Harry is sitting next to his mother in the shoe section of a giant department store. It's the first time he's been allowed to sit down all day as he's spent most of it being dragged round the different departments. It was all so very boring. Except the hat section that had been fun. His mum had told him off a lot but nothing serious. But now he was sat down for the first time he started feeling pretty tired and a little bit sleepy. But being pretty tired and a little bit sleepy couldn't explain what he saw next. A large mouse and a small cat were fighting over a piece of cheese. The thing that struck Harry immediately as odd was that they were fighting with swords.

Harry quickly hopped off of his seat and ran over to the skirting board. He knelt down beside them and simply said, "Wow!"

But soon his "Wow" turned into "Ow" as the cat accidentally cut him on the knuckles.

"Keep back," the mouse shouted out, "I'll defend you".
"You can talk!" cried Harry.
"You can see us!" cried the Cat.
"And, just think," said the mouse, "if you could stab him like that then he could stab you back".

This was clearly such an unsettling thought that the two of them stopped fighting and looked up at him.

"What are you doing here," asked the mouse?
"I'm shopping," said Harry.
"But this is a department store," said the Cat, "boys don't shop in department stores."
"No, my mother's shopping, I'm just with her".
"But," said the cat, "that happens all of the time. And the store never lets kids see us."
"He's bought something, must have", said the mouse, "that's the rule. Kids can't see us because they don't buy anything, parents can't see us because they are never concentrating."
"But I haven't bought anything."
"But you've definitely done something different," said the cat.
"I did, I did try on a hat," admitted Harry sheepishly.
"Aha!" said the mouse. "That must be it."
"Incredible," said the cat, "to think that this hasn't happened before."
"Indeed," said the mouse, "Well I'm afraid I'm going to have to complain to management. What kind of system is it where we can be discovered so simply? Eh?"
"I know, I just can't believe it. I'll come with you - I have got to see the look on his face when you tell Cuthbert what's happened."
"So, about this cheese," the mouse said as they started to turn away from Harry and towards a hole in the skirting board.
"Shall we split it?" said the cat?

And with that the cat cut the cheese in half with his sword and gave one half to the mouse, and popped the other half in his mouth. After chewing for a second or two he said, "One half in my mouth, the other half in my mouse" and the mouse and cat started laughing. In fact they didn't stop laughing until they were well out of sight.

Harry stood up turned around and walked back to the stool next to his mother. He would say something to her - but he was sure she wouldn't believe him.

Labels: Fiction

It's the summer of 1957 and Harold goes to pick up his date, PeggySue. Harold's a pretty hip guy with his own car and a duck tail hairdo. When he goes to the front door, PeggySue's mother answers and invites him in.

"PeggySue's not ready yet, so why don't you have a seat?" she says. That's cool. PeggySue's mother asks Harold what they're planning to do. Harold replies politely that they will probably just go for a drink or to movies.

PeggySue's mother responds, "Why don't you kids go out and screw? I hear all the kids are doing it."

Naturally this comes as quite a surprise to Harold and he says "Wha...aaat?"

"Yeah," says PeggySue's mother, "We know PeggySue really likes to screw; why, she'd screw all night if we let her!"

Harold's eyes light up and he smiles from ear to ear. Immediately, he has revised the plans for the evening.

A few minutes later, PeggySue comes downstairs in her little poodle skirt with Her saddle shoes, and announces that she's ready to go. Almost breathless with anticipation, Harold escorts his date out the front door while Mom is saying, "Have a good Evening kids," with a small wink for Harold.

About 20 minutes later, a thoroughly dishevelled PeggySue rushes back into the house, slams the door behind her and screams at her mother: "Dammit, Mom! The Twist! The Twist! It's called The Twist!"

Labels: Jokes

I was asked this question the other day in The Pirates and the Economy and the answer should really be in the form of a question. How does your radio know what the name of the radio station is?

Basically the answer is that the radio signal has a data signal that is sent along with it. This is very similar to the way that teletext works on television but with much less data.

For each radio station there is a set of different data that gets sent with certain identifiers. These data change for each radio programme and so it is possible for the radio to tell you which station you are listening to and even which program. The system for this is called RDS (Radio Data System [RBDS in America] - easy to confuse with the other acronym floating about for radio in Europe which is DAB even though it contains none of the same letters - DAB is digital radio RDS is data being sent via FM).

One of the identifiers is TA which means traffic announcement. This means that the station is playing a traffic announcement right now and so you should probably stop what you're doing and listen to the radio. This basically only works if are tuned in at the moment that the station starts broadcasting the TA signal. But what if you want to listen to any traffic announcement not just one from the station that you were listening to before you put the CD player on?

Well in that case you need a different signal TP (Traffic Program - versus Traffic Announcement) this means that the station regularly has Traffic Announcements and so it's worth paying attention to. Generally the way that most modern radios work is that they scan all of the radio stations once, and pay attention to any which have the TP signal. Then they scan just the ones which have TP, and watch for a TA appearing on any of them. And if one appears then they stop the CD or tape and play the appropriate radio station.

