Journalism today
You’ve probably seen Miriam Margolyes in something. She usually plays the whacky old lady, crazy aunt, witch. She was in one of the Harry Potter films. She’s a dreadful old lefty luvvy, but they all are, aren’t they?
Yesterday she was on Good Morning Britain. Seconds before the end of an ad break, she lifted a buttcheek, let rip an enormous fart and said, “that’s better.”
When the cameras rolled, the hosts were in tears.
Is this news? Is it important? Folks, I will never let a fart story go.
This is my pledge to you.
November 17, 2021 — 7:30 pm
Comments: 5
I finally came to one
Spotted on my way to the lecture last night. If I told you the answer is “I went straight” you’d think I was a criminal before (or a lesbian).
I’ve been sitting in the comfy chair snoozing all afternoon. They made me work a five-day week, y’all – and two of them were 9-5! Oh, the humanity!
That photo came straight off my camera and this laptop saves images huge. So I fixed it using an online file compression service that worked a treat, and all they want is for me to share their url on my social media.
There you go. I’m probably all loaded up with Russian viruses now.
Good weekend, everyone!
November 12, 2021 — 7:42 pm
Comments: 11
Not sure how I feel about this…
We had our antiquated security system updated this week.
As they were finishing up, one engineer said to me, “there’s an app, you know.” And damme, there’s an app.
I can check the alarm status. I can alarm and unalarm remotely. I’m notified if an alarm goes off and which sensor has been tripped. I get a log of every alarm setting event and which keyfob was responsible.
But so, of course, can everyone else in the company who downloads the app. Whee! I’m punching a timeclock again.
I don’t actually mind punching a time clock, literally or figuratively. And I don’t suppose any of the old dears I work for has the slightest interest in a phone app, anyway. But I am perfectly poised between thinking this is a great and useful thing to have and thinking it’s a level of surveillance too far.
On a side note, I’ve had to work a 9-to-5 to babysit the workmen and I am shattered. How did I ever do this day after day?
November 10, 2021 — 6:46 pm
Comments: 6
With a name like that, what did they expect…?
We have workmen in doing workman stuff in the office this week. One of them told me he went to a coffee shop in London called Fuckoffee. Hipster place.
I thought that was funny, so I looked it up. First hit I got was this article slamming this sign outside: “THIS IS THE LONGEST SOMETHING MADE IN CHINA HAS EVER LASTED.” Re: the bug, naturally.
I’m not sure what they were angrier about, being blamed for the virus or the insult to the quality of their goods, but they big mad.
To be fair, it’s an East Asian advocacy group. East Asians want so desperately badly to be picked-upon POCs.
The article is from April; I hope they didn’t cave and take down the sign.
November 9, 2021 — 5:22 pm
Comments: 6
Aw, I kind of like it
At six years, this house has been on the market longer than any other in Sussex. It’s £200,000, in good shape and has lovely views out the back.
I mean, people do know you can repaint a house, yes?
It is a tribute to his beloved dalmation. Not the current one, the one before. He does continue the polka dot theme inside, but it’s soft furnishings and things the next owner wouldn’t keep.
You can’t please some people.
November 8, 2021 — 6:13 pm
Comments: 8
Well, I’ll be…
We were talking in the thread below about strange store combinations we have known. I give you: Walker’s Shoes and Cheese.
The internet said it was in Smithville, but I remember it outside of town. Why yes, it has a footprint on the internet.
The picture came from this Facebook page. This guy from Boonetown called his autobiography Shoes and Cheese, which doesn’t seem like a coincidence. I never heard of Boonetown; it looks like a suburb of Nashville.
Then I found this 42-second clip of a not especially musical young man singing of a little number called “Please take me back to Walker’s Shoes and Cheese.” It’s definitely our Walker’s Shoes and Cheese because he describes it as “two miles North of Smithville, Tennessee.”
And yes, “our” Walker’s Shoes and Cheese. There also appears to be one in Kansas City. No. No idea.
What’s that you say? The backstory? My mother asked. They said, “we used to be a shoe store and then somebody gave us a cooler.”
