The Thing about Heroes

I've been away for a while. I was flummoxed by the results of the Olympic Games in Peking. Great Britain beat Australia in overall medals and in gold medals...well I never! What went wrong! Okay, allowing population and climatic differences we are the same peoples only separated by a sliver of glass in the ear...yes! the Australian accent. Mind you they only beat us by the seat of their pants..literally!
Oh well, never mind, let's all look forward to London in 2012.

From watching the tv coverage of the games GB won 547 medals in total...well that's the number of medal ceremonies I saw, while watching a mob of has-beens and never-wases discussing things they knew nothing about.
Perhaps next time, in London, the coverage will be on BBC Sport and not BBC Lifestyle! We can only hope.

The Charge of the Lycra Brigade

Brigades of urban warriors, costumed in gaudy and disguising apparel, some with eye masks, some without, all peering anxiously, either straight ahead with tensed necks, or down at the paved highway, all mounted on brightly caparisoned 2 wheeled monsters, mass re-strained, awaiting release from their gods.

YES! The word arrives! Let battle commence!

Between lines and across lanes haphazardly flooding pavements and submerging poor pedestrians they begin their never-ending battle with the evil polluting car! They charge forward into the valley of death!

Pedestrians beware! the charging cohorts do not respect lights, red, green or orange, nor crossings, pedestrians, the elderly, the encumbered, the infirm. Nothing stops them on their route to route the motorist in this urban battle.

You have been warned!

British Broadcasting Egos

How come they all spend time interviewing each other about subjects they know nothing about instead of just broadcasting sporting events. This is supposed to be BBC Sports, not BBC Lifestyles. Leave all the interviews of athletes and family and friends till after the Games.

JUST BLOODY SHOW US THE SPORTING COMPETIONS. IT IS ONLY ONCE IN EVERY FOUR YEARS, AND WE ARE PAYING A LOT FOR IT!

Send that ex-rower Pinsett home now and save some money!

At last a gold medal in swimming and in cycling..well done you! I'll hold any other comments till after the games! I'll keep on listening to the radio to get a fair coverage.

All those married couples trying for babies have been told not to bother with IVF etc as the chances of success are the same as trying naturally and will avoid a lot of expense and heartache.

I have a simpler solution...try doing it without your wedding rings....this never seems to fail !

RBOS loses £600 million in six moths this year. What a shame. Remember all the years when they were consistently churning out £2-3 billion profits every year? Have no pity for them and do not accept increased charge from them!

The average wedding costs circa £20,000. But newly married couples cannot afford the deposit to but their first property!

Who have their priorities wrong?

Water companies are trying to increase charges to consumers to pay for leakage! Why do we have to pay for our consumption and their incompetence. They should pay us a windfall every year based on how much they leak!

Geograpy spot:

Sth Ossetia, Sochi, Freetown, Algiers, Nairobi.

Word spot:

Angle, triangle, orgy, solicitor, prelates.

The Proof of the Pudding is in the Pulling

A National Risk Register which is part of the government's National Security Strategy is being produced by the Cabinet to cover events such as:

Terrorism

Disease Pandemics

Natural Disasters

Industrial Accidents.

Somehow, this doesn't make me feel more secure! Why is that!

On a personal note, my doctor has agreed that he will prescribe Viagra for me as long as I produce a partner. There are restrictions because he is strict...the partner must be living and have only two legs! Well I ask you, isn't this a restraint on my personal pursuit of happiness..however brief!

Mind you, he is upset because of cricket..he will not accept that Australia is undisputed World Champeens! Look you, even England could beat India playing with one hand tied behind their backs.....which is the way they seem to play every game! But not yesterday! Along came Marvellous Monday and Captain Courageous! What a brilliant display..probably down to picking an adequate number of bowlers who knew the pitch and how to bowl on it. Obvious eh! Not always.

Mind you that was only day 1 and there is still time for England to snatch defeat from the very jaws of Victory.

Anyway, have a good weekend and I hope you team wins..I know mine will thrash Preston!

Geography check:

Bern, Tel Aviv,Gali,La Paz.

Words for the weekend:

Scatology, confabulation, impetus, impetigo, dastardly, lost and lonely.

Altius, Fortius and Something or Other Citric!

Well the Olympic Games will soon be on us. We are sending 331 athletes to the games....how many medals do you think we will win. The BBC and government are spending over £7 million sending over 600 politicians and hangers-on and technicians commentators and analysers and God know who else to cover the games. Fair bargain.. or what?