EON (Enhanced Other Network) is the original way that this was supposed to work which suggests to you other stations which broadcast traffic info. So BBC Radio 1 would suggest the local BBC station or Radio 2, 3, 4 or 5 to you. But the new method of monitoring all of the stations is a good way of dealing with the situation – this only really works if you aren’t actively listening to the radio though. Most car radios only have one tuner which means that they rely on using EON to tell which other radio stations are playing traffic news if you’re listening to the radio. But once the radio is off (or you’re listening to a CD) it can be from any station that you would get your travel news.

Although most stations don’t do it (or certainly most radios don’t receive it) the station could in fact display track info or information about the show on RDS. The BBC is one of the few broadcasters to bother doing this in the UK but you may find that your radio does not display it.

At one point the fact that the system automatically played track information played merry havoc as Simon Mayo’s quiz where people had to guess the name of the obscure tracks he was playing was ruined somewhat by the fact that a select band were being provided the answers by the radio itself!

Labels: Articles, Questions

Haven't you always just wanted to ask a question to me here at gamboling but been too shy to ask?

Isn't there some question lurking that you would really love to hear the answer to but have never worked out how to search for the answer on the modern interweb?

Or are you like Nick who suggested this idea because sometimes you know you could look up the answer to the question but you'd rather have the gamboling style answer to read?

Anyway whatever the reason is, just stick your question in the comments here and I will try to give you an answer as soon as I possibly can.

Labels: Admin, Questions

I've got a mince pie stuck up my bottom.

Doctor: Oh, would you like some cream for that?

Labels: Jokes

I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas wherever you are. I'm sure you probably weren't expecting a post today but it's still a Monday and so post I must.

The thing I was going to talk about today was the two sides of Christmas. Some people really love Christmas and some people genuinely fear it. One of the things that some don't like is the enforced jollity of the situation. But at least you can call them scrooge.

One of the things about Christmas is the themed art. Christmas films, music and to a lesser extent artwork get wheeled out again year after year. The worst of them are schmaltzy and sickening but the best of them have the ability to show both sides of this holiday.

In film we have the ever perennial It's a wonderful life. I do love this film despite some rather saccharin moments of heavy handedness from Capra. The performance from James Stewart is sublime.

The other Christmas movie that I love is one that you can kind of watch any time of the year and most wouldn't realise it was a Christmasy film is When Harry Met Sally. A great film. Especially for people who would love Woody Allen, but have a moral objection to him. I myself have no objection to him - but there are those out there who do.

My favourite Christmas song is Fairytale of New York which does ideally combine the two sides of optimism and sadness that can go with Christmas.

And my favourite Christmas carol is The Coventry Carol which deals with the sadness that the women faced knowing that Jesus had been born. The story goes that Herod the King was so worried that a rival to his claim was being born that he went and killed the first born children of everyone. Of course Jesus had been whisked away into hiding in Egypt. But the song speaks of the sadness of all of the mothers whose children have been killed. But also they have the knowledge that it is for a higher purpose.

My favourite piece of art associated with this period is linked with the last story, and it comes from William Blake (he of the poetry). He was also an accomplished painter, but this painting is wonderful because of its simplicity. It is a painting of Madonna and Child while in hiding in Egypt, but because it has the pyramid in the background it can't help but look a little bit like a holiday snap.



Anyway, Merry Christmas to one and all.

Labels: Articles

This is part four (of four) of this years Christmas story on Gamboling. This started four weeks ago with: You may have seen a cakewalk, but have you seen plenty of this (9)

Jenny was sitting in her kitchen and it was snowing again. It didn't
seem to snow that often anymore at Christmas. Not actually on the day
anyway. But there was still a week to go. It was getting dark out there.
She had a box on the table which had contained her outgoing Christmas
cards. "ho ho", she thought to herself, "they probably are more outgoing
than me". She looked at the box and it still had one more card in it. Of
course it did. It was a card she'd bought twelve years ago, two years
after she'd left Tom, and had always meant to send to him. It had a
picture of Father Christmas doing a crossword on the front. But she
never had sent it because... It never seemed enough. And because she had
left him at Christmas it had always seemed likely that he wouldn't
really want to hear from her. And then after a while sending had seemed
much less important.

But she had seen something in town which had made her change her mind.
She'd put it off for about a week but now, this evening, with the snow
starting she'd decided that she would send the card after all. And there
was still time.

She picked up the card and inside wrote:

Tom,
Your Answer: Hyphenate
My Question: Amundsen's forwarding address (4)
Meet me there, 7pm, Tuesday if you're interested in catching up.
Merry Christmas even if you're not.
Jenny x

She sealed it, addressed it and walked out the house. She didn't even
bring her coat with her as the post box was just at the end of her
drive. She walked down there hearing the slow crunch of the pebbles
beneath her feet. The crunch was slightly faster on the way back as she
realised just how cold it actually was. She got back in side and tried
to shake some of the snowflakes out of her hair. But they were already
melting.

On Tuesday she got ready early, and then sat around waiting. When she
got there early she realised that it was probably a mistake. She hadn't
even bothered to look at what the place was like when she had seen it.
She had just picked it because the name was the answer to one of her
favorite crossword clues. Or in fact because it's name had reminded her
of the clue, and in turn it had reminded her of Tom.

