While in Verona recently I needed to open a fridge to get at some bottled water and to do that I needed to get some people to move out of the way so I said, "Mi Scusi" and a guy turned to his wife who was in the way and in a very broad Texas accent said, "I'm not sure what that guy said, but I think he wants you to move out of the way".

Labels: Articles

Last time we left him Grandpa Simon was contemplating just how far he had come in the article Moon Heaters.

So how could he convince people to go back to something that they hadn't liked very much? That was the problem. In the old days when people hadn't had enough to eat then it was a very personal problem, and now although everyone knew that eating the cheese was causing the whole moon to fall away it was somebody else's problem. Simon knew that everybody else thought that somebody else was going to solve it, and there was no motivation to bother. Because why bother to come up with a solution when eating the cheese right now isn't going to harm anyone. That was the problem, each slice of cheese wasn't hurting anyone by itself, it was just when everyone took a slice three or four times a day that they had started to run into trouble.

Everyone was hoping somebody else was going to solve the problem, but now Simon realised that if anything was going to happen then it would have to be him who would solve the problem.

He thought about taxes, that might be an idea. A way of rationing the cheese, by saying that people could only have a slice after they had done a day of work doing something else. But how would you enforce it? The whole planet was made of cheese, they could just bend down while working and eat a piece? Or more likely just eat at home and not work.

If only there was some way of trying to cover the whole planet some way of stopping them from getting at the cheese. But how would you do that? Maybe, Simon thought suddenly he didn't need to stop them from getting at the cheese, what if he just made it so that they couldn't eat the cheese any more. What if he could poison the cheese?

There was, in the armoury from the old days of war huge vats of mouse poison. If he could get it into the source of the cheese then he would be able to stop everyone from eating the cheese. The cheese did grow a little bit each year. It grew out from the centre of the moon. The aristocracy had always kept it in check by eating enough never more, never less. They had maintained the balance.

But how to get to the core of the moon? That was going to be tricky itself? But Simon had an idea, he would appeal to the greed of the mice. He would tell them that the core of the planet had the greatest tasting cheese of all time in it, and that if they could dig down to it then it would mean great cheese for those that had done it. He would have to get together a band of these Moon Miners but he knew with the promise of tasty cheese and a lie saying that that they would have rights to own the land down there would be enough to tempt them down.

He knew what he was doing would destroy the aristocracy as everyone would have to work, and he didn't mind that too much. Although he had now a new found respect for them as they had realised something far more important than he had about the way to keep the moon in balance. But he knew more than the aristocracy he would be destroying himself. There is no way he would survive. He'd be killed for sure.

Will Simon succeed? Tune in next Friday for the final instalment.

Labels: Fiction

...I didn't say anything to him in case he took a fence.

Labels: Jokes

Sometimes you do just have to get rid of stuff. Some people face this challenge with a kind of joyous abandon. Whereas I am one of those accumulators like a squirrel. I tend to never want to give up something that I've got. My friend Adrian is a thrower away of things. He just tends to want to have everything he needs not just all the stuff he used to need or just got given once. And in fact he'd probably argue quite successfully that he is not defined by the things that he owns but by the people that he loves and the opinions in his head.*

I would like to live like this in many ways. I do believe that people are more important that things but I also remember the day my model aeroplane that had one too few struts was sat on and destroyed and not only that I have the proof that it isn't me my personality now imposing that preference on my boyhood self. I still have my diary entry from the day that it happened. It was so important to e that it was the only diary entry I made that year. So it was clearly very important even then. When I have to get rid of something I have to be of the opinion that I would be willing to set it on fire and that I would be fine with that. Otherwise I can't deal with it. I really need to be sure that there is no chance that I'll ever want to see it again. Because if I might and if it's not on fire somewhere then I might have to seek it out and try and track it down. That's the kind of thing I might do. I know, I know, but I'm a bit like that.

So maybe I should just set everything I have on fire? Maybe it would be a fresh start? The problem is that I can't quite imagine still being me without having everything that I own. I mean I'm sure I would be, but I just can't quite imagine it.