BBC did not even offer a bid for cricket coverage and so it has gone satellite again. They did however offer Formula 1 £40 million for their coverage. How many people play F1?

I personally cannot wait for the synchronised swimming and the rhythmic gymnastics! And of course the curling....Hey what a dumbo I am, that's a winter sport,obviously.

A Gail Porter has written an autobiography which is being puffed to death by LBC Radio. What is a Gail Porter and who cares? She probably wrote her own story because no-one else wanted to write it or read it!

I watched a programme on BBC last night called Land of the Lost Egos...lots of scenes of half naked men mugging to the cameras and doing impossible derring do...why? They all looked like ex-members of the Village People making a political statement about something...needless to say I didn't see any Jaguars!

If a company has been placed into administration with debts of over £40 million, how can the people concerned set up a new company trading from the same premises...let's ask Sadie Frost, she will know!

National Land Information Service (NLIS), Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ), Communities and Local Government websites, Home Information Packs (HIPs), Openbook (HIP provider)......with all these and the current credit crunch, why would anyone even think about buying or selling property. Let's not mention Stamp Duty...it might bring bad luck!

I was wandering home yesterday and for some reason I thought about daffodils! It might have been the kids and dogs playing in the park, but who knows! I'm always wandering and wondering. I remember at school reading poetry about bloody daffodils written by some possibly obscure English, who I seem to remember had an unnatural relationship with his sister. My teacher was a Scots lady who informed us that she had been to Oxford and added (Oxon) behind her Degree. Why Oxon and not Oxford? Anyway we thought she meant the Morris Oxford car which was all we had heard about....the poetry meant even less to us living as we did in burning tropical splendour surrounded by brilliant tropical hues only ever captured by Gauguin on canvass. We also had another Scots teacher at school who took English and French and was the Deputy Head. He had such an outrageous accent that no one understood him when he spoke. God knows what he would have been like in French, which seems to have a plethora of accents and difficult elisions.

Anyway, I'm off now to rub my ribs down with wintergreen as they are hurting like buggery!

Geography knowledge:

Caracas,San Vicente del Caguan, Belfast, Tirana, Zakopane.

Words to add to your daily vocabulary:

Auto-eroticism, exorcism, Tory, prelate, inexperience, Labour.

Sono Asino?

I've been thinking..yes! I know that's dangerous, but sometimes my mind wanders.

If Switzerland was flattened out, you know, flatten all the mountains etc, just how big would it be? Bigger than the UK?

This may explain it's financial and cultural muscles!

As well as all those numbered accounts in all the banks, the chocolate, the cheese, the foodstuff companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the clocks and watches. Anything else you can think of?

Oh , of course! Federer and Hingis and Schumacher lives there as well!

What have we got to challenge this - even Sir David has left the country to pursue his career in football, and other fields. And another thing all our big companies seem to be being bought out by overseas ownership!

Because I'm shortsighted and also speed read the books I read, for some reason, every time I see the word country in the print I always seem to read Coventry! Strange or what!

I am trying to stick to GB's guidelines on not becoming obese, and I realised last night that my meal yesterday cost only 50p....noodles with sliced onions and mustard. In fact that has been my meal everyday for the last week....I eat less than refugees in Darfur, but of course am much healthier!

I hear the Chinese are spying on Brits in Peking ( diplomats or officials, I don't know, nor care) through their mobile phones. Why! What would they know that the Chinese would need? Maybe they want to steal some recipes for British food to vary the rather limited varieties that they already have. I think John le Carre is involved here somewhere!

According to Bloomberg Financial news the figures for unemployment are being understated. This is not a conspiracy, but down to bureaucratic inefficiency due to all the rules applying to measurement by differing departments etc. Same old, same old!

Pythagoras' Theorem has 24 words, the Ten Commandments contain 179 words.....since 1979 GB has introduced +/- 2,000,00 words relating to complex and completely incomprehensible tax rules. What do you make of that?

Well anyway, have a nice weekend and we reconvene on Monday. Please leave comments below. Do you think I am a donkey?

Geography spot:

Turkmenbashi, Novorossisk,Dhaka, Phnom Penh, Managua.

Word spot:

Beyond the Pale, beyond the black stump, beyond credulity, electoral franchise, incompetence.