onto a sticky surface, which is why it survives. Most sand paintings — duh — didn’t survive the night.
In the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, European and British royalty employed artists as table deckers — before important feasts, these guys would be hired to make huge images out of sand and sugar and marble dust and whatever on top of the banqueting tables. Dishes of snacky foods would be laid on top. At the end of the night, it would all be swept away. Landscapes, religious pictures, portraits, hunting scenes, still lifes (yes, dammit, that is correct) — whatever was fashionable in painting was fashionable in sandpainting.
Which sounds at first like ghastly aristocratic extravagance, but I’m guessing these artists were paid considerably more than, say, the ones who make chalk pictures on pavement. Same difference.
I have a warm spot for ephemera. Making ephemera for a living teaches humility — not something you get a lot of in the art world. Nearly all the art I’ve made for money was intended to be used once, or a few times maybe, and then fade away. For most of it, that’s just as well.
Anyhow, table deckers and sandpainting — that’s what to Google if you want to know more.
February 16, 2010 — 7:21 pm
Comments: 10
teezie mithy katra hornie dick bumfit
One of the neat things about our area, all the little towns around have historical societies and art clubs and so on which sponsor lecturers on a regular basis. If you like that sort of thing. And we do.
Tonight, we went out to hear a microbiologist deliver a talk on the origin of nursery rhymes. And very interesting it was, too. They’re all tragedy, gossip and porn. Apparently.
About a third of English nursery rhymes go back a thousand years or more, in one form or other. Some of the very earliest go right back to proto-Indo-European, way pre-historical times. A version of “ladybird, ladybird” was written on the side of an ancient building in India.
“Rain, rain go away” is another one that goes back that far and crops up all across Europe in a variety of languages. The German version, for example, goes “Rain, rain go away. Go rain on Poland.” No shit.
“Eeny meeny miney moe” is another ancient one, part of a genre of counting nursery rhymes. (Yes, America contributed the line about the person of color and his toe, quite recently. It’s universal now. We should be so proud).
I checked it out online when I got back, and stumbled across this delightful page describing the various ways sheep are (or were) counted all around Britain:
Counting to 1 2 3 4 5
Keswick yan tyan tethera methera pimp.
Westmorland yan tyan tetherie peddera gip.
Eskdale yaena taena teddera meddera pimp.
Millom aina peina para pedera pimp.
High Furness yan taen tedderte medderte pimp
Wasdale yan taen tudder anudder nimph
Teesdale yan tean tetherma metherma pip
Swaledale yahn tayhn tether mether mimp(h)
Wensleydale yan tean tither mither pip
Ayrshire yinty tinty tetheri metheri bamf
Counting to 6 7 8 9 0 15
Keswick sethera lethera hovera dovera dick bumfit
Westmorland teezie mithy katra hornie dick bumfit
Eskdale hofa lofa seckera leckera dec bumfit
Millom ithy mithy owera lowera dig bumfit
High Furness haata slaata lowera dowra dick mimph
Teesdale lezar azar catrah horna dick bumfit
Swaledale hith-her lith-her anver danver dic mimphit
Wensleydale teaser leaser catra horna dick bumper
Ayrshire leetera seetera over dover di
Children’s counting games:
[Edinburgh]“Inty, tinty, tethery, methery; Bank for over, dover, ding ..”
[London] “Eena, deena, dus; cattala, wheela, wheila, wus; spit, spot, must be done.
[Cincinnati] een, teen, tother, feather, fib, soter, oter, poter, debber, dick
[Vermont] eeni, teni, tudheri, fedheri, fip, saidher, taidher, koadher, daidher, dik
NB: those are last year’s lambs. We’re about two weeks away from the first of this year’s crop.
February 9, 2010 — 7:20 pm
Comments: 27