* I'd better check this at some point.

Labels: Articles

Because he used a honey comb.

Labels: Jokes

A common thing these days, when somebody is on the phone in a public place sometimes all you can hear is one half of the conversation:

"No I haven't got one"

"But Dad does"

"What size? They don't come in different sizes?"

"Oh a black beret? Like a hat? I thought you meant a blackberry like those mobile phones"

"No, Dad doesn't have a black beret"

"But I think I've got a red one"

Labels: Articles

...back to its original home. When I started this original blog back in 2003, I didn't really think of it as a blog and in many ways I still don't. Most blogs seem to be about something or someone. So you either have a blog about Formula 1 racing or you have a blog which is a diary of all of the stuff that happens to you. But what I was doing didn't ever really seem to fit in. It was a collection of articles on stuff that I found interesting and there was a whole load of fiction thrown in and whereas there are blogs which collect articles like this together and maybe add some comment they don't tend to write articles of their own. They tend to act more like the editorial section of a newspaper.

So what is gamboling if it isn't a blog? Well I was never really sure. But after a while I knew that hand cranking the pages was quite time consuming and that as far as the technology was concerned I may as well be publishing a blog. So I moved over to blogger and slowly started trying to write again. There was a gap between the
last article of old gamboling and the first one of new gamboling of six months! And after a while it seems to have settled down. Now I'm producing an article every week day and there is a pattern that has emerged:

Monday and Wednesday: Article type articles
Tuesday and Thursday: Joke type jokes
Friday: Fictional type stories.

So when I wasn't sure I was going to be able to keep it up or that it would really work, I kept the thing separate, but now that I'm sure that I'm sticking with the new format I've moved everything back to the main site.

And after all of that talk of stability, here we are with a post on the weekend, but then this is a housekeeping post not a real post. I used to do posts on the weekend, in fact I was encouraged by one reader at one point to do longer posts on the weekend so it would be like the colour supplement, and maybe something like that will happen one day. But the weekend is when I write the articles now (mainly) and this way means that I have some time to reconsider a post something that I never ever seemed to have enough of in the old days.

So now that we're all connected up to the old articles I would like to encourage everyone to go back and read the old articles they are housed in the Older Archive link on the left there.

The only main difference between the old gamboling and the new one (other than the layout of the pages) is in the titles, I used to get Word to auto summarise the content of the articles which gave some rather interesting but intractable titles, which was good but as I'm not using word to write the articles now I don't have the auto summary feature and it really wouldn't work for the jokes. So instead of that we have Ads by google on the new site, I don't expect to make any money at all from the Ads, but I have it simply because I find it kind of amusing the way it tries to find adverts that work for the home page. The other day it was trying to sell people goldfish food now it's trying to get us to sign up for blogs (and that's even before this post has been published) it always seems to go for blogs when it's thoroughly confused (usually after one of the fiction pieces has come out).

And finally I really have to give great thanks to my good friend Adrian who has been putting my posts up for me for the last two weeks. I have been taking a holiday in Italy which I'm sure you will be hearing about (not in a we went here then we did this way obviously) over the next few weeks until you're probably thoroughly sick of it. But it was the realisation that I was committed enough to the blog that I was updating it even when I wasn't in the country that finally made me realise that I was committed to it again.

Anyway, sorry for the interruption to the regular programming, hope you're enjoying the show.

Alex.

Labels: Admin

The last time we left Simon he was contemplating his future. If you don't know about Simon and what he was contemplating then you might want to check out the first half of the story which was called:

Moon Eaters

The common mouse was ruining the moon. That's what was happening in one way. But on the other hand what was happening to the aristocratic mouse? Before they had lived off of the moon and had loved every fat second of it. But now they were going crazy. They still felt the need to show that they were better than the common mouse, and although Simon had tried to introduce other foodstuffs into the court as a way of stopping the slippages the rest of them were simply consuming more and more. Some of them had started melting down the cheese and bathing in it. This was simply the most preposterous idea Simon had ever heard in his life! They were bathing in cheese, which was dangerous in the first part because the temperature was so high, and then those mice that survived had to take a regular shower in one of the rain towers anyway.