The bar was okay, she supposed, but it was clearly designed for younger
clientele. They only had two kinds of wine: white and red. But actually
when she started to drink the glass of white it wasn't as bad as she had
expected.

At five minutes past seven he arrived. And a flood of relief flowed
through her. She had been sitting there for the last five minutes
imagining him looking at the card and laughing at the thought of her
sitting in the bar alone.

He walked up to her, and looked at her glass. It was empty and she knew immediately she'd given away the fact that she'd been early. She looked up at him and he said, "red or white - that's all they have".
"White please".
"I'll be right back".

As she sat there waiting for him. She wondered what they would actually end up talking about after such a long time. She'd got as far as planning on them meeting, and worrying about if it work, but had stopped short of working out what it would be that they would discuss once they got there.

He ambled back to the table.
"So you figured it out did you," she said.
"Yeah, we'll it's 'mush' isn't it. Although the fact that I've made it here lets you know that I guess." He grinned. And then he looked a bit more serious before going on, "I can't believe it's been so many years and we're still setting each other clues like this."
"Yeah, it's weird isn't it".
"Here's one, 'Overloaded Postman'".
"Oooh, um how many letters…"
"Loads."

They both laughed at the silly joke and it lightened the atmosphere a little further.

"So," Jenny said getting down to it, "are you doing anything for Christmas"?
"No. Not really."
"What does that mean?"
"Well it means that I haven't really planned anything. I've got some food sorted out - sort of."
"Ah," she said.
"What about you?" he looked up and made eye contact for the first time in a few moments.
"Well I've got all the food sorted out but I haven't got anyone to share it with."
"You know you really hurt me before."
"I know."
"And I've not really dealt with that."
"Okay. If you don't want to come that's fine."
"No," he said, "I'd love to come but…"
"What is it?"
"Well, if I come you have to promise me that you don't ever do that again. It's now or never for committing to me."
"I can do that, I've always loved you since the moment we first met. I was just confused I think. I won't hurt you again."
"Okay."

Tom sat there thinking for a moment and then finally said, "Pixel".
"What's that?", Jenny asked.
"That's what this is as a clue. A 'Point of resolution (5)'."
"It is, but Tom."
"What?"
"No more games now. This has got to be real this time."

Labels: Fiction

Tinsilitus

Labels: Jokes

Here is a nice little logic puzzle for you all to play, it's called the Pirate Loot problem and it goes something like this:

Imagine you are the oldest in a band of five pirates, where no two pirates in the group are of the same age. It is your responsibility as the oldest pirate to decide how to divide the group's booty, which comprises one-hundred pieces of gold. Once you announce how you will allocate the gold, all the pirates in the group (including you) vote either "yes" or "no" on your decision. If at least half of the votes are "yes", the pirates divide the loot as you directed, after which everyone carries on about his business. But, if more than half of the votes are "no", you are then killed, and the task of deciding the allocation of gold lies with the next oldest pirate in the group.

Knowing that all the other pirates are just as smart, and just as logical as you, and furthermore, knowing that they all want the largest amount of gold they can get for themselves, how do you divide the gold so that you get the maximum amount of gold pieces possible, and guarantee that you will receive enough "yes" votes to stay alive?

For those of you who would like to work it out for yourselves please look away now - here be spoilers (and indeed Pirates).















The best way to solve the problem is to chunk it. Deal with smaller bits of it and build it up. So if you think of the 2 pirates situation then in that situation the older pirate can keep 100 gold pieces. And since there would be two pirates before there was one pirate (if they kept killing the oldest) the youngest pirate will always vote for you if you give him one gold piece, all it takes is giving him slightly more than he would otherwise get, to get the vote.

In the situation that there were three pirates that's exactly what the oldest pirate would do, he is bound to vote for himself. So he can just give the youngest pirate 1 gold piece and get his vote and keep 99.

If there are four pirates then you can't bribe the next youngest guy (in fact you'd never be able to bribe him however many younger people there are). And so you could choose to either bribe the youngest or the second youngest to get your vote.

So then in the five pirates problem (which after all was the one that I set) you can bribe the youngest, which gives you one vote at the cost of one gold coin. But who else can you bribe cheaply? Well you can bribe the second youngest with one coin because we know that in the three pirates problem he won't get anything.*

So the answer is that if you're the oldest pirate then you get to keep 98 of the coins and only have to dole out 2 coins to get the votes you need.

The thing I really like about this puzzle is that it is so close to real life. If we look at the economy around us then we see that the powerful can easily bribe the weak to agree with them. In fact the powerful can often bribe the weakest and ignore their middle strength rivals and still retain power and wealth. Just look at the situation in Iraq for example a variety of small countries are in the "coalition of the willing" circumventing the power of much larger rivals like France and Germany.

Basically this game really shows the mechanics of how the rich stay rich in the real world. Remember 2% of the world's population hold 50% of the worlds wealth, it seems like that would be impossible, but this game shows exactly how this comes about.