November 4, 2021 — 5:29 pm
Comments: 9
Kind of overkill, don’t you think?
This image is rattling around social media today. It’s a vampire hunting kit that supposedly sold at Sotheby’s in 2011. I did a search using those keywords and found a totally different vampire hunting kit that sold at a different auction.
The one in the picture is supposedly 1890s, but people in the threads are pointing out that this conception of vampire hunting really didn’t crystallize until the Hammer films. I suspect these were a novelty item assembled in the 20th C using 19th C components.
I know someone who claimed to have seen a simple one. He said it was a velvet-lined mahogany box with a revolver, a crucifix and six silver bullets. A revolver, so post 1850 anyway. I told him it would have been a much better story if one of the bullets was missing.
He owned a combination gun and appliance shop in Providence. That shop was wild. As you walked in, the left half was guns and knives and the right half was white goods. I bought a television there one year and a .357 magnum another year.
Usually it was too expensive for my budget, but once a year they had an invitation-only gun sale with serious discounts. The .357 became my bedside table gun – an S&W 686 snubby in nickel. It was a heavy, ugly, okay-lady-I-can-see-you’re-serious kind of gun and I think I paid less than $200 for it.
I still regret not buying the evillest machete I ever saw at that sale. It was obviously very old and had been sharped and sharpened until there was nought left but a thin, wicked sharp sickle.
I decided I was too clumsy to own that one.
November 3, 2021 — 6:09 pm
Comments: 12
Spot the robot
I’ve been watching a livestream about the Facebook Metaverse (it’s a livestream, I guess the link will work afterwards). If you can stand Twitter, there’s a short clip about it here. Near as I can figure it, it’s Skype plus Second Life on a VR headset.
I was super excited about this idea in 1990.
No, really. When I first met Uncle B in the 90s, I gabbled on about how we would soon have virtual reality chat rooms and how I was going to design custom 3D skins for it. Thirty years later and meh.
Whoever thought Zuckerberg was the charismatic personality to sell this idea…I suppose when you’re the multibillionaire CEO ain’t nobody tell you no. The good news is, he’s sinking a LOT of money into the idea. The bad news is, he could afford to lose the lot without breaking a sweat.
World’s fifth richest man, y’all.
Oh, holy shit – moments before I hit Publish, Facebook changes its name to Meta in major rebrand.
October 28, 2021 — 6:29 pm
Comments: 7
And it just got better from there
This morning, someone had left a note for me which read “a small boy put the kitchen roll in the toilet.” What a small boy was doing in our toilet over the weekend I have yet to discover, but I did indeed find a large new roll of industrial bathroom hand wipes in the bin.
It was sodden. Reckon it weighed 20 pounds.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to touch it and it was garbage day today and things got better after that.
Hahaha…no they didn’t. It rained and my electric bike conked out (fixable but annoying) and I’m just counting the minutes until it’s Gin O’Clock.
I was going to say “the sun is over the yardarm” but that’s because I was too ignorant to know it actually means daytime drinking:
A traditional nautical saying to indicate that it is time for a morning drink. It was generally assumed in northern latitudes the sun would show above the foreyard of a ship by 1100, which was about the time in many ships of the forenoon ‘stand-easy’, when many officers would slip below for their first drink of the day.
I should’ve joined the Royal Navy.
October 25, 2021 — 9:19 pm
Comments: 3
Beeg spooder
Spotted at a local farm shop. That’s a roll of hay in the middle. It was in a tableaux between two rolls of hay painted like jack o’ lanterns and two scarecrows, but the arachnid in the middle was the star. Boy, did this guy have some pumpkins!
I have been reminded we have a Dead Pool winner. I’ll be perfectly honest – I have no idea who or with whom, but I vaguely remember it happening. I been a busy weasel this week!
I promise I’ll look it up before tomorrow – New Dead Pool. Tomorrow. 6WBT (a reminder that the blog is strictly GMT and does not observe British Summer Time, which is still in effect)
October 21, 2021 — 5:40 pm
Comments: 5