But what could Simon do? The whole idea of a Mouse utopia where every mouse could concentrate on higher things because they had food enough to eat had backfired. Instead of what he had planned where mice had everything they needed, and they then looked towards the more scholarly world to enrich their lives, instead of that they had all become lazy. It was terrible.

Simon picked up a piece of stilton and looked at it. He thought back to the world of his youth. Who could remember what life was like back then. After ten years of everyone eating cheese, after thirteen years of him eating cheese it was difficult to remember what it was like the very first time he had seen another mouse do it. But he could.

It was later in the day after he had helped the prince win in the fight. They hadn't really spoken about anything other than fighting and women. The prince was a dignified man in the correct social circles, but after that fight he was ready to talk as men do. Mainly he spoke about other fights and women, but he also mentioned drink and food. This last point interested Simon more than any other. Because Simon had a very distinguished white spot in the middle of his back which had made him rather a success with the ladies, and so he wasn't much interested in conversations about how to get girls and what to do with them once he got them. Because for Simon that was something that had always come naturally. But food was a different matter. Simon had never been truly able to apply himself. And he had always had to rely on the help of strangers. So food was always at the front of Simon's mind especially on that day in particular when he hadn't eaten for at least three days.

So as Simon looked at this Stilton. This cheese that he had just picked up out of the ground, and was considering putting into his mouth he remembered just how far he had come.

Tune in next Friday for more from the Moon.

Labels: Fiction

Up his sleevies.

Labels: Jokes

You can imagine the scene, a boy and a girl standing in the corridor by the toilets in the club. They are both a bit too young to really be there, but the doorman knows he needs as many young girls as he can get in these days. The boy got in because the bouncer couldn't convince her to leave him at the door.

They are standing in the middle of all that noise and sweat and he asks her if she'll come back to his. He's planning to get lucky, and she just doesn't want to know. She steps back and slightly further away. He knows he only has one more chance so he says, "but… I love you".

It's a parting shot, a last ditch attempt to save things, and while I keep you in suspense* about the outcome I'll explain why it isn't really a parting shot, in fact it's a Parthian shot.

Back at the height of Roman times, the Roman Army felt pretty darn good about themselves. They thought they could really do anything. At the particular time of this story they had just conquered Gaul which was all of the land that they cared about to the west of them, but if they really wanted to rule all of the Mediterranean then they would have to conquer the lands to the left. These lands were held by the Parthians. And these guys were a little bit different than the Gauls.

The Parthians, came from the area which is modern day Iran. And their civilisation was so far ahead of the Romans that the Romans didn't even understand how much trouble they were in. When they invaded they were suddenly faced with a cavalry something that wasn't seen in Europe for more than 1,000 years.

The Romans ran is as they always did but were in big trouble, pretty quickly. The Parthian horsemen fired on the Romans from horseback with bows and arrow. And the Romans just didn't know what to do. They were in big trouble. Then after a short time of this the Parthians played another trick. They fell back. The Romans felt they had suddenly started to win. The Parthians fell back and the horses started running away. The Romans started running after them to start the killing. But when you're running you aren't holding up your shield. The Parthians kept riding away but the men turned around and fired back into the approaching Romans. It was a concept that was completely alien to the Romans, up until then anyone retreating was.. Well… in retreat not attacking at the same time. This was the Parthian shot.

And over the years it has been turned into the parting shot that we know today. So really it is a Parthian shot.

So how are our couple doing? Well of course she came back towards him. With all the noise in the club it was difficult to hear exactly. He might have been saying he loathed her. But when she came back towards him and leaned in for him to repeat what he had said he used the opportunity to kiss her on the ear, and one thing led to another and they got to hook up. So happy ending?

Well unfortunately they were young and reckless and didn't use protection. So she fell pregnant at the tender age of sixteen. So sad ending?