*Some accounts of this problem will say that as part of the solution you have to bribe the middle pirate with one coin rather than the second youngest. The reasoning for this flows from imagining the problem the other way around. In their minds you give the gold to the second youngest to bribe them not the youngest. And then they go on to say that in the five pirate problem you would be unable to bribe the second youngest with one gold coin because he will demand two coins for his vote rather than just one. It doesn't matter which of the two you bribe in the four pirate problem which means that in the five pirate problem there isn't a guarantee for the middle pirate that he'll get a coin if the oldest pirate is killed. This way he guarantees his coin so he would vote yes for one piece of gold.

A cowboy rode into town and stopped at a saloon for a drink. Unfortunately, the locals always had a habit of picking on strangers, which he was. When he finished his drink, he found his horse had been stolen. He went back into the bar, handily flipped his gun into the air, caught it above his head without even looking and fired a shot into the ceiling.

"Which one of you sidewinders stole my horse?!?!?" he yelled with surprising forcefulness. No one answered. "Alright, I'm gonna have another beer, and if my horse ain't back outside by the time I finish, I'm gonna do what I dun in Texas! And I don't like to have to do what I dun in Texas!" Some of the locals shifted restlessly. The man, true to his word, had another beer, walked outside, and his horse has been returned to the post.

He saddled up and started to ride out of town. The bartender wandered out of the bar and asked, "Say partner, before you go... what happened in Texas?" The cowboy turned back and said, "I had to walk home."

Labels: Jokes

At this time of the year it's hard to avoid the exciting world of satsumas, tangerines, clementines* and mandarins. As I believe Eddie Izzard once pointed out there is a big fight going on in the world of fruit at the moment and it's being fought right here between the oranges and these smaller things.

But what are these smaller things and how do you tell the difference between them? Well I'm sure you've wondered (but I suppose if you haven't and aren't interested yet then maybe you'd like to stop reading now?) what the differences are.

Well the first important thing is to realise that there isn't such a thing as a mandarin. Well there is, but there isn't. Mandarin is the name for the whole group. So a satsuma is a mandarin, a tangerine is a mandarin etc. But if somebody says, "oh would you like this mandarin" then they are being less specific. But it's is the important safety word. Because this means that you're basically able to get away with calling any of them mandarins and you're okay, this would not be true if you were to pick any of the other names in the list.

So down to the nitty gritty. Tangerines are basically one of the pure varieties of Mandarin's. They're basically your bog standard. They usually have seeds in them too. The name comes from Tangier in Morocco where most of the fruit was at one point imported into Europe.

Then you've got your Clementines. These are similar to Tangerines, but they have been cross bred with another fruit called a Pomerans. This results in a seedless fruit. The big nightmare for people making Clementines is that it's very easy for them to get their seeds back. And all it takes is a few bees poking around to cross them with another fruit and ruin your entire crop.

And a Satsuma is basically another type of seedless mandarin, which is actually a cross between a tangerine and a mandarin orange. This was done by a guy called Philip Satsuma** using cuttings from a kumquat plant.

In fact there are millions of varieties, because they are relatively easy to cross with other things. The rangpur is a cross between a tangerine and a lemon for example. And to further complicate things different countries "market" these fruits under different names. So in America for example you might find satsumas and clementines both being called clementines. And in Japan the satsuma is most often called the Mikan.

But in Britian you're most likely to be eating a satsuma if somebody offers you something with no pips, and in the states you'd be most likely eating a clementine. But if you have pips in there in any country then it's probably a tangerine. But if you'd rather play it safe then just call them all mandarins and be done with it.

*In fact you might know a Clementine as it’s a persons name as well, which might make them hard to avoid all year round.

**No really!

Labels: Articles

[Here's part three of the four part Christmas story. If you haven't read the story so far then you may want to check out, Part one: You may have seen a cakewalk, but have you seen plenty of this (9) and Part two: Love Handle (3, 4)]

Tom was eating his cereal while Jenny dithered in the kitchen. It was Christmas eve and the goose was... Well it wasn't getting fat, Jenny thought, because by now it would probably be dead. And anyway they were having turkey again this year. This had caused a bit of an argument in the flat over the last few days. Jenny had wanted to try goose for a change but Tom had put his foot down. He didn't usually mind about things like this so she knew it was important to him. But she also knew that she'd pushed him to defend himself a lot further than she'd really needed to be convinced. It was just so refreshing to see him passionate about something like that. Tom wasn't brain dead or anything far from it. He was just very good at having come to the correct conclusion first. So he would normally be able to diffuse any argument with the answer. Or the smart compromise. What Jenny's boss, whom she hated, would call, "the win win".

But she had pushed him further than she probably should have because it was great to see the passion. To see him really care about something. And she knew that it was probably destructive to play the bad guy just to see that reaction. But she wasn't able to help herself.

She hadn't been able to help herself at the work Christmas party last night. She had known it was wrong but she had done it anyway. It was, a moment of weakness, and she was already trying to tell herself that it didn't mean anything. She had slept with a guy. It had never happened before. And she knew it would never happen again. But while she would easily be able to get away with what she'd done she also knew that she didn't want to. It wasn't that she wanted to go out with this guy. It wasn't that she didn't want to not go out with Tom anymore... No actually that was it exactly it. She didn't want to go out with Tom anymore.

She looked back at him sitting at the table. He was just pushing his cereal bowl away form him, and pulling the paper closer to him.

And then he said quite quietly to Jenny, "here's the one I can't do, 'Break one's word, nine letters'".

Labels: Fiction

And somebody says to him what are you here as?
So he says, "I'm here as a premature ejaculation."
What? Says the person. I don't get it.
So the guy says, "Sorry, I've just come in my pants".

Labels: Jokes

In an article the other day (You may have seen a cakewalk, but have you seen plenty of this (9)) I mentioned in passing Spidermas. And in response, literally one question has come flooding in. So what is Spidermas?

Well, back in the dim and distant past
Nick and I were flatmates and over that time certain rituals developed that have lived on despite several attempts to kill them. Spidermas is one of these traditions.

Basically Christmas is a bit of a problem for flatmates because the likelihood is that you won't spend your actual Christmas day together so when do you get to exchange presents. Now I guess most people would simply wait for the last day that everyone is together but that simply wasn't our style. No we decided to create an event to have instead of Christmas. At first it didn't have a name, at first it was simply a dream.

Okay, maybe it wasn't that dramatic either. What happened was that Nick and I decided to go and buy a tree on the first of December. It seemed a reasonable thing to do. And then once we had a tree we decided to wrap our presents to each other and place them under that self same tree.

Once we were done with the lights and presents it really did look pretty nice. Even if the tree was, I seem to remember, perched on top of the mini fridge. (Note to people digging the visual. I learnt a valuable lesson that year that the heat out of the back of a mini fridge is enough to kill a Christmas tree in about a week. Of course we left the tree there until easter but that is another story.)

But being impatient and curious people we had to open the presents immediately. And it was at this point when we returned to the tree that we noticed the two small spiders at least one of whom was called Jerry.*

So after we discovered the spiders we opened and enjoyed the presents, and then we carried on with our lives.

The next year we did the same thing, without actually still ever having referred to it as Spidermas. And after we'd dragged the tree in, with me wearing protective gloves as I'd discovered I'm mildly allergic to pine needles.*** We placed the tree in the corner of the room and then set about wrapping presents. The thing is, and this is the miracle, by the time we came back the two spiders were in position again. This never reoccurred, but to our minds it forever altered the occasion. And it turned the poorly named "day when flat mates exchange presents" into "Spidermas".

And I sincerely hope that this post, if nothing else, encourages people who are sharing flats to experience the simple joys of Spidermas next year on 1st December.


*The spiders** usually lived in our bathroom. Which is when we had named them. There wasn't a naming ceremony on Spidermas - just to be clear.

** I have absolutely no idea what the other spider was called. Perhaps Nick knows.

*** Interestingly this seems to be only true on my skin. Reasonably recently in Germany I was drinking a variety of different schnapps without knowing what the variety was before I drank (I was having a taste test) and so I was somewhat worried when I tasted pine in my drink. The drink was distilled pine needles I soon discovered. But despite worrying Katherine enough that she bothered to work out what "my boyfriend is allergic to pine and has just swallowed a quantity of pine schnapps and his throat has started to close up" was in German. But in the end I was okay. So clearly it's only a problem on the outside.

Labels: Articles, Spidermas

Once upon a time, due to drugs* Nancy Regan sat upon Mr T.'s knee and spoke about how much they loved one another...


*Due to Nancy Regan preaching against drugs I pity the fool that suggests otherwise!

Labels: Jokes

On many, many clocks the snooze function is nine minutes instead of ten or five. Why oh why oh why is this the case. This is especially difficult since it has been suggested by many people that getting up on an odd number of minutes is bad luck.*

The thing is that I personally don't use the snooze function. The problem is that if I had snooze then I would probably snooze forever. What I do is I turn my alarm clock off when ever it goes. This leaves me only one choice: get out of bed. When I used to be much more tired back in the bad old days I used to avoid snooze with it's easy choices, and turn the alarm off but set a new alarm time of ten minutes from now. This gave me the extra ten minutes in bed that I needed and meant that I had made a conscious thought and so was at least partially out of my deep sleep.

So I was talking to my friend Alison who was wondering about why the snooze is nine minutes the other day, and I couldn't remember the answer right away. I think this may be because there are about a million stupid reasons for it. The most common wrong reason is that digital watch makers wanted to only have to watch one digit of the clock and so made it be 9 minutes. This sounds pretty good. You would have to only remember one piece of data and watch for the number to be that again. But why not wait for it to be that plus one?

The real reason seems to be that it comes from analogue clocks. And that analogue clocks are slightly imprecise. And that the snooze was supposed to be 10 minutes or less. At first this meant that the snooze wheel ran for somewhere between 9 and ten minutes. But as the clocks became more and more intricate they became more and more accurate even with the snooze. At some point somebody decided to make it determined by the minute hand to add to the precision and at that point nine minutes was chosen as the largest number of minutes that is less than ten.