Well she dropped out of school to have the baby, but despite what her parents said the boy would do he too dropped out of school and got a job to pay for her and the baby and they got married. So happy ending?

Well after a few years of scrapping through, the boy had gone to buy his lottery ticket (like he always did every week) when he suddenly realised that he didn't have any cash on him. So he didn't buy a ticket. And that week his numbers came up. He was so distraught that he killed himself. So sad ending?

Well actually although the girl had appreciated the boy taking care of her for the first three years of their babies life it hadn't been a happy time. He had become a drug user and was an angry drunk. So while she was devastated, in many ways it was a relief for her and the child. So a mixed ending? Yes.

* How do you keep an idiot in suspense? I'll tell you later.

Labels: Articles

The barman said, "Well okay, but don't start anything".

Labels: Jokes

Sometimes by the side of the road you see people holding a sign up, begging for cash.

My friend US Nick* swears blind that he saw two kids holding up this sign by the side of the road:

Parents killed by Ninjas,
Need money for Kung fu class.

* This is to differentiate between US Nick who came to visit recently and UK Nick who you may have seen mentioned before.

Labels: Articles

There once was a family of mice who lived on the moon. Their entire lives had been devoted to that moon ever since they could remember. Their family history told of generations and generations of moon miners. That was just the way that their family had always been.

But now things seemed to be changing. That's what Grandpa Simon had to admit, and he didn’t want to. He had to realise that things had changed these days. That people didn't need the moon to just wax and wane like it had before. How much moon did people really need? There were a lot of mice around now. And people needed more things. Those little creature comforts that made life just that little bit easier. So what if the moon waned a little bit more than it used to? Who was Grandpa Simon to stand in the way of progress?

Grandpa Simon was a great big long grey mouse who knew a thing or two. He was old and crotchety and had thinned out more than he really liked people to see. He knew he was old, everyone else knew he was old, but did they have to talk about it the whole time like it was suddenly the latest fashion on the block?

Simon, lifted himself off of some straw his nephews and nieces' decedents had laid for him, and he waddled over to the centre of the room. He didn’t have to waddle any more, he'd been thinning out for a few months now, but he knew that those around him would literally think less of him if he didn't. What was he going to do? The moon was dying, the moon hadn't been so green before? It was definitely greener. And the story that Jennifer had redecorated was getting old fast. He needed to get them to do something. But what?

Why didn't they notice that the world around them was crumbling away and the only way to fix things was to go back to the old ways. But the old ways were hard. The new ways made things easier for everyone. In the old days someone like Simon would have had things no different than he had things now. But in the old days he'd have been the only one. In the old days people would have gone hungry and the moon wouldn’t have supported all of these people. Whereas now people were free-er. The moon was fairer now. And everyone could do what they wanted always knowing that there was a moon shaped safety net underneath them to save them if they never worked again.

It was all his fault, Simon had ruined the moon and he knew it. He had been seen as the great saviour. The free-er of the masses, but in the end what had he really done? The ruling class had, he had to admit now, known about the problems of balance. They had been eating the moon for years. They had been living off of it, enjoying it, but never - ever - revealing its secrets to the masses. But then suddenly one of the masses had got in charge: Simon.

He had been walking alongside a parade one summer, the stink was high at the time, and everything felt like it was leading up to be a great summer when suddenly Simon found himself in a fight he hadn't started. He was just between these two men who were at each other like it was the end of the world. And Simon, in a split second, decided that one of them had kinder eyes than the other. And he took sides. He was hailed as the saviour of the royal family because the one with the kinder eyes had been the future prince. And Simon was promoted to the aristocracy. And the minute he had been promoted he learned about how you could eat the cheese.

For three years he survived under the prince out of respect for what he had given him. But then the prince died and Simon had no further allegiance. So he decided to tell the moon what had been kept from them for all of this time, they could eat the cheese. He thought it would free the common man from the tyranny with which they had been oppressed. But in the end it had lead to havoc.

Now nobody worked. Now all everyone did was eat the moon that they lived on. And now the moon was almost gone. The last great moonslip had happened a month ago when four thousand mice had slipped over the edge. The only person who could save them was Simon. He knew. He had to think of something…

Check in next Friday for more Moon action.

Labels: Fiction

Because the sea weed.

Labels: Jokes

I was reading an article on the guardian website the other day: Leave me alone… which talked about how corrosive interruptions are to modern life. My job is at the extreme end of this as I'll often have three people vying for me to talk to them all at the same time standing around my desk while I'm trying to do something for myself. The average according to the article seems to be that most people are interrupted every three minutes which is pretty bad, but my question is about how many of these interruptions are things that we actually have to deal with now?

In the situation I described above you have to respond. Somebody has wandered over into your space and asked you a question. It's the same thing with a phone call. If you don't answer then the other person won't go away (especially if you don't have voicemail). But what about a text or e-mail? Or a reminder in Outlook. All of these make noises and stuff but then we've chosen that they do. None of these things actually have to be dealt with instantly. We can respond when we want to respond. We could put them all on silent. And then remember to look at a scheduled time (but without a popup reminder of when this scheduled time is how would you remember)?

The reason we don't have all of these things on silent is that we like to be interrupted sometimes. And sometimes the thing interrupting us is important enough that it should be considered more important than what we're doing. We kind of need a way of being able to judge where that importance level goes. The only problem is that you need a two way level of priority because if we left it up to the people who want us to do stuff for them then it would always be level 1 priority.

I'm not sure how it would be organised, but it would be something like this. You want to be able to rank people by a level of how much you know them, so junk mail and cold callers have a rank of zero, firms that you have signed up to deal with have a rank of one. Above that you have colleagues and then friends and so on up until you get to say your partner right at the top. Then each of the people sending you stuff can add a priority level to the stuff they are doing and if they don't set anything then it defaults to zero.

We already have the capability for receiving e-mail. We could set complicated rules and automatically downgrade anyone who didn't set an importance level to the e-mail that they were sending (if they don't care enough to assign an importance level then they aren't important enough to listen to). But what about phone calls? What about people just walking up to you and not noticing that you're in the middle of something?

Perhaps the only solution is the one suggested at the end of the article... I'm off to saw off a bit of all of my chair legs. Oh wait a minute. Sadly it turns out that I work in an office in the modern world and all of the chairs have wheels on the bottom.

Labels: Articles

One turns to the other and says, "you're round".

Labels: Jokes

I was at a theme park some years ago in up state New York and I was standing on line* for a slice or two of pizza and a beer.

I was standing with a friend of mine and we were looking at the choices available. The line was long and so we got to discussing what was a better deal: two small slices or one big slice. I was suggesting that the single larger slice was a better deal. No, my friend argued, it couldn't be because you actually got less pizza. No you didn't I argued, although the diameter numbers looked that way you had to take account of Pi. I almost certainly made a joke about how Pi was a factor in choosing your pizza pie.

It was a pretty geeky conversation, I know that I probably don't come off well from it, but somebody comes off less well in a moment, just hold on.

Suddenly a voice from about three feet below me calls out up to her father, "Dad make that man stop talking, he's making my brain think".

*Look I was in America so I was on line. If this really upsets you then feel free so substitute queuing although it's not really the English way.**

**Generally in English if there is are multiple words that can be used in a situation that's what becomes adopted. Although that can seem counter intuitive actually it makes sense because our language much more flexible. Although some English speakers deride people's splitting of the infinitive it is to the fundamental benefit of the English language that we are able to do it and still be understood. Variation is the spice of life***

*** indeed, variety is the point.

Labels: Articles

"Why do you look so lonely?"

"I don't know, maybe because I am lonely", the lonely looking guy looked up from his beer after he'd finished speaking. He slightly chuckled to himself in a way that sounded like it meant the subject was being closed.