Then in the digital age when somebody was copying the clock they based it on this system. And then it got built into the National Semiconductor's MM5370 digital alarm-clock chip which is used in most modern digital alarm clocks.

*Hey I don't make these things up! People who think this, but want to use the snooze function, use this as an excuse to press snooze twice. Whereas this could be easily avoided by having the alarm clock go off one minute early (not that they'd ever do that).

Labels: Articles

There have been a few small changes around here, just to tidy things up a little bit. So I thought I'd just run through them so that we are all on the same page (so to speak).

There are now tags* for each post (you can see them at the bottom) if you can click on them then you can see all of the posts that have been tagged with the same thing.**

Also I've added a recent links section up there on the right. This shows some recent pages that I've been looking at on the modern internet. If any of the titles take your fancy then please give them a check out. (You will be taken off to the rest of the internet, so do please remember to come back at some point).

*Or as us blogger bloggers are supposed to call them: labels!

**Although it isn't all of the posts really because there are still of the old gamboling posts which you can get to still by clicking on Older Archive on the left there. Because they are pre-blogger they can't be tagged unfortunately but are still there.

Labels: Admin

[This is part two of the four part Gamboling Christmas story. If you haven't already you may want to see part one (You may have seen a cakewalk, but have you seen plenty of this (9)).]

In all towns there is one bar which is the coolest bar to hang out. This is true everywhere even in the big cities - especially in the big cities. You might think there are several or that it all depends on your individual taste, but in that case you've sadly - tragically almost - missed the point. Cool isn't about what you think it's about, it's about what other people are doing all the time when you're having a rest. But in a small town it's easy. It's clear. And in a small university town it's so easy that even deeply uncool people can figure out where it is. And this was what Tom was thinking as he watched Jenny walk in to the bar.

Jenny was wearing thick rimmed glasses and had her jet black hair tied back in such a way that Tom was sure that later in her particular story she would take off her glasses, and let her hair fall to her shoulders in a moment designed to make the viewer say, "oh she's actually beautiful". But actually Tom could see perfectly well that she was beautiful now. But he could also see, as she dropped a small bag of tangerines on to the table and they all started rolling off in different directions, that she was an embarrassed klutz.

The two of them had been kind of avoiding each other since the beginning of the year. They had ended up at the same uni by accident. And really the only tension between the two of them was that they had once, when too young to know what it really meant, said that they would get married. They had just come off stage from being Mary and Joseph in the school nativity and they had been asked one of those fake adult questions that no child has ever really thought about. The adult asked if they had ever thought he they could be married and that is when it happened.

They had said that they would definitely get married and that they would be best friends forever. And that had been all that it took. The adult mentioned how cute this news was to all of the other adults and from then on they could never really escape from this thing that they didn't ever understand.

Jenny, who had thought about this lots, had decided that it was this reason that they hadn't been able to stay friends when they hit puberty. This, she reasoned, was not something that would have happened if they had simply been friends. In that case it would have been easier. But being betrothed to somebody who is changing that fast is tricky. Especially when you're changing just as much. Tom just thought they'd drifted apart.

They'd been going to the same university for a year and a half now and still they hadn't really acknowledged each other's existence more than a quick nod or hurried "hi". And Tom had noticed and logged in the back of his mind with a sense of embarrassment that he had had another different girl with him every time they met. And Jenny had logged in the back of her mind that she had been alone every time that they met. She was alone again now she noticed.

Tom wasn't, however, with a girl but neither was he alone. He was with some guys. They had just come from a lecture and had folders, books, scarves and beer bottles littered around them. He looked over to Jenny who had every thing neatly packed away and on her table in front of her was a glass of white wine, a coaster, a pen and a newspaper.

Tom got up and walked towards her. As he made his way over he realised that she was deep in thought and probably wouldn't notice his arrival. She was looking down at the paper and a lock of her hair fell off of her forehead and down in front of her eyes. She pushed it back up and then ran her fingers along to tips of the section and then tucked it behind her ear.

Tom arrived at the table and pulled out the seat opposite her. She suddenly looked up with a panicked look in her eye and almost started to say something before she realised who it was and changed her mind. So instead of the probable complaint she simply said, "Tom".

"Hi Jenny," he responded, "how are you?"
"I'm okay. You?"
"Yeah I'm fine."
"What made you come over?"
"Well I just saw you there and I thought I'd say Hi."
"Bullshit!"
"What makes you say that?"
"Well we've seen each other a million times and you've never come over before."
"You weren't alone before."
"I actually was." Actually, this was the moment that Jenny softened to him because although she'd been obsessing about this information clearly it hadn't been important to him. But then she also thought badly of him again because he hadn't been properly paying attention to her.
"Oh," he said, "well I wasn't alone probably. And so... Yeah..."

He took this moment to actually sit down on the chair he'd been gripping on to during the conversation so far.