Helen continued to stare at him as he looked back down at the bubbles forming on the top of his beer. The brim of his hat touched the rim of the bottle. She made a decision.

"What's your name?"

He started to answer, he opened his mouth to do it. But before he could say anything he was ceased by a smile. A grin really, and she knew from that grin that he was a good guy.

And kinda interesting too.

"Bill. Bill," he paused to chuckle again, a slight half chuckle which told Helen that, if she could have seen his eyes, they must have sparkled at exactly that moment, "my name's Bill. What's yours?"

Bill looked up and turned. He still didn't look quite at her. But he certainly was paying more attention to her than his beer. As if to redress the issue he lifted up his beer bottle and buried it's neck somewhere under his moustache.

"I'm Helen", she thought for a second. And then another. She knew through both of these seconds that it would be possible to go with this man. This man that she found attractive, this man that she could love. But for every second that she remained thinking about it she knew that it couldn't happen. Consider, she considered, the practicalities of the situation.

Could she really go out with a guy now? Especially a guy that she'd just met? She knew that for every second she kept thinking about it then she wouldn’t go for it. And she knew that she'd keep thinking about it until it was no longer a possibility. She was her own worst enemy, and she hated that. But at the same time she knew it was her best defence. If she could just keep herself thinking then she didn’t have to commit.

Why was she so bothered? She'd not gone out with people so many times before? And she didn't even like men with moustaches! The only thing that bothered her was the realisation that not going out with people was easier in the short term but that easier in the short term almost certainly didn't mean happiness in the long term.

It's a thing that Helen had been thinking about more and more recently. That the things that gave her the most happiness in the short term, drink, drugs, sex… were very rarely related to long term happiness. In fact every single thing that was an easy way to be happy today was an easy way to be miserable tomorrow. And the opposite was true too, the things she was most proud of in her life had been real hard. They really took an effort, but she had never looked back on an effort and thought that she had wasted her time.

"I sound like a PBS special".

"What?", Bill looked confused, and suddenly he looked directly at Helen. "What did you say?"

"I said, I sound like a PBS special. I had had this whole conversation in my own head. Like it could have been in somebody else's head I guess, but there it was in my own head, and then at the end the next thing I needed to say to myself was to tell myself that I was sounding like a PBS special, but unfortunately I thought that thought too loudly and ended up saying it out… well to you."

"I like PBS, and I like you."

"Okay, well I like you too, so what are we going to do about it?"

"Well I'm going to buy another beer right now. Just one more but I'm going to do it. And I'd like to buy you a beer too. Or whatever it is that you'd like to drink…"

"Beer's fine."

"Right, well I'm going to buy both of us a beer, and then we'll just see how that goes. But there's one condition".

"What's that?"

"I want you to talk about who you are. Because I'm interested in who you are. But I need to know from you before I buy you this drink, that when you talk about you, you won't sub-vocalise anything. You'll just tell me exactly what you're thinking. Because while you might think that what you're thinking is the most embarrassing thing in the world. To me it's the most interesting thing you can say."

Labels: Fiction

At the Bee Pee station.

Labels: Jokes

On the south side of the Thames is a full size model of the Golden Hind. The original Golden Hind was the ship that Francis Drake used to travel around the world*. When he went around the world in his ship he was the first Briton to circumnavigate the globe and it took him three years. This replica Golden Hind has also been around the world before returning to its mooring place on the south of the Thames.

But it is the dock rather than the ship that I'd like to talk about. The dock is known as the dock of St Mary Overie. And the dock has a story as fantastical as those told about the Golden Hind itself.

On the site of the dock many many years ago lived a man who made his money by transporting people back and forth across the river to their jobs in the City of London. He was a horrible miser who tried to save every penny he could. He was always trying to come up with new schemes to save himself money. And finally he thought he had come up with a really great one he'd pretend to die.

He thought it would work something like this, he would pretend to be dead and his whole family would go into mourning. The best thing about mourning, as far as he was concerned, was that you had in those days to not eat anything for the entire period of mourning. This would save him a whole lot of money as he thought it would mean he wouldn't have to feed his entire family for three days.