"Okay," he said, "it was the newspaper. That's what made me come over."
"Oh charming!"
"No! No. I meant something better than that. I meant that well it reminded me of when we first met. And I suddenly thought that it would be so much better if we could just first meet again. And pretend that there wasn't any of that history there. That I could just kind of come over and as friends we could work on the crossword together."
"I see."
"Yeah, that's all I was thinking. I mean it's not as if we ever did the crossword together again after that very first day, so it wouldn't be something from the past or anything. So what do you think Jenny? Couldn't it work."
"Well I've actually only got one clue left. But maybe. Maybe that could work. But..."
"What?"
"You can't call me Jenny anymore because that's from the past too. Everyone calls me Jen now."
"But... Couldn't I just have that as my pet name for you?"
"Well maybe… Oh damn you!"
"What?"
"That's it! You just got it. The clue was Love Handle (3, 4) and it's Pet Name! That's what you just said."
"Well in that case you'll have to let me call you it!"
"We shall see."

And at that moment, as a waitress walked past and Tom ordered a bottle of whichever white Jenny had a glass of her, she felt that feeling again. And it was delicious.

Labels: Fiction

I drink Nespresso coffee,
I find it to be good,
But now I find it's made by Nestle,
I wonder if I should.

That baby milk to Africa,
That was pretty bad,
But now no-one mentions it,
Perhaps it was a fad.

So now I'm using baby milk,
To make my coffee white,
This might be morally dubious,
but I think it tastes alright.

Labels: Jokes

Once while out with a group of girls, as the designated driver, I was able to discover one of the greatest secrets of the universe. That night the true reason why women take longer in the toilet than men was revealed to me, and also the related reason of why they go to the toilet in pairs.

In this perfect storm of a situation they were willing just for the night to reveal the utter truth of the situation, something that they have never done to a man who is sober. All I can imagine is that that night - they were really drunk.*

The answer is, of course, that they play tennis - in the cubicles. And as we know there is a common tendency of women to go to the toilet at the same time. This is because they have a match lined up and ready to go.

The exact rules are not widely known among men-folk but generally involve lofting the spare toilet roll over the tops of the cubicles. Games can take upwards of twenty minutes and this is the main reason that these things take so long. Toilet-tennis is rapidly being banned in chic establishments as it has been widely linked to the emergence of male homophobia. Male homophobia it is widely agreed is far more common than that among women. This is due to men’s inability to play toilet tennis.

Many years ago when toilets were coming into fashion, toilet tennis was invented. Both men and women played at first. But more often than not the men would find that the spare roll that they were using would fall into the urinal or bowl that was less guarded because they weren’t sitting down. Although most men didn’t care about the roll getting soggy, and just scratched the game, men couples leaving the toilets soon came to be scorned.

People who sat near men couples soon noticed the smell of urine on their trousers and so began a dislike among society of men going to the toilet together. To make matters good and equal opportunities a lot of chic restaurants, as I say, are banning tennis altogether rather than letting men sit in their restaurants covered in piss.

*Actually to get back from the pub to where the car was parked I had to take this merry band across a field which had cows in it. The part of the field we had to walk across was about a normal persons' one minute walk in a straight line. And in that time two of them "got lost" and wandered into the middle of the cows. That's how drunk they were. I can still vividly remember now trying to herd the ladies to one corner of the field after one of them declared that she would only answer to me shouting "Moo".

Labels: Articles

The Bartender says, "Why do have a steering wheel in your pants?"
The man replies, "I don't know but its driving me nuts".

Labels: Jokes

This is the true story of the only person to have ever died on the Waterloo and City underground line. This might be because it's the shortest line which probably means that if you fall ill there would be time to take you off of the train in time. And also because each end of the line results in a terminus there is no real speed for the trains and so you wouldn't be very successful if you flung yourself in front of one.

But one man has done it. He succeeded where others had failed. He managed to kill himself on the Waterloo and City line. The way that this occurred was that he was drunk and on his way home from some serious revelling in the City. And mid journey he decided that he needed a pee. Now he must have been really desperate because the journey is frankly not very long. And clearly he was, but being British he didn't feel he could just pee on the train that wouldn't be very polite. So he opened the door between the carriages and stepped out. Amazingly he wasn't killed by this simple act, so perched on the small interconnecting strip between the carriages he started to relieve himself. But clearly he didn't do so for very long because he managed to create a simple electrical circuit between himself and the live rail and was instantly killed. It is not recorded which of the trains he was on, Walter, Lou, Anne or Kitty* but surely none of them can be blamed.


*No, really!

Labels: Articles

[Note: This is part one of a four part Christmas story which I usually write in the week running up to Christmas. But as I'm now only doing fiction on Fridays I figured we'd just have to start now. Yes Christmas does really seem to be getting earlier. Anyway happy Spidermass everybody.]

Jenny was looking out of the window and it was definitely snowing. Jenny had told her mother that the news report had said to not make any unnecessary journeys and that it was definitely snowing but Jenny's mum didn't think it was true.

"But that's what they always say when it gets the slightest bit cold. 'Avoid unnecessary journeys' like your life should revolve around something as random as the weather. And anyway," she said clearing things up, "it's not even snowing".