However the plan didn't work out quite the way that he'd imagined. Instead of mourning when he seemingly died the family were quite happy as they all really hated him. So Mary, his wife, sent for her lover with news to come and join her for a big party that they were going to hold that evening. He was so excited by the news that he might get hold of the Miser's money that he set off immediately for their house on the fastest horse he could get. Unfortunately he was in such a rush that he failed to pay attention to what was going on around him, his mind was so focused on the money, that he didn't spot the branch of a tree that the horse (rather more sensibly ducked under) and he was killed instantly.

While all of this scheming and plotting had been going on the Miser had been quietly lying in his coffin thinking of all of the money that he'd been saving, it was only once the party started going that he began to realise that his money saving plan wasn't working that he jumped out of this coffin and ran towards the party.

What he hadn't quite realised was that his one virtuous daughter was sitting in the room with him praying for his eternal soul when he had jumped up out of his coffin. So convinced was she that she had just seen the devil's work that she grabbed the nearest shovel and whacked her father on the head with it repeatedly until he really was dead.

Mary was so distraught by what had happened that she realised that she had to change her ways. Her husband and her lover had been killed and her daughter had become a murderess all in the pursuit of money. So Mary decided to give it all away, and became an incredibly charitable woman who worked tirelessly for the poor of London. She founded a nunnery which was known as St. Mary Overie. The nunnery was destroyed in the reformation but the church part became the church known as St. Saviour. Then in the 1900s the church became Southwark Cathedral.


* When the ship left England it was actually known as the Pelican but was renamed during the voyage. Drake renamed it just before reaching what was imagined to be the really treacherous part of the journey: the straights of Magellan. In fact that bit was relatively easy for the ship, it was the pacific ocean which was a big problem some months later. Those on board must have been especially pleased at this point as they had not been told when they left England that circumnavigation was on the cards. They thought they were going to Africa. Some people complained about the whole round-the-world thing but Drake killed them.

Labels: Articles

Dalek bread!

Labels: Jokes

This post requires some pretty heavy duty swearing so if you have problems with that then you shouldn't keep reading. Here's a post that you can read today if you don't like swearing (you can read it if you like swearing and then go on to the one about swearing of course).


There seems to be a lot of diving in football. So wouldn't it be good if you added a five minute penalty for diving. It would work like this if you stay on the ground for more than five seconds after you fall on the ground then you must go off of the pitch for five minutes.

You can stand back up and complain but if you lie on the ground then you'll have to leave the pitch for five minutes. I think that's the only solution to stop diving. Go on then? What's wrong with it?




I'm going to give us all some space to just get used to the idea that there is going to be some heavy duty swearing now.





And now we have had some space lets get on with it.

I was in a pub watching the England football game on Sunday. It was a quite big match apparently. I don't tend to watch football, but I had been walking home when I bumped into my brother. He was on his way into a pub to watch the second half of the game (he does watch football but he'd been caught on a train which meant that he'd missed the first half). So on we went to the pub to watch the second half of the game.

The pub wasn't the kind of pub that I usually go to. It is usually a pretty rough pub, and then when you throw in a large number of drunk shouty men then it gets even less of a nice pub.

One of the England players during the game made a slight mistake and one of the shouty men in the pub shouted out, "Fucking Yankie Cunt".

Now I don't know much about football but I know enough to know that there is a player on the England team (Owen Hargreaves) who has been getting some stick because he was born in Canada. The thing with what he'd shouted out was that he'd obviously gone for "Yankie" because he didn't know what the derogative phrase for a Canadian was (it's Canuck by the way). But even so, even if he didn't know about the derogatory word for Canadian surely he should have gone for, "Fucking Canadian Cunt". That works much better. Obviously had he known it, "Fucking Canuk Cunt" would work well too. But even though I knew enough about football to be able to correct him, I also knew enough about the situation that I was in to know that if I corrected him, he would have corrected me with his fist.

Labels: Articles