But it definitely was snowing, and Jenny wasn't sure how well her mother would take it. Jenny knew that her mother had to go to work and that they all thought like her that a bit of weather shouldn't stop her from getting in to work. But what about school. Somebody at school had been saying that if it snowed then they would close the school. Jenny thought about this for a while because mentioning it now if the school was open might just make it seem like she wasn't cooperating. She had been the one to bring up the snow in the first place. And it wasn't as if she didn't want to go to school either, she liked school - it just seemed that none of the people at school liked her. She was just worried about what her mother would say to her after they'd driven their in the snow and found that it was closed. Especially if she somehow found out then that she'd known all along that it was a possibility.

But before she could think anymore about this Jenny heard the light scrape of keys against the post at the bottom of the stairs that meant that her mum was leaving. Jenny hopped off of her seat, picked up her satchel and headed for the door. She knew better than to dawdle, the alarm would be on within seconds, it was definitely time to go.

They got in the car and drove. Jenny wanted to listen to a special cd that she'd selected. Her mum did not, she wanted to listen to the news. They sat like normal not talking. The thing that Jenny liked when there was music on was that you were kind of allowed to talk. But if there were people talking on the news then you weren't really allowed to talk.

As they drove the snow was falling thicker and more thickly. And they were driving more and more slowly until finally they simply stopped. It was not for want of trying but something had happened in the engine and it wasn't going to go anymore.

"What are we going to do? Nobody ever drives along here." Jenny's mum said rather presumptuously. Jenny wanted to say that it couldn't possibly be that they kept the whole road open only for them but she had to admit that she had never seen any other car drive down this road.

They sat for a while until the battery stopped working and the radio died. It was suddenly colder the moment the fans stopped blowing hot air in their faces. Jenny already had her coat on which was lucky because when she wasn't wearing it, it lived in the boot. And she would have been very cold if she'd had to go out to get it. Her mother calmly picked up her coat from the back seat. And then rather uncalmly tried to put it on without standing up. But when her mother had picked up her coat something had caught Jenny's eye. Underneath it was nestling today's paper.

"Maybe we could do today's crossword".
"I've done it already".
"Oh," Jenny was disappointed, she always liked doing the crossword with her mum.
"Well there's one clue that I haven't got."
"Oh," Jenny suddenly perked up, "what is it?"
"It's, 'You may have seen a cakewalk, but have you seen plenty of this', it's nine letters."
"Hmm," I don't know.
"Mmmm," me either.

Jenny and her mother waited for an hour, and nobody came. After a while Jenny started shivering. And a little bit later her mother started doing the same.

"What will we do if nobody comes?"
"Somebody will come."
"But…"
"Well…"

Suddenly a light reflected on the front window from behind. Another car was arriving. It slowed and a guy jumped out.

"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just, our battery's out."
"Okay I'll give you a jump."

The man walked round to the front of the car, and opened the bonnet. But before he'd looked for too long he came walking back to the window.

"I don't think it can be your battery. What happened?"
"We were driving and the car suddenly slowed, and stopped. The after a while later the fan stopped running."
"Well that makes sense. You've got a hole in your radiator. The battery must have run down trying to keep the two of you warm."
"So will we be able to get it going again."
"Not without a tow-truck. I'm sorry can I take you somewhere where we can call someone?"
"That would be great. Actually the only reason I'm here is that I'm trying to take Jenny to school."
"Actually me too, my son's in the back in there," he pointed to his car, "Tom keeps telling me that school is cancelled for today. But I'm not sure exactly how that helps me. If he can't go to school then I can't go to work."
"Tell me about it."
"Look, should we try and drop them both off and then see if we can call somebody from there?"

It was a plan. Jenny and her mother abandoned the car and got into the jeep that belonged to their knight in metallic silver. As she got in the back Jenny was sitting next to a boy that she didn't know. The boy spoke.

"Are you Jenny?" he said.
"Yeah, how did you know my name?"
"You're in the year bellow me."
"Oh I…"
"You're new aren't you."
"That's right but I…"
"People have been talking about you." He clearly realised that it sounded bad, so he said, "nothing bad, they're just interested because you're new."
"Oh."
"Do you do crosswords?"
"Um. Sort of. My dad taught me I think."
"Yeah my mum taught me."
"Oh. Why are you asking?"
"Just because my mum has a clue that we can't work out in today's crossword. You haven't done one today already have you."
"No."
"Not at all."
"No, we usually do the Saturday one."
"Oh. Well this clue, this one we can't get."
"Yes."
"Well it's, 'You may have seen a cakewalk, but have you seen plenty of this', it's nine letters." Jenny realised right after she'd said it that she'd almost been doing an impression of her mother when she was saying the clue.
"Well, I think I know the answer."
"Well…? What is it?"
"Well, I think it must be 'Abundance'. Yes that must be it."

And somehow, with the half smile of the realisation of the joke in the answer, accompanied with the steely determination of his jaw that he would in the end be right about what he had just said, even though he was overly polite about it in the way that he described it, Jenny loved Tom in that moment. Even though she had no real idea of what love really meant or if this, as such, was it. She knew that this was something, and only years later would she realise and tell people that she'd fallen in love with Tom from this moment.

[Check back next Friday for Part 2]

Labels: Fiction